HNN: The Year in Review
1999
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Nineteen Ninety Nine was an exciting year that saw explosive growth for
HNN and our ever continuing battle against Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
(FUD). While some of our
engagements with FUD have been successful, like the alleged moving of a
British satellite, other battles like the numerous virus scares, were
not. 1999 also saw some major events unfold in the underground
community, from the exposure of Se7en as a fraud, to the removal and
resurrection of Packet Storm Security, and the debacle of MTV. At the
close of the year Kevin Mitnick is awaiting release while others take
his place behind bars. Throughout 1999 HNN was the place on the net to
get up to date breaking news on these stories.
These top eleven stories of 1999 are not presented in any particular
order.
LoU China-Iraq War
On December 29, 1998 the underground group Legions of the Underground
declared an all out cyber warfare on information infrastructure of
China and Iraq. They cited severe civil rights abuses by the
governments of both countries as well as the sentencing to death of two
bank robbers in China and the production of weapons of mass destruction
by Iraq as the reasons for their declaration.
By January 5th, 1999 a group known as spl0it and a group based in
Poland said that would assist LoU in their cyber warfare efforts.
On January 6th, 1999 Legions of the Underground released a statement
contradicting their earlier statements that claimed that they never had
destructive intentions and blame the media for letting this get out of
hand.
The retraction by LoU came to late. On the next day January 7th, 1999
an International Hacker Coalition including groups such as cDc, L0pht,
CCC, 2600, Phrack, !HISPAHACK and others released a joint statement
condemning the Legions of the Underground and their Declaration of War.
By January 8, 1999 LoU was reeling from the overwhelming support of the
joint condemnation of LoU's actions and released additional retractions
of their declaration of war.
On January 13, 1999 the Legions of the Underground told Wired magazine
that the original press conference was a fake and that the people
present during the press conference were spoofed. There is no evidence
to support this but there is none to deny it either.
Finally Optiklenz, a member of LoU, releases a statement on the view
of what happened from the LoU perspective.
LoU-China-Iraq War
Histogram - Chronological Listing of Events
HNN Archive for December 29, 1998
Transcript of IRC Press
Conference with LoU
LoU Declaration of War
HNN Archive for January 6, 1999
International Hacker
Coalition Joint Statement
LoU Retraction of War
Declaration
Optiklenz Statement
Hackers Move British Military Satellite
This is one battle with FUD that we like to claim that we won. On
March 1, 1999 The Sunday Business published a story that was later
picked up by the Reuters wire service, that a British military
satellite had been taken over by cyber attackers and was being held for
ransom. The story itself lacked any sort of verifiable information and
HNN called it into question immediately. By the next day spokes people
from the British Ministry of Defense flat out denied that such a thing
was even possible. HNN editor Space Rogue was a guest on the radio
show "Off the Hook" to discuss this incident. Both ZDNet and MSNBC ran
stories covering this non event crediting HNN for calling the story
suspect. Bob Sullivan of MSNBC went so far as to label HNN "The Voice
of Reason".
HNN Archive for March 01, 1999
HNN Archive for March 02, 1999
Original Sunday Business
Article
Security Analysis of
Satellite Command and Control Uplinks - Buffer Overflow Article by
Brian Oblivion
MSNBC
ZD
Net
Off The
Hook - March 02, 1999 episode
Se7en Exposed
An article written by Steve Silberman and published by Wired exposed
Se7en (Christian Valor) and his single handed cracker crusade against
pedophiles as a complete sham. Se7en succeed in creating a massive
media hack as articles of his infamous exploits were published in
Forbes, MSNBC, LA Times, Newsday and others over several months. Only
one of the journalists that we know, Adam Penenberg, that had been
duped by Se7en actually admitted his mistake and published a public
apology.
HNN Archive for February 8, 1999
Attrition.org
- Evidence used against Se7en
Wired
Open letter from Adam
Penenberg
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