[Carolyne and the new moderator R.J. Gosselin slander Jesse in a Guide to Mostly Harmless Hacking.. distributed to over 5000 people. My comments are in brackets.] Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 14:28:03 -0400 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Editor - Happy Hacker List Subject: Warning/Apology and GTmHH-How To Be A Hero In Your Computer Lab ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sometimes people make poor choices; and sometimes they require us to make clear distinctions. This is the case with the "Happy Hacker Chat List" run by Jesse Brown. We apologize in particular for the way that list was used last Saturday to assault Bronc Buster in a classic hacker war combination of breaking into and trashing the ISP he used, setting up a fake Web site, setting his finger files so they could not be altered or deleted without the program *chattr* being run from root, then deleting the chattr program... and then inviting people on that chat list to attack him for the contents of that finger file and web site. And making out like the fact that it took a few days to fix the problem was proof Bronc wanted it there. [For the last time.. chattr is a SysV derived program. Succeed is run off a BSD system, meaning the util 'chflags' would be used. The reason 'chattr' appeared to be deleted was because it was never there.] Carolyn and I have made repeated efforts to negotiate Jesse's association of this list with us. Unfortunately, we have failed. This is sad because Jesse is such a genius with TCP/IP. We had hoped to include him as a moderator for that area. For a period of time, he was even hosting our moderator site and the Happy hacker list, for which we thank him for his hard work. [Thank him, but not pay him as agreed. Carolyn has not settled the bill yet.] So now the Happy Hacker organization has to disassociate ourselves from Jesse Brown, his "Happy Hacker Chat List," and any input as moderator. The messages on his list have become vulgar, encourage credit card fraud, and violate our approach to learning. They are delving into that "dark side" of the hacker scene; while we are committed to a "white hat" approach to system security. Because of these clear differences, Carolyn and I feel we should make a formal warning and apology to the list. Warning regarding Jesse's list's content, flames, and encouragement of law breaking. Apology regarding the misconceptions that it may create. [At no time did any post to the list encourage credit card fraud, "dark side hacking", or anything else illegal. If either of you fucknuts had bothered to read the list, all material was perfectly legal and legitimate. This was cleared up to Carolyn by a handful of people, and she still went on to write this.] For the record, neither Carolyn nor I have attempted to "censor" his list, his running of his list, or his management of his list -- because it is simply that *his list*. We have asked him not to take advantage of *our* list of names, and not to use the name "Happy Hacker". We have sent several emails in an attempt to resolve the issues. [And it was resolved. Jesse changed the name in a matter of days of receiving that piece of mail. The headers of all mail on that list show the change.] We are currently attempting to advise his parents of his actions, since he is delving into activities that could have serious repercussions. [Translated: Since Carolyn can't compete with Jesse's intellect, she will make the cowardly move of trying to narc him to his parents, which failed. They saw through her bullshit like the rest of us did.] No one can stop Jesse from calling his list a "Happy" anything. Even though he has been asked to re-name it, he does not appear to be willing to comply. Since he has a copy of the HH mailing list, it is entirely possible the you will receive mail from him. Carolyn and I would ask all of you to adopt a professional approach; flame wars never solved anything. Neither would 6,000 plus readers mailing Jesse asking him to stop or rename whatever he's doing. [You do not seem willing to read the full headers of the list. It has been changed for a while now.] So, please be polite to him and remember the good that he has done for Happy Hacker. [Take your own advice. Neither of you have shown him the respect he deserves. This is perfectly obvious with the above crap.] -- R.J. Gosselin and Carolyn Meinel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~