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Oxford Students Hack University Network

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the unintentional-online-services dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Both The Guardian and BBC News are carrying the story that two students at the University of Oxford, Patrick Foster and Roger Waite, were able to easily hack into the university's internal network in minutes using only easily-available software. Once inside, they could find out anyone's email password, observe instant messenger conversations and control parts of the university's CCTV system. The students were investigating the university's network security for the student newspaper, The Oxford Student, which published a front page article and editorial on the matter. In the article, a university spokesperson is quoted as saying 'In some cases the wish to provide the widest possible computer access as cheaply as possible may mean deciding to go for a cheaper set-up, with potentially lower security.' The students now face disciplinary precedings from the university and could receive rustication (suspension) and a 500 pound fine. The matter has also been passed onto the police."

17 of 662 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah... and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    What appropriately aged Slashdotter hasn't hacked into their university or college's network?

    1. Re:Yeah... and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
      I got a two day suspension for it! (highschool)

      All I got was this stupid t-shirt.

    2. Re:Yeah... and? by mikael · · Score: 5, Funny

      That reminds me of an ultra-paranoid sys-admin we once had (the kind that makes Burt Gummer look like a Quaker).

      The sys-admin set up our CompSci server to log every command every user had made (lastcomm services). So one night, one student is waiting for the others in the group project team to arrive. Rather than constantly running between labs, he simply writes a shell script:


      while 1
      do
      who
      sleep 10
      done

      Harmless enough? After about 2-3 hours of use, the entire /var partition has been completely filled, which now jams the /var/spool print queue. A postgrad student attempting to laser-print a section of his Ph.D project finds that he can't, and in order to gather evidence against this denial of service attack prints the entire contents of the 'acct' file.

      Which burned up two large boxes of line printer paper. Needless to say, the sys-admin was furious and makes the student sign a form requiring him never to run an infinite-loop script without permission again.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    3. Re:Yeah... and? by The+Grassy+Knoll · · Score: 4, Funny

      "When i was at collage"

      Art collage, presumably? ;-)

      --
      They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
  2. "How I Rooted Oxford University" by aardvarko · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... a.k.a. A Beginner's Guide to tcpdump and ettercap

  3. 500 pound fine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now that is a heavy fine.

    1. Re:500 pound fine? by nacturation · · Score: 4, Funny

      Now that is a heavy fine.

      In Oxford, they call it the "Sisyphus Punishment".

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    2. Re:500 pound fine? by Brandybuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      In Oxford, they call it the "Sisyphus Punishment".

      For those of you that want to Cambridge this is a reference to rolling a heavy stone uphill over and over.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    3. Re:500 pound fine? by martinX · · Score: 5, Funny

      Once the UK goes REALLY metric, it will be a 226.7962 kg fine.

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    4. Re:500 pound fine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Those of us who attended Cambridge can actually spell "went".

  4. kebabs and bon jovi by lovecult · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...spurred on by Bon Jovi's Livin' on Prayer, they did more research

    They should be damn well "rusticated" for their tast in music alone!

  5. Re:*Yawn* by atlantis191 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forgot one:

    SCO sues B

  6. Re:Are there any adults in the house? by pbox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, it's still better than here in the US. This would most definitely end up being a clear-cut terrorism case. These two guys would already be working on their tan in Gitmo. In about 3-5 years after a lengthy legal process involving the US Superior Court, they will be allowed to proceed with their legal defense, which of course will be completely torpedoed by the fact that the prosecution will introduce any and all evidence as "top secret", so the defense team will not be able to counter any of them. They will serve 30 years, in solitary confinement.

    --
    Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
  7. Re:Mod Parent Down by erick99 · · Score: 4, Funny
    My gosh - the folks here who rabidly espouse the need for public outting of information all post anonymously.

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  8. It's college, right? by empaler · · Score: 5, Funny

    They also have to learn that it doesn't pay to go against the system... ;p

  9. 500 pound fine... by the-build-chicken · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was later recorded by the university database that not only did they promptly pay the find, they _overpaid_ by almost 2000 pounds. Of course, a refund was issued instantly.

    Couldn't figure out why they were snickering though?

  10. When you were at what? by Scratch-O-Matic · · Score: 4, Funny

    When i was at collage...

    And, um, which collage did you go to?

    --


    Evil is the money of root.