Forwarded From: phreak moi <hackereliteat_private> Salon Hyde Exposé Spurs Death Threats, Hacks (09/17/98; 7:41 p.m. ET) By John Borland, TechWeb There's a security guard sitting at the front door of Salon Magazine, the Web publication that Wednesday broke a story detailing the adultery of one of President Clinton's most powerful Congressional critics. The guard isn't standard Salon policy. After posting the story Wednesday midday, Salon has been besieged by electronic critics using everything from hack attacks to conventional death threats, editors said. "We expected a strong reaction, but I'm surprised at the ferocity of the response," said David Talbot, the Salon editor who wrote the controversial story. Salon wrote Wednesday that Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who chairs the committee that will decide whether the full House should vote on Clinton's impeachment, had his own affair in the late 1960s. The publication documented the story carefully, putting together photos and interviews with several people close to Hyde and the woman's family. Editors received a statement from Hyde admitting the affair just minutes before the story went live. Already Talbot has received death threats as a result of his article. Threats have been issued against other top editors. Their fax machine was shut down by a series of "black faxes" -- a tactic in which the sender repeatedly faxes an all-black piece of paper in a deliberate attempt to break the recipient's machine. The magazine stopped accepting incoming e-mail Thursday morning after an avalanche of hate mail and spam clogged their servers. "We haven't even read most of the hate mail," said Andrew Leonard, the magazine's senior technology writer. "It's not even getting through." The story has been angrily denounced by Republicans. Rep. Tom Delay (R-Texas) blasted the story on the floor of the House Thursday morning, and later sent a letter to the FBI asking the agency to look into whether the White House was responsible for the information on Hyde. But Talbot and the other editors bristle at the suggestion they are serving as administration puppets, an opinion already being widely heard on both conservative and mainstream talk shows. "It's not as if we're a P.R. office for the White House," Talbot said. One of Salon's senior editors recently called for Clinton's resignation, and the site regularly carries columns and articles sharply critical of Clinton and his policies, he added. "The only reason people say that is because they're trying to kill the messenger," Talbot said. Salon was similarly criticized for its investigative stories on Whitewater, he said. "We have stunned those people with our reporting." Meanwhile, Salon's site was receiving close to 100,000 hits a minute by mid-Thursday, straining the company's servers. Much of the reader response has been positive, editors said. But the electronic backlash also was building, as Salon's story was reported on CNN and broadcast news stations, and criticized on conservative outlets like Rush Limbaugh's radio show. The concerted attacks against the site are unlikely to disappear quickly, Talbot said. "There is a hard-core conservative information infrastructure in this country, and they've been using it against Salon for some time now," he said. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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