The Times: Tech column - Kimble's war/XP feedback/Top search terms
By David Rowan
KIM Schmitz, known in hacker circles simply as "Kimble", has been doing his bit for the war effort lately. As founder and "chief hacking officer" of Yihat - Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism - Kimble and his underground army have been busy targeting websites linked to the world's terrorists.
After pursuing al-Qaeda's sources of funding, he says, "the most powerful hacker army on this planet" is ready for the next phase of its mission: to "monitor, infiltrate and take control of the information infrastructure used by, or supporting, terrorists".
Kimble, who was jailed in Germany a few years ago after successfully hacking sites, including the Pentagon's, is on the front line of a new kind of war. It is, he says, "100 per cent easy" to gain control of any chosen website, and his Kill.net pages have been charting the successes claimed by Yihat in defacing and invading enemy Islamic sites - and patriotically passing its findings on to the FBI. At the same time, pro-Muslim hackers such as G-Force Pakistan have been waging "cyber jihad" against Western military websites.
"We found bin Laden's bank accounts at al-Shamal Islamic Bank," Kimble tells The Times. "We found accounts of other terrorists from the FBI 'most wanted' list at Arab National Bank and two other banks. We found the real names of members of the Pakistani hacker group G-Force." Terrorist-related websites have only one means of evading conquest, he warns: "Go offline!"
Yet Kimble is far from a hero among the Web community. His critics dismiss him as a self-publicist, and say that there is no evidence to link bank accounts to al-Qaeda. "I find it amusing when people try to justify committing a crime by claiming to be doing it for 'ethical' reasons," says Sioda an Cailleach of attrition.org, which monitors Internet security. "The reality is that there is usually a more fundamental reason, such as ego. Yihat will have zero impact on terrorism."
Its impact will certainly remain limited for as long as the Western cyber-forces are riven by infighting. Yihat's own site was recently hacked by a detractor called Fluffi Bunni, who renamed it "Young Idiotic HaxOrz (sic) and Terrorists". After a spate of "denial-of-service" attacks, it last week announced its closure. Meanwhile, Kimble and his group are finding themselves credited when other "friendly" sites are being defaced. That, say other hackers, is merely a way to undermine their reputation further.
As the hackers continue their own internal wars, are there lessons from all this for the home front? You bet, says Sioda an Cailleach. "Companies and governments should be putting more effort into securing their IT infrastructure rather than focusing on sexy new features. Like housework, it's a thankless and unglamorous job. But if no one does it, sooner or later you will have a big mess to clean up."
++++
IT HAS been hard this weekend to avoid the $250-million hype for Microsoft's new XP operating system. But what do the huddled masses of techies make of it? Thankfully, the Web's numerous talk boards make enlightening reading.
After spending a good four hours plugged in, Technobabble can summarise the overall verdict as: much less bad than earlier Microsoft products, but much more worrying in terms of privacy and world domination. The main objection is the demand to "activate" the software, by calling Microsoft once it is installed for permission to use it. There is also anger about the way company applications such as Passport are "practically forced on new users", with rivals' software made much harder to access (Windows Messenger, says a typical rant, is "forced on you to kill AOL's supremacy"). Then there are concerns that, as part of the company's strategy, it coerces you into revealing your personal details. "You don't own it, Microsoft owns you," is one response. The company's fan base clearly prefers XP to earlier Windows systems. But Steve Ballmer, the CEO, will have noticed that ihatewindowsxp.com has already gone live...
++++
IF PEOPLE'S concerns are reflected in the terms they search for on the Web, then this war had better end soon. According to the search engine lycos.com, Osama bin Laden is no longer the top (non-porn) request, taking second place this week to Hallowe'en. Anthrax stays in at No 3, but Afghanistan has slipped to No 12 - below Britney Spears and even Morpheus file-swapping software. But our favourite monitor of popular concerns is found at searchrequests.weblogs.com, which picks up on the week's most disturbing queries. Current (printable) highlights: "Cipro jokes", "windows xp pirate version" and "What are some good things to look up on the Internet?". Not that, mate.
(The Times, October 29 2001)
KIM Schmitz, known in hacker circles simply as "Kimble", has been doing his bit for the war effort lately. As founder and "chief hacking officer" of Yihat - Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism - Kimble and his underground army have been busy targeting websites linked to the world's terrorists.
After pursuing al-Qaeda's sources of funding, he says, "the most powerful hacker army on this planet" is ready for the next phase of its mission: to "monitor, infiltrate and take control of the information infrastructure used by, or supporting, terrorists".
Kimble, who was jailed in Germany a few years ago after successfully hacking sites, including the Pentagon's, is on the front line of a new kind of war. It is, he says, "100 per cent easy" to gain control of any chosen website, and his Kill.net pages have been charting the successes claimed by Yihat in defacing and invading enemy Islamic sites - and patriotically passing its findings on to the FBI. At the same time, pro-Muslim hackers such as G-Force Pakistan have been waging "cyber jihad" against Western military websites.
"We found bin Laden's bank accounts at al-Shamal Islamic Bank," Kimble tells The Times. "We found accounts of other terrorists from the FBI 'most wanted' list at Arab National Bank and two other banks. We found the real names of members of the Pakistani hacker group G-Force." Terrorist-related websites have only one means of evading conquest, he warns: "Go offline!"
Yet Kimble is far from a hero among the Web community. His critics dismiss him as a self-publicist, and say that there is no evidence to link bank accounts to al-Qaeda. "I find it amusing when people try to justify committing a crime by claiming to be doing it for 'ethical' reasons," says Sioda an Cailleach of attrition.org, which monitors Internet security. "The reality is that there is usually a more fundamental reason, such as ego. Yihat will have zero impact on terrorism."
Its impact will certainly remain limited for as long as the Western cyber-forces are riven by infighting. Yihat's own site was recently hacked by a detractor called Fluffi Bunni, who renamed it "Young Idiotic HaxOrz (sic) and Terrorists". After a spate of "denial-of-service" attacks, it last week announced its closure. Meanwhile, Kimble and his group are finding themselves credited when other "friendly" sites are being defaced. That, say other hackers, is merely a way to undermine their reputation further.
As the hackers continue their own internal wars, are there lessons from all this for the home front? You bet, says Sioda an Cailleach. "Companies and governments should be putting more effort into securing their IT infrastructure rather than focusing on sexy new features. Like housework, it's a thankless and unglamorous job. But if no one does it, sooner or later you will have a big mess to clean up."
++++
IT HAS been hard this weekend to avoid the $250-million hype for Microsoft's new XP operating system. But what do the huddled masses of techies make of it? Thankfully, the Web's numerous talk boards make enlightening reading.
After spending a good four hours plugged in, Technobabble can summarise the overall verdict as: much less bad than earlier Microsoft products, but much more worrying in terms of privacy and world domination. The main objection is the demand to "activate" the software, by calling Microsoft once it is installed for permission to use it. There is also anger about the way company applications such as Passport are "practically forced on new users", with rivals' software made much harder to access (Windows Messenger, says a typical rant, is "forced on you to kill AOL's supremacy"). Then there are concerns that, as part of the company's strategy, it coerces you into revealing your personal details. "You don't own it, Microsoft owns you," is one response. The company's fan base clearly prefers XP to earlier Windows systems. But Steve Ballmer, the CEO, will have noticed that ihatewindowsxp.com has already gone live...
++++
IF PEOPLE'S concerns are reflected in the terms they search for on the Web, then this war had better end soon. According to the search engine lycos.com, Osama bin Laden is no longer the top (non-porn) request, taking second place this week to Hallowe'en. Anthrax stays in at No 3, but Afghanistan has slipped to No 12 - below Britney Spears and even Morpheus file-swapping software. But our favourite monitor of popular concerns is found at searchrequests.weblogs.com, which picks up on the week's most disturbing queries. Current (printable) highlights: "Cipro jokes", "windows xp pirate version" and "What are some good things to look up on the Internet?". Not that, mate.
(The Times, October 29 2001)
posted by David Rowan at Monday, October 29, 2001
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