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25,000-Ton Amphibious Spam Relay

Posted by timothy on from the all-access dept.

hormiga writes "The amphibious transport dock ship San Antonio incorporates the latest quality of life standards for the embarked Marines and sailors, including the sit-up berth, ship services mall, a fitness center and learning resource center/electronic classroom and Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail. Now the Chinese can relay their spam through U.S. military naval vessels." Well, Chinese spammers, anyhow.

12 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Your tax dollars hard at work by ForestGrump · · Score: 5, Interesting

    relaying spam to your inbox.

    This is the ideal goverment. The tax dollars working directly for its citizens.
    -Grump

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
  2. Inference noted, sarcasm queued by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Well of course this means we should shut down the entire Navy and scrap the entirety of the US Armed Forces just to be sure, since one ship out of nearly a dozen mailboats was left configured as an open relay.

    Cos it's all Bush's fault. Personally his fault, that is. Right?

  3. slashdotters in the military? by prgrmr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could be:

    telnet 205.67.231.235 25
    Trying...
    Connected to 205.67.231.235.
    Escape character is '^]'.
    421 avnavfw.AVONDALE Sorry, the firewall does not provide mail service to you.
    Connection closed.

    1. Re:slashdotters in the military? by mattdm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you can connect to the port it is not firewalled off, rather the mail server prevents you from using it.

      How do you know the firewall isn't generating that message? A firewall can dd more than just drop packets.

    2. Re:slashdotters in the military? by MarcQuadra · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I was with a few friends at the bar, one said he was gonna bail to go catch '24' and I asked if it was really that good. He guaranteed that I'd fall in love with it if I gave it an episode, so I left too. We get in and turn on '24' and I could only bear it for about 15 minutes, the mangled geekspeak was too much for me to handle.

      There's another 'antiterror' drama on too, one episode they landed a cargo plane on a carrier (which has been done, once). The show was just SO lame though, there was NO regard for proper portrayal of millitary protocol or the technical limitations of ANY equipment. I was just sitting there thinking, "what good is it if the hero's guns never run out of ammo and their cargo planes can dodge missiles?"

      I think hollywood would be well served if they hired a kid for $30,000 / year to sit in with the writers and make sure there was enough realism in the shows to make them... acceptable.

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
  4. Server suddenly gone by Otter · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Hmmm, the elistx.com site seems to have been suddenly obliterated. Probably the Navy got it...

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  5. Special. by sparkie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Naval ships have had internet access before this ship. As a Marine I've sent and received E-Mails from more than 1 or 2 ships in the fleet.

  6. Secure chat rooms, unsecure email by Chatmag · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As we reported in our annual report of the top ten Internet chat topics for 2003, the U.S. Navy uses secure chat rooms for communication on board ships.

    Apparently they missed securing their email server. I wonder if keelhauling is still allowed.

    --
    Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
  7. What was that grade again..... by common+middle+name · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't the DOD just get a grade of F
    for network security?

  8. As soon as.. by herrvinny · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As soon as I saw this on /.'s front page, I went "Oh dear God"... Anyone else think, when glancing at the headline, that spammers had purchased a retired boat, put it in international waters, and spammed away from it?

    Then I RTFA'ed. Pretty sad that military servers are compromised by nothing other than some stupid spammers. Makes you think what Chinese or other rogue government sponsored hackers could do to our systems if we even went to war with them....

    The next war, if we fight it with a non african or Middle Eastern country, is going to involve cyber assualts. Hope the Pentagon is going to firm up their defenses more, both electronically and physically. Maybe they can even get the services of Akamai; they're practically DDOS-proof.

  9. Saw it Coming, but no one listened by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I swear I tried to bring this up as a Sgt in the Marines back in early 90's. I was attached to the Marine Corps element that had decision making on what computer operating systems to use. The Officers in charge started going the way towards Microsoft. The Marines at that time had Banyan servers and had to worry over virus infections, but not on the servers.
    I told the Officers that if we get Microsoft servers, we will have nothing but cracking and virus infections on the servers. No one wanted to listen. Microsoft pretty much snowballed them and sold them a bill of goods that are leaving the military open to attacks.
    I can bet that someone loses their job over this one. I just hope it isn't a person who turns out to be a fall guy.

  10. Re:They have a sense of humor by daniel23 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    according to netcraft www.news.navy.mil runs Microsoft-IIS/5.0 under FreeBSD.

    Well, defense is their business, isn't it?

    --
    605413? Yes, it's a prime.