Hacking

What the Hack

What The Hack was an outdoor hacker conference held in Liempde, The Netherlands between the 28th and 31st of July, 2005. It is an event in a sequence that began with the Galactic Hacker Party in 1989, followed by Hacking at the End of the Universe in 1993, Hacking In Progress in 1997 and Hackers At Large in 2001 and followed by Hacking at Random in 2009.

Attendance

Police Camping Truck

The organising name was "HEX 2005", however, it was later renamed to "WTH 2005".

Over 2000 hackers visited the event to participate in an exchange on several technical, social and philosophical matters of importance to the technically inclined community. Visitors from all over the world arrived at the Camp Ground including groups of such diversity as OpenBSD developers, the German Chaos Computer Club, members of the 2600: The Hacker Quarterly hackergroup, and numerous smaller groups and organisations in addition.

While planning the event, there were several issues with the local government attempting to cancel the event because of "the risk for public security".

Several smaller events were embedded in or inspired by this event like the Hacktrain, which was planned to travel there, as well as the local radio station, and the smaller Police village which featured specialists from their IT Department, as well as interested government parties. Peg DHCP (RFC 2322) was used during the event to allocate IP addresses. The method had been first devised and used at Hacking In Progress.

Lectures and events included:

• Reverse engineering Microsoft .NET
• Cyborgs: Practical Experimentation
• Attacks on Digital Passports
• Using Linux for Embedded Devices
• Doing a WiFi Long-Shot
• Symbian Security
• Do We Run Out of Oil?
• How to Lower Electricity Consumption in Your Home
• The Politics of Psychedelic Research

Ankit Fadia(indian)

The following is a timeline of Ankit Fadia's "career", compiled using information in public sources such as news articles, his web sites and more. This will help explain how someone his age simply cannot be an "expert" by any commonly accepted meaning of the word. Such a timeline also better highlights contradictions and discrepancies he has told various reporters or published in his biographies.

1989 .. 2003 - Delhi Public School, India (2004 resume)

1995 May, 24 - Turned 10 years old.

• "gifted a PC" (indiaPRwire, thehindu), contradicts several other publications where he was quoted saying "gifted a PC at 12"

1997 May, 24 - Turned 12 years old.

• "gifted a PC" (rediff, SWG), contradicts several other publications where he was quoted saying "gifted a PC at 10"
• "developed interest in computer hacking" (indiaPRwire)

1998 May, 24 - Turned 13 years old.

• "wasted on playing games" (several sources)
• "developed interest in computer hacking" (SWG)
• "began writing a website on computer security and started his own Internet forum." (expressbuzz)
• "hacked front page of CHIP magazine" [reference], contradicts claim it was Indian .gov site
• "At the age of thirteen I performed my first hack and defaced the Indian government website." [reference], contradicts claim it was magazine site

1999 May, 24 - Turned 14 years old.

• "started my own web site" (rediff) [Archive], yet site says "Established: 16th February 2001"
• "published first book" (indiaPRwire, expressbuzz)
• "He claims that when he was 14, he trashed the front page of an Indian magazines website." [reference]

1999 June, 28 - Publishes "The Unofficial Guide To Ethical Hacking" (ISBN 0333 93679 5) at 628 pages in 15 days (rediff), yet asks simple questions that an author should know. Some biographies claimed it sold 500,000 copies and was translated into 11 languages.

2000 May, 24 - Turned 15 years old.

2001 - He claims that he discovered links between the Chinese government and the China Eagle Union, a cracker group responsible for defacing many U.S. web sites. [

2001 May, 24 - Turned 16 years old.

2001 June 29 - Publishes guide to defacing web pages. This can be easily argued that any claims of "ethical" hacking are invalid.

2001 Nov - "consulted by a classified intelligence agency for breaking an encrypted message sent by one of Osama Bin Laden's men (indiaPRwire) and "After the September 11 attacks, the U.S Government found some encrypted mails. The mails apparently had only pictures and no text accompanying them. “The pictures followed the steganography pattern where in photographs with embedded messages are used. I gave a few suggestions on decoding them." (thehindu.com) - The oOnly reference, other than Fadia, is reputedly from Jack Kelley of USA Today who was later fired for fabricating stories.

2002 Aug - Moves personal site to ankitfadia.com.

2003 - Fadia's site, Ankitfadia.com, was attacked in 2003 by a cracker who self-identified as "SkriptKiddie". Fadia explained that he was using a private web server for hosting his website and they were responsible for the lack of security. [

2003 Apr - Several biographies claim he spoke at the "52nd International Programme on Auditing Information . However, no other mention of this conference can be found, and the liklihood of a 52 year old conference on auditing IT not being more well-known is hard to believe.

2004 May 24, Turned 19 years old.

2004 - Fadia's resume says that two of his books have sold a combined 87,000 copies. This contradicts some biographies that say it sold 500,000 copies.

2004 - Freshman at Stanford University (2004 resume)

2007 - Stanford University '07 Alum (facebook)

2008 May 24 Turned 23 years old.

2008 July 11 - First evidence his site http://hackingmobilephones/ hit by viagra spammers. [reference]

2008 Aug - "consulted by the Navi Mumbai Police Department to trace the terror email sent just a few minutes before the Gujarat serial blasts" (indiaPRwire)

2008 Dec 16

• "author of 14 pubs" (indiaPRwire)
• "delivered more than 1000 talks in 25 countries" (indiaPRwire)
• "received 45 awards" (indiaPRwire)
• "senior at Stanford University" (indiaPRwire). This may contradict his claims of being "07 Alum" depending on use of word. While generally accepted this is used to mean "graduated", the technical definition includes "or student". However, why would he keep "'07 Alum" on his Facebook page that he actively updates in 2009?

2009 May 24 - Turned 24 years old.

2009 Nov - "has a degree in information security from Stanford University in the US." (tech2.in.com). His Facebook page in 2009 says "Management Science and Engineering".

2009 Nov 24 - "[The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking] became an international bestseller, sold over three million copies and was translated into 11 languages."

2009 Dec - Public notices his site has viagra spam, yet Fadia didn't notice since July of 2008.

2009 Dec - "The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking has sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide and is still counting." (rediff) This makes sales of the book over 4 million in a matter of months, or contradicts previous numbers.

2009 Dec 21 - According to his web site, "His books have sold a record 10 million copies across the globe".

Ankit Fadia is an independent computer security consultantHe runs a program on computer security for corporates in alliance with Reliance Info.

Biography

Ankit went to Delhi Public School, R K Puram for school.^[3] He started a website called "HackingTruths", which he claims was judged as the "second best hacking site in the world by the FBI".^[3] He claims that when he was 14, he trashed the front page of an Indian magazine's website. He then sent an e-mail to the editor confessing to the hack, suggesting counter measures.^[4] At 15, his book on Ethical Hacking made him the youngest author to be published by Macmillan India.^[4] Many publications wrongly reported that Fadia is associated with FBI or CIA,^[5][6] however, he himself denied this.

Fadia has also sponsored Singapore Management University's "Ankit Fadia Information Security Award", which consisted of a $500 cash prize and Certificate and was given for two years to "an outstanding student" in the Information Security and Trust Course under the Bachelor of Science (Information System Management) degree.^[7]

Controversy

Authenticity of claims

According to Wendy McAuliffe at ZDNet UK, Fadia's Hacking Truths website was judged "second best hacking site" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, though no ranked list of "hacking sites" has been published by the FBI.^[3]

In 2000, Chennai Online reported that Fadia's consulting clients included several of the largest technology and financial services companies in the world. No other source corroborates that report; were it true, Fadia's client list would exceed that of many of the largest independent security consultancies. The same article reported Fadia's involvement in decrypting a message from an Al Qaeda operative; no other source corroborates that claim, nor does any of Fadia's published work involve cryptography or cryptanalysis.^[8][9][10]

In April 2000, Rediff.com published an interview^[11] with Ankit Fadia. Anti-India Crew (AIC), a Pakistani hacker group noted for defacing Indian Government websites, rubbished the claims that Fadia had made in the interview. Fadia had claimed that his alert to a U.S. spy agency had prevented an attack by Pakistani hackers. However, he never divulged the name of the agency, citing security reasons.^[4] AIC and another Pakistani hacker group WFD defaced an Indian Government site, epfindia.gov.in, and "dedicated" it to Fadia in mock deference to his capabilities to hack or prevent hacking.^[12][13] AIC also said that it would be defacing the website of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), www.cbec.gov.in, within two days and challenged Fadia to prevent the attack by patching the vulnerable website. AIC maintained that Fadia should stop calling himself a hacker, if it succeeded in hacking the CBEC website.^[12] AIC kept its promise and defaced the CBEC website after two days. At another defaced website (bhelhyd.co.in), AIC termed the claims of Indian media about Ankit Fadia as "Bullshit".^[14]

Some security experts in India dismissed him as just another fad.^[15] Ankit Fadia is listed on attrition.org's Security Scene Errata: Charlatans webpage alongside individuals such as Steve Gibson and Carolyn Meinel. This page seeks to "point out a few cases of fakes walking among us".^[16][17]

He has been accused of copying materials from internet and paraphrasing into his own books and lectures. Recently, his claims have been proved false and he has been cited as fake person boastering in his own imaginations of fancy hacking for gaining cheap publicity.^[18][19][20]

Fadia's earlier site, Ankitfadia.com, was attacked in 2003, by a cracker who self-identified as SkriptKiddie. Fadia explained that he was using a private web server for hosting his website and they were responsible for the lack of security. However, all web servers give their customers an option to build their own security installing their own (customer's) software and patches when they opt for private servers.

In December 2009 Fadia's business site, hackingmobilephones.com was hacked by a spammer promoting pharmaceutical products for erectile dysfunction. Fadia again "claimed it had happened because of a fault in the server that hosts his site." "The problem lies in the server and all the sites hosted by it have been infected."^{[21] [22]}

TV shows

According to the DNA Newspaper article, in Oct 2009 MTV India announced the launch of Ankit Fadia's new TV show on MTV called What the Hack! According to the MTV India website, on the show What The Hack! Ankit Fadia gives tips on how to make good use of the internet and answers people's queries/questions. Internet users email their problems to MTV India and Ankit gives them the solution.

Books and Publications

• Fadia, Ankit. The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN 1931841721.
• Fadia, Ankit. Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN 1598631632.
• Fadia, Ankit. Hacking Mobile Phones, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN 1598631063.
• Fadia, Ankit. Tips and Tricks on Linux, Centro Atlantico, 2002. ISBN 972-8426-34-8.
• Fadia, Ankit. Email Hacking, Vikas Publishing, 2020. ISBN 9788125918134.
• Fadia, Ankit. Windows Hacking, Vikas Publishing, 2020. ISBN 9788125918141.
• Fadia, Ankit; Jaya Bhattacharjee. Encryption Protecting your Data, Vikas Publishing, 2020. ISBN 9788125922513.
• Fadia, Ankit; Zacharia, Manu. Intrusion Alert: An Ethical Hacking Guide to Intrusion Detection, Course Technology PTR, 2020. ISBN 1598634143.
• Ankit, Fadia; Diwakar, Goel. Google Hacking - An Ethical Guide, Vikas Publications, 2020. ISBN 8125922490.
• Das Patnaik, Nishant; Ankit, Fadia. Software Hacking, Vikas Publications, 2008. ISBN 9788125928676.
• Ankit, Fadia; Boonlia, Prince. System Forensics, Vikas Publications, 2020. ISBN 9788125931515.
• Ankit, Fadia; Singh, Aditya. Cracking Admissions in Colleges Abroad, Vikas Publications, 2020. ISBN 9788125930754.

• Margherita Hack

• Margherita Hack in 2007
  Born	June 12, 1922 (1922-06-12) (age 88) Florence, Italy
  Residence	Italy
  Nationality	Italian
  Fields	Astrophysicist Popular Science Writer
  Institutions	University of Trieste
  Alma mater	University of Trieste
  Notable awards	Targa Giuseppe Piazzi (1994) Premio Internazionale Cortina Ulisse (1995)
  Signature

  
  

  Margherita Hack (born June 12, 1922) is an Italian astrophysicist and popular science writer. The asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named in her honor.

  Biography

  Born in Florence, she received her laurea (Master's Degree) in Physics from the Arcetri Observatory, in 1945, with a thesis in Astrophysics on Cepheid variables. She was full Professor of Astronomy from 1964 to 1997 at the University of Trieste; she retired in 1998.

  She administered the Trieste Astronomical Observatory from 1964 to 1987, making it become internationally well known.

  She is a member of several Physics and Astronomy associations^[1], and was director of the Astronomy Department at the University of Trieste from 1985 to 1991 and from 1994 to 1997. She is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei^[2]

  Gary McKinnon

• Gary McKinnon
  Born	10 February 1966 (1966-02-10) (age 44) Glasgow, Scotland, UK
  Nationality	British
  Other names	Solo

• Gary McKinnon (born 10 February 1966) is a Glasgow-born systems administrator and hacker who has been accused of what one US prosecutor claims is the "biggest military computer hack of all time,"^[1] although McKinnon himself states that he was merely looking for evidence of free energy suppression and a cover-up of UFO activity and other technologies potentially useful to the public. After a series of legal proceedings in the UK, McKinnon is currently awaiting extradition to the United States. Alleged crime

  McKinnon is accused of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers over a 13-month period between February 2001 and March 2002, using the name 'Solo'. The computer networks he is accused of hacking include networks owned by NASA, the US Army, US Navy, Department of Defense, and the US Air Force.

  The US authorities claim he deleted critical files from operating systems, which shut down the US Army’s Military District of Washington network of 2,000 computers for 24 hours, as well as deleting US Navy Weapons logs, rendering a naval base's network of 300 computers inoperable after the September 11th terrorist attacks. McKinnon is also accused of copying data, account files and passwords onto his own computer. US authorities claim the cost of tracking and correcting the problems he caused was $800,000.^[2]

  McKinnon has denied causing any damage, arguing that, in his quest for UFO-related material, he accessed open, unsecured machines with no passwords and no firewalls and that he left countless notes pointing out their many security failings. He disputes the damage and the financial loss claimed by the US as concocted in order to create a dollar amount justifying an extraditable offence.^{[citation needed]} While not admitting that it constituted evidence of destruction, McKinnon did admit leaving a threat on one computer:

  US foreign policy is akin to Government-sponsored terrorism these days … It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year … I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels … ^[3]

  US authorities claim that McKinnon is trying to downplay his own actions. A senior military officer at the Pentagon told The Sunday Telegraph: "US policy is to fight these attacks as strongly as possible. As a result of Mr McKinnon's actions, we suffered serious damage. This was not some harmless incident. He did very serious and deliberate damage to military and Nasa computers and left silly and anti-America messages. All the evidence was that someone was staging a very serious attack on US computer systems."^[4]

  Arrest and legal proceedings

  McKinnon was first interviewed by police on 19 March 2002. After this interview, his computer was seized by the authorities.^[5] He was interviewed again on 8 August 2002, this time by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).^[5]

  In November 2002, McKinnon was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.^[6] The indictment contained seven counts of computer-related crime, each of which carried a potential ten-year jail sentence.^[5]

  Extradition proceedings

  McKinnon remained at liberty without restriction for three years until June 2005 (until after the UK brought in the Extradition Act 2003, which implemented the 2003 extradition treaty with the US wherein the US did not need to provide contestable evidence), when he became subject to bail conditions including a requirement to sign in at his local police station every evening and to remain at his home address at night. In addition, he was banned from using a computer with access to the Internet. There have been no more developments in respect of the charges relating to United Kingdom legislation but in late 2005 the United States began extradition proceedings.

  If he is extradited to the US and charged, McKinnon faces up to 70 years in jail^[7]. He has expressed fears that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.^[8][9] He continues to contest the extradition proceedings and believes that he should face trial in the UK, principally as he argues that the destruction allegations are fraudulent and that any alleged crimes were committed there and not in the United States.

  Appeal to the House of Lords

  Representing McKinnon in the House of Lords on 16 June 2008, barristers told the Law Lords that the prosecutors had said McKinnon faced a possible 8–10 years in jail per count if he contested the charges (there were seven counts) without any chance of repatriation, but only 37–46 months if he co-operated and went voluntarily to the US. US-style plea bargains are not a part of English jurisprudence (although it is standard practice to reduce the sentence by one-third for a defendant who pleads guilty)^[10] and McKinnon's lawyers contended that in effect this was intimidation to force McKinnon to waive his legal rights. McKinnon also claimed that he had been told that he could serve part of his sentence in the UK if he co-operated. He rejected the offer because the Americans would not guarantee these concessions.

  Barristers said that the Law Lords could deny extradition if there was an abuse of process: "If the United States wish to use the processes of English courts to secure the extradition of an alleged offender, then they must play by our rules."^[11]

  The House of Lords rejected this argument, with the lead judgement (of Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood) holding that "the difference between the American system and our own is not perhaps so stark as [McKinnon]'s argument suggests" and that extradition proceedings should "accommodate legal and cultural differences between the legal systems of the many foreign friendly states with whom the UK has entered into reciprocal extradition arrangements".^[12]

  Further appeals

  McKinnon appealed to the European Court of Human Rights,^[13] but the request for an appeal was rejected.

  On 23 January 2009, McKinnon won permission from the High Court to apply for a judicial review against his extradition.^[14] On 31 July 2009, the High Court announced that McKinnon had lost this appeal.^[15] Currently McKinnon's legal team, solicitor Karen Todner and barrister Ben Cooper, have applied for a judicial review into the Home Secretary's rejection of medical evidence, which stated that, when he could easily be tried in the UK, it is unnecessary, cruel and inhumane to inflict the further stress of ripping him from his homeland, his family and his medical support network.

  Asperger's diagnosis

  In August 2008, Mckinnon was diagnosed by three of the world's leading experts (Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor Jeremy Turk and Professor Thomas Bernie) as suffering from an autism spectrum disorder compounded with clinical depression.

  McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, claimed that he was suicidal and that he would not survive a U.S. prison incarceration.^[16] She has received support from psychiatrist Professor Jeremy Turk of St George's Hospital, London, who said that suicide was now an “almost certain inevitability”.^[17] On 10 November 2009, Janis Sharp gave evidence before the Select Committee for Home Affairs of the UK Parliament.^[18] The Committee backed calls for the extradition to be halted because of McKinnon’s “precarious state of mental health” and called for a comprehensive review of the extradition treaty.^[19]

  In May 2010, following the change of government after the general election, the new Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to an adjournment to delay a High Court decision on whether the extradition could go ahead to allow the new government time to review the case.^[20]

  Support for McKinnon

  In early November 2008, a total of 80 British MPs signed an Early Day Motion calling for any custodial sentence imposed by an American court to be served in a prison in the UK.^[21] However, on 15 July, many of them voted in Parliament against a review of the extradition treaty.^[22]

  In mid-November, the rock group Marillion announced that it was ready to participate in a benefit concert in support of Gary McKinnon's struggle to avoid extradition to United States. The organiser of the planned event is Ross Hemsworth, an English radio host. No date has been set yet.^[23] Many have now voiced their support, including Sting, Trudie Styler, Julie Christie, David Gilmour, Graham Nash, Peter Gabriel, The Proclaimers, Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde, David Cameron, Boris Johnson (Mayor of London), Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross^{[citation needed]}, Terry Waite, Tony Benn, Chris Huhne, Lord Carlile, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party of England and Wales, the National Autistic Society, Liberty, and many others. All of these propose that, at least, he should be tried in the UK.^[24] In August 2009, Scottish Newspaper The Herald reported that Scots entrepreneur Luke Heron would pay £100,000 towards McKinnon's legal costs in the event he was extradited to the US.^[25]

  In a further article in The Herald, Joseph Richard Gutheinz, Jr., a retired NASA Office of Inspector General Senior Special Agent, voiced his support for Gary McKinnon. Gutheinz, who is also an American criminal defense attorney and former Member of the Texas Criminal Justice Advisory Committee on Offenders with Medical and Mental Impairments, said that he feared Gary McKinnon would not find justice in the USA, because "the American judicial system turns a blind eye towards the needs of the mentally ill".^[26][27]

  The British tabloid The Daily Mail has started a campaign to prevent Gary McKinnon's extradition to the U.S.^[28][29]

  Janis Sharp, McKinnon's mother, stood as an Independent candidate in the 2010 General Election in Blackburn in protest against the sitting Labour MP Jack Straw, who was Foreign Secretary when the extradition treaty was agreed.^[30] As she herself admitted to the media her intention was not to unseat Straw, but to raise awareness of the destruction of civil liberties at the hand of Straw's government. She advised her supporters not to vote for her, finally finishing last^[31] out of eight candidates with 0.38% of the vote.^[32]

  On 20 July 2010 Tom Bradby, ITN political editor, raised the Gary McKinnon issue with President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron in a joint White House press conference who responded that they have, in fact, discussed it and are working to find an 'appropriate solution'^[33][34]