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Hacker group The Lulz Boat pirated PBS.org and posted an article claiming Tupac Shakur–who was shot four times and died in September, 1996–is alive and well and living in New Zealand. They also claim rapper Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.) was housed in the same resort for a time after his death.
LulzBoat created a new page within PBS.org and posted the passwords of PBS journalists, login information and “sensitive information” about PBS stations.
According to CNN:
The Lulz Boat claims it was “less than impressed” after watching the network’s program “WikiSecrets” and “decided to sail our Lulz Boat over the PBS servers for further… perusing.”
The “WikiSecrets” documentary, which aired last week on the PBS show “Frontline,” talked to U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning’s father and close friends.
Manning, a military intelligence analyst, is suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents that ended up on the WikiLeaks website — one of the largest leaks of classified material in U.S. history.
Whether PBS has gotten their security issues under control is debatable, but the article and any LulzBoat references have been removed from the site.
Link | Image credit: Kurt Strazdins/NewsCom
I am fascinated by how technologically savvy these cyber-outlaws are. If I had the ability to crack into restricted and top secret sites to see the information that is available on them I would be tempted to dabble in hacking as well.
There are many types of hackers out there. The more traditional ones hack in order to uncover and understand the ins-and-outs of a technology, tweaking and breaking codes to discover new possibilities. Many of these guys (and yes they are often male) are committed to the open source scene, developing and sharing code with the purpose of improving the IT infrastructure. Unfortunately, these types of vigilante hackers are increasingly outnumbered by those hacking for monetary gain. In 2007, it was estimated that 67% of those who engage in web attacks are profit-motivated.
From the Upcoming 
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Every once in a while, people encounter things on their radio, TV, or interstellar wave detectors that no one can explain. Is it a secret military message? A prankster hacking just to see if it can be done? Aliens trying to contact us? Cracked has five cases that still haven’t been settled. Take, for example, the case of UVB-76.
It is an irritating, electronic noise, not unlike the sound of a truck horn played through a cheese grater. It is broadcast over a certain frequency, constantly, and has been since at least 1982. But the weird part isn’t the tone, but what happens when it stops.
In its 20-something year run, the sound has been interrupted only three times, the earliest known time being Christmas Eve in 1997. Each time a voice comes on and lists several Russian names and numbers before returning to the foghorn. The most recent occurrence was 2006, a mere three years before the time of this writing. It is clearly becoming more active after remaining quiet during the Cold War.
At the recent DefCon hackers’ convention in Las Vegas, a fake ATM deceived many hackers in attendance:
An organizer for the conference said security authorities seized the device. It’s not known how long the ATM was in the hotel or whether it was placed there by a DefCon attendee to catch his fellow hackers or simply by an outside criminal group trying to target conference attendees.
Witnesses say the kiosk was well-placed to avoid surveillance cameras….
Markus said it was clear to him the ATM was fake when he looked at the smoked glass on the front of the machine and noticed something funny about it. When he beamed a flashlight through the glass, instead of seeing a camera behind it, he saw the PC that was set up to siphon card data.
The ATM had been placed right outside the hotel’s security office.
Link via Crunch Gear
Computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno says that biotechnology that has a neural interface, such as advanced prosthetic limbs, may make the brain accessible to hackers in the future:
In some cases, patients might even want to hack into their own neural device. Unlike devices to control prosthetic limbs, which still use wires, many deep brain stimulators already rely on wireless signals. Hacking into these devices could enable patients to “self-prescribe” elevated moods or pain relief by increasing the activity of the brain’s reward centers.
Despite the risks, Kohno said, most new devices aren’t created with security in mind. Neural engineers carefully consider the safety and reliability of new equipment, and neuroethicists focus on whether a new device fits ethical guidelines. But until now, few groups have considered how neural devices might be hijacked to perform unintended actions. This is the first time an academic paper has addressed the topic of “neurosecurity,” a term the group coined to describe their field.
