[LINK] hack of the year

[Rick Welykochy]

Jan Whitaker wrote:
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/11/12/1194766589522.html
> The hack of the year
> November 13, 2007
> Next
> 
> A Swedish hacker tells how he infiltrated a global communications 
> network used by scores of embassies over the world, using tools freely 
> available on the internet.
> In August, Swedish hacker Dan Egerstad gained access to sensitive 
> embassy, NGO and corporate email accounts. Were they captured from the 
> clutches of hackers? Or were they being used by spies? Patrick Gray 
> investigates the most sensational hack of 2007.

I do wish The Age would keep up. This story broke months ago. In cyber
terms, it is old news.

I visited Egerstad's site at http://www.derangedsecurity.com/ to read all
about it back in September.

I note that now that Egerstad's website serves up a blank page. And the
blog page that told all and revealed the password list now returns a 500
INTERNAL SERVER ERROR. Methinks that Egerstad might be scared shitless
even though he has done nothing wrong. US officials downed his side in
doublequick time without him having any recourse to sving his content.

Egerstad has demonstrated the incompetence and ignorance of embassy staff
around the world who use a service like Tor to mask their unsavoury web
surfing habits and incidentally used the same service to send surrupticious
emails that are "untraceable". One wonders why emabssy staff would do that.

The register published the story.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/10/misuse_of_tor_led_to_embassy_password_breach/

Related is the horrific story of German Tor operator Alexander Janssen
who was apprehended and severely, some say unfairly, dealt with by the German
cops.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/16/bomb_threat_leads_police_to_raid_tor_operator/

Of course, the cops did not understand the nature of a Tor exit point and
the fact that Janssen could not possibly control the input or output of
the Tor system except by shutting his Tor node down. And he did that after
the harrassment and threats to him and his family's peace of mind became
too much to bear.

Janssen blogs all about it here. Read it for the frightening stazi-like details:

http://itnomad.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/tor-madness-reloaded/


cheers
rickw


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      -- Rick Welykochy