PBS Web Sites and Databases Hacked 387
wiredmikey writes "Late Sunday night, hackers gained access to several areas of PBS Web servers and were able publish a fake news story on a PBS news blog. The group also published PBS internal user login information that they were able to siphon out of PBS databases. The fake story was about rapper Tupac Shakur, who died in 1996 after being shot in Las Vegas, being been found alive and well in a small resort in New Zealand. A group going by the name of 'LulzSec' claimed responsibility for the hack, saying the attack was a protest against a PBS Frontline broadcast last week about WikiLeaks."
Once apon a time (Score:4, Insightful)
not any more :(
Re:Once apon a time (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. I don't find it amusing at all.
Now I find it illuminating. It seems that too much effort is spent making Javascript animated menus and Flash sliding widgets and not enough effort is spent on patches, updates, and decent password policy. Corporate culture prioritizes pretty pictures to sell us more shit we don't need. Meanwhile our personal information - and therefore capacity to buy said shit - is in danger of being leaked.
From Sony to PBS and HBGary in between, too many companies are Doing It Wrong.
Re:Once apon a time (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate culture prioritizes pretty pictures to sell us more shit we don't need.
And yet, isn't PBS a non-profit?
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Sort of.
They don't pay dividends, but they do have highly-paid executives. They take money from taxpayers, and additionally have advertising: their shows are all standard "44 minute hours" with the remaining time taken up letting us all know about how this show was made possible by a grant from the buystufffromus corporation.
As an aside, I really fail to see how "not paying dividends" became some kind of measure of a company's altruism. Let alone a positive one.
Re:Once apon a time (Score:4, Informative)
Non-profit status means that no-one who invests money gets a return on it. Your premise is essentially that people who invest labor shouldn't get compensation and that is absurd - there is no organization of any significant size in the world where the people who do the work are purely volunteers. Even priests get paid.
Being a non-proifit does NOT make an organization qualify for government hand-outs - hell, PLENTY of for-profit orgs qualify for government hand-outs. I'd even go so far as to wager that most government hand-outs in the USA go to for-profit corps. All that "non-profit' status means is that donations aren't taxed.
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Even priests get paid.
And I heard one of them saying that the benefits are out of this world!
Re:Once apon a time (Score:5, Informative)
Now I find it illuminating. It seems that too much effort is spent making Javascript animated menus and Flash sliding widgets and not enough effort is spent on patches, updates, and decent password policy. Corporate culture prioritizes pretty pictures to sell us more shit we don't need. Meanwhile our personal information - and therefore capacity to buy said shit - is in danger of being leaked.
The Javascript animated menus and Flash widgets are cheap. They're (largely) a one-time cost that is often subsidized by being the same underlying code being packaged and sold to multiple clients. Hire someone to deploy a customized CMS and voila - done.
Patching, updating, and enforcing standards is expensive. You have to hire people to constantly follow the process. Those processes take paid hours. If you're doing it right, you're hiring staff that aren't also implementing aforementioned systems serving menus and widgets. And to avoid down-time and (most) ugly surprises, it takes additional investment in infrastructure as well.
You're right in so far as organizations often get it wrong. But flashy widgets is not the reason.
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The solution is to increase the cost of failure to the point where it makes sense to hire someone to prevent it. In theory we can already do that in the UK but so far every guilty company has managed to wriggle out of it (ACS:Law, for example, had his fine reduced from £200,000 to £10,000 by claiming poverty).
I'd suggest a minimum £100 per person affect, plus the provision of free identity protection and an unlimited liability for any fraud that occurs as a result. Enact
I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:2)
Re:I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprisingly, crimes do not become okay just because some asshole on the internet laughed at them.
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Not some asshole on the internet.
Some asshole on slashdot.
Not so surprising now.
Re:I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. They broke into a computer network, stole and released username/password combos, and mocked the system admins as they tried to regain control of the site. They have shown a pattern of criminal behavior, attacking anyone who dares say something they don't like. They are crooks, and should be treated as such.
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sometimes people die, sometimes people are physically hurt, sometimes people are mentally hurt, sometimes people are financially hurt.... and sometimes a website gets scribbled on. I do think there's some king of gradation of wrongdoing, and this is not very high.. it ranks like a leak of the latest iPhone... barely... We should focus on the important stuff.
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Bullshit. They broke into a computer network, stole and released username/password combos, and mocked the system admins as they tried to regain control of the site. They have shown a pattern of criminal behavior.
Still, far better that they revealed it, than keeping the username/password combos secret and using them to crack bank accounts of people who stupidly re-use passwords.
And better that they deface the site causing the sysadmins to fix the problems, rather than just ignoring it or sending an email to support@pbs.org where the message will probably never make it to the person who needs to hear it.
If it were one of my websites, I'd much prefer someone defaced the home page and informed my users that their pass
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Yes, they gave those usernames and passwords out so OTHER could do it instead.
Re:I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:5, Insightful)
They did not do this as an act of good will. They did not do this in an effort to inform others about possible security holes. They did this because Frontline presented both sides of an argument about Wikileaks and these losers didn't like people saying anything bad about their idol.
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Who is "they"? Or "They", possibly?
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mocked the system admins
OMG! Is nothing sacred anymore? These people are MONSTERS who need to be hunted down and killed like rabid dogs.
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But they did it for the lulz, I heard that made it all ok.
Re:I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea it is no worse than burning books, or a cross on someones lawn, or painting graffiti on a synagogue. As long as no gets hurt is is all good right? I mean after all those actions do only about as much damage if any at all. I agree people are just too dang sensitive.
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Re:I still found it amusing; harmless and humorous (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell you what, we will hack into your systems and give out your usernames/passwords. Then, you can tell us how it isn't serious. Right after you stop screaming for blood.
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That was your error. It never really was amusing. It has always been an attack on freedom of expression and in this case the press. There is a reason why vigilantes are not a good thing.
What I didn't find amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
...was my reaction to this story.
My first reaction was, "What? PBS? FrontLine? Really, guys, now you've gone too far."
But then, when I took a step back, I realized that I was portraying a double-standard. When Anonymous (or its derivatives) goes after Big-Corp, we all stand beside the hackers and shout out chants of "Yea, they're finally getting what's coming to them!" But when they attack an organization I have lots of respect for, it's only then where I feel that they've crossed a line.
But really, now that I see it, it is a double standard. When I now reflect on it all, it truly doesn't matter whether they are targeting an organization I have no respect for or one I have complete respect for. It is illegal. They are breaking the law and disrupting the business of the public. It needs to stop.
And shame on us for trying to rationalize a double standard.
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But really, now that I see it, it is a double standard. When I now reflect on it all, it truly doesn't matter whether they are targeting an organization I have no respect for or one I have complete respect for. It is illegal. They are breaking the law and disrupting the business of the public. It needs to stop.
Joking (but only half of... the other half just controversial)
No, it doesn't! It needs to continue until all the vulnerable sites go "extinct as a species". Not only it will be better for the site owners, but this will lead to a higher respect for security and better payment for ethical IT business/professionals.
Why is it better for the owners of the site to externalize the cost of securing their site to the tax-payers that need to support the cost of police/prosecution/incarceration of victim-less "hacki
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well, lets think about it one step deeper:
why did many of us condone or at least find humorous the initial 'big-corp' attacks? IIRC, it's because they (Visa/Mastercard, etc.) were cutting off services to Wikileaks. At the time it seemed they were doing this mainly based on allegations of illegal actions by Assange, the primary face for Wikileaks, but not Wikileaks. There were rather groundless assertions by the US that Wikileaks had done something illegal, but nothing that could really hold water. So, peopl
Re:What I didn't find amusing... (Score:4, Insightful)
> And shame on us for trying to rationalize a double standard.
there's nothing inherently wrong with double standards as long as you don't exclude inseparable externalities. (in which case there never really was a true double standard in the first place)
when people throw shoes at Pres. Bush, it's funny.
when people throw shoes at Stephen Hawking it's not.
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Re: Once upon a time (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Once upon a time (Score:4, Insightful)
But... (Score:3)
...criticizing liars associated with a political party makes you *partisan*!
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I love it when people pull this. My response to them is "No, Im just speaking my opinion. You are the one that wants to put labels on it."
A better idea! (Score:2)
Actually, I think posting real information will cause as much damage as defacing.
Just imagine how many people will experience terminal cognitive dissonance upon reading real news on Fox News!
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How pathetic you must be (Score:2)
Re: Once upon a time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Now if the post was about Elvis....
Although I agree this one was a terrible hack. It looks like some scrub that wants to gain some fame.
Re: Once upon a time (Score:5, Insightful)
Get real.
Other than extremists like the Tea Party, and people who don't want to hear the truth unless it's slanted toward what they want to believe, people who watch the media and track news know that PBS is good at reporting things as they are. (Polls even show that people on the left thing it's conservative and people on the right think it's liberal -- do the math -- if you're pissing off both sides, you're doing something right and reporting more news that biased parties don't want to hear.)
When it gets to the point that a news organization cannot try to do a balanced report without repercussions, it's not about revolutionaries, it's spoiled children who have to have their way.
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I tend to rate PBS as pretty middle of the road myself, but this reminded me of a sad case; a conservative I know, who typically calls PBS things such as "a libtard conspiracy to manipulate all the stupid people who have never held an honest job".
He's explained how all sorts of PBS shows are leftist. Clifford the Big RED Dog's a commie, of course. Any Science show with Alan Alda narrating is obviously 'socialist' too. The cap came when he explained to me how the travel and cooki
Cyber temper tantrum (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Cyber temper tantrum (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do what we want and spin the news as we like or we will hack your systems again only we won't be so nice" that is the clear message here. It is a small group telling someone else to censor their information.
Teh cult of Assange strikes again! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is ironic that they violated the very freedom they see as being threatened
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Yeah, I thought the same thing! By threatening anyone with a contrary opinion as theirs they're acting as censors - and apparently/supposedly that's what they were against the whole time.
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It is ironic that they violated the very freedom they see as being threatened
How did they violate it? Care to point to an information that shows that PBS was at any time in no position to express themselves?
Find 'em and lock 'em up (Score:5, Insightful)
These punks need to learn that there are consequences for their actions. The trolling culture on the internet today teaches kids (and man-children) that as long as you're laughing, you win, and there are never any consequences for fucking with people. A reminder of how the real world works is long overdue.
Re:Find 'em and lock 'em up (Score:5, Insightful)
That is how the real world works.
I agree. (Score:2)
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Take off the mask, Butters. We know it's you.
Consequences for who? (Score:2)
Good luck, they're behind 7 proxies.
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Al Jazeera has been doing a pretty good job covering what Anonymous is for [aljazeera.net]. They have a slightly different take than you, because they actually have a sense of proportion.
Posting a spoof story is about as far from reason to get all high-and-mighty as possible. I'd try to mock you for your dudgeon, but it'd be like quoting Sarah Palin. The kids gotta practice on something.
That said, this smells an awful lot like lalalalaican'theeeerrrreyouuu, and I hope they get properly shamed for it.
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This act is a protest. It is not censorship. They did not attempt to censor anybody.
They want to, though. That was the whole idea, or did you miss the point about the hacker group wanting to retaliate for a story that the hackers perceive as "anti-Anonymous."
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Here is a prank, and there is your sense of proportion that you left on the side of the road about 20 miles ago....
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I see, so in your mind, breaking and entering into your house or business would be a prank as well, yes?
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Poor old APK, well known malware author, just cant stand his own irrelevance, and status as resident joke, even better he always posts as AC then complains about others doing so.
Face it APK you are the troll around here, and everyone but you knows it.
The fact you think you win with your trolling is hillarious, Tom Hudson made you look a complete fool, and in your delusion you believe otherwise. Every time you post you make yourself look more stupid to everyone, to the point you are a running joke in peoples
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Wikileaks and...Tupac? (Score:2)
"...A group going by the name of 'LulzSec' claimed responsibility for the hack, saying the attack was a protest against a PBS Frontline broadcast last week about WikiLeaks."
And, they chose to fabricate a story about Tupac "Elvis" Shakur to get their point across? Way to go...I'm sure people can find the correlation in there somewhere...
Streisand Effect (Score:5, Interesting)
If they really didn't like what Frontline had to say, they could have at least made their fake story a fake-retraction of the points they had a problem with. As Frontline is probably the most accurate docunews show on american television, if they pissed off some script kiddies, chances are the script kiddies are in the wrong.
I didn't bother to watch the show because I assumed that following wikileaks closely over the years I probably already knew everything they had to say. As it is now, I am going to go watch that episode (it is Frontline Season 29, Episode 13 titled "Wikisecrets" and was posted to usenet in full 1080i about 3 days ago).
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2001 just called and they want their lame expression back.
Goes back years before 2001. Meanwhile I don't see you coming up with anything more hip.
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> Meanwhile I don't see you coming up with anything more hip
I kinda like "scriptdiots" but my favorite one is definitely "hackerz" (or "hack3rz" to go more extreme)
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FWIW, dissident groups often adopt terms used by the opposition as derogatory labels. Puritans is one. Quakers is another. Beatnik is another. Hippie wasn't originally used as a derogatory label, but being used as one didn't make those into that culture change their name. Punk has always been a derogatory term. (Originally, I believe, is was derogatory slang for a homosexual meaning gunsel.)
Now I'd need proof before I'd consider this group to be hackers. I actually think that "script kiddies" is prob
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They don't really bother to define "hacker" and they're pretty free with the term. Leads the average viewer to think there are organized, known clubs at universities structured around breaking into other people's computer systems.
Wait, are you saying the movie Hackers wasn't a documentary? Damn, I guess I shouldn't trust my technolust. I guess I'll throw away my roller blades and that useless eyepiece display thingie [wikipedia.org]
You can watch the FrontLine episode here (Score:5, Insightful)
You can watch the Frontline episode on PBS's website [pbs.org]. I love how PBS publishes a lot of their TV content online.
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You can watch the Frontline episode on PBS's website [pbs.org].
And many of us now will. WikiLeaks is about to learn the full force of the Streisand Effect.
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PBS Is Very Commercial Nowadays... (Score:2)
Not to justifying the hacking per se, but many PBS stations have strayed far from their roots of serving the public interest.
Nowadays, minutes long blocks of advertising have become routine on many PBS stations. Combined with "bugs" - often multiple! TV station logo in one corner often along others, such as E/I, in another - what the heck E/I means is beyond me other than being more annoying clutter on the screen.
And as for excessive corporate executive pay, yep PBS has that too. The head of WHYY, which ser
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Do you have alternate funding schemes in mind?
Whodunit? (Score:2)
I think the Cookie Monster did it.. it makes sense, right?
Sounds lame and jerk (Score:2)
All about the lulz: (Score:2)
Did anybody expect much else?
Attributing noble (or for that matter focused evil) motives to anonymous is a bit silly.
They'd be about as happy if it was the neo-nazis or Mother Theresa that they'd hit as long as someone has their panties in a knot due to them.
You can likely sum up their reaction to some slashdotters being in a tizzy because they hit PBS Frontline as "Mission accomplished!"
Internet Taliban (Score:2)
The Internet Taliban strike again. Anything they don't like, any opinions they don't like, they physically attack. Are they so dim that they can't see their 'fight for internet freedom' is based on bringing to the internet the threat of attack and the imposing of fear on dissenters? Do they believe their actions are any different than religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan burning down schools?
Here's a tip for the hackers/crackers: even if your beliefs and opinions are hypothetically 100% correct, if you
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I disagree with you on many points here. I think Wikileaks is acting irresponsibly and that if a member of the military did leak that info I feel they are not heros but criminals. However the biggest problem I have with your post is that you are declaring Manning guilty of the action before he has had a trail. You may voice any opinion you feel is truthful about the actions but I would ask you to refrain from declaring Manning guilty. It is unfair to him as he is innocent until proven guilty.
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You see that is the thing. If I had been like Anon or this other bunch of losers I would have hacked Slashdot and removed your post or defaced it. And then you might have done the same.
Adults discuss and eventually if they are real grown ups respectfully disagree. That is how a democracy works. Using power to restrict the honest exchange of ideas and opinons is an evil act. It doesn't make the act any less evil if that power is technical knowledge instead of wealth or political power.
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It is fortunate that acting irresponsibly which I feel Wikileaks is doing is not illegal. The discussion really isn't about wikileaks, Manning, or Iraq. What it should be about is way too many people on Slashdot approving of vigilantly revenge and censorship. On that subject I see are in agreement.
As to Canada's action that is one of those things that really only history will know for sure. If what you say is accurate does not not sound different from what FDR did before the US entered WWII.
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Now, here's another case of leaking: Thomas Drake [newyorker.com]. Wha
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I am not Canadian so I feel I have no right to say if your government is right or wrong. As a US citizen I have the greatest affection for Canada. They are the best neighbors we could ask for and I have enough respect for them to say your government is up to you.
I am Canadian. Feel free, as an American, to say whatever you wish about my country's government. Many of us in Canada and in other countries around the world have no qualms saying things about the American government, good or bad, so turnaround is fair play.
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Even when the information leaked unveils government lawbreaking, corruption and deception? Some priorities you have there....
Re:Manning is a hero. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather know: my representative is really an asshole,
Oh he is.
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He sure as hell is.
He has more courage in a few skin cells than a piece of shit like you has in an entire body.
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He sure as hell is.
He has more courage in a few skin cells than a piece of shit like you has in an entire body.
Being brave is not the same as being a hero. Maybe most people would agree that Manning is very brave. However, being a hero suggests that the brave person pursues a laudable goal. Whether Manning's actions were praiseworthy is a questions on which people's opinions vary widely.
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If you're polling fascists and authoritarians, sure....
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In case you haven't noticed, the last decade in the US is all about a creep towards fascism. I'm not there so I don't know what it's like on main street but: just read Reddit: Politics [reddit.com] for a week or two straight - just to see what goes by. I've hardly ever seen things there covered on mainstream national - facing the international community - sites but if 1% of the local coverage there is to be believed: Fuck.
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Sir! YES SIR! I will absolutely do whatever it is you say to do, SIR!
I will faithfully follow your orders with unquestionable loyalty even in violation of the rights of the US Constitution, and the treaties our governments have sworn to uphold -- These mean nothing to me now that you are my commanding officer, SIR!
As your soldier I have signed my morals away for the duration of my service period! Humanity, be damned, I will not disobey an order no matter how illegal or immoral! SIR, I know it is your
traitor is defined in the constitution (Score:3)
Treason is defined in the constitution to prevent reactionary fools from using it as some form of blasphemy to lynch people they do not like.
Manning is no traitor. FACT.
He may have violated his contract while arguably defending the constitution he swore his life to defend. Should he be punished? Yes. the degree is to be decided hopefully in a reasonable fashion - what he may have done was far far greater than wasting his life in Iraq for a neocon wet dream. Yes, I just said they are dying OF something (like
Re:Manning is a hero. (Score:5, Informative)
You're an authoritarian fool, and a tool. Manning also swore an oath to defend the Constitution, something both Democrats and Republicans have been using for a snot rag since 911. Manning unveiled government lawbreaking, corruption and deception.
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muslims . . . . pinata . . .
I suspect that you've mixed up your cultures, as well as your metaphors.
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To be safe, they're going to have to close over 9000 ports.
PBS is not the government (Score:3)
PBS is a private non-profit organization. WGBH (which produces Frontline) is owned by private foundation.
Where does the government come in here?
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The government, through the CPB, gives public television dollars a year, which makes them government owned. Also, they're public, not private, so they must be government owned/run.
Yeah, it's stupid. But it seems easier for people to categorize in a false government/for-profit dichotomy than to say something legitimate... especially when making partisan attacks.
For the record: republican, loves NPR and PBS, gives them money. They may not have liked the frontline report (haven't seen it, don't doubt it does
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For some reason ftp.pbs.org has port 21 open for business. Can someone explain to me why they aren't using SFTP on 22?
Anonymous FTP? Hopefully they're not stupid enough to use it with passwords.
Re:Frontline is an AWESOME show (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I've seen, the thing that might have pissed people off is that they did not portray Manning as a hero. Actually, they talked about his personal life problems before and after he started leaking data. Which to me, insinuated (intentionally, or otherwise) that the guy did what he did, not out of a sense of justice, but because his life was fucked up.