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Angry Brazilian Whacks NASA To Put a Stop To ... Er, the NSA
An anonymous reader writes "From the Register, "Multiple NASA websites were defaced last week by a Brazilian hacktivist who may have misread the sites' URLs, because he wasn't protesting about the US space agency giving joyrides to inhuman stowaways – he was protesting against NSA spying. 'BMPoC' hit kepler.arc.nasa.gov and 13 other sites with messages protesting against US spying on Brazil, as well as a possible US military intervention in Syria. It's hard to believe anyone would confuse the NSA spy agency with NASA, the space agency, except for satirical purposes or to mock script kiddies in some way, so we can only guess that the hackers behind the attack hit NASA because it's a US government agency whose systems are noted for being insecure.""
he wasn't protesting about the US space agency giving joyrides to inhuman stowaways
Now we're gonna be in for another round of hacking..
The dimensions of the Space Shuttle were specifically designed to carry large spy satellites. Many early scientific missions were spy missions in disguise. So NASA has been in bed with the intelligence complex for quite some time.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
It makes me wince when I hear "low hanging fruit" and "Brazil wax" in the same context.
Easy to tell apart. NASA has big satellite telescopes pointing up. The NSA has bigger ones pointing down.
Have gnu, will travel.
They're both agencies of the same stalker country.
One is provider for the technology the other one uses for spying purposes.
Both coordinate with CIA and Pentagon.
And it is quite common to take over any popular gov site in order to promote same gov's evil plans.
I find naive at least to presume this hacker just confused their names, or misread them.
That's fine, but there's lotsa other towns in Saskatchewan that are very nice too.
You know what, I want to stop the NSA too, so let me go hack the NBA website
If Brazil attacked NSA Web site then Congress will send the military to Brazil. .
I dunno...How many are there in a Brazillion? It sounds like an awful lot....
same apply to you, from my point of view.
Tomorrow is another day...
And if you have problems with photo satellites, well then there are going to be a lot of countries, and private companies, you have an issue with. There are lots of sats looking down at the Earth.
The US intelligence community is fairly compartmentalized in to a bunch of agencies that do different things. For satellites, it's the NRO, National Reconnaissance Office. The NSA is signals intelligence, intercepting phone calls, radio communications, e-mail, that kind of thing. Hence all the stuff that has leaked about what they've been doing.
Also NASA (in tandem with NOAA and the USGS) operates a number of Earth facing sats like the Landsat series. They aren't all that high resolution, lower resolution than the stuff you see on Google Earth, since they are for monitoring things like vegetation index and so on. The newest one, Landsat 8, has some pretty badass multi-spectral sensors.
Like NSA spying, the hacker just caught some "innocent bystanders" by accident. It wasn't illegal hacking, just an honest mistake. Just like the NSA collecting information on innocent people while claiming to target terrorists.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Well, a Brazilian Waxed NSA means that you can't blame it on Bush any more . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What few people realize is that Brazil is a quite popular destination for our friends visiting from the arid climes of the red planet next door. What with the Amazon - world's largest river - , the Atlantic Ocean and the /rain/ forest, they are quite in love with that nation's water-rich climate. So many Martians visit Brazil and more than a few have learned the language. It's a known fact: Martians love Brazil.
But - as Earthlings have a problem with the NSA spying on them - so Martians take issue with NASA. Giant telescopes in the sky watching everything they do, immense electronic ears eavesdropping on the universe, and robotic drones pushing their telescoping probes into unwanted places; there is increasing upset with NASA's activities amongst non-terrestrials. Oh sure, NASA says it is "for the science" but it's a government agency (worse, an /American/ government agency; the US's reputation has spread even to the stars); when have they ever told the whole truth about their motives?
This isn't, of course, the first time that Martian hackers have expressed their displeasure; one need only remember the Denial of Service attack on the Beagle 2 lander (although this was of course never admitted by NASA officials, preferring to blame the loss on "technical failures"). And one need only visit the Chryse Planitia to see all the graffiti sprayed on the Viking 1 lander espousing their dissatisfaction with NASA policies*.
So this was no "confused Brazilian" who targeted the wrong website; this was a calculated statement made by an extra-terrestrial warning that the tempers are flaring regarding the recent actions of the American space agency. It was not the first such warning and surely will not be the last. The only unusual part of this story is that the "hacktivist" in question performed his vandalism while on his vacation. And that he had three tentacles, was green and had antennae.
Don't let the mainstream media blind you to the truth! Reign in NASA before it leads us to interplanetary conflict!
* yeah? Prove me wrong! ;-)