Barry Schlossberg threatens lawsuit against Attrition.org

The Errata pages involving Barry Schlossberg, aka Lou Cipher, were originally published as far back as 1999, originally under the 'Media' section. In March, 2006, the articles related to Schlossberg were consolidated into one place, and then later moved to the Charlatan Watch List in October, 2010. On August 27, 2011, at ~ 12:30a CST, someone with a Tampa, FL Verizon address hit one of the pages via a Google search for "barry+schlossberg+snet". Shortly after, I received an e-mail from "Louis Cipher" and began a dialogue.

Note that Schlossberg calls me a "digital bully" right before demonstrating that he is a "legal bully". He is right, that we will be publishing the mail, as we do with all legal threats. Since he knows this, anything he says that is defamatory and gets published, as he expects it to be, could be argued to be libelous.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:09:18 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: you are full of shit

On Sat, 27 Aug 2011, Louis Cipher wrote:

: Hello
:
: It appears you don't want anyone to put a locate on you. I would hazzard
: a guess you don't want to be served with a suit. There are many ways to
: accomplish this. You have been a digital bully to long. I think 2011 and
: 2012 are going to be interesting years for you, legally that is. I look
: forward to a summary judgment(with a fraud component, to prevent
: discharge in bankruptcy) followed by levies, garnishments, etc etc etc.
: I hope you have saved up some serious money, as you will need it for
: legal defense, unless of course you elect to go pro se or get some
: meatball attorney to go pro bono. You will probably publish this email,
: and give a specious rant as to whatever BS you can conjure up.

Wow, you hit the nail on the head! My location is so entirely secret, I
have given my home address to a dozen people this year when I sent them
stickers or sold items on eBay. The fact that I live half a mile from
downtown Denver is so secret, you probably can't Google it.

Except that we have been sued once this year, had a lawyer represent us
(not pro bono) in court and settled before trial. All we had to do is
remove one image, and leave all of the related text that said what we
wanted (e.g., pyrrhic victory).

Your notion of us being hit by a summary judgement (with a fraud
component!) is quaint. Further, your idea that us telling the truth and
publishing research that is well backed by public documentation is
"digital bullying" is absurd.

So... are you *the* Lou Cipher? Are we finally getting mail from Barry,
or is this a new Lou? Either way, you are a complete moron.

Jericho

After sending the first mail, I checked our web logs to see what brought him to our site. The "winblows" remark was apparently too subtle, or he forgot that he used the term a while back.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:35:57 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: you are full of shit

: guess you don't want to be served with a suit. There are many ways to
: accomplish this. You have been a digital bully to long. I think 2011 and
: 2012 are going to be interesting years for you, legally that is. I look
: forward to a summary judgment(with a fraud component, to prevent
: discharge in bankruptcy) followed by levies, garnishments, etc etc etc.
: I hope you have saved up some serious money, as you will need it for
: legal defense, unless of course you elect to go pro se or get some
: meatball attorney to go pro bono. You will probably publish this email,
: and give a specious rant as to whatever BS you can conjure up.

Oh it is you, hi Barry! Glad you to see you finally found our page for you
when you were ego surfing on Google this evening. Little surprised to see
you using "winblows" instead of your beloved NZ90. Hope you are still
enjoying Tampa gramps!

In case you didn't notice, and judging by the logs you didn't, there are a
few more pages about you than just 004 and 006:

http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/watch_list/barry_schlossberg/

Seriously, good luck suing us over that page.

Jericho

Schlossberg's next mail to me is truly baffling. Personally, I took it as the first sign that he may be losing some of his mental faculties. Like him or not, he was considered by many people to be pretty sharp, and it does not show in this mail.

His comment of "your roommate Lamo(alias for you) and yourself are hiding out" I still can't figure out. Is he implying that I am Adrian Lamo? That Lamo and I are roommates? Both? Not sure how that works, but I believe any rational person knows that I am not "Lamo", nor have I ever used that name. The bit about "hiding out" is also bizarre given my first reply to him in which I tell him where I live. Given that I still publish under my real name, attended Defcon 19 several weeks ago and regularly see friends, I do not believe that "hiding out" is appropriate.

He goes on to say I possibly lived above Jack in the Box and dated Meinel's daughter. This is pretty clear evidence that he searched his own outdated files and pulled up Meinel's shoddy research from 1998 - 1999 in which she confused a MailBoxes Etc with the Jack in the Box in the parking lot. As I never dated Mienel's daughters, I assume he is confusing me with "Route" or Peter Shipley, who did. Remember, his sig line "Scientia Est Potentia" means knowledge is power. Based on his knowledge of me, you can draw your own conclusion of how powerful he must feel.

From: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
To: jericho[at]attrition.org
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 07:04:58 +0000
Subject: Re: Re: you are full of shit

[quoted material removed]

Scientia Est Potentia

Brian, you are not going to bullshit your way out of this. You are right,
your roommate Lamo(alias for you) and yourself are hiding out. Just saved a
little leg work. Research, you mean like on sNET and you can't logon to the
website. I think the site has been down for ten years and is a demo site
for some developer.
So, let me cut to the bottom line, if you have an attorney, and you think
you are righteous, please forward his or her name, you won't.

Geez, two emails, some paranoia there or are you just showing off.

Winblows, laptop, you have mad skillz. Gramps, take it easy on me, I
wouldn't want to get help from some of my friends. Moron, you must have a
better use of the English language, than the selection of your words. Try
sycophant and see if it fits you. Enough BS, what are your credentials to
comment on anybody, other than went out with Meinel's daughter and you
possibly once lived above Jack in the Box. If you plan on relying on any
testimony from William aka Winn, relay to him I still have the email to
Eugene Schultz, and if JBL, I don't have to make a comment.

I really could not figure why you ever had a hardon for me, and I still
don't, but I do look forward to meeting you.

Schlossberg implies he can "get help from some of [his] friends" along with "[looking] forward to meeting [me]". Given his entire public reputation is based on vigilante justice, in which he is reported to take a baseball bat and visit someone's house to inflict bodily harm, I have to consider this email a physical threat to me.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:38:18 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Re: you are full of shit

: I really could not figure why you ever had a hardon for me, and I still
: don't, but I do look forward to meeting you.

You got three things wrong and one thing right about me in this mail.

Hardon for you? Don't flatter yourself. You are one of a couple dozen
charlatans on radar, and really, you are a lesser fish in the pond.

And really, you give me crap about two mails, and just sent your third?
I'll pass on the call, we can stick to e-mail. Less confusion about what
was or was not said.

Interesting that he lives in Tampa, FL, but has a redirect number based out of New York. Since he was probably relying on Caller ID, and because I wanted everyone to be able to read our correspondence, I stuck to email.

His next mail changes tactic, moving away from legal and implied physical threats to sympathy. While I am certainly sorry to hear of his wife's passing, that does not change anything we have published.

From: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
To: jericho[at]attrition.org
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:44:06 +0000
Subject: Re: Re: Re: you are full of shit

[quoted material removed]

Scientia Est Potentia

I hate to give you a clue, but what I did before 1997 had nothing to do
with security, and nothing after late 2002 had to do with security in the
US. Ergo, what do you even think I did and what I
been doing for the last 8 years. I have nothing to do network security biz,
it is a lousy business that is a zero sum play.

I will share only one point with you, and you should be ashamed of
yourself. I was married for 30 years to a woman, Robin, who passed away in
2009 of Glioblastoma, and I spent two years as the only caregiver and the
rest of the time in mourning. Your logs on your site on wrong, I have seen
all the references to me as well as glancing at ~jericho and other tidbits.
So maybe you understand that my wife's friends were googling me to find me
and saw your web pages. Then I decided after dealing with many inquiries,
it was time to deal with you, and I hate litigation, but in this case I do
believe in scorched earth.

So, maybe you understood why I was going to chat on the phone with you.
Since you will not, you leave me no choice but to proceed next week. If
this true, please give me your attorneys name and let's get on with it. My
attorney is Martin Traber at Foley and Lardner, who will work with local
counsel where the suit is brought.

When he joined the 1 Src forum on 03-02-2003, he listed his occupation as "Infosec". That seems to contradict his claim of having nothing to do with security after late 2002. I believe his claims that his wife's friends were Googling him are also bunk. Considering the original person searched for "barry schlossberg snet", it calls into question why his wife's friends from ~ 2009 would search for him by name and include his company, which has been defunct since 2002. That simply does not add up. Further, the exact same IP address hit the Schlossberg Charlatan pages again several times after the 27th:

That suggests it is Barry himself loading and reloading the page, especially since I told him I would update the page over the weekend [read further]. Barry says that Martin Traber is his attorney. From Traber's bio:

Personally, if I was suing someone for defamation (really, what else could he feasibly sue me for?), I would want a lawyer that had more experience in that arena.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:10:46 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Re: Re: you are full of shit

: I will share only one point with you, and you should be ashamed of
: yourself.

As should you, for lying those many years ago. If you weren't lying,
you should be ashamed for felony assault, breaking and entering and
numerous other crimes. Either way...

: the rest of the time in mourning. Your logs on your site on wrong, I

Which logs are wrong, how? I do have an open mind and will consider
anything you present as evidence that contradicts what we have published.
Just yesterday, I removed one page and added a note to a second regarding
another charlatan, after he released a video blog making some points about
our material.

: other tidbits. So maybe you understand that my wife's friends were
: googling me to find me and saw your web pages. Then I decided after

Curious your "wife's friends" would google you by real name and "snet", if
the company has been dead as long as you claim. That makes no sense.

: So, maybe you understood why I was going to chat on the phone with you.

I have a good idea yes.

: Since you will not, you leave me no choice but to proceed next week. If
: this true, please give me your attorneys name and let's get on with it.
: My attorney is Martin Traber at Foley and Lardner, who will work with
: local counsel where the suit is brought.

What are you going to file a suit for exactly? Defamation I would assume.
Before you go throwing paperwork my direction, I sincerely encourage you
to consult your attorney about defamation laws, specifically libel. Have
your lawyer read every page we have up (all 7 of them) and consider our
wording. He'll understand why I make this request of you.

If your lawyer still feels you have a solid case, give him a heads up that
the first thing I would look to do is file notice of service of demand for
anti-SLAPP verification.

I open the previous mail referring to his reputation for being a vigilante. If he performed vigilante justice, he broke a wide variety of state and federal laws to do it. If he didn't, then he presumably lied about it to two journalists for IDG / Network World. Regardless of which, that does not sound like an ethical person to me. Based on that, I took our email exchange as an opportunity to get his side.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 04:29:29 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: For the record...

Mr. Schlossberg aka Lou Cipher;

Will you go on record confirming or denying that you participated in
vigilante activity as outlined in the following articles:

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/0111vigilante.html
http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9901/12/cybervigilantes.idg/index.html
http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999b/0118gibbs.html
http://www.networkworld.com/nw/press/pr011299.htm

A lack of reply will be taken as "no comment" if that is acceptable?

Jericho

To his credit, Schlossberg replies. Note my wording there, as he does not deny being either Schlossberg or Cipher at this point. He tries to set the record straight, gives a story about how he used metaphors with the two journalists, etc.

He once again maintains it was his wife's friend that did the search, but says "a global search on my name". Yet, the Google search that brought the person here was not just on his name. Apparently, Barry does not understand how HTTP works and that the 'href' attribute can be carried from one site to the next.

From: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
To: jericho[at]attrition.org
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:15:29 +0000
Subject: Re: For the record...

[quoted material removed]

Scientia Est Potentia

Brian,

William aka Winn always knew that most of what he wrote were based
on hyperboles and metaphors. He misquoted starting with I was a senior
financial manager, not true, as well as the baseball bat was a metaphor,
His reporting and or stories were spun for sensationalism. Mark Gibbs was
met and chatted with at Comdex, introduced by Winn, the total conversation
was 5 minutes.

Without reservation there no illegal physical acts committed on US soil. Do
I believe in strike back, yes, but I think one must understand the
realization of what jurisdiction one is in.

This is much ado about nothing. If you think Winn will make for a
creditable witness or journalist, forget it, he would be impeached
quickly. You, Brian, had in great detail wrote  Winn was poser, charlatan,
fraud, etc and now mysteriously there are comments on your site that were
there before. All this stems from his book Cybershock which is BS, like
everything he ever published. Realize
Winn never got past the 10th grade in the Bron was fundamentally in the
musical instrument business. Mark Gibbs, not a bad guy.
One also has to understand the mood in 1999.

So Brian, how come you never critiqued any of the articles put out
by the ISSA or the Information Security Bulletin, and you also knew from
Lundy that sNET went out of business in 2002.

As far as my gazing at your about me being logged going to your website to
peruse and document the sNET comments. No, my wifes friends did a global
search on my name.

I did review the anti-SLAPP as it applies to federal law suits.

I believe that the pleading will survive a motion to dismiss for
reasons I will not state here,

You use term on the record as if you are truly recognized as a journalist.
This whole problem can go away by simply removing the offending pages on
your site and I will get back to dealing with my own life.

Use some common sense, let it go, you don't know enough about me as it
applies to litigation.
Lundy that sNET went out business in 2002.

Barry replies again quickly (didn't he give me grief for doing that originally?) with another type of threat; making my admitted past deeds more public. He also realized at this point that the previous mail is extremely damning, as he never tried to deny he either Schlossberg or Cipher. He makes up for it in this mail stating that he may be a different Cipher, and he does not admit to the Cipher / Schlossberg correlation.

My favorite part of his next mail is where he says I should not try to 'match wits with him'. After his baffling attempt to regurgitate incorrect information from over a decade ago, the request really loses something.

From: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
To: jericho[at]attrition.org
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:42:20 +0000
Subject: Re: For the record...

[quoted material removed]

Scientia Est Potentia

Brian, also remember that you made self admissions of breaking and entering
websites, and you felt that the laws were not developed
enough, ie New York Times etc .  BTW, Dave Cullinane. Eugene Schultz etc
etc got many of the theories and thesis of the time published as well Nels
Bergstrom. Would you care to comment as I am going to forward these emails
to the Wall Street Journal and NY Times as they are somewhat contemporary
to the many hacking incidents occurring currently.

I think you are going in over your head, please stop trying to match wits
with me. Again let it go. When Winn hears I am involved,
he will go back to drinking, anti depressants and anxiolytics.

As far as any of the prior comments and emails are concerned, please only
self publish in their entirety, which you do not like to do. You prejudice
everything you write by taking many words out of context and without
relevance.

Lastly, you are correlating the name schlossberg with lou cypher(sic) not
I, there could have been other lou ciphers, lou cifers,
lou cyphers etc. so I do not agree to 100% correlation

My next two replies get longer and more involved, but the dialogue is improving by this point. We are discussing issues with the published material and related points. He once again makes assumptions about me, like who or what I know.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 05:45:41 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: For the record...

: William aka Winn always knew that most of what he wrote were based on
: hyperboles and metaphors. He misquoted starting with I was a senior

Remember, it wasn't just Schwartau who wrote articles.

: financial manager, not true, as well as the baseball bat was a metaphor,
: His reporting and or stories were spun for sensationalism. Mark Gibbs
: was met and chatted with at Comdex, introduced by Winn, the total
: conversation was 5 minutes.

Have you released a statement saying this? While I can publish any e-mail
between us as I like legally, I am asking if I may use this mail on Errata
to present your side of the story, and possibly write about Schwartau?

: This is much ado about nothing. If you think Winn will make for a
: creditable witness or journalist, forget it, he would be impeached
: quickly.

I don't think he would testify. Even so, he could testify that he *did*
write those articles. That is all I would need to demonstrate I was acting
in good faith, especially since they went more than ten years unchallenged
by yourself.

: You, Brian, had in great detail wrote Winn was poser, charlatan, fraud,
: etc and now mysteriously there are comments on your site that were there
: before.

That "weren't" there before, I think you mean? Yes. I removed his section
pending more digging into some of the material we had up. He gave me his
side of the story that warranted removing it until I could ascertain the
truth. To this day, I haven't had the time to revisit it, so I have not
reposted it either.

I sent you this mail for the exact same reason, to get your side of the
story. Now that you have given it, I will have to spend the weekend
re-evaluating what we have up, determine if some should be removed or
disclaimed, etc.

: All this stems from his book Cybershock which is BS, like everything he

Perhaps on your side, but not mine. I do not recall actually reading that
book, but I may have a copy here. The published work about you is based on
the articles quoted, not that book.

: ever published. Realize Winn never got past the 10th grade in the Bron
: was fundamentally in the musical instrument business. Mark Gibbs, not a
: bad guy. One also has to understand the mood in 1999.

I am familiar with his "rock and roll" history, have heard extensive
stories about drug use (presumably why you say he would be impeached
quickly?) and more. While he is a friendly guy and fun to talk to, I know
that he has told his fair share of lies in the past.

: So Brian, how come you never critiqued any of the articles put out by
: the ISSA or the Information Security Bulletin, and you also knew from
: Lundy that sNET went out of business in 2002.

I don't read the ISSA / ISB. That question could be asked of me, but
replaced with any one of a hundred newsletters. There simply isn't enough
time to review them all, and trust me, I tried for a while.

Second, I do not know who or what "Lundy" is in this context.

: As far as my gazing at your about me being logged going to your website
: to peruse and document the sNET comments. No, my wifes friends did a
: global search on my name.

Once again, I doubt your wife's friends searched Google for "barry
schlossberg snet". That makes no sense to me. I believe you searched for
that and stumbled across the pages.

: I did review the anti-SLAPP as it applies to federal law suits.
:
: I believe that the pleading will survive a motion to dismiss for reasons
: I will not state here,

And I believe an anti-SLAPP motion has serious merit. I have read about
defamation laws many times over the years, and been the victim in numerous
libelous cases, starting with Meinel.

: You use term on the record as if you are truly recognized as a journalist.

I am recognized as a journalist by many people, personal and professional.
That includes by other people that you would quickly agree are journalists
themselves. Yes, it is part time, yes it is for a hobby web site, but
search around for cases involving bloggers and journalists and you will
likely see the line is blurry.

: This whole problem can go away by simply removing the offending pages on
: your site and I will get back to dealing with my own life.

I offered to hear you out and asked you to tell me what was factually
incorrect about the pages. There are two aspects of that;

1. I need to know what is factually incorrect about the original sources
(which you went into some at the beginning of this mail, and I said I
would have to consider this weekend).

2. I need to know what is factually incorrect about what *attrition.org*
said. That constitutes the index.html page in your directory, and the
comments in red on the other articles. Those are the only ones I can be
held responsible for, so it is crucial that you take the time to explain
what is incorrect. If you point out anything that is, I will re-word or
remove it as needed.

: Use some common sense, let it go, you don't know enough about me as it
: applies to litigation.

Despite me making an extensive amount of it public, I do not believe you
know enough about me as it pertains to litigation.

You telling me to "let it go" certainly demonstrates that you do not know
enough about me as a person.

: Lundy that sNET went out business in 2002.

Once again, I do not know what "Lundy" means in this context.

That said, I will reiterate that I am open to changing or removing content
if I feel it is warranted. Later today (Saturday), I will spend time
re-reading this e-mail from you and the pages I have posted. Based on
those, I will determine if content should be redacted, explained, removed
or a combination of all three. As best I can tell from my initial
impression, your problem lies in the news articles we quote, that have
gone unchallenged for a decade.

If you would like, feel free to send me a separate e-mail with just your
response to the Errata pages, and drop off the dialogue between us. That
can include the first part of this mail and anything else you feel the
world should know. That e-mail alone *may* make a suitable replacement to
three of the articles we have up, and warrant re-writing the index.html.
There are two facets to the page really; the vigilante bit, and the rest
of it (where you give general comments / advice on security, unrelated to
'strike back').

Jericho

What he chalks up to being 'stubborn', I call resolve. If I dropped the pages on Errata any time I got a request or demand, the entire project would be considerably more empty and have no merit. This isn't about me being stubborn when I publish Errata, it is about wanting the truth published. If the Errata team has to edit a page or remove content to achieve that, we will do that in a heartbeat. Often times, we do it on our own accord, without someone requesting or demanding it.

Schlossberg also claims that we do not quote mails in their entirety, and prejudice everything we write by taking words out of context. When challenged to provide an example, he didn't.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:01:31 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: For the record...

: Brian, also remember that you made self admissions of breaking and entering
: websites, and you felt that the laws were not developed

Yep, because I tend to tell the truth, unlike the people we put up on the
charlatan page. And to clarify, I was an active hacker before the
'website' thing and never defaced any web page.

: etc got many of the theories and thesis of the time published as well
: Nels Bergstrom. Would you care to comment as I am going to forward these
: emails to the Wall Street Journal and NY Times as they are somewhat
: contemporary to the many hacking incidents occurring currently.

Is that supposed to scare me?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20095649-245/when-hackers-become-the-man/?tag=topTechContentWrap;editorPicks

Notice the date on that and what I freely admit to in the article.

: I think you are going in over your head, please stop trying to match
: wits with me. Again let it go.

I believe you are seriously underestimating me. I will never "let it go"
because someone like you tells me to, end of story.

: When Winn hears I am involved, he will go back to drinking, anti
: depressants and anxiolytics.

These little statements really say a lot more than you realize.

: As far as any of the prior comments and emails are concerned, please
: only self publish in their entirety, which you do not like to do. You
: prejudice everything you write by taking many words out of context and
: without relevance.

Quote one example where I take an e-mail out of context? I have a very
well documented history of publishing e-mails in their entirety. In case
you haven't looked, there are roughly 1,300 e-mails / exchanges on this
web site that were published in their entirety. That includes 100% of the
legal threats we have received.

Please remember, your very first mail to me tonight indicated you were
aware I was likely to publish these e-mails, and you were right. I very
likely will do that. That said, making absurd statements such as me and
Lamo being the same person, or that I edit e-mails despite abundant
evidence to the contrary, is libelous.

: Lastly, you are correlating the name schlossberg with lou cypher(sic) not
: I, there could have been other lou ciphers, lou cifers,
: lou cyphers etc. so I do not agree to 100% correlation

Nice try and after thought. Prior e-mails are pretty damning on that
front.

Regardless, if you are not Barry Schlossberg, then you have absolutely no
grounds to file suit against me. If there are multiple Lou Ciphers (and
your spelling examples and [sic] speak to my point), then again, you have
no grounds to come after me as I am writing about a different one. If you
are Barry Schlossberg, you have been mailing me under the pseudonym 'Louis
Cipher', which is damning. Further, if you are Barry and you do file suit,
you will effectively demonstrate that the material on our page is about
you and that you have a problem with it. Now that you claim you may not be
Barry Schlossberg, then I have absolutely no reason to believe anything
you say and can't really use it to reconsider the published material. So
help yourself here, clarify exactly who you are and how it relates to
anything we have published. Otherwise, I can only assume you are a
fantastic Internet troll having a glorious virtual joy ride.

The only other person to actually sue us learned that lesson the hard way.
Rather than fight a protracted legal battle where the Supreme Court was on
our side, but Georgia state case law was on the plaintiffs side, we agreed
to remove one image and leave up the rest of the text. Ironically, that
left the page pretty much how it started out when it was originally
published, as the image was added down the road when it became avaialable
to us. Suing us to remove the content only serves to validate it, and will
only lead to the Streisand effect.

Either way, your argument cuts both ways. Your best course of action is to
be reasonable, and more importantly, honest with me. Hell, that alone
would help contradict the picture painted of you by those articles.

Barry returns to his old tricks of making wild assumptions about who or what I know. Anyone that knows me understands I am not good with names and may honestly forget a name or three, especially from years back. Despite that, days later, I still cannot recall having known the names of some of these people, let alone meeting or interacting with them in any fashion. I do not rule out the possibility though.

Barry's problem with the word "scum" doesn't put it in the correct perspective. His page read "If half of what we have been told is true, he is the worst kind of scum in our society." Emphasis on the word IF there. I firmly believe that most reasonable people would agree with me; if a person travels to another state and uses a baseball bat on a kid that allegedly hacked his system, that kind of irresponsible vigilante action is hardly ethical or moral. Such a person that would casually toss aside the justice system, presume to think they are correct in their detective work while being unable to secure their system in the first place, could be considered scum.

From: security curmudgeon (jericho[at]attrition.org)
To: Louis Cipher (loucifer@s-mail.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:28:17 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Re: For the record...

: Brian, I am going to sleep, as you know I am an old man with an
: imperfect. You do know Justin Lundy as well as what the ISSA and their
: publication Password is.

I do not know who Justin Lundy is. I know what the ISSA is. I have no clue
what their publication password is. I also have no clue why you insist I
know him or that password.

: As you have done searches on google.

Uh, I do searches on Google every day, lots of them. What does that mean?

: I do believe you know who Dave Cullinane, Eugene Schultz and Howard
: Schmidt are. Interestingly after the alleged articles were published
: they allowed themselves to be aligned with me.

I do not know Dave Cullinane at all, I know who Eugene Schultz is, I know
and have met Howard Schmidt many years ago.

Them choosing to align themselves to you means absolutely nothing to me.
For a long time, people and news organizations have failed to perform any
due diligence.

: As far as Winn's emotional disturbances, they existed before me, when he

I am aware of that.

: knew me and after. He was guilty of theft with me, as as malicious
: publication, false statements to the press as well as directly to
: Schultz in which he was made apologize in writing for his
: misrepresentations of me.

Would you share a copy of that mail? Winn backing down on his writing
about you would be appropriate to publish and would invalidate several of
the articles that are a strong basis for my writings (and opinion).

: Yes, I realize you are stubborn and would not let go, but after
: writing numerous emails, I think I have wasted your time and mine.

I don't. I think that our mails have been fabulous personally. I have
learned a lot about you, and now have material that challenges what I have
posted. Even though you ignored my direct question asking about publishing
that mail, I will still take it into consideration this weekend.

: The only webpage that bothered me was when you used the word "scum",

"If half of what we have been told is true, he is the worst kind of scum
in our society."

Note the "If" that leads that sentence? *If* you lied to the media or *if*
you broke into hacker homes and beat them with a bat, yes, you are scum.
If not, then I want to clear it up, remove material that is inaccurate and
reword the page as needed.

: but your critical flaw in reporting really occurred in that page and has
: nothing to do with that word.

Saying "if" is not a critical flaw in reporting at all. In fact, it was a
very responsible thing to do and why you cannot claim defamation either.
If that line is the only real gripe you have, then you also have
absolutely no case against me.

Now that we are both well rested, please reconsider my mails last night. I
sincerely want the truth, no matter what it is. Help me to publish the
truth, and based on these e-mails so far, it will achieve the result you
want; the removal or editing of the offending material.

Brian

At this point, I did exactly as I said I would. I considered everything he had said to me and rewrote a considerable amount of the Errata page on Schlossberg. With the updates, I also paid extra attention to my wording to help ensure that I was clear on fact versus opinion. It is a fact that several articles call Cipher a vigilante. It is my opinion that those articles contain a high level of crap.

As many attrition.org readers know, a lawsuit threat is not new to us at all. In fact, such threats have always had the opposite effect intended. Rather than us instantly cave and remove content, we challenge the person and go to extra lengths to ensure it is accurate and relevant. In some cases, it leads to additional research of the individual or situation. Since Schlossberg's first mail to us threatening a lawsuit, several of us began digging further. In the coming weeks, information will be added to Schlossberg's page, not removed.

By Monday, the Errata page had been updated and I had not heard from Barry. Logs show that the same IP that initially visited and prompted the e-mail visited again at 30/Aug/2011:15:09:05. After that, he sent two emails on Tuesday and one email on Wednesday. At the time of this page, I had not read any of them due to being away from the computer more than usual, and busy with more important stuff when at keyboard.

Barry Schlossberg threatens lawsuit against Attrition.org

Thu Sep 1 13:55:02 CDT 2011

jericho