“The threat of legal action can be an effective, preemptive
weapon in the ever-shifting front lines of copyright law, as the
well-known (and now former) cracker-education Web site
Icefortress.com has recently learned. The ICE crew have decided to
pack up their operation rather than defend a lengthy court battle
threatened by on-line porno billing outfit IBILL, a frequent, and
fairly challenging, target for password crackers.”
“The Icefortress crew believes that the issue for IBILL was an
outdated essay on the site’s guest area, written by a former
member, containing a brief tip, not on methods of cracking
IBILL-protected sites, but merely on how to prevent IBILL from
detecting one’s real IP. IBILL, according to the essay’s author,
Lucifer Fallen, connects to one’s security port; it is therefore
advisable to see that a proxy is loaded there if one wishes to
remain anonymous.”
“While the objectionable information in this case might well
be ruled by a court to be too general to qualify as a violation of
trade secrets or the skirting of technical access controls, the ICE
crew feel they have neither the resources nor the time to test it
and find out firsthand. It would not be the first time that a
controversial Web site has been forced to close shop because the
operators had not the means to fight a court challenge by a
well-heeled opponent.”