Ohio Government Websites Hacked With Pro-Islamic State Messages (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg: The websites of Ohio Governor John Kasich and other state government agencies were hacked on Sunday with a posting professing love for the jihadist group Islamic State. Ten state websites and two servers were affected, and they've been taken off line for an investigation with law enforcement into how the hackers were able to deface them, said Tom Hoyt, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services... The same pro-Islamic State message, accompanied by music, were also shown on Sunday on the website of Brookhaven, a town on New York's Long Island about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Manhattan, the New York Post reported... Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018, posted on Facebook that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction website had been hacked and said, "Wake up freedom-loving Americans. Radical Islam infiltrating the heartland."

Comments

The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018, posted on Facebook that the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction website had been hacked and said, "Wake up freedom-loving Americans. Radical Islam infiltrating the heartland.""

Wake up freedom loving Americans, Douchebag trying to infiltrate the Senate in 2018.

Re:Most Slashdot readers are hypocrites

[Kiuas]

That's not true. Muslim extremists are well know to the security services and are monitored for years. But they still get to murder and blow people up. Look at the recently weekly attacks in Europe. All are known, but "Human Rights" laws mean they can't be kicked out, or locked up until they've killed law enforcement or children at a pop concert.

This is just BS from start to finish. The phrase 'known to security services' is used a lot, but that does not mean these individuals are under 24/7 monitoring. 'Known to security services' just means their name has come up at some point during some check up, ie. that these people are not in the country illegally/without the permission of the officials. This group of 'known to officials' includes everyone vetted and cleared by the officials, as well as everyone with friends and family of a person that's ever been a person of interest. Say someone's brother or a friend travels over to Syria, these people are then likely interviewed/checked by the security officials and are now under the category of 'known to officials'.

Officials in Brittain and elsewhere have openly said one of the problems is there is not enough human resources to track/monitor every potential threat 24/7. Whether this is actually the case or whether the UK authorities simply want to use this as a leverage to gain more powers á la the Patriot act I do not know, Speaking about the London bridge attacker, assistant comissioner Mark Rowley said he "was known to the security services, but there was no evidence of "attack planning" by him." (source).

You're trying to insinuate that European and American intelligence agencies know well in advance who's going to attack and where and just can't do anything because of "human rights" (using air quotes as if the concept would be somehow difficult or vague to understand). If there's probable cause that someone's planning an attack, of course they're arrested and prosecuted. What's really going on is that the security services are doing their best to try and prevent/arrest people who're actually planning crimes but no system is 100 % perfect. If there is no evidence that someone is actively planning an attack there's simply no way in most countries for the authorities to have the money/legal power to keep these individuals under surveillance 24/7 'just in case'. So in the example mentioned earlier, if someone's interviewed because their friend/family member went to Syria and nothing of interest comes up during this check, they're not going to be put under 24 hour surveillance. If this individual years later self-radicalizes (in a fashion very similar to western born school shooters) and commits an attack, he/she was 'known to officials' but this obviously does not translate to 'the officials were watching them continuously and had exact details about the planned attack, however chose to do nothing because of the subject's 'human rights'" and anybody who thinks so is an idiot.

There seems to be a misconception in the west that the security services are somehow all knowing and all powerful (they're not, they just like to project that image) and could prevent all attacks if we just got rid of such pesky things such as the rule of law and gave the authorities the power to kick in doors and disappear people based on just their internet search history without any probable cause or a trial but I really would hope people on /. are smart enough and know enough history to understand why this is unwise.

Re:Most Slashdot readers are hypocrites

[silentcoder]

Interestingly the concert bomber was a known threat, and here comes the problem with painting all Muslims with the same brush: he was a known threat because the Muslim community had reported him as a threat !
His own Imam had banned him from his mosque over his violent rhetoric and reported him to the authorities over his bragging that he was planning a violent attack.
His family had made similar reports, wanting him watched - because they'd rather see him in jail for conspiracy to commit terror than dead from doing it.

Why was he not being watched ? Because the Tories have cut the police force's budget by over 25% in recent years leaving Britain (and London in particular) with a massive shortage of cops. Thousands had to be let go due to this insane policy.

Ironically - while the government keeps trying to use terror to get further reductions in citizen privacy and surveilance power (things that do not help to prevent terror attacks) they gutted the one thing that DOES have the power to stop terror attacks: good old fashioned police work.