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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Not law but interesting - Australian newspaper allegedly hacks into secret government site

Not law, but it has parallels to the situation that involved Judge Alex Kosinski of the 9th Circuit (see ILB entry from July 5, 2009 and its links).

In the Australian story, like with Kosinski, a website was online, openly accessible to anyone who keyed in the correct address.

Some quotes from the Feb. 23, 2010 story in the Sidney Morning Herald, headlined "Minister, a monkey could have 'hacked' secret transport site" and reported in the first person by Matthew Moore:

You know a government is in trouble when it starts accusing aging Sydney Morning Herald hacks like me and my colleague Andrew West of engaging in high level cyber crime.

And yet, in his first day in Parliament since announcing on the weekend details of the government's transport blueprint, the only question from the Labor benches to Transport Minister Dave Campbell concerned a fanciful claim the Herald had somehow hacked a top secret website to reveal the plan early.

Campbell said that by accessing a website where the plan was available, the Herald had done the equivalent of "pick the lock off a secure office and take highly confidential documents".

He went further and said the campaign to crack the site had been so determined there had been "3727 hits on the firewall of the website from four different IP addresses" last Thursday and Friday and the contractor in charge of the site, IT private, had referred the matter to the police.

Really?

The IT help section at Fairfax will tell you that their staff run a mile whenever I call. I am squarely in the "learning disability" group.

And West's disdain for technology is as well known as his fondness for fountain pens, for which he generally requires assistance to refill.

The suggestions we hacks are hackers is a joke.

The facts are these:

- We got a tip on Friday that you could read the government's transport plan by accessing a website called, unsurprisingly, nswtransportblueprint.com.au.

- Even we did not need help to type in those letters. No password was requested or offered.

- Instead we were confronted with a dream menu for any reporter: rail services, cycleways, walking and cycling, bus services, paying and road network.

- With the mouse and the control P (print) command, we had our story.

As Premier Kristina Keneally's chief of staff, Walt Seccord, said on Friday night, the material we accessed were "working documents".

"This was a website in progress."

It was also a website with no protection.

(Hat tip to Slashdot.com)

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 17, 2010 03:28 PM
Posted to General News