http://www.netmag.co.uk/news/default.asp?subsectionid=1&articleid=54889&pagetype=2 13th April 2002 Alldas down but not out Web site defacement is so popular these days that the defacement mirror sites, which record what's been hacked on a daily basis, are struggling to keep up. Attrition.org decided to back out of providing its mirror service last year, Safemode.org stopped its defacement coverage a few months back, and then in mid-February this year, Alldas.de announced on its site that it was closing due to 'total burnout and frustration'. The Alldas statement is slightly misleading because some of the team are continuing with the defacement archive at a new site, www.alldas.org, but they're going to have their work cut out to keep it up-to-date. We reported last month that malicious online activity had fallen after the 11 September attacks but was predicted to rise again in 2002, so the amount of work required is only going to increase. Volunteers run these defacement mirrors, which Attrition.org's Jericho told is crucial: "A commercial outfit running a mirror is not a good idea. There is a serious ethical consideration and a lot of questions need to be asked of why a company would run a mirror." The problem is that, as volunteers, they can't afford to spend too much time maintaining their sites, verifying the defacements and fending off the persistent demands for recognition from hackers. According to Safemode's Zillion, you also run the risk of breaking the law yourself: "If you are stimulating defacers then in most countries you are already committing a crime. Running a defacement mirror means that you must be willing to deal with many problems and abuse mails for example, defacers greet and link you on the hacked systems, they mail you from those systems, they link images from previous mirrored defacements in new defacements." Clearly, running a defacement mirror is a task fraught with many serious problems. However, these mirrors do provide a valuable insight into the extent and nature of malicious online activity, so we wish the Alldas team the best of luck. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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