MS Security: On A Path As Clear As It Is Reliable

bobthemonkey13 writes: "It appears that Microsoft's 'secure' E-Book system has been cracked. MIT Technology Review is reporting that an anonymous programmer has figured out how to bypass the 'advanced antipiracy features' in Microsoft Reader. This sounds a lot like what Dmitry did except for two things: The MS E-Book hacker has (wisely) decided to remain anonymous, and he's not publishing his program. God bless the U.S., where moving a book from your home to your office is a federal offence." Along similar lines, an Anonymous Coward indicates this story at USA Today titled "Expert Hacks Hotmail in 1 Line of Code." "I'm in awe! Unless someone can figure out how to execute pseudocode or half a line this isn't beatable. I hope this get's fixed or the whole future of pay-per-view web services could be impacted. :-q" Good thing Microsoft isn't quite sure what to do with all this universal-password stuff. (Thanks to Sacha Prins.)

Jamie adds:

In other news about poor security where you least expect it, Kitetoa informed Veridian a little while ago that: "Any script kiddy can root your web site. And... By the way... Someone already did it (as you should have seen at www.veridian.com/upload/ if you knew anything about internet security)."

I don't know what that URL gives you now, but as of this writing, and for the last several hours, it's read:

fuck USA Government
fuck PoizonBOx
contact:sysadmcn@yahoo.com.cn

This is the same Veridian that the Defense Department picked to track computer network attacks on DoD systems, specifically attacks coming from China.

Comments

3 == 1 ?!

[gizmo_mathboy]

I've never liked USA Today as a news source.

The headline clearly reads, "Expert hacks Hotmail in 1 line of code". Then in the second sentence of the first paragraph, "It took just three lines of code for Grossman to breach Hotmail filters..."

Brilliant reporting. Whatever generates page hits I guess...

Re:3 == 1 ?!

[evilquaker]

The headline clearly reads, "Expert hacks Hotmail in 1 line of code". Then in the second sentence of the first paragraph, "It took just three lines of code for Grossman to breach Hotmail filters..."

And the line after that reads:

The second time it took just one line.

Well, at least you tried to read the article... that's more than most of the Slashbots.

Hack hotmail in one line of code

[Mike Schiraldi]

while true; do telnet www.hotmail.com 80 < /dev/urandom; done

Then just sit back and wait.

On a related note, i'd like to dispel a common myth. Real Programmers don't use 'cat > a.out' or 'cat /dev/audio > a.out' plus some whistling, they type 'chmod +x /dev/urandom' and hope for the best.

Re:this is what freenet was made for!

[drift factor]

If the author is out there in slashland email me, and I will publish the app for you publically and with my name. I will accept all responsibility for writing the program and distributing.

No, don't email to him, he's using hotmail! :)

Engineering != Marketing

[Evro]

Marketing:

1. Say you've done it
2. Try to do it
3. Study feasibility of it

Note that steps 2 and 3 are optional.