Anti-terror hotline
Never heard of it but it makes the mind boggle why one should be needed and who would use it.
Are they sure they didn't DOS themselves by eavesdropping in on one of their own calls and entering an infinite loop?
Two teenagers have been arrested after hackers attacked Scotland Yard’s anti-terror hotline, eavesdropped on a conversation between officials and uploaded a recording to the internet. The two males, aged 16 and 17, were cuffed in the West Midlands by cops from the Police Central e-Crime Unit. A Scotland Yard spokesman said the …
Funny how we kept calm and carried on when there were regular actual explosions, shootings and murders undertaken by terrorist organisations in this country*, yet ever since a single event we are supposed to be really scared?
*Mostly financed by US citizens. '9/11' pretty much stopped the money, so we are actually safer now.
You should report cameras as well as the neighbor who keeps his curtains down during the day, leaves alone and has other male guests visiting him. This is according to the police radio advert.
I chocked on my coffee hearing that one as it was literally repeating the public service announcements from radio Moscow during the darkest days of Stalin's reign.
At some point they will no doubt say that the offenders 'spoke in an American accent', or 'came from Birmingham, which is also the name of a town in the US', or 'had something American in their homes', or 'Used computers made by an American firm'.....
Either way there will be some grounds found for the US to request extradition - even if it is just that they were thinking of having a holiday in Florida at some point in the distant future and did a google search for DisneyWorld (tm).
Cynical....me?
"The script is based on the Asterisk software and uses a SIP protocol to phone,"
Lets see how difficult that is:
1. Create a text file with a line in it like this:
Channel: SIP/trunk/<number to dial>
2. Add more lines that tell it what application to run when call answered.
3. Copy file into asterisk's outgoing spool directory
4. Wait a short while
5. Goto 3
To summarise, all this dick did was create a text file and copy into a spool directory. His script did not implement the SIP protocol.
> You missed the bit....
No I didn't. There was no creative effort required for them to hack into the server. There are freely available scripts/programs on the internet that you can use to "hack" into an unpatched, unsecured Asterisk PBX. I was simply pointing out that the only creative bit they did is a trivial task that does not require a great deal of skill.
Not convinced by Scotland Yards denial. I can only think of a limited number of ways to eavesdrop on that follow on conversation.
1. Bug one of the end points (as SY seem to be stating) colour me dubious.
2. If it was a Conf Call - get the joining code and lurk.
3. Actually compromise the system (ie force a conf call)
2 looks the most likely - although that atleast means an email addy or pc is compromised.
3 Looks next likely.
1. Looks less likely - these unless it was all VOIP. These are skiddies not MI5.
Compare
"Two teenagers have been arrested after hackers attacked Scotland Yard’s anti-terror hotline, eavesdropped on a conversation between officials and uploaded a recording to the internet"
with
"We have throughout the day researched the allegation that the Anti-Terrorist Hotline had been ‘hacked’ and ‘activists’ claims that they were able to listen unrestricted to confidential communications. We are confident the MPS communication systems have not been breached and remain, as they always have been, secure."
So, two kids have been arrested for something that the police are saying didn't happen?
Something happened. But I don't for a moment think that we have anywhere near the whole story here.
I agree, something happened, but I wouldn't get too flustered about the apparent contradiction in the reports.
First, the reports are from different sources,
Second, these young lads were arrested on suspicion of offences under the communications and computer misuse acts. You don't get arrested for doing something, it is always on suspicion of doing something. The police then investigate and where necessary charge you and then present evidence to a court. It is for a courts to decide if they actually did what they say they did.
I know that might sound like pendantry, and it is: but it is also an important point that many people often forget.
So, reports say they were arrested for phreaking, but in fact they have been arrested to enable the investigation of an alleged offence. Next Scotland Yard say their systems are intact (maybe they are or maybe they are like Swiss cheese doesn't matter). The point is that the second statement is part of the reaction to whatever happened, not part of the arrest.
Why do half the grammar nazis around seem to think anything they don't like must be American? Half of "Americanese" is basically English as spoken around the time mass immigration to the New World from Europe was taking place anyway.
See, for example, "sidewalk";
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/pavement-sidewalk-and-stuff-thereof.html
I heard that the pizza delivery bloke couldn't get through - he couldn't find the office and needed to call back for directions so sadly one perfectly good stuffed crust peperoni with extra cheese has gone to waste thanks to teampoison - not to mention the poor terror call centre workers had to make do with a pot-noodle for their lunch!
This sort of chaos never happened to the cones hotline back in the day!
"We have had about 700 calls over the last couple of nights."
So call that 48 hour period for the sake of argument. I work that out to be a call about every 4 minutes 7 seconds. Not exactly a barrage of calls. Even if it was only a 12 hour period that would be a call every minute. Shouldnt be a problem with a line that gets routed to multiple operators or recording machines. Maybe a problem if its an unshared line with a single op or more likely a single recording device.
I can see that actually. It says they only posted an extract of the conversation, so is it so unlikely that the conversation went something like:
Voice 1: "Why has that phone been left off the hook?"
Voice 2: "We have been subjected to a barrage of calls from a group called Team Poison, we have had about 700 calls over the last couple of nights."
Now if they had really wanted to screw things up they would have DOs'd the Cones Hotline instead - that probably gets more calls.
Given that they were using telephones, computers, 1's, 0's, English words and were breathing air (all invented in the USA) any UK judge will surely find that these are reasonable grounds to extradite them for execution by waterboarding.
<Darth Voice>
And so the circle is complete. We sent the Rebels^H^H^H^H^Hcriminals to America, then Australia and now, we send them to America again.
I laugh at your puny stories of Puritans and Mayflowers, but I admire the way you manipulate the truth for your own purposes.
</Darth Voice>
Its just a shame we can't send some people who are actually a danger to society.