Mark December 13, 2006 Uncategorized 0 comments full post »

Hackers Declaring Cyberwar on Facebook and Myspace

I’ve been seeing this headline pop up all over the place the last few days: Hackers Declaring War On MySpace, Facebook? My question is: who are these hackers? Is there a central organisation of hackers that have decided to declare this war? Should Facebook and MySpace fight back? The best defense, after all, is a good offense.

(SC Magazine) “If the hackers know you have a particular interest, this can be used to target you in a phishing attack. They know what you’re into and can exploit this to obtain more information from you such as credit card details,” he said. “People are putting far too much information online and into the hands of identity thieves. Young people in particular, need to be very careful as it may come back to haunt them.”

Those of us with an above average IQ know the vulnerability MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites present to our identity. Still, all this hubub begs the question: where are these hackers?

Furthermore, should I join up? I’ve been a hacker for years, and there’s apparently some money in harvesting this information. Do these hackers have an HR department I can apply to?

It’s simply ridiculous to use terms like CyberWar and hackers when it comes to stories like this, but still the media persists.

/rizzn

Mark August 25, 2005 Uncategorized 0 comments full post »

Jedi Hacker School Enrollment Now Closed for the Season

Howdy.

My power’s out at my house, so I’m just sitting around the office waiting for sleep to overtake me. I would sleep at my house, but I can’t see at all to walk the long corridor to my door, nor can I clean off my bed properly in the dark. Call me short-bus, I just found it easier to get back in the car and drive to the office. The hurricane seems to be over, for the most part. I turned the Weather Channel back on my PDA since the WFOR stream has been permanently overloaded since the storm started.

According to the current radar gimmick the last yellow band has passed my area. Yay, happy. These people are busting such nuts over this. They’re making computer graphics of what they think Pompano Beach may look like with three feet of flood water. Freakin’ dorks.

I’ve finished the queuing system, and it’s in Beta. I need all the Blip users to keep a close eye on their RSS streams and let me know if they fail to generate within 15 minutes of creation, as that is the deadline set within the system for RSS/profile file creation. It’s going to reduce the load on the server by 90% at least, which is great, and will be truly amazing once it’s migrated to the new server.

Since I’m such a Jedi Master coder, I’ve decided to take on a Padawan. Kelly has been getting heavy into the art of design, and she’s been taking forays into backend coding. I’ll be there to keep her from straying to the dark side (because uncertainty leads to doubt, which leads to fear, which leads to hate, which leads to Java. *shiver*).

So say hey to Kelly, and congratulate her on her decision to train her mitochlorins to become little microscopic hackers.

/rizzn

Mark September 7, 2004 Uncategorized 0 comments full post »

Hackers in the News

There have been a number of hackers in the news over the hurricane/holiday weekend. I haven’t really been staying on top of this with all the hurricane coverage (as well as the ongoing debate between DJ Colonoscopy and myself), but here’s what I’ve found recently:

Teen Hacker Controls Ebay
By Nick Farrell: Tuesday 07 September 2004, 12:30
GERMAN POLICE HAVE arrested a 19 year-old hacker who claims he managed to control the local domain of E-bay.

Apparently, the hack happened at the end of August when the teen managed to direct punters on the eBay.de site to a different domain name server (DNS).

What is scary is that the hacker is not exactly an expert, and had found the instructions on how to fudge the transfer when he stumbled across a web-page. The teen decided to request a transfer for several sites including Google.de, Web.de, Amazon.de and eBay.de for a laugh and was amazed when it worked.

According to the police spokesman, the teen didn’t want to cause damage and was a little shocked when he was told that he had managed to become the new owner of eBay.de.

The domain has now been returned to its rightful owner and the would be hacker is finding himself charged by Inspector Knacker of the Yard.

Hackerâs Reward â Target: the Motorola v710Posted Sep 6, 2004, 11:07 AM ET by Simon Spagnoletti

None too happy about the fact that Verizon has deliberately crippled Bluetooth on the Motorola V710, Jonathan A. Zdziarski is offering a bounty to anyone who can successfully hack the phone and restore the OBEX and OPP Bluetooth features which have been disabled. What do these do, you ask? Well, OBEX lets you transfer files between the phone and a computer, while OPP lets you send phonebook entries and other info to another phone or Bluetooth-enabled car (using a Bluetooth headset with the V710 works just fine). Useful features donât you think? The prize is up to $882.72, a sum of money weâre hoping will be enough to tempt at least one kindly hacker into getting this done.

A hacker’s tales from years in the Big House
By Deborah Lohse, Dawn C. Chmielewski and Dan Lee

Mercury News
Reformed hacker Kevin Mitnick spent five years in the Big House for breaking into corporate computer systems. Given his insider experience, he might want to start a career as a prison consultant now that Frank Quattrone, Martha Stewart and a whole new passel of white collar criminals are headed to the pokie.

In a recent interview, Mitnick, who got out of prison in 2000, said he did time with plenty of well-heeled inmates, including a judge and a senator, financier Ivan Boesky and Barry Minkow, founder of ZZZZ Best Carpet Cleaning — the Enron of 1987.

Don’t try to tell these guys that crime doesn’t pay, though.

Mitnick said he had coffee one day with Boesky, whom he described as “aloof.” Boesky asked him what he was in for. After Mitnick explained, he said, Boesky asked him how much money he made off his crimes. When Mitnick replied he hadn’t been in it for the money, Boesky was aghast. “You’re in PRISON, and you didn’t try to make any money?” Mitnick recalled Boesky asking him. “Isn’t that stupid?”

Being known as a computer hacker didn’t ease Mitnick’s time in prison, he said. Some guards suspected he had “mystical powers” and could take over the prison’s computer network — even though the terms of his sentence barred him from using computers for years. Once, in the prison law library, Mitnick said he sat down to work at a programmable electric typewriter and a nervous guard whisked him off to a disciplinary office.

“He immediately came over to me as if I was hacking into Norad,” recalled Mitnick. “It was comical.”

Joe Montana, Mac acolyte: Apple Computer’s lead pitchman, Steve Jobs, was unable to make the launch of the company’s new iMac G5 desktop computer in Paris last week.

So, Apple picked up a veteran pitchman who has hawked Schick razors, Coors beer, Fruit of the Loom underwear and Disneyland: legendary San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana.

Montana happened to walk into Apple’s San Francisco store last week as executives unveiled the new, all-in-one iMac. Honest. Apple executives insisted that Montana’s impromptu appearance was purely coincidental and not a publicity stunt.

Montana listened in on a press briefing, and then began extemporaneously extolling the virtues of the Mac. He said he uses Apple’s video conferencing feature, iChat, to talk to his daughter. Sometimes, they even set a place for her at the dinner table, he said.

Needless to say, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of hardware products was ecstatic about the encounter and Montana’s enthusiasm for the iMac. “That was my highlight.”

Dealmaking on the run: Technology veteran Eric Benhamou got more than a good workout with running partner Dan Kolkowitz. He found a new company to invest in and yet another job as chairman.

The two chatted while on long runs about Kolkowitz’s latest venture idea. After more research, Benhamou was ready to invest some of his time and money in San Jose start-up Swan Labs, where Kolkowitz is the vice president of engineering.

Swan Labs specializes in products to boost the performance of software applications over wide-area networks.

“I became very convinced quickly that the market was going to be large and growing fast,” said Benhamou, now Swan Labs’ chairman. Benhamou Global Ventures also was part of the company’s $15 million first round of funding.

Now a slot is opening up in Benhamou’s busy schedule: This fall he plans to step down as the chairman of PalmSource. He already serves as chairman of 3Com, Cypress Semiconductor and palmOne.

[and finally, a post to prweb probably from Mortland himself]

Infamous Video Game “Hacker”, Mortland Calls it Quits
(PRWEB) September 6, 2004
It was on September 9th 2002 that SEGA Public Relations Officer Jeff Millian said that video games had been taken to far. He was very right. 2 years ago an unidentified hacker (now known as Mortland) caused over $16,000 thousand dollars in damage and financle loss to Sonic Team, developers to the hit video game Phantasy Star Online. The attack was web based and downed the developerâs server for 3 days. It was later discovered that it was in retaliation to a disagreement between the company and Mortland pertaining to the recognition of September 11th victims. âIt was when the company said, âWere not in the business of grieving and making holidaysâ that I decided to down there serversâ said 17 year old Mortland in a statement to a local newspaper on September 11th 2002.

That was 2 years ago. To date Mortland has taken down 32 web forums, vandalized over 20 websites, and has been kicked off the servers to 11 games. âIâm just using the game to its full
potential, itâs
a shame no one else does.â Said Mortland who has finally decided to call it quits. Now at 19 and finishing up his schooling in Boise Idaho from studying Nursing, he has decided to enjoy the finer things in life. âI was always hating everyone, I was sick of everyone. But now I have simply decided to ignore them all and divorce my self from the human race. It worked out really well.â

When asked about the level of intensity agenst the sites that he attacked he responded, âWhen your pumped full of drugs all the time you do things for the stupidest reasons, I guess I just like messing with video gamers.â âI mean that isnât how it always was, There were good reasons to some of my messages agenst some of the people I hit.â âI think I will try going into entertainment soon write now.â âI am just writing random thoughts on my web blog that youâre all welcome to visit at http://www.crazylife.org/~mortlandâ.

Mark August 25, 2004 Uncategorized 0 comments full post »

Electronic Jihad To Strike Thursday? Don't Bet On It

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
A coordinated attack against the Internet, dubbed an “electronic jihad,” may be as close as tomorrow, one security firm warned Wednesday. Other experts, however, were dubious.

According to a report on the Russian news service RIA Novosti, Eugene Kaspersky of the Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs has warned about a large-scale attack that might be delivered by Islamic terrorists.

Kaspersky and other security analysts have noted claims on Arabic-language Web sites that announced an attack will launch August 26. The main targets — no surprise — of the attack would be against political and financial Web sites in the U.S., Israel, and Western European nations, Kaspersky alleged.

“The hackers who have proclaimed ‘electronic jihad’ have enough experience and resources to paralyze the Internet for several hours at least,” Kaspersky was quoted as saying. “It is ghastly enough that these people have mentioned ‘electronic jihad’ for the first time.”

Executives at Kaspersky Labs were unavailable for comment, but as of mid-day Wednesday, the security company’s Web site rated virus activity as “green,” indicating that everything’s “normal.”

But since even Kaspersky has no firm details, other security professionals said it’s unlikely anything out of the ordinary would happen Thursday.

“We don’t think anything really major will happen,” said nearby F-Secure, an anti-virus firm based in Finland, in a statement on its Web site. “Why would anybody announce an attack like this beforehand?”

Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec agreed. “We don’t see anything unusual developing,” said a Symantec spokesperson Wednesday. Symantec operates a global network of threat detection sensors, dubbed DeepSight Threat Network; DeepSight hasn’t spotted any evidence of an impending attack, the spokesperson added.

“We don’t see anything substantiated,” said Ken Dunham, the director of malicious code research for Reston, Va.-based iDefense. “We’re certainly not expecting any major global event that will affect the Internet as a whole.”

But while Dunham pooh-poohed the idea of a general strike against the Web on Thursday, he believes politically- and/or religiously-motivated attacks are a sure thing at some point.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in hacker activism, and religious and politically-motivated attacks,” he said. More important, said Dunham, is the move by various groups toward hacking. “We’re beginning to see a shift toward a convergence of major motives,” he added, such as activist groups taking on some of the characteristics of organized crime gangs when it comes to hacking. But rather than after a financial windfall, these attackers are after disruption pure and simple.

“With the tools and abilities now circulating in the hacker community, the situation’s likely to be more disruptive and coordinated in 2004 and 2005. It’s a dangerous situation, like oil and fire.”

Attackers like the ones cited by Kaspersky, said Dunham, are likely “middle- to low-class hackers without the skills necessary to attack heavily guarded Web sites, such as financial services sites, but could hammer less well-defended servers.”

But even then Dunham’s hedging his bets. “The current situation is the most dangerous and difficult we’ve ever seen, what with the high number of zero-day attacks against Internet Explorer and the fact that some attacks have hit fully-patched computers at will.”

“There’s a lot out there to be concerned about,” he concluded.

[view source]

Now playing: dimitri from paris – abstract jazz lounge

Mark August 24, 2004 Uncategorized 0 comments full post »

International hacker ring busted

p2pnet.net News:- A large international network of hackers who stole computer programmes, films and music and then sold them on the black market has been broken up by Polish police.

Police in Gorzow Wielkopolski, western Poland, smashed a ring involving more than 100 people and active in Poland, the US, Australia, Britain and Slovakia, police spokeswoman Agata Salatka told Agence France-Presse.

Five Polish computer programmers thought to be the group’s leaders were arrested and face up to eight years in prison, she said.

The hackers got into the computers in universities and technical institutes in several countries, “using the large memory of the powerful computers to stock, without the knowledge of the owners, the most modern programmes, music, games and the most recent films,” AFP quotes Salatka as saying.

The gang was “shadowed” by Gorzow Wielkopolski police last October, aided by the FBI and police in Britain and Slovakia, adds the story.

[via source]