Hello, Roy.

Replying to a message of Roy J. Tellason to Sean Dennis:

 RJT> How about letting those of use who don't have web access in on it?

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From:
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,11656,00.html

Hacker Smacks Down Madonna

by Marcus Errico 
Apr 21, 2003, 4:10 PM PT

So much for teaching those computer geeks a lesson, huh, Madge? 

Just days after trying to turn the tables on illicit song-swappers by
flooding the Net with bogus tracks from her American Life, Madonna was on
the receiving end of some computerized comeuppance this weekend. 

An unknown assailant hacked into Madonna's official site, www.madonna.com,
on Saturday and posted the real MP3s of every song from American Life,
which is due in stores Tuesday. 

Last week, the Material One and label Warner Bros. Records tried to thwart
would-be pirates by issuing dummy song files to sites like KaZaA and
Morpheus. The files appeared to be leaked tracks from American Life, but
when downloaded, instead of the songs, fans got a looped recording of
Madonna saying, "What the f--k do you think you're doing?" 

Apparently, somewhere between Friday night and Saturday morning, the hack
counterattack began. A digital guerrilla tapped into madonna.com and
replaced the home page with a message that read, "This is what the
f--k I think I'm doing," along with MP3s containing the full American
Life album, according to the Smoking Gun Website, which has posted screen
grabs of the hacked site. 

Per the accompanying message, the site switcheroo was "brought to you
by the editors of Phrack," an online zine devoted to hacking that
contains the disclaimer "Phrack Magazine accepts no responsibility for
the entirely stupid (or illegal) things people may do with the information
contained herein...We neither advocate, condone nor participate in any sort
of illicit behavior. But we will sit back and watch." 

(The hacker also gives a shout-out to the geek-skewing cable net Tech TV in
the form of a marriage proposal to Morgan Webb, the hottie correspondent on
The Screen Savers.) 

According to Madonna's camp, the hacking incident was legit and not some
carefully choreographed publicity stunt (hey, we wouldn't put it past her).
The site was reportedly down for 15 hours on Saturday, once the folks at
madonna.com detected something was amiss. As of Monday, however, everything
was back to normal with no traces of the weekend assault. 

This isn't the first time the digerati have lashed out against those in the
music biz out to quash illicit file-sharing. 

Last August, hackers broke into the Website for the Recording Industry
Association of America, the lobbying group leading the charge against
online piracy, and put up a message that read: "RIAA against music
sharing? Not anymore!" 
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...I thought it was pretty funny.


Later,
Sean

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