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Cryptome Hacked; All Files Deleted
eldavojohn writes "Over the weekend, the whistle blowing site Cryptome was hacked and vandalized, resulting in all 54,000 files being deleted and two days worth of submissions lost. Cryptome reported that its EarthLink e-mail account was compromised in ways unknown, and once the attacker was inside there, they were able to request a new password from the administration console for Cryptome at their hosting provider, Network Solutions. Once the attacker had that password, they deleted the ~7 GB of data that Cryptome hosted in around 54,000 files. Cryptome was able to eventually restore the site, as they keep backups ready for cases like this and stated that they 'do not trust our ISP, email provider and officials to tell the truth or protect us.'"
It's not unsolved, what's unsolved is the mystery of how to get people to get it right. Hacking is the generalized practice of modding things and coming up with clever technical solutions. Cracking on the other hand is applied hacking, as in applied to the practice of breaking into people's stuffs.
Are the cryptome operators geeks, or are they not? This incident could have been trivially avoided if they had run Linux Intrusion Detection System. Come on! Of all people, they should have known!