Three French reporters chose to leave no stone unturned and no password undisclosed at Thursday’s Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas.
On Friday, AFP reported that Mauro Israel, Marc Brami and Dominique Jouniot, three reporters for online news company Global Security Magazine, were forced to vacate the conference premises after they hacked into a network of press room peers, stealing log-in passwords and other sensitive data.
AFP reported that their motive was perhaps honorable education- “to teach reporters about how easily Internet transmissions could be intercepted.” But their audience was less than pleased, and the three reporters were “escorted out and their access badges confiscated.”
AFP pointed out that while the reporters may have been trying to help peers in the long run, “snooping a press room& 39;s wired network could violate US laws.” For now, Global Security Magazine is not expected to press charges against the reporters.
The reporters allegedly shared the data they collected with “Wall of Sheep—” a well-known group making their first appearance at the Black Hat convention.
The group’s goal, the AFP reports, is to “scour wireless computer transmissions, capturing unsecure password and account information.” But attendees believe the Wall’s “objective is to humiliate people into better protecting themselves.”
In my opinion, this hack is lamentable at best. Being hacked at a hacker conference? Seems a little counter-productive to me. Electronic Frontier Foundation senior attorney Kurt Opsahl commented on the event: “The press room is designed to be a safe harbor in a fairly stormy sea.” Clearly on Thursday, the location was anything but.
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