[Moderator: So let me see if I get the chain of events: hackers claim
they got in and stole neat software.. media ooohs and ahhhs at it..
everyone and their dog with a clue reply that the articles are full
of it.. someone goes as far as showing the software is available
via anon ftp.. DOD finally figures it out enough to issue a statement..
the whole time we are slapping our collective heads wondering why
this wasn't realized sooner. I think that covers it.]
Forwarded From: Simon Gardner <juniper@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Pentagon Challenges Claims Of Hackers
By CHRIS ALLBRITTON, AP Cyberspace Writer
NEW YORK (April 27, 1998 3:13 p.m. EDT) -- Hackers who broke into Pentagon
computers and bragged that they had stolen the means to cripple the
military's communications network instead took publicly available software
that is almost worthless without the data to run it, security consultants
and the Defence Department say.
Security experts around the world scoffed Monday at the claims made by a
hacker group calling itself "Masters of Downloading."
"They may have gotten what they say they got," said Aaron Bornstein, a
free-lance computer security consultant in New York. "But what they claim
they could do with it is ridiculous."
Last week, the group's 15 hackers said they broke into computers at the
Defence Information Systems Agency and stole software. The program, they
said, controls the military's Global Positioning System of satellites that
are used to target missiles and coordinate troop movements.
The group claimed it could shut down the military's networks with the
stolen software, and threatened to sell it to terrorist groups or foreign
governments.
The pilfered software is not classified, said Pentagon spokeswoman Susan
Hansen. Nor does it allow access to classified data, she said.
And the software is useless without classified data, Hansen said.
Supporting Hansen's assertions, Bornstein provided The Associated Press a
link to the software available to anyone with a Web browser. The Masters
of Downloading "are just trying to scare people," the consultant said.
Another consultant, Shimon Gruper, a former Israeli army security expert,
said he was confident that Masters of Downloading had not stolen anything
dangerous.
Other governments' top secret computers, he said, are not connected to the
Internet or other public networks. "And," he said, "I'm sure the U.S.
government is the same" -- an assertion the Pentagon spokeswoman
confirmed.
-o-
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Received on Tue Apr 28 14:08:31 1998