The ARG of PWN
by Sean on Apr.01, 2008, under weirded
Take a look at the screen shot below and let me know if something looks out of place:
(click to enlarge)
http://argn.com
While looking for info on the Conspiracy Asylum ARG last night I visited ARGNet.com. I don’t usually click ads, but the black banner is kind of hard to miss so I clicked it. It takes you to a flash sequence on http://exposethegrid.com with a winged-snake being and messages about world peace and hijacking the media machine. Interesting… After the flash finishes, it dumps you to here.
Okay, so it is April Fool’s day. Conspiracy Asylum probably bought a banner ad on ARGNet to launch a new case. I go to Unfiction.com to see if they have any info. It is almost 3am and I start to think I am hallucinating:
(click to enlarge)
http://unfiction.com
The same banner is on Unfiction! For some reason, the one on Unfiction is not clickable – it is just an image. Then I realize that the banner on ARGNet is not an ad banner, they were hacked. Actually, “cracked” is the correct term. It doesn’t look like the hacker who did this gained full access to the servers but they were able to insert some code for the image.
The art, or should I say, “The ARG of PWN” 
But then I start to get paranoid that the hacker might have put some malware on the site and infected my computer. So, I run all three sites through both Exploit Prevention Labs link checker tool and SpyBye.org.
http://linkscanner.explabs.com/linkscanner/default.asp
http://www.spybye.org/
All three come up clean. Whew! There is some weird stuff on Expose the Grid, like a link to a real government site called Darpa. There is also a link for hacked files but it is password protected. Anyways, I need to get some sleep. I’ll do some more digging tomorrow.
Popularity: 73% [?]
April 1st, 2008 on 2:22 pm
It looks like both of them are gone now, though, right?
But that is really weird. Especially what the website says.
I’m seriously inclined to write these guys off as loonies, but something seems very different here… Hm.
April 1st, 2008 on 2:30 pm
I’m a bit of a loony myself
It is strange that the image is gone but neither of the sites have issued any kind of statement. If it were some sort of April Fool’s publicity stunt for the Conspiracy Asylum ARG, you’d think they would have left the banners up.
April 1st, 2008 on 3:08 pm
Too bad I missed it.
April 1st, 2008 on 5:17 pm
The reason there’s no statement is because this is fake. We’ll have an official statement within the hour.
April 1st, 2008 on 7:23 pm
So, ARGNet wasn’t hacked? Here is the statement
April 1st, 2008 on 7:33 pm
Hax0rz. My new favorite word! What I’m wondering is if the person who placed those images on the site was just testing out the hole they found and then pulled them off quickly. They did it at a time when nobody would be visiting.
The only other explanation is that ARGNet put them up themselves. Chances of that are about nil considering the article. Is the Jonathan above actually from ARGNet?