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Comcast Briefly Loses Control of Its Domain Name

Posted by kdawson on from the old-skool-pwned dept.

Fallen Andy notes that Comcast, one of the largest US ISPs, lost control of its domain name to what appeared to be juvenile social engineers of the old school — i.e. not in it for the money. The intruders got into Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions and repointed the domain's DNS records. A blog entry at SANS points out how trivially easy this can be. Reader ElvenKnight points out an insightful interview up at Wired with the two young guys who perpetrated the hack.

14 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. These guys are my heroes by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wanna know why? Because they called Comcast and could get in touch with a HUMAN!

    Now *THAT'S* hacking.

    1. Re:These guys are my heroes by DriedClexler · · Score: 5, Funny

      How come no one's made the obvious joke yet?

      Comcast: OMG!!! Outrageous!!! Some HACKERS denied us access to our OWN DOMAIN NAME!!!! Get them!!!!
      FBI: Why? They didn't take anything that belongs to you.
      Comcast: What??? Out contract with ICANN gives us unlimited access to the Comcast domain!
      FBI: Right. And what does unlimited mean?
      Comcast: Look, it's right here in Websters: "without any ..."
      FBI: No, no, not that one, use your own internal glossary.
      Comcast: Okay then, "unlimited: " ... ah, okay, see your point there.

      --
      Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  2. I know who did it... by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Funny

    It was the Slowskys.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  3. Stupid password by MarkGriz · · Score: 2, Funny

    FTFA: "A brute force password attack is one possibility"

    Right.... it was probably 1234 (same as most slashdotter's luggage)

    --
    Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
    1. Re:Stupid password by Kitsune818 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You've gone from suck to blow.

  4. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Good job not even reading TFS.

  5. Thats just sad.... by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Funny

    not commenting on the hack, but the fact that a human being actually set up a tricorder in his(or his parents) bathroom to take a picture of himself using a bong, and then posted it on myspace.....

    --
    Monstar L
  6. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by kv9 · · Score: 3, Funny

    It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period. so they haven't found a cure for acute kneejerk yet, eh?
    --
    Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
  7. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Excuse me but after seeing Rachel Ray in her Hamas video (don't tell me it was a scarf!) it is critical that we watch for 5th column terrorists everywhere. Fox News and all the other right-wing nut jobs told me so.

    Excuse me while I listen to Barry Goldwater rolling in his grave.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  8. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by daliman · · Score: 5, Funny

    terrorism You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. ...
  9. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by sgbett · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, if I had mod points you'd be getting -1 Terrorist for those kind of subversive opinions!

    --
    Invaders must die
  10. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by Viceroy+Potatohead · · Score: 5, Funny

    Exactly.

    Just the other day, I had a fast food burger, and the terrorists left out the pickle. Then I went to get gas, but the pump had been broken by terrorists. After finally getting gas, I discovered the terrorists have been jacking up fuel prices so I didn't have enough cash. The terrorists must have been disrupting the banking system, because it took several minutes to access my funds by debit card. The terrorists had been messing with the stop lights as well, since they were completely out of sync.

    Finally, I got home and discovered my wife must be a terrorist, since she overcooked the roast. Then I tried watching the news, but terrorists kept interrupting it with ads for things I didn't want to buy. Disillusioned, I decided to go throw a ball around with my son Billy. It's one of the few pleasures I can still find in this dangerous, terror-infested world. You wouldn't believe what happened! My son threw the ball badly, and I got a grass stain on my slacks when diving for it. I'm afraid I'll have to call DHS and get them to start a dossier on Billy now.

    I hope the terrorists don't turn off my alarm clock in the night again. If I'm late for one more day of work, I'm pretty sure the terrorists in human resources are going to fire me.

  11. Re:Some lessons from all this. by johnny+cashed · · Score: 2, Funny

    Best advice? Don't use your own computer to do the hacking from.

    But they won't let me take a bong into the library.

  12. Re:The consequences might not be as fun by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't think they should be charged at all. Comcast should be charged for being a bad ISP in the first place.

    Unfortunately, being assholes is not a crime.

    Oh, wait. That cuts both ways in this case, huh? :-D