In 2011 UFC and Strikeforce parent company ZUFFA LLC vocally came out in support of the Stop Online Piracy Ac (SOPA), and ultimately unsuccessful bill to greatly expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property.
In response, an individual calling himself as JoshTheGod hacked the UFC site. JoshTheGod, real name Mir Islam, was a member of Underground Nazi H4ck3rHr0up, which is part of the loosely associated hacktivist group Anonymous.
Underground Nazi H4ck3rHr0up has no relation – WHAT SO EVER – to the Underground at mixedmartialarts.com.
UFC President Dana White heard about the hacking during a video interview. In Time magazine’s 2011 Man of the Year, Anonymous was ranked as one of the People Who Mattered, along with Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Osama bin Laden, among others.
White’s repsonse?
“I could give a shit if you knock my website down. Do it again! Go ahead. I dare you!”
Anonymous then publicly posted White’s his telephone number, his social security number, and his home address.
Unfortunately, the address listed actually belonged to one Julie Breeler. A previous owner some 20 years ago, was named Dana and had a white cat.
Breeler then received non-stop phone calls from job seekers and others who hoped for a word with White. White went to Breeler’s house to apologize for what he termed ‘terrorist’ activity, where he was met with a gun.
A Richmond, CA police offer tweeted aggressively in support of White, and was threatened with firing.
White finally took to Twitter and engaged Inan extended debate of sorts with various Anonymous sympathisers. White, who has spoken at the Oxford Debating Society but is infamous for his colorful language, and a representative of Anonymous were by and large admirably cordial.
This week JoshTheGod was arrested by the FBI in a sting operation, as part of a wider investigation into credit card fraud.
In an interview with INC Magazine, White reflected on the incident.
“I was in Chicago for a fight when I found out these Anonymous guys had started crashing our site. During an interview, I looked right into the camera and dared them to do it again. I said, Who do you think I am, eBay? I’m in the fight business. I could give a shit if you knock my website down. Do it again! Go ahead. I dare you!
“You’re gonna send some pizzas to my house and put my Social Security number out? Who gives a shit? If people really wanted to get your Social Security number, I’m sure they could find it. I’m supposed to bow down to you guys now? I’m going to come after you harder. If you want to fight me, you better pack a f—ing lunch, man. Because we’re gonna go until somebody wins and somebody loses.
“You should have seen the kind of tweets their Twitter followers were sending me. All these mysterious threats, like, “We’re watching you” and “We can find you.” I told them, Come find me, you f—in’ nerds. Here’s my hotel. I’m in Chicago. Come find me.
“It was a Twitter war for days. And that’s when it gets fun. You get these guys engaged, you get ’em going, and that’s when you get the FBI involved. Because there’s so much piracy of UFC merchandise, the FBI was already monitoring everything that was happening. But after Anonymous hacked our site, we also got U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, involved. And it helps when they know when and where the hackers are going to attack. So I put my chin out there, and we knew they were gonna punch it. Two weeks after they attacked me, a lot of them started getting busted. I think we contributed to that.
“I stood up to these guys and challenged them when nobody else would. I’ve got no problem telling anybody in the world that this is how it went down. Yeah, they leaked some info and dropped our website for a couple of days, but I’m not gonna back down to these Internet bullies. If there are people out there who believe that they can steal or make money off of your intellectual property, I don’t care who they are. You go after them, guns a-blazin’, man. Guns a-blazin’.”
