Hacking the Grey Lady

The e-mail was as creatively spelled as it was surprising. "H1 TH3R3. W3R3 B0R3D AGA1N," began the note we received yesterday morning from a hacker group named HFG. They were bragging about their latest accomplishment: seizing control of the New York Times web site. The newspaper was not amused. After unsuccessful early-morning attempts to delete HFG's statement -- which protested the imprisonment of hacker Kevin Mitnick -- the company pulled the plug on its web site at about 10:30 a.m. and called the FBI. The site stayed offline for about nine hours. The NYT is speculating that HFG, or Hacking For Girlies, timed their attack to coincide with the increased traffic caused by Ken Starr's report. But the deeper motive is probably that Mitnick's trial is now just a few months away, and Miramax Films has begun filming a movie based on a 1996 book about Mitnick by Tsutomu Shimomura and Times reporter John Markoff. The book was controversial enough in hacker circles, but the movie does real violence to the truth. HFG also took the opportunity to respond to author Carolyn Meinel, who decries "destructive attacks" in her introductory how-to-hack-legally book "The Happy Hacker." In comments buried in the source code of the altered nytimes.com page, HFG complains that Meinel calls them "Internet terrorists." They write: "The real reason we put any blame on Carolyn Meinel is because of her obtuse over-dramatizations of our actions. Did we hold anyone hostage? No. Did we 'terrorize' anyone? No."