WSJ, 9 Feb 1996 Shimomura, Pursuer of Hackers, Finds Himself Homeless on Web By Jared Sandberg A renowned hacker catcher who co-wrote the book "Takedown" just got a bit of a takedown himself. Tsutomu Shimomura, the Internet security expert credited with catching fugitive hacker Kevin Mitnick last year, set up a site on the Internet's World Wide Web to chronicle the famous cat-and-mouse chase. To supplement the book, the on-line database includes audio clips of taunting messages Mr. Mitnick left for Mr. Shimomura and transcripts of chat sessions that the hacker held with friends, under the heading "Kevin On Demand." But over the weekend, the address of the Web site, "takedown.com," was deleted at a hacker's request and replaced with a bogus entry, "takendown.com." Not exactly hilarious, but this is hacker humor. "It's pretty juvenile," said Mr. Shimomura, who got his address back by Wednesday night. But he notes that hackers could easily change the Internet addresses of corporations or even America Online Inc. "I expect that businesses like AOL would be much less amused if they were renamed 'aohell.com,' and that would cost them real money." The problem arose when Network Solutions Inc., the company that sets up addresses on the Internet, was apparently conned by someone claiming to be Mr. Shimomura. A company official said that he hadn't been able to investigate the matter because the company has been deluged with electronic mail in an unrelated prank. But many experts are concerned that Network Solutions doesn't verify the authenticity of Internet address requests, which number as many as 3,000 a day, and that the company simply takes people at their word. "They do it all the time, and they shouldn't," said Steven Bellovin, a security expert at AT&T Corp.'s research unit, who fears such dupes will grow more common. Mr. Bellovin noted that hackers have also exchanged software tools that can redirect users to phony sites. "Hackers share tools better than the good guys," he said. Network Solutions is working on a tool to check the authenticity of requests for address changes. But some think that such moves are a little late. Mr. Shimomura said, "Unfortunately, we live in a world where things need to break before they're fixed." --