Nike Gets Swooshed
Civil disobedience, vandalism, hijacking. Post-championship L.A.? No, the Nike Web site, which hackers yesterday turned into their private romping ground. Only rather than exultant NBA fans turning over cars, here were sober-minded activists deflecting traffic to a site run by the Australian group S-11. Among other demands, S-11's site urges a boycott of the World Economic Forum, a meeting about Asian growth scheduled for Melbourne just days before the Olympics are set to begin in Sydney.
Nike is a Summer Olympics sponsor, a connection played up by the AP. In its story, the newswire also made an unqualified statement that sounds like it came straight outta Beaverton: "(Nike) has worked to improve conditions, hiring monitors and creating executive positions to deal exclusively with labor rights." CNET relied on the AP blurb, which also offered the bemused quote of Nike spokesman Vada Manager that "We're backtracking now to find out how this happened."
The New York Times' Matt Ritchel, who seems to be having a busy week, got company spokesperson Corby Casler to sound world-weary when she sighed, "Nike is used to this type of thing."
The Journal also went with its own coverage. A staff reporter revealed that Nike was looking to domain registrar Network Solutions as one possible route taken by hackers. Wrong, said ABCNews.com, which attributed the breach to a company called FirstNET Online, owner of registration service FrugalNames. The Scottish firm, said the news site, couldn't get Nike to return phone calls. FirstNET also released a statement saying it couldn't manage the superhuman feat of "stopping the traffic which is resulting from the re-routing of www.nike.com." Where's Tiger Woods when you need him? - Steven M. Zeitchik
Hackers Take Over Nike Web site (AP) http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2122747.html
Protesters Hack Nike Web site http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/06/biztech/articles/22nike.html (Registration required.)
Nike Says Web Site Was Hacked in Protest of Economic Forum http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB961632106181641786.htm (Paid subscription required.)
Nike Web Site Hacked http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/nike000621.html
Nike.com Hijacked by Protestors http://www.msnbc.com/news/423820.asp
Webjackers Do It to Nike http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,37146,00.html