September 24, 1998
                                  Contact: Jan Galligan  galligan@sprynet.com 


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------



UNLEASHING AN ARMADA OF INTERNET AND E-MAIL COUNTER-ATTACKS,
computer programmers from The New York Times, The Drudge Report
and internet service provider Rt66 joined forces with the authors,
John Markoff and Carolyn Meinel and on-line journal editor Jan
Galligan to mount a swift surgical reprisal against the hacker
group H.F.G. (Hacking for Girlies).

H.F.G. had recently compromised the web sites or disrupted the
e-mail of each of the above mentioned groups and persons and
had threatened further disruptions if provoked.

Using a method described by The Drudge Report group as 'tit-
for-tat', the co-ordinated effort launched an unprecedented
barrage combining e-mail spam, List-Serve subscriptions, 
flamers, know-bots, IRC feed-back, internet worms, and a series
of tightly crafted legal warnings.

In the face of this relentless assault, the H.F.G. group raised
their internet white flag and agreed to cease and desist from
further incursions against the above named victims.  Further,
the hacker group consented to remove all traces of their earlier
attacks and to undo any e-mail mischief that they may have
executed against these unwitting victims.

Unnamed sources at the New York Times said that they were certain
that the Times website had seen the last of the H.F.G. hackers 
"unless they show up in a story generated by our own writers
and editors."  John Markoff, author of 'TakeDown', the story of
the capture of notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, whose cause
H.F.G. was reputedly supporting, said he was happy to have them
finally out of his hair. Author Carolyn Meinel, whose book 'Happy
Hacker' follows earlier hacker wars, commented that her I.S.P.,
Rt66 "had done a yomans job in purging her e-mail system of
these internet pests". 

When asked for his response, Jan Galligan  said "I'm still reeling 
from the on-slaught. I've been unable to upload new items to 
my site for the past few days, and until yesterday we had to 
look at  that ugly squashed oppossum everytime we wanted to look 
at our homepage. What I'm still wondering however, is, why me?"

All parties agreed that they were happy to get back to 'business-
as-usual' and were unanimous in their efforts to assure their 
readers and correspondents that all of their web pages and e-mail
messages, past and present, are now free from intervention.


----------------------------------  end  --------------------------------------

 c. 9-25-98 J.Galligan