Twitter Hacked by “Iranian Cyber Army”

Twitter was hacked for a short time on early Friday morning, December 18. The attackers called themselves the “Iranian Cyber Army.” Despite the disruption, service was soon restored.

People whom tried accessing Twitter durring the time it was hacked, around 10 PM SL time. were redirected to a website displaying a green flag with Arabic script reading “Ya Hussein,” probably meaning a grandson of the prophet Mohammed, and a suggestion that the hackers were most likely Shiite Muslims, whom are mostly in Iran. Blue script near the flag read “Hezbollah is victorious.” There was also a poem with further words of defiance.

By 11:30 AM, users were able to access Twitter again, and on the official page a message was posted, "Twitter's DNS (domain name system) records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed."

Last summer, Twitter found itself involved in Iranian politics when those protesting the disputed election used it and other social networking sites to both make reports and broadcast pictures. As the authorites had been trying to shut off media access to the dissidents, Twitter proved to be a thorn in their side.

Some speculate the attackers targeted Twitter in retaliation. But this is just the latest of a number of similar troubles. In August, Twitter was knocked offline for two hourrs due to an attack on a Russian hacker. The service has also been the target of scam artists.


Source: BBC, CNN

Hack your way to 50 K !!!

Yes, you heard it right, you can win L$ 50,000 this week in a hacking competition at a sim called '0031 NO'. This is organized by DNBmedia, a Dutch company who provides several services in both Second and Real life. One of their main activities is maintaining the Dutch site www.secondlife.nl, where Dutch residents can buy L$ by paying directly from their bank account, amongst other things. The cluster of sims called 0031 are all aimed at Dutch people (+31 is the international dial code for the Netherlands), although everyone is welcome.


As a reaction to the drama that unfolded in another virtual world, Habbo Hotel (7 million residents world wide, aiming at kids and teens), where a 17 year old kid stole furniture from another kid's house. He did so by 'hacking' into the victim's account and thus transferring the furniture. Damages ran up to US$ 6,000 and this hacker has been arrested and will be charged with theft, stolen goods trade, digital trespassing and vandalism. That last one was because virtual goods are data. And if you remove data from an account, or server, that data is destroyed. DNBmedia set this hacking competition up as an experiment, to see how safe things are in Second Life.


I talked to Rickus Rodenberger, one of the DNBmedia people, to ask what the story was behind this competition. "We want to challenge everyone to hack us here. Our challenge is to show the world that Second Life is a safe place. If someone would actually succeed, it would be a great learning opportunity for us."

Taking the words of Mr. Rodenberger into account, there will always be a winner. If it's not a hacker that finds a way in, it is Second Life itself, for having things in order. Mr. Rodenberger says: "If there is fraud, it's mostly because of stupidity of people. For example if they reveal their account details."


About the challenge:

The prize is L$ 50k (about US$ 188) for anyone who can decode the script inside the vault, find a 10 digit code and an email address inside the script, and if you find it, you have won. Mind you, you have to do it within the boundaries of the Terms of Service that rule the world of Second Life. The competition lasts till November 21, 2007, even if someone actually hacks into it, there could be more than 1 way in. Right?

Location: 0031 NO (SLurl)