My comments in red. You can also read my response
to the paper that printed this trash.

http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/042599/bus_hacker.shtml

Web posted Sunday, April 25, 1999
2:33 p.m. CT

Amarillo company tests             [photo: business]
hacker-proof system for Web site
servers
                                        --------------
By GREG ROHLOFF                      SAGE President
Globe-News Business Writer         Vincent Larsen checks
your City Guide! Type a            Web sites for damage
An Amarillo-based company has      from hackers in testing
high hopes that its Web-site       of the company's
server will be hacker proof.       BRICKHouse Web server.
                                        --------------
Systems Advisory Group
Enterprises Inc. is testing a technology that, to date,
has not been violated by cyberspace outlaws. Those hackers
delight in taking over a Web site on the Internet, whether
to simply deflate perceived pomposity or to level vicious
personal attacks.

SAGE developed BRICKHouse as a way to keep out the
hackers.

Think of it this way: Suppose the Chisholm Trail had a
brick tunnel from the Texas ranches to the Kansas
railheads. How big a threat would rustlers have been?

Vincent Larsen, SAGE president, developed BRICKHouse after
researching available security systems.

Testing began in September, he said. Some errors were
discovered in December and corrected. Testing then resumed
with hopes of being market-ready by the second quarter
this year.

Two manufacturers are in discussion with SAGE, said Rhonda
Barreras, marketing director.

The current system works off a Unix-derived Linux
operating system, Larsen said.

The SAGE security system is based on the process a hacker
tries to perform - load different information onto a Web
page or use the Web site as a back door into other
programs - instead of basing security on a user's logon,
which in many systems can be figured out by hackers, he
said.

Traditional Web-site security is expensive - as much as
$500 a month - and has proven to be less than
impenetrable, Barreras said.

The company's new system is simple to install. BRICKHouse
is essentially a "black box" Web server that requires that
it only be plugged in, she said.

BRICKHouse also provides virus protection by denying any
program the ability to run if it fails to match its
security profile, or limiting the damage to the infected
program.

The Web server also offers remote accessibility for its
system administrator to control the Web site through the
Internet. BRICKHouse, targeted for small and medium-size
businesses wanting peace of mind in operating a Web site,
is designed to shut down any program that would bring down
the Web site.

As part of its testing, SAGE recently agreed to host the
Web page of Carolyn Meinel, author of "The Happy Hacker: A
Guide To (Mostly) Harmless Computer Hacking."

Meinel, of Cedar Crest, N.M., near Albuquerque, has been
the target of other hackers, who have driven her Web site
from six Internet service providers.

Most recently, they attacked her site on Rt66.com, an
Albuquerque-based Internet service provider, which caused
Rt66 to shut down for several days.

Meinel said her book irritated some hackers because she
set out to show others how to "do cool things with Unix
and Windows that most users wouldn't normally do."

With SAGE, Meinel has created a challenge - a hackers' war
game, in which they are challenging hackers to try to take
over the site.

Two notorious hackers, operating under the
cyber-noms-de-plume Jericho and Broncbuster, have failed
to get in, Meinel said. Both are believed to be part of
the Hacking for Girlies group that attacked the New York
Times Web site in which hackers attacked the newspaper for
its coverage of the arrest of accused hacker Kevin
Mitnick.

At no point have I ever even ATTEMPTED to hack Carolyn Meinel's
machines, her ISP's machines, her Happy Hacker site, or SAGE's machines.
This is an outright lie that can not be backed. In the past I have repeatedly
asked her to provide logs to prove these continued claims of me
hacking and attempting to hack her. Not once has she been able to 
provide these logs.

Meinel snickers at the attempts by those hackers who have
failed to break into her Web site or take over the war
game.

"They seem to be losing," she said.

Company owner Donald Paxton started SAGE in September
1993. The firm has eight employees.