The case of the mysterious .gov site

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Department of Defense spokesman has never heard of the group that operated AONN.gov, and the U.S. General Services Administration has pulled the site's .gov domain because of questions about the organization's connection to the U.S. government.

Still, Robert L. Taylor III, chief information officer of Access One Network Northwest, continues to claim he operates a "clandestine" cybersecurity and intelligence agency supported by the Deparment of Defense (DOD), according to an e-mail statement attributed to Taylor sent in response to IDG News Service questions. The e-mail was sent by someone purporting to be the webmaster at AONN.gov's companion site, dsispecialaccess.net.

In a plot worthy of "The X-Files," the General Services Administration (GSA), which assigns .gov domains, yanked the AONN.gov domain in late January, but declined to comment on how Taylor's group received the URL (uniform resource locator) in the first place. The GSA issued a statement Thursday: "There is question about the authenticity of the web site that included the AONN name. Until the situation is resolved, we have eliminated the URL from the dot gov directory name server."

The Google cache of the AONN.gov domain is available at http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:1JEsrM4RI4oC:www.aonn.gov/+%22Rober...

Taylor 's group also declined to explain who gave AONN and its affiliated "covert" group Defense Security Intelligence Network access to a .gov site. "It doesn't work like that," the webmaster at AONN.gov's companion site, responded by e-mail when asked for the name of the government person who assigned the .gov domain to him. The webmaster did not respond to repeated telephone messages, but did reply to questions sent by e-mail.

"Our intent isn't to embarrass the government. Our aim is only to strengthen U.S. government spy capabilities and the overall economy. GSA provided the domain, account and access after we made a secret arrangement with the Pentagon. Don't worry; the Pentagon knows about this even if they claim they don't. That's the nature of our profession."

But a high-ranking Defense Department spokesman said his checks into AONN have come up empty. A search of the DOD's DefenseLink.mil contractor database shows no mention of AONN, said Lieutenant Colonol Ken McClellan, although it's possible that such a search would leave out a subcontractor to a DOD agency.

"Nobody could tell me who it was," McClellan said of his inquires about AONN. "How you would be getting a .gov suffix and not be a government agency, that'd be beyond me."