Shimomura, Pursuer of Hackers, Finds Himself Homeless on
   Web

   By Jared Sandberg
   WSJ, 9 Feb 1996

   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."