Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over 'renegade' Linux maker

Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over 'renegade' Linux maker Our mistake is YOUR problem By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View Published Friday 24th March 2006 20:20 GMT New year, new job? Click here for thousands of tech vacancies.

The heartland turned vicious this week when an Oklahoma town threatened to call in the FBI because its web site was hacked by Linux maker Cent OS. Problem is CentOS didn't hack Tuttle's web site at all. The city's hosting provider had simply botched a web server.

This tale kicked off yesterday when Tuttle's city manager Jerry Taylor fired off an angry message to the CentOS staff. Taylor had popped onto the city's web site and found the standard Apache server configuration boilerplate that appears with a new web server installation. Taylor seemed to confuse this with a potential hack attack on the bustling town's IT infrastructure. SPONSORED LINKS

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"Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???," Taylor wrote to CentOS. "Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!! I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma."

Few people would initiate a tech support query like this, but these are dangerous times, and Taylor suspected the worst. (Er, but only the world's most boring hacker would break into a site and then throw up a boilerplate about how to fix the hack.)

CentOS developer Johnny Hughes jumped on the case and tried to explain the situation to Taylor.

"I feel sorry for your city," he replied in an e-mail. "CentOS is an operating system. It is probably installed on the computer that runs your website. . . . Please contact someone who does IT for you and show them the page so that they can configure your apache webserver correctly."

"Get this web site off my home page!!!!! It is blocking access to my website!!!!~!," Taylor responded, clearly excited about the situation and sensing that Bin Laden was near.

Again, CentOS jumped in to try and explain some of the technical details behind the problem. It pointed Taylor to this page, saying it was the standard page for a web server and noted that it provides instructions on how to fix the problem. The CentOS staffer suggested that Taylor contact his service provider or have an administrator look into the issue.

"Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI," Taylor replied.

"I have four computers located at City Hall. All of these computers display the same CentOS page when attempting to bring up Tuttle-ok.gov. Now if your software is not causing this problem, how does it happen??? No one outside this building has complained about this problem. This is a block of public access to a city's website. Remove your software within the next 12 hours or an official complaint to the FBI is being filed!"

"I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation. Now, can you tell me how to remove 'your software' that you acknowledge you provided free of charge? I consider this 'hacking.'"

After a few more exciting exchanges, CentOS managed to track down the problem for Taylor. It turns out that hosting provider Vidia Communications is running CentOS on some of its servers and had not configured the Tuttle web site properly. CentOS informed Taylor of the situation, and, a day later, Taylor had calmed down.

"The problem has been resolved by VIDIA who used to host the City website," he wrote. "They still provide cable service but do not host the website. The explanation was that they had a crash and during the rebuild they reinstalled the software that affected our website."

"I am sorry that we had to go through the process and accusations to get the problem resolved. It could have been resolved a lot quicker if the initial correspondence with you provided the helpful information that was transmitted in the last messages. My initial contact with VIDIA disallowed any knowledge of creating the problem."

Er, so despite the fact that CentOS went out of its way to figure out the problem for Tuttle, Taylor still places the blame on CentOS for not fixing the problem - that it didn't create - sooner. In addition, Taylor didn't really start off the whole process on the best foot despite Tuttle being a town "Where People Grow - Friendly!" Grow friendly, threaten to bring in the FBI at the drop of a hat - what's the difference?

As of this writing, one Tuttle web site still had not been fixed, although you can find the charming Tuttle man Taylor over here.

It seems that Tuttle has quite the hacking epidemic on its hands. The Tuttle Times newspaper's web site, for example, has had its Forum section cracked. Click at your own risk to see it or have a peek at our screen grab.

To see the full transcript of the web server war, travel over here. It's classic reading. ®

New poster on the board. Have to catch them up on what's been going on...

Golden Eagle is a pathological liar and hypocrite. Here are examples:

Here, he complains that Cedega's not free: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1591595/posts?page=115#115

and then, mocks another user for suggesting that Cedega be free: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1591595/posts?page=134#134

then complains that Linux is free: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1530486/posts?page=40#40

and here he is, recommending free Solaris: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1490554/posts?page=21#21

Here he is, criticizing Linux because it doesn't run Windows apps: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1591595/posts?q=1&&page=101#115

and copping out when challenged about Windows inability to run Linux apps: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1591595/posts?page=118#118

Here he is, recommending Solaris, which doesn't run Windows apps: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1490554/posts?page=21#21

...and Apple, which doesn't either: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1573697/posts?page=9#9

Here, he's criticizing others for namecalling: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1584107/posts?page=29#29

And here he is, namecalling: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583531/posts?page=61#61

Here's where he refers to Dell "systems": http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1585665/posts?page=35#35

Then denies his own words: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1585665/posts?page=137#137

then blames me for it all, saying I should have reminded him of his own words: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1585665/posts?page=165#165

Then, here's where he makes more false accusations of ME: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?page=90#90

and here's where I ask him to prove I said the things he accused me of: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?page=92#92

And refuses to provide a link to MY posts (he just linked to my history instead): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?page=95#95

And fails again to prove what he says: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?page=99#99

And yet again, repeating the accusations, but failing to provide proof: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?page=122#122

And now, where his "proof" is something I didn't even post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=125#125

and where he has the nerve to ask another poster to back up what they say with specific examples, despite the fact that he refused to do so for me: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=255#255

and here is where he demands that yet someone ELSE provide a link to prove what THEY said: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1568848/posts?page=68#68

and here is where he claims he will admit mistakes, despite the fact that he hasn't admitted this one: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592494/posts?page=43#43

Here he is claiming that Red Hat has a couple of hundred Linux kernel developers: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1527263/posts?page=49#49

And here he is claiming no one knows how many kernel developers work for Red Hat: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1527263/posts?page=77#77

and yet, he denies that he said hundreds, yet again (21st paragraph): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=131#131

And here he is getting nailed for it yet again:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=132#132

and again: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=137#137

and claiming that I never proved that he was wrong about the number of kernel developers at Red Hat: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=134#134

Here's where he hijacked the Open Source Ping List, and the ensuing discussion: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1571222/posts?page=8#8

Here he is ridiculing another poster for using bold fonts to make a point: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1493462/posts?page=130#130

And here he is using bold fonts to make a point: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=106#106

Here he is defending Microsoft's contributions to Planned Parenthood: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492595/posts?page=22#22

And here he is defending Planned Parenthood itself: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1601565/posts?page=35#33

and again: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1601565/posts?page=40#40

Here is a Linux thread with only one post by GE (notice how pleasant and peaceful): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1500664/posts?q=1&&page=1

Here is a Linux thread where GE stayed and trolled (well beyond 280 posts, totally off the topic. No insults before he showed up, as with many of his threads. He has stated multiple times that he was leaving, yet he keeps posting, because he's a last word freak): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1592292/posts?q=1&&page=1#1

Here's where GE says Stallman is a whacko leftist: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1601565/posts?page=24#24

Here's where I agree: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1601565/posts?page=30#30

And here's where he disagrees that I agree: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1601565/posts?page=30#31

Here he is saying that he's leaving the thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?page=127#127

and here he is, many days and over 100 posts later, still posting: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts?q=1&&page=281#284

Could one of you computer geniuses design a GE post filter, so I can read the interesting parts of these threads and skip the boring 'neener-neener open source suxx' Bravo Sierra? Troublemakers get their asses kicked in the real world, but they seem to be immune on the 'net.

I'd love to have a user filter as a feature on FreeRepublic. It would make reading threads on some topics a lot more enjoyable.

As far as immunity on the net, that's true in some places, but not necessarily here. This particular troll could easily be dealt with by the moderators, and in fact has been a time or two IIRC.

If you take a look at the tech threads from approximately mid December through mid January, the troll was absent for a while. If you recall, there was a big stink raised about a pretty major 0-day exploit of IE, yet the threads here discussing it were civil and informative. There were some initial questions about how important the reported defects really were, (you can't take the screamings of some vendors like Secundia at face value), but through discussions, we were able to cut through the BS, and make sure that anyone who cared to be informed about it was. Naturally, there was a bit of ribbing back and forth between both supporters of open source solutions and Microsoft, but there wasn't the kind of vitriol you find whenever our resident troll shows up on a thread.

Personally, I think he should be banned, but apparently the moderators are content to let him hijack threads at will.

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