![]() ![]() Gawker has called 4Chan the "ground zero for internet mischief", " the internet's worst trolls", and likened the experience of reading it to consuming "heroin mixed with fibreglass". The image board has been the subject of regular posts on Gawker written in the site's trademark snarky and forthright style. 4Chaners latched on to the vote and swamped it, pushing North Korea into prime position. The complaint of arrogance appears to have been a reference to a feud that has been running for more than a year between Gawker and 4Chan, an image board frequently used by hackers, including those who orchestrated the Anonymous pro-WikiLeaks attacks over the past 10 days.Ī sub-board on 4Chan, known as /b/, acts as a meeting house for some of the most dedicated hackers.Īmong its many actions was the memorable prank in which it hijacked an internet poll asking fans of the teenage pop star Justin Bieber to decide which country he should tour next. It is scary how poor it is," the correspondent said. "Gawkmedia has possibly the worst security I have ever seen. In an email exchange with the website Mediaite, one of its members said it had attacked Gawker because it wanted to expose the "outright arrogance" of Gawker's management by highlighting the site's inadequate security. The cyber attack was claimed by a previously unknown group of hackers going by the name of Gnosis. Gawker by contrast has had no special involvement in the WikiLeaks events and appears to have been singled out more for its past tussles with the hacking fraternity than for anything to do with its reporting of the embassy cables. Previous corporate targets such as PayPal and MasterCard have been selected for their failure to support WikiLeaks as part of the so-called Operation Payback launched by fans of the whistleblower site. The attack took the recent flurry of mass hacking escapades into new territory. The use of Gawker's own Twitter feed by the hackers to announce their ploy was a breathtaking act of defiance.Įven more audaciously, they then went on to post real-time email exchanges between Gawker staffers that they had hacked into, in which the employees discussed how they were coming under attack. The first sign of the attack was a tweet posted to the Twitter account of the Gawker gadget site, Gizmodo, which said "Support WikiLeaks" and added " hacked, 1.5 million usernames/emails/passwords taken." Within hours of the attack being launched on Saturday the assailants had gained access to Gawker's database of usernames and passwords as well as the programs that are used to serve up the sites, known as their source code. "We understand how important trust is on the internet, and we're deeply sorry for and embarrassed about this breach of security – and of trust," a contrite Gawker management said, admitting that the integrity of all its nine sites had been compromised. The hackers cracked more than a quarter of a million passwords in the website's database, dumping the information on the internet, where it could easily be found – including the personal details of Gawker's British founder and mastermind, Nick Denton. ![]()
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