Slashdot Mirror


FBI E-Mail Server Breached

voma writes "The FBI said Friday it has shut down an e-mail system that it uses to communicate with the public because of a possible security breach. The bureau is investigating whether someone hacked into the www.fbi.gov e-mail system, which is run by a private company, officials said. 'We use these accounts to communicate with you folks, view internet sites, and conduct other non-sensitive bureau business such as sending out press releases,' Special Agent Steve Lazarus, the FBI's media coordinator in Atlanta, said in an e-mail describing the problem."

28 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Look at this spam I just got today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    From: rmueller@fbi.gov
    To: anonymouscoward@slashdot.org
    Subject: The FBI can help you!

    CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION YOU WANT TO KNOW.

    This is the agency they want banned from the INTERNET!

    "The Federal Bureau of Investigations" shows you how to get the facts on anyone using our files.

    LOCATE MISSING PERSONS, find lost relatives, obtain addresses and phone numbers of old school friends, even skip trace dead beat spouses. This is not a Private Investigator, but a GOVERNMENT agency DESIGNED to automatically CRACK YOUR CASE with links to thousands of our secret files.

    Find out SECRETS about your relatives, friends, enemies, and everyone else! -- even your spouse! With the New - "FBI"

    You will be AMAZED at what you can discover:

    LICENSE PLATE NUMBER - Get anyone's name and address with just a license plate number! (Find that girl you met in traffic!)

    DRIVING RECORD - Get anyone's driving record!

    SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER - Trace anyone by social security number!

    ADDRESS - Get anyone's address with just a name!

    UNLISTED PHONE NUMBERS - Get anyone's phone number with just a name- even unlisted numbers!

    LOCATE - Long lost friends, relatives, a past lover who broke your heart!

    E-MAIL - Send anyone anonymous e-mail that's completely untraceable!

    DIRTY SECRETS - Discover dirty secrets your in-laws don't want you to know!

    INVESTIGATE ANYONE - Use the sources that private investigators use (all on the Internet) secretly!

    EX-SPOUSE - Learn how to get information on an ex-spouse that will help you win in court! (Dig up old skeletons)

    CRIMINAL SEARCH - BACKGROUND CHECK - Find out about your daughter's boyfriend! (or her husband)

    FIND OUT - If you are being investigated!

    NEIGHBORS - Learn all about your mysterious neighbors! Find out what they have to hide!

    PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH - Be astonished by what you'll learn about the people you work with!

    EDUCATION VERIFICATION - Did he really graduate college? Find out!

    "The FBI" will help you discover ANYTHING about anyone, with clickable hyperlinks and no typing in Internet addresses! Just download the software and go! You will be shocked and amazed by the secrets that can be discovered about absolutely everyone! Find out the secrets they don't want you to know! About others, about yourself!

    LIMITED TIME OFFER -- ORDER TODAY! ONLY $20 (US)

    You can access the "FBI" NOW so you can begin discovering all the secrets you ever wanted to know! You can know EVERYTHING about ANYONE with "The FBI".

    - Works with all Internet Explorer browsers and all versions of AOL
    - Windows Versions available Only!

    DON'T WAIT TO GET STARTED? It's as easy as 1, 2, 3. ORDER TODAY - While this agency is still legal!

    1. Re:Look at this spam I just got today by mfender9 · · Score: 1, Funny

      But what are they going to do for the nation's penis size?

    2. Re:Look at this spam I just got today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      please, for a nation of our status florida is average sized at the very least and we shouldn't be so fixated on it. it's all how you use it.

  2. How? by The+Grey+Clone · · Score: 5, Funny

    How was this said in an e-mail if their e-mail server was down?

    1. Re:How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It was obviously sent via the impenetrable forces of an AOL mail account, which never goes down.

    2. Re:How? by liquidsin · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm more interested in how they use an email account to view internet sites...

      --
      do not read this line twice.
    3. Re:How? by VB · · Score: 5, Funny

      It came from fbipressrelease723@hotmail.com

      --
      www.dedserius.com
      VB != VisualBasic
  3. And as a followup... by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    > "We use these accounts to communicate with you folks, view internet sites, and conduct other non-sensitive bureau business such as sending out press releases," Special Agent Steve Lazarus, the FBI's media coordinator in Atlanta, said in an e-mail describing the problem.

    In a followup e-mail describing the problem, Special Agent Laz Steverus said "No sensitive information was compromised, but today is a good time to remind citizens that the FBI is in posession of approximately 22,000,000,000 (TWENTY TWO BILLION DOLLARS) in uncollected judicial judgements from spammers, a portion of which we're trying to return to you folks. Just visit our web site, and read our press release, and it will instruct you in how to help us get this money back to you..."

  4. Cool name. by Gulik · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, what I wouldn't give to be "Special Agent Lazarus." Everything you do sounds cool -- I mean, it might be an utterly boring document about e-mail usage, but you still get to call it "the Lazarus Report."

    1. Re:Cool name. by rxmd · · Score: 5, Funny
      Man, what I wouldn't give to be "Special Agent Lazarus." Everything you do sounds cool -- I mean, it might be an utterly boring document about e-mail usage, but you still get to call it "the Lazarus Report."
      Even better: when you die, you're brought back to life by Special Agent Jesus!
      --
      As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
    2. Re:Cool name. by nadadogg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Even better: when you die, you're brought back to life by Special Agent Jesus!

      Then you have sex with your mom!
      [/heinlein]

      --
      i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
  5. Re:Request by LurkerXXX · · Score: 1, Funny
    The 'editors' here don't even read their own site to prevent dupe stories. Now you think they are going to actually read the article posted, and also do background research for it?

    Dream on.

  6. Re:WWW or SMTP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Are thay use WWW

    You maen tah intarweb?

    A bird whispered in my ear that they use avian carriers with security bits turned on.

  7. FBI raids themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The FBI reportedly surrounded the building (after leaving it) and broke down the front door, only after realizing they had the keys. They confiscated the computers and surrounding evidence for further investigation. "It must be an insider doing the hacking, these systems were secure." said agent r0\/ l337zki.

  8. In other news... by teledyne · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... the FBI, for a short time, became mysteriously more productive within the span of 12 hours. Some say that their coffee was spiked with a new secret uber-caffeine, while others say a lack of spam in their e-mail boxes allowed them to work more freely.

    Not only that, but personnel over at the Central Intelligence Agency as well as the National Security Agency have also become more friendlier. One employee was noted saying, "Thank God! I was so fucking tired of those guys sending me pics of Goatse!"

  9. Oh shoot by SilverspurG · · Score: 4, Funny

    How was I supposed to know?

    I'm sitting here in the training cubicle. The guy in the cube next to me decides to check his voicemail... ON SPEAKERPHONE. After he dials in his password (for the entire office to hear) I call softly over the cube wall,"I now have your password."

    A tense silence followed, and I could tell that the general perception was "Yeah right--you're just the new guy."

    So I brought up my handy DTMF generator and started replaying his password over and over (at a low volume, but just loud enough so that people in adjacent cubes could hear).

    How was I supposed to know that he had the Admin password for the e-mail server stored in his voicemail?

    At the same time... What sort of dumbass checks their voice mail on speakerphone in public office space?

    --
    fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
  10. This means war!!! by toocoolforschool · · Score: 3, Funny

    Director Mueller wants his email (gunslinger_cute@fbi.gov) back with a vengeance.

  11. Or did he? by NMerriam · · Score: 5, Funny

    Special Agent Steve Lazarus, the FBI's media coordinator in Atlanta, said in an e-mail describing the problem.

    Is this some sort of intelligence test? You get an email press release from someone saying the email account they use for press releases isn't reliable?

    --
    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  12. Re:are you sure? by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    and not somebody named 133thaxxor?

    My name is Lee Thaxxor, you insensitive clod!

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  13. hm by EMH_Mark3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does that mean we need to change our passwords again?

    --
    Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
  14. Re:Server was running Linux Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1 by eln · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well then, I guess Netcraft confirms it: Linux-Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1 is dying.

  15. I'm shocked and apalled by b00m3rang · · Score: 3, Funny

    How could someone actually read someone else's email without their permission? Next these crackers will be listening to other people's phone calls. Then what, a knock on the door in the middle of the night?

  16. Pick for password. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2, Funny
    1 2 3 4

    Isn't that a good password?
    I use it on my luggage too.

  17. Re:No Wonder 9/11 Happened! by eno2001 · · Score: 2, Funny
    I also fail it as I can't tell the difference between a
    <B> and a </B>
    .
    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
  18. Re:Request by say · · Score: 3, Funny

    But Netcraft confirms it, mail.fbi.gov is dead!

    More seriously, netcraft sez http://www.fbi.gov was running Sun-ONE-Web-Server on Linux when last queried at 4-Feb-2005 18:26:45 GMT. Whatever that is.

    --
    Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
  19. zerg by Lord+Omlette · · Score: 4, Funny

    Out of curiosity, does the FBI have any "normal" agents? Cause if they're all "special" agents, are they really that special?

    --
    [o]_O
  20. Special agent Lazarus by theendlessnow · · Score: 2, Funny
    I heard that special agent Lazarus was currently trapped somewhere between matter and anti-matter doing battle with his counterpart from an alternate universe.

    Frankly, I think we've all been duped by this false news post.

  21. Carnivore by bsandersen · · Score: 2, Funny

    They used to use carnivore to read our mail. Maybe they just thought it would be nice to take turns and let us read their mail for a while.