Spammers
Hit HNN
By HNN Staff
ON Wednesday October 9, 2002 HNN's
website at George Mason University was
hacked. The hackers, operating from
multiple remote computers, succeeded in
commandeering the HNN service which
allows readers to send an article to a
friend. Acting in the wee hours of the
morning, the hackers emailed an
HNN article to some 18,000 people.
The
emails bore the return addresses of the
so-called "Campus Watch 8," the
professors who have been targeted by
Daniel Pipes's
(right)
Campus Watch website for allegedly
harboring an anti-Israel bias. Across
the top of the article was the
statement: "Terrorist lovers burn in
Hell."
The article the spammers sent? An
HNN breaking news
bulletin from September 23 about
spammers who had inundated the
mailboxes of the Campus Watch
professors with up to 1,400 unwanted
emails a day.
The hackers have not identified
themselves as members of any group and
have not explained what their goal is.
We do not know their identity. We do
not know if they are the people who
were behind the spamming of the Campus
Watch professors. Nor do we know why
they spammed the people they did. A
spot check of the addresses of the
people receiving the emails indicates
that two broad groups seem to have been
targeted: white racists and Middle
Eastern/Arab/Palestinians. Many belong
to Yahoo groups.
George Mason University is
investigating the source of the emails.
New security measures are being taken
to safeguard the HNN site from a future
hack attack. Until those measures are
put in place the email service that had
been taken over has been temporarily
disabled.
write
to David Irving