Attrition Responds to More AntiOnline Allegations
Wed Sep 15 22:27:25 MDT 1999
ATTRITION Staff

(Official Press Release)

For almost five years, various members of the Attrition staff have fought
off unyielding attempts by AntiOnline and/or its staff to slander and
defame their characters. These countless accusations and libelous statements 
have always come without a shred of proof from those making them. Time and 
time again, Attrition meets these allegations with arguments citing each and 
every log or mail needed to openly prove our claims. Just once, the staff of 
Attrition would like to be maligned using reasonably founded proof.

The sickening irony in John Vranesevich and AntiOnline's malicious comments,
is that they come in the middle of them plagiarizing Attrition's mirrors
and other resources. In the past thirteen days,our logs have shown 13377 unique
hits from AntiOnline's "AntiBot" as it spiders our site and utilizes
our resources. For them to turn around and call us criminals, makes one wonder 
if they are saying it purely to get media attention, supporting the people he 
speaks ill of, or some sick hybrid of the two.

Read on to see the obvious errors, illogical conclusions and outright libel
contained within the AntiOnline article. It is being quoted here within
guidelines of "Fair Use" quoting. The original article is in white text, 
Attrition comments are in red.


http://www.antionline.com/cgi-bin/News?type=antionline&date=09-13-1999&story=loan.news Loan Gunmen == HFG? Wednesday, September 15, 1999 at 15:27:48 by John Vranesevich - Founder of AntiOnline September 13, 1998, The New York Times was broken into by a group calling itself HFG, Hacking for Girlies. The attack, which the New York Times claims cost them over $1 million in damages, falls almost one year ago to the day of when the Nasdaq was broken into. ABC News, C-span, The Drudge Report, and now the Nasdaq have all fallen victim to a group calling itself "The United Loan Gunmen". AntiOnline has reason to believe that this "new group", is actually the HFG acting out under a new name. [Consistant with a five year pattern of allegations and no proof to back them, these conclusions are no different.] Using concepts developed under its "Virtual Fingerprinting System", AntiOnline has taken data from the recent United Loan Gunman hacks, and compared it to data in its extensive databases of over 6,700 individual hackers. The results? [This "Virtual Fingerprinting System" is nothing but a glorified hand- comparison of two files, as illustrated below.] Graphic Creation: Graphics created by members of the United Loan Gunman match the style and technique as graphics developed by members of HFG in September of last year. Several of these graphics also bear resemblance in creation method to a Defcon 6 logo submitted by a known individual, who's work also can be compared to several other attacks. [False. A comparison of their HTML elements and attributes, visual style, signatures and more, prove how inaccurate the above statement is. There is practically no similarity between HFG and ULG graphics. Determine for yourself. The Defcon 6 graphic referred to was designed well before HFG began their defacement spree. This image was paraded before over 4,000 hackers at the Defcon 6 convention in Las Vegas. The fact that a member of HFG chose to emulate the graphic is inconsequential to this scenario. To suggest otherwise without verfiable proof is to invite charges of defamation of character. Look at ALL of the graphics in question, on the same page. You make the determination.] Content: Similar writing styles, political agendas, affiliates, and attacks as hacks done in September of last year by HFG. [False. The writing styles of both groups are quite different. Compare the content in the ABC Hack (ULG) to that of the New York Times Hack. Notice the use of "elite speak" and all caps in most of HFG's defacements. This style is seen nowhere in the ULG mirrors.] HTML: Matches in "free hand" creation style to hacks done by the HFG. [Due to the fact that HTML is a markup language and lacks a header identifying how it was created, one cannot assume anything about how a page was created without the existance of appropriate META tags denoting the authoring tool used. Furthermore, well over half the pages created by defacers are done free-hand. Compare the radical differences in HTML style between the two groups. To claim that there are similarities between the HTML of both groups is a gross assumption.] Affiliation: "Attrition" members once again claim to have "spoken to" the individuals involved with the recent attacks, just as they claimed last year during the HFG hacks. Brian Martin, founder of Attrition, [False. HFG sent a notification e-mail to Brian Martin along with over twenty other people regarding their defacement. Likewise, the contact made between ULG and Attrition staff was via IRC who have logs readily available to any Federal law enforcement organization that makes a formal request as mentioned in the warning on our mirror. In the statement made by AntiOnline, the Attrition staff are being "jewelled." That is, they are being blamed for a crime simply because they are the bearer of the news before others. This is an ironic claim since AntiOnline has gained its reputation for doing exactly the same thing. The only difference is the Attrition staff did not admit to several felonies in their dealings with hackers. Attrition staff had no foreknowledge of the victim of the intrusions and make it known that they are aware such activity constitutes a felony.] was raided in December of 1998 as part of an FBI investigation into Hacking For Girlies (as reported by Forbes columnist Adam Penninburg). [References to the December 1998 raid of Brian Martin are total innuendo and counter the long-standing American concept of justice in which all are innocent until proven guilty. Further, it should be noted that it has been almost a year since the raid, no arrest warrant has been issued. That in itself speaks volumes when observing how quick Federal law enforcement has been recently in raiding and charging other hackers.] Attack Method: Once again the methodology seems to be rather cloudy, and other industry leaders are drawing similarities into the attack styles (this could potentially become more clear as data from the recent Loan Gunmen attacks surfaces from the individual organizations). [False. Industry leaders are not making such illogical conclusions. It has been confirmed that at a minimum, four machines compromised by HFG were Unix, (one of which was Solaris), and the operating systems of all four of the servers compromised by ULG were either Windows NT4 or Windows NT5.] Time: Just as before, attacks apparently done by the same group of people, yet under different names, are spread far apart by almost a year exactly. [False. AntiOnline has not established that there has been any indication of previous examples where one group turned out to be a second group just with a different name.] AntiOnline has been receiving more data from several other organizations who are also investigating these similarities, and is in the process of adding them to its catalog to be "fingerprinted". [If this is true, then just like AntiOnline, their resulting information is completely based on speculation and print such assumptions without concrete evidence is a violation of journalistic ethics.] Exact results of AntiOnline's investigations are leading to a particular group of known hackers that AntiOnline has extensive information on. For obvious legal reasons, that data is not being disclosed to individuals outside of the law enforcement arena. [Such statements should be closely examined by AntiOnline readers. Attrition staff has recently obtained hard proof that Vranesevich has continued to be involved in illegal activity, all in the name of 'journalism'. See for yourself.] For more information about "Hacker Profiling", read AntiOnline's Three Part Special Report entitled: "[6]How To Be A Hacker Profiler. Related Information On AntiOnline: [And see how easily these methods are countered in our piece called "Debunking the Hacker Profiler".] [7]What Hackers Head The Culture? [Another example of Vranesevich's libel can be found in this article. Once again, we have pointed out the errata and slander in this piece.] - Attrition Staff