'Deceptive duo' hacker pleads guilty
Source: Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus(klp@securityfocus.com)
Published Thursday 20th May 2004 10:27 GMT
A Florida man pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington D.C. on Wednesday to charges stemming from his role as one half of the high-profile hacking team "The Deceptive Duo", responsible for obtaining sensitive information from government systems, and defacing dozens of governmental and private websites with patriotically-themed messages exhorting the U.S. to shore up cyber defenses.

In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Benjamin Stark, 22, admitted to cracking eleven computer networks belonging to nine US government departments and private commercial entities. He faces a likely prison term of 24 to 30 months in custody under federal sentencing guidelines.

The Deceptive Duo drew public attention in April 2002 for defacing government websites with a patriotic "mission outline" in which they described themselves as anonymous citizens determined to save the country from cyberterrorists by exposing security holes in critical infrastructures. "Tighten the security before a foreign attack forces you to," the Duo's defacements typically read. "At a time like this, we cannot risk the possibility of compromise by a foreign enemy." Accompanying the text was a graphic of two handguns against the backdrop of a tattered American flag.

Federal prosecutor John Carlin declined to comment on Stark's motives, but he said there was no mention of the hacker's purported patriotism at Wednesday's plea hearing. "It's not in the plea agreement, and it wasn't mentioned in the statement of facts that were given in the hearing today," Carlin noted.

As part of the plea, Stark admitted to working with an unnamed partner to crack systems at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Highway Administration, the Defense Logistics Agency; the Department of Defense's Health Affairs office, the Department of Energy's Sandia National Lab, the Naval Air Systems Command, the Air Force Publishing Office, Dynamic Systems Inc. and Midwest Express.

Compromised database
At the FAA, the Duo cracked a server run by the administration's security force, and posted and posted samples from a compromised FAA database detailing passenger screening activity at various US airports in the year 2000, with each screener's name, the number of passengers he or she screened, and the number of guns, explosives or chemicals intercepted. In other intrusion, the pair demonstrated access to passport and social security numbers and other private data.

Each of the charged Deceptive Duo intrusions allegedly resulted in financial damage ranging from about $1,000 to $15,000, except for the Midwest Express hack, which cost the company $57,500, the government claims.

Stark's plea agreement contains no language indicating that he's agreed to testify against his partner in the hacks, believed to be 20-year-old Robert Lyttle, a prolific website defacer raided by the FBI along with Stark. Lyttle has yet to be charged federally for the hacks, and if he is, his attorney has promised to demonstrate that the Deceptive Duo's intrusions were genuinely aimed at preventing terrorist attacks on the information infrastructure. "Robert has a great necessity defense," San Francisco lawyer Omar Figuroa said earlier this month. "I'm confident that Robert would be completely exonerated if charges were filed."

In addition to the Deceptive Duo hacks, Stark admitted to two solo missions. In February 2001 he defaced a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers website under his online moniker "The-Rev". And in December of that year he sold a bundle of 447 stolen credit card numbers to an undercover FBI agent in a chat room for $250.

Stark's sentencing is scheduled for 24 September.

Copyright © 2004, (http://www.securityfocus.com/)

Hey I know we all are going to hell...
but I don't want this to be the reason. This really made me think twice about the wierd world we live in.

Masturbate-A-Thon
2004: Come for a Cause!

This is too cool if you work near Segways
I know I have been near a couple I would like to hi-jack, but when the law enforcement starts using them it will be real fun when you can take it with your own set of keys. Maybe I will create them and sell them on the street to all the gangs.
Hacking Segway keys

You be the judge

I needed a laugh today
I heard of this post and I decided to check it out. That is I took a break from reading the latest vulnerabilities and laughed at the script kiddies playing Far Cry.

Topic author: kevinrose
Subject: - thebroken forums down -
Posted on: 05/10/2004 02:20:01 AM
Message:

Well - I was out for a week and didn't check the forums - just came back tonight and it was a mess. Looks like some stronger sign up restrictions are needed.

My apologies to all the jinx members for the influx of newbie members, and general forum flaming. We created thebroken to give people something they could watch, have a couple laughs, and maybe pickup a new tool or two to use...but mostly just for entertainment. But unfortunately anytime you bring up the word 'hacker' people start flipping out and trying to prove how '1337' they are... this then creates an immediate flame war between the people that get what we're trying to do ? and the people that think we're being serious. In actuality we spend more time playing FarCry than reading up on the latest vulnerabilities and exploits.. damn that's a good game..

Anyhow - again apologies to the existing jinx members - thebroken section is now closed.
Jinx Forums

Soda Can Spies
This is just wrong. Think of the ideas people are going to come up with now.

This high-tech soda can used by Coca-Cola in its latest contest looks and feels like an ordinary Coke can. But this can knows how to call home and tell it where you are in the U.S.
ABCNEWS.com : Soda Cans Use GPS to Find Contest Winners

Washington Whispers
From the White House, a nightmare scenario

White House officials say they've got a 'working premise' about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. 'We assume,' says a top administration official, 'an attack will happen leading up to the election.' And, he added, 'it will happen here.' There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret antiterrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. 'There was a sense,' says one official involved in the drills, 'of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order.' Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. 'I can tell you one thing,' adds the official sternly, 'we won't be like Spain,' which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings."

More found in the article USNews.com: Washington Whispers (5/24/04)

FBI investigating Cisco source code leak
Theft confirmed but little information available on the fate of Cisco's code.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it is working with Cisco Systems Inc. to investigate the theft of computer source code from the networking company, said Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman.

Confirmation of the theft from law enforcement comes amid scant information on the fate of Cisco's code, days after two sample source code files from the company's Internetwork Operating System (IOS) were posted on a Russian Web site, a small piece of what was said to be more than 800MB of IOS code

...

more can be found in the article InfoWorld: FBI investigating Cisco source code leak:

Googol may sue Google
Seen on Slashdot read on the Inquirer. Do I believe this story, no. It was a nice read before getting ready for the drive to work though.
NOW THAT Google's IPO is running, the company is on the verge of being sued by the family of a man who invented the word 'Googol' to describe a very big number.
Professor Edward Kasner came up with the word Googol, apparently at the suggestion of his 9-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta.

He used the term in the 1940s in his book, Mathematics and the Imagination. For the record a googol is 10 raised to the 100th power - or the number 1 followed by a hundred zeros.

In 1955 he died and much later a search engine called Google was born. His relatives claim that Kasner must be spinning in his grave. They believe Google has gained financially at their expense and they want to become IPO insiders to put his soul to rest.

Hacks from the Baltimore Sun interviewed Kasner's great-niece Peri Fleisher who is coincidently a compensation specialist for a Silicon Valley firm. She admitted that she was only four when Kasner died, and could only just remember him.

She said that although Google has bought attention to the name, it has not bought attention to Kasner’s work. Google was not using the concepts, but just capitalising on the name, she said. And who is the heir to Kasner's work? Step forward Fleisher's son, who has the rights to the book.

She said she had written to Google but it had never replied. She said that Google is playing off that number and not compensating them even a little bit. Ethically, it could have been more giving. She does not want cash just the opportunity to operate as insiders for the IPO.

Now they are thinking of suing
Googol may sue Google