For me it is pretty easy….. bring back Cajun Boy in the City for one day and let him work his magic.
I’ll still be as cautious as hell over there, but it certainly would be nice to have a quality front page post that was worthy of my comments.
What can NicknotNed do for you? Creativity is appreciated. Those who just want money shall be flogged.
… on Lifehacker . How appropriate.
There isn’t really anything new here that most of us have not already learned throughout the day, but it’s better than nothing.
Update: It looks like things are back to normal. But it was fun while it lasted in that, getting-drunk-and-saying-things-you-would-never-say-in-the-light-if-day way.
In addition to waking up with a hangover Sunday morning from my Friday night, this day has been full of surprises.
We knew that the commenters weren’t particularly valued at Gawker as of late – that we didn’t fit into Denton’s grand scheme. However, I am surprised at the lack of giving a shit about our privacy. Other than a brief “change your passwords” post, nothing. I’m getting more feedback from the Rogue Choire than I am from Gawker editors. I had to go to Gizmodo to find out if my account was listed. Even there, I had to wonder am I communicating with a hacker or someone within Gizmodo. I received two different answers, so who the fuck knows.
It made me realize what a fragile house of cards this whole web interaction has been. I throw stuff out there to stir up a pot or see what sticks under a cloak of anonymity. Not saying I don’t believe or stand by in what I write: but let’s face it: what we put out there sometimes is what we often only dare to think, not say out loud. Gawker can be one big miasma of id, with a smattering of ego and superego just to keep things civil. (Sorry, I love Freud) I think the threat of disclosing who some are IRL, may limit some of that delicious id.
I wonder now if I will be as irreverent when I post something over there. I suspect I won’t for at least a while. What about you?
Note:
Here’s resident IT security expert bens and his analysis of the Gawker hack. He also has some tips for how protect yourself when stuff like this happens….
Gawker media got hacked, and in the hack Gawker’s master password file was stolen. What does this mean to you? Well, if you have linked any e-mail address that has any sort of real-world relevence to you to your Gawker account, you should change your password immediately. The same goes for your passwords. There’s a concept called “password entropy.” That is, if you use a login/password for one website and its compromised, you might use a similar login/pass on another site.
Change your passwords, and make sure they’re dissimilar from other passwords you’ve used.
Insofar as the “hack,” it looks like a script kiddie was looking for notoritety. From the released info, it appears that simple measures like having mildly secure passwords were not adhered to. Does it surprise me that between the Gawker Media Network there are machines running potentially inseucre software? No.
What is surprising is that even the site owner is using an eight character-long numeric password. Hey Nick, “24862486” might be a really easy password to remember, but dude, you’re running a media company with a huge online presence. You couldn’t tell me that a password like “N1ck$$d3nt0n$$$$$” isn’t a much better password that would be pretty easy to remember (its your name, with vowels as numbers, a couple non-alphanumeric characters, and its nice and long.)
A lot of brute-force methods won’t try to brute-force non alphanumerics, so signs like “$” and “!” and even more esoteric characters can slow down a brute force attack. However, if the password file is stolen it’s only a matter of time for it to be decrypted and all passwords revealed.
So what should you do? I know most of you are not technical users. The main thing you have to worry about is someone reading that your email address/password linked to Gawker is the same email account/password linked to your bank account.
So, change your bank password. Change your email password. Use multiple e-mail accounts so that if one is hacked, potentially you can compartmentalize the damage. If your bank statements go to your Gmail account, but you use a Hotmail account only for web forum passwords; you’re going to be much less exposed to risk if there’s a security leak.
Use strong passwords. Don’t rely on your password to remain secure. Change it every couple of months. Keep your software updated. If there’s a popup when you start your computer telling you that there’s a “critical software update” … download and install it! No computer system is 100% secure, but there’s a lot you can do to minimize damage.
Oh, and Gawker… who’s running your security policies? I’m not doing anything next week. Send me an email and lets run a pen. test. Were you guys running any IDS? You’re probably on the phone to the FBI right now and getting the run-around. You guys have my email address already!
I am just opening this so people can stay in touch in the comments if Gawker goes down. I am currently hunting around for news on this. Can I ask that people not post live links in the comments? Let’s keep this place below the radar.
This is so much more interesting than doing my laundry.
Jokes are in the Alt Text.
Dance Break:
Wait, are we sure she isn’t on 4chan?
Sitting in front of the computer for long periods is bad for you…
For Adrian:
For Swifter:
Gnosis seems like a really lame name. Can’t they come up with something with a little sass.
More suspects:
Oh Christ, now we’re at this:
Numbers Stations
Numbers stations are short wave radio broadcasts that have unexplained origins and meanings. They are often associated with intelligence and espionage activities and were a staple of Cold War intrigue. Since I made a radio post earlier I thought I would put up some information about a couple of the more interesting numbers stations.
Numbers stations get there name from the encoded messages they would broadcast. Usually a station would have a signon tone, song, or phrase. This was usually followed by a series of numbers, letters, or phrases. The numbers were generally believed to be code that would be deciphered by recipients using a one-time pad to decode the messages. No government has ever admitted to using numbers stations, but the US has accused Cuba of using numbers stations.
The stations have been picked up all over the globe, but they are difficult to track because they broadcast in short bursts. The stations have been around since WWI making them one of the earliest forms of radio communication. While it is assumed most stations are connected with governments there is also speculation that some stations may be connected with drug smuggling or other types of organized crime.
Here are a couple of sound samples from the more famous stations. If you want a more comprehensive list, visit the Conet Project archive where you can hear 150 different stations.
Atencion: A Cuban station that has been involved in US espionage cases:
The Lincolnshire Poacher is a station that is believed to be connected to British intelligence. I broadcasts from Cyprus and has an apparent sister station (called Cherry Ripe) in Australia that broadcasts the same material.
UVB-76: A Russian station nicknamed The Buzzer because it runs a buzzing noise between broadcasts (it also uses snippets of Swan Lake). It was dormant for a number of years, but began broadcasting again earlier this year.
If you have a shortwave radio, you can listen for yourself . It doesn’t take any fancy equipment and you can feel like you are on a secret spy mission behind enemy lines. Certainly more fun than listening to your average drive time DJ.
All right, let’s do this.
This is a live blog of the war between Anonymous and those Anonymous believes have violated the rights of Wikileaks Editor in-Chief Julian Assange.
Continue reading
In response to a post about Wikileaks causing a rift between the US and its allies, MsAndreaDworkinIsInThaHouse brings us another comment full of insight and nuance http://gawker.com/comment/33078113/
Her comments are like the call of the great wild Gawktard: shrill, stupid and without thought and they always bring the lulz. If Andrea Dworkin could see what her name hath wrought I suspect she’d be sad at the spectacle of the stupid.
Gawkward is Crasstalk’s compilation of truly ridiculous/idiotic Gawker comments.
Today’s Gawkward contribution comes from the commenter MsAndreaDworkinIsInThaHouse after a nice post by Ryan Tate making the case that News Corp.’s new iPad-only news app was doomed to fail:
at least he’s trying. entrepreneurs take risks. that’s why some people are entrepreneurs and some people criticize them.
Well played, Ms. Dworkin! It’s so obvious that this Tate fellow is just some jealous pussy who’s afraid to start his own mom-and-pop multinational right-wing media death cult. Good job. Now let’s go make sure Bristol Palin doesn’t get voted off DWTS!!!1!!!