News from the Hacker War Front

Carolyn Meinel responds to the June 2000 issue of Vanity Fair story "Barbarians @ the Gate: the F.B.I.'s Hacker Whiz Kids

I have to agree that author Bryan Burrough wrote a number of inaccurate things about Brian Martin in his Vanity Fair story. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Martin's response to this story mixes (in his usual fashion) truth with fancy. However, despite my unhappiness with the massive fabrications he has against me at his web site, he does deserve better than to be falsely painted as an Übercriminal in a major magazine.

1) I did not alert John Vranesevich to "unpublicized attacks" by the Hacking for Girliez gang. Their earlier assaults had been widely publicized not only on hacker news web sites, but in print and TV news. Until well after the New York Times hack, my only communication with Vranesevich on the Girliez was to thank him for not publicizing them on his web site.

2) According to my sources, Brian Martin did not stop breaking into computers five years ago, as claimed by Burroughs. My sources say that five years ago (1995) Martin was only just beginning to learn basic Unix shell commands. His Internet host computer at that time (suicidal.lemming.com) was administered by Eric Parker, an employee of Dimensional.com. I have found no evidence that Martin has EVER broken into ANY computers. My sources paint him as a hacker groupie and paid undercover informant who tries to mislead people into believing that he used to be a "black hat" hacker, just like his former roommate and media hoaxster Se7en. (I'm not saying this is true, I'm just saying that people close to Martin present persuasive evidence.)

3) I agree with Martin that there is no similarity between the "Jericho" logo he used to run on his old web site Sekurity.org and the Hacking for Girliez logo. However, a few months before the Girliez's rampage began, in a Def Con logo contest, Cancer Omega (COmega in the Vanity Fair story) submitted a logo that was remarkably similar to the Girliez's logo. Martin currently hosts Cancer Omega's web site. Why did Burrough fail to present this far more compelling evidence?

4) angry johnny did not hack the White House web site. He did, however, email bomb the White House. Martin was angry johnny's ONLY liaison with the world. When the FBI began breathing down Martin's neck, he drove a nail through the hard drive of his Internet host computer, suicidal.lemming.com.

5) Burrough casts doubt on whether Martin ever took part in training seminars for the FBI and other Federal Agencies. It is true and easily provable that Martin participated in several of these seminars, which were run by Fred Villella. However, these seminars also featured Martin's former roommate and well-known hoaxster Se7en, so their technical value is questionable.

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