Boing Boing » hackers

Geohot says the darndest things

Dean Putney — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:34:17 +0000

I found out yesterday that George Hotz, the hacker most known for unlocking the original iPhone and hacking the PS3, is now studying at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University. CMU has a bash.org clone for saving ridiculous quotes in IRC and around the computer science campus, and geohot already has some great ones in there.

amwatson: George, you have to start working on the assignment! If you don't, you won't have time to run on the supercomputer!
geohot: Don't worry. I have my own supercomputer!
amwatson: ...You have your own 256-core machine?
geohot: Yeah! Well, I have a botnet...

I'm permitted to own Sony products. I'm just not permitted to touch them inappropriately.

< Tony0> I like geohot's method of forcing himself to suck less with vim
< Tony0> apparently he rebound the arrow keys to backspace.
< gwillen> I,I vim is properly appreciated in the original Klingon

Oh, geohot! More great quotes at cmubash.org. Thanks, Dannel!

Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, the Adrian Chen profile

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:39:16 +0000

Weev. Photo: Gawker

Adrian Chen at Gawker has a must-read profile on Weev: so-called "iPad hacker," founder of the anti-blogging Internet-trolling organization "Gay Nigger Association of America," and born-again Mormon troll. Snip:

For Auernheimer, the AT&T breach was one of his finest works as a troll. He personally didn't hack anything—the program used to collect the email addresses was written by Spitler—except the media. He was the hype man for Goatse, and he claims blew the breach up far beyond its actual significance. "The bug that I'm indicted over isn't a big deal," he says. "What made it big is the way I presented it." He boils down his success at promoting the AT&T job to three bullet points: "Rhetoric, persuasion, and meme reference."
But was collecting the email addresses actually a crime? "If somebody mistakenly puts information out there on the web and somebody mistakenly gets that information, that's not illegal," says Jennifer Granick, a lawyer and the director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford. This is why Auernheimer decided to fight his charges instead of take a plea deal, as Spitler did last year.
"I contend there is no crime in telling the truth or using AT&T's, or anybody's, publicly accessible data, to cite it to talk about how they made people's data public," he told CNET.
Auernhemier's jury disagreed.

Read: The Internet's Best Terrible Person Goes to Jail: Can a Reviled Master Troll Become a Geek Hero?.

Weev convicted: court finds "iPad hacker" guilty of breaching AT&T site

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:07:22 +0000

Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, the 26-year-old "iPad hacker" charged with federal crimes for obtaining personal data of more than 100,000 iPad owners from AT&T’s website was found guilty on Tuesday in federal court in New Jersey. The court convicted him in one count of identity fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization. Kim Zetter in Wired has the details. Weev tweeted that he plans to appeal.

Memories of shooting Sneakers

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:00:26 +0000

In Slate, Stephen Tobolowsky remembers what it was like to shoot the 1992 hacker/caper flick Sneakers, one of the great hacker movies of all time, with an all-star cast that included Robert Redford and Ben Kingsley:

During part of the big action finale, Robert Redford is chased through a secret lab by all of us bad guys. Phil was choreographing the chase and trying to put us in some kind of order of how fast we were running. He said, "Let's do it this way. Ben, you’re the Academy Award winner, we’ll start with you. Then, Tim, the Emmy winner, you’ll be next. Do we have a Tony winner? Anyway, Stephen, you'll be last."
Here is a Hollywood Zen story. We shot on location around Los Angeles and at Universal. The studio has a going concern of little buses that regularly drive through the back lot area with tourists from all over the world wielding disposable cameras. The tour guide has a set patter, "On your right is the shark from Jaws. On your left is Columbo's automobile." While one of the buses was nearing our stage, we were called to the set. The tour bus had to stop while Robert Redford and James Earl Jones crossed in front of it. No one noticed. The guide just kept up with, "On our right is the bicycle from E.T." People were snapping away at the bicycle and were completely oblivious that two of the most famous actors in the world were a few feet away from them.
At the end of the shoot, Phil said the only thing that could make the whole experience of working on Sneakers better was if the lab lost the film. Then we would be able to do it all over again.

Memories of the Sneakers Shoot (via Hacker News)

Three hidden photographs found in Mac SE ROM

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 03:26:00 +0000

The folks at the NYC Resistor hackerspace found a Macintosh SE that had been abandoned on a Brooklyn sidewalk and decided to conduct a little "digital archeology."

While digging through dumps generated from the Apple Mac SE ROM images we noticed that there was a large amount of non-code, non-audio data. Adam Mayer tested different stride widths and found that at 67 bytes (536 pixels across) there appeared to be some sort of image data that clearly was a picture of people. The rest of the image was skewed and distorted, so we knew that it wasn’t stored as an uncompressed bitmap.

After some investigation, we were able to decode the scrambled mess above and turn it into the full image with a hidden message from “Thu, Nov 20, 1986“

They say there's more curious data in the ROM that they haven't been able to decipher yet.

Ghosts in the ROM (Via Matt Richardson)

Social engineer hacks Wal-Mart from Defcon

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:22:01 +0000

In a contest at the hacker conference Defcon, security specialist Shane MacDougall successfully penetrated Wal-Mart. "Social engineering is the biggest threat to the enterprise, without a doubt," MacDougall said after his call. "I see all these [chief security officers] that spend all this money on firewalls and stuff, and they spend zero dollars on awareness." (via @kevinmitnick)

A first for Black Hat hacker con: Apple in the house

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 19:40:59 +0000

Apple has never before participated in Defcon or Black Hat, but Bloomberg reports that this will change Thursday "when Dallas De Atley, manager of Apple’s platform security team, is scheduled to give a presentation on key security technologies within iOS, the operating system for iPhones and iPads" at Black Hat in Las Vegas, NV.

It’s significant because in recent years, Apple products have been stripped of their image of being hack-proof. The company’s rise has made it a bigger target, as hackers have been discovering bugs in the iPhone since it came out in 2007. Earlier this year, more than 600,000 Macs were infected, the first major malicious software attack targeting Apple computers.

Weev: Not Amused.

Report: hackers targeting Iranian nuclear facilities "AC/DC-rolled" workstations after attack

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:14:39 +0000

Mikko H. Hypponen of F-Secure publishes an email he claims is from a scientist with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (or AEOI), which details a new "cyber attack" wave against Iranian nuclear systems.

Snip: "There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC."

Mikko can't validate the email or the tale therein, and neither can we, but if it's true? Heh.

* The 'shoop above is mine, not the hackers'.

Anti-anonymous hacker doxed--perhaps a little too spectacularly

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:12:21 +0000

The Jester, a vigilante hacker opposed to Anonymous and Wikileaks, was apparently exposed over the last few days. His blog, twitter account and other tracks were soon gone. Many, however, think he's just acting out a scheme to ransom details of the ostensibly "real" identity. [Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica]

Anonymous rocked by revelation that top LulzSec hacker was FBI snitch

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:48:37 +0000

Quinn Norton has an excellent piece over at Wired:Threat Level on the reactions within "Anonymous" to the news that LulzSec frontman "Sabu" (photo above) was collaborating with the FBI. Kim Zetter's take on the arrests and secret plea deals is here.

LulzSec frontman Sabu was FBI informant, fed Stratfor docs to Wikileaks from an FBI-owned computer

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:06:15 +0000

The Guardian has more on the big hacking news which Fox News broke yesterday (as noted in a post by Rob). "Sabu," the trash-talking, self-appointed leader of LulzSec, has been working for the FBI for the last six months. The FBI says he helped the US and various European governments identify and arrest five alleged LulzSec members charged with participating in defacement, DDOSing, and "doxing" against high-profile government and corporate targets. Sabu (above) is, in now identified as Hector Xavier Monsegur, a 28-year-old unemployed Puerto Rican guy living in New York, and a father of two. He was charged with 12 criminal counts of conspiracy to engage in "computer hacking and other crimes" last year, pled guilty in August, 2011, then "snitched" on his LulzSec friends.

Here's the FBI news release, which notably omits the names of any prosecutors (perhaps for fear of Anonymous attack).

Snip from Guardian story:

His online "hacker" activity continued until very recently, with a tweet sent by him in the last 24 hours saying: "The feds at this moment are scouring our lives without warrants. Without judges approval. This needs to change. Asap."
In a US court document, the FBI's informant – there described as CW – "acting under the direction of the FBI" helped facilitate the publication of what was thought to be an embarrassing leak of conference call between the FBI and the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency in February. Officers from both sides of the Atlantic were heard discussing the progress of various hacking investigations in the call.
A second document shows that Monsegur – styled this time as CW-1 – provided an FBI-owned computer to facilitate the release of 5m emails taken from US security consultancy Stratfor and which are now being published by WikiLeaks. That suggests the FBI may have had an inside track on discussions between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and Anonymous, another hacking group, about the leaking of thousands of confidential emails and documents.
The indictments mark the most significant strike by law enforcement officials against the amateur hacker groups that have sprung out of Anonymous. These groups, which include LulzSec, have cost businesses millions of pounds and exposed the credit card details and passwords of nearly 1 million people.

Spain, South America arrest 25 in Anonymous crackdown, with Interpol assist

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:09:59 +0000

With help from the international police organization Interpol, Spain and three South American countries today arrested 25 people who are suspected of being Anonymous activist/hacktivist/hackers. They are accused of defacing government and corporate websites. Reuters:

Spanish police also accused one of four suspects picked up in the cities of Madrid and Malaga of releasing personal data about police officers and bodyguards protecting Spain's royal family and the prime minister.
Other arrests were in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, and 250 items of computer equipment and mobile phones were seized across 15 cities, Interpol said. Colombia's Ministry of Defence and presidential websites as well as Chile's Endesa electricity company were among the targets of the hackers, it said.

And not coincidentally, the Interpol website has been intermittently offline today.

Data breach at City College of SF may impact 100,000 students

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:19:45 +0000

City College of San Francisco's computers have been infected with software viruses that illegally transmit personal data from students and employees overseas, school officials said today. (MSNBC)

Hacker history: videos from early Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conferences

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:32:23 +0000

Emmanuel Goldstein from 2600 Magazine sez, "As part of a massive archiving project, 2600 Magazine is releasing all of the remastered videos from the second Hackers On Planet Earth conference - Beyond HOPE in 1997. Last month, videos from the first HOPE conference back in 1994 were put online. This weekend's hour-by-hour video release from 1997 will include speakers like cryptographer Bruce Schneier, *everyone* from The L0pht and Cult of the Dead Cow, privacy advocates, technologists, along with lots of glimpses at 1990s websites. It's an enlightening trip down Memory Lane to visit a pre-9/11 conspiracy theorist world - from a hacker perspective."

BEYOND HOPE VIDEO ARCHIVE GOES ONLINE THIS WEEKEND

Flood-hacking in Thailand

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 21:10:42 +0000

Meanwhile, it's still flooding in Thailand. And, after three months of this, the Thai people have been forced to get creative.

Thai Flood Hacks is a Tumblr that feels like a pean to human ingenuity. Here, you will find boats made out of old water bottles. Homemade jet skis. Raised walkways built from shopping carts. Guys just out walking around on stilts. It's amazing. Thai Happy Mutants have pulled off some awe-inspiring instant solutions that allow them to get on with their lives in the middle of an infrastructure-crippling natural disaster.

Via Neatorama

Wizzywig hacker history comic finishes

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:22:43 +0000

Ed Piskor, creator of the wonderful Wizzywig hacker history comic, has finally finished the story, which now runs to 412 installments. Ed's done three printed collections of the comic to date, and now promises to finish it in paperback and in limited edition hardcovers. Ed's a great writer, a great storyteller, and a great history of the Internet and hackers, and Wizzywig stands with books like Levy's Hackers and Bruce Sterling's Hacker Crackdown in the annals of hacker lore.

BOINGTHUMP! Chapter 1 Page 1

Hacker stock art

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:42:40 +0000

All photos: Shutterstock and Reuters.

Problem: Until they're captured, alleged hackers don't make for stories with good art. But readers won't look at words unless they are immediately adjacent to pictures. Solution: stock art! I am delighted to report that there is an abundance of stock art geared toward illustrating news stories about cybercrime.

View the gallery here.

Teenager said to be LulzSec's Topiary bailed

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:16:20 +0000

Photo: Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times. Jake Davis, the 18-year-old Briton accused by police of being Lulz Security spokestweeter Topiary, is out on bail. Paul Sawers writes:

The suspected LulzSec member is accused of coordinating Anonymous and LulzSec attacks from his home in Yell, on the Shetland Islands. His laptop was examined and it apparently showed that he wrote a fake article claiming that Rupert Murdoch was dead, and such an article appeared on the Sun’s website recently when its own system was hacked. The hearing today also revealed that Davis’s computer had 750,000 people’s personal details, including private log-in information.

Source [TNW]