Saudi Arabia hires 'ethical hackers' to silence smut slingers • The Register Forums

Monday 5th January 2015 06:02 GMT cyke1

"Saudi Arabia's prude police have hired ethical hackers to pop hedonistic Twitter accounts identified for spruiking smut leading to arrests."

So they call them ethical even though they will be hacking/cracking a companies servers that are not in their country? Another issue is "smut" as they call it, who determines what is Smut and what isn't? Problem with this if the owner of said accounts don't live in Saudi Arabia they have 0 right to attack anyone's twitter account and take it over cause they don't like what they say.

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 07:13 GMT Suricou Raven
  
  Ethics are cultural. They are ethical hackers by Saudi standards, and I expect their hacking is authorised by the appropriate court order.
  
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  1. Monday 5th January 2015 08:27 GMT Richard Jones 1
    
    @Suricou Raven
    
    I understand what you are saying as a statement of fact. I doubt that you were trying to defend their actions which to many people with a knowledge of their warped ways are offensive and highly unethical. States do try to define ethics in their own country and within their own boarders according to their own whims and in some cases rather less than objective standards. As other have said this can and does appear to apply to all countries including the land of the some times free and other times not so free.
    
    The restrictions applied in state often do over step the mark as considered by others, e.g. the NORKs leaving many of their people to starve without the right to object while fat boy kim has the chance to treat the country as an all he can eat cafe.
    
    One of the original human rights objectives was to try to put boundaries on the way that states plunged into aspects of their citizen's lives and this is where at least two courses of ethics collide. Sadly while the human rights laws were supposed to deal with what most people would regard as basic human rights to life and property and have clearly failed to achieve this for many, e.g. in Saudi some have sought to extend them into protections for those whose activities are against the rights of the majority of other citizens. This has made the whole issue a poisoned chalice. So while it appears to fail to protect the basic rights of many in Saudi it has also offended the rights of others else where to live without the threat of criminals disrupting their lives.
    
    No one could have created a bigger mess if that was what they set out to achieve.
    
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    1. Monday 5th January 2015 17:40 GMT Mark 85
      
      Re: @Richard Jones1
      
      To expand a bit:
      
      If one looks at the history and the religious branch they hang from, this is same branch that the current ISIS hangs from. There's a lot of entanglement there being that while the Saudis are considered extremely conservative, the off shoot branch is even moreso and from the same roots.
      
      So what's ethical in the way of "hacking", what's "smut", etc. isn't based on anything most of us would understand. Their reasoning is based solely on their religious beliefs. The mere fact they haven't blocked much the rest of the world at their borders is amazing in one way, but given the nature of what they believe, all us infidels are ripe for plundering, conversion, and at some point, beheading.
      
      So much of the turmoil in the Middle East is a result of the Saudis using their money to spread their conservative religious beliefs. Study the history of Wahhabism and it will give a clue. A good start is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism.
      
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2. Monday 5th January 2015 08:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  So they call them ethical even though they will be hacking/cracking a companies servers that are not in their country?
  
  Sorry are we on about Saudi or the USA?
  
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3. Monday 5th January 2015 10:32 GMT James Micallef
  
  "who determines what is Smut and what isn't?"
  
  It's Saudi Arabia: Any female with more than eyes uncovered = smut
  
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Monday 5th January 2015 06:09 GMT Anonymous Coward

Situational Ethics?

This is a totally different 'ethical framework' than I've ever experienced. The application of force onto the people of another country who have no politically expressed support of the reigning power isn't ethical. Which is probably why I have some real problems with my (U.S.) government as well.

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 06:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Situational Ethics?
  
  Oh, hush. You may be happy ogling pictures of women in their scandalous knee-length skirts, but the rest of us are shocked by such hussies!!
  
  (/sarcasm off)
  
  3 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 06:56 GMT Khaptain

Spruiking

Verb : To promote a thing or idea to another person.

[ Maybe I am the only one that didn't know this word, we learn something new every day on El Reg]

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Monday 5th January 2015 07:15 GMT Anonymous Coward

So, how do we annoy them?

Is there a 'report porn' page we can flood with thousands of submissions for non-Saudi-operated porn sites, forcing them to waste time looking through in frustration at their inability to do anything?

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 11:28 GMT Haro
  
  Re: So, how do we annoy them?
  
  Follow an earlier article here on using Tor. I've set up a Tor relay on my Linux machine.
  
  2 0 Reply
  1. Monday 5th January 2015 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: So, how do we annoy them?
    
    Thank you for that post which was just what we needed to confirm our tracing. Please lean out of the window behind you and wave at the black helicopter.
    
    1 0 Reply
    1. Monday 5th January 2015 17:56 GMT Haro
      
      Re: So, how do we annoy them?
      
      If we could increase Tor relays and bridges by a factor of 10, that would be the most positive thing we could do for the oppressed women, who just want to look at smutty Pinterest.
      
      2 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 07:21 GMT Destroy All Monsters

FLOG THEM!

Must be one of Lord Blair's recommendations.

1 0 Reply
1. Monday 5th January 2015 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: FLOG THEM!
  
  Nah, that's "flog them off and put the proceeds in my bank account."
  
  2 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 07:38 GMT cantankerous swineherd

sponsoring terrorism, OTOH, is perfectly acceptable.

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 11:56 GMT Ted Treen
  
  Almost right...
  
  It's not merely acceptable, it appears to be positively encouraged and might soon be compulsory.
  
  1 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 07:58 GMT Jungleland

Perhaps The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice should open an office in London (say, maybe, around Mayfair) to protect all the good inhabitants of the Kingdom from being infected by decadent Western corruption when they visit.

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 09:01 GMT Steve Davies 3
  
  Around Mayfair?
  
  Oh, you mean just down the road from the Saudi Embassy then.
  
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  1. Monday 5th January 2015 09:37 GMT Jungleland
    
    Re: Around Mayfair?
    
    You might think that but I couoldn't possibly comment.
    
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2. Monday 5th January 2015 09:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  infected by decadent Western corruption
  
  I thought the whole point of the Saudi presence in the West was to facilitate infection by decadent Western corruption - for the rulers.
  
  The history of the Saudis is interesting. They were obscure local chieftains until the end of the 18th century, when an alliance with the extreme (and, at the time, very un-Islamic) Wahabi sect led to a rapid expansion of their power base. The goal of the Wahabi is forcibly to convert all Muslims to their extremist views. The Saudi princes have been fine with that so long as they can continue to visit Western casinos and nightclubs and stay in power.
  
  9/11 must have come as a bit of a shock, but the reaction of the US was to repatriate the bin Laden family rather than arrest them as possible accessories to terrorism.
  
  So, for reasons nothing of course to do with vast oil reserves, the pluralistic Christian majority US upholds a corrupt government of a country where large numbers of people want to destroy the US. I do not expect the US government to raise so much as a peep of objection to any Saudi attacks on social media sites.
  
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  1. Monday 5th January 2015 17:44 GMT Mark 85
    
    Re: infected by decadent Western corruption
    
    Have an upvote. You've hit it dead on. The US and for the most part, the rest of the world overlooks their beliefs and the results of that belief. Last I heard, public stoning and beheadings still happen for crimes the rest of us "civilized" folk would merely raise an eyebrow over.
    
    6 0 Reply
    1. Monday 5th January 2015 19:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Re: infected by decadent Western corruption -raise an eyebrow over
      
      Or do without giving it a second thought.
      
      It's funny how people get upset over a few beheadings by ISIL and ignore the far greater numbers in Saudi. Oh, petrol is down to £1.10 a litre, economic good news.
      
      4 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 08:59 GMT Crisp

Will the West retaliate?

By hacking Saudi sites and putting porn on them?

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 09:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Will the West retaliate?
  
  Have an upvote. Don't tempt me!
  
  4 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 09:47 GMT jake

Define "smut", Al Saud.

Have you ever been on a luxury airliner leaving Riyadh, and watched the ladies onboard heading for the head just after leaving "official" Saudi airspace, and coming back into the main cabin dressed as Amsterdam hookers?

I have.

4,000 year old rules have no place in the modern world, and the ladies know it.

11 1 Reply
1. Monday 5th January 2015 12:31 GMT Afernie
  
  Re: Define "smut", Al Saud.
  
  To say nothing of the stampede for the bar on landing at Heathrow...
  
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2. Monday 5th January 2015 19:18 GMT Kernel
  
  Re: Define "smut", Al Saud.
  
  Exactly the same thing happens on aircraft leaving Dhubai as well - strangely enough, none of the Arabic males on board seemed to find this any more offensive than I did.
  
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Monday 5th January 2015 12:25 GMT Amorous Cowherder

I believe that's one of the perks the ultra rich young Saudi lads and ladies get to enjoy. The minute they touch down in Blighty during their Summer holidays, they offload their £600k sports cars and they get to enjoy all the perks the decadent West has to offer for a few months.

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1. Monday 5th January 2015 16:10 GMT Triggerfish
  
  To quote a song.
  
  "Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury"
  
  1 0 Reply
2. Monday 5th January 2015 17:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  one of the perks
  
  It's the finest, largest, and driest dysfunctional theocratic dictatorship of the do as I tell you not as I do variety that oil money can buy.
  
  2 0 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 20:16 GMT Anonymous Coward

> Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

Aka the "British Home Secretary's Office"

Won't someone please think of the children?

Although of course that's illegal now.

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Monday 5th January 2015 20:23 GMT Crazy Operations Guy

We need a better term than "hacking"

Just today I've heard 'hacking' in so many different ways that the word is losing all meaning. Everything from changing a setting on piece of electronic equipment (that you own) to writing code to do a simple task to taking over an account on a website all the way to attacking a secure network to gain access. All of these things are quite different in nature, some might be trivial while others are illegal; sometimes both, other times neither.

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1. Tuesday 6th January 2015 02:50 GMT Fluffy Bunny
  
  Re: We need a better term than "hacking"
  
  The original use of the work hacker was similar to the golf term, to describe the guy who was such a bad programmer that he would have the prototype working after "only a few" 36 hour debugging sessions. Because he went into so many unintended and undocumented parts of the OS, he ended up knowing more than was possible from reading the documentation.
  
  As a result, the rather ironic meaning came about, that the hacker was somebody who knew all about the OS. And this is the meaning that was picked up later to describe "computer hackers" by people that were otherwise ignorant of computers.
  
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  1. Tuesday 6th January 2015 09:04 GMT jake
    
    R@ Fluffy Bunny (was: e: We need a better term than "hacking")
    
    "The original use of the work hacker was similar to the golf term, to describe the guy who was such a bad programmer that he would have the prototype working after "only a few" 36 hour debugging sessions."
    
    Totally, absolutely, and completely incorrect.
    
    "Hackers" are people who know how to take apart systems, from hardware to firmware to running code, and then put it back together again so it works properly/better. They are the people who gave us modern computing.
    
    Sadly, the media perverted the original meaning of the term "hacker". And Marketing finished the corruption of what could have been a good thing for humanity.
    
    1 2 Reply
    1. Tuesday 6th January 2015 10:28 GMT Khaptain
      
      Re: R@ Fluffy Bunny (was: e: We need a better term than "hacking")
      
      I would argue that the term "hacker" originates from the world of telecoms/IT. MIT students used to "hack" the telephone lines using a computer to test the PBX lines for available dial tones and successfully managing to re-route the call charges to third parties.
      
      @Jake
      
      "Hackers" are people who know how to take apart systems, from hardware to firmware to running code, and then put it back together again so it works properly/better. They are the people who gave us modern computing"
      
      I am not sure that the electronics engineers at IBM,Intel,Motorola etc would agree with that phrase
      
      0 1 Reply
      1. Wednesday 7th January 2015 09:09 GMT jake
        
        @Khaptain(was: Re: R@ Fluffy Bunny (was: e: We need a better term than "hacking"))
        
        You write: "I am not sure that the electronics engineers at IBM,Intel,Motorola etc would agree with that phrase"
        
        I am absolutely certain that they would. See (in situ, from Mon 29 Dec 2003 10:35:02 AM PST, no less):
        
        http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
        
        Much earlier, when I was at Stanford, early one Saturday morning a Grad student drove to Berkeley on his motorcycle & came back with tapes of the over-night build of 3BSD. Our Professor, visiting from DARPA for a couple weeks/months (a dude by the name of Cerf, you may have heard of him), wondered how the hell our VAX had the latest version of BSD already running (10AM-ish), when the Switched56 connected source code system hadn't completed the download of the source, much less started to compile it.
        
        Biker's answer: "My motorcycle's latency might be sub-par, but it still has a much higher bandwidth capability than your network!". Cerf's reply? "Nice hack!" (Note that a variation of this quote is often attributed to Tanenbaum in 1996, but it was a fairly common meme around 1980.)
        
        2 1 Reply
2. Tuesday 6th January 2015 09:03 GMT jake
  
  @ Crazy Operations Guy (was: Re: We need a better term than "hacking")
  
  "today I've heard 'hacking' in so many different ways that the word is losing all meaning."
  
  I think you mispleled "lost all meaning a couple dozen years ago".
  
  "changing a setting on piece of electronic equipment (that you own)" That would be a techie.
  
  "to writing code to do a simple task" That would be an intelligent user".
  
  "to taking over an account on a website" That would be a cracker
  
  "all the way to attacking a secure network to gain access." Also a cracker.
  
  For more, see my reply to Fluffy Bunny.
  
  0 1 Reply
Monday 5th January 2015 20:36 GMT Crazy Operations Guy

Good thing I was only there for a layover...

What with my checked luggage holding a 500 GB hard drive filled with pornography*, a couple bottles of rum and various other alcohols, and a couple packs of playing cards and poker chips.

*Encrypted because I was heading to London for a few days and I didn't feel like getting arrested.

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Tuesday 6th January 2015 12:23 GMT Anonymous Coward

Hackers, what?

Comes from the horse riding fraternity don't you know - they love a good hack in the countryside

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