MetaFilter posts tagged with hacking and hacker

The Middler

sluglicker — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:48:28 -0800

Your Gmail account isn't secure. Announced at Defcon 16, Jay Beale's tool, The Middler (man-in-the-middle) to steal session ID from not only Gmail users, but LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Facebook, and presumably any site that uses a session-based cookie. Enable https permanently. (previously)

Pacemaker vulnerable to remote hacking

spock — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:00:18 -0800

Serious as a heart attack: A collaboration of various medical researchers in the academic field has led to proof that pacemakers can be remotely hacked with simple and accessible equipment. This is a proof of concept, but the real question is: How many other pacemakers and medical devices are similarly vulnerable? (Writers may note a new twist available for the assassination of characters in their novels and screenplays.)

Band of Developers

Snyder — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:11:20 -0800

A hacker breaks into the forums of the guild Band of Brothers on the MMORPG Eve, where he discovers an Eve devolper, called t20, is not only a high-ranking member of the alliance, but has been feeding BoB expensive and rare in-game items. CCP, the company who runs EVE, denies any wrong doing, before it is revealed that CCP knew about t20's abuses for over six months. Players are not happy.

What Not To Do and How Not To Do It

fenriq — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 09:27:41 -0800

Idiot Tries to Hire Hacker to Change his GPA
Why study when you can just hire a hacker to adjust your GPA to something more to your liking? Or not.
And now an amazing (and scary) amount of his personal information is pwned!

Harvard rejects

trharlan — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:46:03 -0800

"Hacker" discovers backdoor to Harvard Business School admissions decisions.
Harvard rejects all applicants who used the "hack."

Hacker or Lynx user?

krisjohn — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 15:27:15 -0800

Boing Boing says he's a Lynx user , but British Telecom declared him a hacker and that's what the BBC is carrying. There's no way to tell who's right yet, but I'd say the Bloggers are betting on Lynx user. Anyone got an update?

Christopher Andrew Phillips, hacker?

Big_B — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 12:53:55 -0800

Christopher Andrew Phillips , the University of Texas at Austin student accused of "hacking" the school's computer system, has turned himself in. But reading about his method makes me wonder if this really is hacking and/or illegal...

mathowie — Fri, 28 Apr 2000 07:05:55 -0800

Not only can Kevin Mitnick not touch a computer, cell phone, or the Internet for three years, but a judge is trying to bar him from the lecture circut because he's talking about hacking and technology. I wonder, if they get him to stop talking about technology, are they going to bust him for thinking about it too?

Steven Den Beste — Wed, 19 Apr 2000 16:30:28 -0800

They bagged the kid who was responsible for all those Denial-of-Service attacks a couple of months ago. He's Canadian.

Here's an interesting legal question: could the US extradite him? The crimes were committed in the US, but he was in Canada at the time he did it, since he worked through the Internet. Whose laws apply?

(By the way, I've seen no indication that the US is considering extradition; I was just curious whether they could extradite him.)

mathowie — Mon, 24 Jan 2000 11:47:24 -0800

Last night Kevin Mitnick was on 60 minutes (the gist of the interview is quoted here), and I have to say he came off as an utterly harmless geek. He was an information junkie that enjoyed the challenge of cracking firewalls. He never profited from his activities and the affected companies made up their monetary losses. It's a shame he was forced to waste away in prison instead of offer his security expertise to the affected companies.

mathowie — Fri, 21 Jan 2000 10:22:00 -0800

Kevin Mittnick is finally being released from prison today, but I wouldn't call what he's getting as being "free". Prohibiting Kevin from touching a computer for 3 years? This isn't like giving a toddler to a ex-con child molester, it's a computer. A person can do a lot of things besides hack into company servers. How does anyone expect Kevin to make the $125 restitution he owes each month, if he can't use a computer or get a job that requires a computer? Now that I think about it, what percentage of decent jobs are completely free of computers?