Melbourne Teen Hacked Into Apple's Secure Computer Network, Court Told (theage.com.au) 125
A Melbourne private schoolboy who repeatedly broke into Apple's secure computer systems is facing criminal charges after the technology giant called in the FBI. From a report: The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke into Apple's mainframe from his suburban home on multiple occasions over a year because he was such a fan of the company, according to his lawyer. The Children's Court heard on Thursday that he had downloaded 90GB of secure files and accessed customer accounts. His offending from the age of 16 saw him develop computerized tunnels and online bypassing systems to hide his identity until a raid on his family home uncovered a litany of hacking files and instructions all saved in a folder titled "hacky hack hack."
Re: Not "Hacky McHackface?" (Score:2)
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Hacky hack hack (Score:1)
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Hackity Hack. Don't talk back.
And now (Score:1)
... going to jaily jail jail
Mainframe? (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, considering how much they generally understand of technology today...
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Aww, don't spoil it. At least wait 'til the first ones replied with foam coming from their mouth.
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The mainframe business is alive and well. Read up on some of the new features of these beasts.
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I didn't see anything about source code, they mentioned access keys. They probably used it for employee info and payroll and that kind of thing. Oddly enough IBM has been buying a lot of Apple hardware for corporate. They said yes the initial outlay was greater but the costs were saved with less support and help desk calls.
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You mean all the keyboards that Apple has to repair out of their own pocket?
I hope it teaches them a fucking lesson about screwing a perfectly good keyboard design just to shave off 1mm of the thickness of their fucking laptops.
Long live the MacBook Air!
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It will cost a lot to Apple, which is my point.
As for IBM, it will cost them time so we can only wish they'll put even more pressure on Apple about fixing this problem and maybe not letting the industrial designer in charge of fucking everything the next time around. When your engineers tell you "enough is enough" it's time to back off.
What's his fucking goal, anyway? A paper-thin laptop?
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Re:Mainframe? (Score:4, Informative)
At one point, Apple had a line of servers that ran AIX [wikipedia.org].
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I think I read the latest z series can run Windows. It already runs UNIX (sorta) and Linux. It'd be funny to fire up a test LPAR with windows, and run some games.
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Its 2000 clustered IPods.
Re: Mainframe? (Score:2)
Flash forward (Score:3)
Re:Flash forward (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. Sorry to burst that bubble, but a criminal record is not a letter of recommendation.
Or, in the words of an ex-boss of mine "I don't need people with a criminal record. People who don't know how not to get caught are bad for the company reputation".
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Actually, he paid quite handsomely. You do want to pay the people who could easily blow up your operation without leaving a trace well so they want your operation to continue. Pure self interest.
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Never heard of Frank Abagnale, who was hired by the FBI after committing years of fraud? Loyd Blankenship, a hacker for more than a decade, who was then was hired by Steve Jackson Games in 1989 to work on GURPS Cyberpunk. Howabout Peter Hajas, a well known developer/hacker for jailbroken iOS devices, was hired by Apple in 2011?
The list goes on and on.
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Got anyone in the more recent past? Like, say, in the past decade or two?
Back then, three letter agencies and even companies hired criminals, until they noticed that a criminal isn't suddenly turning around just because you pay him to do so.
The first thing you get asked for in ANY IT security related job is a police record. And if there's more on it than a parking violation, don't bother to apply, you just waste your, and my, time.
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Frank wasn't hired by the FBI, Frank accepted a deal to stay out of prison by being a slave for the FBI. Jailbreaking phones isn't a federal offence, and a single example from 1989 isn't going to hold up in today's environment.
Hackers used to have credibility and respect in certain circles, but no one cares about those dumb fucks anymore with their endless malware and shit. Who's seriously going to hire a malicious kiddo fuck whose only desire is to smash and break, and steal anything they can get their gre
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And, this kid will be making big bucks using his skills for Apple or some other tech giant.
Or locked in a small flat in Knightsbridge, like that other famous Melbourne schoolboy hacker, Mendax.
aha! (Score:2)
until a raid on his family home uncovered a litany of hacking files and instructions all saved in a folder titled "hacky hack hack."
{cornpone down-homey voice}See, there's yer problem right there ... {/cornpone down-homey voice}
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Had he called it "furry porn", nobody would have dared to touch it with a ten foot pole.
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Steganographic encryption on top of Hillary email archive dump. Even if FBI suspects there is data hidden in these, nobody would want to look into it.
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Great, now I have to search for "ten foot pole furry porn" just to see what results I'll get.
Poor kid (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel really sorry for young hackers like this, who are just doing the exploration for fun and not really in it for espionage or destructive motives... this is one case where I really wish Apple would have hired him to do security testing and not sent his life on a downward spiral.
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A fan of Apple would have told Apple that their system is hackable.
Yes, exactly... (Score:2)
That's kind of what I was thinking as well, he wasn't really a HACKER hacker (despite what his folder naming would indicate). He was more just an explorer, a miner who delved too deep...
So Apple hiring him would not be so much to unveil technical secrets as more to explore what commercial/free exploits could be used to access Apple systems and then reverse engineer how those worked.
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So where exactly are you falling on the spectrum these days?
I'm a big fan of indigo (specifically 463nm), or infa-red (more specifically 750-800nm).
Thanks for asking!
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That was not his question, you idiot.
Me, I'm a fan of the ZX Spectrum +3 because it was the first ZX Spectrum to support 384KB of RAM and microSD cards up to 4MB.
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Oh! Well in that case I have to say even though they got the name wrong, I prefer the ZX Spectrum labeled the Timex Sinclair 2068 as it's the second system I learned to program on (following the ZX-81, but of course that doesn't count as it's not on the Spectrum).
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On one hand I agree with you in principle, but on the other it's probably best that somebody set this kid straight before he went too far down the wrong path. This should serve as a valuable lesson on the dangers of Apple fanboyism.
Re:Poor kid (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's sad, but there's so many people using the word "principal" when they meant to use "principle" that I feel obligated to give you this virtual moderation:
+1, Proper grammar.
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That to me is the line though, I don't feel like what the kid did was meant to harm in any way, therefore even though he broke the law, I'm not sure I see what he did ethically as a crime... or at least not on the same level as a hacker breaking (not just breaking into) systems.
If he just gets community service that seems appropriate to me also; I just fear it will be a lot worse than that for him.
Danger is extradition (Score:2)
An Australian court will at most give the kid a suspended sentence. Probably not even that.
But if they get him to the USA it is a long stretch in jail and a ruined life.
So that is extradition that is the key issue here. And of course he can never visit the USA.
It won't happen again (Score:1)
Hack me once, shame on you. Hack me twice... you can't get hacked again.
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hehe, i miss that guy, who wudda thunk
Hello, Editor? (Score:2)
Someone should proof read this article. My 5 month old great dane can write better than whoever put this dumpster fire together.
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Apple has since fixed it, but there was a little icon on their page with a 'pi' symbol on it, he must have found that and clicked on it.
Genius haxx0r (Score:1)
Apparantly his "tunelling" and "bypassing" sk1llz were not so l337.
I mean how did they trace him back if he used them to "hide his identity"...
Classic "journalists". The kid probably guessed an ssh account and password and logged into some BSD box and downloaded whatever the thing had access to. Next thing you know he is a spy-master adolescent genius on the verge of hacking the planet into oblivion and seven SWAT teams, backed by tanks and F16s have to neutralize the "threat" to the Free World, the Purity
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chown is a dirty word, i am just waiting till we start the war against cyber terrorism. that will go well.
Re: Genius haxx0r (Score:3)
I mean how did they trace him back if he used them to "hide his identity"...
By contacting the owners of the machines he was tunneling through and getting them to watch for the next time he connected. This is why you shouldn't reuse tunnels when doing this kind of thing.
Seriously a "mainframe" (Score:2)
Seriously thou from the sounds of it, I would wager he got into the internal network of a local Apple store
Serial Number Question (Score:1)
How did Apple know the serial numbers of the computers that accessed their network?
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apple spies on all their devices
So its not just the Russians (Score:2)
Even the Aussies are hacking our computers - maybenow Trump will do something about it
I didn't know ValuHack worked on Apple PCs (Score:2)
I wonder who this mystery teen could be.... (Score:2)
https://www.itnews.com.au/news... [itnews.com.au]
Perhaps the one that was publishing iPhone leaks for months?
Nah....
Inconcievable! (Score:2)
A Melbourne private schoolboy who repeatedly broke into Apple's secure computer systems
he had downloaded 90GB of secure files
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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iCloud is generally nothing more than AWS or Azure instances.
The Register did an article on it ages ago.
It's why Apple STILL can't give proper data protection guarantees that even Google can give you (e.g. UK DPA / GDPR).
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all users' iCloud data just sits there unencrypted, ready to be filtered by personal details. Calling it secure is hilarious, and if you ever thought your stuff was secure and private with Apple, you were equally hilariously wrong.
iCloud data is end-to-end encrypted.
Now fuck off.
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and its still a insecure piece of shit.
Prove it.
"The Fappening" was not the result of bad security; just stupid Passwords.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/03... [techcrunch.com]
But just keep on spreadin' the Hate...