For a while, I’ve been toying with an column idea. Call it The Raised Eyebrow. Part Flat Earth News, part questioning conventional wisdom. Last week, an editor agreed to a column. Depending on how it worked out, more might follow. One idea came from a throwaway Prime Time line. “Sean Sherlock’s website was hacked”, apparently… Continue reading No comment
Tag: hackers
Spider Hack
Mention earlier this week of the Morris tribunal reminds me of one of the minor riddles that inquiry left in my mind. In June 2005, the tribunal apparently learned that it’s website had been ‘hacked’. The Sunday Times later reported that ‘rogue computer software known as spyware was attached to the server used to “air”… Continue reading Spider Hack
Eircom’s Net Loss
By all accounts, Eircom has been hacked. The telco has confirmed that there was a domain name server (DNS) outage on its website last night. Internet users throughout Ireland complained they were being redirected to bogus sites. Eircom customers have noticed slowdowns since the beginning of the month, and noticeably since this weekend, due to… Continue reading Eircom’s Net Loss
Inconceivable
The Friday Irish Times front page, which went to press an hour or so ago, has a picture of environment minister John Gormley chatting with some national school children. Gormley’s other official duty today was to announce the scrapping of misguided government plans to introduce evoting. Back in March, Gormley conceded it was ‘inconceivable‘ that… Continue reading Inconceivable
Computer Virus, World Fever
A devastating computer virus is set to wreak havoc on computers today, as the ‘Conficker’ virus takes effect on thousands of machines in Ireland and worldwide. PC makers are warning users worldwide not to switch on their machines for 24 hours, as the rogue ‘time bomb’ program is designed to cause computers and monitors to… Continue reading Computer Virus, World Fever
Who Are You?
Sarah Palin’s email account was hacked last week. More fool her for using a Yahoo account. The hack didn’t involve any complex attacks, or even a small but elegant program designed to exploit software flaws. Instead, its an example of social engineering at it’s finest. Forgot your password? Yahoo asks a few verification questions, and… Continue reading Who Are You?