Hillsboro lawmaker’s Web site invaded by virtual strippers

Rep. Chuck Riley says he doesn’t know why a site affiliated with him points to a defunct online ‘strip club’

By Christian Gaston

The Forest Grove News-Times, Mar 8, 2010, Updated Mar 8, 2010 (4 Reader comments)

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It seemed like a classic political gotcha moment: navigate to a Web site affiliated with a politician and, lo and behold, there’s a site promoting a strip club in the online alternate reality realm known as Second Life.

Except the politician, Hillsboro Democrat Chuck Riley, 70, has no idea what Second Life is. And the Web site, graffic.com, doesn’t belong to him, but instead his son, Brad Riley.

Graffic.com is used by Brad Riley for e-mail addresses. When users navigate to the site, it's supposed to be identical to the younger Riley’s Internet firm, Graphic Traffic (graphictraffic.net).

Riley says his son thinks someone hacked into Graffic.com and uploaded the Web site contents of The Gallery Isle, a virtual strip club in the online world of Second Life.

Riley is running in the Democratic primary for state Senate District 15 against Travis Comfort in a bid to unseat Republican incumbent Bruce Starr.

Asked if politics could be the reason for the hacking, Riley said he didn’t know.

“I could not guess why anyone would choose Graffic.com and link to some virtual web site,” Riley said. “But I do know that people pirate these things all the time.”

It started on YouTube

The spoofed Web site came to light this weekend when a YouTube user named Hillsboro Politics posted a video walking through the process of tracing Graffic.com back to Riley.

The user, who called himself John Smith in an e-mail message to the Forest Grove News-Times, started by using an Internet function called “whois” to look up the domain registration information for Chuckriley.org, the candidate’s old Web site (maintained by Brad Riley’s Internet business Graphic Traffic).

In the registry information Riley’s e-mail is listed as chuckriley@graffic.com. Smith then navigated to Graffic.com, and found the Web site of The Gallery Isle, complete with scantily clad derrieres.

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