Tsunami donation: jailed for using a non-standard browser (lynx)
Andor Demarteau
andor at nl.linux.org
Fri Jan 28 22:37:39 UTC 2005
:) luckily you can set your browserstring in nearly all unix browsers
includidng lynx.
I'd set it to IE as specially if I was hacking thy'd mistake it for a
virus ;)
probably a win200[03] IIS webserver and admin I'd say otherwise he/she
certainly would know what lynx is. stupid windhoosadmins
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Aldo wrote:
> Src: BoingBoing.net
>
> Thursday, January 27, 2005
>
> Jailed for using a nonstandard browser
> A Londonder made a tsnuami-relief donation using lynx -- a text-based
> browser used by the blind, Unix-users and others -- on Sun's Solaris
> operating system. The site-operator decided that this "unusual" event
> in the system log indicated a hack-attempt, and the police broke down
> the donor's door and arrested him. From a mailing list:
>
> For donating to a Tsunami appeal using Lynx on Solaris 10. BT
> [British Telecom] who run the donation management system misread an
> access log and saw hmm thats a non standard browser not identifying
> it's type and it's doing strange things. Trace that IP. Arrest that
> hacker.
>
> Armed police, a van, a police cell and national news later the
> police have gone in SWAT styley and arrested someone having their
> lunch.
>
> Out on bail till next week and preparing to make a lot of very bad
> PR for BT and the Police....
>
> So just goes to show if you use anything other than Firefox or IE
> and you rely on someone else to interogate access logs or IDS logs
> you too could be sitting in a paper suit in a cell :(
>
> [*]Link (Thanks, Patrick!)
>
> Update:: The source that told me about this has corroborated it with
> more detail in private email, but is leery of going public. I hope
> that more publicly available details appear soon, and will post them
> when I have them.
>
> posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:08:00 AM
>
> [*] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4195339.stm
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/27/jailed_for_using_a_n.html
>
>
>
>
--
Andor Demarteau E-mail: andor at nl.linux.org
student computer science www: http://www.nl.linux.org/~andor
UU based & VU guest-student jabber,icq,msn,voip: do ask ;)
-----------
chairman Stichting Studiereizen Storm 2002-2004
vice-chairman USF Studentenbelangen executive committee 2002-2003
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