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The Internet

Crackers Take Down FBI Web Servers 105

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-are-the-odds-in-vegas dept.
Xanadu Inc wrote in to send us a story over at ZD Net about Crackers taking down the FBIs Web Site. The article refers to them as Hackers (Bad ZD! No Cookie!) and says that it was the result of search warrants being filed against Global Hell (gH) that apparently got some PCs confiscated.
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Crackers Take Down FBI Web Servers More

Crackers Take Down FBI Web Servers

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  • yeah hi... let me clarify my own comments. I did not know they were DoS attacks. Those are lame. But, that doesn't explain the 0, Troll rating on my last post. They were thought out and as I wrote them, I sought to add to the conversation. I do NOT believe that comments should be moderated down just because the moderator doesn't have the same beliefs as the author. That's censorship. Censorship is not cool. Let me just say, anyone who censors something just because they don't like what the person has to say is no better than the FBI or the people who sent DoS attacks on them. I thought we were more enlightened than that.
  • My suspicion is that the target media are things like phrack, 2600, and the usual reading materials of hackers/crackers. I'm sure that if the FBI could find a direct connection between any of these and actual criminal activity they'd be very happy.

    ---

  • I have read your past posts, and you continue to put down 'cybervandals'. You have also made remarks about how bad the media is for reporting on this type of things. I think if it is that big of a issue for you, you should speak with Macki and ask him why he posts hacked web page archives on the FRONT page of 2600.com. Interesting that one from 2600, would say such a thing.

    As far as breaking into computers to learn, and not be malicious. I will say on behalf of MostHateD, Zyklon, Soulblaze, and every other person raided in the past week that they have never destroyed anything on a machine. Machines are broken into to learn more. Let's take whitehouse.gov for example, that machine could just have easily been backdoord and root kept, and sniffed other accounts. Then those could be used to go on a mass "rm -rf /*" attack. However that was not done, the page was defaced to show that it was vulnerable. I know of the hackers/crackers that destroy information, and they are looked down upon.

    -mindphasr/gh/mindphasr@cha0s.org

  • You make good arguments and I appreciate your point of view. I'd need to spend some time thinking about the points you've raised (e.g. whether damage caused as a result of non-malicious curiousity can be viewed in the same light as deliberately malicious damage, etc.) before I could decide whether my own opinions need to be modified or not (unlike many people, I do not stick rigidly and blindly to 'my' side of an argument, when presented with valid points which challenge my opinions).


    ...if you want to hack on systems, get a job...


    This is exactly what I did. I don't break into computer systems anymore (at least, not without the sysadmin's permission - losing or forgetting the root password is something at least a couple of our clients do every month). Instead, I satisfy my hacking urges by designing, building and troubleshooting systems, clusters and networks, and writing shell scripts to solve interesting problems.


    And it's not just me either - a lot of hackers here in the UK have gone 'legit' and work as unix, security or networking administrators. The skills and knowledge we acquired through hacking have launched our careers.



    The Dodger

  • With more and more stories in the mainstream "News" about the actions of so called hackers, hackers in general are being dragged through the mud. If this happened to any other cultural group there would be hell to pay. My suggestion is that a group of hackers of unquestionable credentials (so no one has any right to challenge their claim to be a hacker), RM, ESR etc would do nicely. Then file a big fuckoff lawsuit against all the companies (ZD, Kipling for example) who have misused the term hacker.

    Think of the reaction if a paper ran a headline like "Homosexuals rape more young boys" or "The person responsible for the attack was black, black people go round beating other people up"; lawsuit city. Note that these are just to be taken as random examples of other minority groups and nothing is to be read into them.

    --
  • Unless you live in China, Russia, or some other nation unlikely to turn you over to the FBI.
  • from (andross@andross.dhs.org)

    Chatted with amadeus on this...

    I agree with his defense of the channel and offered to post a "press-release" for the channel allong with all the info that is there. (at andross.dhs.org)

    Suffice it to say that hacking exists. To look one way when a friend does it is one thing, but to abide it in your home or channel is dangerous. Like that friend who smokes pot in your car; if he gets caught you could lose your car.

    I hope that #pascal will tighten down on "hackers" and recover accordingly.

  • Please don't mention AntiOnline on Slashdot. They really are beneath contempt: muckraking wannabe-journos who think that getting "exclusive" interviews on irc with script-kiddies who've hacked some lame site, is legitimate journalism.

    They rip off other people's work, whether it be rewriting 'Smashing the Stack' into their own explanation of how buffer overflows work, or ripping off Freshmeat's HTML page and using it for their AntiCode page, and the majority of stories/analyses they put on their website are inherently flawed and misleading - e.g. they're interpreting a couple of Chinese hackers DoS'ing American webservers as an information warfare attack by the PRC on the USA.

    I know for a fact that several of the website hacks they have "exclusively" reported were actually complete bullshit - some _real_ hacker/crackers (i.e. guys who hack into machines, but don't deface websites or try to get into the media) have owned AntiOnline for quite a while, and when they get bored of just reading Vranesivich's mail, they do some judicious re-routing and DNS work and make AntiOnline think that such-and-such site has been hacked. Then they piss their sides laughing when Vranesivich issues a press release about it.

    Most of the people involved in AntiOnline are teenagers, and I've been told by someone who claimed to have been at college with him that Vranesivich is a hacker wannabe failure, who views AntiOnline as his own particular way of impressing what he considers to be 'hackers' - i.e. the script kiddies. Dunno whether it's true or not - I'll leave you to make your own mind up.


    Dodger

  • Bzzt -- wrong -- crackers (I'm sure you meant to say that) don't serve a useful purpose, they're criminals. Professional, hired, security auditors serve the purpose you bring up. Same thing, except the company involved is prepared and damage is minimized because the intruders tread lightly and only find holes, they don't publicly humiliate a company or a government.

  • FBI Visits (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 1999 @08:23AM (#1876755)
    The FBI agents that visited me last year about this time were actually pretty nice. Unfortunatly some boob from my university snagged my IP and smurfed the University of North Carolina.. (for 5 days straight.. and my U didn't bother to keep any logs or anything.)

    The best was when they knocked on the door (my room a mess...)

    F: Hello, we're from the FBI (badges shown).. Could we come in and ask you a few questions?

    M: Sure, but I wasn't expecting guests...

    F: Got any computer in your dorm room?

    M: Ya.. one behind the couch, two on the desk, one in the closet and a laptop on the bed.

    .... anyway the dude with a clue told me what happened (6 months earlier) and they left and never came back.. :)

    So now I have my very own file in the FBI archives.. (Does that raise my purety test score?)
  • Pay attention. A DOS attack is not "downing the FBI website". A DOS attack is "wasting all the bandwidth in the neighborhood". Not creation. Not control. Arson.
  • I will agree with you on this, however that is not the case for everyone. People can label me or my group what they want, however I can tell anyone for a fact that I have more knowledge than 90% of the people that put me or my group down.

    As far as media attention goes - I have not given a single interview or gave any quotes to any media outlets. It is not my choice whether the media does this or whether they do that. They are the media, they do what they want. You know that.

    -mindphasr
  • I doubt there would even be an internet without
    ARPAnet, and who did that come from?
  • Actually, I know for a fact that #Pascal has a lot to do with cracking...

    about a month ago, WSU (http://www.wsu.edu)'s webserver *was* cracked. If you were logged on when the instigating party was, you usually got a message flooding your terminal that said "The Matrix Has you" and at one point people were getting ads for the channel #Pascal. They did a fairly nice job... ended up getting the webAdmins to make the web server, our UNIX server, and our mail server serve only local (WSUNet, ResNet and DialUp) users.

    If you spend five minutes in #Pascal, you will learn that it *does* have to do with cracking...

    Basically, the point is that they use PASCAL to 'program' cracks, and these cracks *work*. In a few moments here, another message will be posted with a few links.

    *shrug* Maybe you should spend a little time in the channels before you infer that you know of their content.

    -nicole

  • Crackers... (Score:3)

    by Chutzpah ( 6677 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @05:17PM (#1876760)
    I know some crackers, I personally dont agree at all with cracking, it is just a pain in the ass for the server admins, but what I have noticed about most crackers nowadays is that they generally use overly easy ways to crack the sites that they get in. Crackers used to have to have some skill, but now anyone who knows the win98 filesharing problem has a good chance of being able to crack many sites.

    I guess its just what was said above about cracking being the instant gratification method, and hacking being the long, slow method.
  • Denial of Service attacks are lame. It's like a punk throwing a rock at a big store window and thinking he's cool.

    If you're going to screw with the FBI, at least be creative about it so you'll have something to brag about in jail.

  • Anyone know what hackers call crackers? :p

    Retards, Lamers, Fucking annoying little dipshits, et cetera, et cetera...


    D.

  • Perhaps Microserfs should learn how to write a hyperlink. This was really funny, BTW.
  • You are correct. About a year ago, Mosthated WAS a DoS kid. But in that year, he as become tremendously more respectful, and that's why he became an Op. And I'll go even so far as to say he made a few friends too.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • most modern DOS attacks are pretty weak IMO, they require minimal effort and lack originality. The only use I ever saw from them was to expose holes in network protocol stacks, making them better (remember land or bonk anyone)? But thing such as SYN floods or smurf attacks are just dumb.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I swear some of you people... it's just as easy to run a script as it is to link to antionline. Sice when did they become anything of a source for hacks/cracks? Is it because they can post their router logs on their web page? Big freekin deal. Ask anyone including the kiddees and they'll tell you sources for hack/cracks are 2600 and Defcon, Resentment, l0pht, etc. Why is it that all the diverse groups of hackers out there seem to hate antionline? hmmmm.... maybe becuase the dorks at AnitOnline (coincidence, eh?) take credit for other people's work. Try something approaching a real security site like:

    http://l0pht.com
    http://www.2600.com
    http://www.resentment.org
    http://www.303.org

  • Cracker/Hacker contrast (Score:5)

    by Izaak ( 31329 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @09:22AM (#1876770) Homepage Journal
    I personally find the comparing and contrasting of the cracker and hacker communities to be an interesting passtime. They both thrive in the same environment (the Internet) and are often motivated by the same things (status among peers, the desire to solve challenging puzzles), but there are also some fundimental differences.

    I've been a hacker (not cracker) for quite a few years. I've written a lot of networked applications, been sysadmin on many types of systems and networks, decoded protocol stacks and the like... in short, I could probably be a killer cracker if I really wanted to. But I have no desire for that. Cracker accomplishments seem too fleeting for me. A crack might make the news for a day or two, but eventually it fades away. If I instead develop an open source tool that becomes popular, I will have a much more noticable (and positive) impact that will last for a long time. I get the satisfaction of actually having built something instead of having torn something down.

    But I can understand the lure of cracking. It appeals to that puzzle solving side of me. If only the two communities were not so often confused in the media... (sigh)

    Thad

  • Cracker = Often tasty baked good, sometimes in the shape of an animal.

    Hacker = Low life freak.

    Neigh God Like Being = Person that knows an aweful lot about a system.

    Whoops, you mixed up the definitions for a Teletubbie, a 3l1t3 d00d, and a Sysadmin...

  • In the minds of lusers, Internet hostnames start with 'www'... And the WWW is the Internet, da? :)
  • ZD is just reposting MSNBC reports. Maybe its because MSFT doesn't have anyone doing great hacks on their stuff anymore, that they just lump everyone else together.
  • Actually, the ACLU has been making a big point about this issue in general. Property seizure laws in the country are completely out of control. Not only can the FBI take your computer but if they feel like it they can also take all of the cash in your wallet if they feel like it.

    ---

  • A group of hacker self called slashdot... (Score:3)

    by Le douanier ( 24646 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @11:27AM (#1876776) Homepage
    "A group of hackers that call himself slashdot are being seeked by the FBI because they took down an average of three sites a day.

    This group is one of the most numerous, counting no less than many dozen of thousands of hackers who are always working on taking sites down.

    The FBI said they cost more than 100Millions of $ in downtime to the society owning the websites they hacked..."

    That would be funny if someone would do a satyric article in this style. Anyone has got other ideas to rewrite this or continue this???

    BTW: not being myself a hacker (just a wannabe or a newbie) I found it a shame that the mainstream press use this word in this way, I really like this word and don't like to see it used by crackers.
  • Your story or your facts make no sense. A smurf attack would not use the attacker's IP address anywhere in the violator's stream. A smurf is basically just a broadcast ping to a network that accepts broadcast pings, with the reply address being faked to that of the victim. Hense, if your address was suspect, you would either have to be a victim, or a hapless "amplifier". Either way, your story or the facts in the story are fishy.

  • Flooding a web server != 'Hack Attack' (Score:3)

    by DiningPhilosopher ( 17036 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @08:22AM (#1876779)
    Seems like crackers have to go to less and less trouble to make the news.

    Hell, we slashdotters take down websites all the time...
  • I normally just browse around Sladshot, but this newspiece caught my attention. Here is my opinion of everything:

    I think that the FBI was just really asking for it.

    The US government is cracking down on hackers because they (hackers) have more power than them. Hackers are not really "bad"" in the normal term. They commit crimes, but the crimes that they commit are most of the time essentially harmless. I believe that there will always be hackers.

    I think that what they did was really wrong. They really gained only 2 things out of it:

    1. Publicity - The media jumps on every chance to get a story about hackers. They tend to believe that they are some big "secret organization" that is trying to take over the world. I think that this story will ultimately work in the hackers favor because it shows that hackers can kick the governments butt if they want to.

    2. The second thing that they got was a lot of bad publicity in the goverment. The US government (and others) will now try even harder to crack down on the Internet. The governments of the world will try and regulate it (eventually) to the point where all content, including webpages, is strictly regulated. If this happens, hackers will continue to survive, but will eventually all be caught or simply dissapear.

    overall, what they did was not good for the internet community. Something less specifically directed at the government would have been better.

    I know this is probably confucing, ihave no idea what I am typing either.

  • I hate the fact that the media and FBI are making this so huge. I have to do intrusion testing from time to time. I'd hate to think that the FBI would be successful at getting crackers to not show off so much. Right now I have an easy time of getting lots of useful information on vulnerabilities. Lots of websites, etc. But if the heat is on, the vulnerabilities don't go away, only the people talking about them.

  • Hahah (Score:1)

    by mikpos ( 2397 )
    No this is the buzzword of the early 80's. I wish the media would pick a new buzzword, like l33t0r, or h4X0rab1 or something. If nothing else, it would make the articles a little more entertaining (at least entertaining enough that I could finish a whole article).

  • This is just one more step toward the government trying to control the internet.

    i don't agree. i think this is the government trying to squelch the hordes of 3133+ script kiddies, but not trying to control the Internet. That's the job of the large ISP corporations (AOL and the family-values-havin' like) and the no-sighted crypto restrictions.

    When will they realize that when you mess with internet lifeforms, they will bite back and defend their 'offspring'?

    i'm not sure i grab you here. i think this is a case of the h@x0r d00dz defending their turf, not a solidarity among net users. no one likes to see their contemporaries raided as a result of acts they too have committed. it makes people scared. this is those people's way of making the Man just a little bit more afraid. i don't think it will work.

    -krog


  • http://www.senate.gov/ [senate.gov]

    Select your favorite senator from the list, surprise!

    Or, just open http://www.senate.gov/index.cfm. [senate.gov]


  • But a DoS attack is not any server crack. A DoS attack simply burns up all the bandwidth in the neighborhood and the server.


    Correction - A DoS attack is a 'Denial of Service' (note the initials). Overloading a webserver (or it's link with the Internet) by flooding it with http requests/connections/pings/whatever is a TYPE of DoS attack. There are others, including things like teardrop, land, etc.


    Just felt the need to be pedantic...



    The Dodger

  • Posted by neurotus:

    yep. zdnn got the story. [zdnet.com]
  • Listen, guys. There are certain things that you plain simply do not do. One of them is f*ck with the FBI.

    If you f*ck with the FBI, they will catch up to you. Sooner or later. And, your ass will be grass when they do. At best, you will lose your computers, and your parents will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars hiring a lawyer.

    I remember someone in Isreal, who, in his arrgogance, thought he was too good to be caught. Think again. They caught him.

    - Sam

  • For goodness sake, we know that the hackers of the world won't like this. Already I am getting calls about uniting. This is crazy. A small hacker like me, a professional. I get paid to do this. I DON'T want to lose my job. This is completely crazy.

    HACKERS! Stop it. You want to do something, get into the FBI's internal....hehe.... Without that, you have nothing. But you can't do it. It is impossible. With all this commotion no one is looking at the possbile consequences. What you are doing is wrong and illegal, so stop it. Get like me. Get a job. Do it for a living. When you get asked to crack a system, that is when you know you are getting good. To all the hackers that think they can do something....sorry....you will only hurt yourself.

  • Why is it that whenever I hear about some "cracker" breaking into a system, that system is a webserver? Used to be that a cracker would break into a server to look around at the system and see how it worked, do crackers today even know how to do anything but use webserver exploits against webservers? One trick ponies.
  • #pascal is in connection with a group calling themselves "C.L.N." the FBI knows them because they rooted several servers (including www.wsu.edu) around April 10th thru 11th


    BS you say? look here [dhs.org].

    the .log file is April 11th and "TeknoDragon" is me trying to get anyone to give up any info... (they pissed me off, I missed my e-mail!)

  • Read Anti-online's coverage... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 1999 @09:16AM (#1876798)
    I suggest everyone go read anti-online's [antionline.com] coverage of this.

    If some of those items, specifically the article
    about the FBI directives sent to ISPs, are true,
    it is a VERY disturbing situation...

    here are some excerpts....

    AntiOnline Receives Directives
    Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 11:59:27
    by John Vranesevich - Founder of AntiOnline

    AntiOnline has recieved directives given to
    several ISPs listing the groups of hackers and
    hackgroups that they're currently targeting.
    Sources faxed AntiOnline the 6 page directive
    which begins:

    -snip-

    The request then goes on for 6 pages listing
    hacker, groups, and media currently under
    investigation by the FBI. The list contains
    not only the hacker's handles, but in most
    cases, their real names. For the privacy of
    those involved, AntiOnline is only publishing
    their aliases. Here is a partial list of the
    individuals on that list:

    -snip-

    Notice an important section from the above
    paragraph: "...and media currently under
    investigation by the FBI."

    Now I REALLY have to wonder...what MEDIA is under
    investigation by the FBI...and more importantly,
    in what way are media services related to crackers
    and their activity?

    I am wondering if the FBI is attempting to "get
    some dirt" on those media outlets that they
    detest...(this may be completely off base but it
    deserves some attention...).

    Another interesting(and disturbing) part is listed
    later on:

    The directive goes on to request information to:
    Directories, files, logs, records, information or
    any data concearning IRC Channels visited by
    Hackers or individuals listed in paragraph 1,
    specifically:

    It goes on to list the following IRC Channels:

    #creep
    #j00nix
    #tk
    #pascal
    #ex0dus
    #faggotsex
    #gayfagsex
    #gaysex
    #hackunix
    #hax0r
    #lezbiandsex
    #linux
    #sex_gay
    #sex_pl
    #shellx.log

    -snip-

    It concerns me that some of those channels have
    *NOTHING* to do crackers at all...
    #PASCAL?!?!

    Again, maybe this is not important...
    but I am certain many people have visited #linux
    for non-cracking reasons(I know I have on
    EFNET).

    Just some thoughts...

    dCf

    --"They go around loooking younger for a few days,
    then they need more...."
  • Yes, he was caught. But what happened? Nothing. Analyzer(who is the one in question) was found by the authorities only because he let it happen. He gave several interviews to AntiOnline and local media. He was then talked to by the United States FBI, who then dropped the case because they could not do a thing. Analyzer today is his same old self.

    -mindphasr/gH/mindphasr@cha0s.org
    http://www.gb2600.com/

  • Waste of time... (Score:4)

    by chuckw ( 15728 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @08:41AM (#1876800) Homepage Journal
    Seems like anyone can run a few scripts and get famous. I got busted for cracking 4 years ago, 'cept I wasn't using someone elses tools. It isn't as glamorous as one would think. I'm having much more fun maintaining and building the world I live in rather than trying to take it down...

  • It's about time (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's about tiem taht the FBI started going after these kids. These hackers/crackers seem to think that anything they do on the computer is OK. It's time for them to wake up. Mess with someone's business, or the national security, and you're going to be arrested and sued. It's high time real life came to the Net.

  • ugh (Score:1)

    by Yarn ( 75 )
    damn, i thought they'd fixed the netscape-locale bug that filled entry boxes with meaningless ascii
  • 2600 isn't a Nazi regime, you know. We _are_ allowed to have our own opinions. Just because the account I'm using to collect my email is @2600.com doesn't mean that I have any kind of official role at 2600, or that my opinions represent the official stance of 2600 magazine, if there is such a thing.

    As for your claims that the a systems "page was defaced to show that it was vulnerable", I can't accept that. The traditional way of letting a system's admin know that his system is vulnerable, if to send him an email from himself, or to leave an unobtrusively small image on the webpage, linking to a declaration that the system has been hacked. I continue to believe that it was done in order to attract publicity and in order to impress peers.

    I'll always put down cybervandals. They give the rest of us a bad name.

    The Dodger
  • Pity this has a score of Zero - you're talking sense.

    Some of the more intelligent/informed members of the media have taken to describing malicious crackers, who deface webpages, remove files, carry out DoS attacks, et cetera, as 'cybervandals', which is a perfect moniker. There is a world of difference between a cybervandal and a hacker who hacks into a system in order to learn about it (I used to have to hack into Suns in order to learn how SunOS worked, for example, because I didn't have an account on a Sun) and doesn't do anything malicious.

    Put it this way - If someone were to hack into my network and do something malicious, like trashing a server or defacing a website, my first action would be to call the Computer Crime Unit. You can call me a fuckin' narq or whatever you want, but if some little shit is trying to trash the systems I administrate, I will take steps to ensure that he never fucking does it again, whether it's by cooperating with the police in identifying the perp and securing a conviction, or by paying the fuckwit a visit and breaking his fingers.

    On the other hand, if I come in one day and find someone logged onto the system, poking around, reading manpages, et cetera, and I discover that he hacked in because he wanted to learn about the operating system, or hardware or whatever, then I'll invite the guy to come 'round for an interview, and, assuming he fits the bill, I'd probably hire him.

    D.
  • This is amadeus, i run the #pascal chat room, on one side we dont talk programming 99% of the time, were no saints, but we have no affil. with any groups as a whole channel if anyone in our room is affiliated that is their business and none of our own, zyklon was acting on his own without any help inside our channel, we have played with kills and nukes, but have never at any time performed any hacks other then the ones that zyklon did pull. If you wish to get the news right the first time your welcome to message me on efnet irc as amadeus usually from flash or prodigy net, always in #pascal, if you want an interview or question anything thought or heard about our channel wed appreciate it if youd come to the source instead of spreading BS around the net that gets people startsed on untrue BS, the log that was submitted mainly talked about me getting laid and others doing normal everyday things, a couple people have made port scanners/checkers loggers and in the far past a couple icmp type programs but noone in our channel has ever written any utilities to
    "hack" or cause permenant harm to any servers, whether or not anyone in there has ever tried is another things succeeded, now thats another thing. Attempting to link us with a group that weve never heard of is BS and they seem like morons just by looking at what they do and what we
    ve heard, if we were a member of any group we would at least admit it. Whether or not zyklon was ever in any of those groups, i do not have that information he was in lots of things we never knew about, we have been around since the old irc war days we were known as the #pacal crew back in those days and we do refer to ourselves in that way still, but at no time were we ever into hacking servers or causeing harm apon anyone for no reason. And if you really wanna hear more or ask questions as I said above your welcome to contact me, and that still stands, but at least get it right before some punk passes stuff he feels gets back at us for things we may have done to him (ie. pissing him off banning him and such) 99% of those logs seem real although there are a few questionable lines in there, i know i did get laid so thats true, but that log was made a couple months ago and really has nothing in it linking us to any hacking group. Oh and in closeing 1 i remember that day well and noone even remembers teknodragon joining the room none, and on top of that he came in said cln and not another day thing, Im not sure who the hell he is and how that makes him special but if he has a problem with us hes welcome to take that up with us instead of spreading untrue things about our chat room. the motions made by the lines : [17:34] drip, ya want in the group as a distro? =)
    [17:34] what group?
    [17:34] an 3l33t hax0r group that hacks in pascal =)
    [17:35] err with pascal hacks
    now come on hacking in pascal? hacking takes a little better programming language then tp7 sorry to say that was a joke by someone in the channel if you believe that you should be the one being locked up, for your own good :P -- amadeus .oOo. Above and Beyond .oOo.
  • Greetings -

    Along with being best of friends with MostHateD I am also the co-founder of gH/global hell. I understand the slashdot forum and the rest of the internet when they call someone a 'script kiddie'. I will say I feel the same way. However, knowing a lot of people in the community it makes it very hard for people who do not know the person to clasify someone as something. I will tell you some of these people you innocently label 'script kiddies' may be some of the most intelligent people you will find on the Internet. Please give this a thought before shamelessly label someone.

    -mindphasr/gH/mindphasr@cha0s.org
  • It's interesting that everyone is so hyped on the FBI server getting attacked, but everyone seems to have overlooked the fact that it also seems to be the server for the NIPC. Given the political turmoil of the day (and how the validity of taking credit for cracking servers is like taking credit for terrorist bombs), maybe the FBI isn't forthcoming on details because it wasn't an attack on the FBI at all.
  • These were a bunch of kids who thought that having a computer gave them the right to do whatever they could on their computers! Oh, I'm sorry, it wasn't even their computers... it was their parents' computers!

    You think setting up illegal conference calls on someone else's network for hundreds of thousands of dollars is defensible? Oh, and when you get search-and-seizure, you vent your frustration by downing the FBI website? Real mature! Damn, it's like you give a baby a hammer, and everything looks like a nail to him! These kids have to be taught that you can't get around life doing whatever the hell you feel like. The internet had a bad enough rap after the Colorado shootings, this doesn't help any.
  • Well, MosthateD is basicaly a DoS kiddie, if he's anything like he was when I knew him about a year ago. Denial of Service is illegal, which would explain him being raided.
  • I hope I don't sound like a religionoid by saying this, but I think that there is good and bad in the world. Not, of course, the stupid prescriptions of the bible-bleating-sexually-repressed, but instead the difference between someone who desires to see his or her efforts used to better the world and those who seek otherwise.
  • Its just a dumb slashdot term. Hacker is what
    they've always been called straight through the
    70/80s and into the 90s. Its only recently that people on slashdot have tried to change the definition and it's quite annoying. Cracking the
    password is only 1% of the total job, the rest
    is being a hack with what tools you've got. Hence,
    the hacking. Thats what the most part is. Sure, there are people that just crack files and passwords, but thats ALL THEY DO. All these other
    kids go through multiple hosts, run your famous scripts, run your famous programs, do whatever else they can do to be a 'hack'.

    Uneducated foo's.

    /me goes back to watching Tron.

  • As being MostHateD's best friend, I am going to admit that he was a 'dos kiddie' a year ago. Like accipiter has said, he has grown up and relized a lot of things. I have a lot of respect for MostHateD. MostHateD will be back, I promise you.

    -mindphasr/gH
  • Usually I scorn cracking. I find that it gives the hacking community a bad name (most often by the sensationalizing, story-telling media). But, in this case, it's an exception to the rule, IMHO. I'm not saying everyone should go out and crack the FBI's website, but in the light of all the recent (and not so recent) raids performed by the FBI, I don't look down upon this particular act.

    I would also like to say that I enjoy sticking it to the Man as much as the next guy, but this is one of the rare occasions where I wouldn't care about something like this.

    btw- pardon my inabaility to articulate ideas today... I've got a cold and school is pissing me off.

  • Re:Cracker/Hacker contrast (Score:4)

    by Desert Raven ( 52125 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @09:43AM (#1876822)
    Well, the allure of cracking vs. hacking can be summed up in two words...

    Instant gratification.

    To be a respected hacker is a lot of work. To be a famous hacker requires incredible talent. Inspiration, elegance and sophistication are all requirements to be a respected hacker. By definition, a hacker writes his own code, since the code IS the hack.

    To be a "respected" cracker, requires little time. Most crackers do not have to write their own code. Elegance and sophistication may keep you from being caught, but are not requirements. Instead, to gain recognition as a cracker, you are judged by the prominence of those systems you break.

    Me, I'm in it for the long term even if I never do become famous.
  • Heh... Is that a rhetorical question? :)

    *imagines dozens of ./ers looking up "rhetorical" in the dictionary in an attempt to understand this one*

    D.
  • Jeez...what's with the preoccupation with putting everything in neat little categories...eveyone still does what the used to, no matter what it's called nowadays. Most of the people rushing to wear the awe-inspiring title of hacker are probably just lamers that know how to nuke people. Who cares what we're called :)
  • See..it's all about intent and ethics. Forget the media; they're known for tagging a name to a group or sociological sub-culture in order to get a hot story. So all the script-kiddies and lamers will get a bad rep for what the media wants to call h/crackers. I'll have to agree that hacking into a system to learn how it works, or to just poke around is perfectly acceptalbe. It adheres to an unspoken moral standard, in which the person concerned doesn't do it just to wreck the site. The angry youth, or "cyber vandals" on the other hand....well...turn 'em in..if they think they're good enough to hold their own, let them try :)
  • Ack. Late to the story.

    As an admin who has had to resurrect several cracked/hacked systems, I have to say this:

    Even curiousity-hacking's time is past. If you are running a production system, and it is hacked, you spend a sh*tload of time verifying data afterwards. One system I've seen was cracked mostly for masquerading; eventually, one of the gang of script kiddies broke his/our customer's toy/system, and there was much production lost (recovering from backups, after reloading the OS, takes lots of time on an archival server). Finding out your system is cracked is like finding a bomb threat - all else stops until you do an extensive search.

    It doesn't matter if you do damage - the damage is in the uncertainty; e.g. (not-really real-life experience) if an airline system holding airplane maintenance manuals was hacked, do you (A) close the loophole, or (B) start doing real serious checks to see if anything (like the manuals) was altered? Crashed planes suck. The "it was innocent" plea just doesn't cut it in the real world, because the only person who knows can't be trusted - if you want to hack on systems, get a job or buy your own.

  • Um, reread my comment and the responses. My point was that Slashdot readers take down sites inadvertently just because we all hit the same site at once. And therefore taking down websites is not a very impressive accomplishment.

    I have as much disdain for script kiddies as the next guy. In fact, probably more. Info security is my job.


  • If I didn't know better...I'd say this article reminds me of something I'd find in the Onion.

    That part about how his parents would be mad about the FBI taking their computers was especially hilarious.

    Lisa

  • Although I don't do any hacking/cracking, I see why it could be useful. If we were to live so complacently in society, someone else would exploit our weaknesses. Hackers (sometimes for the wrong reasons) find the holes that need fixing in networks and Internet systems. Imagine how lame that HP/Microsoft NT kung fu commercial ("HP with Microsoft NT cannot be defeated") may sound when someone hacks their systems.. yah, just as bad as when WinNT got the Aegis-class missile cruiser USS Yorktown stuck dead at sea. Hacking/cracking serves a great purpose when used for the right reasons.
  • I'll be the first to say that most of the members of gH were probably sloppy, and some did some things to deserve what they got. However, being someone who talks to mosthated on a regular basis (he's a fellow op in #HackPhreak [hackphreak.org]), I know that he probably didn't do anything major. Although I don't personally know the details of what the members are being charged with, I think the news agencies like ZD Net and Antionline are making more of this than it really is. I think it's to prey on the public's fear of the "media image" of hackers. It seems that Antionline, and websites like it enjoy blowing a story out of proportion, and making it bigger than it really is. (Notice ZD quoted Antionline.) But hey, that's journalism, right? I don't think so.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Not if you DoS the FBI they don't. They probably cheer you on. They only execute you if you try to spread pro-democracy propaganda or attack Chinese gvt. computers.
  • ...they found a hole in the FBI webserver, and i think it's better to talk about that instead of the eternal war about hack/crack...
    antionline [antionline.com] also have a new story about FBI, ISP, and hackers right here [antionline.com].
    --
  • inner city gangs. I mean think about it, they usually have really terrible naming conventions, their own style of writing/typing that only makes sense to them (but people are supposed to read it and be intimidated), their destructive abilities are only present in large groups, and any little crime is seen as some big deal. I do not care about DoS attacks against a web server, big deal, I could run a script too. I don't think it's right to abuse someone else's network and cost them alot of money (there are a few exceptions). I'm all for striking a blow against the Man, but DoSing their website? ooooooooo. I really wish the media would stop giving them so much attention, it only makes them try harder to piss people off. they get off at seeing their name in the paper or on a website.
  • Posted by neurotus:

    antionline sent me this:

    US Senate Website Hacked Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 19:42:37
    The hacker "counter strike" continues, as the the official website of the United States Senate is defaced.

    For their link click here [antionline.com]. Although it may not work... hmmm....

  • You know, I used to be one of those "script kiddie crackers" back in the early 80's. Back then, the big thing was cracking copy protection schemes on software and phreaking the phone system for free calls.

    Back then, the FBI was making a regular habit of confiscating computer equipment. It was commonly referred to "being visited by the men in brown shoes". The FBI didn't usually press charges. They just walked in and took all your stuff.

    It really sucked if you hadn't done anything wrong. Which I suspect happened all to often. It's fairly trivial, although rather illegal, to reroute a phone system so your making phone calls on your neighbors line. If your neighbor owned a computer -- well hopefully you guys weren't friends... At least not for long...

    I did learn an awful lot during my larval stage as a script kiddie. Not in the least how to keep a low profile. There's something about watching your friends' BBS's disappear through the "Men in Brown Shoes" to really encourage the use of aliases.

    And, in time, I went on to do some interesting things. A few of which were even legal....

    As for retaliating at the Man: It's an awful lot of work to do it right. But, yeah, I suspect I could do it. And I suspect I could get away with it. And that little fact lets me sleep a lot better at night.

    There's a lot of powerful people in this world who could really hurt me. Our government is full of such people. But, as the sayings go: "Live and let live". Or, alternatively: "Piss me off, pay the consequences..."
  • Does anyone else think that the government is overreacting too much about security on the Internet. Hackers are usually only malicious when the government goes after them. As for the (unprovoked)attacks against the governments systems, I think that it is usually more for fun than being against the government and trying to steal information.

    whoops, gotta go...
  • It made me laugh when I read this part:

    Mosthated's mother confirmed to MSNBC that her computer had been confiscated by the FBI, and said "And I'm really mad."

    Big evil cracker-person...sent to his room by his mom.

  • I will allow that script kiddies do possess some intelligence and knowledge, but only to a certain level. They are seriously deficient in common sense, however.

    Put it this way, if they're so goddamned smart, then how come they get caught?

    The real hackers are hardcore guys who spend a significant amount of their waking hours in front of a computers. They gain respect amongst their peers by dint of their knowledge and skills, not by hacking a high-profile website. They don't court media attention - in fact, they studiously avoid it.

    And you never, ever hear of them, because they don't get caught.


    Dodger

  • My favourite is from TIME/Life books

    Hackers are often unconcerned with the havoc their computer probing might wreak. Statements from what may be called the radical left among hackers sound even more anarchic. "Philosophically," pronounced Richard Stallman, a self professed hacker and expert programmer who has placed some of his best work in the public domain, "We do not believe in property rights"

    TIME/LIFE BOOKS Understanding Computers Computer Security Published 1986.

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