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TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges
- barrkel 17y agoThe irony being, a motivator hacker could very likely hack this poll.
- zackattack 17y agoHow? I mean, through all my shell accounts, I could probably easily fake 10 votes. Back in my less mature days, I registered 20 AIM accounts, and then wrote a script to have them all log in simultaneously and in one by one start a conversation with a target, and then at my command, flood the target with "warnings", silencing them on AIM. So immature - so fun.
- petercooper 17y agoHow? I mean, through all my shell accounts, I could probably easily fake 10 votes. Get an open proxy list, then rig up a simple script to roll through them casting votes.
- pyre 17y agoEven better, convince 4chan that it would be 'funny' to screw up the poll so that no charges are pressed. ;)
- catch23 17y agowell... if you're a hacker with control to a botnet, then yeah, just tell the botnet to vote no. The 'no' votes will come in so fast that it will crash the servers.
- a-priori 17y agoRemedy: disregard all "no" votes. We have a winner!
- cowmoo 17y agoYea, write a simple Python/Perl script that interfaces with TOR and force-reset your exit nodes each time you send out a new request and randomize the time interval. There are plenty of TOR exit nodes in the world to swing the vote your way.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- rlpb 17y agoIt's not too difficult to detect and ban votes from exit nodes. It could even be done after the fact (and still be mostly effective) if it appeared that an attack took place.
- itiztv 17y agohow do i do it?
- ck2 17y agoIt's very easy to vote multiple times in Poll Daddy. Just keep changing your user-agent. It's worthless for anything serious.
- genieyclo 17y agoActually, that's not even necessary. They just track with cookies. Incognito mode with Chrome makes this child's play. Run a script to open in incognito and keeping voting till a certain point. If you want to be really scrupulous, keep changing IP.
- pyre 17y ago> Run a script to open in incognito and keeping voting till a certain point Why would you bother to script a full-fledged browser when you can just connect to the site directly through the script, ignoring cookies and/or changing the user-agent string.
- zackattack 17y agoI'd rather press charges against people who make comments on TechCrunch. Tangential note, are there any good encryption plugins for GMail/Gchat/IRC?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ihodes 17y agoWhile I do think the guy should be prosecuted, I don't like how TC is turning the ordeal into another way to make money. It reminds me of public hangings.
- lionhearted 17y ago> While I do think the guy should be prosecuted, I don't like how TC is turning the ordeal into another way to make money. I had almost the opposite reaction - I also think the guy should be prosecuted, but I think it's smart how they're turning it into an ordeal. They got messed up by the guy, but instead of being all serious and sober and lawyery, they're having a good time with it.
- dandelany 17y agoThey're also probably more than a little worried that a headline like "TechCrunch files charges against hacker" might alienate some of their audience, many of which are 'hackers', albeit in a very different sense. I think it's smart of them to ask their readers what they should do.
- philh 17y agoI suspect that sort of hacker knows about the dual meanings of the word.
- metamemetics 17y agoThis guy is probably already scared shitless and crapped several pairs of pants when he realized he was under FBI investigation. I can't see how the minimal damages are worth dragging him through a lengthy trial and bankrupting him with legal fees and a felony conviction on his permenant record.
- Tichy 17y agoHacking web sites is not a game. I suspect most criminals crap their pants when they get caught - should they all be let go?
- frisco 17y agoThere's usually a fine line when prosecuting 'hackers' like this. Are they just playing around to see what they can do? Do you have a substantial chance to point them in the right direction for the future if you don't take the legal route? In this case, though, it just looks like an uneducated thug of the internet that Arrington would have little hope of converting.
- jacquesm 17y agoIf that same thug hacks facebook next week and offers the stuff he finds during the hack on an underground forum for a fee Arrington will be the first in line to pay.
- astrange 17y agoThe reply to you from a TechCrunch employee up there ^ indicates the opposite. I tend to believe people like that, it generally works out.
- vinhboy 17y agoLame. Can you at least tell us how you got hacked? I thought we are tech geeks here....
- lionhearted 17y agoI'm guessing a Wordpress exploit - there were a few of them a while back. If you go to techcrunch.com/wp-admin it looks like they're running custom Wordpress.
- sfall 17y agothey are running off wordpress.com http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/wordpress-com-outage-techcrunch/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/wordpress-com-outage-techcr...
- NathanKP 17y agoIt's one thing to hack out of educational interest or as a "white hat" but this hacker's motive was just to make money. Therefore my vote would obviously be yes, he should be prosecuted. If what the hacker says in his chat log is true, and he has made money by redirecting major sites in the past then he definitely deserves it.
- hunterclarke 17y agoDon't get me wrong, I do not support hackers, but I feel like TechCrunch's game-like approach to this is a little immature. Nothing but a publicity stunt.
- sdurkin 17y agoThey're the ones who got hacked, and they're giving the guy a chance to avoid charges, all while having fun. I understand your point, but I also get why TC's doing it.
- raganwald 17y agoI really feel my 48 years. What is this, The Running Man? Either leave it in the hands of the authorities or prosecute. Making a game out of it sends a very strong message that it's all about the page views whether you're hacking a site to redirect towards your sleazy affiliate trap or whether you're turning the justice system into the Circus Maximus.
- dschobel 17y agoArrington is 40 so age obviously has no relationship to decency.
- dschobel 17y agoWhile it's certainly up any victim to testify / support a prosecution, isn't the actual decision of whether a crime has been committed and whether to pursue prosecution up to the law enforcement agencies? Any legal types around to clarify?
- metamemetics 17y agoCorrect. However if a "victim" is not willing to cooperate it is often not worth it for a prosecutor to invest limited resources into a case.
- enjo 17y agoRight in the pooper indeed.
- jacquesm 17y agoWhen twitter was hacked TechCrunch did everything they could to expose the valuable data and they paid the hacker. Why should anyone even care if TechCrunch got hacked, it's only fair that when you condone hacking of other sites and profit from it that you just shrug it off when it happens to you. TC pressing charges because of being hacked would be completely hypocritical of them.
- andrewpbrett 17y ago> they paid the hacker This is not true.
- jacquesm 17y agoPeople are wondering how much they paid, not if they paid. Is Arrington on the record stating that they did not pay? Even if, they still profited tremendously from the traffic, so the point still stands. You either are ok with black hat hacks or you're not, you can't be fine with it when it is other people and press charges when it's you. edit: If've found this response: http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/15/our-reaction-to-your-reactions-on-the-twitter-confidential-documents-post/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/15/our-reaction-to-your-reacti... There is lots of handwaving there, but the issue of whether or not money changed hands is not mentioned at all, and it would have been a pretty strong point in their defense if it hadn't. The only words he uses is 'But if it lands in our inbox, we consider it fair game.", which suggests nothing preceded that, but that's speculative.
- andrewpbrett 17y agoPeople wonder about lots of things that aren't true. I unzipped those files. We did not pay for them. "Landed in our inbox" should do more than suggest that nothing preceded it. Would you say that software just "landed on your desktop" after you paid for it? Profiting from traffic and paying for stolen goods are two very different things, so I don't think the point does still stand.
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- ErrantX 17y agoWow, ok that makes that evidence comletely inadmisable! :-) I hope they have some more.