Tsunami donation: jailed for using a non-standard browser (lynx)

[Mario Lang]

I sincerely hope the victim is going to make BT and the Police PAY!
THis cries for a reparation payment!


Aldo <blinuxman at tuxfamily.org> writes:

> 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
>
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-- 
CYa,
  Mario | Debian Developer <URL:http://debian.org/>
  .''`. | Get my public key via finger mlang at db.debian.org
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