2 billion Dutchmen don't have e-mail avaialble .....

[ckong]

..  since Friday afternoon!!  I'm one of them. And why? Because our Royal Telephone Company, KPN, choose not to update the software of their server park or something like that, which made it damn easy for hackers to get into the system and steal account details from e-mail users. Reports are that they downloaded 16 GB of information, how many account details are that!!!!!

And because those hackers, who by the way should be hung in public, decided to publish names, addresses and paswords of about 500 of those users (!!!), just as proof of their hack, KPN decided to put all e-mail servers offline.

How freaking stupid is that, being an IT company and not updating softeware of servers so that they get vonurable for attack from hackers. And this really can have big consequences for users, a lot of them use the same password for several internet services (not me fortunately) so that hackers will have easy access to for instance marktplaats, facebook, ....


'Fortunately' we can send out e-mails again since late last night, but we still can't receive them!!!

[level42]

Since when are there 2 billion Dutchmen ?

I think 17 million are more than enough in our little corner of the world....

[PunkRockCaveman]

Wow ... that would freak me out, too. I don't get this kind of "hacking ethos" anyway.

[level42]

I do. And it is good they are doing it as long as they don't use the data to commit crimes !

These guys are smacking huge companies like this who fail to keep their systems secure !! If they had criminal ideas about it they wouldn't have published the list and contact the press !!!!

These guys are providing a good and important service to use the end-users by keeping the providers, banks etc. etc. on the tip of their toes in regards to keep things safe....

So I totally disagree with Erik about that these guys should be "hung in public."

[PunkRockCaveman]

Yeah, it's ok to find the security holes BUT it's not ok to show off like they did. I was a security specialist for a swiss bank once and had to try to "hack" their webservices on purpose but when I did, I reportet the flaws to the company, earned a lot of money (or not ) and did no harm to any "normal people" ...

[level42]

That is different because you were hired by them. These guys aren't and if they wouldn't have published KPN would simply have denied or "played down" the seriousness of this.

God knows who got these data before these hackers !!!

[ckong]

.... So I totally disagree with Erik about that these guys should be "hung in public."

The hacking may be of sume use because they keep companies sharp on their IT security, but it's not a good deed to publish private information on the web, like adresses, user names and passwords. By doing that they harmed a lot of innocent peoplke and therefore only the rope is good for them.