http://valleywag.com/tech/followup/how-a-foxlinked-hacker-failed-to-fool-fark-290862.php By Owen Thomas valleywag.com August 21, 2007 Last week, Drew Curtis, left, the founder of Fark.com, the outrageous social-news website, accused Darrell Phillips, to his right, an employee at a News Corp.-owned Fox TV station in Memphis, Tenn., of attempting to hack into Fark [1]. Curtis told Valleywag that electronic evidence pointed nearly conclusively to Phillips and that he was pursuing legal action to obtain records and eliminate any doubt. Since then, Phillips and Fox have not commented publicly on the incident. Many observers have expressed disbelief, or suspected satire, given Fark users' reputation for sarcasm and tomfoolery. But Curtis, in sharing the incident, was deadly serious. Curtis today told me he plans to "file a civil claim in federal court to get subpoenas sent." Equally serious is the evidence he's assembled. After the jump, I'm sharing the timeline Curtis's team put together, as well as some other observations tipsters have shared. In Mediaverse Memphis, a local news blog, a commenter left the following comment to a follow-up story [2] on Valleywag's exclusive: Has Darrell ever asked you to open a suspicious email attachment? I hope you thought twice about it. I think a lot of people who Darrell has screwed in the past are going to enjoy this. As with any Internet comment, it's impossible to know the validity of the observation, but it's interesting to note that someone bothered to take the time to allege that Phillips has a history of sending "suspicious email attachments" -- a common way of delivering "trojans," or software that contains malicious code. And a former employee at WHBQ, the station where Phillips works, believes Phillips was behind the hack, writing: The investigative news team at WHBQ was usually very well intentioned and thorough. I am sure the actions are those of Phillips and whatever idiots he thought could help him pull off a hacking scheme. This is in the Memphis market. Not exactly reaching out to the best and brightest with the most upstanding journalistic integrity. Phillips was hoping to make a name and move to a larger market. That, of course, is just speculation. Here are the hard facts, in the form of a detailed log below, prepared by Fark employees, of the attempted break-ins. One caveat: It's possible, of course, that Phillips's machine was compromised by an outside hacker. But is Fox's corporate network that insecure? And would a hacker, having access to a machine inside the Fox network, and control of Phillips's PayPal account, merely use them to implicate Phillips, rather than conducting larger mischief? I'll let you be the judge, after you review the evidence. (Note: I've redacted staff email addresses and logins, as well as full IP addresses, to avoid giving amateur hackers obvious targets.) [...] [1] http://valleywag.com/tech/exclusive/fark-founder-accuses-fox-newsman-of-hacking-290286.php [2] http://mediaverse-memphis.blogspot.com/2007/08/on-getting-farked.html ____________________________________ Attend HITBSecConf2007 - Malaysia Taking place September 3-6 2007 featuring seven tracks of technical training and a dual-track security conference with keynote speakers Lance Spitzner and Mikko Hypponen! - Book your seats today! http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2007kl/
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