Slashdot Mirror
Kevin Poulsen Slams Media Cyberterror Coverage
Kevin Poulsen has an interesting counterpart25 writes "little ditty in
ZDNet's Commentary section about Chicken Little
media folks preaching some sort of approaching
cyberterrorism debacle. I thought this was
particularly interesting in light of the recent
Jane's article flap." Meanwhile, a BBC story submitted byThe Big D tells how the "Islamic group of Hackers (Al-Sooraj
wing)" participated in the recent Pakistani military coup.
Not to be a negative nancy this early in the morning (EST for me) but of all the journalists who have covered "Computer Security" Mr. Poulsen is one of the last ones I'm going to have interest in. Please recall the obnoxious pile-on, pretentious, self-serving "journalism" served up by this gentleman , not to mention his history of trying to be part of the news, not just a reporter of it.
Ok, I'm being really unfair / vicious. Time for some caffeine.
Nobody's trying to introduce backdoors into code while fixing Y2K issues. What they're really doing is making sure they still have jobs in 20 years by allowing dates to only go as high as 2019.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
However, webpages dedicated to Pakistan's political parties have been left untouched.
In other words, only the governmental webpages have been touched. Now, the government has just been taken over by the army whose exploits are so gloriously lauded in the new-look webpages. Am I the only one who thinks that it`s far more likely that the army got hold of the host box as part of the takeover, and that it wasn`t cracked at all?
Gee, and I thought that once upon a time, the job of the media was to inform the public...silly me.
Ender
Nothing to see here
I don't know why anyone thinks the computer industry should be spared from any sort of media hype. Maybe I'm cynical, but it seems that job of the media is to generate buzz...sell things..make a name for yourself..etc... why let simple facts get in the way. Anyways... I think the whole cyber-terrorism thing is pretty interesting, but hardly new. One of my favorite books is the Cuckoo's Egg by Clif Stoll. It's a bit dated now, but still an interesting read.
Maybe a little paranoia is good when it comes to this arena. While we strive to make computers easy for the "common man" we are also making it easy for the "common criminal."
As for Pakistan, Army Zindabad! Pakistan Paaindabad.
I don't know anything about this particular journalist. I don't read ZDnet publications because they usually suck ass. But we should praise them when they do get something right for a change. Maybe it will incite them to perform more random acts of correctness, fancy that!
-- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
Before we get more messages in this forum let me clear up a few things. Although I don't know this particular hacking group, I doubt they ammount to anything. Lately there have been one or two hacking (cracking?) groups identifying themselves as either pakistani and/or muslims. I'm sure they are no more than computer science students students at some american university seeing how cool it is to hack. I don't mean that they don't know what they are doing, just that they are likely not a 'cyberwar' branch of hamas. I'm quite sure the army is not defacing these websites. Putting a few remarks on a hacked website of the government of the province of Punjab is not something worth amry's time. The bbc article seemed to imply that Punjab's website was defaced because the Prime Minister was from Punjab. I think most other Pakistani's will agree that the likely reason was that Punjab's web-server was a little insecure than others (or maybe they haven't gotten to other servers...midterms you know :)). These groups (in my opinnion) may not pose dangers as much as the media seems to portray, however there is something about the trend. CNN had a more relevant article about Hacktivism. Where some pakistani 'hackers' had changed some random websites; they put up information about atrocoties in kashmir. Once again it is my personal opinnion without any evidence...but I believe their purpose was not to spread information about Kashmir. That info. probably just seemed more noble than leaving something like "I was here." I wonder how active 'pakistani hackers' would be if it wasn't for the brain virus. Nothing to prove, just some interesting observations. I do wonder how many Pakistanis visit /. sc
Before we get more messages in this forum let me clear up a few things. Although I don't know this particular hacking group, I doubt they ammount to anything. Lately there have been one or two hacking (cracking?) groups identifying themselves as either pakistani and/or muslims. I'm sure they are no more than computer science students students at some american university seeing how cool it is to hack. I don't mean that they don't know what they are doing, just that they are likely not a 'cyberwar' branch of hamas.
:)).
/.
I'm quite sure the army is not defacing these websites. Putting a few remarks on a hacked website of the government of the province of Punjab is not something worth amry's time.
The bbc article seemed to imply that Punjab's website was defaced because the Prime Minister was from Punjab. I think most other Pakistani's will agree that the likely reason was that Punjab's web-server was a little insecure than others (or maybe they haven't gotten to other servers...midterms you know
These groups (in my opinnion) may not pose dangers as much as the media seems to portray, however there is something about the trend. CNN had a more relevant article about Hacktivism. Where some pakistani 'hackers' had changed some random websites; they put up information about atrocoties in kashmir. Once again it is my personal opinnion without any evidence...but I believe their purpose was not to spread information about Kashmir. That info. probably just seemed more noble than leaving something like "I was here."
I wonder how active 'pakistani hackers' would be if it wasn't for the brain virus.
Nothing to prove, just some interesting observations. I do wonder how many Pakistanis visit
sc
Let me step back just a bit and acknowledge that maybe I skewered Poulsen just a bit too much.
I have read his stuff and I am quite familiar with his story. I guess I just find it a bit annoying that he feels the need to weave in anecdotes about his "big bad hacker days" into every story he writes, regardless of whether there is one shred of direct relevance to the actual story itself.
"You don't need to keep reminding us how cool and elite you feel you once were, Kevin!", that's all I'm saying.
Feeling better now,