Tsu.con Rishabed

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

WSJ, 9 Feb 1996

Shimomura, Pursuer of Hackers, Finds Himself Homeless on
Web

By Jared Sandberg

A renowned hacker catcher who co-wrote the book
"Takedown" just got a bit of a takedown himself.

Tsutomu Shimomura, the Internet security expert credited
with catching fugitive hacker Kevin Mitnick last year,
set up a site on the Internet's World Wide Web to
chronicle the famous cat-and-mouse chase. To supplement
the book, the on-line database includes audio clips of
taunting messages Mr. Mitnick left for Mr. Shimomura and
transcripts of chat sessions that the hacker held with
friends, under the heading "Kevin On Demand."

But over the weekend, the address of the Web site,
"takedown.com," was deleted at a hacker's request and
replaced with a bogus entry, "takendown.com."

Not exactly hilarious, but this is hacker humor.

"It's pretty juvenile," said Mr. Shimomura, who got his
address back by Wednesday night. But he notes that
hackers could easily change the Internet addresses of
corporations or even America Online Inc. "I expect that
businesses like AOL would be much less amused if they
were renamed 'aohell.com,' and that would cost them real
money."

The problem arose when Network Solutions Inc., the
company that sets up addresses on the Internet, was
apparently conned by someone claiming to be Mr.
Shimomura. A company official said that he hadn't been
able to investigate the matter because the company has
been deluged with electronic mail in an unrelated prank.

But many experts are concerned that Network Solutions
doesn't verify the authenticity of Internet address
requests, which number as many as 3,000 a day, and that
the company simply takes people at their word.

"They do it all the time, and they shouldn't," said
Steven Bellovin, a security expert at AT&T Corp.'s
research unit, who fears such dupes will grow more
common. Mr. Bellovin noted that hackers have also
exchanged software tools that can redirect users to phony
sites. "Hackers share tools better than the good guys,"
he said.

Network Solutions is working on a tool to check the
authenticity of requests for address changes. But some
think that such moves are a little late.

Mr. Shimomura said, "Unfortunately, we live in a world
where things need to break before they're fixed."

--