Fox News' FTP Password Anyone?

An anonymous reader writes "While browsing around the Fox News website, I found that directory indexes are turned on. So, I started following the tree up, until I got to /admin. Eventually, I found my way into /admin/xml_parser/zdnet/, in which, there is a shell script. Seeing as it's a shell script, and I use Linux, I took a peek. Inside, is a username and password to an FTP. So, of course, I tried to login. The result? Epic fail on Fox's part. And seriously, what kind of password is T1me Out. This is just pathetic." It's already been changed of course, but that's still pretty amusing.

Comments

Wasted chance

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Dude, why didn't you look around for the bug that makes them misreport the news so horribly that a majority of FOX News viewers still believes Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and Saddam had WMDs when the US invaded?

Re:Wasted chance

[mwvdlee]

Because now we know; it was just some hacker prank.

Re:Wasted chance

[niceone]

Hey, that's not a bug - it's a feature.

Re:Wasted chance

[MindKata]

... And when they get hacked, they can get ton's of free publicity telling the whole world of the dangers of hackers... They would probably be only too happy to get hacked, for all the extra free news coverage it would get them on other networks.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

"T1me Out"... that's the kind of password an idiot would use on his luggage!

Re:Wasted chance

[jrumney]

Clinton believed they were there, because at the time Saddam was refusing to let UN inspectors do their job. By the time Bush had invaded, the UN inspectors had already been in and found nothing.

Re:Wasted chance

[include($dysmas)]

the usual call to RTFA ... this is from the lame "the DoD are after me for using vista" site, who approved it ffs? read the article they link to (and link directly next time, stop paying them in ads!), its an account to grab files from zdnet, not an account into fox news, does it even have write access? dont let the facts get in the way of alarmist bs tho

Re:Wasted chance

[Aexia]

After Operation Desert Fox in 1998, Hussein's remaining WMD programs were finished off.

It's rather disengenuous to cite quotes from 1998 when he did have WMD programs to justify actions taken in 2003 when he did not have any WMD programs.

Re:Wasted chance

[Rakshasa Taisab]

There's also a difference between 'believing they're there' and 'going to war cause you know they're there, no matter what others think about your plans'.

Re:Wasted chance

[mh1997]

Clinton believed they were there, because at the time Saddam was refusing to let UN inspectors do their job. By the time Bush had invaded, the UN inspectors had already been in and found nothing.

Actually, Clinton and Bush both new that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons because the USA sold them to him (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.h tm). However, what they did not know is if he still had them at the time of the invasion (although best guess is Bush did know that Saddam did not have them anymore), where they were, and if they were degraded to the point that they were no longer weaponizable.

Not defending Bush, I didn't vote for him, but I am tired of this WMD crap also.

Re:Wasted chance

[Legion303]

"Even CLINTON believed they were there."

Yep. In 1998. Then we invaded, destroyed stockpiles, and ushered in the inspection teams.

What that has to do with GWB's claims in 2003 I don't know, but I'm sure that completely unbiased and non-partisan site you linked to has an answer.

Re:Wasted chance

[dcollins]

This isn't about believing in WMDs before the invasion. This is about believing that we found WMDs AFTER the invasion. In an October 2003 poll, for example, 7 months after the invasion, 33% of Fox viewers said that the U.S. had actually physically found WMDs in the course of the invasion. That's 10% higher than the next most confused media viewership. This is what some of us would really love to see explained by you "nothing to see here" apologists. Or else, it sounds like you still maintain that's a reasonable belief today?

http://www.americanassembler.com/issues/media/docs /Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf

Weapons of Mass Destruction
As discussed, when respondents were asked whether the US has "found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" since the war had ended, 22% of all respondents over June-September mistakenly thought this had happened. Once again, Fox viewers were the highest with 33% having this belief. A lower 19-23% of viewers who watch ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN had the perception that the US has found WMD. Seventeen percent of those who primarily get their news from print sources had the misperception, while only 11% of those who watch PBS or listen to NPR had it.

Re:Wasted chance

[Thrip]

Wow, you are seriously rewriting history, dude. Don't you remember all those statements by the administration claiming they had proof they couldn't show us, and then coming out with a few lame fuzzy satellite photos of trailers and shit? A lot of people didn't buy it at the time -- including me and most of the people I know. I mean, no one doubts that Iraq had once had some hairy weapons programs (find me a government that hasn't), but it was seriously hard to believe they had anything that would threaten the US. Just because you were suckered, you're saying "we all thought..."? Come on, learn from your mistake and move on.

Re:Wasted chance

[mhall119]

None of the 9-11 hijackers had any connection to Iraq, and Saddam didn't care for radical Shiite Islamic Fundamentalism! I minor detail, but the 9/11 hijackers were not shiite muslims.

If America wants to encourage countries not to proliferate, would it not make sense to disband our own arsenal? Absolutely not! One of the best tools we have to stopping proliferation is saying the USA will use its arsenal as a deterrent force so those countries will not need their own. That is why most European countries do not have their own nuclear weapons program, because during the Cold War we used our arsenal to extend the MAD principle to protect them.

Re:Wasted chance

[iapetus]

If America wants to encourage countries not to proliferate, would it not make sense to disband our own arsenal? Who are we going to use it on anyway?

Oh sure. Let's shed all our defenses and leave ourselves vulnerable to an attack by Canadia. That would be a good idea. I say we nuke Ontario now, just to be on the safe side.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

they can get ton's of free publicity

Now, is that "ton is of free publicity", or does Mr. Ton have a lot of "of free publicity" that he could potentially give to you?

Re:Wasted chance

[Martin Blank]

The US is in the process of destroying its remaining chemical and biological weapons, and would be done with it were it not for environmentalist lawsuits. One of the project sites completed its work years ago, and the others should be finished in a few years. The Russians are far behind their own obligations, but are slowly making progress.

Re:Wasted chance

[jollyreaper]

Fox news definately has some perspective issues - but WMD's isn't one of them. Even CLINTON believed they were there. Not trying to start a war - I am just sick of hearing about WMD's, when we all thought they were there. Iraq as the cause for 9/11 though - that's a crazy concept. No, you colossal boob, not everyone thought there were WMD's. First, don't lump chemical and biological with nuclear. Yes, I know analysts do it but I think it unfairly magnifies the threat level of the BC in NBC.

The specific charge Bush used to get our panties in a wad was nuclear weapons. "We don't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud." Yellow cake uranium, lie. Aluminum tubes, lie. The CIA was giving Bush solid intel but he and his team refused to accept it. Cheney and his cronies cherry-picked raw intel for the most sensationalistic shit they could find, regardless of whether it was true or not.

When you say "most people assumed Saddam had WMD" you really mean "Most people assumed he had some leftover chemical or biological shit", not that he had nukes ready to strike the west in 45 minutes. The consensus before 9-11, a consensus backed by Powell, was that the US policy of Iraqi containment was working.

I'm sick of lies and lying liars. I'm sick of people who rewrite the facts to justify doing something and then rewrite history to protect themselves from that fuckup.

Re:Wasted chance

[PFI_Optix]

It also bears pointing out that we *did* find evidence that suggested a number scientists were pretending to be running a weapons program and pocketing the cash. That would indicate that Saddam was seeking some level of WMD capabilities and was being conned out of his money. It would also create a substantial paper trail and conversations that would be interpreted to mean Iraq had a weapons program.

There was a lot of bad information in the days before the invasion. The problem was compounded by the fact that the intelligence community seemed to be largely composed of yes men who were looking to tell the president what he wanted to hear. I honestly believe the president simply didn't have all the facts at hand because he was so keen on invading Iraq and none of his advisors wanted to tell him it was a bad idea.

Re:Wasted chance

[Guuge]

Anyone looking just at the inspectors' reports would not believe that Saddam had "stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction" as was claimed by some. You don't get stockpiles from "losing track of the actual truth". you don't get mass destruction from a few ancient chemical weapons.

Using the advantage of hindsight, the answer is obvious; just follow the money. The Bush administration had a significant financial motivation for the invasion, so they hyped it in any way they could. (Example: Nigerian yellowcake scandal) It appears that the systematic distortions caused you to lose track of the actual truth.

But I don't expect you to learn any life lessons from this. People like stories with comic book villains and if seeing Saddam as evil, omnipotent, and omniscient makes your universe make sense, whatever. [Here's where I make some insulting generalization about you, but even I have too much good taste for that.]

Re:Wasted chance

[good soldier svejk]

Yes, Saddam occasionally would kick the U.N. inspectors out for a few weeks

Actually that isn't true. Saddam never expelled the UN inspectors. UNSCOM was expelled from Iraq in 1998, but it was Clinton who kicked them out, not Saddam. Iraq did temporarily expel American inspectors in 1997 after they learned that CIA infiltrators in UNSCOM had passed intelligence which the US used to facilitate a coup attempt. In response, UNSCOM chief Richard Butler withdrew all his teams to Kuwait. But the crisis was short lived and everyone was back to work in a week. Inspections limped along until December 1998, when Clinton decided his purposes were better served by bombing. The US then told UNSCOM they needed to evacuate for safety reasons and Director Richard Butler happily obliged. Go back and read the news reports of the day and you will see no mention of Saddam expelling non-American UNSCOM members. That factoid developed later. Several UNSCOM officials, including director Rolf Ekeus and David Kaye, have admitted that the US illegally used the inspection program for espionage.

"As time went on, some countries, especially the US, wanted to learn more about other parts of Iraq's capacity." The US even tried to find information about the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. [Rolf Ekeus, Director of UNSCOM 1991-1997, Financial Times, 7/29/03]

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

biological and chemical weapons aren't the sort of things you just throw out. If he disposed of them he should have had proof (disposal facilities, appropriate waste by-products, etc.) He had none of those.

Re:Wasted chance

[GrayCalx]

Anyone looking just at the inspectors' reports would not believe that Saddam had "stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction" as was claimed by [the MI5, the Mossad, and the CIA].

Just to be accurate as possible I've updated that sentence for you.

Re:Wasted chance

[ajs]

"Even CLINTON believed they were there."

Yep. In 1998. Then we invaded, destroyed stockpiles, and ushered in the inspection teams.

What that has to do with GWB's claims in 2003 I don't know, but I'm sure that completely unbiased and non-partisan site you linked to has an answer. You didn't read the linked article, obviously. The site he linked to is a snopes-like rumor debunking site. It's quite true that the quotes listed (between 1998 and 2003) are all true. The congress really did believe that WMDs would be found in Iraq. The question is: why did they think that? The answer is that the CIA was used as a tool to make the case for war. Tenet's book has made that pretty clear. He was somewhat complicit, and the CIA certainly did get some things wrong, but it's clear that the Bush administration was eager to go to War, and eager to convince the Congress and U.N. that there was a valid reason to do so, even if that was questionable.

Re:Wasted chance

[AndersOSU]

I'm not the OP, but I believe it.

Having biological and chemical weapons lying around is a liability waiting to happen. They're hard to control, and hard to account for. (Sir, the warehouse reports that we have 5,347,761 moles of VX gas available.)

Disposing of them is environmentally hazardous. For instance, you don't really know that much about the products of the disposal reaction. Check out one story about how the disposal is problematic. (check out how many related stories there are in the side bar.)

Besides, if we needed to, how hard would it be to make more?

Re:Wasted chance

[quanticle]

Let's shed all our defenses and leave ourselves vulnerable to an attack by Canadia.

I'm so sick of hearing that argument. Disarmament of nuclear weapons != complete disarmament. Even if we get rid of all our ICBMs and chemical and biological weapons, we'll still have enough nukes to destroy any other country three times over, backed up by the finest conventional military in the world.

Face it: with the fall of the Soviet Union, there is no reason for America to be spending so time and money maintaining weapons of mass destruction. We should decommission half of them and spend that money on parts of the military that actually need the attention - like the Marines and Army.

Re:Wasted chance

[indifferent children]

Bush didn't tell the American people that he 'believed' that Saddam had WMDs. He said, "I guarantee that Saddam has WMD's". I just want to know if that was a money-back guarantee, 'cause, if so, my future grandkids have one hell of a rebate check coming.

Re:Wasted chance

[Don853]

But I don't expect you to learn any life lessons from this. People like stories with comic book villains and if seeing Saddam as evil, omnipotent, and omniscient makes your universe make sense, whatever. [Here's where I make some insulting generalization about you, but even I have too much good taste for that.]

Idle curiosity: Do you think a smart-assed remark about how you, unlike the other guy, are too good for personal attacks is something other than a personal attack?

Re:Wasted chance

[enjerth]

What, you thought that they were going to go in there with guns blazing and then, when there is no government or law left, just leave town?

The plan to establish a democratic government in Iraq was a part of the plan from the start. And now it's just what they have left to do.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise that most of the insurgents in Iraq are natives? It is surprising how pissed off one can get at the people who come in and knock your country back to stone age and pretend it's for your own good. Not to mention the more personal effect of having family members killed/tortured/raped by the invaders.

Re:Wasted chance

[jimicus]

My memory may be faulty and I can't be bothered to search for a citation, but didn't it come out before the war started that all of those intelligence agencies were basing their information on a single, discredited source?

Re:Wasted chance

[LWATCDR]

Actually the US did find small stock piles of gas agents and one centrifuge that is used to enrich uranium. Not the massive infrastructure that was claimed to be sure but that statement that NO WMD where found is also false. The claim is that the gas agents where miss placed when the Iraqis where destroying them under UN supervision.
I know that I will get flamed for this but it is the truth.

Re:Wasted chance

[PFI_Optix]

Did the president pick the joint chiefs and the top-level CIA people? (serious question, I don't know off the top of my head).

Not everyone who has the president's ear is appointed by him. He showed some bad judgment prior to the invasion and obviously some of his appointees were poor picks given our post-9/11 hindsight. My point is that there wasn't a crystal-clear picture either way prior to invasion, and Bush's vision was even more filtered because those he most trusted were unwilling or unable to tell him the whole story.

Iraq was big stupid mess from day one, no doubt about that. But let's not try to paint the whole administration as malicious warmongering tyrants when in all reality they're just inept shoot-from-the-hip bureaucrats.

The sad thing is, I really don't believe we'd have been much better with either of our presidential alternatives: I think Gore would have found a completely different way to bungle things after 9/11 and make someone miserable (probably us) and Kerry would probably have really fouled up the occupation...yes, even more than Bush.

Re:Wasted chance

[plague3106]

Iraq did 9/11? Who cares. Saddam gone is good for the world dudes. Just ask the Saudis how they feel about it....

Well using 9/11 to invade Iraq isn't really that great of a cause; if you had so many good reasons, why did Bush try to link Saddam to 9/11? Just use one of the many good reasons already there.

As far as asking what the Saudis think, I really don't give a shit what they think. When a government can arrest and kill a woman because you saw her ankle, I don't really care if that government feels "safe" or not.

Re:Wasted chance

[GodfatherofSoul]

Saddam was fronting a bogus WMD program to scare off his neighbors. All of this was easily discredited by the pre-War UN inspections. Citing these kinds of reports without context was a part of the cherry picking that the administration used to legitimize the War.

I no longer subscribe to the "Bush as Mr. Magoo" story line. There's too much evidence that they wanted invade Iraq from day 1.

Re:Wasted chance

[vtcodger]

***Fox news definately has some perspective issues - but WMD's isn't one of them. Even CLINTON believed they were there. Not trying to start a war - I am just sick of hearing about WMD's, when we all thought they were there. ***

This is utter and completely unmitigated nonsense. 'We' most certainly did NOT all know that Iraq had WMDs. In fact most of the people in the world except those systematically misinformed by the American Media were pretty sure Iraq did not have such weapons. That's why (unlike Afghanistan) the US was largely unable to cajole, extort, intimidate, bribe, or con any major country except Britain into strongly supporting the invasion of Iraq. The 'Coalition" had less than 50 members. Many of them have no meaningful presence and the majority of them are places like Palau and Moldova with GDPs smaller than South Dakota. For example, officially Turkey is a member of the coalition. But in fact, Turkdy turned down a whopping bribe to participate meaningfully in the fiasco. Even Canada -- which usually sticks with the US -- passed on this one.

There were UN inspectors on the ground from November 2002 on until they were directed to leave for their own safety just before the US invasion in March 2003. Their efforts were not being impeded. They found no sign of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or of programs to make them (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/17/iraq/ma in544280.shtml )

You should be asking why you did not know in early 2003 what most of the world knew. If you were getting your news from Fox News, that would explain part of the problem. (Surely you are not still listening to those clowns?). But that's only part of the problem.

Re:Wasted chance

[smitth1276]

We did find WMDs on multiple occassions... they were pretty much all small caches of old shells filled with mustard or sarin and which were probably were no longer effective, but it is a bit disingenuous for the pollster to take those answers and then arbitrarily say "oh, well those don't count... so Fox News viewers are dumb!". If the question was simply "Has the US found Iraqi WMDs?" then the Fox News viewers appear to be the only ones who were properly informed of those developments.

And, of course, there were also incidents where the insurgent groups got ahold of some lingering chemical weapons (mustard gas, I think) and tried to make bombs out of them--luckily, that also was old and non-effective. Those were widely reported at the time.

In other words, get off your uninformed, sanctimonious high-horse. :-)

Re:Wasted chance

[mr_mischief]

In fact, the victory over Saddam's forces and the effort to remove him from power was a cakewalk. It's keeping order in the aftermath that's proving difficult.

Re:Wasted chance

[CodeBuster]

33% of Fox viewers said that the U.S. had actually physically found WMDs in the course of the invasion

Unfortunately, the issue is not as black and white as the pundits on either side would like you to believe. There is, unfortunately, some wiggle room that gets used to support either one side or the other depending upon the speaker. The problem lies in the strictness of one's definition of WMDs and the categorization by some people of certain chemical weapons as WMDs despite the fact that such weapons are orders or magnitude less destructive than say the nuclear weapons that they are grouped with. Now, having said that it *is* true that US forces in Iraq have, from time to time, come across the odd Artillery shell filled with mustard or even a binary form of sarin in one case (used as a roadside bomb and a couple of US soldiers experienced minor symptoms, but no deaths). At best one could say that such finds are execeedingly rare and do not in and of themselves constitute evidence of a vast and active program on the part of Saddam to develop and use these weapons in the years immediately prior to the invasion. However, proof is proof and if even one shell is found then the number of "WMDs" was not zero and that is why the pundits continue arguing the points. This is splitting hairs maybe but if one argues that there were absolutely *no* WMDs in Iraq prior to the invasion then strictly speaking that person would be wrong. The problem lies in the use of absolutes in argumentation where even one counter-example disproves the argument.

Re:Wasted chance

[GrayCalx]

My memory may be faulty and I can't be bothered to search for a citation, but didn't it come out before the war started that all of those intelligence agencies were basing their information on a single, discredited source?

Yeah, I'm not sure either but I have a similar memory. I mean the point that proves they were wrong the most is simply that nothing has been found in Iraq. I definitely wasn't trying to say that they were right... only that several of the world's intelligence agencies believed the same thing.

Re:Wasted chance

[xeno-cat]

I lived through it all, read as many sides of the arguments as I could find, and let me tell you, Bush lied. He and his administration lied bold faced and with full knowledge of what they were doing. I see that it pretty much breaks down as follows:

1. There are the double talking scheming lying bastards who run the current US administration, and those who support them

2. There are the voices of reason and logic

3. There are the confused masses in between

Finally, there is a rather uncomfortable addition for those in category #1, namely, the facts. The facts as the were and the facts as they are. None of them supporting anything camp 1 proclaims largely because they spend most of the time touting their "alternate interpretation of reality" theory.

This is the worst bunch of cronies to land in government in my life time. And I lived through Contra Gate and S&L. And really this is the same group as they were all tied to the two aforementioned scandals as well. These guys should be arrested, tried and exiled.

Kind Regards

Re:Wasted chance

[HiThere]

I suspect that Kerry would at least have supported our own troops, rather than sending the off to battle without weapons and defenses. And would have prevented them from being fed slop while the contractors charged for restaurant grade meals.

I wish that I could disagree with you on other fronts...but I think we were set up, and not by the Iraqis. The evidence seems to point to a plot internal to the government. (Look at how quickly the PATRIOT bill was presented and passed. Notice where the anthrax came from, and who the targets were...and contemplate that the ineptitude in it's delivery may have been intentional. That may have been a public warning. Notice that the target has since died. [Damn...my memory's spotty here. I haven't been paying attention because there wasn't anything I could do and it just depresses me. What was his name? Did he die of "natural causes" or an airplane crash?])

Re:Wasted chance

[AK Marc]

We did find WMDs on multiple occasions... they were pretty much all small caches of old shells filled with mustard or sarin and which were probably were no longer effective,

So, if there was fissile material in a bomb configuration that was in a missile-like object, would that be a WMD even if the priming charge was bad, the fissile material had decayed to the point where critical mass could not be achieved and the missile would have exploded on the pad if someone would have tried to launch it?

Simply saying "we found canisters marked 'sarin' which appeared to be good at one time and of unknown status now" to indicate that actual WMDs were found is not logical. Were the chemicals found still at full strength? Was there an available delivery method? Did the government have records of them and the ability to deploy them?

Of course Saddam would lie about WMDs. He thought that there would be no uprisings if people thought he had them, and he thought there'd be no invasion if people had them. So he wanted everyone to think he had them in large quantities with his finger on the button. For some reason, the same people (Fox News watchers) who claim that all politicians are liars, seem to think that Saddam should have been believed when he implied that he still had them.

And, of course, there were also incidents where the insurgent groups got ahold of some lingering chemical weapons (mustard gas, I think) and tried to make bombs out of them--luckily, that also was old and non-effective. Those were widely reported at the time.

Again, confirmed reports of non-WMDs, further confirming that anything that he had laying around was useless and that there were no functioning WMDs in Iraq at the time of the invasion.

Re:Wasted chance

[cayenne8]

"Misdemeanor? To burn down the place where someone else is living? I don't want to live in your town."

You'd feel safer in AR then. When I took my CCW testing there, I learned that it was perfectly legal to shoot someone you saw in the act of committing arson. Seriously, the law is on the books there.

I never was 'lucky' enough to catch someone in the 'act'....

Re:Wasted chance

[AaronW]

Did the president pick the joint chiefs and the top-level CIA people? (serious question, I don't know off the top of my head).

He did pick the head of the CIA George Tenant. Also, Cheney and Rumsfield created their own group inside the Pentagon to go through all the evidence that was separate from the CIA. The people in that group were not experienced analysts and were not able to effectively separate the wheat from the chaff, plus they had an explicit agenda as to what they wanted the outcom to be, which may or may not have been the truth. Time has shown that it was not the truth. The CIA didn't have the best intelligence, but they were not totally off. Bush had an agenda from day one from the Project for a New American Century which many top people in the Whitehouse belonged. Also, Bush made the comment about Saddam by calling him "the guy who tried to kill my dad" which should also be telling.

Re:Wasted chance

[Adambomb]

I minor detail, but the 9/11 hijackers were not shiite muslims. This is one question I wish was asked more often, despite knowing the answer, is why Saudi Arabia has been untouched by agression when the largest percentage of the hijackers were Saudi. In fact the hijackers were ALL from countries with which the oil companies...er....the US is friendly with (with Egypt being the longest stretch by that definition), primarily Saudia Arabia and the UAE.

Has anyone looked at the development of Dubai over the past 10 years? or the wealth of the royal family in Saudi Arabia? Money is flowing to someone from somewhere over there that is for sure.

Now I'm not saying that Saudi's or UAE citizens are evil by default, simply that there has been absolutely 0 backlash against these regions while the US uses 9/11 to justify everything else it has been doing everywhere else.

Wheres the puzzled slightly-tilted looks of hwhaaa?

Re:Wasted chance

[gad_zuki!]

Rotting shells from the iraq-iran conflict is not at all why Bush claimed to go to war. playing them up to be "WMDs found in Iraq" is willful ignorance. Removing the context from the claim is as good as lying. Again.

This is like the local police saying 'We're going to raid every home in your town because of illegal arms.' They end up finding a broken revolver pistol from the 50s buried in a garbage pile. Claiming 'SEE THEY FOUND GUNS' is being a complete idiot.

Re:Wasted chance

[Guuge]

Why wouldn't Saddam do the same?

Because he has no self-interest in getting deposed.

Re:Wasted chance

[nephridium]

I don't understand how many war critics can't stop mentioning the fact that not finding WMDs would take away all the "legitimacy" of the invasion. The reason Iraq was invaded was definitely NOT that they had WMDs and much less that they threatened the US with using it; that was just a turkey and everyone with a few brain cells knows it.

The reason why it was used and repeated over and over while the troops were assembling in the Gulf was that it was actually a rather safe bet (since it was the US itself that provided him with those!) and that you could scare uninformed folks to death by exaggerating what the evil guy from half way around the globe could to to them.

The invasion was wrong not because Saddam had no WMDs, but (among so many other reasons) because the hawks in Washington used their power and the gullibility of the people (the same people that actually empower them by paying taxes, building stuff, working, inventing... - those same people that actually carry the US forward) to bring war to a country that did not deserve it. Their motive was to intimidate by displaying military strength, to establish control on an oil rich region and ultimately to fill their own bank accounts (if you don't believe this I suggest you read up on privately funded mercenaries "working" in Iraq, e.g. Blackwater and about the huge profits companies like Halliburton are making through Iraq in a war funded by tax dollars while no end or even an improvement of the situation is in sight (intentionally?); there's also a documentary about this).

Re:Wasted chance

[Darby]

Iraq was big stupid mess from day one, no doubt about that. But let's not try to paint the whole administration as malicious warmongering tyrants when in all reality they're just inept shoot-from-the-hip bureaucrats.

How about we actually pay attention instead of your course of ignore all the facts to try and excuse the administration for their premeditated malicious actions?

Go read the 2000 paper by the Project For a New American Century titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" signed by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, George Bush Senior and many other members of Bush's original administration and hangers on. Pay attention to the parts where they talk about their plan to invade Iraq to "ensure future US economic world domination in the coming century", their understanding that the American people wouldn't buy their bullshit, so they would need to hope for an attack on the US on the level of Pearl Harbor which they could then misuse as an excuse to invade Iraq.

How about you stop talking about the subject when you obviously don't know a damn thing about it since you couldn't even be bothered to read the position papers published by the very people you're attempting to defend.
Think about how stupid that makes you to do something so completely ridiculous.

In short, since their own published plans paint them as exactly malicious warmongering tyrants how about you stop making up complete nonsense in order to defend them from their own fucking words which you never even read?

That would actually be the sane, reasonable position which is pretty much diametrically opposed to your own.

Re:Wasted chance

[Maltheus]

I don't understand how many war critics can't stop mentioning the fact that not finding WMDs would take away all the "legitimacy" of the invasion.

Because that was our only legal basis for the war and it goes back to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. That invasion gave us a legal basis to invade in 1991 and the terms of the surrender called for the elimination of WMD. This was a minor provision at the time, but it was enough for us to use as an excuse to go in this time. This is all very important for people to consider because we won't have this excuse if we invade Iran. A violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is not a valid basis for war. There will have to be a 'pretext' for Iran, let's hope they don't find one.

Re:Wasted chance

[Washizu]

"The sad thing is, I really don't believe we'd have been much better with either of our presidential alternatives: I think Gore would have found a completely different way to bungle things after 9/11 and make someone miserable (probably us) and Kerry would probably have really fouled up the occupation...yes, even more than Bush."

You can't go to war with the President you'd like to have, only the one you've got.

In all seriousness, I know this is just an opinion but what could you possibly base this on?

Re:Wasted chance

[Danathar]

"I'm sick of lies and lying liars. I'm sick of people who rewrite the facts to justify doing something and then rewrite history to protect themselves from that fuckup."

Get used to it. Whomever wins (Democrat or Republican) the whitehouse will

1. Blame the previous administration for anything that goes wrong domestic or foreign for I predict at least 2 years and probably 3.

2. Spin Spin Spin until you puke like riding that thing that kids ride at parks.

3. Probably keep 90 to 95% of every executive order that Bush signed to use for their own political advantage.

Re:Wasted chance

[ArsonSmith]

What I did was intentional to see who, and more importantly how people would respond to it. What the poster in question did was miss typed by adding an ' in a word where it shouldn't be. It is a typo because the single apostrophe becomes far to easy to hit. I doubt the original poster would have written the apostrophe by hand or intentionally meant to put it in at all. Therefore it is a typo. "They're", "their" and "there" or "two" "too" and "to" is typically either a careless mistake and therefore a typo or an admission of ignorance. It is quite simple in posting to an internet forum to pronounce "They're" and type "there" in your head. This would mean it was a typo. If someone doesn't know which form to use and/or why then they are ignorant to the point of possibly being call stupid. Of course being that we are on the internet it is also very possible that the person is in early grade school or legitimately mentally handicapped.

No mater the reason there are three things you can do about it. Ignore it and move on. Politely correct the person and educate them of the error of their ways. Or you can be a dick.

HaHa

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to jail and slashdot is getting shut down. It's a federal offense to interfere with an official government propaganda outlet.

Nice...

[x3rc3s]

Enjoy your stay in gitmo!

Changed by whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the question is, was it changed by Fox or someone else.

Great all we need.

[forgotten_my_nick]

That is all we need, months of stories how "evil hackers got into Fox network"

Followed up with "Hackers: Evil and must be stopped?" to linking hacking to Obama, a danger to your kids and finally Hackers gone wild at Spring break.

Re:Great all we need.

[Red Flayer]

and finally Hackers gone wild at Spring break.

If that video is similar to any of the other Spring break videos I've "heard about", I do not want to see it.

Either that, or we need to begin teaching nubile drunken 22-year-olds to hack.

Re:Great all we need.

[sammy baby]

You missed another possibility: that we'll be throwing beads at pasty, flabby geeks to get them to put their clothes back on.

Re:Great all we need.

[TerranFury]

linking hacking to Obama

Nice typo. Confusing a Democratic candidate with Al Quaeda's head demagogue? Apropos, given we're talking about Fox.

what's wrong with T1me Out

[wheretheicegrows]

I'm not that much into security, so I hope I don't sound "pathetic", but I was wondering what's wrong with the 'T1me Out' password. I'd say all company passwords I've ever had were no harder than that, and none of them had a space in it. And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[AlHunt]

>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[TodMinuit]

Seriously, though, that's the form you should be using for passwords, especially critical ones or ones that are public-facing. Get yourself a good password manager (TealSafe, SplashID) and just keep generating new passwords for all your systems. I think it's a moot point. Here, the password wasn't the failure. It could have been d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[asliarun]

I agree, and my personal experience with corporate passwords has been the same. I'm sure this would disturb security geeks at various levels (or get them salivating!), but I don't see this as a *huge* loophole since most of the systems are inside the corporate firewall anyway. IMHO, this is about as big a security threat as an employee or a contractor copying sensitive data (which the password is protecting) and trying to profit from it illegally.

A system that I was managing once started crashing, and further investigation revealed that the password of an upstream system had been changed. When we contacted the admin team of the offending application, they informed us that they had upgraded the password from 123 to the "highly secure" (in their words) 234.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[ndixon]

There's nothing really wrong with the password (though a smart dictionary-based search could discover it).

There is something very wrong with writing the password down, in plain text, on a public-facing server and assuming that no-one will be able to see it.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[Opportunist]

Current "dictionary crackers" already take care of "leet speak". I.e. they do contain "words" like h8, sk8er and so on. And of course they do try single character replacements like 1 for I and 2 for Z and so on.

In other words, yes, this password was prone to be dict'ed.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[Legion303]

"And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?"

Great--now you've got 8 people making the same joke.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[tehcyder]

>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Me too!

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[mewyn]

Well, the main problem with using "T1meOut" is it's very easily attacked by a weighted dictionary attack. All dictionary attacks take care of common numerical replacements and capitalization. The next issue is weight of the words. Time and out are rather common words in the english language, and even more common when used together. In the case of a full random password, or a word password with randomness interjected, it'd be a lot less crackable than "T1meOut". A much better password would be something like "t&iM-eoUt3". In that case, the words are still there, you just have to memorize the capitalization and non-word components, which honestly isn't hard, people just think it is.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[jollyreaper]

>>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

>Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Don't feel bad, I had the same combination on my luggage.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[eth1]

YwMCU07D?

Wimp. Real men use
dd if=/dev/random bs=1024 count=1 | passwd --stdin

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[DeeKayWon]

> Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Don't worry about it. I just did it for you.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[The One and Only]

No way is Fox News going to do that. That's Al Gore's strategy!

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[gknoy]

Actually, only 7 of them were joking .... but which seven? :)

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[Fred Ferrigno]

In that case, the words are still there, you just have to memorize the capitalization and non-word components, which honestly isn't hard, people just think it is. Define "hard". Since I know I'm me, passwords are an annoying speed bump in the best case scenario. In the worst case, a password I can't remember is worthless, no matter how strong it is.

Password Nazis these days are really frigging annoying. The most annoying rule I keep coming across is "no more than N letters in a row". Obviously that's meant to make it harder to use a dictionary word, but it trips me up frequently even though I never use dictionary words. I'd wager most people use mostly the same non-alpha characters and the current push for "strong" passwords likely makes them just as common as Q or X.

I've often wondered if all these rules designed to make passwords harder to guess actually limit the search space, making it easier to guess passwords. For example, when my university introduced its new password rules, they offered the example password "hP!bD;825" for Happy Birthday 8/25. How many people do you think simply used hP!bD; and their birthday? How many people will use an otherwise vulnerable password but tweak it in a completely predictable way to pass the filter? qW!eR!tY anyone?

Re:Linux Ver Security hole, fox stupidity, or both

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut the fuck up, you Gentoo fanboi. If they used Gentoo, the server would still be recompiling from a kernel update six months ago. Take your Genntoo, and jam it up your ass sideways and backwards. It's 0.038% more optimized for that.

Not a horrible password

[BHearsum]

That password would've been satisfactory if it was kept better.

Not really going to harm Fox

[SilentChris]

In all fairness (do they even deserve it?), the password listed in the script is for ZDNet's FTP, not Fox. Still pretty embarrassing, but it's not going to hurt Fox at all (I imagine it could have hurt CNet/ZDNet). And it definitely could've hurt the relationship between both corporations' IT departments.

There seems to be a string of these lately between content aggregators. About a month ago there was that page on MS's site endorsing Linux. Turns out the content was from another site (I think, actually, CNet).

Not to say I'm not totally surprised. In this day when about 50% of someone's site is content from somebody else, it's not surprising there's snafus. I'm just waiting for the day when one of the sites leaves up SSH logins for another.

I'm no lawyer, but...

[TodMinuit]

Just because you find the key to my car lying on the street doesn't mean you can go for a joy ride.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but...

[vulgrin]

Yeah, but if you were a total dick (like Fox News) then I might move it to another level of the parking garage to teach you a lesson.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but...

[TodMinuit]

Good thing we're talking about logging into the private FTP site, not wandering around the public website.

It Works

[Eddi3]

Actually, as of this post, the ftp server can still be accessed with the same username and password from the script.

Let's see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Random corporation has bad security: Brief blurb about how corporations should take better care of their security infrastructure in order to make sure that leaks/intrusions don't happen. Perhaps even a person or two giving advice in the form of which files to edit and what to change.

Corporation that people don't like has bad security: Note after note about how evil the company is and that they're idiots in the highest sense.

Ridiculous summary

[the computer guy nex]

1) The password has probably been around for awhile with no one guessing it. What exactly was wrong with it? Uppercase/lowercase/numbers, combination of multiple words, it is at least moderately strong.

2) Why the hell are you blaming Fox? You think the entire company sat in a conference room and decided on a security scheme and a password?

3) Why did this deserve front page news? Exploits like this are found on a daily basis, and ones much more humorous/interesting/newsworthy.

Re:Ridiculous summary

[pzs]

I'm guessing that this is an excuse to rag on Fox and bitch about the war and Dubya some more.

At least the story had "ftp" in it, making it slightly more "for nerds".

Peter

PS. I was against the war, I'm against Bush and I think Fox sucks, but even so (and as the parent post points out), this is a bit tenuous.

Completely random password, whatever!

[morgan_greywolf]

Dictionary words with letters replaced by numbers: not enough entropy. In this case however, not even a completely random password would have saved them.

Bingo! Never, ever, ever! NEVER store a password in plaintext in a script. Not ever. That's always a huge security issue, because you never know who is going to read the file. If you need unattended logins, there's SSH, Kerberos/GSSAPI, whatever.

4chan

[stick-boy]

this originated on 4chan.org's /b/ late last night (NSFW.) the shell script was a small script for uploading to a ziff-davis ftp server, it wasn't actually a fox ftp password (look at the directory name the shell script was found in, and i'm sure z-d appreciates this too.) also, there was an image directory that had directory listing turned on too. i didn't stick around long enough to see if any /b/tards found anything interesting in there, but i know an image dump was being made.

This is the closest Fox News will ever get...

[TheReallyMadScientis]

...to doing 'fair and balanced' journalism.

Wasted chance

[oldmacdonald]

But people like simple stories with comic book villains...

Oh the irony!

From the same people who ruined finger

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, crap. Now there'll be another round of armchair security experts saying "You should turn off directory indexes!" and easily-led sysadmins actually doing it, and we'll have that many fewer sites where you can bypass the broken navigation to actually find things through the directory indexes.

Directory indexes, on a properly-run site, are a Good Thing and should be encouraged. They are and should be turned on by default in real httpd software. Anything secret that's accessible through a directory index would also be accessible by guessing the URL - so security has to be enforced by 403 Forbidden, not by "nobody will know the URL," anyway. Don't disable directory indexes unless you have a really good reason - and if you think you have a really good reason, especially if you think it has something to do with some kind of "security," then you're probably wrong.

NEWS FLASH: Left-Wing Fascists mod parent off-topc

[E 99]

A post on the newsworthiness of the main article is not off-topic. Should be modded back up.

Employee information leaked

[Anonymous Coward]

There was over 4GB of employee data on the FTP, including username, name, email, password, address, etc.

Re:Employee information leaked

[realdodgeman]

Do you think they mind if I delete all the files containing Bill O'Reilly?

Ditto on all accounts

[benhocking]

There was a recent podcast from This American Life (hardly the bastion of conservative thought) where a (former) teenager whose job it was to spread propaganda from Saddam's government said he was afraid about what would happen when the war started because he wasn't sure whether or not his government had chemical weapons, etc. Yes, there's a difference between some teenager (even if he and his father worked for the government) and our intelligence community. Yes, fundamental flaws exist/existed in our intelligence community, partly no doubt due to our administration's tendencies to promote "yes men". Yes, there's a difference between thinking they're there and declaring that you know exactly where they are. However, I'm still going with Hanlon's razor on this one.

Re:Password

[Carewolf]

So someone, somewhere is telling people that passwords that contain upper and lower-case and numbers are good passwords?? They _just_ forget to tell you that if the upper-letter is the first letter of a word, and the number is an easily predictable substitute, when you gain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Yes, this password would be cracked in 5-20 seconds by an average password cracker.

so much for that blog

[mgabrys_sf]

Tit's up - and outa there!

"mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) in /home/linuxin/public_html/site/admin/db.php on line 50
Warning: mysql_select_db(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/linuxin/public_html/site/admin/db.php on line 50
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111)"

We have meltdown - I repeat we have meltdown. Now someone get that pile of circuts and goo off the rack and get a new one in here pronto.

Fox News has no excuse

[uglydog]

On July 11, 2007, the posted an article that talked about FTP and why it's bad. But they were concerned about anonymous access. Doh.

Re:Where he can see DirectoryIndex is on ?

[TodMinuit]

All you have to do is try to view a directory in a browser. If you get an index, you know it's on. If not, you know it's off or there's an index file. Examples: http://www.foxnews.com/story/ and http://www.foxnews.com/i/.

Flamebait!

[lag00natic]

Yawn... just another opportunity to feed the flames for all the liberals on /. Reading through all the replies that have nothing to do with the original article and just focus on bashing conservatives and the content of the stories run by the network proves my point. It's getting old guys/gals... really old.

Disney's website Security

[youthoftoday]

I was once visiting the offices of a design firm that was doing some work for Disney. As far as I remember, the procedure for adding new content was:

- Email the admins (with password), requesting an upload opportunity giving detail of content and approval reference
- Admins create FTP account on a purpose-built server
- Admins send back time-sensitive FTP details
- Design company uploads to FTP server
- Committees review content, send authorization to admins
- Admins upload content.

And this was for already-approved work. Kinda puts this level of security to shame...

Re:Dick Cheney has mod-points?!?!

[Guppy]

Dick Cheney has mod-points?!?! Only for a few hours, while the regular moderator was getting his colon checked out.

North Korea

[number6x]

You make a very good point.

North Korea is also part of the "Axis of Evil". However they have WMD's and some pretty nasty long range missiles. They may not be able to strike The US, but they could devastate South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. We keep begging North Korea to please, pretty please, come to the negotiating table. No talk of invasion there.

Sadam complied with the U.N. inspections we demanded. Grudgingly but he complied. He ended his weapons programs and allowed us and our allies to control two thirds of his air space. (All of this had to be forced on him, but he complied).

So the moral of the story?

If you are an evil dictatorship, do not comply with The US and its allies. Build up your arsenal and become as powerfull and as dangerous as possible. The US only invades weaklings. The US begs for negotiations with the dangerous crackpots.

I believe Iran watched all of this unfold. The way Sadam and Iraq complied, and were rewarded with invasion. The way North Korea refused to comply and became more dangerous, and gets more and more aid on its terms.

This is why Iran has restarted its nuclear program.

Pretty good foreign policy we have, huh?

Re:North Korea

[Himring]

Welcome to diplomacy. Watch out for bad guys.

What I find funny is that it appears most of the folks here think gaming and inveigling in diplomacy and war started when bush took office. News flash: this stuff's been going on for a few years (try millennia). I recommend a good game of Civ. It'll whet the appetite.

What amazes me most isn't that the U.S. is playing ball, hard ball, with the world, it's that all you folks think it started with Bush, that Clinton didn't do it or that the next one won't either -- be it either party.

You have your way with a country that you can. You make peace with the stronger and devour the weaker. You train for war during peace and you ally with strong allies during conflict. We don't invade N.Korea for one reason and one reason only: China. We did that. Bad mojo. China is too much. Even Nixon knew this. He made it pax cuz he knew they were the big time coming up.

These are rules boys. They're just rules. It's just the rules of love. Oh, sure, you can go against the rules of love and you'll pay for it. Get mushy with her. When she says she needs a break, call her more often. When she goes out with another guy, go and cry to her. Yea, they dig that.

Didn't you guys have dad's with backbones? Suck it up. Look at it for what it is. The big dog can't avoid fights cuz they come at him. The biggest nation on earth can't avoid conflicts and will always have them (all other empires always have -- it's what they do).

I read an article that testosterone levels are 20% lower now than they were 40 or 50 years ago. I believe it.

I mean sheez. Go watch 300....

Re:North Korea

[I'll Provide The War]

How is this comment not modded off-topic in a story about FTP passwords?

I don't click on stories about network security to read peoples daily kos blog.