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If You Hack NBC, You Don't Get to Meet Tom Brokaw
subgeek writes "Security Focus Online is carrying this story about the spot that Adrian Lamo almost had on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. NBC changed their mind after they realized the possible legal implications of filming someone hack corporate systems. NBC also seemed a bit touchy that Lamo had gotten into their system so handily. According to the article, it took him about five minutes and one guessed password to get inside NBC's intranet from a computer at a Kinko's. Lamo's comment: "It was a very full service system.""
of homer...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Demonstrating OTHER corporations are security dumb-asses is one thing, but demonstrating THEY are security dumb-asses on nationwide television must've triggered someone's clue meter.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sounds to me like they're more embarassed that he did it so easily and from such a public location. After all, he was invited by an NBC employee to attempt to hack their system.
I used to work for a television news department... this kind of thing happens all the time:
Reporter and Vidiographer are assigned some fluff or FUD piece, but come back with a story that lands a little too close for the news director's comfort... the piece gets pulled.
Lamo's lucky... with the way lawsuits and "terrorist hacker" charges are flung about nowadays, he should be thankful he's not roomin with some lifer named Bubba right about now.
The Digital Sorceress
Perhaps they just didn't want to admit that they'd been cracked by somebody with the last name of "Lame-O".
Reminds me of the great SNL skit with Nicholas Cage:
"The name is Dumass, Dumass!"
So, if this guy was able to guess someones password, I am VERY curious as to what it was. If you know anything about the person, it makes guessing easier. However, if you don't know even the owner of the account, how do you guess a good password?
My only hunch is that the password was something like 'abc123'. It cracks me up how many people have passwords such as that and are supposedly worried about security.
It is also funny to hear what some of my friends think are secure passwords. Among them being obscure Anime characters.
Yep, but it mysteriously vanished (it came right after the Mr. Anti-Google story). I figured it was removed by some cracker who "hacked slashdot" and didn't care that he wouldn't get to meet Rob Malda.
example.org - powered by Linux!
because he found out the great secret of TV anchors...
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
Must see PGP Key!
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
::Sigh:: you dont need to hack a system to bring a corporation to its knees, you just need to post a link on slashdot...
anyone have the text?
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
TheRegisterStoryPostedYesterdayAM
MMMmmmmmm....erotic cakes!!! Homer J. Simpson - Treehouse of Horror VI
whatever the default is i expect that or blank(SQL server anyone)!
His identity was kept secret in the TV show, but a few days after, the TV station was forced by police to reveal the identity of the guy to get him convicted. The incident got a lot of media coverage, because before that many or most had thought press has the right to protect their "sources" and do not need to reveal details about individuals.
Anyway, maybe in this Lamo case, it is more about "agitating someone to do a crime", the court might see for example that part of the motivation for breaking in some system could be the fact that he would get press coverage and fame because of it - and NBC would be to blame for agitating.... or something totally different :)
How did a mediagenic hacker like Adrian Lamo get himself bumped last week from a scheduled appearance on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw? Perhaps with his impromptu on-camera intrusion into the peacock network's own computers. The vagabond hacker known for his drifter lifestyle and his public forays into large and poorly-secured corporate intranets sat down at a Washington D.C. Kinko's laptop station earlier this month with a freelance NBC news producer to show-off his particular style of hacking -- the 21-year-old typically uses little more than an ordinary browser, possessing an eerie knack for finding undocumented Web servers and open proxies at large organizations. That method has gotten Lamo deep into the electronic infrastructures of such companies as troubled telecom giant Worldcom, Internet portal Yahoo, and most recently the New York Times, where last February he exploited lax security to tap a database of 3,000 Times op-ed contributors, culling such tidbits of information as Robert Redford's social-security number, and former president Jimmy Carter's home phone number. But unlike most intruders, Lamo eventually goes public with his discoveries, and offers to help those he's hacked tighten their security pro bono -- an offer that's been accepted by several of his corporate targets. So far Lamo's managed to avoid prosecution, though federal officials in New York are believed to be investigating him for the Times hack. Lamo says NBC was taping him at Kinko's while he demonstrated security holes in a telecommunications company's systems, when the interviewer asked him if he'd be successful hacking NBC. Five minutes and one guessed password later and Lamo was surfing the television network's private messaging system and an affiliate scheduling application that included internal memos and information on advertising rates. Screen shots of the hack provided by Lamo and reviewed by SecurityFocus Online include a page from an NBC vendor database with the network's trademark "living color" peacock and the warning, "All information contained on this Web site is to be held in the strictest confidence," in all capital letters. "It was a very full service system," recalls Lamo. The videotaped intrusion was rushed onto the NBC Nightly News schedule, where it was slated to run last Thursday. But it was abruptly yanked off the schedule at the last minute. NBC News' spokesperson didn't return repeated phone calls on the segment, but a source close to the production, speaking on condition of anonymity, says network lawyers pulled the plug on the Lamo package out of concern that NBC might have acted improperly in filming the hacker committing computer crimes for the sake of the camera. Legal Pitfalls? The hacker says he wasn't coerced into doing anything illegal, and that he'd have likely wound up at the same Kinko's cracking corporate networks even without the camera crew -- an assertion that few who've met Lamo would dispute. But former federal computer crime prosecutor Matt Yarbrough, now an attorney with Fish & Richardson, says NBC's barristers did the right thing anyway, given broad federal conspiracy and computer crime laws. "If I was their lawyer, I'd be concerned if they were sitting there filming it," says Yarbrough. But the attorney adds that spiking the story may not entirely solve the problem. "Arguably, the crime has already taken place whether they air it or not." It's not entirely clear what that crime would be. Other journalists (including this reporter) have observed lawbreaking for the purpose of reporting on it, and Lamo's intrusion into NBC's systems may not have been illegal to begin with, since the producer arguably gave Lamo permission to proceed. As for the telecom company, "It's not aiding and abetting a crime just because you had an appointment to get together and be shown," says Jennifer Granick, director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. "Apparently, he already has access to these systems, so it was something he was able to do, and was inclined to do, and the reporter was just watching... Being witness to somebody else breaking the law is not itself a violation." But Kelly McBride, an ethics instructor at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research center, calls the taping "borderline lawbreaking," and says NBC News should have checked with their legal department before shooting, and found another way to tell the story if necessary. "If the journalistic motivation is to show the public how easy it is or how vulnerable we all are... it's a good story and it's one of holding powerful people accountable," says McBride. "Maybe they should have just talked to the lawyers first. It's not like this is so urgent that they have to get it on the air, it's not the Pentagon Papers. ... A little front end work to identify the pitfalls would have made it a good story."
For his part, Lamo, who's not known for shrinking from controversy, charges the network with a failure of courage. "I can understand where they're coming from," says Lamo, in a telephone interview from somewhere on the East Coast. "But I like to think that in their place I'd take more of a risk."
MMMmmmmmm....erotic cakes!!! Homer J. Simpson - Treehouse of Horror VI
Damn. Guess I'm not a precog.
NBC seems to think that if you hide under a rock, maybe the monsters will go away.
Have these people never heard of TCP Wrappers and IPFW? I suspect not. All confidential information should be BOTH firewalled and TCP Wrappered (DENY) by default to all domains, then added on a IP by IP (or local domain) basis. I get the feeling of admins took the time to do this very basic thing, 90% of all cracks would not occur.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Not that this is really that important to the story but, what/who is Kinko's?
NBC Executive: What a coicidence! That's the exact code I use on my matched luggage!
What's the world coming to when life immitates parodies immitating life?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I mean this is television. Maybe they took one look at him and found out he was not the buff trim hunky reality TV piece of meat that gets on TV nowadays. Maybe he has Tourette's, who knows. Why would you want to watch his interview.
Lamo: "Uh I haXord their shit in about 5 minutes it was Leet! they left a service password called PASSWORD on this gateway node and once I was there I forged an IP address or two...."
Brokaw: "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........"
Although RIAA website was defaced yesterday, and now NBC learns it too is easily hackable, It amuses me that people keep forgetting that no MacOS based webserver has ever been hacked into in the history of the internet.
:
The MacOS running WebStar and other webservers as has never been exploited or defaced, and are are unbreakable based on historical evidence.
In fact in the entire securityfocus (bugtraq) database history there has never been a Mac exploited over the internet remotely.
That is why the US Army gave up on MS IIS and got a Mac for a web server.
I am not talking about FreeBSD derived MacOS X (which already had a more than a couple of exploits) I am talking about current Mac OS 9.x and earlier.
Why is is hack proof? These reasons
1> No command shell. No shell means no way to hook or intercept the flow of control with many various shell oriented tricks found in Unix or NT
2> No Root user. All mac developers know their code is always running at root. Nothing is higher (except undocumented microkernel stufff where you pass Gary Davidians birthday into certain registers and make a special call). By always being root there is no false sense of security, and programming is done carefully.
3> Pascal strings. ANSI C Strings are the number one way people exploit Linux and Wintel boxes. The mac avoids C strings historically in most of all of its OS. In fact even its roms originally used Pascal strings. As you know pascal strings are faster than C (because they have the length delimiter in the front and do not have to endlessly hunt for NULL), but the side effect is less buffer exploits. Individual 3rd party products may use C stings and bind to ANSI libraries, but many do not.
4>: Macs running Webstar have ability to only run CGI placed in correct directory location and correctly file "typed" (not mere file name extension). File types on Macs are not easily settable by users, expecially remotely. Apache as you know has had many problems in earlier years preventing wayward execution.
5> Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named. ".exe" suffixes mean nothing! For example the file type is 4 characters of user-invisible attributes, along with many other invisible attributes, but these 4 bytes cannot be set by most tool oriented utilities that work with data files. For example file copy utilities preserve launchable file-types, but JPEG MPEG HTML TXT etc oriented tools are physically incapable by designof creating an executable file. The file type is not set to executable for hte hackers needs. In fact its even more secure than that. A mac cannot run a program unless it has TWO files. The second file is an invisible file associated with the data fork file and is called a resource fork. EVERY mac program has a resource fork file containing launch information. It needs to be present. Typically JPEG, HTML, MPEG, TXT, ZIP, C, etc are merely data files and lack resource fork files, and even if the y had them they would lack launch information. but the best part is that mac web programs and server tools do not create files with resource forks usually. TOTAL security.
4> Stack return address positioned in safer location than some intel Osses. Buffer exploits take advantage of loser programmers lack of string length checking and clobber the return address to run thier exploit code instead. The Mac places return address infornt of where the buffer would overrun. Much safer.
7> There are less macs, though there are huge cash prizes for cracking into a MacOS based WebStar server (typically over $10,000 US). Less macs means less hacker interest, but there are millions of macs sold, and some of the most skilled programmers are well versed in systems level mac engineering and know of the cash prizes, so its a moot point, but perhaps macs are never kracked because there appear to be less of them. (many macs pretend they are unix and give false headers to requests to keep up the illusion, ftp http, finger, etc). But some huge high performance sites use load-balancing webstar. Regardless, no mac has ever been rooted.
8> MacOS source not available traditionally, except within apple, similar to Microsoft source only available to its summer interns and engineers, source is rare to MacOS. This makes it hard to look for programming mistakes, but I feel the restricted source access is not the main reasons the MacOS has never been remotely broken into and exploited.
Sure a fool can install freeware and shareware server tools and unsecure 3rd party addon tools for e-commerce, but a mac (MacOS 9) running WebStar is the most secure web server possible and webstar offers many services as is.
One 3rd party tool created the only known exploit backdoor in mac history and that was back in 1995 and is not, nor was, a widely used tool. I do not even know its name. From 1995 to 2002 not one macintosh web server on the internet has been broken into or defaced EVER. Other than that event ages ago in 1995, no mac web server has ever been rooted,defaced,owned,scanned,exploited, etc.
I think its quite amusing that there are over 200 or 300 known vulnerabilities in RedHat over the years and not one MacOS 9.x or older remote exploit hack. There are even vulnerabilities a month ago in OpenBSD.
Not one exploit. And that includes Webstar and other web servers on the Mac.
A rare set of documentation tutorials and exercises on rewriting all buffer LINUX exploits from INTEL to PowerPC was published less than a year ago. The priceless hacker tutorials were by a linux fanatic : Christopher A Shepherd, 3036 Foxhill Circle #102, Apopka, FL 32703 and he wrote the tutorials in a context against BSD-Mach Mac OSX.
but all of his unix methods will find little to exploit on a traditional MacOS server.
BTW this is NOT an add for webstar.. the recent versions of webstar sold for over the last year are insecure and cannot run on Mac OS 9.x or 8.x, and only run on the repeatedly exploited MacOS X.
--- too bad the linux community is so stubborn that they refuse to understand that the Mac has always been the most secure OS for servers.
BugTraq concurs! As does the WWW consortium.
It's ok to publicize the flaws of airport security, how easy it is to build a bomb, and numerous other cases where some psycho can be encouraged to kill hundreds of people. They do so nominally under the justification that exposing the flaws helps society (as if government can and will simply just put a stopper in the hole). However, when it comes to exposing the flaws in their own computer network they get philosophical all of the sudden. Funny how that works.
Six pack of Rockstar "Energy Drink" - $6
Network time at the local Kinko's - $2.50/hour
Getting booted from NBC Nightly News after hacking their intranet - 5 minutes effort
Scoring with the hot NBC Nightly News Producer because she's impressed with your k-r4d sk|llz - priceless
No major corporation would use IPFW, are you retarded?
Only stupid people are more concerned with the fact that they were made to look bad than with the underlying truth. Instead of getting offended they should have put the kid in touch with their IT team. Or put him on it.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
The media portraits "hackers":
For his part, Lamo, who's not known for shrinking from controversy , charges the network with a failure of courage. "I can understand where they're coming from," says Lamo, in a telephone interview from somewhere on the East Coast. "But I like to think that in their place I'd take more of a risk.
Somewhere, disguised, with computer parts laying around... It seems like Lamo didn't want to give his location, yet, there were hundreds of ways to finding out.
Why speak of "hackers" like this? Are they still a sub-culture, marginalized?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
No, really. Given the media's track record and history of hacker over-sensationalism, this story would have been the perfect oppertunity to whip your Senator, the public and your turtle into an anti-hacker frenzy. Had this story aired, I'm sure you'd be reading Anti-hacker sediment in place of this piece your reading now. The governement would be riding the anti-hacker bandwagon with full force if they actually saw how easy it was to hack into a major corporation. They wouldn't even have to air any detail; Que darkened room, silhouette of Joe Hacker, a few comments from him about what he was doing (computer masked, of course) and that sinister Nightline narrative they use for melodrama. Toss in a few screen shots of complicated, yet meaningless clips of him navigating the network and bam-- Instant media frenzy. Who cares about Tommy boy, the fact that Lamo is willing to be used as an obvious pawn in the media spotlght is scary in it's own right. Sure, he'd have his 15 minutes... Then watch as it was used to destroy his world with laws and legistlation.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
He got into Worldcom's systems while I was working there, and it threw the entire company for a loop - out of the blue, passwords were expired en mass on various portions of the network, and a weak VPN software package was crammed down the throats of the Windows users. Thousands of people had to get it installed, and ALL of the registration and training and configurations had to be handled through a VERY small pipe. That was an interesting time... good thing I wasn't one of the people that had to rely on the VPN software to do my job.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Sediment is when solids settle out of water, like sand on the ocean floor. I think you meant sentiment.
http://www.kinkos.com
a 24/7 print-and-copy chain store, where college students who don't own computers go to print out term papers, and professional-types go to professionally print out presentations and such...
you pay for computer access by the minute.
(I wonder if NBC comp'ed Lamo for the dollar or two the computer access cost him? That could get them in trouble, no?)
Protecting anonymous sources is one thing, but you can't hide behind that if you are witness to a crime.
"Sorry, I'm a reporter, I don't have to testify" just doesn't hold up.
legally, if they witness this guy comitting a felony, they are obligated to report him to the police, or be tried as accessories.
Granted, buildings are treated differently. (Is cyberspace inside or outside space for these purposes?) But there's still a general right of public access to places of business as long as the door opens and there's no sign or guard specifically informing you you can't go farther.
Arresting someone for what this kid did is on the level of arresting someone on a shoplifting charge who has merely walked into the store. You've walked in, so you could take something, so you're guilty?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
You're forgetting that Apple also knows how to read an RFC and properly impliment TCP/IP into their OS!!
Teenage intruder: See? I run nmap 234.34.53.5 and I get a list of all the ports that are open on their machine. I can then do some other stuff with libpcap...
Brokaw: Wardrobe!....dammit, get this kid a large sleek trenchcoat, combat boots, and a pair of those $300 designer sunglasses. They're expecting neo, not urkel. Audio!...cue that "techno" music they listen to. (to "hacker")Okay, kid, your motivation is to disrupt The System, bring down The Corporate Machine that runs the government, and then make it with Carrie Ann Moss in a hovercraft.
Teenage intruder: But I just thought I would show you how I learned about this network vulnerability in my quest for knowl....
Brokaw: (to cameraman) Start rolling in five, four, three, two...
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
You mean those talking heads on TV are real people? I thought they were all synthetic actors
I don't have speakers, what is Homer saying? Thanks
It would have been great if he would have gotten into the NBC Nightly News teleprompter and put at the end of Tom Brokaw's lines "...and in other news, while visiting a low-income daycare center Dick Cheney bit the head off an infant. Additionally, I am a turnip, vroom vroom."
I bet he'd say it.
geez man, do you post this every friggin chance you get ? karma whoring abound
When the heck didBUGTRAQ Agree?
see subj
can anyone get the java 1.4 plugin to work with linux/netscape 7? it worked with netscape 6 by creating a symlink in the /plugins folder to /pathtojre14/libjavaplugin_oji.so... anyone get this to work?
I have US$0.10 to the FIRST PERSON to crack a MAC...
(nice... CRACK A MAC... )
www.oobersworld.com - For those that ride.
I think its just cuz most people would rather hack windows which just makes it that much easier on them. Plus, who would waste time on a mac? ;)
Interesting? Please.
This is a verbatim repost of an old troll--which, I might add, was shot down point for point for point.
"No root user" is NOT the same thing as "always running as root".
404 Error:
He's absolutely right. Neither one of them have yet been hacked. ;)
FWIW, his website is http://adrian.adrian.org
since when are facts, even if unwelcome to fanboys, troll material.
A troll is not a person who tries to post informative information.
try to refute each point of his
So, maybe he doesn't get his exposé on NBC about cracking NBC's networks...
But I'll bet that ABC would be happy do do a report on cracking NBC's networks...
Where are you, Mr. Jennings...
I take that challenge:
1) Place Mac in front of you.
2) Get Sledgehammer.
3) Whack Mac with Sledgehammer.
Repeat until case 'cracks'. *snickers*
Lamo's comment: "It was a very full service system."
Ohh, Adrian. You should change your name from Lamo to Lmao with those witty one liners!
NBC Nightly news Is pretty crap anyway. Lucky they only show It at about 11:30 at night where I live, when Im usually asleep.
ruhk, you are ignorant and foolish.
It has no root user because it is always running as root. Those are facts on the mac OS. It is ALWAYS running as root. all cpu opcodes are essentially valid and emulated at all times, all memory is readable and all interrupts can be disabled by any piece of code any time.
The Mac is a Real-TIme OS. And VM is usually disabled by powerusers as well.
For letting themselves being borged by MS. (Oh wait, the others were Borged By AOLTW)
hey, i've got a doorstop here that no one has ever hacked either, perhaps i should go on and on about its virtues . . . i mean, it's about as useful as a mac!
Where's the previous post?
If MacOS is so great, why does Apple use Solaris?
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Linux zealots always will down-MOD factual stuff.
Thats why noone tries to teach anyone anything on slashdot anymore it seems.
This stuff should not have 5 down mods. thats crazy. No wonder trying to discuss computer industry concepts to linux community is so fruitless.
MacOS, WinBlows server types, Linux, Unix...most hackers/crackers/defacers I know don't really care what OS you run. If there's a hole in the system, they'll find and use it. Just because there is no prior history of MacOS being hacked, that doesn't mean it hasn't been or couldn't be done. It just means that whatever the hacker/cracker/defacer wants to hack/crack/deface is usually on a M$ IIS or Apache (a few others as well, but those are the 2 big ones) webserver. The fact that MacOS-based servers have not been cracked is simply because no hacker/cracker/defacer has found any reason to break into the system. I'll leave the reasoning behind that to your imagination....
--CypherDragon
too, bad you are anonymous... I would owe you a Dime.
Cut him some slack! At least the guy who shot Reagan got to meet Jody Foster...
Oh wait, scratch that.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Thats unsubstantiated. Version 4.0 has no overflow for large urls, nor any version of that product.
That stuff works in BROWSERS naturally, as we all know about some of those famous 1995 MS problems, and with java.
No shit, I figured it would take at least 2 days for it to make /.
I wonder what the password was. GOD would I LOVE to know what the password was. HEHE....
Brokaw wouldn't be able to check his email for weeks.
And I don't see anyone giving good argumants against these points. I don't see OS9 being as effcient with recourses as *nix, but that could be a option for websites that dont need big SMP servers but need security. On another note, I don't see how this is news while the hacking of RIAA gets zero mention. (IMHO they're both news, but there's somethin' fishy about the blackout on submissions concerning the now well known incident)
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Apple is ahuge company and sells million sof machines and many are used as high volume web servers.
They are not hacked for the points raised above... the points are technological ones.
But it does not matter WHY they are unexploitable it just matters taht they have not ever been remotely exploited in any way.
More pople surf the internet every day using macs than all unix-linux combined by a factor of 10. (according to most large protals that track web gets).
The entire premise of "secure Mac OS" web servers is based on two factors:
It would thus be accurate to say "The Mac OS web server may be a good choice if you are clueless, do not know how to administer secure servers, and want to run an OS that is now officially obsolete."
Oh, I get it....hhahahAHAHAHAHAH....LOLOLOL!!!
That's really funny...fuck, you must be really intelligent.
It's ok to publicize flaws in computer networks, you just can't demonstate the flaw if doing so is breaking the law. In this case, it seems like he got permission, so I doubt they could consider this an unauthorized intrusion.
As soon as you mentioned Airport Security I remember the guy who got through with something like a box cutter and announced it. They immediately arrest the guy.
This concludes our lesson on how not to blatently compare apples to oranges.
There's probably a double standard in there somewhere, but you didn't find it.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
The Mac OS 9.2 OS is not obsolete. Apple is continually ading new features... in 9.1 they added memory mapped files that span terabytes.
Apple machines running os 9.x and fibre channel cards can achieve hundreds of megabytes per second and a complete io takes as little as 49 microseconds on a G4.
A dual G4 1 Ghz mac gets over twice as many RC5 keys per second as the fastest AMD sual cpu board you can find.
The mac can run high quality webservers, ftp (rumpus), email (stalker), dns (quickdns), etc etc.
What functionality do you want.
It runs everything that why MILLIONs of people continue to buy macs.
Yep, your right. my bad.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If MacOS is so great, why does Apple use Solaris?
Akamai. Apple's web site is distributed. When you connect to apple.com, you're actually getting www.apple.com.akadns.net, which runs on Solaris.
2> No Root user. All mac developers know their code is always running at root. Nothing is higher (except undocumented microkernel stufff where you pass Gary Davidians birthday into certain registers and make a special call). By always being root there is no false sense of security, and programming is done carefully.
Perhaps this is a philosophical nitpick on my part, but by extension shouldn't this mean that the vast majority of Windows programs should be incredibly secure? Prior to NT, all Windows developers were guaranteed that their code would be running as 'root'. That's a lot of developer-time spent in a world where everything is root. And yet, somehow, Windows still seems to have its share of security problems.
I'm not saying that Macs are as insecure as Windows boxes, just that I'm having trouble following the idea that "always being root" somehow makes programmers more security-conscious.
3> Pascal strings. ANSI C Strings are the number one way people exploit Linux and Wintel boxes. The mac avoids C strings historically in most of all of its OS. In fact even its roms originally used Pascal strings. As you know pascal strings are faster than C (because they have the length delimiter in the front and do not have to endlessly hunt for NULL), but the side effect is less buffer exploits. Individual 3rd party products may use C stings and bind to ANSI libraries, but many do not.
A buffer overflow is a buffer overflow is a buffer overflow.
If you don't check that your destination buffer is big enough to hold the contents of your source buffer, then your code becomes a bug in search of an exploit. Doesn't matter if the length is stored at the beginning, doesn't matter if you count until you find a NUL. If you copy from A to B and sizeof(B) < sizeof(A), you're just looking for trouble.
Yes, ladies and gents, sometimes size does matter...
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
I honestly think, knowing many of them, that most Mac OS programmers don't give a shit about security. They just want a program that works. Few of them seem to realize that not all data is to be trusted. (How many times have you dragged a file into your favorite application and had the whole system crash? That's proof.) I've found that UNIX programmers tend to be most aware of this.Enjoy your 255-charcter limit. Or the fact that a 1-character string still takes 256 bytes. (And by the way.. Many exploitable programs do in fact have length arguments/members. They only go so far; it's when the human programmer disobeys/disregards them that's the problem.)I don't understand this part.
void foo( int x ) {
char buf[256];
}
On i386, the stack for this function would look like this:
ebp-4: return addess
ebp: old stack pointer
ebp+4: buf
ebp+260: esp (new stack pointer)
In other words, the return address is BEHIND any local variables.
How often are strings terminated on the left rather than the right? I often do loops backwards, but it would never go to the left of the original buffer...
On the other hand, you could do this...
void foo( char *buf, void *c ) {
memcpy( buf+256, &c, sizeof(c) );
}
void bar() {
char buf[256];
foo( buf, shellcode );
}
And that could be bad... But how often is this actually possible? Most programmers are smarter than this.
I like that line. It is pretty funny. Even the roms interpret Pascal in real time I guess. That is too damn funny. You may have hacked, but I don't think you ever learned about the internals of a computer.
There are no arguments against because its all factual.
BTW, the Mac is more efficient with resources than Linux-unix.
Mac OS 9 can create and delete more files per second.
It can create and delete more ram per second.
it can create and delete more directories per second.
In ancient years a mac could copy data FASTER than a high end unix box could copy ti dev/null (sun).
Macs, even low end ones, can copy hundreds of megabytes per second with decent IO cards, and support multiple montiors (at least 6), the ability to disable VM, The abilty to net-boot, headless, boot (no vram needed at all), etc etc.
What resources are you talking about?
Macs do not waste resources, they read 140,000 individual different block IOs from a properly written RAM disk per second on a low end old 300 Mhz G3.
No OS in history is as efficient as the Mac for ram and disk and graphics blitting.
All that is changes now that apple went unix and uses new code.
Just get 2 people to hit your site at the same time.
The MacOS running WebStar and other webservers as has never been exploited or defaced, and are are unbreakable based on historical evidence.
Based on historical evidence, my backyard shed is burglar-proof.
...it took him about five minutes and one guessed password to get inside NBC's intranet from a computer at a Kinko's
This reminds me of some of the dealings I've had with Cox High Speed Internet support. If you call them and tell them that you forgot your password, they reset it to (invariably, as several experiences of mine indicate) to "password". That means that at any given time, probably 5-10% of Cox customers have the password "password".
You can't tell me that more than a handful of people are wise enough to change it ASAP...or at all.
They are all linked stories, not original investigative journalism, what is your point?
Never heard of the AP news wire. A lot of papers, periodicals, and broadcasts run the exact same story.
What was the point?
My expierence may be obsolete... I seem to recall have to deal with fixed ram settings for each applicaion, but that was way back in 8.something and before days.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Does anyone have insight or possible explanations as to Adrian's website? I'm interested in other people's opinions and interpretations.
My little sad piece of the internet: www.mtndewd
Sir,
.
While I agree that Mac has not experienced the volume of attacks and exploits that other Operating Systems have, I have a few minor issues with your arguments. Not all of them, as I certainly give credit where credit is due. Just a few:
1)No command shell: I profess ignorance on this point, other than I've been told that OSX runs on some sort of Unix kernel. Maybe that isn't entirely accurate, but I've seen a shell on an OSX box.
2) Well if 1 above is true, then yes you have a root user on MAc now. Sorry if I don't understand how the Mac OSX system works, anyone else have any clues?
3) Yes but are C "strings" the number one way people break into systems? It's not how Lamo has been compromising these systems...and anyway, this point has nothing to do with the kind of vulnerabilities Lamo has been exploiting (if you'd even call them vulns...more like someone exploiting stupid user tricks
4)Yes, this is mostly true. However if a Mac cgi script allows a user to do something he shouldn't, then I don't see how it matters whether or not it is executable on Apache or Mac or whatever. What I'm trying to say is that a shopping cart cgi doesn't properly check for proper input then a user can (usually) exploit said cgi script. Cross-site scripting is a good example of this.
5)Neither does Unix. It has to have the execute bit set, usually - not that that's hard to do, given the proper access. Still I guess it's easier to do things like set a trojan "ls" command (assuming root user is dumb enough to have a "." in his path), so ok. What if I write a shell script in a bash shell in OSX? Can't I just execute that? I doubt I need a special secondary file (like an inode?) for that...sorry if I don't understand Macspeak.
6)understood, assuming it's true.
7)No, fewer macs were hacked because the code wasn't open-source. OR not totally. Am I incorrect? That cash prize has been up for like 6 years now, and even when Macs had more than 3 percent of the market there weren't any takers. I guess that makes Mac more secure...?
I guess most of your points are valid, just not poignantly so.
-Brotherben
>It runs everything that why MILLIONs of people continue to buy macs.
hmm... "so easy to use no wonder its number one"...
Where else have i heard this...
In the ENG news business, I have never been called a "Videographer." In the news business all across America a News Photographer is called a "Photog."
I would know this because I am currently a "photog." This person has more than likely never worked in a television newsroom.
(John Bigboote, Yoyodyne)
Red Lectroid, Planet 10
What functionality do you want.
Hmm, let's see... How about, say, multithreading? The ability to play DVDs without skipping if you so much as move the mouse?
Look, the old Mac OS had a cutting edge GUI when it came out, in 19-frickin-80-something. It had various usability innovations. But on the technical capabilities of the OS, it hasn't cut it for a long, long time.
He's talking about OS9 not OSX. OS9 doesn't have/need a command shell (other than that debug prompt).
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Does anyone here have any ideas where to start with this? Other than by a machine already exploited by known trojans?
On the March 16, 1989 edition of CBS's 48 Hours, reporter David Martin told viewers that he converted a semi-automatic rifle to full-automatic without a license, which is a felony. CBS filmed the conversion work, and broadcast part of it on the program. Unlike David Koresh, who was suspected of doing the same thing, CBS only received a letter of reprimand from the BATF.
...ya dumass, big-boo-tay having azwipe....
Webstar may have an impressive record, but macos is a pretty terrible OS for running servers and the old Webstar lacked a lot of functionality and performance compared to modern web servers. The main reason Webstar was never hacked in those contests is because there aren't nearly as many people with technical skills on the mac platform as on other platforms. You find very few people with real computer skills and real programming skills that were big on Macos. Sure, there are a few, but not many. And very very few that had real technical skills and understood assembly on the platform well enough and the OS well enough to really hack at it. The point I'm trying to make is that MacOS 9 or less with webstar is secuity through obscurity and through lack of features. It's not a powerful server and it almost definitely is hackable by someone out there.
I feel the correct path is to properly administer a real web server. Not a toy like webstar. Don't use software and OS's that lack features. Instead disable the features you aren't going to use.
If you check www.apple.com (instead of just apple.com) you'll see that they're running Mac OS X.
Apple advertises this at the bottom of most of their webpages.
I'm guessing that the password was one of:
1) "password"
2) The same as the account name. Like having "root"'s password be "root".
ebp-8: return address
ebp-4: old frame pointer
ebp: x
ebp+4: buf
ebp+260: esp (stack pointer)
A little rusty on the ol' assembler...
If you don't check that your destination buffer is big enough to hold the contents of your source buffer, then your code becomes a bug in search of an exploit. Doesn't matter if the length is stored at the beginning, doesn't matter if you count until you find a NUL. If you copy from A to B and sizeof(B) sizeof(A), you're just looking for trouble.
who checks the buffer sizes?
if it's the programmer, possible problem, but if it's the language these problems simply vanish.
CBS *FILMED* the conversion work - Publicized - Nothing happened
David Koresh Performed the Conversion - Demonstrated - Got into trouble
Now if they reporter had PERFORMED the conversion, I'd say you're on to something.
Are there double standards? Probably.
Did you demonstrate one? No.
Did you make the same mistake as the original poster? Yes.
Will you learn to distinguish between the two? (Insert Your Answer Here)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
When the hell is someone going to throw Lamo in jail? Or maybe explain to him that without explicit permission from the owners of the network (no matter, how much of a dumbass they are) breaking into computer networks is illegal and lessens the legitimate work of information security professionals. Sorry for the rant but, this guy not only gets away with hacking but, also gets national media attention for doing it. Is it just me or is something wrong with this picture?
Prior to NT, all Windows developers were guaranteed that their code would be running as 'root'
True...how many Windows 95-based web servers are there?
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
Anyone got a Google Cache? I tried finding it, but cant work out how to get it lol. I narrowed my Google search down to the online.securityfocus.com domain but still didnt find anything. Maybe they just havent got it Indexed/Cached? Someone could at least post a txt version
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Uhm... no he was not proving your point. If you had taken 3 seconds to read his post instead of trying to seem clever maybe you would have understood.
The reporter would still be guilty of a felony for having the conversion performed and for posessing the gun afterward.
Will you learn not to be such an asshole when you post? (Insert Your Answer Here)
I bet the hacker noticed that there's an IV going into him from under the desk, and electrodes attached to his nuts if he decides to do anything stupid.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
If you're not convinced he's not a stereotypical l337ist, check out some pictures of him. He's cool.
The password was obviously 'swordfish'.
why has the parent been modded as troll? It's all true, my school uses MAC OS and webstar servers and it's never been hacked (there are 10,000 people who go there as well as a large computer science department)
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
IIRC, the (admittedly cheesy) Microsoft Personal Web Server was shipped with Win95. (Don't have any 95 boxes anymore, so won't swear to it. Win 98 definitely comes with PWS.)
Apache. (They're very open-minded. :-)
Quick check on TuCows shows 9 more web servers supporting 9x.
CNet's download.com has a whopping 192 entries in their Windows/Web Authoring/Servers area if you filter it down to Win95. But take CNet's count with a grain of salt...they don't seem to differentiate between server-support/test apps and actual servers. But I'm not gonna hunt through a list that size to get a better count.
Anyways, I think it's safe to say that, strange as it may sound, there actually are Win 9x-based servers available.
Okay, but we're starting to wander from the original "Macs are secure because they have no security" topic, which was already wandering pretty far from the "hacker denied 15 seconds of fame" topic.
I'd ask someone to mod me down, but saying "yeah, go ahead, mod this down" always seems to end up with people modding it up to +5 Insightful because it's got that ever-popular angst-driven sound first popularized by Eeyore. (Donkey. 100 Aker Woods. Cristopher Robin. Ah, never mind....)
Ahem... Okay people, listen up! My post is not insightful. It's offtopic! "Offtopic" might look a lot like "Insightful" in the moderator pulldown, but if you look really closely, you'll notice that they're spelled slightly differently. Yes, I know it's subtle...they both start with a big letter and have smaller letters afterwards. Just hang in their, kids...hopefully the next SlashCode release will have a picture-based moderation system.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
I'm not a genius but it seems as though this guy just got lucky guessing a password. If you have a stupid network or system admin that uses common passwords then OS is irrelvant.
I also noticed that you mentioned hacking webservers like Webstar... the article mentions that he hacked into the intranet, this is different from hacking into a webserver.
Hmmm... Pie...
he owned the domain "terrorists.net" :)
A Mac is emulating CPU opcodes? That's funny. Good for speed too! --Ivo
I'm an IT administrator for GE and I can tell you that the security has been very week until recently. Users in some of the domains still can have passwords like 'apple' or 'God', however, this is changing quickly. This story did not surprise me and if it worked again I wouldn't be surprised.
Actually that isn't true. The server on one of the early "MacHack" events that is ment to display how unhackable Macs are was hacked. The server had a flawed CGI script that allowed the entery. The admins of the event didn't count the hack becuase they said the sever was missconfigured. There have also been other exploits on Webstar servers running with Oricle and FileMaker Pro serices running on them.
In general, broadcast station teleprompter hardware itself is very old technology, with a simple serial cable to load the script (a text file with some very simple markup sequences to adjust speed, fonts, etc)
Among the cheapest "professional" teleprompters are Stewert, starting around $1K. You can throw together your own home-brew solution for a few bucks, but "real" TV stations are sticking with the old, expensive, pre-MS-Windows solutions.
Usually the producer and on-air talent will run through the script at a high speed (just barely readable without practice) shortly before going on air, so your timing would have to be just right if you want to add any extra little "suprises" with any chance of success.
It's an interesting idea, but even for a live news broadcast, it's not likely that you would slip anything through.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
it was, i believe: username: guest password: guest the mighty have fallen on simpler mistakes. . . but few come to mind. :)
Simply put, Adrian is homeless.
He admitted as much in a recent interview. For all his mad skillz, he can't keep a roof over his head.
that's nice.. you know what a teleprompter is.
but do you know a joke when you see one?
You've got it backwards and all mixed up. x86 stacks grow down in memory, and arguments are pushed before the return address, so it looks like this:
ebp+8: x
ebp+4: return address
ebp+0: old frame pointer
ebp-256, esp: buf
So if you write a new return address to buf[260], and write some opcodes past that to return to, you get your buffer overflow and subsequent exploit.
The ocean parts and the meteors come down
Laid out in amber, baby.
Your idiocy is blinding. Where do you pull this shit from? Do you realize that there's something called machine code, in which the original language is irrelevant?
Maybe he's just not proud of your sorry cracker ass.
Uhhh can you feel that one baby!!!CRACKER
"The following alternative domains are available:" 4terrorists.com myterrorists.com netterrorists.com terroristsgroup.com terroristsonline.com terroriststech.com terroristsweb.com webterrorists.com 4-terrorists.com forterrorists.com freeterrorists.com onlineterrorists.com terroristsdirect.com terroristsit.com terroristslink.com terroristssite.com
;)
:0
Somehow I have a feeling that spending $15 to register any of those suggestions is worse in the eyes of the FBI than hacking a broadcasting company website worth hundreds of millions.........
I don't think Lamo has anything to be afraid of
~Int
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Nobody would steal an old, rusty LADA with two tires missing either.
sure, it's a troll, but it's also wrong.
L L
:)
http://attrition.org/mirror/attrition/os.html#A
Sure, the MacOS/MacOSX defacements only represent 0.8% of total defacements, but they're still there
-gleam
this
Small bit of history here: at one time, a Swedish company ran a contest they named Crack a Mac, and offered about US$10K to the first person to be able to break into the system. They ran this twice, with one prize award (there was a second exploit, but the contest runners denied that the exploit happened. Nevertheless, it is accepted by most that it happened).
So MacOS/WebStar-based web servers have been hacked, but there is only one famous case. And never forget that any system is vulnerable to "social engineering" and shoddy passwords.
I reckon it is slovenly programming that's to blame, and nothing about the Mac makes C programmers any more inclined to take care than the rest of us. Some people just aren't fit to be left in charge of a compiler...
OTOH, a language like Java with enforced range checking can stop a lot of this sort of thing. But you pay (in performance terms) for that extra safety (which is incidentally very valuable in some contexts; can you imagine applets written in C or C++ being wildly popular?)
Do you realize that essentially we're talking about how a string is encoded in memory? Of course the data will eventually be processed by machine code, but obviously the machine code will be different depending on which language was used?
...to Globo (the major TV network in Brazil). No, I'm not Brazillian, but they got my name from some contacts-- long story, I don't have time to go through that.
:)
Basically, I got a call from a Producer (David Something-I-Can't-Pronounce) wondering if I'd be interested in coming down to their studio (I was in college in NYC at the time, and they're on 9th and 50-somethingth) and trying my hand at their system. I tried to borrow a friend of mines laptop so I could bring a sniffer, but I couldn't find him in time.
Instead, I went down there, "borrowed" a laptop from them, and quickly installed linux. Explaining that this is what I'd use myself, I plugged into a convenient network jack and started working.
Long story short, I chose as my victim the reporter (not the producer) who would be interviewing me later), her name was Anna Padrao Something-Begining-With-A-P. Well, her password was app426, where 4/26 was her b-day. *yawn* The only major problem was that once I was in to their BBS-like system, it was in Portugese, which I don't speak! Of course, that also let me into her email account, and she even had a shell account on their email server-- though I know she didn't even know it.
I was going to go after root next, but we had to film, so we stopped there. We filmed the whole segment, but then some higher-up though it'd embarass the network too much, so it was pulled. I still have a copy-- kinda cool to see your own voice subtitled in Portugese
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
That's not bias, that's common sense.
You wrote:
Isn't that the point of a parody? To show how absurd things would be if taken to extremes? They're bound to be right once in a while.
Spaceballs warned us of this day!!
I wish I knew somebody who installed Linux recently. I'd love to get a story posted on Slashdot
1. Your first 3 sentences were patronizing and condecending
2. Your 'Spaceballs told us this day would come' was meant to be disarming, especially after being patronizing and condecending.
3. You didn't get the joke, your disarming joke conveys NOTHING that would suggest you DID get the joke. Your patronizing insights conveyed EVERYTHING that you didn't get the joke. If anything, your disarming joke vindicated one of your point, "They're bound to be right once in a while."
4. I argue/insult for practise.
5. I didn't need to get shitty with you.
6. I don't want to grow up, but I guess I have to.
7. You seem like a very nice person.
8. Even nice people can be intentionally/inadvertantly patronizing / condescending.
9. I didn't need to get shitty with you.
10. You probably demonstrated one of the nicest ways of correcting someone (esp. the disarming notice)
11. There will always be assholes like me who will interpret your kind criticisms viciously.
12. I didn't need to get shitty with you.
13. I'm sorry
There you go. Not only do you get an apology, but you get vindication, insight into assholes, and knowning you've influenced someone for the better.
Rather than trying to learn the art of being insulting, maybe I should learn the art of being insightfully ironical...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Maybe if I had taking 3 seconds to read his post instead of trying to be clear, I would have understood.
Will you learn not to be such an asshole when you post? Yes, The asshole thing isn't working out, I was really insulting with some Ned Flanders guy (Nice guy, tries to be disarming) and I realized that this was getting out of hand.
I guess I always admired guys who were harshly insulting when I was a kid, because I could never do it myself. I figure I'll tune down the harshness and hatefulness and try to exercise insightful irony (much harder to do)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Mac OS web servers have extremely limited functionality, therefore are more secure by default.
Please give me a list--or even one example--of the "limited functionality" of MacOS 9.1 running WebSTAR, versus, say Red Hat running Apache. I want to know which features don't exist between the two. Hell, I'll even make it easy for you. Compare the differences of the Macintosh server that I described to a Netscape Enterprise server on Solaris. You seem like you're just mindlessly bashing Macs. If that's true, it's okay with me; I just want to know if this is an informed opinion or a troll.
Mac OS web servers are not widely used, and are thus not targets for attacks.
Are Mac OS web servers common? Not even. I think that there are something like 0.06% of the market uses WebSTAR. We're talking maybe 30-100,000 servers worldwide. So, I don't dispute that point. Are they secure? There is only one U.S. Gold Depository, not a hundred million. That doesn't make it any more or less easy to break in. However, many have made the claim that the Treasury vault in Fort Knox, Kentucky is impenetrable. My point is that the numbers have no relevance at all. Whether there is one Mac webserver or one hundred million, secure is secure is secure.
Try coming up with a way to hack a Mac webserver. Go ahead. Get a team of script kiddies together and go after a Mac running WebSTAR. Dude, I spent six months in college trying to defeat a hacker challenge posted on a Finnish newsgroup, and I couldn't get that mother to break. I'm still quite bitter about it, actually.
Hacking a Mac webserver ranks up there with proving Fermat's Last Theorem, or inventing tabletop fusion. It's likely possible, but challenging enough that only the seriosly insane need apply.
I would appreciate it if you would check your dictionary for the word "fewer"
thanks in advance
Oh, right, sorry... *Smacks self* I'm stupid.
I wonder if Lamo turned on his buds at Security Focus. Their site has been down for a while now.
you are.
Or at least, you are guilty of something, not sure what the charge would be.
One would think that here of all places, at least the moderators would know that public belief in 'security by obscurity' is just another crackpot notion, to be taken as seriously as the idea that Microsoft makes secure operating systems. They could have delayed the broadcast, fixed the holes, hired Lamo or a competent security firm to make sure there weren't any more, and publically thanked him for giving them a security wakeup call.
Tech Public Policy stuff
While it MIGHT make sense in the case of computer security to always publicize everything (though I would argue this in some cases), the reverse is often true in the real world. That Joe Schmoe can pull a machine gun and kill 50 people at locations all across the country isn't the result of a bug that can be practically fixed. Maybe we can hire enough security people to stop those same psychos at a handful of locations, but the fact remains that we simply CANNOT do it at enough locations to make a difference. It is NOT economically feasible. Therefore publicizing it does not help; all it does is give inspiration to those few crackpots in this country. Do you really want to tell me that the media didn't play a huge role in the string of massacres that happened? Please. Before you shoot off at the hip and nit pick, think about what you are saying. The media has made numerous stories that practically give a recipe for the terrorists and/or pyschos, and often glean information that a terrorist could not get (by using press credentials to extract information from supposedly respectable anonymous sources in mid level government and what not). Some things are better off left unpublished, unhyped, and undescribed. Perhaps the evil doers can obtain that same data themselves, but there is a difference in the inspiration (i.e., they would have to think of it themselves), the ease of the data collected, and so on. Not publicizing it makes a difference and this case is easily demonstrated empirically.
Oh yeah, and the fact that Lamo's case might be an apt example of where obscurity by openness works only strengthens my argument.
Yeah sure. Columbine and similarly modelled attacks happened within weeks of each other. This of course was just chance, right? And man, our security is so much better now for all of the coverage of the flaws in high school security. Pfft.
Real World != Computer Security.
Besides the fact that this stream of invective is pointless and demonstrates your insecurity, you could not be further from the truth. If you wish to compare resumes, education, intelligence, information sources, or what have you, then please step to the plate.
I really appreciate the time you took to clarify.
:P
...a big problem with the original message I responded to was the implication that other servers couldn't be configured to be as secure. That, I dispute strongly. None of the servers I maintain have ever been hacked, even when boxes on either side of them have been. I know of many other servers that have never been hacked. The way to be secure is to have an understanding of what makes you secure...
I don't dispute anything you've said; in fact, I share your viewpoint. I am also deeply entrenched in the server-side world of web programming, and I tend to get a chuckle at the mindless banter of the uninformed when it comes to the whole "Mac versus PC" thing.
If I had an argument to offer in regard to webserver preference (which I really couldn't care less), I would say that when Grandma Newbie decides to try her hand at building and hosting her website, she would be much better off with WebSTAR than almost anything else. It's not a server that is easy to malign.
Here's a case-in-point--a Mac-savvy friend of mine decided to try learning Active Server Pages. He dusted off an old copy of Windows NT Server, and he configured ftp services and IIS. He called me after one week and said, "I think I've got some weird virus."
The free space on his 40GB RAID had all but disappeared. It turns out that a hacker group had turned his anonymous ftp server into a private partition and totally filled it with warez. I thought it was a pretty neat hack, if it hadn't been such a dirty thing for someone to do.
Now, this guy is not a computer newbie. He did just what you'd expect a beginner to do. It was a very common newbie mistake.
WebSTAR (or classic MacOS) simply won't allow that kind of malice. Grandma Newbie isn't going to ignorantly or accidentally configure a server with security holes, something that's dangerously easy to do with IIS, and slightly less so with Apache.
The point that I would argue is that WebSTAR on MacOS is much more secure than any other mainstream web server. It's not for everyone, but it really is the perfect solution for nearly every web enfant-- including, apparently, the United States Army.
There. You just proved my point. Serving over the public net is a game not for the timid, and your personal cache of knowledge protects you from mindless or careless misconfiguration. The ones that aren't armed with your knowledge are gonna get hurt. It's kind of like a freestyle biker saying, "dude, those Cannondales suck." Well, they don't suck, but they won't perform the way that the radical exhibitionist is expecting.
Just because you can perform freestyle backflips with your server doesn't mean that everyone could, or should (a point that I'm confident you stipulate).