hackers

Japan's Most-Wanted Hacker Taunts Authorities with Clue Taped to a Cat

Adrian Chen · 01/09/13 06:46PM

Japan's most-wanted hacker is also one its most brazen. After taunting authorities for months, the hacker sent them a mocking clue in the form of a memory card strapped to a cat which lived on an island near Tokyo. Above is video of the authorities capturing the cat on January 5th, which was tracked down only after they solved a bunch of riddles the hacker emailed to dozens of Japanese newspapers on New Years Day.

Former Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown Indicted For Sharing a Link to Stolen Credit Card Data

Adrian Chen · 12/07/12 06:56PM

Is it a crime for someone simply to share a link to stolen information? That seems to be the message conveyed by today's indictment of former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown, over a massive hack of the private security firm Stratfor. Brown's in legal trouble for copying and pasting a link from one chat room to another. This is scary to anyone who ever links to anything.

The Internet's Best Terrible Person Goes to Jail: Can a Reviled Master Troll Become a Geek Hero?

Adrian Chen · 11/27/12 10:05AM

On a gray Wednesday morning in October, the car headed west on the Lincoln Highway Bridge hit 100 miles per hour and I started to worry it might hurtle off into the tangle of rusted-out warehouses and smoke stacks that pass for a landscape in northeastern New Jersey. I peeked over the driver's shoulder, watching the speedometer approach the sound barrier. But my companion in the back seat of the Buick, the 27-year-old hacker and internet troll Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, seemed not to notice as we nearly doubled the speed limit. He slouched and explained to the driver, who had asked him for a cigarette, why he didn't have any.

The Tutu Has Been Donned. Your Move, Anonymous.

Adrian Chen · 09/06/12 11:45AM

For 24 hours, the internet was subjected to, or blessed with, if that's what you're into, the image of me in a tutu with a shoe on my head. (We're still waiting for the Smithsonian to request the tutu for inclusion in its special collections.) Now it's time for Anonymous to hold up their side of the deal.

Hackers Claim to Possess Mitt Romney's Tax Returns, Threaten to Release Them Unless Million-Dollar Ransom Is Paid [UPDATE]

Neetzan Zimmerman · 09/05/12 02:25PM

An anonymous group of hackers — not to be confused with the hacking group Anonymous — claims it's sitting on a treasure trove of Mitt Romney's unreleased tax returns freshly lifted from the PricewaterhouseCoopers offices in Franklin, Tennessee, and say they will make them available to the public at the end of this month unless they receive a million dollars in unmarked Bitcoins.

LinkedIn Apparently Hacked: Try to Care Long Enough to Change Your Password

Adrian Chen · 06/06/12 09:22AM

Useless virtual high school career fair LinkedIn was reportedly hacked, and 6.5 million passwords leaked to a Russian hacking website. The passwords were encrypted, but hackers have apparently already cracked more than 300,000. ZDNet reports that the hack affects less than 10 percent of LinkedIn's user base, but you should probably change your LinkedIn password, after spending 20 minutes trying to remember your LinkedIn password, just in case.

Inside LulzSec: How the Superstar Hackers Met Wikileaks

Parmy Olson · 05/30/12 08:39AM

For 50 days during the summer of 2011, the members of Lulz Security were the most famous hackers on the planet. A splinter group of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, LulzSec tore up Fox News Fox Broadcasting, crashed the CIA's website and leaked hundreds of thousands of Sony customers' passwords, boasting of each new hack on their entertaining Twitter account.

Hackers Plan Huge Attack For 4PM Today, Stupidly Announce It To Everyone

Adrian Chen · 05/25/12 10:01AM

A general principle to keep in mind when dealing with hackers is: If a gang of hackers announces the exact date, time and targets of an upcoming hack, it is not going to happen. So we'd bet 800 bitcoins that this attack on "46 major companies around the world" planned for 4pm today by a hacking group associated with Anonymous is not going to come off.

Here's How Easy It Is To Hack Hollywood

Adrian Chen · 04/27/12 04:30PM

Celebrities' email accounts are hacked so frequently it seems like they might as well upload their nude pics directly to the internet. Why? It's been ridiculously simple to break into their accounts with just a few pieces of information.

Arianna Huffington Has Been Hacked

Maureen O'Connor · 04/20/12 04:43PM

Early yesterday morning, Arianna Huffington's AOL email address sent a spam hyperlink to numerous people in her address book. It was an email virus, the apparent product of a hack on the AOL News headmistress' personal account.