The hacking mirror crack'd

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

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.



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