Borrowed from Rolling Stone - Thank you
American hacker Jacob Appelbaum fights repressive regimes around the world. Now he's on the run from his own government
Blockfinder informs Appelbaum that there are 12,284 IP addresses allocated to Burma, all of them distributed by government-run Internet-service providers. In Burma, as in many countries outside the United States, Internet access runs through the state. Appelbaum taps some keys and attempts to connect to every computer system in Burma. Only 118 of them respond. "That means almost every network in Burma is blocked from the outside world," he says. "All but 118 of them."
These 118 unfiltered computer systems could only belong to organizations and people to whom the government grants unfettered Internet access: trusted politicians, the upper echelons of state-run corporations, intelligence agencies.
"Now this," Appelbaum says, "is the good part."
He selects one of the 118 networks at random and tries to enter it. A window pops up asking for a password. Appelbaum throws back his head and screams with laughter — a gleeful, almost manic trill. The network runs on a router made by Cisco Systems and is riddled with vulnerabilities. Hacking into it will be trivial.
It's impossible to know what's on the other side of the password. The prime minister's personal e-mail account? The network server of the secret police? The military junta's central command? Whatever it is, it could soon be at Appelbaum's fingertips.
So will he do it?
Read more here http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/17389/238944?RS_show_page=1
1 comment:
The leader of WikiLink is hardly the most dangerous man in cyberspace. I can think of dozens of other people that are far more scary than he is on the internet. What about some of the botnet owners? What about some of the hackers that have broken in to Mastercard and other companies and stolen millions of credit cards? What about the hackers who have broken in to banks across the world and stolen millions of dollars? What about the hackers who have shut down entire parts of the internet for hours at a time? What about the virus writers that cause millions and even billions of dollars of damage? What about the guys who use the internet to sell stolen identities, hundreds of thousands of them? What about people who sell fake government id's online, and fake government badges?
I can think of tons of people far worse than him that cause direct damage to the infrastructure of countries, take down communication system, and steal real money, as well as cause all kinds of damage. He is hardly the worst. If anything is the least of the problems.
If the government was honest then it wouldn't matter one bit if these were released. Instead they lie to the public, they lie to other countries and freak out when caught.
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