[TowerTalk] Re: ARRL Hack

K6TFZ@aol.com K6TFZ@aol.com
Tue, 25 Apr 2000 14:32:32 EDT


>From ARRL Headquarters, Newington, CT 
Access to the ARRL Web site (http://www.arrl.org/) was disrupted early Monday 
by an unknown individual when those attempting to connect to the site were 
shunted to another site, apparently in Canada. Some who attempted to access 
the site today were greeted by an obscene message and the statement "Pirate 
radio for life, baby." 


ARRL Information Services Department Manager Don Durand said the League's 
"arrl.org" domain name was illegally modified at Network Solutions--which 
registers domain names--and redirected to the bogus site. "Network Solutions 
was promptly notified of the illegal change, and they, in turn, returned our 
record to the correct settings," Durand said. 

While Network Solutions was alerted to the problem yesterday morning, Durand 
said it takes up to 48 hours for the various name servers on the Internet to 
update their records. "At this time, we're simply waiting for that 
propagation to be completed," he said. 

The ARRL Web site itself was not "hacked," and no ARRL files were damaged as 
a result of the vandalism. "Our domain was hijacked at Network Solutions," 
Durand emphasized. "At no time was our Web server compromised." 

The vandalism did disrupt e-mail service to League staff and officials, 
however. Mail service was returning as servers were updated. The ARRL E-Mail 
Forwarding Service was not affected. 

ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, said the League intends to investigate the 
disruption through all possible means. Haynie promised that the perpetrators, 
if caught, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

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