'Hacktivist' vows to strike again over fuel costs THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) September 21, 2000, Thursday Andrew Craig A computer hacker who vandalised the front pages of hundreds of UK websites as part of the fuel protest says he will strike again if forecourt prices do not fall.Specsavers.com and Jobs.co.uk were among 450 websites which had their front pages replaced last week with a long protest message headed "Support the petrol protestors!", and urging people to join picket lines at fuel depots. The man behind the attacks goes under the name of Herbless, a self-taught hacker living in the UK who gained notoriety after hacking into nine local government websites last month to protest about the dangers of smoking tobacco. He insists that his protest hacking, which he calls "hacktivism", is something that can be done ethically. He said: "Breaking into a site, stealing confidential information, deleting data and other abuses are not ethical, I do not condone such behaviour." Herbless tries to distance himself from the illegal, mercenary or the desperately self-promotional aspects of hacking. "I don't seem to fit into the typical Hollywood-inspired hacker image. I don't wear black clothes, rollerblade or have long hair," said Herbless, before adding: "I do have piercings and a tattoo, so I suppose that makes up for my lack of standard issue hacker gear." His protests are wide-ranging from petrol to tobacco to music. Legoland Windsor was another of his recent targets after being picked, rather strangely, to campaign for the right to distribute music freely over the Net. "If I see something that I believe is wrong or unjust, then I speak out about it," he explained. "I wanted to make it known that there are other possible means of protest available in this online age." These attacks cause minimum disruption, claims Herbless, because he leaves a backup copy of the original front page on the server. He claims that he will even help administrators restore sites. A spokeswoman for Specsavers, the high-street chain of opticians, said that it caused no disruption and was "fixed straight away as soon as we found out about it". Such hacking cannot avoid causing hassle for the company as well as confusing and irritating users who are greeted by the hackers' offering, rather than the normal website. But Herbless has other websites in his sights for his next spate of hacktivism, even threatening to launch another wave of attacks if fuel taxes are not cut within the 60-day deadline set by the protestors. --- Support our Sponsor------------------------------------- Make eTour.com your Web start page, and you’ll see a different site matched to your interests every time you log onto the Web! Sign up for your free membership now. http://click.topica.com/aaaaExb1dhr0b1uN1Ic/eTour ------------------------------------------------------------ to unsubscribe send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to subscribe send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] more good stuff at http://theMezz.com/alerts ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
