From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: AnsMe Staff
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 23:31:51 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: Re: Remove Site



: Excuse me? Why should our customers care if we have been hacked or not?
: We are NOT a hosting company or anything of the sort. It is NONE of our
: customers business if we were hacked or not. 

Sure it is. Their personal information may be at risk. They have a right
to know. Further, how can your visitors trust any information you provide
since it can so trivially be altered or manipulated by unauthorized
sources?

: Also, the problem this is causing is, you are getting higher ranking on
: SEARCH ENGINES than our site. Why should our customers be brought into
: your site, when they are looking for our site?

So because you don't know how to use meta keywords to get in a search
engine, you blame us?

: I will seek advice from my lawyer regarding this. I do not think it is
: lawful for you to not remove the link upon our request.

Considering you are about the 30th to threaten this and we've never had to
remove a site yet, good luck.

: Also remember, that the page you link to, is contents from our site. It
: was on our server, therefore legal content of ours (at the point of the
: hacking). So therefore, you have no right to steal that content and put
: it on your own site. 

You are clearly not abreast of copyright law. The material put on your
server was not written by you. The only person that can claim copyright
violation is the person who wrote it, ie: the defacer. For them to do so,
they would have to appear in court under their real name, admit to title
18 violation (a felony), and then seek to dispute the copyright violation.
Obviously this is not going to happen. Since the defacement does not use
any portion of YOUR content, you have no claim. Hell, even if it did, it
would likely fall under fair use since we only mirror the essential
material required to show the defaced page.

My suggestion to you is to drop the bullshit lawsuit threats (trust me,
we've seen them before), learn how to make your site more viable to search
engines, modify your meta keywords, and it will take care of itself.