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Republican Aide Tries to Hire Hackers
Noryungi writes "It seems as though a Republican Communications Director contacted Attrition.org, trying to hire hackers to improve his educational records. I don't know what is his dumbest move: (a) contacting Attrition in the first place, (b) using a real name Yahoo email address or (c) speaking at length about what he needed? Kudos to the Attrition crew for posting the whole email dialogue online! A sample from the conversation: 'Jericho: First, let's be clear. You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and multiple felonies. Obviously I can't trust anyone and everyone that mails such a request, you might be an FBI agent, right? So, I need three things to make this happen: 1. A picture of a squirrel or pigeon on your campus. One close-up, one with background that shows buildings, a sign, or something to indicate you are standing on the campus. 2. The information I mentioned so I can find the records once I get into the database. 3. Some idea of what I get for all my trouble.'"
I read the email correspondence before reading the network world article. They were just leading him on.
They had the whole exchange posted for a while, but it was only recently that anyone in the media bothered to track down the actual guy.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Um, I'm sure I won't be the only one to ask this. But how in the hell does this prove that you are not the FBI, Secret Service, Police or whoever? Even if he was on campus at the time, I'm sure any authority that you'd want to fear could get to wherever they needed to be to take that picture in the same day that he asks for it.
In case you are wondering, what they are doing is a variant of the 419 eater technique. They had no intent of following through, but they had every intent of making the guy look like a fool as they strung him along.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I know that Sandy Berger (just so no one thinks I'm biased) is a real moron but come on, how much lack of intelligence does one have to have to think that they could get away with this?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
To make up for that, I've created a mirror:
http://suso.suso.org/attrition1.html
http://suso.suso.org/attrition2.html (Page 2)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The folks at attrition have *always* had a policy of posting email to them. It's usually a great read (and this one started back in September, ISTR). It was only when Mr. Bright Guy was outed as a congressional aide that it hit the big time.
I love the smell of napalm in December.
The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. (Mark Twain)
Can you site a case, or an actual law that prohibits forwarding of emails?
1 7article that is directly on point (after a quick google search). The article specifically mentions a 2006 reversal by the California Supreme Court, (original case Barrett v. Rosenthal http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Barrett_v_Rosenthal /ruling.pdf) which upholds that blogs, websites, listservs, etc. are protected under the Communications Decency Act (CDA 1996) Section 230. This section explicitly states that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
Though I have only found one http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_11.php#0050
Other relevant portions of the article:
"The issue raised in Barrett v. Rosenthal was whether Section 230's protection applies to individuals who frequently use the internet to pass on information obtained elsewhere, whether by forwarding an email written by someone else or, as was the case in Barrett, posting an email from someone else to a newsgroup."
The CDA basically covers anyone from being sued, prosecuted {in my non-legal opinion) for posting forwarding emails from other sources. It is unclear from the article, and I don't have time to reread the CDA at the moment, if this also covers emails that include the 'privacy' footer. However, email is a public method of passing data around, there isn't any expectation of privacy in this form of communication. Finding and ferreting out a private email, either from a mail server, or while it is traveling through a network, isn't a very tough thing to do. You just have to know where to look.
"to give them motivation to combat unemployment."
e t
do you even realize what the current unemployment rate is? it's considered full employment.
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServl
Server must be running on a box in someone's bedroom or something, 'cuz it's off line now... And what's with having the domain registered at NetSol? I guess pretentious "security researchers" need their domain registered with equally pretentious domain registrars... Oh yeah, we got some quality hackers, er, I mean "security researchers" here!
.com registrars existed. I still have a domain hosted with Network Solutions myself for the same reason (although they did open up the market for testing with five competing registrars shortly after I registered mine). For awhile I was afraid if I tried to transfer it to a new registrar they'd botch the transfer and I'd end up losing the domain (I've heard of that sort of thing happening, and the rightful owner having no recourse), but now it's mostly laziness.
Attrition.org has been around since long before multiple
As for the the server, I don't know where it's hosted now, but I saw it in about 1999. It was the only server in the colo room covered in bumper stickers.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You have absolutely no expectation for the average person to keep your communication a secret. They are the reciepent and can now do whatever they feel like unless they are bound by certain cases of privilege (lawyers for instance), or signed an NDA.
Just telling them they cant disclose it is not enough, they must acknowledge they wont before you tell them the information
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Press aide who tried to hire hackers has been fired.1 5
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/100
A name, hell it's practically an official internet sport! Some people live for a 419 Email, and a chance to play! The idea is to scam the scammer into performing stupid and demeaning tasks, you start slow, build them up.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Of course, the length of the audio was less than 1 second (the time it takes to rotate the pot once) but hey...