packetstorm became the victim of FUD

[andreas () ANDREAS ORG (Andreas Bogk)]

Hi!

Since there are many security professionals and adminstrators of large
sites on this list, I hope that one of the readers has a mirror of
packetstorm. If you do, even if it's just partial or a year old,
please contact Ken Williams (<jkwilli2 () unity ncsu edu>), the author of
packetstorm.

Here's the scoop of the events as reported on hnn:

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http://www.hnn.com

Internet Bully Shuts Down Largest Free Security Site

  AntiOnline Forces Packet Storm Security OffLine

Written by Cult_Hero and Space Rogue
Wednesday afternoon, the PacketStorm Security site
(packetstorm.harvard.edu) was abruptly shut down with little
warning. PacketStorm was one of the largest and most respected
sites catering to security professionals worldwide. Boasting an
average of 400,000 hits a day, pushing out roughly 10 gigs of
traffic, the site was a valuable resource to an estimated 10,000
security professionals world wide.

This major security resource did not suffer at the hands of
hackers, crackers, network intruders, or cyber terrorists.
Instead, a new kind of malicious bad guy found success through
a fear that haunts more and more Americans today. A single
piece of email from John Vranesevich (founder of AntiOnline) to
the university hosting Packetstorm requested that the site be shut
down. This email claimed that PacketStorm was hosting
potentially libelous material about John Vranesevich. Like most
US institutions, the idea of being taken to court for any reason is
enough to scare them into hasty action. With that mail, Harvard
University pulled the plug.

Email from Ken Williams, primary administrator for the site,
indicated that not only did Harvard shut down the site, they
denied him access to the machine and all information stored on
it. The correspondence noted the likelihood that all information on
the machine, and all backups would be destroyed in order to
avoid any sort of legal fallout from AntiOnline. "All of the content
and the backups made are either destroyed, being destroyed
now, or will be before I can do anything to prevent it." said
PacketStorm founder Ken Williams.

Williams went on to say that he does not fear any fraudulent
lawsuit Vranesevich could attempt to level at him. The
information contained on the site regarding Vranesevich was not
in violation of any US law that he was aware of, and had been
there for over a year. Along with the security site, months of
William's own school work was lost. "I have just lost seven weeks
of [class] work and data that cannot be replaced in 4 weeks."
Williams said, referring to deadlines on the school work.

     "What bothers me the most is that all of the
     countless hours I put into that web site and the
     archives, thousands of hours, are gone now, for
     good." - Ken Williams, PacketStorm founder

These vague and unfounded accusations only serve to hurt the
security community. AntiOnline's mission statement claims they
exist "to educate the public on computer security related issues."
Apparently, this mission statement forgot to include such things
like "educate the public through OUR site only" or "as long as we
profit from it".

So now what? Ken is fearing for his job, and wonders if he will be
able to finish school with his schoolwork missing. Numerous
offers of alternate host sites have been made to Ken Williams but
it is unlikely that there is data available to put on such a site due
to Harvard Universities hasty actions.

For examples of the 'libelous' material hosted on the Packet
Storm site see attrition.org

Ken Williams was kind enough to provide his thoughts on this
sordid mess.

Email from Ken Williams

We attempted to contact John Vranesevich for comment but he
did not respond to our email. We also attempted to contact
AntiOnline's ISP and have received no reply.

John Vranesevich has posted his version of events on his site.

Comments from John Vranesevich

Oh, yeah, AntiOnline considers HNN evil and blocks links from
HNN to his web site. We assume that he doesn't want people to
read both sides of the issue.

------- End of forwarded message -------