back to article Who was it that hacked Apple? Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, boy boy boy!

An overzealous Apple fanboy from Australia plead guilty to criminal charges after he allegedly cracked the Cupertino giant's systems in hopes of landing a job. The 16 year-old hackeroo, who was not named in accordance with local law, is said to have broken into the idiot tax racket's servers on more than one occasion, …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "It was noted that Apple was particularly eager to avoid generating any publicity in the matter. They didn't get their wish."

    Two law enforcement agencies looking for PR. A court case tailor-made to catch editors' attention. No wonder they didn't get their wish.

    Great headline, BTW.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So apple haven't stated that user data wasn't taken?

      Funny how apple get a free pass, and this undoubtedly go pretty much unreported by the mainstream media, who are all keen to remain on the payola train of free kit, and lavish all expenses paid product launches and PR events,. All paid for of course by the brain-dead cretins who paid £300 over the true value of their phone because it's got a fruity logo, BECAUSE the press told them how great it was and buried anything that suggested otherwise.

      It's a vicious circle, the more braindead consumers continue to buy £1000 phones that cost £150 to make, the more money Apple have to spunk on keeping the press on side, and so it carries on...

      1. Roger B

        https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/16/melbourne-apple-hack/

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45219895

        https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/17/melbourne-teen-pleads-guilty-to-hacking-into-apple-network

        https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb44nn/autralian-teen-hacked-apple-network?utm_source=mbtwitter

        https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-teen-hacked-into-apple-s-secure-computer-network-court-told-20180816-p4zxwu.html

      2. FIA Silver badge

        Funny how apple get a free pass, and this undoubtedly go pretty much unreported by the mainstream media, who are all keen to remain on the payola train of free kit, and lavish all expenses paid product launches and PR events,. All paid for of course by the brain-dead cretins who paid £300 over the true value of their phone because it's got a fruity logo, BECAUSE the press told them how great it was and buried anything that suggested otherwise.

        Wow. You do seem overly angry by what is essentially consumer electronics. Take a step back and chill for a bit; you don't want an aneurysm before you're 20.*

        Do you really believe this btw? Do you really think people base their purchasing decisions on what they read in the press? Year after year?? Is it not possible that maybe some people just have different criteria than you? Or are you the only person who's noticed the glaring holes and if only you could make people see??

        It's a vicious circle, the more braindead consumers continue to buy £1000 phones that cost £150 to make, the more money Apple have to spunk on keeping the press on side, and so it carries on...

        Okay, so Apple do make a decent profit per phone, but that figure you're quoting is the bill of materials, it'll only get you a pile of expensive looking components, the phone costs much more than that to make. Unless you think marketing, packaging, software development, testing, distribution, support (returns/repairs) and the rest all come for free.

        As Ringo says... Peach and love... Peace and love....

        * On a brighter note, if you're that angry about consumer electronics your life is probably in general pretty much okay, and probably better than a lot of the world, so there is that.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So...

      Has the security hole in Apple's systems that this kid drove a truck through been identified and fixed?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So...

        Possibly not. Apple's general answer to problems is to involve lawyers and spokesdroids. They will fix it eventually but their Immediate Response team does not seem to include technical types.

  2. Crazy Operations Guy
    Joke

    At 90 GB, the data was probably a slimmed-down patch for iTunes or iOS...

  3. Sampler
    Coat

    hacky hack hack

    What a n00b, everyone knows you call the folder Hacky McHackface...

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Trollface

      Re: hacky hack hack

      Wait, what? I thought we called them "Re-runs of Mayday Air Crash Investigation"!

  4. IceC0ld

    Apple'sHack

    Apple was particularly eager to avoid generating any publicity in the matter.

    ==

    I bet they were ............

    one young chap, just trying to get their attention ..............

    well he certainly over achieved there :o)

    and I would agree that in a few years they may well be advised to keep an eye on the young rapscallion, and get him on their good side, he obviously has some skillz - labelling aside :o)

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Apple'sHack

      The young lad may have got their attention but the wrong kind of attention. They probably won't touch him with a 10 foot (or 3.048 meters) pole. OTOH, I'm sure there's someone out there that would hire him, maybe even a white hat or at least a gray one.

    2. macjules

      Re: Apple'sHack

      Yeah, next time use an iPhone: You can trust that Apple won't help the Feds that way.

      1. gkroog

        Re: Apple'sHack

        Great point.

        Would they stick to that policy, or "finally" agree that they "should" help get the cops into an iThing to do their bit to help fight dangerous criminals?

        Then we'd really see how committed they are to their customers.

        1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

          Re: Apple'sHack

          Would they stick to that policy, or "finally" agree that they "should" help get the cops into an iThing to do their bit to help fight dangerous criminals?

          Do you mean like when they, during the whole court order thing, suddenly allowed generic fingerprint scanner modules to be installed on the iPhone and somehow, a security researcher found a way to get one that always read false positive the very next day?

          Remarkable coincidence, if you believe in coincidences, which I do not.

          Or that super sweet DoD deal for thousands of iPhones that came shortly after? Got a DoD issue iPhone sitting right next to me now, as I'm on call.

          Dammit.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple'sHack

      Being Apple notoriously obsessed with secrecy, I don't believe they'll ever hire someone like him - I'm sure there are very few rogue types there. And he wasn't even capable of hiding his endeavours well enough...

      1. nanchatte

        Re: Apple'sHack

        To his credit, he’s 16.

  5. GIRZiM

    Wonder how much love he'll have for crApple after this - they better hope his name isn't Buddy Pine

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How to win friends and influence people

    FAIL

  7. 45RPM Silver badge

    So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong…

    …rather than obsequiously courting my next prospective employer I should graffiti on HQ, and take a dump on their doorstep. Criminal acts win jobs.

    Sadly, and speaking as someone whose job increasingly involves trying to prevent the exfiltration of data, hacks are a fact of life (utopian daydream - imagine what we could do if the world was honest, and we didn’t have to waste CPU cycles on encryption and lock down). Microsoft has been hacked, Sony has been hacked. Apple has been hacked. Everyone has been hacked at some point - and some don’t even realise it (because the hacker who hacked was serious, competent and not doing it for the lulz). The real measure of a business is how quickly they notice, how quickly they slam the door, and whether they prevent anything really valuable from walking out of the door.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong…

      …rather than obsequiously courting my next prospective employer I should graffiti on HQ, and take a dump on their doorstep.

      If that prospective employer specializes in art or waste-generation, then yeah, that'd get you in their good books.

      Frankly, I don't see what's preventing this kid from landing a job w/ Apple now.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong…

        >rather than obsequiously courting my next prospective employer I should graffiti on HQ

        If the employer is a bank, and you graffiti inside their vault and you apply for a job as security - I think you would warrant an interview

    2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong…

      Microsoft has been hacked, Sony has been hacked. Apple has been hacked. Everyone has been hacked at some point - and some don’t even realise it (because the hacker who hacked was serious, competent and not doing it for the lulz).

      Do you mean like the US OPM hack?

      Well, an upside to that is, I can now get a security clearance in China.

  8. Locky
    FAIL

    Nothing worse

    Getting done over by a disgruntled employee - regrettable by difficult to avoid

    Infiltrated by a state sponsored cell - Fair enough

    Hacked by a 16 year old script kiddie for lolz - FAIL

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Nothing worse

      script kiddie for lolz

      He may be a "kiddie", but what makes you believe he's a script kiddie? He's definitely got some experience.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    embezzlement.xls

    a 'friend' was asked to search a senior member of staff at a 'top' bank laptop as he'd set off warnings for downloading kiddie porn and they where gathering evidence to fire him.

    said 'friend' has a quick scan and found a spreadsheet called embezzlement.xls, turn out senior bod had a nice high invoice sign off and had been submitting invoices from a shell company he owned to the bank for the rental of computers, signed off the invoices himself and pocketed the cash.

    Interestingly the bank made a huge deal and show trail over this scam and quietly forgot about the porn, guy went to prison.

    Just how stupid do you have to be to store your misdeeds on a company laptop and call it embezzlement.xls?????

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: embezzlement.xls

      Was his porn in a folder called 'kiddie porn'?

    2. Valeyard

      Re: embezzlement.xls

      mine's called "not_embezzlement.xls"

      some of us are just born crafty

      1. Patched Out

        Re: embezzlement.xls

        I prefer to use the file name "nothing_to_see_here.xlsx"

        1. Killfalcon Silver badge

          Re: embezzlement.xls

          "not_crime.xlsb" for me

          See, xlsb files are smaller and don't advertise if they contain macros...

          1. jimbo60

            Re: embezzlement.xls

            kids_college_fund.xlsx. You could put millions in there and nobody would blink.

            1. Sooty
              Paris Hilton

              Re: embezzlement.xls

              One of our offshore developers was caught watching porn on his work machine, not the kiddie variety, and one of my colleagues had to review all the sites he'd been to... to make sure none of them were leaking company data.

              he apparently had a thing for "Aunties"

  10. Valeyard

    brainbleach

    RIP the feds that have to go through a 16 year old boy's hard drive

    Just gonna be terrabytes of porn

  11. adam payne

    downloading around 90GB worth of iStuffs and saving it into a folder hilariously labeled as "hacky hack hack.

    I laughed out loud when I read that, now people in the office are looking at me funny.

  12. Aodhhan

    It's not going to work...

    It's not going to work --to get a job -- when you hack Apple systems using Ubuntu.

    This really erks them off.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: It's not going to work...

      This really erks them off.

      Or even worse: hacking them with NetBSD.

      Apple? The '90s called and they want their mach_kernel back xD

  13. imanidiot Silver badge

    Am I the only one?

    I can't help but read "Hacky hack hacky" in the voice of AvE saying "tappy tap tap"...

    I must be weird. (Or watch too much Youtube)

    1. John McCallum
      Trollface

      Re: Am I the only one?

      You mean you can't be both

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Am I the only one?

      Not me, maybe it's an age thing, but I keep hearing this!

  14. Julian 8 Silver badge

    from BBC

    In a statement to the BBC, Apple said: "We vigilantly protect our networks and have dedicated teams of information security professionals that work to detect and respond to threats.

    dedicate team of sloths maybe if he downloaded 90GB of data over an extended period ?

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: from BBC

      Right indeed. So a "vigilant" team is one that lets through 90GB of data ?

      Not impressed.

    2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: from BBC

      dedicate team of sloths maybe if he downloaded 90GB of data over an extended period ?

      Nope, if memory serves, they use CSC for monitoring and incident response.

  15. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Hack yes, I'd hire him.

    For years our internet security was run by a company that was founded by a group of hackers at the local university. We've never been hacked and they taught me a lot - hackers aren't all bad.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      Re: Hack yes, I'd hire him.

      Although it might be working for your company (and theirs, apparently), hacking and protecting against hacking require very different skills and mindsets. Maybe your ex-college hackers evolved the right way, but it's never a sure thing.

    2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Hack yes, I'd hire him.

      Back when I was InfoSec for a US military installation, we'd get hacked on an annual, scheduled basis by the NSA.

      Both sides learned new tricks each and every year.

      They're a pretty cool bunch, too!

  16. Robert Helpmann??
    Headmaster

    That may not be the correct word...

    An overzealous Apple fanboy ... plead guilty ... after he allegedly cracked the Cupertino giant's systems ....

    I think we have moved on from allegedly to admittedly.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Trollface

      Re: That may not be the correct word...

      The question now is whether it is "cracked" or "penetration tested".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That may not be the correct word...

        The question now is whether it is "cracked" or "penetration tested".

        I didn't think that was the sort of "penetration testing" teenage boys were interested in...

  17. Rainer

    To be fair

    Never underestimate the persistence, determination and general ingenuity of a motivated teenager.

    Also, he wasn't trying to be particularly stealthy as it seems.

  18. Toc-H-Lamp

    I'm thinking

    Of hiring him myself. Maybe he can rectify the problems I've been suffering since an iOS 11.4.1 update semi-borked my iPad pro.

  19. jasfox

    Badge of honour

    Some companies not only haven an areshole culture, they turn against others who do not support their arsehole ways. Here in Berlin the company I used to work for had a culture of defamation against ex employees, even going so far as to ask others to forward emails far and wide about former people were no longer employed by the company. I consider such defamatory action as a badge of honour.

    Is this the same kiddie that gets Assange's mail from the post off at UniMelb PO BOX that is wikileaks? If he doesn't join Apple then he is on the right career path for join wikileaks.

  20. Chairman of the Bored

    Got caught in a net briefly

    Had to buy a "low boy" flatbed trailer for very large piece of gear. On this side if the pond one of the better manufacturers of tractor trailer equipment is the "Eager Beaver" company.

    Needed to print out a data sheet, Fat fingered URL. And you know what? The web experience at eager beaver dot com is fundamentally different than that at eager beaver TRAILERS dot com.

    Even though I killed the session after a single "damn!" I set of the pr0n alert and promptly had a long day on my hands....

  21. gkroog

    Poor kid...

    ...hoping to impress Apple with technical skillz...

    ...Apple ain't 'bout that...

  22. nanchatte

    Idiot tax racket.

    Still butt-hurt you never get invited to their shindigs, I see.

    Classic Reg.

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