Another NASA Hacker Indicted

eldavojohn writes "Earlier this year, UK citizen & hacker of NASA Gary KcKinnon was extradited to the United States (also interviewed twice). Now, another hacker has been indicted for hacking more than 150 U.S. government computers. Victor Faur, 26, of Arad, Romania claims to have led a 'white hat team' to expose flaws in U.S. government computers. It seems everyone else has been busy hacking into government systems while I've been wasting my time playing Warcraft." From the article: "The breached computers were used to collect and process data from spacecraft. Because of the break-ins, systems had to be rebuilt and scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft, resulting in $1.36 million in losses for NASA and nearly $100,000 in losses for the Energy Department and the Navy, prosecutors said. Several suspected NASA hackers have been dealing with law enforcement recently."

Re:Not very bright and certainl not "white hat"

[Anonymous Coward]

> It was fully of typos, bad commands, and just other terribly embarassing things.

Sounds like he has a bright future right here, on slashdot.

Manually Communicate?

[houstonbofh]

Because of the break-ins, systems had to be rebuilt and scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft
I can just see one of the guys standing outside NASA JSC yelling up at the sky, "How Ya'll doin up there?"

Re:Prove it

[loraksus]

What are you talking about? NASA had to hire hundreds of people to write the communications out by hand in binary and send over 200,000 pigeons to deliver it to the spacecraft (where they had significant issues with packet loss).
Those numbers are extremely conservative!

Re:Teh Interwebs

[The Zon]

It's NASA 2.0. They're looking for input from the community.

Re:Teh Interwebs

[nEoN nOoDlE]

so that the people manning the system can check their Gmail in between shuttle launches.

They can manually communicate with a spacecraft?

[DeQueue]

Because of the break-ins, systems had to be rebuilt and scientists and engineers had to manually communicate with spacecraft...

Did they use an a hitchhiker style Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic electronic thumb or just a towel?
Dequeue
"Insert witty .sig here"

I'm a "White Hat" hacker too

[Infonaut]

I just hacked my way into the Bank of America, just to test its security. The fact that I managed to dowload millions of user account files with sensitive personal information I could sell to unscrupulous characters is *totally* beside the point of my wholly beneficial White Hat Crusade.

Next week, I'll be mounting a White Hat Mission to test the security of Apple's online ordering system. If a few dozen dual core machines find their way to my house, it's a sacrifice I must make for the greater good!

US Government is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft, hacking government systems are the SS/Evis - 2 button "I Win" rogues of hacking.

Everyone knows all you do is type in login: admin and no password to get root access to every branch of the US.

If you want a real challenge, try identifying and hacking other hackers computers.

Honestly the US is a joke - my boss asked me to do background checks on new employees to check for criminal records (doesn't bar employment) and red flags, so I logged into the NSA's highest admin (again, l/p = admin/(blank)). Ok so that's not true, they probably changed the password to "God" since then.

Chuckle, chuckle...

[DaedalusHKX]

I've worked both private and public research before, the reason that you can keep your network private, is because most privateers can simply buy government sponsored research that suits them, have it paid for by the government, and later have the results they bought "classified" as "top secret" or "of national security interest".

I've been there, i've seen that, done that, got tshirt and beer mug... They're just crucifying kids, because inquisitive minds, for better or worse, when coupled with direct action (they didn't wait for 20 years for anyone's approval) scare the crap out of the dictatorial regimes of the world, our dear old US included.

"In a democracy, you vote first, and take orders later, in a dictatorship, they spare you the trouble of choosing your tyrants and th wasted energy used up voting." ~unknown