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CNN Says Chat Rooms Are a Haven for Hackers
MiTEG writes "CNN is carrying an article about IRC and how it aids "hackers" with their mischief. There are some alarming quotes from Bruce Schneier, CTO of Counterpane Technologies, such as "people who are anti-big-corporation are going to be more likely to use something like IRC"." Yeah, if they ever hung out in our chatroom, they'd
lock us all up for abusing Kurt the Pope.
And fresh reports say that 'hackers' also use e-mail, telephones and postal services. Shut them all down!
Ne mæg werig mod wyrde wiðstondan, ne se hreo hyge helpe gefremman.
In this age of watered-down single source media, this article is about par for the course. It's hard to believe that the bulk of American's accept CNN as a reliable media outlet.
Criminals that want to organize any criminal actions are known to use the telephone system to communicate!
Ah, what fun we had with bots . . . We had a bot to talk to our phone list database, a bot to page people, etc . . . Grand fun.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
this just in -- dancefloors, bars, other public settings rumored to be HACKER FREE!
thelocust[dot]org
Chatrooms, in the news over the past years, have also been a haven for:
People sharing interest in pretty much everything you can find in alt.* and rec.*
Pedophiles
People meeting each other legitimately and socially
Terrorist plots
The future of Slashdot
It's just another red herring for the media, the biggest news for the New Yahk media is a big drought in Delaware, so guess what they dig up to shock Mr. and Mrs. Average American. Big wh00p.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
One of the solutions for this problem is webchats. Webchat can be done using http and a web browser, all the functionality becomes controled by web frames inside the browser. No information can be retrieved besides the ones avaiable.
Of course that there are plenty of disadvantages, the speed is one of them, but I think that is acceptable so we can increase security.
Other option is modify IRC protocol to avoid these security flaws, this would avoid speed problems, and maybe is the more intelligent thing to do. But, will new IRC clients/servers implement the new protocol.
IMHO the new protocol, whatever it would be, http or new irc, should not be compatible with the old one, so we enforce the change, and avoid further problems.
What are the other options?
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Anonymously stealing, trading personal information
Ok, do this over IRC, and you're a criminal - do it with a website, spyware, or spam, and you're a business.
hmmmm..... maybe I need to check out #amazon and #brilliant.
the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) didn't provide any statements to CNN regarding what goes on in Internet Relay Chat
Gee, I guess it would have been way too much trouble for CNN's hotshot reporters to log on and find out for themselves before running this half-baked article.
"A lot more credit card numbers are stolen than ever used, but you should assume that right now, in your wallet, there's a credit card number that has been stolen off the Net."
You should ALSO assume that your wife is cheating on you. And you're about to be fired. And someone is monitoring you. Constantly. We even know what brand of socks you're wearing.
In other words, just trust the big companies and none of this would ever happen???
I don't think that was either the Schneier's point. I think Schneier was just pointing out the obvious.
If I am not mistaken, AOL has always monitored and censored their chatroom conversations. As a corporation, AOL has the ways and means to control the whole process. With IRC there is not any centralized control--someone can be running an IRC server in their dorm room, specifically FOR illegal activity, and there's nobody for the Fed's to subpoena, since they probably won't even know about it.
All Schneier was saying is that it's a no-brainer for the criminal types to use IRC instead of some sort of proprietary corporate communication method.
That was a good laugh.. and my friends.. that's why it was posted to /. :)
:) Surprised they didn't talk about that.
:) I met both my partners of my company (Web Hosting/Web Development) on IRC, and they have been good friends ever since. It is quite the successful business, and I have learned much since then... all because of IRC (well, I guess not that much.. I'm still using /. ;)
;better person.. to react in the right mannor (not just to get +o.. or plus +O for that matter ;0)
:) afaik :)
I've been IRC'ing since 1992. That's 10 years, and I'm still not a veteran.
Some of the World's (Internet's) greatest heros and founders hang out on EFNet/IRC or some like service...
Remember BBS?
It's so typical for people to lash out on things they do not understand. More or less, its all too typical that they never emphasize the best parts about it. I mean comon.. Let's think about it.
IRC is a place to share knowledge, not just CC #'s (who are they kidding.. I have never been asked to trade a CC # or anything of the like.) Many of the World's 'hackers' (or techies that work for YOUR company) can acredit their knowledge (or at least the start) to IRC. I know I can.
I knew nothing (well, not nothing, a tincy bitty bit) about the Internet, its structure, protocols, computers, other operating systems, etc. before I came to IRC.
It all started with the 'need' to have an eggdrop bot in my channel.. How the hell was I to do this?
*shrug* I didn't know what I was doing.. but I got my hands on a free WOPR.net shell, (if anyone knows who I'm talking about.. send a shout out.. I'm curious) and was forced to learn a bit of unix commands (heh) to opperate the bot...
By and by I had shell after shell.. learning more about *nix as the opportunity came along. I eventually had the oppertunity to have root on a friends system (from IRC) and learned more and more about the system and how it worked.
Fast forward a bunch of years
The news concentrates on the bad things always.. I've become a better person because of IRC, completely. Not only have I learned a tone of IT stuff.. I've also learned how to be a
Much of the Internet success stories are because of IRC, and I feel this article fails to discuss this... That is a bad thing, and this is why us 'hackers' seem to get a bad rep.
Oh yeah.. IRC didn't teach me how to spell, really
------------
Sase
"It's the opposite of that."
"A lot more credit card numbers are stolen than ever used, but you should assume that right now, in your wallet, there's a credit card number that has been stolen off the Net."
To me this says, that I should assume, in my wallet is a stolen credit card. Well, there isn't, and I don't need to check. I have one credit card, and since I get a statement every month with my name on it, I obviously didn't steal it.
Now if he's just a confusing person and is actually saying that I should assume that one of my credit card numbers has been stolen. Well, as long as everyone out there practices some basic security, they shouldn't worry about that either. The first thing is to make sure you have fraud protection on your credit card (most have a $50 limit now). Second, look at your statement! If you just pay your bill without examining the charges, well, send me your credit card number!
"Hackers" getting personal information and selling it to other "hackers" is bad.
Corporations getting personal information and selling it to other corporations is good.
People with tightly held secrets are suspect.
Corporations with tightly held secrets are to be trusted.
A person trying to extort people is a thug and scam artist.
A corporation trying to extort people is just protecting the artists.
OK. I got it. Now can I incorporate myself? I think I'd be much better off as a corporation than as a citizen.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
"It's older, it's not tied to Microsoft or AOL or a big company, it's one of the Internet protocols ... so if you're running Windows or Linux or Macintosh or another flavor of Unix, you can use it," says Schneier. "So it's not that it's more suitable for hackers to use, it's just a more basic service and people who are anti-big-corporation are going to be more likely to use something like IRC."
There's the only useful statement in the whole fscking article. What a loaf of fertilizer. Must have been a boring newsday for the CNN "tech" crew...
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
There are some alarming quotes from Bruce Schneier, CTO of Counterpane Technologies, such as "people who are anti-big-corporation are going to be more likely to use something like IRC".
It actually seems to me that Schneier did a pretty good job of preventing some editor from slapping an alarmist breaker along the lines of "IRC is a tool designed for smelly hackers" into the piece; take a look at the full quote:
"It's older, it's not tied to Microsoft or AOL or a big company, it's one of the Internet protocols ... so if you're running Windows or Linux or Macintosh or another flavor of Unix, you can use it," says Schneier. "So it's not that it's more suitable for hackers to use, it's just a more basic service and people who are anti-big-corporation are going to be more likely to use something like IRC." [Emphasis added.]
He goes out of his way to point out that there's nothing that makes IRC particularly "suited" to nefarious purposes, but rather that its non-corporate nature is likely to appeal to anti-corporate people. (That, of course, is an assertion that can be argued forever, but it doesn't strike me as too alarming.)
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
I may have skimmed a little too lightly, but I didn't see anyone mention that CNN actually runs one of the best IRC servers used for interactive televsion! When Mir was returning to Earth, there were well over 800 people in the room.
Then, with Talkback Live, they make excellent use of AIM and IRC. Very forward thinking.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Any guesses as to how many posts on this thread will...
::insert whatever:: using ridiculous slippery-slope logic.
- Call CNN a bunch of morons.
- Suggest that we should therefore ban
- Say "Duh".
...without showing ANY evidence of reading the article, or making any factual statements whatsoever?
Really, now.
Now, for those with actual central nervous systems and who actually care about facts rather than knee-jerk responses:
IRC is a multiperson always-on real-time worldwide system, and is therefore more conducive to exchanges and marketing than phones, pagers and their ilk. There's no comparison, really, except for morons, because while a phone system at most might be a small-scale party line, messages on IRC can reach nigh-arbitrary amounts of people whom you DON'T need to have previous knowledge of. Even if you do NOT have any intended buyers in mind, calling random people and offering credit card numbers is stupid. Sending a CC list offer to an appropriate IRC channel is less stupid, in that you can reach more people at once, and they're voluntarily reading so they're more likely to be interested. Plus, there's no Caller ID, and if you're bright you may be using a compromised machine so that your own IP isn't shown. If the distribution of logs crosses national borders, it may be quite a hassle for anybody to ever find your identity -- assuming that you can maintain anonymity during an exchange, of course, by not screwing up by, say, using one of your own personal bank accounts.
And, most people who read CNN have little experience with IRC. Therefore, it's fair to give them a "heads up", especially, say, if they've got a teen who's spending a lot of time online and ordering more stuff than you think he could afford, or similar situations... this merely provides a bit of awareness to the technologically naive.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Some other media that the CNN article forgot to mention:
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
I dunno how many of you nerds know Bayes Theorem but it's one of the first rules and statisticians learn and, annoyingly, it is one of the more unintuitive arguments for the uninitiated
<Offtopic>I can't stand the current Cannibis debate in the UK where people state something like that 95% of heroin addicts used Cannibis first as a gateway drug. Therefore Cannabis should be illegal. While I agree Cannabis should be illegal, that argument is a statistically false one because you cannot say that 99% of cannabis users go on to take heroin. That would be significant</offtopic>
Here, just because I imagine 99% of script kiddies use IRC, does not mean we should be anti IRC. You cannot map it to the proper argument where I imagine only <1% of all IRC users have anything to do with hacking and scripting. If you, for example, kill IRC, you upset 99% of the populatoin and script kiddies go elsewhere
Exploitation of people's misunderstanding of Bayes makes the easiest and most effective weapon in the world of FUD
"It's older, it's not tied to Microsoft or AOL or a big company, it's one of the Internet protocols ... so if you're running Windows or Linux or Macintosh or another flavor of Unix, you can use it," says Schneier. "So it's not that it's more suitable for hackers to use, it's just a more basic service and people who are anti-big-corporation are going to be more likely to use something like IRC."
This spokesperson is basically saying that chat outside the venue of a benevolent, all-watching big corporation is evidence of intent to cause harm to the capitalist system, by extension. (and don't forget all of the child molesters hanging out on ... er... AOL!!)
While many are mocking the origin of the story, don't laugh.
Civil liberties can easily be eroded by the F.U.D. and implied subversion that a large media company such as CNN can implant in the minds of readers over a perior of time. "Chat room" == "bad unsupervised people up to no good" can become implanted in reader's minds subtly by repetition... with the terrorism paranoia running rampant in our society, spin like this ain't positive.
...but you should assume that right now, in your wallet, there's a credit card number that has been stolen off the Net."
Opens up wallet.
OMG! He's right! Someone stole a CC number off the Internet and put it in my wallet! These hackers are good!
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
is unworthy of repetiton. It is poor journalism of the most illiterate kind, engineered to whip up hysteria over something as old as the hills.
The author "With more than 23 years of journalism experience to draw from, Renay San Miguel is a technology anchor and correspondent for CNN Headline News based in CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta....From 1997-2000 he was with CNBC, where he served as a correspondent specializing in technology and the Internet. "
really needs to have 23 years of experience in how to research a story. And anyway, how on EARTH can someone from 1997, "..specializing in technology and the Internet.." not have ever used or seenIRC???
If he knows what IRC is, and STILL wrote that, then he really is just a sh1t stirrer, first class.
Nothing to see here: move along!
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Yes IRC is a great tool and sometimes it can be a lot like ebay. I've gotten some good hardware that I can't find anywhere else just by talking to people on IRC.
Of course these people will go to IRC chat rooms all the time, hell like every other type of computer geek on the internet they like to boost. It's natural for a geek to go somewhere and brag about their exploits.
The claim that identity theft is running wild and it's the fault of the hackers is an amazing assumption. While I do believe things like this happen to people around on many occasions. I do not believe it's as large scale as some people would have us believe. I have seen many more cases where identity theft is caused by people in the real world either losing their wallets. or other malicious deeds in which a criminal gets information from a victim.
You should automatically assume your credit card was stolen? Frankly if your not reviewing your credit card transactions you are a fool. But again. there are many more cases of this happening because of a store employee collecting the information some nameless computer hacker who is out to get you.
Why would things like pirated software, child pornography, and stolen information be available on IRC? It's a quicker communication medium. It's easier and faster for people to exchange the information then web pages or e-mail.
People use IRC networks like EFNET, DALNET, GAMESNET, etc. as opposed to AOL or Microsoft because the big business companies consider their users to be morons that don't need more advanced forms of software. When your network blocks out all types of profanity because it's "bad" many people are going to look to communicate where they can speak as they wish.
As for the law enforcement issue it is up to all the irc networks in question to regulate the going on in their own set of servers. I'll use Gamesnet as an example. They are constantly attempting to stop the "warez trade" from happening on their network and have assisted law enforcement when they find out their users are committing crimes.
The FBI gets lucky because like all criminals people who are involved in things like identify theft, child pornography sing like canaries. that's the only reason they get lucky. the boasting of hackers helps the FBI catch hackers
Boy, oh, boy...you must be relatively new to the Internet.
Here's just one example of organized credit card fraud on the Internet. Some software piracy groups have *entire segments* dedicated to credit card fraud. They even have a name for these folks: "carders." They'll "card" a laptop, CD writer, etc. for you, and find a way to get it safely received. Many of these folks have huge lists of names, addresses, and credit card numbers that often come from compromised websites.
It's happened to me before. Luckily, I caught it, and I learned from my mistake. I've found a way to help defend against this kind of attack.
Everyone should think about using one-time-use credit card numbers when making purchases from anyone over the phone or Internet. Several credit card issuers offer this feature. Here's an example of one of them.
Other places hackers hang out:
- malls
- coffee shops
- schools
CNN might want to investigate these places as well. Inside sources from CNN also tell me that these things called "newsgroups" exist. Appearantly, these "newsgroups" allow people to exchange "news", which according to CNN sources is a "code word" for "illegal activities", and is a new sweeping trend in the scary hacker underworld.Also, staring at the sun can cause blindness.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
I thought the only people on IRC were FBI agents pretending to be 14 year old girls. There are hackers there, too?
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
Pardon me. But my colorblind friend says the sky is a medium gray.
He can't understand blue, or what possible uses that color has on a day to day basis.
Likewise, the people out there coming up with these "notices" are technology blind.
So if we couldn't trust a colorblind person to paint your house, how can we trust technology-blind legislators and other political reps to make the right decisions or statements on our behalf...?
Time to get out the voting stick.
Someone might utilize a USEFUL tool in such a way that might entail malace. Among other things, IRC is useful for the following things:
Trading porn including child pornography (tm).
Trading illegal mp3's.
Trading illegal movies.
Trading illegal books.
Trading illegal software.
Trading illegal TV shows.
Stalking.
Preying grounds for Child Molesters (tm).
Learning BAD english "31337 anyone???"
Discussing illegal activity.
DOS zombie gathering points.
Trojan access gathering points.
Oh, and of course, its primary purpose, so that large groups of people can easily gather online in a user friendly way to discuss various topics of interest to them.
People, its a tool, nothing more. You can use it legally or illegally. I can cut butter or stab someone with a knife. I can buy food or drugs with money. I can use a telephone to call my friends to say hi, or I can prank call someone and threaten to have them killed. And yes, if I really wanted to, I could use IRC illegally. As could I with AIM, or yahoo's chat/forums, or anywhere else that I wanted to.
Yes CNN, Chat rooms are most likely havens for hackers (tm). Its not so much an issue of debate, but an issue of declaring the obvoius. I'll bet they use phones too. And Email. And websites. I mean, if there wasn't an internet, there would still be hackers even though all the reasons you think they're bad would be null and void. Hackers pre-date the internet, even those inflicted with malice. Although, script kiddies are a rather recent breed.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Welcome to the world of PROPAGANDA. Psychologists know that people will subconsciously accept brazen lies if they are sufficiently tired, confused, or distracted before taking in the false causal statement. This is called "suggestability". They will subconsciously seek a (false if necessary) internal logic or even a leap-of-faith to understand the author. If they are too tired to question this understanding, they will keep it and use it as if it were fact, gleefully making false judgements baed upon the supposed "fact."
AKA: sales pitch.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...