World Domination, One CPU Cycle At A Time

Fake News written by James Baughn on July 31, 2000

Forget about searching for alien signals or large prime numbers. The real distributed computing application of the year is "Domination@World", a program to advocate Linux and Apache to every single website in the world that uses Windows and IIS.

The goal of the project is to probe every IP number to determine what kind of platform each Net-connected machine is running. "That's a tall order... we need lots of computers running our Domination@World clients to help probe every nook and cranny of the Net," explained Mr. Zell Litt, the project leader.

After the probing is complete, the second phase calls for the data to be cross-referenced with the InterNIC whois database. "This way we'll have the names, addresses, and phone numbers for every Windows-using system administrator on the planet," Zell gloated. "That's when the fun begins."

The "fun" part involves LART (Linux Advocacy & Re-education Training), a comprehensive program for extreme advocacy. As part of LART, each Linux User Group will receive a list of the Windows-using weenies in their region. The LUG will then be able to employ various advocacy techniques, ranging from a soft-sell approach (sending the target a free Linux CD in the mail) all the way to "LARTcon 5" (cracking into their system and forcibly installing Linux).

We asked another Domination@Home leader about the moral and privacy implications of their project. "There's certainly some ethical dilemmas with this," he admitted. "But that hasn't stopped the FBI from using Carnivore to build dossiers on people they suspect could be national security risks. Meanwhile, we'll be using Domination@Home to build dossiers on people who represent network security risks since their servers run Windows. So what's the difference?"

Achieve Fame And Fortune -- Hire A Script Kiddie!

Fake News written by James Baughn on July 28, 2000

Everybody has a gimmick. A gang of Script Kiddies have launched a new service called Dial-A-DOS (also known as H1r3-4-Hax0r). In exchange for cash, these Kiddies will execute a Distributed Denial Of Service attack against your own site.

The founder of the company said over the phone (and yes he really did talk like this, even on the phone), "ju5t l00k 4t kuro5hin.org. s0m3 d15grun7l3d h0t-gr1t-l0v1ng punkz t4k3 +h3 s!t3 d0wn 4nd th3n +h3 s1t3 g3t5 a|| k1nd5 of 4tt3nt10n. Y0u c4n'7 6uy publ1c17y l1k3 th47 d00d. W3||, n0t unl355 y0u h1r3 us 37337 hax0rs 4t Dial-A-DOS. W3 c4n d0 +h3 s4m3 7h1ng f0r y0ur und3r-4ppr3c1a7ed w3bs1t3 th4t s0m3 Scr1p7 K1dd13 d!d f0r kuro5hin. F0r +h3 r1gh7 pr1c3, 0f c0ur53."

Dial-A-DOS isn't alone in this industry, however. Another company called MafiaDotCom has emerged as a competitor, but with a slightly different business plan. We found out about this outfit last week when a shady figure representing the "Godhacker" arrived at our door and announced, "The Godhacker has taken an interest in your site. Pay up or else we'll hit it with a DOS attack. Capiche?"

Our Vast Spy Network(tm) has been unable to ascertain whether the Godhacker is truly the head of an international crime syndicate or whether he's just some insecure Haxor who couldn't tell the difference between a boot partition or a swap partition. Either way, we "paid up" by literally burying the Godhacker under ten tons of Russian ruble notes (value: $2.53) that we hauled in via dump truck. We suspect he and his hired goons won't bother us again; if he does we'll just send him another dump truck, this time loaded with Mexican pesos -- and we'll shower him with heavy, sharp-edged coins this time.

Not everybody is impressed with Dial-A-DOS's get-publicity-quick scheme. "Why would you pay some clueless idiot to crack into your system with a rootkit when you can do that yourself in three seconds with a recursive rm command as root?" Our own Jon Splatz muttered, "If the only way you can attract visitors to your site is to stage a DOS attack, then you need to find a new line of work in which you can put your obvious lack of morals to good use -- such as a lawyer. Well, strike that, we certainly don't need any more attorneys..."

Two Years Of Humorix

Feature written by Dances With Herring on July 25, 2000

Live from our World Headquarters in the Missouri Ozarks, this is Humorix's Second Anniversary Special. Hi, I'm Dances With Herring, Humorix's special investigator and host for this event. For the next 12,538 bytes this ASCII broadcast will feature such lame filler material as fake interviews, never before seen articles, and a behind the scenes look at Humorix.

Today, July 25th, marks the second anniversary of that fateful day when the first lame fake news article was thrust upon the unsuspecting world. 280 articles and 1,024 Microsoft jokes later and we're still going strong, unlike the many dotcoms which launched, IPO'd, and declared bankruptcy all within the span of about 3 weeks.

After two years Humorix is still going strong. The number of regular readers has increased by a whopping 150% (i.e. from two people in 1998 all the way to five in 2000). Here with me is Eric, one of our regular readers and Vast Spy Network(tm) member.

Dances: So how long have you been reading Humorix?

Eric: Since New Year's Eve 1998. I was totally drunk at the time... with still two hours to go before midnight I killed the time by surfing random webpages I found at Yahoo. I stumbled on to Humorix, and in my drunken stupor I found the site to be uproariously funny... Of course, after sobering up in the morning it didn't seem quite so humorous, but I was too lazy to unsubscribe from the mailing list, so I've been a reader ever since.

Dances: Umm, yeah... I hear you're one of the largest Humorix stock holders.

Eric: Oh, yes, I own 5,000 shares of FAUX. Unfortunately, they've lost 99.9% of their value, but at least they're holding steady now even while the Nasdaq is faltering. Holding steady at $0.0000001, that is. In fact, the stock certificates literally aren't worth the paper they are printed on... I could redeem them at a recycling center for about 50 cents. I'm pretty lazy, though, so I'm still holding on to them for the long haul... maybe they'll reach $0.0000005 sometime this decade.

Dances: Well, this isn't going so well... let me move on.

It was two years ago that our Editor posted the first of many amateurish pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft fake news articles. Within milliseconds the first flame mails and cease-and-desist bark letters arrived, but he persevered to create the most popular Linux humor website in the world Missouri.

But not all has been rosy for Humorix. That terrible denial-of-serive attack known as the Slashdot Effect has struck this site more than once, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. Joining me is Eric Geekman, the system administrator for Humorix's website hosting company.

Dances: What was it like when the Slashdot Effect first struck?

Eric Geekman: Oh, it was horrible... I still have nightmares from that first attack in 1998. The kernel panics, the sparks flying from the machine, the power surges... it's just too horrible to think about. I almost quit my job the next day and went into farming... I was so shaken up by the whole dreadful experience.

Dances: Were there any more attacks?

Geekman: Oh yes... I wish I had quit, as the second Slashdot Effect was even worse. Several cockroaches that were hiding beneath the server were roasted to death by the flames coming from the overheating Pentium at the height of the maelstrom. And the amount of electricity my servers drew that day exceeded the total amount consumed by Rhode Island in a week.

The next day I sent a memo to James Baughn requesting that he make his articles less funny and more bland to prevent any more such calamities. He replied "I can do that", but his valiant efforts to make his articles even more lame simply wasn't enough to keep away the likes of Taco Boy and his legions of followers and groupies.

Whoa! My beeper just went off; it must be time for my appointment with my shrink. We're going to be discussing the recurring nightmares I keep having about the Slashdot Effect in which I get repeatedly struck by lightning... I gotta go.

Dances: After these messages we'll be back with never before published Humorix articles! Don't touch that Back button.

Announcer: Internet access... $19.95.

Humorix T-shirt: $14.

Inkjet printer... $100.

Printing out a particularly bad Humorix article and using it for toilet paper or fertilizer... Priceless.

Humorix... It's nowhere you want to be.

Dances: Hi, we're back at the Humorix Second Anniversary Special. Our Editorial staff can be quite cranky, rejecting every article they read over picayune stuff. Some articles, no matter how well-written and downright funny, never make it past the Editors. Meanwhile, for some reason I still haven't figured out, lots of really crappy articles do get approved without hesitation.

So, then, a number of articles are left to die from bitrot as they sit in the Rejection box. For your amusement, and to fill up this show with old material, here are two never-before-published articles from the past.

Linus Torvalds: King Of Silicon Valley
This was published last January the day before every geek sat in front of ZDTV for the first (and only) time so they could be the first to learn what Transmeta was doing...

SANTA CLARA, CA -- A mob of high-tech recruiters surrounded Linus Torvalds' house this morning, forcing the Finnish babe-magnet to hire a group of bodyguards. Many now consider Torvalds to be King Midas -- any Silicon Valley start-up he touches turns into gold. Many dotcoms, hoping to turn a profit for the first time, are working to attract Torvalds to their company.

Said one recruiter, "The only reason Transmeta hired Linus was for the buzz and PR that he brought. Tommorrow millions of geeks will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the official Transmeta announcement for a product that probably won't be that great. If it wasn't for Linus, Transmeta would be yet another bankruptcy-bound, product-less company that nobody has ever heard of. Unfortauntely, our company is bankrupcty-bound and product-less, but we hope that if we can hire Linus the ensuing buzz and interest will lift us off the ground..."

Ask Humorix: Defending Gates
And here's another rejected article that I salvaged from electron death...

Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I have to pretend to be Bill Gates and write an editorial defending Microsoft against anti-trust charges, citing economic principles. To complete such an assignment violates every moral fiber of my body. What should I do?"

The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a decision among two choices. You can blow off the assignment, thus forcing you to fail EC101, lowering your GPA below the required minimum to keep your scholarship, causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds all your life. Or you can write a paper that's positive towards Microsoft and make an 'A'. This seems like a no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first option without hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement about the Evil Empire.

Dances: Coming up next... a look behind the scenes here at Humorix. Stay browsed!

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EyeOpener(tm) beverages contain at least 5,000% of the daily recommended dose of caffeine, a quantity that will surely keep you wide awake, alert, and in Deep Hack Mode for weeks at a time. With EyeOpener and ActiveIV, you won't waste your valuable time at a vendine machine.

EyeOpener(tm): You'll Never Waste Another Millisecond Ever Again.

Dances: Welcome back. To finish off this Humorix Second Anniversary Special, I've inserted a secret microphone downstairs in the Humorix Boardroom. A meeting between staff members is about to begin. This is an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the corporate culture here at Humorix, so don't even think about clicking on a hyperlink until you've finished reading this article!

Baughn: Okay, folks, this is an emergency meeting of the Humorix executive staff. You know why we're here.

Jon Splatz: What emergency? Has Jesse Berst retired or something?

Baughn: Well, that would be bad, since Ziff-Davis pundit jokes account for 10% of our content. But that's not the problem. We're broke. I'll turn this over to our new Executive Book Cooker, Mr. G. E. Trich.

G. E. Trich: [Reaches into his pockets] Here's the entire contents of Humorix's bank account: two dollars and fifty-one cents, three million Russian rubles (worth 23 cents), plus an annual membership in the Linux Distro Of The Month Club (worth $9.95).

We can't keep up our burn rate... the daily massages, the luxury jet, the unlimited supply of imported German beer, our constant legal expenses... we've gotta cut back.

Noah Morals (Humorix Lawyer): Now wait a minute! Humorix's legal expenses aren't that expensive. So maybe I've filed and lost a few frivolous, costly lawsuits. I'm charging a bargain-basement price of $500 per minute of work, which is much cheaper than any other lawyer that has the same caliber skill as me. Humorix simply can't cut back it's legal department. Why? Well, I've got this huge monthly payment on a 100,000 acre Montana ranch (and fifty room mansion) that I can barely afford as it is.

James Baughn: What about Humorix merchandise? Isn't anybody buying any?

Trich: Not really. I suppose we could plug the really sweet-looking 100% cotton high-quality Humorix T-shirts in a future article, but we're just not selling as many as we expected.

Splatz: How come we aren't receiving any more Venture Capital?

Baughn: Last year before our IPO, hordes of VCs pounded on our door demanding to invest in us. Remember that? We had to shoo 'em off because they were preventing the pizza delivery guys from getting to our door. Maybe we should have taken their money before we kicked them out.

Trich: Unfortunately most of the Venture Capital has run out. Still, we might be able to send someone on a pilgramage to Silicon Valley and maybe find a few leftover VCs which haven't invested all their money in failed dotcoms.

Baughn: Any other ideas?

Splatz: What about the recent brouhaha surrounding companies that send free stuff to Linux websites in order to "buy" positive reviews? Why aren't we getting any of that free stuff?

Morals: That's right! Why does nobody send us complementary copies of software or books to review? If we can convince other companies to bribe us with free stuff, we could turn around and sell the merchandise on eBay for a tidy profit.

Baughn: I'll have to think about that later when I'm taking a dip in the new Olympic-size swimming pool that was just built on the fifth floor.

Splatz: What? The new pool is finished already? Why doesn't anybody tell me these things?

Baughn: Well, before we go swimming, I just thought of another money source. I'm a college student, which naturally means that I receive about four credit card offers per day. If I were to apply for every one of those cards, I'd probably have a large enough credit limit to keep Humorix afloat for several years.

Trich: But what about the exorbitant 350 percent interest rates those credit card companies offer?

Baughn: Not a problem. One of these days we'll be acquired by some big media conglomerate and we'll let them worry about it... but they won't find out about our staggering debt until after the ink has dried on the contract. Mr. Trich, you are a world-renowned expert in cooking books, right?

Trich: Yep. Not a problem.

Baughn: So then it's settled. You all go ahead and take a swim in the new pool while I go make some calls about the new movie theater I have planned for the tenth floor...

Corporate Surveillance HOWTO

Feature written by James Baughn on July 11, 2000

Back in the old days, many businessmen believed the saying, "The customer is always right." The rules have changed since then. Nowadays, the customer is a potential enemy, capable of spreading truthful information about your company at the speed of light.

The truth is the last thing any large corporation wants the public to know. You only want your supplicants to be exposed to the pravda that's been sifted and churned through your public relations department and then properly spun, slanted, and buzzword-enhanced. Anything less could be spell disaster for your bottom line.

In this HOWTO, we provide some guidelines for how you, the corporate executive, can put a stop to disgruntled truth-spreading customers.

Now you could use some service like eWatch to track down your enemies and "re-educate" them. But they want an outrageous amount to cleanse the truth spread by each "screenname". But why pay all that money for somebody else to use a search engine and then fire off a couple bark letters? Save your precious Venture Capital for some more worthwhile project, such as installing a fifth pool table in the game room next to the bowling alley. (But don't ever consider improving your product or customer service; that's just like throwing money away.)

You might consider striking a deal with a government agency that employs wiretapping, email sniffing, or other Echelon-like surveillance activities. This shouldn't be too difficult; every government body from the FBI down to the Boondock County Trash-Pickup Authority practice espionage on their own citizens. Just make a few well-placed bribes, and you'll be able to tap into their taxpayer-funded spy network to track your enemies.

On the other hand, cozying up to the Feds might be overkill for your purposes. Armed with a search engine, you might be able to do the dirty work yourself. Indeed, you might hit paydirt just by browsing the typical hangouts for anti-corporate truth-mongers, such as Slashdot, Yahoo message boards, Usenet, or humor sites. Once you've tracked down the little twerp, then it's time for action.

Have your legal department send them some threatening letter (email or snail mail) about how they are violating your intellectual property rights and, if they persist, they could face immediate jailtime. Your crafty lawyers will be able to conjure up something; it doesn't have to be true, just as long as your enemy falls for it.

You might not be able to locate their email address, though. Especially if it's one Mr. Anonymous Coward, the nefarious yet untrackable Slashdot denizen who has a beef against every company in existence. Many corporate spies have spent countless man-hours tracking down this mega-disgruntled customer, but to no avail. Your only recourse might be to employ an Astroturf campaign to neutralize AnonCow by posting lots of positive hype-filled comments about your company.

If you are unable to uncover the identity of your enemies, you can always buy a court judge into issuing a subpeona forcing the website owners to fork over their server logs. It worked against Yahoo, after all. The logs will tell you, among other things, the twerp's IP number. You can then cross-reference this datum against the FBI's sorta-secret Echelon database to reveal the Social Security number, postal address, shoe size, DNA sequence, fingerprint, and PGP private key of your enemy.

With that information in hand, you can then step up the pressure:

1. Contact their employers. Tell the boss that your targets are emotionally unbalanced and need to be fired immediately before they cause any irreperable PR damage. After all, if they are capable of spreading unauthorized information about your company, then surely they could snap at any time and distribute truths about their own employer.

2. If they maintain their own website that has information critical of your company, then send a nice little threatening letter to their ISP. As before, have your lawyers fill it with obtuse legalese and vague references to the "DMCA" while making veiled threats of lawsuits or imprisonment unless the unauthorized material is immediately deleted.

3. Don't forget about hired goons. Ever since the early 1900's, usage of hired thugs has dropped off, which means that many businesses are missing out on this wonderful tool. Goons, when hired through an anonymous third party, are a wonderful way to scare the living daylights out of your truth-spreaders since the stooges can't be traced back to you. Of course, which type of hired thugs you choose (muscle-building gun-slinging athletes or briefcase-pushing fast-talking lawyers) is entirely up to you.

4. Offer to hire them at your company. This might sound absurd, but it could work as a last result. Everybody has a price -- even the most ardent Linux zealot would gleefully become a Microsoft employee if enough money were waved in his face. And once these people are assimilated (and re-educated) into your corporate culture, they shouldn't present any more trouble. For instance, if some low-budget humor site keeps poking fun at your company by way of sarcastic HOWTO guides, you could always co-opt the webmaster with a load of money and stock options, and he'll never give you any trouble again.

The promotional materials for the eWatch monitoring and re-education service state that, "It is unfortunate that companies are being targeted by entities whose motives are fraudulent, deceptive, or criminal." (In other words, people who publish unauthorized criticisms of your company on the Internet, a medium which was intended by its founders as the exclusive domain of large corporations).

But armed with the suggestions in this HOWTO, you and your company's legal department should be able to effectively stamp out this menace once and for all, thus ensuring that everything said about your company in public has been pre-approved by your marketing department.

The Geek Independence War (Part 1)

Fake News written by Jon Splatz on July 10, 2000

Americans celebrate their independence day on July 4th, but this is not correct. The Declaration of Independence wasn't actually signed and shipped off to England until July 10th. Why? Take a guess. Lawyers were to blame, as always.

The same is true of Humorixia, that independent geek paradise in the Pacific. The lawyers, politicos, and marketers acted fast to thwart Geek Independence. They almost succeeded.

"We the Geeks of Humorixia, in Order to form a more perfect, bullshit-free Society, establish real Justice, insure domestic Freedom, provide for the common defense of Geeks, promote the general Quality of Software, and secure the Blessings of Free Software to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this... Nation of Humorixia..."
    -- Humorixia General Social License

Ever since the founding of the first law college in the 1500s, the legal "profession" has been steadily increasing in power. In 1776, several attorneys held up American Independence by bickering over the exact wording of the Declaration. Lawyers were overheard saying, "'Inalienable'? Is that even a word?", "This sentence in paragraph 3 isn't gramatically correct!" and "How much of a contingent legal fee will I receive if this Revolution is successful?"

It wasn't until Thomas Jefferson threatened to throw the lawyers into the Hudson River that they finally capitulated and allowed the Declaration to be signed on July 10th.

History has a tendency to repeat itself. Humorixia declared its independence on December 17, 1999, only to be dealt setback after setback by hordes of lawyercrats. Naturally, the idea that geeks could form their own nation without a lawsuit-happy court system scared them to death.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to go back to October of 1999, when the island of Humorix didn't exist yet and I was an unpaid pundit for a lame humor site instead of the esteemed Benevolent Dictator of the world's first meritocracy.

I was sitting in my rat-infested apartment one day, dreaming of forming my own independent nation (little did I know that the "Royal Family" of Sealand had already achieved this), when word came via my Neural Implant From the Future(tm) of an astounding discovery made by the Humorix Vasy Spy Network(tm).

Microsoft was planning to form their own island nation to escape from US anti-trust laws. Forget Canada, Bill Gates wanted to live on "Innovationia", a Pacific enclave for Microserfs. But all the good islands were already taken by American billionaires and multinational corporations.

It was Humorix Operative Double-Oh-Zero who uncovered their plan when he intercepted yet another internal Microsoft memo (Why do they even bother with security?). According to this document, Microsoft had captured the Anomolous Sewage Lagoon #5 in Roswell, Georgia. This lagoon contains a temporal singularity that periodically spits out items from the 24th Century. Apparently one of those items was a terraforming machine.

Their objective was to use this ActiveTerraforming(tm) device to create a new island in the international waters of the Pacific. It should come as no surprise that this new island would be in the shape of the Windows logo. Bill's new mansion would sit at the southwest corner, while the thirty square mile Microsoft Campus/Sweatshop would occupy the northeast part.

Once built, Innovationia Island would become a bastion for corporate greed like the world has never seen before. Microsoft would issue a press release stating, "The sudden appearance of this island out of the blue is a clear sign that God Himself approves of Microsoft's Freedom To Innovate. Take that, Judge Jackson!"

Foreign policy for this new nation would be simple: If a country ticked off Bill Gates, he'd just punch a red button near his desk, and every Windows machine in that country would instantly crash and burn without any hope for repair. That's the beauty of proprietary, closed-source software.

An End-User License Agreement would form the constitution by which the DirectGovernment(tm) of Innovationia would operate. Citizenship would be automatically granted to all Microsoft employees at no charge, and to everybody else for only a nominal fee of US$10,000 to cover the required "re-education" treatment.

The License Agreement would guarantee certain rights, such as free speech -- well, sort of. Here "free" refers to free beer, not... um, free speech. You would never have to pay any money to speak, but if you said something bad about Microsoft, you might wind up receiving "Re-Education 2.0".

In addition, the EULA would prohibit certain acts that might threaten national security, such as running a non-Microsoft operating system, or deliberately crashing Windows machines by typing in "C:\CON\CON". Meanwhile, all Internet (er, Microsoft Network) traffic would be funneled through a single 386 DOS-based firewall that would filter out subversive material (i.e. Humorix).

But let me get back to the story. It was agreed during an emergency meeting at Humorix World Headquarters that we needed to do something about this hideous James Bond-ish plot. Going public wasn't an option, we thought, since nobody would believe stories told by an organization whose name contains the word "humor".

We finally sent our crack investigative reporter, Dances With Herring, to complete this mission. I'll leave out the details, since you probably don't care. Besides, I don't want the networks to use this story to produce any lame made-for-TV movies.

The upshot is that Dances was able to easily crack into Microsoft's computer network and make a few "innovative" changes to the blueprints for the new island. The Microserfs didn't realize their plan had been booby-trapped. When they started their ActiveTerraforming(tm) machine, they stood in horror as the new island took the shape of... Tux Penguin!

The Microsoft employees all fled in horror back to Redmond, not wanting to be near such obviously unholy and sinister ground. They also happened to leave their terraforming machine behind.

Humorixia was ours.

But the battle wasn't over. Microsoft would come back fighting. Then Raymond S. Eric would spread rumors that Humorixia was committing "atrocities against lawyers", which would provide an excuse for the American Attorneys Association to attack us. After all, they weren't about to let us get away with our crusade to prevent the Lawyerclysm.

I was trapped on Humorixia for six months while the island was under siege by lawyers. But this was a small price to pay to advance the cause of Geek Independence. In Part 2 of this series, I'll chronicle the epic struggle of Geeks vs. Lawyers, a conflict that will affect geeks everywhere for decades to come.

Write me at jonsplatz@i-want-a-website.com.

An Epidemic Of Honor System Viruses

Fake News written by James Baughn on July 8, 2000

Linux users have always laughed at the Stage 3 Windows lusers who have to put up with macro viruses. But now a new breed of virus has emerged in the Unix world -- and it's spreading like wildfire. These "honor system" viruses, which first popped up during the Love Bug debacle, request the user to perform some act and then pass the virus on to friends and colleagues. Over the past two months these memes have mutated and propagated at a fantastic rate.

The original honor system virus told recipients to "randomly delete numerous files from your system". Indeed, many people did obey that command by wiping out their Windows partition or deleting all of those unreadable .doc files that clueless friends like to send.

Said one "victim" of this virus, "I've been using Linux for so long that I completely forgot I even had an electron-wasting Windows partition. Thanks to this virus, and its helpful reminder to delete files, I was able to free up beaucoup space on my drive to make room for even more pirated MP3's. You can be sure I passed on this virus to everyone I knew -- it's the least I could do to help out the Linux community."

Other variations have entered into the wild, including "Newbie Nabber", designed to teach a lesson to inexperienced Linux converts. The message coaxes the recipient into executing the attached Perl script to "fix a serious security hole in the Linux kernel that has just been uncovered by security professionals at Red Hat." As you can imagine, the script is a Trojan horse that actually patches the user's mail client to automatically execute Perl and shell script attachments (hey, if it works for Microsoft...). It then greps the luser's hard drive for email addresses and sends a copy of itself to each of them.

Finally, the virus/Trojan outputs this message... "Security hole found between chair and monitor. Please contact your system administrator and request a "cluestick" in order to fix this gaping hole. Have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, I just deleted your hidden cache of pornography."

Our Vast Spy Network(tm) located the friend of the friend of the girlfriend of the person who supposedly created the Newbie Nabber script. He said, "Well, it's Darwin in action. The naive users victimized by this meme will either learn a valuable lesson or get fed up with Linux and return to Windows. Either way we thin out the herd."

A similar virus has also been found in the wild that targets 31337 Script Kiddies by enticing them to run an attached script (as root) that will "hack into the Microsoft website and retrieve the Windows Millennium source code". This Trojan actually replicates itself and then commits suicide by executing "mke2fs /dev/hda1", the Linux equivalent of FORMAT C:, but without the "Are you sure?" prompt.

"Freedom to Innovate Network" Raided By The Feds

Fake News written by James Baughn on July 7, 2000

REDMOND, WA -- In a surprise move, agents from the FBI, NSA, and DOJ launched a surprise raid on the headquarters of the "grass-roots" pro-Microsoft FIN. Nearly 500 members of the organization have been arrested and charged with, in the words of Janet Reno, "providing aid and assistance to Microsoft, a company that has been declared a convicted felon by the Court for anti-trust violations."

"This is organized crime, plain and simple," announced Reno at a press conference held outside of the prison where the top 25 FIN members were temporarily being held. "Godfather Gates must be stopped before he violates even more anti-trust violations and commits murder... er, anti-competitive acts against his rivals."

The raid came just days after the Feds intercepted an internal Microsoft memo entitled, "How to employ a fake grass-roots organization to gain positive PR via astroturf and media manipulation techniques". This memo, along with a roster of all FIN members, was found in the dumpster of Informix. Apparently Informix's corporate spies had gone dumpster diving at Oracle, their competitor, and discovered these documents which Oracle had originally obtained from the trash cans outside the FIN offices.

Court hearings for the 500 FIN members should begin next month. Their defense lawyer issued a public statement saying, "This is an outrage. During the Cold War, McCarthy went after Communists; now in the Microsoft Vigilante War, Reno is going after Microserfs. Has anyone ever heard of 'freedom of assembly'?"

The Linux community is severly torn over the issue. Said Mr. A. Coward, "Well, we all know that what's bad for Microsoft is good for the country. However, the opposite is also true: what's good for the government is bad for the country. If the government tramples upon Microsoft's freedom to innovate creative public relations schemes, then that means the government will soon trample on the rights of everyone. But if the government doesn't do anything, then Microsoft will be free to trample on the rights of every computer user and competitor. What the heck is a Microsoft basher but freedom lover supposed to do?"

Indeed, many geeks who have pondered this paradox have entered into a mental infinite loop. Thankfully, the average geek brain has a built in SIGCAFFEINE signal that the kernel (brain stem) uses to halt any runaway processes when it's time yet again to injest more caffeine. This is a survivial trait; if the brain is overloaded, then it is unable to search for caffeine, which means that the body will soon fall asleep, causing the geek to lose his job, thus resulting in a lack of money, and preventing him from buying cool toys and high-speed Internet access, ultimately forcing him to (oh the humanity!) re-enter the offline meatspace world (which is nearly synonomous with death).

However, some hardcore geeks and ardent Microsoft haters have sided with the Feds in this matter. "The FIN is a scam," said one. "They relay your comments to elected represenatives, but not without making a few 'innovative' changes to them. For instance, if you post the comment, 'Keep up the good work, DOJ... Microsoft sucks', it becomes, 'Keep up the good work [in beating up a defenseless company], DOJ... Microsoft sucks [only because you have taken away their freedom to innovative]'." He added, "Sure, the FIN is a non-partisan organization... they'll gleefully give campaign contributions to any party."

Many Pointy Haired Bosses, on the other hand, are vehemently opposed to the actions of the DOJ. Said one Assistant Vice Undersecretary Upper Manager at a Fortune 500,000 company, "Everybody uses astroturf and fake grass-roots organizations. Nobody would complain, either, if it wasn't for Microsoft who keeps screwing up. But what's wrong with a little political activity by a corporation? I mean, Starbucks does it: they secretly sponsor the 'Association of Citizens for the Monopolization of the Coffee Industry Worldwide'. And AOL, Disney, and others support the 'Parents for the Dumbing-Down of American Culture' organization."

The US Senate responded to the government raid with a "Bad Reno, No Biscuit" resolution chastising the DOJ. It was spearheaded by Sen. Fattecat (R-Washington) who said, "I can't believe this is happening in my home state! This is obviously a conspiracy concocted by the Helsinkian Underground and the GNUist Revolutionaries." Some Senators did vote against the measure; Sen. Phil E. Buster (D-Minnesota) said, "I've lost track of the number of times my Windows laptop has crashed during this session. Microsoft is a menace that must be stopped." He added under his breath, "Besides, I haven't receieved any campaign contributions from them this year. What do I care?"

In related news, hired thugs showed up at the door of Oracle chief Larry Ellison earlier today, and announced, "The Godfather has taken an interest in your health. You better behave. We don't like it when people rummage through our garbage. We'll leave you alone now just as we settle the little matter of a... um, bribe."

Last Independent Linux Site Sold To Commercial Interests

Fake News written by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer on July 4, 2000

During the past year, the founders of Linux websites have been getting rich by selling their sites to commercial interests stuffed with Venture Capital. We here at Humorix were the last holdout -- until today. VA Linux, hot on the heels of acquiring the last two-letter Top Level Domain, announced today that they had acquired Humorix, the last independent Linux portal site, for an undisclosed sum of US$10,000,000,000 (oh, that was supposed to be undisclosed... Oops!).

Humorix is to be merged with Slashdot to create a new mega-portal site, called Slashdotix. With a motto of "Fake news for nerds. Stuff that would matter if it were true", the new site is the logical continuation of Slashdot. As part of the merger, Jon Katz will be fired in favor of Jon Splatz and Roblimo will be demoted to limosine driver for James Taco.

Said one head honcho at VA Linux, "Slashdot has always been accused of running unconfirmed rumors or obviously false articles. With this strategic partnership, that's no longer a problem, because everything will be fake. Of course, some idiot will probably start posting 'Hey, this article is true!' comments, but those can be safely ignored."

The community doesn't seem all that thrilled about the merger. Said Mr. A. Coward, Slashdot's most famous and active poster, while pouring a bowl of hot grits down his pants, "Darn! Now I won't be able to score first posts stating that the article needs better research! What am I going to do now?" He then added coyly, "Oh, by the way, First Interview!"

During the last month, VA Linux has acquired two dozen remaining Linux sites ranging from YetAnotherLinuxNewbieSite.org to PenguinPorn.com to even the Linux Kernel Mailing List itself. They also host a huge percentage of Open Source projects on SourceForge. "Who says you can't make money from Open Source?" asked one VA Linux executive. "Let's just hope a killer backhoe doesn't take out our SourceForge Net backbone connection, or else free software development would halt..."

Other IPO-rich companies such as Internet.com and Red Hat have been busy snatching up Linux properties as well. "Back in the bad old days," explained one industry observer, "everybody wanted to launch a start-up and then sell out to Microsoft for beaucoup bucks. Now the hot strategy is to create a Linux website and sell-out to VA Linux or Internet.com within a month. Man I love this new economy!"