Hackers hack PBS statement on hack

Adding a touch of hallucinogenic Pink Floyd shit to today's 'rolling boil' hackfest at PBS, Lulzsec has apparently hacked PBS's own statement on the hack. Posted earlier by Manuel Piñeiro, this image is currently unable to verify as PBS has finally locked their site down after a day of defacements.

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Anonymous

Childish. What is this accomplishing again?
MarkM

lulzsec is so damned clever:
they’re like Oscar Wilde Meets Neuromancer.
Alan

So much for intelligent discourse.
Anonymous

this is why we cant have nice things.
Anonymous

Classy.
petsounds

lulz aside, it doesn’t speak very highly for PBS’s systems security or their IT staff that they were so completely molested. while one may not consider a news org to need very hardened security, the fact that they are producing news that people trust to be factual makes that need a bit more apparent.
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  Yeah well maybe but only a d**ckstain hacks a nonprofit user supported public broadcasting site.
  And I stand by that.
- sdmikev
  
  Probably outsourced. And badly at that. You want it done right, do it yourself, spend the money and hire people that give a crap.
  They own the entire 149.48.0.0/16 range, BTW. What a waste. No wonder we’re running out of 32 bit addresses..
  - GrrrlRomeo
    
    Spend the money? We’re talking about PBS here. They hacked a nonprofit with no central news department.
    - sdmikev
      
      pay me now or pay me later.
Anonymous

Why oh why can’t they use their hacking talents on a truly deserving target like steve breitbart, and his dirty trick stunts (his latest trying to smear NY Rep Weiner)?

Weiner has been pushing hard for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself on any decisions involving The Healthcare Reform Act.

And so breitbart figures he can hack into Weiner’s account and distract us from what Weiner is actually saying.

And yet these knuckleheads harass PBS and Frontline.
Sciurus

Though I know this comes across as paranoid and a bit of a conspiracy nut, but please bear with me.

With all these large corporations wanting control of the internet it only seems to benefit them that they are being hacked so much lately and that it is being covered much more now. It kind of feels like they are getting an excuse to be able to take to the people and government to say “look at how dangerous this is we need control to make it a safe place for us, our customers, and average users.” It makes me feel crazy considering this idea but I can’t ignore it.
- johan,karlskrona
  
  These days conspiracy nut and realist blends. This, the Sony hack.. it’s strange that the security was so bad. And the goverments and copyright-mafia are just looking for an excuse to enforce total control.
jere7my

Ho! Ho! Using gay (and/or slutty) as a pejorative…who wouldn’t enjoy that? Hilarity!
JamesMason

Why is BOING BOING giving them the attention they crave?
- damiro
  
  JamesMason
  
  Why is BOING BOING giving them the attention they crave?
  
  Good point…but check the original BB post and look at the number of comments. Sheepishly I must admit that I’m guilty of posting a couple. This is a hot topic. There are many analogies being tossed around in these discussions, but they all have a new spin when you’re applying them to electronic actions that are completely unique to the digital era. I for one am getting a lot to ponder from these threads. Although deep down, I kinda agree with you.
Anonymous

It’s funny when people complain about a website being hacked, when PBS Frontline was setting up people for life in prison.

“ooo, ooo, they are a non-profit, they can’t possibly deserve it!” yeah right.

UMADBRO?
manuel piÃ±eiro

Hello:

Thank you for the mention! However, the correct spelling is “PiÃ±eiro” :)

And.. for the journalism experts on the thread, the hacker group is engaged in a campaign of harassment [a time-tested guerrilla tactic applied to this information war] against an organization that certainly identifies itself as “public tv” but all this accomplishes is trivializing what a public organization should be.

PBS is a shameful disgrace. This came up earlier; here’s a link that can serve as a primer for what’s evil about PBS – http://j.mp/ii5g0H
- jjasper
  
  I’d say something pointed about this, but those who criticize this group seem to end up as targets of online harassment, and I’m not some anonymous coward, so…
- jere7my
  
  Stop. Just stop. God. Your self-righteousness is making my face fall off.
- grimc
  
  You fight an information war with information. If the hacked pages consisted of pro-Wikileaks and Manning info, you’d have a point. Instead, it’s juvenile gifs and “Frontline sucks cocks”. Puff it up all you want, but in reality it’s just dumb, pointless attention whoring. I support Bradley Manning, and these hackers are just acting like fucking idiots. Way to hurt the cause, clowns.
  - manuel piÃ±eiro
    
    there’s nothing more annoying than backseat hackers.
    
    you got something so great to say, learn unix + get busy.
    
    the point is not to spend 8 hours writing the perfect essay to deface the PBS website with. the point is to damage their credibility as an organization (done), do it in a way so as to call attention to the wikileaks story (done) and get people/blogs talking about it (done).
    
    what’s your contribution besides whining on forums?
- Hayduke
  
  “Thank you for the mention! However, the correct spelling is ‘PiÃ±eiro’”
  
  You misspelled “Pendejo”.
Azurain

We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
- Finnagain
  
  Good apology, but it needs more llamas!
Anonymous

Mob rule! Where’s my pitchfork? Where’s my book to burn?
Teller

So funny, PBS getting hacked. Children eating their parents. Sure hope the NYT runs a creepy shot of JA soon.
Anonymous

Let’s do a comparison.

Frontline:

Frontline had the power to abuse the built up reputation and do a hatchet job on Wikileaks, Assange and Brad Manning. Nothing can stop them from betraying their commitment to their viewers and the previous trustees of Frontlines good name to provide an investigation that is honest, has integrity in favor of doing something less worthy. (Who knows why? More funding? Reporters trying personally to score a gig at the NYTimes, WashPost or the WSJournal or similar? Belief in it being their patriotic duty to lie to the US Public? Why is only of secondary interest.)

Frontline did use this power to betray their stakeholders and did do a hatchet job. A pretty nasty one too.

(This isn’t opinion, this is pretty well established. There are at least a dozen clear bias errors, but you can’t “explain away” them all in one broadcast and pretend the broadcast is trying to be fair. eg. Only wikileaks critics interviewed, no supporters. No analysis of what the correct thing to do is if your govt. asks you to keep crimes, such as murders, secret. Focus on irrelevant sex lives and personalities of those they wish to attack, no focus on sex lives of those doing the attacking. No analysis of the strength or lack of the evidence on which Mr Manning has been imprisoned and tortured for over a year. No analysis of Mr Lamo’s private life, honesty and integrity at all. No analysis of how many and which private contractors had access to the information published by wikileaks and could use it as blackmail material. No analysis of the probability that all the USA’s enemies already had all the information. No analysis of US security procedure. No analysis of the many accusations against wikileaks that have been totally discredited (eg wikileaks murdered US informers in Afghanastan – lies). The list goes on and on – it was only an hour long doco…)

Hackers:

These lulzsec hactivists had the power to make fun of Frontline and treat them like silly internet trolls.

They did this. And it was funny and largely harmless to anyone but frontline’s reputation.

They also had the power to lay waste to the PBS website and do real vandalism to their network and systems and open the users of those systems to multiple abuses. They did not do this.
They just drew a lot of attention to how bad the frontline report was. Nothing more.
All alterations they made to the website are completely obvious. That’s the point. Nobody has been censored.

Frontline abused their power, abused their trustee ship of a formerly good name in US journalism, ignored any morality and did an utter hatchet job.

Hactivists drew attention to the above by making jokes using Hijacked frontline infrastructure.

The custodians of frontline have hijacked it’s good name. The hackers hijacked the infrastructure and pointed this out with the minimum of fuss and impact. Nobody censored. Just a good old smear.

Unlike frontline the hactivists aren’t pretending to be intellectual and moral, while paradoxically actually being more so than frontline.
Sam125

OK I laughed, but seriously these guys should be going after people who deserve to be taken down a few notches and not innocent places like PBS.
mike

Why do people keep calling PBS innocent? They ran a pro-establishment hit piece on a hero kid getting tortured in prison. They deserve what little inconvenience this causes them.

And I love the frontline producer calling this chilling. Really? Is it so scary out there for you parroting the pro establishment line and getting your website defaced for it? Maybe he should try broadcasting honest content critical of the establishment so he can find out what chilling is really like.
- coaxial
  
  And I love the frontline producer calling this chilling. Really? Is it so scary out there for you parroting the pro establishment line and getting your website defaced for it? Maybe he should try broadcasting honest content critical of the establishment so he can find out what chilling is really like.
  
  So one should parrot the the anti-establishment line to avoid getting targeted bad vandals? Interesting.
  
  To try and cast everything as a nice black-or-white label is lazy. What if no one is a good guy? Let’s say Manning did leak the information, since no one has yet put up a even the semblance of a counter claim to the available circumstantial evidence. Did he break the law? Well, yes. Did he do so for a greater good? Debatably. Is Assagne using Wikileaks to promote himself with a devil-may-care attitude? Possibly, especially since there’s been a high-profile split in the organization. It’s a perfectly valid state of the world to say a pox on everyone’s house, and yet you fail to see that.
SeattlePete

Frontline does not get to drive the narrative when it comes to wikileaks or lulz or annon. For this I very happy. Yes, it’s childish. But its also anti-authoritarian/punk rock in a way that warms my cockles.

hehe…cockles.

Also, I love Frontline and think that it’s a great program. Who’s side am I on? Meh.
- Raul
  
  Meh… the hackers are being hypocritical and censorious. Targeting Frontline is akin to voting Nader in Florida in 2000–a childish response that ultimately undermines the greater goal. Why don’t they produce a documentary of quality that supports their POV regarding wikileaks? I’m sure if it’s good PBS would run it.
Neon Tooth

Meh… the hackers are being hypocritical and censorious. Targeting Frontline is akin to voting Nader in Florida in 2000–a childish response that ultimately undermines the greater goal.

Uh no, it’s nothing like that at all. Voting for who you feel the best candidate is, is participating in the democratic system. It has nothing to do with vandalizing a website. Furthermore settling for the slightly slower car headed over the cliff vs. the fast one isn’t exactly what I’d call the paramount of ‘mature’ behavior.
Anonymous

Attacking a nonprofit, what a bunch of douches. If they had any brains and/or balls they’d attack Fox but maybe they are on the republican dole.
Anonymous

This is hurting the cause.
It’s hard enough disagreeing with the new’s story/stance on Bradley Manning, but now we have to be associated with these idiots.

If they wanted to get their point across they could have come up with a clever and clear way to do so. These jokers just want to shit on everything.