Posted on 07/11/2002 9:33:43 PM PDT by toupsie
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU JUL 11, 2002 23:32:38 ET XXXXX
'USA TODAY' WEBSITE HACKED; PRANKSTERS MOCK BUSH, CHRISTIANITY
The USA TODAY newspaper's website was broken into late Thursday evening by hackers who put up a series of stories blasting George Bush, Sercretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Christianity.
Regular readers of the site could easily be misled because the hackers used the USA TODAY's basic design template, but multiple misspellings and bad grammar give away the prank.
One headline entitled 'Bush proposes another new Cabinet post' linked to an article purportedly filed by the ASSOCIATED PRESS:
Washington D.C. (AP) - Today, George W. Bush has proposed yet another cabinet level position. The Cabinet Minister for Propoganda and Popular Englightenment, will be setup to complement the recent addition of the department of Homeland Defense. It is reported that, if approved, Bush would appoint Dr. Joseph Goebbels to the post.
In recent weeks Tom Ridge has complained that his department has lacked the proper authority to keep terrorists from infiltrating the american mind. 95% of Americans, in a Gallop poll, agree that we have to do all we can to rid the country of terrorists, showing the public still strongly supports president Bush in his campaign against terrorism.
If the move is succesful, people close to the Whitehouse think there could be a turf war between Goebbels and White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Since September 11th, Fleischer has come to enjoy controling public opinion and has expressed dissatisfaction with the idea of a Popular Englightement Minister. There was a constant flow of customers buying everything.
Headlines 'Opps says the Pope; Christianity a Sham!' and
'Donald Rumsfeld: An American Beauty?' also linked to mock articles. The Rumsfeld article alleged that the Secretary of Defense is homosexual.
At of 11 pm EDT USA TODAY could no longer be accessed by the public.
Developing...
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Filed by Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2001
Not for reproduction without permission of the author
Drudge has been hacked, too!
Strange, since Hitler was a Pagan who destroyed every Christian value in German society.
As with any headline in USA Today, odds are it's a hoax!
The article reads as if it were written by dyslexic 8th graders as a term project for their liberal social studies teacher.
Netcraft - "The site www.usatoday.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000"
4 million daily hits and rising, not withstanding.
:-D
www.usatoday.com web server history:
Oper.Sys Web Server Date Changed Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 31-Mar-2002 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 16-Jan-2002 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 15-Jan-2002 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 9-Jan-2002 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 7-Jan-2002 Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 4-Jan-2002 Solaris Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 12-Nov-2001 unknown Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 5-Oct-2001 Solaris Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 27-Aug-2001 Solaris unknown 26-Aug-2001
Will be interesting to see how their web server history looks 6 months from now. :-)
Let's cut to the chase, shall we?....
Homosexuals hate Christians because they are the only group left that refuses to back down in their criticism of what they do. Bush, and many in his administration, are practicing, committed Christians as well.
Whoever coined the phrase, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" never met a group of homosexuals who were suddenly told that it is a vile act.
Boy, I really miss eighth grade. What memories. ;-)
It figures.
My heart, it breaks!
It doesn't take much to lock down IIS.
Security Operations Guide for Windows 2000 Server
Of course, UNIX systems are also vulnerable as Bush2000 has pointed out numerous times but that doesn't seem to get the press about Microsoft.
Companies that hire incompetent web managers get hacked no matter what.
Yes, that is the essential truth.
I had been using IIS on WinNT at work for development purposes, which to my knowledge, no hackers were trying to get into. A version of the Nimda virus found the instance of IIS on my computer and proceeded to modify all sorts of files on my computer. Real nice. Granted the network ops guys were asleep on the job, but this virus doesn't make its home in Apache which I promptly switched to.
From SecurityFocus, a list of vulns by product for the last 4 years:
Apache 2.0
 |
2002-06-17: | Apache Chunked-Encoding Memory Corruption Vulnerability |
One vuln.
Now, Microsoft IIS 5.0:
It is, in my opinion, professional incompetence to use MS IIS for any mission-critical web work.
From SecurityFocus, a list of vulns by product for the last 4 years:
Apache 2.0
|
2002-06-17: | Apache Chunked-Encoding Memory Corruption Vulnerability |
One vuln.
Now, Microsoft IIS 5.0:
It is, in my opinion, professional incompetence to use MS IIS for any mission-critical web work.
I'm sorry if my rant cast an aspersions on your abilities. Unintended.
The Nimba and Code Red viruses could have been prevented if the patch that Microsoft released months earlier had been installed. In fact, it was the description of the problem on Microsoft's site that gave the hackers the idea. :-(
The original goal was to make administration and all features of the server web enabled and other features open by default. Though this makes computing easier for those trying to implement solutions (like running executables in Outlook), it also makes it easier for hackers. Thus, Microsoft will be shipping OSes in the future without installing software and keeping ports closed. Safer yes. Less functional for users, yes.
The above is the default for UNIX implementations and thus, fewer hack attacks. Microsoft has reconciled itself to the fact that there people who are unfairly against Microsoft and wish it harm (Dominic??? :-) ).
If the above list didn't prove something about the quality of the product to you, then by all means continue using it.
I don't wish MS harm, anymore than I wish 'Brittney Spears' wrong. I just think it's devastating for our tech industry to have a company using illegal means to force inferior products on the market, and want the illegalities to stop.
Other than stopping MS's illegalities, I wish them no harm at all.
I'm not really a strong partisan for any particular OS. I have used the major ones (DOS/Win, Mac, Unix) and they all have pros and cons, IMHO.
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