This is a bit more based in reality than Washington Post writer Ariana Eunjung Cha's "Chinese Suspected of Hacking U.S. Sites" hype-tripe. http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=176657 Thursday, 12 April 2001 17:18 (ET) China sites hacked by "kiddie" over crisis By CHARLES CHOI, UPI Science Writer An online vandal or "cracker" who threatened to assault Chinese Web servers in retaliation for China's detention of 24 American airmen may not be as capable or as politically-motivated as he wanted to appear. The vandal, known as pr0phet, threatened a large-scale attack as retribution for the international crisis that began 11 days ago, April 1, when a U.S. spy plane was forced to land in Hainan Island. "This will be my first serious set of defacements -- and will be in regard to China acting completely ignorant and outlandish," pr0phet wrote on the Chinese website www.yancheng.cngb.com . "Now I will proceed to own ten times over what I have previously -- and destroy anything I find -- because Im (sic) ignorant and outlandish too." The vandal also urged all defacers to target China and "reek (sic) hell on their servers." However, later that same day, pr0phet backed down after hearing China would release the U.S. airmen. "I guess doing a bunch of sites is out. sigh," pr0phet wrote on the website www.cn-abc.com . "Now that im (sic) in china though -- maybe Ill (sic) just do alot (sic) as a smack on the hand. silly china." Pr0phet's claimed his attack on Chinese websites was prompted by the recent emergency. But according to Internet sites that monitor Web site defacements he had, in fact, routinely defaced dozens of Chinese and Korean websites in the past with vulgar animations and profanity that did not claim any political motivation. Instead, he said, he defaced the sites because they were "small subdomains no one cares about." Security experts felt the threat was little more than hot air from a "script kiddie," slang for an online vandal who has to depend on hacking programs developed by others. Online vandals are commonly known as hackers, although within the computer community they are more accurately called "crackers." "The script-kiddies have an affinity for, pardon the term, 'cyber-saber-rattling,'" said senior security consultant Jay Dyson at OneSecure in Denver, Colo. "Little, if anything, ever comes of it. Besides, knocking over most any system located along the Pacific Rim is child's play. Successfully attacking a Chinese system on the Internet is the technological equivalent of stealing candy from a baby." ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERVat_private with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
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