Posted on 03/28/2006 9:07:54 AM PST by N3WBI3
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
IT gurus seek Your counsel - Jobsite, The best people for the job
We answer 99.6% of all support calls within 5 seconds. Rackspace Managed Hosting with Fanatical Support
You inspire awe - Jobsite, The best people for the job
I-NET+ CERTIFICATION from the Register's training library
"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."
That response didn't go over so well.
"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.
That response didn't go over so well.
"Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI," Taylor replied.
Later he added,
"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!"
And later,
"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.
Taylor has yet to respond to our request for comment.
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. ®
Absurd, I just quoted Bruce Perens who is much more an actual member of "the community" thanyou will ever be. 75 percent of the actual "community" who actually write and release open source software use Stallman's license, making Stallman without doubt the man with the biggest impact and following by far.
I don't know who in the hell you think YOU are, but you're certainly not in any position to make ANY claims about what open source is or is not, since Stallman built it from the ground up while you were still learning your multiplication tables in grade school. When I hear about you speaking in front of the United Nations, claiming Stallman is a kook and not being lamblasted by your own community for doing it, perhaps your claims will deserve merit. But right now, they're nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of a very confused young man.
Oh yeah, other ubiquitous security tools are from the Netherlands (including one of the inspirations for the Russian software), and the most popular stateful firewall was begun by an Australian hacker and is now run by a German hacker.
US Government security teams specifically endorse (indeed, require) the use of the Dutch software, and the firewall is in wide use.
I trust my spyware software more than I trust some software I downloaded from Europe. You work the exact opposite of course, where ANYTHING from outside the US is to be glorified and praised, just as you're doing now.
It wasn't a plea. It was a libelous attack, accusing CentOS of a federal felony.
User submitted. Haven't you noticed the styles differ? In any case, the banners do not match with the corporate image of Mozilla, so I don't know why they even keep hosting them there.
You are a bit right. I expect such actions more from the younger, digitally-raised generation where information tends to be shared. However, I do not expect the horrid content of that initial complaint email from someone who's supposed to be an older gentleman. The reaponse is expected and could damage only those few CentOS people, but the initial email is disgraceful, especially since the man represents the reputation of a city.
Probably some foundation, non profit hiding from taxes but wanting government assistance. If not now, probably soon.
Don't even bother to look it up before you spew forth, do you?
It depends on the support contract. And as an example, I can't go to ATI for driver troubles in my notebook's video card because the OEM (the company that I have a direct customer relationship with) is responsible for drivers.
Look in their forums. Honest questions are met with nice, helpful responses.
I disagree. Microsoft is not that dumb.
Linux uses the GPL, but Stallman has little impact on it because Linus Torvalds has a different, practical, vision. His license may be used for practical reasons, but that doesn't mean the authors agree with his end vision.
You're hilarious. The most popular anti-spyware programs are from Europe!
They were not going to do it until the man said "I welcome the media attention"..
Found it:
"Far from the truth, I have been here since around 95 (why my profile says 99 I have no idea, others probably have the same problem but since it's no real issue I haven't asked anyone to look into it and waste their valuable time)."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/950193/posts?page=285#285
From Jim Robinson:
"During most of the above time period (beginning sometime in '93 or '94) I had been following our new President's crimes and corruption spree by reading and posting to Prodigy's Whitewater bulletin board at night and on weekends. In September of 1996, I created the Free Republic website."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1011545/posts
Archive.org backs this up...they show the first spider hitting FR in December of 96.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://freerepublic.com
I also noticed something else rather interesting. There's an almost 1 year gap (6/'02, to 5/'03) where there are no posts by GE at all (Oh, those must have been glorious days!).
Before that time, GE acted pretty much like a regular FR poster, talking about a wide range of subjects, from football to Osama Bin Laden. He also had a few tech threads thrown in here and there, but never had meltdowns the way he does now. The change in GE seems to coincide roughly with the commencement of the SCO vs. IBM case. After that year-long gap, his focus is almost entirely Linux, and his demeanor and manners go way downhill. The difference is like night and day.
Check it out yourself: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/user-posts?more=11997442;name=Golden%20Eagle Compare the posts before June of 02 with those after May of 03. A pretty scary transformation, if you ask me.
Regardless, the oldest post I can find for him is 9/12/2001, one day after the attacks on NYC & DC.
Nevertheless, it's one more for the "Golden Eagle Lie List".
Good follow up, youre right its like he had a personality chaneg in his time away from FreeRepublic..
From what I understand, there are enough people in the open-source community who vehemently disagree with Stallman's agenda.
It's pretty evident that despite being a college student and a relative newcomer to the OSS community, even I still know more about the subject than some people on this thread.
Stallman may have pioneered the idea, but there are enough people to where the original OSS has become so fractured that the Stallman following has been more than diluted.
In much the same way, Ford pioneered the idea of mass-producing American cars. But that idea splintered--that's a good part of why we have all the different makes of cars to choose from in the present day.
The last paragraph is complete gibberish, by the way. Next time, don't forget the </rant> and </gibberish> tags.
There you go again, pushing your foreign software again over US originals/equivalents.
I disagree. Stallman started in computers in an environment where all programmers swapped tapes with each other. If someone had a cool program, it would spread, others would tinker with it, and the results would come back to the original programmer, who could then use the improved program. It used the scientific model of shared information that has served us so well.
Stallman "started" the free software movement when proprietary software was born, and Stallman was suddenly told he couldn't share his work with others. That restriction pissed him off, so he started working on open versions of the now closed software, and promoting a return to the old days when software was free.
GE has it backwards. Open source software is not a new concept that "red-blooded Americans" have a problem understanding. Open source was the beginning -- it's closed source that is the newcomer.
GE, I promise not to call you ignorant anymore. Ignorance simply means not knowing, but you refuse to learn. I've always said there's a difference between ignorance and stupidity in that ignorance is easily curred with information, while stupid is permanent.
Not to mention that Ad-Aware's personal edition has been proven to work and it's available at a price virtually everybody can afford: Gratis.
I always learned that Stallman was the prime mover in the OSS. But, we learn something new each day. ;)
Apparently it's never dawned on you how hard it's getting for US software shops to make a buck when all the socialists are releasing their software for free. I use two US products myself, though, and will continue to do so, since they obviously do exist, despite your attempts to claim they don't.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.