12 ms·
> They said Avid Life employees first learned about the breach on July 12 (seven days before my initial story) when they came into work, turned on their compute
by philangist 11y ago
> They said Avid Life employees first learned about the breach on July 12 (seven days before my initial story) when they came into work, turned on their computers and saw a threatening message from the Impact Team accompanied by the anthem “Thunderstruck” by Australian rock band AC/DC playing in the background.
This reads like a scene straight out of Hackers or some other campy tech movie. Life imitates art.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoIt's art imitating life. Old school warez, demoscene and hacker groups have always had a very "campy" countercultural aesthetic to them. Hackers the film doesn't hold a candle to the real-life cDc. These types of groups are a dying breed, though.
- dopamean 11y agocDc == cult of the dead cow? I haven't seen them referenced in ages. Probably since my own arrest actually.
- maaku 11y agoYou don't leave that one hanging. What's the story? Care to share?
- dopamean 11y agoIt's really not that interesting. I was 15 and played around with some computers that belongs to the US Navy. Then one day at 6 am I heard a loud knock on the front door.
- bdempsey 11y agoWould .. you .. like .. to .. play .. a .. game?
- beachstartup 11y agoindeed, a common story. i get the feeling the fbi did a lot of before-school visits to teenagers dicking around on irc in the mid 90s. they showed up to my place once. the guy said to contact him after i graduated if i was looking for work, lol. for what it's worth, they had binders and binders full of efnet logs.
- codezero 11y agoI keep hearing this and it makes me realize I wasn't as cool as I thought I was in the 90s :P The FBI visited once, my dad freaked out and told me before he answered the door. Turns out someone was exposing themselves to kids on Halloween.
- CyberDildonics 11y agoYou don't still do that do you?
- icelancer 11y agoI got dinged as well. Similar story on efnet logs. No charges but they announced their presence with authority. Left me a business card too.
- scruple 11y agoYep, myself and a friend and they had logs from one of our Undernet channels. Interesting to hear that it was somewhat commonplace. I hadn't heard any similar stories until the mid 00s and ours happened around 97 or 98.
- codezero 11y agoMost of the people I know who got busted back then were into telco systems so they ended up with a fine, usually around 1-2k. I'm guessing the navy wasn't so kind :/
- walshemj 11y agoI used to work at British telecom with a guy who had been a phreak and got caught hacking Prestel - one day one of BT's security (SD Directorate) guys who had busted him bumped into him at work and was not pleased. I also worked for the Systems administrator who was in charge of the machine in the Prince Philip hack.
- dopamean 11y agoThey were real dicks for sure. Fortunately I was 15 and it was pre-9/11 (by about 7 months). I'm not so sure things would have gone as well for me today.
- fapjacks 11y agoHah! Sounds like my story, except mine involved the main newspaper in the next big city over from my hometown. Totally uninteresting.
- jlgaddis 11y agoHeh, 18 years ago today I had a loud knock on my door. (The story isn't that interesting but the timing is -- to me.)
- hobo_mark 11y agoUh...story time?
- 0x4a42 11y agoThe good old times. :)
- flycaliguy 11y agoThere is some academic writing on the subject I can't find at the moment. Basically the idea that Hackers are the modern day tricksters of mythology. Sneaky, morally ambiguous, possessing mysterious powers over our surroundings. It's important to be over the top and silly with your hacks.
- zxexz 11y agoThat sounds like Snowcrash :) I'd be interested in reading whatever academic writing that was, if you find it.
- gozo 11y agoThe ~'90s computer underground hacker, which some people like to call cracker, was a more traditional youth subculture than the coder hacker. With groups, zines, handles etc. similar to say music, graffiti or action sports.
- biella 11y agoMight be Hacker Hoaxer Whistleblower Spy, which I wrote http://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Hoaxer-Whistleblower-Spy-Anonymous/dp/1781685835 http://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Hoaxer-Whistleblower-Spy-Anonym... I do raise the trickster there. You can find a pdf of it out there too if you google for it.
- cm2187 11y agoI think they are more like modern days terrorists. The kind that will burn a farm just because they can.
- codingdave 11y agoI dunno, man - without Fisher Stevens riding a skateboard through a giant server room, can anything really be as campy as Hackers?
- thret 11y ago"Never fear, I is here." I still catch myself saying this at times.
- liquidcool 11y agoYes, people forget that Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600 fame was a consultant on Hackers. If you thought that was unrealistic (and OK, it was), revisit the other '95 hacker movie: The Net.
- dagw 11y agoFor all the shit Hackers gets as a movie, I feel it does capture the zeitgeist of the hacker culture of the time better than just about any other movie out there.
- inspectahdeck 11y agoI heard a similar story from a Sony employee about the Sony hack. Was able to find it mentioned in a Vanity Fair article: >...this morning, as she began her day, she discovered that a bizarre specter had hijacked her computer. The screen glowed with a blood-red skeleton baring its fangs, and the words “Hacked By #GOP.” [0] http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/02/sony-hacking-seth-rogen-evan-goldberg http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/02/sony-hacking-set...
- stygiansonic 11y agoPartial screenshot of the affected systems: http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/sony-pictures-hackers-release-list-of-stolen-corporate-files/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/sony-pictures-hacker...
- 001spartan 11y agoThis is actually something used by Stuxnet, believe it or not. http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/7/5977885/hackers-made-irans-nuclear-computers-blast-ac-dc http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/7/5977885/hackers-made-irans-...
- laxatives 11y agoThe most surprising part of that story to me is that AC/DC is Australian. I had no idea. I always assumed they were Brits.
- carlio 11y agoThey were all born in Scotland but lived in Australia, iirc. Then the singer died and Brian Johnson, who is English, became the new frontman.
- atmosx 11y agoI was 100% sure they were Brits with atrong connection to the working class of the UK, etc. Other than that, another idiot who is actively trying to get some attention, by doing illegal things online, nothing new, nothing special.
- kibibu 11y agoThe "Long Way to the Top" video was filmed on the back of a flat-bed ute driving through Melbourne, and it's awesome.
- Nicholas_C 11y agoI had actually grown up assuming they were American. Kind of funny.
- pcthrowaway 11y agoSince no one else has mentioned this yet, this must have been a reference to this famous hack on an Iranian nuclear facility: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178781/Iran-nuclear-facilities-hit-cyber-attack-plays-AC-DCs-Thunderstruck-volume.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178781/Iran-nuclear...
- fjbarrett 11y agoTrue. Can't believe they actually pulled something like that