Comcast Briefly Loses Control of Its Domain Name

Fallen Andy notes that Comcast, one of the largest US ISPs, lost control of its domain name to what appeared to be juvenile social engineers of the old school — i.e. not in it for the money. The intruders got into Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions and repointed the domain's DNS records. A blog entry at SANS points out how trivially easy this can be. Reader ElvenKnight points out an insightful interview up at Wired with the two young guys who perpetrated the hack.

The consequences might not be as fun

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

the two kids who perpetrated the hack

How much do you bet the feds will come down hard on the kids and charge then with felony, cyber-"terrorism" or some other preposterous computer crime? I used to do harmless hacks for fun in years past, but these days it's not really wise.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Scutter]

How much do you bet the feds will come down hard on the kids and charge then with felony, cyber-"terrorism" or some other preposterous computer crime? I used to do harmless hacks for fun in years past, but these days it's not really wise.

That was hardly a "harmless hack". There is a lot of money tied to that domain and when it's down, it's a serious problem for a lot of people. That said, I agree that charging them as cyber-terrorists would be severe overkill.

Re:

[Akita24]

While I in no way condone what they did, I do see a certain amount of poetic justice in the assholes who "hijack" their users packets getting hijacked themselves. How do you like it when they do it to you you greedy f*cks? Not fun is it CommieCast?

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Scutter]

It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period.

Oh, really? You were there? You know what they were thinking? How do you know it wasn't a couple of punk kids just screwing around and not realizing what they were getting themselves into?

I never said they shouldn't be charged. I (and the parent I responded to) both just said that they will likely be charged with much more than the crime warrants.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[quanticle]

How do you know it wasn't a couple of punk kids just screwing around and not realizing what they were getting themselves into?

These kids used social engineering to deliberately steal the domain name of one of the largest ISPs in the nation. This isn't equivalent to a kid stumbling across a XSS or SQL injection attack in some web app.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know it wasn't a couple of punk kids just screwing around and not realizing what they were getting themselves into?

These kids used social engineering to deliberately steal the domain name of one of the largest ISPs in the nation. This isn't equivalent to a kid stumbling across a XSS or SQL injection attack in some web app.

The government and Comcast can come down hard on these kids - but that's not justice, what it is is covering their asses.

We base our economy upon something this fragile, and then when someone points it out we come down on them really hard.

Imagine if a real attack takes place?

They should thank the kids, ask them not to do it again, and takes steps to prevent it from happening again.

But will that happen - don't make me laugh.

It's like the rest of the U.S. phoney as can be when it comes to real domestic security.
 

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[cliffski]

they should thank the kids, if they had NOT gone through with the hack, but informed those in authority how it had become possible.
As it was, they inconvenienced tens of thousands of people. And they didn't put up a sign that said
"We have briefly changed this page to point out a serious flaw in the security of this system. Sorry for the inconvenience.
it said:

"KRYOGENICS Defiant and EBK RoXed Comcast
sHouTz to VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven"

yes, very helpful.

Re:

[phoenixwade]

It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period.

Oh, really? You were there? You know what they were thinking? How do you know it wasn't a couple of punk kids just screwing around and not realizing what they were getting themselves into?

I never said they shouldn't be charged. I (and the parent I responded to) both just said that they will likely be charged with much more than the crime warrants.

The Wired article indicates that they were retaliating because some Comcast dweeb was rude on the phone. It also indicates that they were stupid enough to be surprised by how big and loud this blew up. Further, it indicates this is a repeat offense for both "hackers". If all that is true, then I submit there is very little chance they are going to be charged with more than the crimes warrant. Repeat offenders and that kind of petty extortion should be slapped as hard as possible.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Scutter]

since when "what they were thinking" is an excuse to break law?

It's not an excuse and that's why they should be charged with something. However, intent is a huge factor when determining what to charge someone with. For example, it's the difference between first degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Either way, someone's dead, but one crime involves a possible death penalty for the perpetrator.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[something_wicked_thi]

Since they invented the difference between first and second degree murder. Intent matters.

Re:

[pthor1231]

It isn't, which is why your parent wasn't suggesting not prosecuting, but rather using the "what were they thinking" as a mitigating factor in determining what punishment is appropriate.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Hoi Polloi]

Since when did vandalism and theft become terrorism? The definition of terrorism has become so wide and vauge that anything that affects a group of people gets the terrorism lable slapped on it. It is like how the definitions of addiction or sex crime have become catch-all nets. Terrorism is a violent act intended to cause intimidation to achieve a goal. These kids just wanted to show off and feel powerful. I have no sympathy for them or their obnoxious, selfrightious attitudes but they aren't terrorists.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[sgbett]

Man, if I had mod points you'd be getting -1 Terrorist for those kind of subversive opinions!

Re:

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Since when did vandalism and theft become terrorism?

Since society and officials are too lazy to secern those things.

Blowing your nose in public threatens to spread pathogens to innocent bystanders, too.

Ubuwalker's 6 pronged guide to terrorism

[ubuwalker31]

Actually, what you describe (violent act intending to cause intimidation) is not necessarily terrorism. It could be the legitimate use of force, the result of an armed robbery, or a simple assault.

This is why I developed:

Ubuwalker's 6 pronged guide to determining if a person or entity is a terrorist:

1) Did they intend to cause mass terror? [This is an objective test; just because something is scary, doesn't make it terrorism.]

2) Did they use violence or threat of violence? [This rules out non-violent protesters, but includes activities related to violence, like arson]

3) Did they deliberately (and routinely) target non-combatant civilians? [Actions that target military personnel aren't terrorism. An entity which is involved in isolated and infrequent acts which meet criteria 1-6 are more characteristic of war crimes, rather than terrorism, as they might be revenge attacks or guerrilla attacks of opportunity, or of splinter cells, or accidental engagements of civilian target, or engagements of legitimate military targets where civilian combatant are killed, and thus would not be indicative of a systematic policy of engaging in terrorism]

4) Are they a non-governmental organization? [otherwise the action is a war-crime or crime against humanity or piracy or the actor is a State Sponsor of Terrorism]

5) Did they have a political goal? [This rules out ordinary criminals and vandals and street thugs and normal military action]

6) Do they disguise themselves or pretend that they are ordinary civilians? [This goes to the fundamentally unlawful nature of terrorism, by not acting under the color of the laws of war or international law, and thereby putting civilians at risk of attack or collateral damage]

If you don't meet all of these criteria, or find yourself arguing that a group doesn't meet a prong, then you might be dealing with something other than terrorism. Like Piracy (missing prong 5), ordinary military action (lacking 3 and 4 and 6), covert government operations (lacking 4), war crimes (lacking 4), paramilitary/freedom fighters/insurgents (lacking 1, 3).

A State Sponsor of Terrorism provides support to non-governmental entities engaged in terrorist activities. It is fair to say that a leader who supports terrorism is himself a terrorist, sort of like how its fair to say an accessory to murder is a murderer. However, deliberately targeting civilians/ethnic cleansing/genocide is a war crime, and calling war criminals terrorists just confuses the issue.

Hackers and script kiddies are just ordinary criminals. If Al Queda launched a cyber attack to knock out a hospitals computer infrastructure, that would be terrorism.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[daliman]

terrorism

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. ...

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[TapeCutter]

"there is no question about it being intentional harm with wide impact, and therefore terrorism"

Okaaaaaayyyy.... So tell us who was 'terrified', and what was it that 'terrified' them?

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Anonymous Psychopath]

...there is no question about it being intentional harm with wide impact, and therefore terrorism...

Wow, I didn't realize that's how terrorism is defined. With my newfound knowledge, here are some other examples of terrorism:

Pollution
2girls1cup
Enron
goatse.cx
PATRIOT Act
DMCA
The Pirate Bay

Incredible. We can call almost anything terrorism now! Thank you!

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[parcel]

It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period.

Methinks you have an overly broad definition of "terrorist attack". One really ought not to put "couldn't check e-mail for 3 hours in the middle of the night" in the same category as the willful destruction of human life.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[AioKits]

These days everything is a terrorist attack...Cause you know, I guess it's better to live in uninformed fear than to point out something foolish, cause the later would be unpatriotic and something terrorists do! >.>

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Exactly.

Just the other day, I had a fast food burger, and the terrorists left out the pickle. Then I went to get gas, but the pump had been broken by terrorists. After finally getting gas, I discovered the terrorists have been jacking up fuel prices so I didn't have enough cash. The terrorists must have been disrupting the banking system, because it took several minutes to access my funds by debit card. The terrorists had been messing with the stop lights as well, since they were completely out of sync.

Finally, I got home and discovered my wife must be a terrorist, since she overcooked the roast. Then I tried watching the news, but terrorists kept interrupting it with ads for things I didn't want to buy. Disillusioned, I decided to go throw a ball around with my son Billy. It's one of the few pleasures I can still find in this dangerous, terror-infested world. You wouldn't believe what happened! My son threw the ball badly, and I got a grass stain on my slacks when diving for it. I'm afraid I'll have to call DHS and get them to start a dossier on Billy now.

I hope the terrorists don't turn off my alarm clock in the night again. If I'm late for one more day of work, I'm pretty sure the terrorists in human resources are going to fire me.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[DigDuality]

A terrorist attack would imply one of two things. A) Someone got harmed or B) Terror was instilled in a mass population due to the threat of being harmed. Other than creating some headaches over at comcast for a few hours, no one was harmed. Get a grip on reality.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Hoi Polloi]

Excuse me but after seeing Rachel Ray in her Hamas video (don't tell me it was a scarf!) it is critical that we watch for 5th column terrorists everywhere. Fox News and all the other right-wing nut jobs told me so.

Excuse me while I listen to Barry Goldwater rolling in his grave.

Re:

[TapeCutter]

I'm an Aussie and when I read about the dunkin' doghnut ads I thought the same thing. OTOH, what is it they say about publicity?

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[kv9]

It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period.

so they haven't found a cure for acute kneejerk yet, eh?

Re:

[Pantero Blanco]

It was a terrorist attack intended to disrupt a major part of the infrastructure, period.

Terrorism, by definition, has to have some sort of political goal in mind (wanting power, autonomy, etc), and has to have the intention of intimidation. This has neither.

I don't see anyone shaking in fear over Comcast's website being inaccessible...

It's just a regular crime, not terrorism.

Re:

[SeaFox]

I don't think they should be charged at all. Comcast should be charged for being a bad ISP in the first place.

Unfortunately, being assholes is not a crime.

Oh, wait. That cuts both ways in this case, huh? :-D

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[shawn(at)fsu]

I personally couldn't care less what they charge them with. If you going to do something so high profile you better expect that your punishment is going to be equally if not more so. I hope for them it was worth it.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

So some kid who "tags" an abandoned building and gets caught gets to spend the night in jail, but throw the book at some kid who, through some feat of ingenuity, manages to "tag" the Washington Monument?

That seem fair to you?

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[D Ninja]

No, it does not seem fair. But, as the GP poster pointed out, life isn't always fair. People/companies with a high profile want to set an example out of people like these two guys so it doesn't happen again.

Hopefully the judicial system will dish out the appropriate punishment and won't get caught up in the hype. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.

Re:

[Lobster Quadrille]

Life isn't fair, but the judicial system is supposed to be [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[quanticle]

Well, yeah. Saying that the effect of tagging an abandoned warehouse is the same as the effect of tagging the Washington Monument is like saying the cost of denting a rusted out Geo Metro is the same as the cost of denting a brand new Ferrari.

Re:

[Pantero Blanco]

Since when did the monetary cost of a crime determine its punishment?

...Since centuries ago (possibly even millenia, though probably not in the US for obvious reasons), and it's been consistently upheld.

The premeditated murder of a drug dealer and the premeditated murder of famous Hollywood celebrity certainly have different economic impacts, but both are capital offenses punishable by (at the very least) life imprisonment.

Yeah, and which one is more likely to actually get life in prison? Unless the murder

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

Since when did the monetary cost of a crime determine its punishment?

Since Babylon? An eye for an eye and such. Or more directly, fines could be levied that were determined "according to the enormity of the offence".

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[Chris Mattern]

Since when did the monetary cost of a crime determine its punishment?

Since always, basically. The prime example would be theft, which has always been both a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how much is stolen.

The premeditated murder of a drug dealer and the premeditated murder of famous Hollywood celebrity certainly have different economic impacts, but both are capital offenses punishable by (at the very least) life imprisonment.

With crimes against persons, any monetary impact is considered so secondary as to not be worthy of consideration, generally (a few centuries back, this wasn't the case; in medieval law, if you murdered somebody rich and important, the penalty was indeed greater than if you murdered a serf). With crimes against property, the monetary impact is basically the point. This was a crime against property.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

Yes, yes it does. So if they burnt down someone's business they should get the same punishment as if they burnt down an abandoned shack in the woods? They may be clever enough to turn off the fire alarm so they lets them off the hook?

Re:

[egyptiankarim]

It's totally fair. An abandoned building has little to no value and if these kids managed to hack some squatted domain, they probably wouldn't get much flack.

The Washington Monument is a highly visible, highly valuable, historic landmark and if you deface it it affects a lot more people.

I don't know about anyone else, but your analogy just made it easier for me to see fault in these kids' actions.

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[swillden]

I personally couldn't care less what they charge them with. If you going to do something so high profile you better expect that your punishment is going to be equally if not more so.

I think they've figured that out... now. From the Wired interview:

"The situation has kind of blown up here, a lot bigger than I thought it would," says Defiant, a 19-year-old man whose first name is James. "I wish I was a minor right now because this is going to be really bad."

They claim they called Comcast's technical contact and told him they'd taken control of the domain, BEFORE they changed anything. I don't know if it'll help them in court, but it sounds like if he hadn't blown them off, it really would have been a harmless prank. That doesn't justify their decision to redirect, but the Comcast guy should have at least bothered to check.

After they were blown off by him, these punks lost their tempers:

"I was trying to say we shouldn't do this the whole damn time," says Defiant.

"But once we were in," adds EBK, "it was, like, fuck it."

Well, I hope they had fun, because they're going to be paying for it, big time.

Re:

[Jay L]

They claim they called Comcast's technical contact and told him they'd taken control of the domain, BEFORE they changed anything. I don't know if it'll help them in court, but it sounds like if he hadn't blown them off, it really would have been a harmless prank.

It probably won't help them, but it certainly help anyone who might have been harmed - as a subscriber or a shareholder - and wants to sue Comcast for negligence...

Re:

[Jellybob]

If try that one, then I'm fairly sure you won't be around long enough to have someone make an educated decision about how to punish you.

Re:

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

While analogies are useful, I think this one is stretched beyond usefulness. Neither George W's lawn or my lawn has any economic value. Comcast's domain name does, as its serves whatever percentage of their customer base actually have it set as their homepage.

Re:

[dwater]

I thought it was kind of funny :)

Sure it wasn't deliberate, or is it just my zany English sense of humour?

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[bconway]

It was hardly harmless. They changed all the important host entries, including mail servers, and harvested logins of customers. I don't think many people would be happy if pop.gmail.com was redirected unbeknownst to user and their password was given away with a click (or auto refresh).

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[parcel]

harvested logins of customers.

FTFA:

Fellow hackers, relying on press reports claiming that customer data may have been compromised, are hitting up the duo for passwords to Comcast e-mail accounts, which they say they don't have. "Nobody was listening in on the ports to try and get usernames and password," says Defiant. "We could have, but we didn't." (On this point, Comcast and the hackers agree).

Re:The consequences might not be as fun

[bconway]

Read (some of) the 25+ page discussion on Broadband Reports, linked in the article. Ports 25 and 110 were active and accepting connections, followed by rejecting all logins are (presumably) harvesting their credentials. My Nmap scans during the event are included in that thread.

Re:

[berzerke]

Just because the ports were active does not mean any usernames/passwords were recorded. The server could have simply been set to reject all attempts.

I wouldn't lay money on that scenario mind you, but it is possible.

Re:

[FliesLikeABrick]

The Wired article/interview says that they were bouncing around web hosts like crazy. Of course if the point comcast.net to some large host, you'll see all kinds of services during your nmap scan.

They were using bunches of free webhosts who almost definitely have servers listening on imap/pop3/smtp and other services. That said, it makes sense that logins intended for comcast ended up failing when they hit these random web hosts.

Re:

[leonardluen]

yeah...ain't that nice, they said they didn't...maybe i am just paranoid, but i already changed my passwords

Re:

[parcel]

yeah...ain't that nice, they said they didn't...maybe i am just paranoid, but i already changed my passwords

Not paranoid, wise. It sounds pretty unlikely that any harvesting was going on, but still better to be safe.

Re:

[vslashg]

harvested logins of customers.

FTFA:

Fellow hackers, relying on press reports claiming that customer data may have been compromised, are hitting up the duo for passwords to Comcast e-mail accounts, which they say they don't have. "Nobody was listening in on the ports to try and get usernames and password," says Defiant. "We could have, but we didn't." (On this point, Comcast and the hackers agree).

You have to consider the sources here; both sides have something to lose by claiming usernames and passwords were stolen. If the boys admit to stealing accounts, they're looking at a harsher sentence when this all comes crashing down. If Comcast admits accounts could have been compromised in this attack, they are facing a rather nasty security-related PR problem.

Re:

[Dan541]

Messing with someone's domain is hardly a "harmless" activity.

Re:

[Mizchief]

They should throw the book at these kids. Given how easy it is to do these types of attacks the fear of punishment is needed.

Re:

[Stewie241]

Can we stop calling them kids? Age of majority is 18 in the states, isn't it? These two were 18 and 19 years old. Young, sure, but kids, no. These are adults.

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I'd say that their actions and attitudes quite clearly show that they're still kids. Turning 18 isn't a magic pill that instantly makes you an adult -- only time and experience can do that, regardless of the law.

Re:

[Stewie241]

yeah 'cause adults never do stupid things.

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

That's not what I said. Let me spell it out -- being an adult is not something that occur at a fixed, predetermined date in your life. This begins at around the time that you truly realize that your actions have a direct effect on other people; and that other people have an existence independent of and outside of your own.

For some people, that can happen in their early teens. For most people, it's sometime in their late twenties. You can tell when it happens by conversing with people - when the conve

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed; note that I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished as adults -- the /should/ be at a point in their lives where they've acquired the ability to function as adults in this society. I'm only saying that based on their actions -- and attitudes in the interview -- they're not adults.

Network Solutions seems to be the common trend.

[Flamora]

Other websites that I know of have had this happen in the past, and the common trend seems to be that Network Solutions has been their domain registrar. The largest site in recent memory that this occurred to other than Comcast was SomethingAwful.

Perhaps it's a sign of a more underlying flaw in Network Solutions' security?

Everything old is new again.

[Rob T Firefly]

Recent memory, my eye. This same thing happened to my old zine in 1999, and the trick was already old hat back then. We even published a how-to article about it, [phonelosers.net] since our specialty was old tricks everyone already thought were lame.

The best part: Network Solutions were of absolutely no help to us in getting our own domain back from the hijackers, so we ended up having to use the same trick to just steal it back again. Three times.

Re:

[Flamora]

Oh, I'm just talking of things that I've directly experienced myself. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this is an old trend that's been going on for a while.

And from what was said by the admin team at SA, Network Solutions wasn't any help to them at all, either. Funny, that.

Re:

[Awptimus Prime]

I'd imagine whoever calling NS from SA would be so hell-bent on making drama so they'd have something to post about later.

Re:

[k2enemy]

Cactus

Re:

[Bryansix]

You know if you use a real domain registrar and not Network Solutions you can put a freeze on changes to your records so this can't happen.

Re:

[neoform]

Look at sites like apple, they use services like MarkMonitor.com, I was under the impression most large companies did this too.

Re:Network Solutions seems to be the common trend.

[swillden]

From the Wired article:

Network Solutions spokeswoman Susan Wade disputes the hackers' account. "We now know that it was nothing on our end," she says. "There was no breach in our system or social engineering situation on our end."

Sooo, what she's saying is that Network Solutions' system was operating as designed. Is that supposed to be comforting?

Re:

[Bryansix]

Network Solutions sucks. They just lie in their Press Releases too. Like somehow lying about what happened is supposed to make it all better.

Re:

[Bryansix]

Buahahahahahahah!

These guys are my heroes

[Spy der Mann]

Wanna know why? Because they called Comcast and could get in touch with a HUMAN!

Now *THAT'S* hacking.

Re:These guys are my heroes

[Thaelon]

Try this: http://www.gethuman.com/gethuman_list.asp?bname=%22C%22 [gethuman.com]

Lazy companies create "automated systems to handle most inquiries" ignoring the fact that even their claim states its own failing, it doesn't handle them all. So we have created a database of how to circumvent the barrier to customer support.

Now if only we could force them to hire customer support grunts without such thick accents.

Re:These guys are my heroes

[DriedClexler]

How come no one's made the obvious joke yet?

Comcast: OMG!!! Outrageous!!! Some HACKERS denied us access to our OWN DOMAIN NAME!!!! Get them!!!!
FBI: Why? They didn't take anything that belongs to you.
Comcast: What??? Out contract with ICANN gives us unlimited access to the Comcast domain!
FBI: Right. And what does unlimited mean?
Comcast: Look, it's right here in Websters: "without any ..."
FBI: No, no, not that one, use your own internal glossary.
Comcast: Okay then, "unlimited: " ... ah, okay, see your point there.

Re:

[Lobster Quadrille]

Nobody's disputing the fact that they're humans, and personally I couldn't care less about the fact that the service is outsourced overseas. What irritates me is that the service is always sub-par, and the agents difficult to understand.

My company outsources its overflow support calls, a decision I've been contesting since they made it.

I know who did it...

[Thelasko]

It was the Slowskys [youtube.com].

Stupid password

[MarkGriz]

FTFA: "A brute force password attack is one possibility"

Right.... it was probably 1234 (same as most slashdotter's luggage)

Re:

[Constantine XVI]

Missed one.

12345.

Re:

[bsDaemon]

Wouldn't most slashdotter's luggage combo be 3142 ?

Re:

[Kitsune818]

You've gone from suck to blow.

Re:

[bsDaemon]

That was the combination to the door lock to the comp sci lab with the cluster and the sofas and stuff at my school. I was VP of our ACM chapter my Freshman year, so I got to know it. Still hasn't changed.

Re:

[Bryansix]

Great! Free Sofas everybody!

Thats just sad....

[antifoidulus]

not commenting on the hack, but the fact that a human being actually set up a tricorder in his(or his parents) bathroom to take a picture of himself using a bong, and then posted it on myspace.....

Re:Thats just sad....

[antifoidulus]

And its even more sad when a person commenting on something being sad doesn't know the difference between "tripod" and "tricorder"

If Comcast had sense...

[Pazy]

If Comcast has any sense they will try to hire the guys rather than drag them through the courts. We need people like this looking for and fixing flaws rather than exploiting them.

Re:

[Thelasko]

If Comcast has any sense they will try to hire the guys rather than drag them through the courts. We need people like this looking for and fixing flaws rather than exploiting them.

I couldn't disagree with you more. From reading the Wired article, it seems that these guys are just a bunch of scrip kiddies who got lucky. If Wired managed to track them down so quickly (through MySpace no less) than anyone can, including the FBI. If these guys were hired by Comcast they would spend their days getting paid to smoke their bongs, and nothing more. Comcast should be extremely embarrassed to be hacked by these two clowns.

Re:

[Lobster Quadrille]

You hire Kevin Mitnicks and Frank Abignales. You don't hire these morons.

Re:If Comcast had sense...

[ScentCone]

If Comcast has any sense they will try to hire the guys rather than drag them through the courts. We need people like this looking for and fixing flaws rather than exploiting them.

I have discovered that I can throw bricks through windows. But strangely, no glass manufacturers want to hire me to give them advice on the specifics of engineering brick-proof glass.

5 hours of downtime?

[192939495969798999]

Taking it may have been easy, but the shocker is that Network Solutions + Comcast don't have any kind of response time... 5 hours of someone else controlling a whole swath of high-traffic names sounds like a breach of contract to me. Shouldn't Network Solutions have re-aimed those back to the default values within seconds? There's nothing that they're using to keep track of huge changes like that? Weird... that's what i would do if I were running a domain registrar.

Karma

[kalislashdot]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company. Fuck you Comcast for killing my TechTV. I am glad this happened, good to get some egg on their face.

What about Network Solutions liability

[penguin_dance]

Technically they didn't break into Comcast, they broke into Network Solutions. They're the weak link. I like to bash Comcast as much as the next, but it was a breakdown in security at Network Solutions that allowed them to get into Comcast's registar and repoint their URLs.

Comcast's response proves they deserved it

[pseudorand]

> "Nobody was listening in on the ports to try and get usernames and password," says Defiant. "We could have, but we didn't." (On this point, Comcast and the hackers agree).

These guys are either total idiots for getting themselves in a lot of trouble with no gain for themselves or they are lying. Comcast, on the other hand, clearly has no way of knowing if customer information was compromise. They're relying on the word of two criminals who clearly don't like the company. Comcast's agreement in the state

Re:Expiring domains

[Flamora]

It wasn't even that Comcast's domain expired. The pair involved in this managed to gain access to Comcast's Network Solutions control panel and had full authoritative control over the domains.

Apparently, according to the linked articles, they pulled it off twice, too. This wasn't a case of "oh sweet, that's not registered anymore, yoink", it was a case of actual wresting of control.

The question is if the weakness in security lies with Comcast (i.e. a weak password for the panel) or Network Solutions (i.e. weakness in their portal, weak transmission of passwords, etc).

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Imagine what would happen if one central host were to host widely used AJAX libraries to help with caching and that host got its DNS mangled.

Maybe he's trolling and maybe not, but he's got a very good point, you have to admit.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[radish]

I don't give a shit about corporations, but I do give a shit about people getting caught up in the injustice system just because they fucked around with a corporation.
What about all the customers who got screwed? No access to email etc, the hassle of sitting on the phone with tech support trying to figure out why nothing works. Comcast didn't lose much but a huge number of people were quite seriously inconvenienced, all for no good reason.

Re:

[Bryansix]

Best advice? Don't use your own computer to do the hacking from.

Re:

[johnny cashed]

Best advice? Don't use your own computer to do the hacking from.

But they won't let me take a bong into the library.

Re:

[NotBornYesterday]

Better yet, they should have redirected it to BitTorrent.com, or piratebay.

Re:

[oahazmatt]

Better yet, they should have redirected it to BitTorrent.com, or piratebay.

No, they actually were smart not to do that.

Say these kids did just that. Now the question is, why did they do that? Were they told to do that? Are they working with or for Piratebay or Bittorrent?

Given the current torrent (...that was an unfortunate rhyme, I apologize) situation, even trying to associate this event with either of the aforementioned sites would have benefited no one except Comcast.

Re:

[NotBornYesterday]

You're absolutely right. I was being a wiseass. If they actually did that, they would have screwed things up royally. Not only would bittorrent be suspected, but they would probably be slashdotted by the traffic as well.

I'm just glad it was some annoyed stoners instead of Russian mafia identity thieves with look-alike counterfeit Comcast servers. Imagine the frickin' chaos then.

Re:

[parcel]

Comcast.net was acting weird all day yesterday. First the portal page was changed into a search-only page, which required a login to access all portal features. Then some features weren't working properly.

Nah, that wasn't the hack, that was just comcast being comcast. The hack was a redirect through DNS to a page that read: "KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBK RoXed COMCAST. sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven."

Re:

[parcel]

Wouldn't be surprised either way... was fortunate enough to dump comcast a few years ago, but ah, the memories... I especially liked this (from the broadbandreports forum on the hack):

Just called Comcast and my phone number didn't register..had account for 7 years with same number and the CSR insisted that I wasn't a customer. After putting me on hold for 10 minutes she said that the "internet just went down" and that until it comes back up I cannot access email. I told her that the internet was fine, just the comcast.net site.

Re:

[DragonTHC]

what laws did they break?

They lied about who they were. network solutions gave them access.

as far as I can see, all they did was lie. is that against the law?

network solutions should be held accountable.