- Thursday, 26 November 2009
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I may have faults, but being wrong ain't one of them - Jimmy Hoffa
Hacker exposes six million people's data to make a point
A CHILEAN HACKER posted sensitive information about six million of his compatriots on the Internet, apparently in an act of protest against the government’s lax data security.
According to Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, details including people’s address’, phone numbers, ID numbers, email addresses and even academic records were all laid bare for the world to see on a popular technology blog called FayerWayer. Links to additional information was also posted on a website called "ElAntro".
The information was mined from various different Chilean government and military sites, including the Ministry of Education, state telephone firms and the Electoral Service website. “Nobody bothers protecting that information", the hacker allegedly wrote in explanation of why he felt the urge to expose six million of his countrymen to identity theft.
Chilean Police commissioner Jaime Jara told El Mercurio that the police were investigating, however, the fact that it took the slow poke Chilean authorities hours to twig what had happened, and then several more hours to get round to removing the private data, goes quite a way to proving the hacker’s point. µ
L’Inq
AFP
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Doesnt sound like he really exposed the data, if he collect it from other source then he really just collated it.
Not only have the people who have their data poorly secured been wronged once by their government, but twice, by a self-obsessed "wanna-be" genius who exposes said data to the internet. No-one will come out of this disaster well.
If I remember correctly someone did the same thing but told the government, how and what he did without exposing the information. US governemt gave the man 62 years to think about it. Embarrass the government and you will pay. In Chile it just might cost him his life.
Unless the cops can prove that he obtained the data illegally, no crime has been committed. And even if he used social engineering to get the data, that simply proves his point. The thing I´d be worried about is whether any news outlets got hold of the information, and broadcast the story before the cops pulled it down.
Yup im one of those 6 million, my data is in there, somewhere.

Anyways, altho i understand his point about crap or lack of sensitive data security in the chilean goverment, but stealing and releasing all that info for everyone to see its not the way to go. And i honestly hope that he is found and prosecuted.
Pete Moran: so often the security is so pathetic you could just walk in and copy all the data. Sometimes the only way the authorities take anything seriously is for a breach to occur and them to get egg on their faces. He might have gone overboard with the number of people exposed but that means more people are going to be pissed!
@LaiFoX's post

I say that it most definitely is thee signle most effective way of getting things done!

Will they listen if he says that it is possible, or when he has done it?

Soy de Chile y me parecen 2 cosas; grave es lo que se deja entrever, la mala seguridad de datos importantes y que ahora circulen libremente para que cualquiera los obtenga; y segundo, lo bueno es que este tipo de sucesos debiera incentivar a las autoridades a mejorar de una vez la seguridad para que no ocurra algo asi en el futuro.

so what was the point of showing everybodys files , is it just some senseless nerd or what