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The Internet

Kipling: Be careful what you wish for. 94

Posted by Hemos from the wham-bang-thank-you-m'am dept.
Zab gave us the the story about the latest fun over at Kipling. Kipling acknowledged being cracked, but I don't think they quite knew what they were asking for. Probably having Mooby share the password, and having their site down for a few days wasn't quite the plan. But they did get their publicity, I s'pose. Check out the work at Kipling.
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Kipling: Be careful what you wish for. More

Kipling: Be careful what you wish for.

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  • Hacked/Cracked/Smacked/Yo Mama (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yaknow, I'm really getting sick of people bitching about hackers incorrectly being labeled crackers, crackers being labeled hackers, and the like. The bottom line is, "who the f*** cares?" 10 years ago when I was a hacker, nobody used the term "cracker" unless dealing with EZ-Whip cannisters and getting a brief high.
    Please, lameoids, get lives.

  • The index page was done by kipling (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    they are counting how many hits they get on the hacked site

    http://www.planetinternet.be/pistat/cgi-bin/site stat.gif?name=shopping.pageview.kipling.ht ml

    So there is no evidence of the site being cracked
    other than what they release to the press
  • ...Which would be a real shame, since they occasionally used the word(s) correctly.
  • [wakko@tettie] 6:34:13pm ~/> nslookup www.planetinternet.be
    Server: tettie.bitey.net
    Address: 209.150.6.71

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name: leuven.planetinternet.be
    Address: 194.119.232.4
    Aliases: www.planetinternet.be

    [wakko@tettie] 6:37:11pm ~/> nslookup www.kipling.com
    Server: tettie.bitey.net
    Address: 209.150.6.71

    Name: www.kipling.com
    Address: 194.119.239.81

    Look at the two IP addresses. Now traceroute them.

    Here's the last bit of a traceroute to planetinternet's site:

    16 be-br-dr08.unisource.be (194.119.226.169) 399.195 ms 369.74 ms 339.719 ms
    17 194.119.225.182 (194.119.225.182) 309.978 ms 329.264 ms 329.628 ms
    18 195.95.30.82 (195.95.30.82) 339.757 ms 195.95.30.85 (195.95.30.85) 359.241 ms 195.95.30.82 (195.95.30.82) 449.23 ms
    19 passendale.planetinternet.be (195.95.30.90) 388.849 ms * 286.789 ms
    20 hosting.planetinternet.be (194.119.239.2) 293.474 ms 319.294 ms *

    And the last part of a traceroute to www.kipling.com:

    16 be-br-dr08.unisource.be (194.119.226.169) 380.362 ms 387.695 ms 349.823 ms
    17 194.119.225.182 (194.119.225.182) 350.344 ms * *
    18 195.95.30.82 (195.95.30.82) 329.372 ms 195.95.30.85 (195.95.30.85) 358.755 ms 348.818 ms
    19 passendale.planetinternet.be (195.95.30.90) 349.818 ms * 348.748 ms
    20 hosting.planetinternet.be (194.119.239.2) 349.667 ms * 328.889 ms


    Gee. What ever is planetinternet doing in there?

    Dorks.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • I'm not talking about the "hack and win a duffel bag" contest. I meant the site itself, which, as you can see, was also hacked.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • Yep I'd say fixing the car with duct tape is a kludge.
    Now, bottle feeding it nitrous oxide....
    _Thats_ a hack ;-D
  • Y'know, I think it'd be incredibly funny if someone cracked their web server (again?) and replaced their httpd with a hacked version that translated "hack" to "crack" on the fly on all outgoing pages...
  • Language evolves. Live with it.


    ITYM "devolves".

  • Hacking (Score:1)

    by Enry ( 630 )
    My issue is that I like the term Hacker as in "person who finds a creative solution to the problem". Talking to the general public and saying I hack on computers would probably make them call the FBI.

    To everyone out there: I am not Kevin Mitnick. I will not steal your credit cards or turn off your phone or charge up $15,000 in cell phone bills to Paraguay. I just like tinkering with my legally acquired machines.
  • What do you think are the chances that after a while they do a profile on some bogus but hip-looking "hacker" that cracked their site?

    Oh, and of course he couldn't have done it without his "browser" bag.
  • Posted by Wereling#3:

    I've gotta agree. NO offense to Kipling, but the very fact the page is still up seems a bit fishy. ALso, all the hacked pages I've ever seen usually say soemthing other than "We've been cracked", or at least say it in a different way. After all, if you're gonna do it, why not decry Kipling for being so stupd about the whole thing to begin with?
  • Heh, they're only "crackers" if they're all white boys. Oops, I thought I was a hacker, but I don't make furniture with an axe... :)
  • "Way too much time and is proficient with Photoshop"??? Just how long does it take *you* to draw two red lines and two lines of text over top of a graphic that was already on their web page? I think I could to that in 10 minutes, tops, and I've never used anything more complicated than xpaint.
  • MTV did this a while back, 'cracking' their own site as a publicity stunt for some character they wanted to use for something or other. OF COURSE they got caught, and they got soundly spanked in the press for a while. No, I don't remember the character's name, but neither can anyone else. I think they took their licks and crawled home never to mention it again.

    Combining annoying misuse of terminology with a fake stunt will - in the end - get them stomped. Even the script-kiddies (lets face it, the target audience) will avoid them like homework. "Kipling? Those guys are LAME. No kewl d00d uses Kipling!" Heard in schoolyards around the land.

    (In a just world, phrases like that would immediately be followed by automatic gunfire, but oh, well.)

    Since they posted a public (and well publicized) invitation to hack their site, does this mean that its open season on kipling.com, without those nasty legal possibilities? (But Mr. Fed, they *said* it was OK!) Heh.

    -reemul
  • It's nice to see that they got what they asked for. It really bothers me when people try to change the definition of jargon that they didn't invent and don't use.

    Silly user, computers are for geeks!

    --


  • Remove the trailing quote from the link.

    (Yet another /. URL typo ;)

    --

  • But, but computers and chicken blood go great together!

    --

  • Y'know, "Gay" used to mean "happy".

    "Hacker" used to mean "coder/computer nerd/whatever", but since most people understand "hacker" to mean "cracker", then that's its meaning.

    Language evolves. Live with it.
    --
  • ...if someone has changed your root password and deleted all other accounts. Add to that, they probably don't have anyone on-site that knows how to cold boot and re-install the the password files and/or os...

  • Cracking (at least when done technically, otherwise I'm not sure) is a special case of hacking, so saying `hacker' when referring to a `cracker' is correct, but not the other way around (unless the hacker is indeed a cracker, of course).

    I'd have to disagree with you there. They're more like two groups that commonly overlap. Someone can be a cracker without being a hacker. aka script kiddies. Someone can be a hacker without being a cracker as well. But it's very possible to be both
  • Well i received my free kipling bag today. It's got, err.. "hacker" written on it. I'm so proud

    Well whatever you say about kipling, they delivered on their promise.

    C.

  • Or they just had a slow tape drive ;)

  • It's also possible that someone cracked the site, changed index.html just to be a bastard, then when Kipling figured it out, they whipped together the "we've been cracked" logo for the front.

    I'd like to see a full documentation of what was done, if for no other reason than to prove/disprove its status as a hoax.

  • I would assume so, although these seem like the type of people who would be all cocky about nobody being able to crack their site.. until someone did it, at which point they would vow to "prosecute him/her to the full extent of the law." Anyway, I'm sure some enterprising /. reader out there can figure out a way to do it.


    -mike kania

  • yup (Score:1)

    by chris_oat ( 5511 )
    i've always understood hacker/cracker in this same way. that's why you download a "crack" when you want to disable copyright protection.
  • but see this is how everyone used these two words (well, everyone that i knew) back in the day. back when all i had was an apple IIc, crackers were known only as "those people who defeated copy protection on games." so, go figure. from my point of view everyone here is screwy and i'm the only one that has it right :)
  • yeah... but having seen their site before... the low-qual jpeg doesn't look like something they would have done... just my two bits ($.25)
  • Yeah, the posted URL is wrong. Remove the trailing '"' from the Address field up at the top of your browser after you follow the link.
  • Yup. That was my first thought when I saw the wonderfully designed graphics. My two hunches are

    a) that they got someone to design it 10 minutes after they were cracked,

    b) the cracker has way too much free time and is proficient with Photoshop

    c) this was planned, the graphic was developed over a few weeks, was probably finished around the time the "crack our password" announcement was made, and its a poorly planned publicity stunt that anyone with half a brain (granted, thats a small percentage of people) can see through

    Your guess is as good as mine. ;) But, like Obscure said... the site is still there. Since when do crackers forget to rm -rf, or at least make some minor but noticable changes to random pages throughout the site?
  • The counter on that page (view source) that others have pointed out seems particularly fishy to me.
    Either this is a faked publicity stunt,
    or they really did get cracked, and are milking the publicity by putting up a counter on the page and leaving it up.

    Somehow, the former seems more likely.
  • It's only a matter of time before they get burned. The sooner the better, I say.
  • It does say 'cracked' at the site at this time.

    But it's truly sad to see a business website take pride in having been compromised.
    A simple text message admitting the unfortunate fact (from their POV) is appropriate; a full collor, full page graphic, that still manages to push their product, is a marketting ploy.

    "Look at US! We're SO POPULAR that k00l kidz broke our server!!!"

    Maybe if we ignore them, they'll go away.
  • It's more than semantics.

    While a certain level of knowledge and indoctrination into the inner workings of computers is necessary to be either a cracker, or a hacker, this level of common knowledge is not enough to blurr the line between the two.

    A hacker is someone who hacks code, who writes programs and tools for the sheer enjoyment of the experience, the furthering of the 'hacker' society (i.e. GNU) and the status derived from gifting his hacker peers with the fruits of the labour - if you subscribe to the 'gift culture' view of OSS.

    A cracker is motivated by the benefits of getting something 'the easy way' as in the case of pirated software, of flaunting his 'expertise' in front of his cracker peers, and the thrill of breaking the 'rules'.

    A skilled cracker may have the same creative capacity as a skilled hacker, but the difference in the fundamental ethics of the two groups will keep the cracker breaking into other cracker's computers to get already existing tools, rather than writing his own. Should a cracker feel that doind this is too much effort, he may write his on tool to do the crack for him, but the tool is only beneficial to him and other's like him. It does benefit his community - but only his community.

    A skilled hacker, while enjoying the status that comes with having developed a useful tool, will prefer to collaborate with others of his ilk, if he does not find the necessary tool already available. Subsequently, he (the development group) will release the tool to the general public - thereby benefitting his community a'la the cracker. However, the nature of the tool is benevolent to all who are touched by it - contrast this with the effect of the cracker tool on those cracked by it.

    So from a certain perspective, crackers can be seen as a subset of hackers, but with a fundamental difference in their ethical fabric and intent.

    -- God, we're bombing people again...
  • Whenever I hear the word cracker, my mouth gets dry and salty... But that's just me.
  • All I got was the following message:

    [an error occurred while processing this
    directive]

    ... when I went to the link :-(
  • It really bothers me when people try to change the definition of jargon that they didn't invent and don't use.

    Silly user, computers are for geeks!

    From the WWWebster Dictionary [m-w.com]:
    Main Entry:
    geek
    Pronunciation: 'gEk
    Function: noun
    Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German
    Date: 1914
    1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
    2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

    Danged intellectuals, changing the definition of good ol' carny jargon!
  • Whenever I heard the word cracker I think of my plumber... But that's just me.

    :-)
  • Nobody who has a cracked site spends the time to create a pretty front page announcing that they were broken into. Also, I don't know the URLs to the other pages, but someone says the rest of the site is still there and that only the index page is different.

    Anyone recall when Spielberg had that PR stunt, pretending that the Lost World website was cracked into? Jeez, that was even worse. The front page was professionally drawn, there were no political statements or cusswords, and worst of all, it was signed... Hakerz!
  • Someone tell the marketing boyz over at kipling that if they can't hang with all those big dogs out there, stay on the porch. Geez. I'm scared to have my IP floating in some circles, let alone baiting different user groups out on the internet...


    N_P
  • oh, yeah. it's one of those new space-age urls that end in a quote character. rfc31337, i believe.
  • I have it from very reliable sources within Planet Internet that the Kipling site was not cracked (for those of you that couldn't figure that one out by just looking at their "cracked" page). I have heard, however, that they had to move it (or are going to) to another server, because of the Slashdot effect and a number of DOS attacks. I think we should notify the press about this fumbled up PR stunt. It could generate a whole lot of negative publicity for the Kipling Hacker line, and expose them for the wannabees they really are :-)

  • Because now all the other pages are gone. At least, I can't access them...

  • In the column to the right of that message, click on "Hackers Sack Competition Site". Or delete the quote at the end of the URL.
  • Whenever I hear the word cracker, I think of every other pro golfer except Tiger Woods. But that's just me...
  • Most hackers don't do anything nasty. That's the realm of crackers. Read the 10000 posts above for the distinction.
  • Why believe that this is for real?

  • Very Likely A Hoax (Score:3)

    by Obscure Images ( 21733 ) on Wednesday March 24, 1999 @03:14AM (#1965602) Homepage
    If you look at the site, you will find that the only thing "cracked" is the index.html. You can still access all of the other pages on the site if you know the url. And if you look at the "cracked" site itself, it just doesn't seem like a real crack. My guess is that this is simply another calculated PR stunt. It worked, they kept their name in the press. As we all know, all press is good press.
  • Whenever I hear the word cracker, i think of the guys who disable software security for piracy purposes.

    But thats just me...
  • In terms of brand/product awareness, the marketing is working very well. In terms of making people want to buy the product... not.

    I really doubt that anyone here would ever BUY one of their products (what is it, the spam suitcase? I hope Hormel sues them). They're getting publicity, but it's pretty negative stuff.
  • anyone been to nerdhero.org yet? Looks like kiplings trying to make up for it by slapping together a site w/ the penguins and the slashdot logo, plus if you click on the lil nerdhero title pic, you get to see all the contributers. one of wich is the mooby who cracked kipling's "hacker game" i thought that it didnt count if the person who knew the pass in the first place won. didnt he say that he had "social skills"? *shrug* will they ever learn that we're not a bunch of sheep?
  • Amazing... Kipling managed to get hacked the the world's first "marketing hacker". Breaks into sites and putes up nice little PR stunt pictures (then charges only half price for the service).

    What kind of person hacks into a site and does nothing realy nasty?
  • What it means is that Kipling's site is hosted on Planet Internet's servers, or at least through their site.
  • Kipling are trying to take commercial advantage of the "hacker culture" with their stupid products. Too bad people gave them the publicity they wanted.

    By the way.. I'm an old demoscener, and we (I can't speak for all demosceners though :) have always used the words hacker/cracker in a different way. Hackers were weird people using terminals who broke into computer systems. Crackers were people who broke the copy protection in games. The demoscene evolved from that pirate scene.
  • My take on the definition of "hacking":

    To hack means "to accomplish a goal through lazy and or unconventional means." This is a definition that goes back before the time that tweaking and fine tuning of computer systems came to be known as "hacking." This is the definition one would use when saying that someone was a "useless hack." For example, a writer with no talent. Fixing your car with duct tape is, to me, also a "hack," or "hacking."

    Cracking into computer systems certainly is an unconventional way to solve a problem (e.g., how do I get root and screw everything up), so I have no problem with this definition of "hacking."

  • If the page was really hacked I would think there would be a Hackers' Group name or at least the hackers Nick claiming he cracked it. Although anyone that would actually hack it probably wouldn't want to be associated with them...hehe
    But if I were gonna hack the page I would at least put a pic of a naked chick instead of the dumb girl on the front page...hehe

    Latez
  • MoobY Knows
  • I just hacked into their FTP and send them some logs. I'm not as fake hacker and didn't harm them. Instead, I send them those logs, on which they called in their PhotoShop anti-hack personnel But it was Hacked MoobY knows

  • Mooby (Score:1)

    by MoobY ( 207480 )
    Thx for the hat, greg :]
  • MoobY knows - Total World Domination, NOW!
  • MoobY knows - I did a ftp hack and send them some of my logs to prove I got in, that's when they called in their photoshop guys.

    But it's hacked, MoobY knows
  • It was hacked - I did hack their ftp site and send them some of my logs - It was hacked, MoobY knows
  • Planetinternet didn't do any of the hacking, their kipling's ISP, you dumbass.

    It was hacked - MoobY knows

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