Attrition (website)

Attrition is an information security-related website, updated at least weekly by an all-volunteer staff. Until 21 May 2001, Attrition maintained the largest mirror of defaced (or "cracked") websites available on the world wide web. The defacement mirror has since ceased updating.

Often incorrectly described by journalists as a site for hackers, Attrition is actually a privately owned and operated hobby-site with a variety of information available, including movie and music reviews, poetry, security tips covering topics like forensics, data theft, advisories, incident response, and the "Going Postal" section, where some of the more interesting emails the staffers get are posted with humorous responses. A very good example of this involved the humorous case of Todd Shriber, who attempted to "hire" the attrition team to hack into his former university to change his grades. He was sacked from his job as a republican communications director due to the incident.

Since updating of the defacement mirror has ceased, the staff has focused on the "Errata" section, which is devoted to pointing out inaccuracies, omissions and other problems with mainstream media related to computer security and hacking. Additionally, staff members publish opinion pieces such as "Security Rants" pointing out problems with the computer security industry.

Attrition will frequently publish pages, or devote entire sections of the site, to topics the staff feel deserve extra attention. Examples include "Cisco: There is no fixed software for this issue," "The Open Source Vulnerability Database," "Security Advisories," "Negation," regarding John Vranesevich and [http://Antionline.com Antionline.com] ; "Shame," regarding Carolyn Meinel.

Attrition also hosts several electronic mailing lists relating to information security, such as InfoSec News.

External links

* [http://attrition.org Attrition]
* [http://www.attrition.org/postal/z/033/0871.html Attrition's humorous "going postal" exchange with Todd Shriber]