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So, as many of you know, today is my 23rd birthday (wow, I'm old!!). Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as planned (not that there were any real plans, but just read on, you'll see what I mean). I woke up this morning and got on my computer...dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum dum dum dum......AAAHHHHHHH!!! I'd been hacked overnight. That's right, some idiot hacker (which I later found out was probably a 13 yr old portugese-speaking Brazilian boy) had hacked my computer, defaced my web server, and compromised and destroyed data on my machine (its not as bad as it sounds luckily...but still, who wants to wake up to this any day, much less on your BIRTHDAY!). So, I ended up spending most of the morning and afternoon recovering what I could, repairing what I could, and attempting to figure out what had happened and how I could prevent it in the future. It turns out that the hacker left a calling card, and surprisingly I was able to track him down over the 'net and actually talk to him. Now, he didn't admit he had done it, and there was that small language barrier (he spoke no English, just Portugese and of course I spoke no Portugese...we used AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation in order to talk), but he did it a second time while I watched (don't worry, he was pretty friendly and I asked him to this time so I could try and figure out how my system was vulnerable...but still, I was like "Holy Sh*t" when he was able to make changes to my system from Brazil so easily), so I'm pretty sure it was him. After our incredibly "slow" conversation (see language barrier problem above ;) ), I finally was able to decipher how he had accomplished the hack and from there figure out where my vulnerability lied. I made short work of that security hole, and thanked him for his help, but surprisngly, he didn't want me to leave. He kept asking me to join his hackers club, and then when his mom called him for dinner, he wanted me to stick around or at least trade email addresses with him. Suffice to say, I got his instead and said I'd "be in touch." Still, it was "nice" for him to help me, especially after he'd hacked me and defaced and destroyed data on my system. Nonetheless, I feel pretty confident that I'm secure at this point (not that I'm inviting hackers to try breaking into my system...I'm just a poor college student...but I hear Microsoft is dying for you to try hacking their systems) and at least I was able to go out in the evening and have a nice dinner and hang with some friends to celebrate my birthday. All in all, not how I expected my birthday, but at least I learned some interesting things and it wasn't a total bust.
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Posted by Marc Bressman
@ 10:49 PM
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