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Crackers Take Down FBI Web Servers
Xanadu Inc wrote
in to send us a story over at ZD Net about
Crackers
taking down the FBIs Web Site. The article refers
to them as Hackers (Bad ZD! No Cookie!) and says that it
was the result of search warrants being filed against Global
Hell (gH) that apparently got some PCs confiscated.
This is just one more step toward the government trying to control the internet. When will they realize that when you mess with internet lifeforms, they will bite back and defend their 'offspring'.
yeah hi... let me clarify my own comments. I did not know they were DoS attacks. Those are lame. But, that doesn't explain the 0, Troll rating on my last post. They were thought out and as I wrote them, I sought to add to the conversation. I do NOT believe that comments should be moderated down just because the moderator doesn't have the same beliefs as the author. That's censorship. Censorship is not cool. Let me just say, anyone who censors something just because they don't like what the person has to say is no better than the FBI or the people who sent DoS attacks on them. I thought we were more enlightened than that.
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"Be kind to your local milkman... you have his eyes." -Mother
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
'nuff said.
I have read your past posts, and you continue to put down 'cybervandals'. You have also made remarks about how bad the media is for reporting on this type of things. I think if it is that big of a issue for you, you should speak with Macki and ask him why he posts hacked web page archives on the FRONT page of 2600.com. Interesting that one from 2600, would say such a thing.
/*" attack. However that was not done, the page was defaced to show that it was vulnerable. I know of the hackers/crackers that destroy information, and they are looked down upon.
As far as breaking into computers to learn, and not be malicious. I will say on behalf of MostHateD, Zyklon, Soulblaze, and every other person raided in the past week that they have never destroyed anything on a machine. Machines are broken into to learn more. Let's take whitehouse.gov for example, that machine could just have easily been backdoord and root kept, and sniffed other accounts. Then those could be used to go on a mass "rm -rf
-mindphasr/gh/mindphasr@cha0s.org
With more and more stories in the mainstream "News" about the actions of so called hackers, hackers in general are being dragged through the mud. If this happened to any other cultural group there would be hell to pay. My suggestion is that a group of hackers of unquestionable credentials (so no one has any right to challenge their claim to be a hacker), RM, ESR etc would do nicely. Then file a big fuckoff lawsuit against all the companies (ZD, Kipling for example) who have misused the term hacker.
Think of the reaction if a paper ran a headline like "Homosexuals rape more young boys" or "The person responsible for the attack was black, black people go round beating other people up"; lawsuit city. Note that these are just to be taken as random examples of other minority groups and nothing is to be read into them.
--
--
My sometimes helpful blog
Unless you live in China, Russia, or some other nation unlikely to turn you over to the FBI.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
from (andross@andross.dhs.org)
Chatted with amadeus on this...
I agree with his defense of the channel and offered to post a "press-release" for the channel allong with all the info that is there. (at andross.dhs.org)
Suffice it to say that hacking exists. To look one way when a friend does it is one thing, but to abide it in your home or channel is dangerous. Like that friend who smokes pot in your car; if he gets caught you could lose your car.
I hope that #pascal will tighten down on "hackers" and recover accordingly.
Please don't mention AntiOnline on Slashdot. They really are beneath contempt: muckraking wannabe-journos who think that getting "exclusive" interviews on irc with script-kiddies who've hacked some lame site, is legitimate journalism.
They rip off other people's work, whether it be rewriting 'Smashing the Stack' into their own explanation of how buffer overflows work, or ripping off Freshmeat's HTML page and using it for their AntiCode page, and the majority of stories/analyses they put on their website are inherently flawed and misleading - e.g. they're interpreting a couple of Chinese hackers DoS'ing American webservers as an information warfare attack by the PRC on the USA.
I know for a fact that several of the website hacks they have "exclusively" reported were actually complete bullshit - some _real_ hacker/crackers (i.e. guys who hack into machines, but don't deface websites or try to get into the media) have owned AntiOnline for quite a while, and when they get bored of just reading Vranesivich's mail, they do some judicious re-routing and DNS work and make AntiOnline think that such-and-such site has been hacked. Then they piss their sides laughing when Vranesivich issues a press release about it.
Most of the people involved in AntiOnline are teenagers, and I've been told by someone who claimed to have been at college with him that Vranesivich is a hacker wannabe failure, who views AntiOnline as his own particular way of impressing what he considers to be 'hackers' - i.e. the script kiddies. Dunno whether it's true or not - I'll leave you to make your own mind up.
Dodger
Bzzt -- wrong -- crackers (I'm sure you meant to say that) don't serve a useful purpose, they're criminals. Professional, hired, security auditors serve the purpose you bring up. Same thing, except the company involved is prepared and damage is minimized because the intruders tread lightly and only find holes, they don't publicly humiliate a company or a government.
I can't believe ZDnet got it wrong again! Hacker hacker hacker! Is this the buzzword of the late 90's?
:)
Everyone that's intelligent knows its supposed to be GNU/Hacker.
Hint: Its meant to be humourous
The FBI agents that visited me last year about this time were actually pretty nice. Unfortunatly some boob from my university snagged my IP and smurfed the University of North Carolina.. (for 5 days straight.. and my U didn't bother to keep any logs or anything.)
:)
The best was when they knocked on the door (my room a mess...)
F: Hello, we're from the FBI (badges shown).. Could we come in and ask you a few questions?
M: Sure, but I wasn't expecting guests...
F: Got any computer in your dorm room?
M: Ya.. one behind the couch, two on the desk, one in the closet and a laptop on the bed.
.... anyway the dude with a clue told me what happened (6 months earlier) and they left and never came back..
So now I have my very own file in the FBI archives.. (Does that raise my purety test score?)
Pay attention. A DOS attack is not "downing the FBI website". A DOS attack is "wasting all the bandwidth in the neighborhood". Not creation. Not control. Arson.
I will agree with you on this, however that is not the case for everyone. People can label me or my group what they want, however I can tell anyone for a fact that I have more knowledge than 90% of the people that put me or my group down.
As far as media attention goes - I have not given a single interview or gave any quotes to any media outlets. It is not my choice whether the media does this or whether they do that. They are the media, they do what they want. You know that.
-mindphasr
Actually, I know for a fact that #Pascal has a lot to do with cracking...
about a month ago, WSU (http://www.wsu.edu)'s webserver *was* cracked. If you were logged on when the instigating party was, you usually got a message flooding your terminal that said "The Matrix Has you" and at one point people were getting ads for the channel #Pascal. They did a fairly nice job... ended up getting the webAdmins to make the web server, our UNIX server, and our mail server serve only local (WSUNet, ResNet and DialUp) users.
If you spend five minutes in #Pascal, you will learn that it *does* have to do with cracking...
Basically, the point is that they use PASCAL to 'program' cracks, and these cracks *work*. In a few moments here, another message will be posted with a few links.
*shrug* Maybe you should spend a little time in the channels before you infer that you know of their content.
-nicole
I know some crackers, I personally dont agree at all with cracking, it is just a pain in the ass for the server admins, but what I have noticed about most crackers nowadays is that they generally use overly easy ways to crack the sites that they get in. Crackers used to have to have some skill, but now anyone who knows the win98 filesharing problem has a good chance of being able to crack many sites.
I guess its just what was said above about cracking being the instant gratification method, and hacking being the long, slow method.
Denial of Service attacks are lame. It's like a punk throwing a rock at a big store window and thinking he's cool.
If you're going to screw with the FBI, at least be creative about it so you'll have something to brag about in jail.
Anyone know what hackers call crackers?
Retards, Lamers, Fucking annoying little dipshits, et cetera, et cetera...
D.
Sorry. The word "warn't" just cracks me up.
Perhaps Microserfs should learn how to write a hyperlink. This was really funny, BTW.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
most modern DOS attacks are pretty weak IMO, they require minimal effort and lack originality. The only use I ever saw from them was to expose holes in network protocol stacks, making them better (remember land or bonk anyone)? But thing such as SYN floods or smurf attacks are just dumb.
They are not overreacting. Set up an IRC server. Link it to a major network. And see the packets fly and your wallet empty because, contrary to what 33k6 modem owners believe, bandwidth is paid by the megabyte. But, hey, it's just companies right?
Pi
I personally find the comparing and contrasting of the cracker and hacker communities to be an interesting passtime. They both thrive in the same environment (the Internet) and are often motivated
by the same things (status among peers, the desire to solve challenging puzzles), but there are also some fundimental differences.
There's a very simple explanation for this:
About 10 years of age.
-Erik-
I swear some of you people... it's just as easy to run a script as it is to link to antionline. Sice when did they become anything of a source for hacks/cracks? Is it because they can post their router logs on their web page? Big freekin deal. Ask anyone including the kiddees and they'll tell you sources for hack/cracks are 2600 and Defcon, Resentment, l0pht, etc. Why is it that all the diverse groups of hackers out there seem to hate antionline? hmmmm.... maybe becuase the dorks at AnitOnline (coincidence, eh?) take credit for other people's work. Try something approaching a real security site like:
http://l0pht.com
http://www.2600.com
http://www.resentment.org
http://www.303.org
I've been a hacker (not cracker) for quite a few years. I've written a lot of networked applications, been sysadmin on many types of systems and networks, decoded protocol stacks and the like... in short, I could probably be a killer cracker if I really wanted to. But I have no desire for that. Cracker accomplishments seem too fleeting for me. A crack might make the news for a day or two, but eventually it fades away. If I instead develop an open source tool that becomes popular, I will have a much more noticable (and positive) impact that will last for a long time. I get the satisfaction of actually having built something instead of having torn something down.
But I can understand the lure of cracking. It appeals to that puzzle solving side of me. If only the two communities were not so often confused in the media... (sigh)
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
Cracker = Often tasty baked good, sometimes in the shape of an animal.
Hacker = Low life freak.
Neigh God Like Being = Person that knows an aweful lot about a system.
Whoops, you mixed up the definitions for a Teletubbie, a 3l1t3 d00d, and a Sysadmin...
dude,
the chinese don't have wide open internet connections.(at least very very few do, not your 14 year olds) how do you think they control the media?
In the minds of lusers, Internet hostnames start with 'www'... And the WWW is the Internet, da? :)
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
ZD is just reposting MSNBC reports. Maybe its because MSFT doesn't have anyone doing great hacks on their stuff anymore, that they just lump everyone else together.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"A group of hackers that call himself slashdot are being seeked by the FBI because they took down an average of three sites a day.
This group is one of the most numerous, counting no less than many dozen of thousands of hackers who are always working on taking sites down.
The FBI said they cost more than 100Millions of $ in downtime to the society owning the websites they hacked..."
That would be funny if someone would do a satyric article in this style. Anyone has got other ideas to rewrite this or continue this???
BTW: not being myself a hacker (just a wannabe or a newbie) I found it a shame that the mainstream press use this word in this way, I really like this word and don't like to see it used by crackers.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
The only people giving 'hackers' a bad name are the 'hackers' who insist on calling themselves 'hackers'.
:p).
:p
Most people understand the term 'hacker' to mean someone who breaks into computer systems - why can't the old hackers just get over this and call themselves something else (perhaps something suitably unsexy such as 'sysadmin'
Now, I as a cracker (software de-protectionists) object to you using the term cracker for what I call a hacker. Most crackers don't hack.
Crackers call crackers 'crackers'
Crackers call hackers 'hackers'
Hackers call Hackers 'Hackers'
Anyone know what hackers call crackers?
Seems like crackers have to go to less and less trouble to make the news.
Hell, we slashdotters take down websites all the time...
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
I normally just browse around Sladshot, but this newspiece caught my attention. Here is my opinion of everything:
I think that the FBI was just really asking for it.
The US government is cracking down on hackers because they (hackers) have more power than them. Hackers are not really "bad"" in the normal term. They commit crimes, but the crimes that they commit are most of the time essentially harmless. I believe that there will always be hackers.
I think that what they did was really wrong. They really gained only 2 things out of it:
1. Publicity - The media jumps on every chance to get a story about hackers. They tend to believe that they are some big "secret organization" that is trying to take over the world. I think that this story will ultimately work in the hackers favor because it shows that hackers can kick the governments butt if they want to.
2. The second thing that they got was a lot of bad publicity in the goverment. The US government (and others) will now try even harder to crack down on the Internet. The governments of the world will try and regulate it (eventually) to the point where all content, including webpages, is strictly regulated. If this happens, hackers will continue to survive, but will eventually all be caught or simply dissapear.
overall, what they did was not good for the internet community. Something less specifically directed at the government would have been better.
I know this is probably confucing, ihave no idea what I am typing either.
a CRACKER is someone who "Cracks" the security of
something, IE Safe cracker. I remember reading
in a book [coprighted in 1978] where it refers to
Programmers and Hackers it says "Programmers and
Hackers are the same thing, except hackers don't
need to design the code since its already in
their head."
I hate the fact that the media and FBI are making this so huge. I have to do intrusion testing from time to time. I'd hate to think that the FBI would be successful at getting crackers to not show off so much. Right now I have an easy time of getting lots of useful information on vulnerabilities. Lots of websites, etc. But if the heat is on, the vulnerabilities don't go away, only the people talking about them.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
No this is the buzzword of the early 80's. I wish the media would pick a new buzzword, like l33t0r, or h4X0rab1 or something. If nothing else, it would make the articles a little more entertaining (at least entertaining enough that I could finish a whole article).
That is why my webserver is behind a two-way firewall. Only html and shtml ports can get through, so even an html attack won't allow telnet, ftp, or other access to or from the machine. A successful attack on my webserver will probably only make it vanish...for a few minutes until it reloads.
This is just one more step toward the government trying to control the internet.
i don't agree. i think this is the government trying to squelch the hordes of 3133+ script kiddies, but not trying to control the Internet. That's the job of the large ISP corporations (AOL and the family-values-havin' like) and the no-sighted crypto restrictions.
When will they realize that when you mess with internet lifeforms, they will bite back and defend their 'offspring'?
i'm not sure i grab you here. i think this is a case of the h@x0r d00dz defending their turf, not a solidarity among net users. no one likes to see their contemporaries raided as a result of acts they too have committed. it makes people scared. this is those people's way of making the Man just a little bit more afraid. i don't think it will work.
-krog
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Nah. I don't think this will push for that... Too many people would protest it... Don't you just love the constitution? =>
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Actually... that's a very good analogy and the tools used by investigators to break down "groups", from under-privlidged crack dealers to snot-nosed white trash, are all the same.
The motivations is the same... group acceptance, acknowledgement of achievement and accumulation of currency (be it knowledge or greenbacks).
The mistakes are often the same as well and, of course, the base nature of the "crime" is no different.
Send'em to prison, I say. Let low-tech and hi-tech mix it up for the fun and merryment of the future. After all, if a cop didn't have a job, he'd be a criminal.
Perhaps I'm missing the obvious, but shouldn't we support an effort to take down malicious users? Who cares if they get media attention, or if they're script kiddies, or if they're the world's greatest programmer. If they intentionally try to break / hack / disable / destroy someone else's computer or web site then they should be prosecuted. They should be charged and have their equipment confiscated. I realize that a lot of protection must also be built in so that groups like the FBI don't abuse innocents, but that is a slightly different issue. I have no desire to debate what should/should not be allowed by law.
What disturbs me is the number of people who are more concerned with whether it should be hacking or cracking and the number of people who seem to think that the government is bad for trying to stop malicious people. Perhaps there tactics are inappropriate, but who else should try to stop them. If your computer gets fried by someone over the net, do you think that everyone should stand aside and look down at your reformatted hard disk and say 'Oh well, at least the government isn't interferring and CNN finally called them and h/cracker'
From a moral standpoint, the government SHOULD protect the public and malicious people SHOULD be prosecuted. Berating the government, media, dictionary definitions, etc... doesn't do anything to solve the problem.
My 2 cents, if anyone really cares
http://www.senate.gov/
Select your favorite senator from the list, surprise!
Or, just open http://www.senate.gov/index.cfm.
slashdot broke my sig
But a DoS attack is not any server crack. A DoS attack simply burns up all the bandwidth in the neighborhood and the server.
Correction - A DoS attack is a 'Denial of Service' (note the initials). Overloading a webserver (or it's link with the Internet) by flooding it with http requests/connections/pings/whatever is a TYPE of DoS attack. There are others, including things like teardrop, land, etc.
Just felt the need to be pedantic...
The Dodger
Posted by neurotus:
yep. zdnn got the story.
If you f*ck with the FBI, they will catch up to you. Sooner or later. And, your ass will be grass when they do. At best, you will lose your computers, and your parents will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars hiring a lawyer.
I remember someone in Isreal, who, in his arrgogance, thought he was too good to be caught. Think again. They caught him.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
For goodness sake, we know that the hackers of the world won't like this. Already I am getting calls about uniting. This is crazy. A small hacker like me, a professional. I get paid to do this. I DON'T want to lose my job. This is completely crazy.
HACKERS! Stop it. You want to do something, get into the FBI's internal....hehe.... Without that, you have nothing. But you can't do it. It is impossible. With all this commotion no one is looking at the possbile consequences. What you are doing is wrong and illegal, so stop it. Get like me. Get a job. Do it for a living. When you get asked to crack a system, that is when you know you are getting good. To all the hackers that think they can do something....sorry....you will only hurt yourself.
Why is it that whenever I hear about some "cracker" breaking into a system, that system is a webserver? Used to be that a cracker would break into a server to look around at the system and see how it worked, do crackers today even know how to do anything but use webserver exploits against webservers? One trick ponies.
Don't they have periods where you come from?
#pascal is in connection with a group calling themselves "C.L.N." the FBI knows them because they rooted several servers (including www.wsu.edu) around April 10th thru 11th
.log file is April 11th and "TeknoDragon" is me trying to get anyone to give up any info... (they pissed me off, I missed my e-mail!)
BS you say? look here.
the
I suggest everyone go read anti-online's coverage of this.
If some of those items, specifically the article
about the FBI directives sent to ISPs, are true,
it is a VERY disturbing situation...
here are some excerpts....
AntiOnline Receives Directives
Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 11:59:27
by John Vranesevich - Founder of AntiOnline
AntiOnline has recieved directives given to
several ISPs listing the groups of hackers and
hackgroups that they're currently targeting.
Sources faxed AntiOnline the 6 page directive
which begins:
-snip-
The request then goes on for 6 pages listing
hacker, groups, and media currently under
investigation by the FBI. The list contains
not only the hacker's handles, but in most
cases, their real names. For the privacy of
those involved, AntiOnline is only publishing
their aliases. Here is a partial list of the
individuals on that list:
-snip-
Notice an important section from the above
paragraph: "...and media currently under
investigation by the FBI."
Now I REALLY have to wonder...what MEDIA is under
investigation by the FBI...and more importantly,
in what way are media services related to crackers
and their activity?
I am wondering if the FBI is attempting to "get
some dirt" on those media outlets that they
detest...(this may be completely off base but it
deserves some attention...).
Another interesting(and disturbing) part is listed
later on:
The directive goes on to request information to:
Directories, files, logs, records, information or
any data concearning IRC Channels visited by
Hackers or individuals listed in paragraph 1,
specifically:
It goes on to list the following IRC Channels:
#creep
#j00nix
#tk
#pascal
#ex0dus
#faggotsex
#gayfagsex
#gaysex
#hackunix
#hax0r
#lezbiandsex
#linux
#sex_gay
#sex_pl
#shellx.log
-snip-
It concerns me that some of those channels have
*NOTHING* to do crackers at all...
#PASCAL?!?!
Again, maybe this is not important...
but I am certain many people have visited #linux
for non-cracking reasons(I know I have on
EFNET).
Just some thoughts...
dCf
--"They go around loooking younger for a few days,
then they need more...."
Seems like anyone can run a few scripts and get famous. I got busted for cracking 4 years ago, 'cept I wasn't using someone elses tools. It isn't as glamorous as one would think. I'm having much more fun maintaining and building the world I live in rather than trying to take it down...
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
It's about tiem taht the FBI started going after these kids. These hackers/crackers seem to think that anything they do on the computer is OK. It's time for them to wake up. Mess with someone's business, or the national security, and you're going to be arrested and sued. It's high time real life came to the Net.
damn, i thought they'd fixed the netscape-locale bug that filled entry boxes with meaningless ascii
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
if hackers are "crackers" these days, what are the guys who break software protrections called?
bloody americans...
Greetings -
Along with being best of friends with MostHateD I am also the co-founder of gH/global hell. I understand the slashdot forum and the rest of the internet when they call someone a 'script kiddie'. I will say I feel the same way. However, knowing a lot of people in the community it makes it very hard for people who do not know the person to clasify someone as something. I will tell you some of these people you innocently label 'script kiddies' may be some of the most intelligent people you will find on the Internet. Please give this a thought before shamelessly label someone.
-mindphasr/gH/mindphasr@cha0s.org
Ever think that maybe somebody just wanted a computer to use for 6months or so? I mean exactly what proof did they have that 'this exact' computer was used in a crime? Knock ona door, flash some paper, take the computer...where are the libertarians and liberals on rights here? Thieves, plain and simple...
Regarding the report, real intrusions don't get reported...you think the Feds would report that the entire IRS database was deleted?
jmr
It's interesting that everyone is so hyped on the FBI server getting attacked, but everyone seems to have overlooked the fact that it also seems to be the server for the NIPC. Given the political turmoil of the day (and how the validity of taking credit for cracking servers is like taking credit for terrorist bombs), maybe the FBI isn't forthcoming on details because it wasn't an attack on the FBI at all.
But a DoS attack is not any server crack. A DoS attack simply burns up all the bandwidth in the neighborhood and the server. It's just neighborhood arson.
These were a bunch of kids who thought that having a computer gave them the right to do whatever they could on their computers! Oh, I'm sorry, it wasn't even their computers... it was their parents' computers!
You think setting up illegal conference calls on someone else's network for hundreds of thousands of dollars is defensible? Oh, and when you get search-and-seizure, you vent your frustration by downing the FBI website? Real mature! Damn, it's like you give a baby a hammer, and everything looks like a nail to him! These kids have to be taught that you can't get around life doing whatever the hell you feel like. The internet had a bad enough rap after the Colorado shootings, this doesn't help any.
Well, MosthateD is basicaly a DoS kiddie, if he's anything like he was when I knew him about a year ago. Denial of Service is illegal, which would explain him being raided.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Talk about missing the point.
Its just a dumb slashdot term. Hacker is what
they've always been called straight through the
70/80s and into the 90s. Its only recently that people on slashdot have tried to change the definition and it's quite annoying. Cracking the
password is only 1% of the total job, the rest
is being a hack with what tools you've got. Hence,
the hacking. Thats what the most part is. Sure, there are people that just crack files and passwords, but thats ALL THEY DO. All these other
kids go through multiple hosts, run your famous scripts, run your famous programs, do whatever else they can do to be a 'hack'.
Uneducated foo's.
/me goes back to watching Tron.
As being MostHateD's best friend, I am going to admit that he was a 'dos kiddie' a year ago. Like accipiter has said, he has grown up and relized a lot of things. I have a lot of respect for MostHateD. MostHateD will be back, I promise you.
-mindphasr/gH
Usually I scorn cracking. I find that it gives the hacking community a bad name (most often by the sensationalizing, story-telling media). But, in this case, it's an exception to the rule, IMHO. I'm not saying everyone should go out and crack the FBI's website, but in the light of all the recent (and not so recent) raids performed by the FBI, I don't look down upon this particular act.
I would also like to say that I enjoy sticking it to the Man as much as the next guy, but this is one of the rare occasions where I wouldn't care about something like this.
btw- pardon my inabaility to articulate ideas today... I've got a cold and school is pissing me off.
-----
"Be kind to your local milkman... you have his eyes." -Mother
is hopefully all you need.
hackers are not a minority group. they are not a group based on race, creed, or religion. now imagine if you had said something like:
Think of the reaction if a paper ran a headline like "Socker Moms rape more young boys" or "The person responsible for the attack was a yuppie, yuppies go round beating other people up"; lawsuit city.
sounds stupid dosent it. that's because it is.
See..it's all about intent and ethics. Forget the media; they're known for tagging a name to a group or sociological sub-culture in order to get a hot story. So all the script-kiddies and lamers will get a bad rep for what the media wants to call h/crackers. I'll have to agree that hacking into a system to learn how it works, or to just poke around is perfectly acceptalbe. It adheres to an unspoken moral standard, in which the person concerned doesn't do it just to wreck the site. The angry youth, or "cyber vandals" on the other hand....well...turn 'em in..if they think they're good enough to hold their own, let them try :)
"Back then, the FBI was making a regular habit of confiscating computer equipment. It was commonly referred to "being visited by the men in
brown shoes". The FBI didn't usually press charges. They just walked in and took all your stuff. "
This is asset forfeiture, a symptom of the War on Drugs, believe it or not. Forfeiture reform is currently being revisited to stop this kind of thing. Police can take your stuff, on the assumption that it was used for illegal purposes, and never press charges.
This is one area where the crackers are right to be pissed off. The FBI regularly makes use of forfeiture to "disable" crackers, without any due process. Wake up, this is the U.S., the FBI should not be allowed to nullify the constitution..
Um, reread my comment and the responses. My point was that Slashdot readers take down sites inadvertently just because we all hit the same site at once. And therefore taking down websites is not a very impressive accomplishment.
I have as much disdain for script kiddies as the next guy. In fact, probably more. Info security is my job.
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
That part about how his parents would be mad about the FBI taking their computers was especially hilarious.
Lisa
Hackers make money for themselves and for their employers.
Crackers make no money and cost their victims their money.
Although I don't do any hacking/cracking, I see why it could be useful. If we were to live so complacently in society, someone else would exploit our weaknesses. Hackers (sometimes for the wrong reasons) find the holes that need fixing in networks and Internet systems. Imagine how lame that HP/Microsoft NT kung fu commercial ("HP with Microsoft NT cannot be defeated") may sound when someone hacks their systems.. yah, just as bad as when WinNT got the Aegis-class missile cruiser USS Yorktown stuck dead at sea. Hacking/cracking serves a great purpose when used for the right reasons.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
GAT d-- s:+ a C+++ U*+++(++) P!>+ L>++ E- W+++ N- o+ K+ w+ O-- M V
PS+ PE-- Y+(+) PGP- t* 5 X++ R- !tv b+@ DI+++ D+ G e+++ h+* r% y+
That's me. I use tools for a reason, to be productive, not vendictive. I wouldn't crash the campus(could...), because it is too useful the way it is. Sysadmins have it bad enough, but I have already found HUGE Mack truck sized holeZ in security here. Incompetance.
They'd rather hire a green grass IMT'er than a seasoned DOS'er. For every security implementation put in, there are holeZ created.
Back to the FBI. Next, they will be checking for DOOM on the drive, planting black trenchcoats, and the game will really be afoot! I don't trust anyone who feels they must protect me from myself for my own good. They will enact a new law to provide better protection at the cost of personal freedoms.
I have also noticed the following: Any system that cannot be abused, is useless. Therefore, if it wasn't being abused, it wouldn't be of any use. Twisted, but true. Whenever you have fraud, the system also works.
The other side of FBI-they do catch bombers, spys, etc., but where I draw the line is personal freedoms.
Yeah, you guys deserved it. Try hiring Hackers instead of threatening. You might be surprized.
...they found a hole in the FBI webserver, and i think it's better to talk about that instead of the eternal war about hack/crack...
antionline also have a new story about FBI, ISP, and hackers right here.
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
inner city gangs. I mean think about it, they usually have really terrible naming conventions, their own style of writing/typing that only makes sense to them (but people are supposed to read it and be intimidated), their destructive abilities are only present in large groups, and any little crime is seen as some big deal. I do not care about DoS attacks against a web server, big deal, I could run a script too. I don't think it's right to abuse someone else's network and cost them alot of money (there are a few exceptions). I'm all for striking a blow against the Man, but DoSing their website? ooooooooo. I really wish the media would stop giving them so much attention, it only makes them try harder to piss people off. they get off at seeing their name in the paper or on a website.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
antionline sent me this:
US Senate Website Hacked Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 19:42:37
The hacker "counter strike" continues, as the the official website of the United States Senate is defaced.
For their link click here. Although it may not work... hmmm....
You know, I used to be one of those "script kiddie crackers" back in the early 80's. Back then, the big thing was cracking copy protection schemes on software and phreaking the phone system for free calls.
Back then, the FBI was making a regular habit of confiscating computer equipment. It was commonly referred to "being visited by the men in brown shoes". The FBI didn't usually press charges. They just walked in and took all your stuff.
It really sucked if you hadn't done anything wrong. Which I suspect happened all to often. It's fairly trivial, although rather illegal, to reroute a phone system so your making phone calls on your neighbors line. If your neighbor owned a computer -- well hopefully you guys weren't friends... At least not for long...
I did learn an awful lot during my larval stage as a script kiddie. Not in the least how to keep a low profile. There's something about watching your friends' BBS's disappear through the "Men in Brown Shoes" to really encourage the use of aliases.
And, in time, I went on to do some interesting things. A few of which were even legal....
As for retaliating at the Man: It's an awful lot of work to do it right. But, yeah, I suspect I could do it. And I suspect I could get away with it. And that little fact lets me sleep a lot better at night.
There's a lot of powerful people in this world who could really hurt me. Our government is full of such people. But, as the sayings go: "Live and let live". Or, alternatively: "Piss me off, pay the consequences..."
Why do I feel that this macho-fed story has something to do with the embarrasing "Chinese stealing info for the past 25 years without being caugh"t news.
It made me laugh when I read this part:
Mosthated's mother confirmed to MSNBC that her computer had been confiscated by the FBI, and said "And I'm really mad."
Big evil cracker-person...sent to his room by his mom.
My favourite is from TIME/Life books
Hackers are often unconcerned with the havoc their computer probing might wreak. Statements from what may be called the radical left among hackers sound even more anarchic. "Philosophically," pronounced Richard Stallman, a self professed hacker and expert programmer who has placed some of his best work in the public domain, "We do not believe in property rights"
TIME/LIFE BOOKS Understanding Computers Computer Security Published 1986.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton