Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Chatter > General Discussion


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 05-31-2006, 08:17 AM   #1 (permalink)
Crazy
 
magictoy's Avatar
 
Another take on Karma

It was nice to read about the lottery ticket finder, and think about Karma. Here's a flip side to that philosophy:

Link

Quote:
Man charged with accessing USC student data
Published: 2006-04-20

Federal prosecutors charged a San Diego-based computer expert on Thursday with breaching the security of a database server at the University of Southern California last June and accessing confidential student data.

A statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California names 25-year-old Eric McCarty as the person who contacted SecurityFocus last June with news of a flaw in the Web server and database system used to accept online applications from prospective students. SecurityFocus notified the University of Southern California of the vulnerability and worked with the university to close the flaw before publishing an article about the issue.

The flaw could have allowed an attacker to send commands to the database that powered the site by using the user name and password text boxes. USC's Information Services Division confirmed the problem and shuttered the site, which contained data on nearly 280,000 applicants, on June 20 as a precaution. The university believes, and the prosecutors allege, that only a handful of records were actually accessed.

"It wasn't that he could access the database and showed that it could be bypassed," said Michael Zweiback, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's cybercrime and intellectual property crimes section. "He went beyond that and gained additional information regarding the personal records of the applicant. If you do that you are going to face, like he does, prosecution."

The FBI uncovered the Internet address of McCarty's home computer on USC's systems, according to the statement released on Thursday. USC would not comment except to say through a spokesperson that the university is fully cooperating with the investigation.

McCarty could face up to a maximum of 10 years in federal prison. He is schedule to make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court on April 28.
About six or eight years ago, I was less knowledgeable about computers than I am now. I also had less money.

During this time of need, I tried out the ebay "local" feature. Found a guy selling new computers he assembled.

I drove up there, bought a computer, received assurances that he would handle any problems for 90 days, and took it home. The motherboard crapped out a month later. The seller promptly became unavailable by phone.

He lived on a small farm which had an electric gate. Now I see why--I never could get him served to go to small claims because of that darned gate. Oh, he also put a bootleg copy of Windows on the computer, which I neither asked for nor needed.

Fast forward, and he has hacked into the USC student database. The FBI has been talking with him. He, of course, claims he was doing USC a favor by pointing out a vulnerability. This flies in the face of the laws he had to be aware of to obtain his certifications, which he should, of course, lose.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
magictoy is offline  
 

Tags
karma

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 09:46 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360