DEF CON home page gets hacked - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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DEF CON home page gets hacked

October 13, 2000
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/DEF-CON-home-page-gets-hacked-/0,139023165,120102176,00.htm

LAS VEGAS -- What better way to start the DEF CON hacker convention than by hacking the DEF CON home page?

At least, that seems to be what some hackers had in mind, when they replaced the DEF CON home page with one of their own design late Thursday night.

The hack, by a group calling themselves the ADM Crew, put up a joke page touting ADM CON.

Show founder and organizer Jeff Moss was amused by the hack.

"It's funny. They could have been much more malicious," he told ZDNN.

For instance, it contained a link to the actual DEF CON home page, though that was in small type at the bottom of two screens of hacker in-jokes and nose thumbing.

DEF CON not alone
Among their other tricks, the ADM Crew changed the DEF CON header to ADM CON, and instead of "DEF CON 7.0 is closing in!" the site read "DEF CON 7.0 is owned!," hacker terminology for saying that a server has been taken over.

It also threw a jibe at Delta Air Lines, saying it "is willing to sell you expensive business-class tickets for twice their value" and linking to Delta's Web site.

In addition, the ADM Crew, which described itself as a "team of whitehats who enjoy having fun together," poked at computer security site AntiOnline, saying "use the narq-o-matic form and get a live web cam shot of your ennemies (sic) being busted!" AntiOnline has said it will actively work with law enforcement agencies to catch hackers who break laws.

Time for a new Web host?
While Moss took the hack in stride, he was not at all pleased with his Web host, Catalog.com. He said he had switched to them three months ago, and "I've had so many problems. I'm still waiting for a call back (about the hack)."

Moss, speaking late Friday afternoon from the Alexis Park Hotel here, which is the site of DEF CON, said he was unsure when he'd be able to get the ADM hack off his page. The site went back up soon thereafter, just before 6 p.m. PT.

Moss said the hackers appear to have compromised Catalog.com's server two weeks ago, and then waited until last night to post their spoof page, via an exploit of the Apache Web server software.

"I'll definitely be looking for a new Web host after DEF CON," Moss said.