Famed ATM Hacker Barnaby Jack Dies Days Before Black Hat Conference 110
wiredmikey writes "A shocking and sad day today in the security industry. Well known hacker Barnaby Jack has passed away, sending a shock through the security community. Jack, a famed white hat hacker, was scheduled to present at the Black Hat conference on Tuesday, and present research on vulnerabilities in implantable medical devices. Shocked reactions hit the Twittersphere on Friday, as many in the industry conveyed their condolences, shock, and even disbelief, hoping new of the death was some sort of hoax. 'I just wake up and heard this, really sad, I can't believe this, no words,' Cesar Cerrudo, CTO, IOActive Labs, said in an email to SecurityWeek. Barnaby Jack is probably best known for his ATM hacking demonstrations, which he liked to refer as 'Jackpotting,' and performed at a few conferences, including a demonstration at Black Hat 2010 that got media attention around the world. The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office told Reuters that Jack had died in San Francisco on Thursday, but did not provide additional details."
Myes, myes... (Score:5, Insightful)
. The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office told to Reuters that Jack had died in San Francisco on Thursday, but did not provide additional details."
Well, that is the official version of events, yes. -- NSA
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Last month or so? What happened - did you sober up or something?
Business As Usual. Nothing to see here, comrade. Move along, please.
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Why is the parent marked troll? A young guy dies days before he was going to give a lecture during a security conference, and they won't say how he died?
How does that *not* sound suspicious?
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't sound suspicious at all if you think about it. It takes an autopsy to determine cause of death, and that takes a few days at least.
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't sound suspicious at all
I disagree. The guy was 34-35. Presumably he didn't get hit by a truck or shot in the head, as you don't need an ME to figure out the basic cause. Do people that age just drop dead? Sure, sometimes, especially if they have known serious health problems. Even if they don't, it can happen (e.g. major aneurysm due to congenital weakness in an artery). It doesn't happen very often though.
I'm no conspiracy theorist and I wouldn't go around screaming ah ha! A little suspicion though, when it happens a few days before a hacker conference, and considering other things that have been happening lately, is another story.
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do people that age just drop dead?
Yes they do. Not often, but it happens. I had "sudden cardiac death". I'm alive because it happened in an emergency room in front of a doctor. They called code, and brought me back. I was 30. I'm still here at 45, 5 bypasses, a defibrillator implant and 8 stents later. The odds increase if you consider this researcher was probably a nerd like most of us, meaning he was probably sedentary most of the time, and probably didn't exactly eat the best stuff for his health.
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:4, Informative)
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The question is whether or not the probability of dieing is significantly higher when you are about to appear at a hacker converence to discuss the hacking of implanted medical devices.
Maybe he accidentally caused a kernel panic on his own pacemaker while he was preparing his slides??
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In the deaths of most young people an autopsy is performed precisely for the reasons you state. Unless the cause of death is readily apparent, most younger people are healthy enough that they do not just fall over dead. The results of the autopsy won't and can't be known for a couple days but there are plenty of non-spectacular causes of death the least of which is drugs or alcohol.
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My point is not "There's no way this death COULD have been suspicious."
My point is "The reason a cause of death hasn't been released yet is because an autopsy and subsequent biochemical analysis takes time." There are blood tests to run, arteries to check, stomach contents to evaluate, etc, etc, etc. A lot of that is done by the doctor performing the autopsy, but confirmation takes a little while.
So while I acknowledge that the *death* may or may not turn out to be suspicious, the fact that we don't know th
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What are we supposed to do with all this tin foil until then?
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I agree with you, which is why I wasn't responding to you.
Jumping to conclusions without evidence at this point is frankly, indicative of a behavior I would expect from the pleb and not from the type of people that I would normally assume browse this site.
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Suicide does the trick.
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It doesn't sound suspicious at all
I disagree. The guy was 34-35. Presumably he didn't get hit by a truck or shot in the head, as you don't need an ME to figure out the basic cause. Do people that age just drop dead? Sure, sometimes, especially if they have known serious drug problems.
FTFY...not saying this guy did, but probably most high profile deaths with people his age are due to drug ODs
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It doesn't sound suspicious at all if you think about it. It takes an autopsy to determine cause of death, and that takes a few days at least.
Lies. I watch NCIS and know an autopsy only takes the time to ride an elevator to the basement. Of course, the body is usually either clothed, or a bright light is shining upon his nether-regions, which are suspiciously eunich-like... so maybe it only works on aliens mascarading as marines.
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But they have exceptional people at NCIS. I've watched Timothy McGee crack a 256 bit symmetrical cipher in an afternoon using just his desktop PC which is especially astonishing given that the way he delivered the line "256 bit symmetrical cipher" strongly implied that he had no clue what a 256 bit symmetrical cipher is.
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But it was awesome nonsense . . .
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This is one data point, nothing to make any assumptions on. If you had perfect knowledge of all the people involved in that hacker conference, and what happened to them in the months leading up to the conference, you'd see all sorts of strange occurrences in their lives that ALSO don't imply nefarious government action.
Remember, this is the country where airline travel decreased by 30% after 9/11. Sure, there
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How does that *not* sound suspicious?
NDAA, Obamanation's executive order kill list, Department of Human Sacrifice 2 bbbbbbillion rounds of hollowpoint ammo on taxpayer funds, fast and furious, suspicious? NAH.
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Clearly it was suicide, he couldn't handle the fame so he shot himself with 3 different firearms.
Re:Myes, myes... (Score:4, Funny)
He actually had to reload one of them.
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Sometimes people just die (Score:1)
Sometimes people just die.
Sometimes people get killed.
Sometimes people get killed by agencies funded by (yet unaccountable to) the United States Federal Government.
Not saying that's what happened. Just saying...
Nothing to see, move on. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see, move on. (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop killing the fun. Paranoia is my favorite hobby.
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Amateur.
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A 50% chance of passing away prior to the start of the gathering and a 50% chance of passing away after the start of the gathering.
No. That math only works if you pick a time frame for the 'before' and 'after'. Otherwise, you've got years after, and much higher odds.
And if you pick a time frame, the 'nothing to see here' part no longer applies.
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I don't think you have much of a future as an insurance actuary.
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A 50% chance of passing away prior to the start of the gathering and a 50% chance of passing away after the start of the gathering.
That's not how statistics work.
The guy was 35 years old and his chances of passing away before the start of Black Hat should have been significantly less than 50%, barring any pre-existing medical conditions or risky behaviors.
Someone needs to relearn their statistics (Score:2)
Based on misreported deaths -- e.g., John Denver's death by aircraft misreported a week before the actual event -- there is a small (let's be generous, call it 0.1% ) chance that he did not die as of the time of publication by Reuters.
Because of that, his chance of dying after the Black Hat conference is nowhere close to 50%. His chance of dying before the event was less than, but approaches, 100%.
We adjust statistics to reflect known facts and known probabilities. The reports of his death are a known fac
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Could I settle this? Not to use your wording but I agree, I was being snotty. You could call it "but-that" if you want. But my point did have to do with staistics, insofar as you need to use the best available data.
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Hacked by Time (Score:1)
We are all honey pots for entropy
Shitty (Score:5, Interesting)
That sucks.
He was an interesting character. He helped me sneak a girl into a hacker party at the Peppermill one year during Defcon. No one that drank with him, even once, will ever forget him.
God had better keep an eye on him. If the pearly gates have any exploits, he'll find them.
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Sounds like an interesting person. However, I'm not sure I'd call him "famed" as TFA does, as he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
(Which I'm sure will appear before long - once you're dead, everybody and their dog have always been your fans.)
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Sounds like an interesting person. However, I'm not sure I'd call him "famed" as TFA does, as he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.
(Which I'm sure will appear before long - once you're dead, everybody and their dog have always been your fans.)
So that's what I got to do to get my dog to like me? Everyone said to try peanut butter....
I kid I kid. ;)
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Money (Score:3)
Reuters link dead (Score:1)
Try this instead: http://www.reuters.com/search?blob=barnaby+jack [reuters.com]
age 35 young for a heart attack (Score:2)
Stuff is getting serious (Score:2)
That's just the thing here. Banking controls the world right now. We think it is government, but it's pretty much banking and money. As the global financial crisis comes closer to "the end of things" it's getting more and more serious. Now that the people hacking, cracking and exploiting vulnerabilities in money systems and services are becoming heroes to the people, the government can no longer be trusted to handle these people through official means.
We're going to see a lot more assassinations and my
Does anyone know... (Score:1)
Does anyone know if (by any chance) he had a pacemaker?
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It's not "hacking" when the government just uses the access codes to your pacemaker that the manufacturer so thoughtfully gave to them.
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Anybody knows what Jack died from?
Well, SOMEbody does. But they're not telling.
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You know, I can't say I'm a big fan of the President but that drivel you spout is ridiculous in the extreme. The fantasy world you live in makes Hollywood movies seem realistic. I'd be willing to bet my life that President Obama never ordered anyone to cluster bomb a village filled with women and children. It is possible that the military targeted a site thought to be a terrorist camp and it was filled with women and children. Maybe, but I doubt even that happened. You see, women and children are targ
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Like I said, maybe. Collateral damage is not targeting someone. Collateral damage is what happens when a rocket launcher is shooting at you and you shoot back blowing up the launcher and, unfortunately, the people in the neighborhood where the launcher is located. For this reason people usually flee war zones but many times terrorists actually block people from leaving so they can up the likelihood of collateral damage.
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Your definition is also correct. There is no way to fight a war in an occupied city without killing civilians. In the parent's post however he made it sound as if those guys in that trailer were actually targeting the woman with the baby which is stupid. Even absent the wrongness of that it makes no sense even from a practical standpoint because it's a waste of resources to kill those that can't conceivably be a threat. The only way to avoid civilian deaths is to give up and leave. I can say that I thi
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A month ago the idea that the US government was monitoring the entire internet, had access to every major ISPs records and could listen to anyone's phone calls at any time was a joke. Now look where we're at. I'm not saying we have to believe the wildest of conspiracy theories but at this point we have no baseline from which to compare. What the NSA is doing with their spying is so outrageous that I can no longer use common sense to judge if a conspiracy theory about their actions is more or less likely. Ju
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Actually, the joke was more like an ad on a college bulletin board:
"Did you know that the NSA is not only interested in spying, but also funds research in almost every field of university study? ... if you would like an application form for an NSA grant, call your mother and ask for one...."
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A month ago the idea that the US government was monitoring the entire internet, had access to every major ISPs records and could listen to anyone's phone calls at any time was a joke.
Was it? It seemed totally plausible to me.
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I'd be willing to bet my life that President Obama never ordered anyone to cluster bomb a village filled with women and children. It is possible that the military targeted a site thought to be a terrorist camp and it was filled with women and children.
Yeah, if your second sentence is true, then your first sentence is false.
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Not so. An order by the military is not an order from Obama. This may come as a shock, but the the military occasionally acts without Obama's direct knowledge. If the first sentence is true, then Obama said "Bomb this place." The second sentence can happen entirely without that scenario.
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Ah! Someone who can read and comprehend. I actually think most deliberately misunderstand out of spite.