Hacker smears blogger as "child porn watcher"

There seems to be no end to the harassment of homeless blogger Bill Simpson.

Just hours after the article, "Homeless man barred for blogging, Part 2", was published on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog and NowPublic.com, a hacker struck. The hacker was obviously displeased with the article which exposed the Carnegie Learning Centre, operated by Capilano College and the City of Vancouver, for barring a homeless man for daring to blog. The hacker attempted to discredit Simpson by criminally libeling him.

The hacker periodically altered text in the article. The article opened with Simpson being falsely identified as a "child porn watcher". His website, timetender.ca, was falsely identified as "yougboyz.ca".

Here's another example of altered text:

Original text: Simpson was a computer student, showing up regularly to teach himself how to build a website.
Altered text: Simpson was a computer student and a racist, showing up regularly to masturbate himself....

Simpson wasn't the only student at the Carnegie Learning Centre to be maligned. The word "fat" was inserted in front of the name of another student mentioned in the article. This indicated that the hacker was not an outsider, but someone familiar with the student body inside the Carnegie Learning Centre.

In addition to altering text of current postings, the hacker added their own posting, claiming, "BILL IS A FAG!". For the record, Simpson is a heterosexual guy with an ex-wife and two grown children. The imposter signed the posting with the name of a person who originally set up the Enquirer's blogger account, a name that had not previously been made public.

Even the news site NowPublic.com, which gave the Enquirer article exposure and ran a photo of Simpson, was hacked into. The "homeless" blogger became the "homo" blogger in the blurb promoting the article.

A racist comment was also inserted on NowPublic.com by the hacker. Breaking into an account held by "jr" who posts articles from the Enquirer, and signing with Bill Simpson's name, the hacker suggested that Carnegie: "Ban some of those chinks for gambling and drunk Indians."

The Downtown Eastside Enquirer has had an ongoing problem with a hacker, since criticizing the Carnegie Centre and the poverty industry on the Downtown Eastside. Last fall, the name of the blog was tampered with and two postings deleted. When the postings were restored, the hacker returned and deleted the entire blog. Due to the level of defamation this time around, it is being treated as a criminal matter.

The Enquirer is also asking Google blogger.com to take an interest in this professional hacker making a mockery of their system. When the hacker originally struck last fall, Google was notified but gave no help in restoring the deleted blog postings -- even though they have a copy of everything. Some old postings have still not been restored. The Enquirer did, on the advice of Google, change the password - but a password is a mere speed bump to a skilled hacker.

Downtown Eastside sources to the Enquirer insist on anonymity, claiming that people who speak up about the Carnegie Centre or the poverty industry on the Downtown Eastside are vulnerable to harassment. Their fears do not appear to be unfounded.

Back after being hacked

The Downtown Eastside Enquirer appears to have became the victim of a hacker over the past week.

At first the hacker deleted the description of the blog, altered some of the settings, and deleted a couple of postings, including one entitled McFailure. The hacker also published a copy of a posting that had been stored under Draft.

The Enquirer responded by restoring the deleted material.

Then the hacker struck again. This time deleting the entire blog!

This hacking came after a Carnegie Board member twice verbally attacked a homeless Carnegie member whom he suspected was behind the blog. The Board member also verbally attacked a friend of the suspected blogger. The suspected blogger was again verbally attacked, twice, by a leftie activist who sometimes comes to the Downtown Eastside. Then Carnegie staff persons, one a CUPE member and the other a BCTF member, who had been criticized on the blog for repeatedly locking doors to publicly funded services, arranged to have the suspected blogger barred for a day from the Carnegie Learning Centre. (They would later upgrade the barring to a permanent one.)

Although Carnegie has for several months been blocking community access to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer on their computers, censorship has been stepped up over the past few days. Blogging capability -- access to blogger.com -- has been completely blocked on several Carnegie computers. As a final effort to deter publication of the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, the suspected blogger was barred for life from the Carnegie Learning Centre by Ethel Whitty, the Director of Carnegie appointed by the City of Vancouver, and Lucy Alderson, a teacher and BCTF member. Alderson told him that he was barred for allegedly contributing to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

But despite setbacks, the Downtown Eastside Enquirer has, as Arnold would say, "cum bock".

Canada is not yet China.

[Most of the original postings will be restored over the next couple of days.]