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Hacker site closes for renovation
By Paul Festa
March 14, 1998, 10:00 a.m. PT
Independent hacker Web site Hacked.net
went dark last night, leaving the text
"FIN: Hacked Net Ver 1.0" as its
closing statement.
But Hacked.net's editor and Webmaster,
who goes by the code name Root,
promised a revised site will be back
after a hiatus of about two months.
Hacked.net, which provided information
about security along with news about
and an archive of individual hacks,
had an unusual genesis. Root said he
was so disappointed by media coverage
of the hacking of so-called Spam King
Sanford Wallace's Web site that he
decided to launch a site devoted to
hackers and security.
"Whoever hacked that site must have
gone to bed feeling pretty good about
himself that night," observed Root. "I
tried to cover it from the hacker's
perspective and tried to put the
motive in that perspective."
With the recent proliferation of
high-profile hacker and "denial of
service" attacks that have sent the
traditional media scurrying to cover
the issue, some may question the
editor's timing in temporarily
suspending his service.
But Root said in an interview with
CNET's NEWS.COM that he was afraid his
site was beginning to inspire young
hackers to make mischief, and that
getting covered by Hacked.net had
become something of a trophy.
"I had the fear that our work could be
misconstrued as glorification, or a
goal for somebody," he said. "I didn't
want to be the motive or the catalyst
for a 14-year-old to start hacking
into some government or military site
as a game while the feds were playing
a different game."
Hacked.net 2.0 will have many of the
same features but with a different
tone, said Root. "It will have a new
perspective, a new and improved moral
center," he said.
Hacked.net was generating 500,000 to 1
million page turns per week when it
signed off, according to Root. He
refused advertising and third-party
affiliations to prevent the appearance •
of editorial bias, he said.
"This was a labor of love," said Root.
"There was no other motivation behind
it."
The site's "hacker's eye perspective"
was validated when Hacked.net itself
was hacked several months ago. The
intruders didn't do any damage, Root
said, and they even patched a few
security holes on their way out.
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Received on Sat Mar 14 04:44:59 1998