"H@ck3r$" moviefilm website was defaced!? (lol!!111!1)

[Darren Dirt]

I thought this was pretty surprising/funny re. the old (as in "aged", like stinky cheddar) film "Hackers"...

IMDB thread: "Hacked Movie Site"
by PhrenicGermal     (Wed Feb 14 2007 17:38:20 )
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Those of us who were on the net when the film came out may remember the movie site being hacked. The text was changed to making fun of the movie, some of the pictures were grafittied on, and so forth. The website actually kept the hacked version mirroed on their site.

So does anybody have some real information as to wheather or not this was a publicity stunt? Was the site actually hacked? It's not unrealistic that this would happen, but the vandalism looks pretty lame.

Here it is:
* http://web.archive.org/web/20000229152611/www.mgmua.com/hackers/inventory/hacked/index.html  *


( See also this "letter" , and the "unmolested" site for comparison )




by snuggle     (Wed Feb 14 2007 21:21:41 )
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On 24-11-1998 in alt.2600.hackerz it is (re)posted:

_HACKERS_- 1995 film about... well, hackers. Response in the underground was mixed; many (possibly most) hated it and couldn't stand the many technical errors, while others liked it, even though it was incredibly unrealistic. (Let's face it, any movie that has someone get into a supercomputer with the password "GOD" and has UNIX apparently replaced by some sort of cyberspatial three dimensional GUI has some realism problems.)

Also notable because "Jack Devlin," claiming to be an independant contractor from the ILF after "faking his death at the hands of Sandra Bullock" (see _The Net_) hacked MGM/UA's system and messed with the home page. MGM was pretty nice about it though, and even kept the page and linked it to the official page. Of course, it would have been pretty stupid and hypocritical of them to track down whoever did it and prosecute him. (While his original bravado-filled message has been widely spread on the Net, was is not so publicized is a second letter, which may have been made up to save face by the people who set up the page? but I kind of doubt it? apologizing and asking not to be prosecuted.)

Also, Emmanuel Goldstein was one of the "hacking consultants," and Phiber Optik said that it was the most accurate movie Hollywood's made about hacking, which isn't very hard. Many members of MOD and ex-members of LOD were consulted for the original script, but most became upset with how the film actually turned out. If you want my opinion, which you probably don't, I thought it was okay despite the technical inaccuracy, because it was a fairly entertaining movie with a cool soundtrack.

I hope that the fact that it barely made back production costs shows studio executives not to try and find the next trend, make a movie on it and flaunt the small amount of knowledge they gained through research. (What was the deal with _Wipeout_, that video game? And, hmm... Gibson, what a sneaky reference! What in-joke could they possibly be making? And Da Vinci virus-- could that be a sly allusion to the infamous Michaelangelo virus?) The most ironic thing about the film is that at the end AT&T gets thanked.

As for the quality of the defacement, hackers are not graphic designers. Just follow the link to the 2600 page from 2000.

[Mr. Analog]

Haha!

[Thorin]

Ha, thanks.  A couple of clicks led me to an article from February 14th, 2000, where Fox News called changing an IRC username "vandalism":

FOX NEWS REDEFINES VANDALISM
Posted 14 Feb 2000 00:00:00 UTC

In yet another example of the media completely misunderstanding technology, Fox News has defined changing a nickname on IRC as "vandalism."

It all happened in the middle of a live CNN chat with President Clinton. CNN was using a version of Internet Relay Chat which happened to crash every now and then when the user load got to around 1500. During one of those instances, a mischief maker managed to sign back on with the username of "President_Clinton" because the real Clinton hadn't gotten back on yet. The operators of the channel didn't bother to check if the user was authentic and automatically gave him a voice. That allowed the user to speak as the president and express opinions such as the desire for more porn on the net.

Anyone who has ever used IRC would recognize the stealing of a nick as an occupational hazard. To hear Fox News tell it, this should be considered a crime. "The incident Monday was the latest in a recent wave of cyber-vandalism that has already targeted CNN.com once before, as well as major commercial sites such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!"

CNN has wisely referred to the culprit as a "prankster" and insisted to Fox News that they were not hacked into at all and that the person merely changed their username, as any user can do at any time. However, no mention of the incident can be found anywhere on the CNN site, including the transcript of the online chat.

Fox News is demonstrating the witchhunt mentality that has demonized hackers worldwide. Over the years, we've been concerned over the misuse of the word "hacker" by the media to mean anyone who commits a crime using a computer. With stories like this, it's now become apparent that the media is also misusing the word "journalist."

http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/337

Here's an excerpt from the actual Fox News article:

NEW YORK ? Someone claiming to be President Clinton on Monday afternoon infiltrated a chat he was giving to CNN.com and gave a phony answer to a question, White House sources told FOX News.

"Personally, I'd like to see more porn on the Internet, Wolf how about you?" the FOX News Channel quoted the impersonator as writing, before the answer was deleted by a chat moderator. The answer was in response to a question about Clinton's thoughts on the Internet.

The president did not see the response, the White House said. CNN sent an e-mail statement to the White House insisting the chat had not been hacked, but that someone had been able to bypass the electronic filters in place to prevent such disruptions.

"We weren't hacked and anybody who says we were doesn't know what they're talking about," the FOX News Channel quoted CNN as writing in the e-mail.

CNN is not calling this a hacking, according to spokesman Edna Johnson. She told FOX News that a "prankster" was able to type in the answer as though they were the president.

"It wasn't a hacker. We were not hacked into. Have you ever participated in an online chat? Anyone can come in and register and participate on site. This person was registered and participating in the chat. He was a prankster. They give themselves a user name," Johnson said.

"The prankster typed in President Clinton in brackets. User name was President Clinton. We have a filtering system that works quite well," Johnson said. "There was a 20 second glitch and this is when the person came in and typed. We booted the person out."

"Under any circumstance, we are not pleased when a prankster participates in chats," she acknowledged.

Several experts, however, said the disruption was almost certainly a hack. The experts said it would have been impossible for anyone to give a false answer for Clinton without deliberately bypassing chat room security measures.

The interview was touted by CNN as making media history because Clinton became the first sitting president to give an interactive, online interview that allowed Web surfers to ask him questions.

Latest Incident in a Wave of Pranks

The incident Monday was the latest in a recent wave of cyber-vandalism that has already targeted CNN.com once before, as well as major commercial sites such as eBay, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!

I don't think they really were IRC experts...  And it definitely doesn't qualify as cyber-vandalism.  All the guy did was pick a particular username that was available.