MySpace Predator Caught By Code

An anonymous reader writes, "Wired News editor and former hacker Kevin Poulsen wrote a 1,000-line Perl script that checked MySpace for registered sex offenders. Sifting through the results, he manually confirmed over 700 offenders, including a serial child molester in New York actively trying to hook up with underage boys on the site, and who has now been arrested as a result. MySpace told Congress last June that it didn't have this capability." Wired News says they will publish Poulsen's code under an open-source license later this week.

May I be the first to say...

[Capella or Bust]

PWND.

MySpace told congress...

[sdBlue]

[sarcasm]While most of us here know how trivial searching for string a in string b is, I for one believe that Tom couldn't do it. Aside from all the horror that it is conceptually, the (lack of) stability of their site actually makes that statement believable![/sarcasm]

Don't believe it

[illegalcortex]

This article isn't credible. It must be a hoax. I mean, c'mon, you really expect me to believe someone wrote a 1,000 line perl script. And that it did what it was supposed to?

Re:Don't believe it

[jtobin]

Yeah, these days *real* programmers code in AJAX.


*Hides*

Re:Don't believe it

[Compholio]

I mean, c'mon, you really expect me to believe someone wrote a 1,000 line perl script. And that it did what it was supposed to?

Yeah, everyone knows that good perl scripts only occur between 5 and 20 lines. DeCSS is what, 7?

Does slashdot lead by example?

[Xemu]

With tens of thousands of teens visiting a site daily there is a significant risk is that a couple of sex predators are on the prawl.

So the question is... does Slashdot check all users if they are registered sex offenders or does this Paulsen guy have to run his script here too?

Easier

[MrSquishy]

That seems like a complicated way to get the same results as:
SELECT * FROM userbase WHERE SexOffender="1";

The best line in there...

[Otter]

Best part:

That position drew a skeptical line of questioning from Congressman Greg Walden, R-Oregon

"If you're checking for the amount of skin in an image and that sort of thing, and however your logarithms work, you'd think you ought to check, you know, 'John Doe', who happens to be a sex offender, and weed them out," Walden said at the time.

(In fairness to the Congressman, it's certainly possible that he said "algorithms" and it was mistranscribed...)

Re:Easier

[sdBlue]

or SELECT * FROM userbase WHERE interests LIKE '%molest%' OR interests like '%catholicism%' ouch, yes he did!

Re:Don't believe it

[jazman_777]

you really expect me to believe someone wrote a 1,000 line perl script.

It was originally only 17 lines, but he had to make it 1,000 so it'd be readable.

Re:Don't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

This article isn't credible. It must be a hoax. I mean, c'mon, you really expect me to believe someone wrote a 1,000 line perl script. And that it did what it was supposed to?

I can't get over the fact it's going to take them a couple of days to publish it. Why? How difficult is it to cat 1000 lines from /dev/random anyway?

Re:Easy?

[ari_j]

No. Most of the hard work in writing something like this is dealing with server errors, which Myspace serves up in lieu of content based on a sinusoidal pattern where you have between 10 and 100 percent probability of getting an error depending on the time of day on Mars.

MySpace told Congress

[SQLz]

MySpace told Congress last June that it didn't have this capability.

Should read: Jim Foley breathed a sigh of relief when MySpace told Congress last June that it didn't have this capability.

Re:Congressmen

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl is a great language for writing such sophisticated logarithms.

Naturally.

Re:Hmm...

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Myspace IS a 1000 line pearl script.

Re:didn't have the capability

[maj1k]

(e) you're sleeping on the couch tonight, smart ass.

The results from the script was only the start...

[NotQuiteReal]

He still had to ...manually confirmed over 700 offenders...

I sure hope he wore gloves and/or other protection for that part!

Re:why release it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're acting like DDOSing MySpace off the Internet is a bad thing?

Re:May I be the first to say...

[megaditto]

Einstein said: "there are two infinite things, the Universe, and the human stupidity. And I am not sure about the Universe..."

What kind of a dumb criminal would willingly give their real name and address while indending to then break the law.

What next? Robbing your local sperm bank's register after leaving a DNA "deposit"? Stealing a credit card to pay your utility bills?

Re:May I be the first to say...

[WilliamSChips]

These people are on Myspace. 'Nuff said.

Re:Don't believe it

[OakDragon]

If he were hardcore, he'd have done it in awk.

big deal

[codemoose]

1000 lines, bah. I could have done it with .NET in 10,000 lines.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[The_Wilschon]

PWND.

When I saw that, my first though was "Pretty Weapons of No Destruction?" ... It has really been a long day.

Re:MySpace told congress...

[cswiger2005]

IANALBIPOOSD

What's frightening to me is not the (presumed?) sex offenders on MySpace, but that I could translate this acronym into words.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[Tiger4]

"Stealing a credit card to pay your utility bills?"

Somebody around here did almost that. Stole a credit card, bought some home furnishings, and had it delivered. She was still trying to come up with a coherent explainantion as they took her away.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[briggsb]

Just like this band [bbspot.com] was pwned by this teenage girl on MySpace.

Heh, don't ask me - and I posted it!

[NotQuiteReal]

I was only looking for a "funny".

I posted it under another "funny".

I think there are folks who take the mod system way too seriously and have some sort of problem with the fact that "funny" doesn't garner "karma", so they feel obliged to give it "insightful" or some such. I don't care, If I post a "funny", I don't expect "karma".

My personal opinion is that "funny" is just that - for those who think it is funny. Maybe having zero karma for funny is "right", maybe it is "wrong".

I dunno.

Hey mods - don't zap me down too much. I didn't mod myself up. You are in a pissing match with other mods! (Not that I give a shit what my "karma" is, I am soo going to hell, maybe, depending on who you ask.)

Re:Don't believe it

[bitt3n]

This article isn't credible. It must be a hoax. I mean, c'mon, you really expect me to believe someone wrote a 1,000 line perl script. And that it did what it was supposed to?

actually, the script was originally intended to locate hot teenage girls.. like any good programmer, when he saw the results, he updated the spec sheet.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[freeweed]

Please, someone tell me that's an Onion story.

Please.

We can't seriously be getting this stupid as a species.

*cries*

Re:May I be the first to say...

[gblues]

Dude, it's BBspot. They're like The Onion Lite.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[PhraudulentOne]

Your friend should look up the CEO of said telco, get his/her name, address, date of birth, and switch both phones over to that account.

Heck, switch all your friends over to the CEO account - that should make them pay attention to their large security hole.