FEMA Phones Hacked, Calls Made To Mideast and Asia

purplehayes writes "A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia. The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski."

Comments

Hacker?

[ilovegeorgebush]

Shouldn't this be 'phreaker'? The article even states the break-in was over their PBX (i.e. a convential phone system, not VoIP).

Re:Hacker?

[AP31R0N]

See? Apologism and insults.

As if the rightness or wrongness of something depends upon how many people accept it. The majority can be wrong. Just because a use is accepted in everyday use, doesn't make it right. If you have to cite definition 3 to defend use of a word....

It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
- George Orwell

http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html

'But languages change'

There's evolution and there's corruption. By allowing the corruption of the word hacker, people who are hackers in the correct sense are lumped in with those in the incorrect sense. Now we have to come up with another word for those who are hackers in the original sense... when we already had words for both! By allowing copyright infringement to be called piracy, they are associating it with something far more sinister than kids swapping files. If some Germans were Nazis, it would be wrong to call all Germans Nazis, wouldn't it? Unless we water down what we originally meant by Nazi.

We think in language. Propagandists use this against us all the time. "It's not murder... it's execution."

Another clip from Orwell:

Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

____

An Anonymous Coward saying something silly throwing in some childish ad hominem passes for insightful?

At least have the courage of your convictions. If you're you going to slam someone, don't hide behind anonymity where you can't be held accountable. You could try posting like an adult, and then you could make your point without cowering.

Re:Who is valuing these minutes?

[halfEvilTech]

Twelve Grand?! Is this another indicator of inflation? Who is billing this out? For 12 grand the phone companies should give you a phone that will work for life, from anywhere, to anywhere. Are the same people responsible for claiming that a quarter of schwag has a "street value" of fifty grand?

Well look at it this way. $12,000 in calls divided by the 400+ calls would bring it to less than $30 per call. For anyone who has made calls to overseas knows that the rates are freakin expensive.

For example from the FCC
Here are sample costs for calls to France from the U.S. at basic and discounted rates:

Basic Rate is $1.77-2.77 per minute

Note: The actual rates and terms from companies you choose may be different than those shown.

Re:Who is valuing these minutes?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's the rate charged for this. Seriously. This same thing happened at one of my previous jobs and it left us with a $20K+ bill that we disputed with the phone company over a period of weeks.

Re:Who hacks phones anymore?

[seeker_1us]

It should be pointed out that FEMA used to be a very competant organization before GWBush merged it into his Department of Fatherland Security and cut it's budget.

Re:In FEMA's defense

[apparently]

Just curious, would you advocate privately run police forces?

The DEA is already employing private security for their raids.

Re:Who is valuing these minutes?

[e4g4]

Personally I've always thought people stupid enough to call weed "schwag" would be stupid enough to pay 50 grand for a quarter of it.

"Schwag" refers to the quality of the weed, like "middies", "kind" and "dank". "Schwag" refers to brownish, dry, shakey crap with seeds and stems (usually outdoor bud grown in Mexico). A quarter of schwag isn't worth much more than $20-$30 (at least on the east coast).

Re:Who hacks phones anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding right? FEMA has never been a "Competent Organization", ask anyone who went through hurricane Andrew, way before GWB.

Re:In FEMA's defense

[megaditto]

"Ask not what your country can do for you[...]

I recognize these words. I think these were uttered by JF Kennedy, the man who started the war in Vietnam, sent thousands of American conscripts to die there, all while snorting coke off Marilyn Monroe sweet butt (and while his brother the Attorney General Bobby Kennedy wiretapped Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders).
No wonder that asshole didn't want us asking what our country could do for us.

[...] but what you can do for your country!"

You actually believe that shit? Talk about "useful idiots"...

Emmittsburg?

[weiserfireman]

Emmittsburg, MD? There is only one major FEMA facility there, The US Fire Administration National Fire Academy. Happens I am going to be there for a week next month. Wonder if the phreaker will offer instructions so that I can call home free too. Beautiful campus btw, about 3 miles from Camp David

Re:In FEMA's defense

[Das Modell]

He's wearing a Blackwater t-shirt. It doesn't mean he's actually a Blackwater contractor. I also don't see any reason for the DEA to hire Blackwater for something like this.

oh come on...

[Net_fiend]

"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," lol. Well of course its difficult to trace. Anyone with enough cajoles knows this. All you have to do is go to a phone box out in the middle of nowheresville and patch into it (illegal of course) and make calls. Its all untracable to the actual person who did it, but not untraceable to the poor schmuck who has to pay for the bill the calls were made from. Of course there are more ways to do this then the one described, but my point is it is completely feasible to do this so the person is completely untraceable. The fact that these are known issues in the PBX system and have been known for, oh 20yrs, is ridiculous that they're able to still occur. I've read many a story both online, in 2600, and when reading about Mitnick's escapades and those things usually happened back in the 80s. Hell, find a lineman's handset clip it to any phone line and viola free phone calls at least for you. Really....its not *that* hard.

Re:what was the point?

[I'm not really here]

Think of the possibilities... Call around to people unfriendly to the US. Mention that you are calling from FEMA, and that you've hacked their system. Mention that your services are available for hire, and that a simple message posted on some board somewhere and money placed into an account will activate said services. Now imagine who might be willing to pay money for access to FEMA or DHS?