UFC president Dana White was looking to offer an apology but nearly found himself in an unpleasant situation.
"I get my gun before answering the door," Julie Breeler told Las Vegas' FOX 5. "I crack the door and say, 'Yes?' He says, 'Julie Breeler?' and I'm like, 'Yes.' He says, 'Hi, I'm Dana White.'"
White visited Breeler's home to offer a personal apology for hundreds of harassing phone calls she received after her information was mistakenly released by hackers who were trying to attack the UFC boss.
White's alleged information was posted this past week by a Twitter user claiming to be a member of UGNazi.com, the same Internet group that recently attacked UFC.com. The online collective known as Anonymous this past Thursday also hacked into both UFC.com and UFC.tv, briefly defacing the websites. The hackers also claim to have mined customer data during the raid but have yet to prove their success.
"(I) went over and apologized for all the trouble caused by the online terrorists," White told FOX 5 Las Vegas.
Most credit the original Web attack on the UFC as a response to an editorial published by its chief legal counsel, Lawrence Epstein, who expressed support for the controversial anti-piracy bills SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).
White then added a bit of fuel to the fire, offering an open challenge to Internet hackers, stirring the follow-up response.
"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "So you want to keep hacking our site? Go for it. Watch what happens. You're hurting yourself."
The UFC has aggressively pursued piracy in the courts in recent years and successfully brought down several websites that pirated its content. While White today admitted the bill was not the perfect vehicle in the fight to protect his promotion's most valuable product – pay-per-view broadcasts – he recently said it's the best weapon available at the moment.
"Is SOPA the perfect bill? No, it's not," he said. "The only thing that we're focused on is piracy. Piracy is stealing. If you walk into a store and you steal a gold watch, it's the same as stealing a pay-per-view. I don't care what your twisted, demented idea of stealing is. This kids who grew up on the Internet never had to pay for anything, so they don't think that you should have to."
In related news, the hacker who claims responsibility for the recent attack on UFC.com was interviewed by tech-focused website Softpedia.com. In the interview, the hacker reveals he's a self-taught 13-year-old Australian native who envisions a career in "ethical hacking."
The hacker claims to have attacked approximately 150 websites to date, including those belonging to MasterCard, the FBI and more than 81 sites that belong to the U.S. and Brazilian governments.
Source: Following mistaken identity, UFC boss Dana White apologizes to harassment victim
