http://www.makepovertyhistory.org Bloggreen: Hmm

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Hmm

Everyone should be aware of the clever kid in Auckland who exposed the insecurity of the Telecom mobile voicemail system last week. Well, this kid and a friend (I assume) have been charged. NZ Police press release:

Alleged Hackers Face Charges Press Release by New Zealand Police 18 May 2005 A 16 year-old Auckland youth and a 19 year-old Hamilton man were arrested this morning and will appear in the Auckland Youth and Hamilton District Courts respectively this afternoon, to face a charge of unauthorised access of a computer. The arrests follow a short but intensive investigation into the alleged "hacking" of some mobile phone voice mailboxes.
This is bullshit. These kids should be given jobs not charges. I would be very interested to find out what charges they will be facing. Will update as I hear more.

2 Comments:

At 5/22/2005 02:37:00 PM, Blogger Rich said...

It isn't very hard to hack voice mailboxes at the moment. Telling people you did it is pretty dumb.

I'd agree it's fairly stupid to charge them, but they did probably break the law.

If I was their lawyer I'd look at arguing that the caller ID system is so insecure that Telecom were effectively authorising *anyone* to read voice mail. (In the same way as it is probably not illegal to read a postcard in someone elses unlocked mailbox).

 
At 5/22/2005 09:18:00 PM, Blogger Kakariki said...

yeah but giving them a bit of credit, they didn't just brag about it, they told the media and highlighted the security flaw to the public. I'd call that public service, not law breaking. If they kept it to themselves and used the skills for malicious purposes this would be a whole different story.

 

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