

Why you don't steal from a hacker. - gregcmartin
http://infosec20.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-you-dont-steal-from-hacker.html
My flat was raided and ransacked during the London riots, but thanks to tracking software I fed intel to the London Metro police until he was apprehended and my laptop returned.
======
giberson
Glad the person got their Mac back, but why does this story and ones like it
always end at the recovery of the property? Could we get an update on the
_punishment_ of the criminal? I'd like to know what kind of repercussions the
criminals suffer--do they get prosecuted? I'm just curious if these software
tracking systems have been used in court as evidence to convict any of these
criminals.

~~~
Apocryphon
I'm not sure if it's that easy for the victim to find that information. My
family was robbed several years ago and while the police eventually reported
that they caught the perps, that was all of the detail they left. Similarly,
my girlfriend had credit cards stolen once and neither the police nor the
credit card company gave any information except that they had found the people
who stole the card. Perhaps this discretion is to prevent people from
attempting vigilante followup actions?

~~~
danso
I'm almost certain that (in the States at least) that information would be
public record. After all, the person has to be arraigned and go to trial.
Police reports are almost always public information, even reports that don't
involve you personally. You just have to go to the station sometimes.

------
gregcmartin
Sorry I wasn't implying that the software I used made me a hacker, that is
simply just my profession... I use the term very widely to be someone who
codes, pentests, reverses malware or jailbreaks iphones...

~~~
dasil003
Yes, I'm saddened by all the responses here making the basic logical fallacy
of affirming the consequent.

It seemed perfectly clear to me that you meant that a hacker is going to have
some means of finding his stolen laptop rather than that using Prey makes you
some kind of hacker.

And to the criticism that you are running a product, that's ridiculous as
well. Do we all solder our own motherboards? Devout Not-Invented-Hereism isn't
a prerequisite for being a hacker, and in fact it probably makes you much less
effective of one.

~~~
Legion
It's sad that many of the people who say the word "hacker" means all these
positive and inclusive things are often the same people who lambast someone
for actually using the word that way to refer to themselves.

Make up your minds. Is it the inclusive, "explorers of technology" meaning
where it's more about curiosity and open-mindedness than skill level, or is it
your little l337 boys club badge of honor?

~~~
jff
It's highly desirable to be called a genius, but in general people calling
themselves geniuses are looked down upon.

I think among people who do use the word "hacker" to mean someone skilled with
computers, it's considered poor form to call yourself a hacker but high praise
to be named a hacker. Eric Raymond wrote long screeds about this way back in
the 90s when people still gave a damn about him.

Personally, I call somebody who is skilled at breaking systems a hacker. The
guy who discovers how to Man-in-the-middle attack an SSL connection is a
hacker. The morons in black trenchcoats and leather fedoras who then download
a .EXE to automatically do just that and harvest passwords at Starbucks... are
fucking scum of the earth script kiddies.

~~~
Legion
But is "hacker" really analogous to "genius"? I mean, we have a bunch of
annual hacker conferences. If "hacker" isn't something you can call yourself,
who is going to all of these things?

~~~
jff
Joke answer: Have you ever been to Def Con? People who wear utilikilts and
dyed mohawks unironically probably have no qualms about calling themselves
hackers, deservedly or un-.

Real answer: I did actually attend Def Con this year, with the intent of
learning about hacking, possibly from hackers. I wouldn't call myself a
hacker, I just went because I wanted to learn about the subject. Really the
whole topic is not something I worry much about... in my line of work we don't
compliment people by saying "he's a good hacker", we just say "he's brilliant"
or "she does really great work", which to my mind is a better and less
ambiguous compliment.

------
pclark
This is why I have file vault + password screensaver on my MacBook Pro +
insurance. I'd sooner have to wait a few days to get a new laptop than rely
on: a) the user not instantly formatting the computer, b) prey finding my
laptop, c) the police doing something about it.

~~~
LogicX
... why not do exactly that; but ALSO have a guest account, and prey
installed. (Also re: not instantly formatting; put firmware and/or hard drive
passwords on to slow them down -- most thieves are not computer experts)

I think you under-estimate the speed and hassle of dealing with insurance.

Also most insurance has a deductible. You're still out typically hundreds of
dollars.

I had a macbook pro of one of our employees stolen. We used prey to get it
back, with assistance from the police. Yes we have corporate insurance, yes we
backup our data; but we were still very pleased to receive our stolen property
back.

~~~
gst
If you have a guest account you can't encrypt your whole harddisk. And if my
laptop gets stolen I don't care about the money but about my data falling into
the wrong hands.

~~~
shabble
Set up a honeypot account 'm[ou]m', with a visible password hint to the tune
of 'Dammit m[ou]m, THE PASSWORD IS "Susan"'.

Make sure it has no access to the filesystem outside of its homedir, and you
could even set some login items to watch for net access and push a
notification.

~~~
gst
The honeypot account still needs access to the operating system, and thus to
the harddisk password if you use full-disk encryption.

Full disk encryption is more or less default for most Linux distributions and
OS X Lion. In addition, it's the only sane solution if you want to securely
encrypt your data.

------
nikcub
the word 'hacker' has been diluted to a new low

first to 'somebody who can write a web app', to now 'somebody who can install
software'

~~~
wheels
Reading comprehension fail. Just because the title asserts that the poster is
a hacker doesn't mean that the post justifies why he is one. If I write
something about "Why you don't steal from a Texan" I'm going to talk about you
digging lead out of your derriere, not about where I was born.

~~~
dsmithn
In fact, he's updated his post to reflect this kind of comment:

" __Updated: to quell the comments, I did not choose the title to imply
downloading tracking software is hacking, I am a hacker by profession and have
been all my life."

------
mcantor
It's amazing how when big media releases a story about "hackers ruining
America", people come out of the woodwork saying "actually, the term for
someone who practices forced electronic entry is 'cracker', and 'hacker' just
means someone who writes code", but when someone uses it that way, the HN post
fills up with comments about how the term 'hacker' has been diluted.

PICK ONE, GUYS.

~~~
zbisch
The reason that people are annoyed is because the title of the article is
misleading. Yes, this guy may be a "hacker" in the sense of the word that we
all like to use (he's a programmer).

The issue is that the article is titled "Why you don't steal from a hacker".
This is not actually an appropriate name for the article, because it's not the
writer's status as a hacker that leads to the final result. It is the writer's
position as an application user that leads to the final result. In that sense,
this article be should called, "Why you don't steal from someone that knows
how to use an application to track their stolen laptop". Hence, by replacing
the the "application user" with "hacker" you are diluting the meaning of
hacker that everyone here loves to use. I'm not trying to be critical, just
explaining why people are stating this and that they are attempting to express
a consistent stance. You may associate this type of activity with a hacker,
but understandably, it is not what you'd come up with when you attempted to
define a hacker.

~~~
ericd
I think the headline implies that a hacker/security professional is more
likely to have something like prey installed than, say, someone like my non-
technical mom.

~~~
zbisch
I think that's also a very reasonable point of view. However, at the same
time, I its also reasonable to say that there is a group that could include
people we would consider non-hackers that use this type of application (e.g.,
those with any sensitive/private information on their computers). Maybe they
wouldn't use the exact same application, but something to track their laptop
may be of use. Then again, maybe those people can afford a system with a built
in tracking devise that can't easily be removed (requires more than just
wiping the system). Meanwhile, hackers are left to add a "hack" to their
computer that can do the same thing.

Honestly, I see your point, and both sides. I've just met a few people that
have a similar service installed onto their phones, and I certainly would not
call them hackers. Similarly, if someone told me they had this installed on
their computer, I wouldn't think, "Oh, cool! S/he's a hacker!" On the other
hand, if I saw someone starting "Learn Python the Hard Way" I _would_ think,
"Oh shit, s/he's becoming a hacker!". Anyway, I don't really care too much.
You do make a good point though. In general, a hacker might be more likely to
aggressively try to track you down :)

------
benatkin
I care more about the safety of my data than the safety of my computer, so I
have FileVault full-drive encryption turned on. I don't think a thief could
log into my computer without wiping the drive, which would wipe Prey if I had
it installed. So I'm not going to bother installing it.

~~~
LogicX
Yes, the new filevault does make things tricky in this sense... however its
just a matter of time til someone improves prey project to install to the new
OSX Lion un-encrypted install (the one your system boots to, and prompts you
to enter your credentials, before booting into the encrypted drive).

There's apparently a safari browser-only mode which can be activated from the
login screen there.

This would create the ideal scenario for the stolen laptop: Thief without the
knowledge or ability to reformat (particularly if you've slowed them down
further with a firmware password) can only use the safari-browsing guest mode;
can't get to your full encrypted drive, and Prey is recording and sending off
everything they're doing.

------
a3_nm
This is neat, but it only works if your setup is simple enough to be usable by
a random thief so that they can get an Internet connection ready so that the
machine can phone home. Were someone to steal my laptop and boot it, they
would reach a tty login prompt in a dvorak layout, and playing around in grub
would also lead to an LFS install with a patched agetty greeting them in
lolcat. (My LFS was just for fun, so I did silly stuff with it.)

In other words, they would probably just wipe the computer and install
Windows, and I wouldn't hear about the machine. I guess I could have a Windows
install ready with a guest account and sneaky tracking software just for the
benefit of an hypothetical thief, but it doesn't seem worth the effort.

~~~
Andys
Perhaps you are also meticulous enough to not allow your laptop out of your
sight in the first place.

------
there
using a laptop recovery service to do exactly what it was intended to do.
sweet hack, bro!

~~~
Ronkdar
You're missing the point. To paraphrase: "As a hacker, I had the good sense to
make sure I had tracking software installed. I take security seriously."

------
icebraining
_> Luckily the thief was a smart little bugger and he was able to bypass the
password by using an OSX install CD to create a new admin account._

So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the
machine?

 _> I cranked up the frequency of reports to one in every five minutes to try
to get a screen capture of him using gmail or facebook so I could snag a name
or login credentials. _

Hmm, start a keylogger (and a sniffer) in the background and then scp the logs
a couple hours later?

~~~
notaddicted
Consumer routers will typically have port 22 firewalled for incoming trafic.

~~~
icebraining
Ok, I'll rewrite: Why wouldn't he use his reverse SSH connection* to do that
stuff?

* Reverse SSH: if wget <http://myserver.com/sshreverse>; then ssh -R 2900:localhost:22 User@myserver.com; fi

Stick this in a file, chmod +x, then add an entry in cron to run it every hour
or so. After that, you just need to create a file in your web server called
"sshreverse" and you'll have an SSH tunnel to your laptop.

~~~
moe
You forgot the part where you ensure that the ssh-key for user@myserver.com
can only be used for this particular reverse-tunnel and not to, say, login to
myserver.com...

------
vasco
My mom is a hacker too. She hacked her own gmail account the other day by
recovering her password, she even had to remember the name of her first pet!

------
tyler_ball
Here is a much funnier and more technical account of someone retrieving their
stolen computer. In video form!

Skip to 3:15 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI8S2houW4>

~~~
mrspeaker
I've been thinking about that video... the guy says it started connecting to
the network over 2 years after it was stolen. It seems unlikely (or at least
plausible) that the guy who had it was the guy who stole it... or did I miss a
key bit of info that justified it all?

~~~
tyler_ball
That's true. He did say that he gave up looking for it on Craigslist and eBay
after a while, so it may have changed hands after he gave up the search.

------
jcfrei
Am I the only one who feels that it's wrong to put someone's personal
information and picture on the internet just because he stole a laptop? Of
course you get your personal information stolen as well, but in my opinion
that doesn't justify spreading his image and name all over the internet. that
kind of intrusion into privacy (of the thief) is a much bigger crime in my
eyes than the loss of some laptop.

~~~
raganwald
We had this discussion the last time something like this was on HN, so I’ll
try to summarize things from my biased point of view. The first thing is, some
people (myself included) would say this fellow is a suspect but has yet to be
convicted of a crime. Some people would wait until a conviction is registered
to publish details like this.

Others take a pitchforks and torches approach. I recall people saying,
“publish and let him sue if he doesn’t like it,” which is pretty much the same
thing as saying “it might be wrong, but thanks to the difficulties of suing
for libel, we can get away with it.”

I guess this is where we peel away all of our nobility and reveal the savages
underneath. Some of us strongly believe in the justice system and the
importance of treating the accused extremely fairly in theory, but in practice
"we know the bastard did it, so there."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Must it be the civilized versus the savages? Are you sure that's a fair
description?

How about this: it's my laptop, and I reserve the right to use it to take
pictures any time I see fit?

I'm okay with running the picture of the guy, and publishing the data, as long
as there's a clear disclaimer that this is just information pulled from your
own laptop, not presented as evidence in some kind of criminal proceeding. We
do this all the time with videos on the news that show crimes in progress.
Heck, we did it with the rioters. Local papers ran big pictures of them on the
front page. Simply making public video and data that you have every right to
have and use isn't the same as calling the guy a crook and demanding he be
hanged.

Now yes, the mob will probably take over from there, but that's because the
net is full of mobs, not because you've somehow made a mistake in publishing
the data. I am very concerned about folks taking justice into their own hands,
but I don't think that my concern somehow changes the right of this guy to
publish his own data.

There's no "we know the bastard did it, so there" that has to be involved. I
load my laptop up with whatever legal programs I like, and I choose to publish
the data from those programs any time I feel like it.

~~~
raganwald
_How about this: it's my laptop, and I reserve the right to use it to take
pictures any time I see fit?_

That statement is like saying “This is my gun, I reserve the right to shoot
bullets from it any way I like.” Obviously every action we take with our
person and our property has consequences and we are responsible for those
consequences we can reasonably foresee.

Clearly there is a continuum of choices from sharing the pictures with law
enforcement but not publishing them, to publishing them but being careful to
disclaim that this person has not been convicted of committing a crime, to
publishing them and asserting this is the thief. You pick where you feel
comfortable on that line, I pick where I feel comfortable.

Looking at the commentary here and the last two similar things to hit HN, you
must accept that regardless of where you or I might place ourselves, there are
definitely people to the far right of the line. You can see people talking
about this person as “the thief” without bothering with the inconvenience of a
trail. You can see people discussing the publicity as a pubnishment. One
comment talks about “naming and shaming” as a deterrant.

You may not consider yourself part of a lynch mob, but seriously, can you deny
that such an element is present?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_You may not consider yourself part of a lynch mob, but seriously, can you
deny that such an element is present?_

No, and I'm very concerned about it. But the only choices are the ones I have
to make. I can't start worrying about everybody else. In fact, once I let the
threat of a mob start swaying my decisions, I've already lost. _The mob has
won_. (ugh. hated doing that, but it was too rhetorically easy.)

You get my drift. I think, for me, that I need to think long and hard about
what the consequences might be. But quite honestly, here's some guy I don't
know using my computer. Anybody know this guy? Perhaps he's being held hostage
for all I know. The more information I get out there, the sooner we can have
this thing resolved. I don't have to jump all the way to some conclusion
simply because I need to solicit information about the location of my laptop.
After all, I'm the innocent guy here.

I didn't read the other articles, but it sounds like you are reacting against
the mob mentality found here and elsewhere. Yes, this concerns me a great,
great deal. The internet was supposed to bring equality and democracy. It's
done that, but it's also brought flash mobs robbing stores, riots, and
vigilante justice. Not good. We should all speak out against that --
especially when it's a cause that sounds "right" to us.

------
Sargis
Is this one of those viral marketing campaigns again? Yesterday, there was a
popular thread on Reddit about some guy who retrieved his stolen Macbook by
using the exact same software that's being mentioned here. And not to mention
the several other threads here on HN a few months ago that are suspiciously
similar.

Or maybe it's just really useful.

~~~
tomaspollak
no it's not. and please don't start with this over again.

we (the Prey team) don't have the time or the interest to pay people, thieves
or whomever to build and publish these elaborate stories.

I spent almost all afternoon yesterday on Reddit -- where some guy published a
similar story -- trying to make it clear that we had nothing to do with it
(besides having developed the software).

I'd be happy to answer any questions regarding Prey, but please don't make me
go repeating today the same thing all over again.

~~~
Kirchart123
Thanks for your software, i think u guys are latin-americans? ...

~~~
tomaspollak
yup that's right, at least me and most of the guys that work for Fork (the
company I founded after Prey took off). however there's lots of contributors
from Europe, the US and Asia.

~~~
gregcmartin
Hey, just wanted to say thank you.

~~~
tomaspollak
you're welcome Greg! really glad to know you got your laptop back. :)

------
sudonim
I just installed Prey. Ignoring the OP's use of the word "Hacker", you don't
have to pay them anything to get good value from the software.

I set it up so if this file ever disappears
<http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/prey.html> it starts sending me alert messages
like the one below:

Good news my friend, it seems we found it.

Here's the report from your computer:

######################################################## # geo
########################################################

:: lat=(deleted)

:: lng=(deleted)

:: accuracy=33.0

######################################################## # network
########################################################

:: public ip=(deleted)

:: internal ip=192.168.8.121

:: gateway ip=192.168.8.1

:: mac address=34:15:9e:07:af:86

######################################################## # session
########################################################

:: logged user=sudonim

:: uptime=14:21 up 3:12, 6 users, load averages: 2.12 1.91 2.06

Happy hunting!

\-------

Then it attaches a picture taken with my camera and a screenshot. All in all,
pretty handy to have running.

~~~
tomaspollak
6 users! wow.

~~~
xelfer
A single terminal session counts as a user, probably has a few open, plus the
system login etc.

------
gst
What I don't understand: I you're so concerned that someone steals your
laptop, why do you then install tracking software instead of encrypting your
harddrive?

If someone steals my laptop I wouldn't care about the cost of lost hardware.
Instead I'd care more about my private data that now is in the hands of
someone else.

~~~
kmm
I guess it depends on the person. I have more private data on Facebook than I
have on my computer. The cost would be a big problem to me though, I can't
afford to buy a new laptop every year.

------
breck
Quick look at the source code (<https://github.com/tomas/prey>) seems to show
that if you wipe the HD you're SOL. I'm still waiting for Apple to release
Find My Mac (similar to Find My IPhone), which will withstand a hard drive
reformat.

~~~
Aqua_Geek
Not sure if it survives a HD reformat, but:
[http://9to5mac.com/2011/08/03/apples-icloud-find-my-mac-
serv...](http://9to5mac.com/2011/08/03/apples-icloud-find-my-mac-service-goes-
live-for-developers/)

~~~
breck
Thanks! Finally a reason to upgrade to Lion.

------
dkokelley
I've been wondering about these services. Not having more information about
the inner-workings of a monitoring/recovery service, I'm concerned about the
company's ability to spy on me the same way I could spy on anyone who uses my
stolen laptop. What prevents this from happening?

~~~
mattvot
Prey is open source so, if you knew how to, you could add some monitoring
capabilities to Prey to make sure it isn't doing anything it shouldn't.

------
waffle_ss
Selling corporate firewall hardware doesn't make you a hacker

~~~
danparsonson
Well, who knows - maybe he has a life outside his job?

------
kirillzubovsky
One problem I find with these tracking applications, at least for the average
users, you actually have to remember that: (1) you have one installed and (2)
your credentials.

It's kind of a problem, if you have all your other data stored using something
like 1Password.

I know for sure I have a tracker installed on my laptop, but since it's
running in "stealth" mode, I have no clue what it is or where to find it. I
guess I am not hacky enough.

------
kragen
Wait, all he had to do was report the guy's name, address, and photo to the
police, and they got the computer back _for him_? It sounds like the London
Metro Police are a lot better than the ones in, say, San Francisco.

------
_pius
What I worry about with many of these recovery stories is that you're probably
not humiliating the criminal, just some unlucky person who bought the computer
on Craigslist.

~~~
biot
I was once looking to buy a Mac off of Craigslist. So I sent the guy an email
to ask about it. Oh, you lost the keyboard and mouse? You don't have the
original OS install disc? No receipt? The black power cord in the pictures
looks like one of those PC specials? Yeah, what are the odds that you
misplaced absolutely everything regarding the system except for the main unit
itself? Stolen.

------
joshaidan
Looks like the story just got pulled. I wonder if it was from all the
criticism over the use of the word hacker, or if it was for privacy reasons.

~~~
joshaidan
Oh, it's back now but the name of the school on the screen shot is wiped out,
as well as the guys eyes are crossed off.

------
nakkiel
A lot of bits wasted here about semantics but not a single one raising the
multiple racist allusions on the linked blog post.

------
joshaidan
I noticed he forgot to black out the guy's IP address 90.201.72.42 in the
screenshot.

~~~
joshaidan
Also, there's enough info to find the guys Facebook profile:
<https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1019527331>

------
Void_
This is exactly why I don't use password protection on my MacBook Pro.

------
pothibo
The guy browsed the internet for muslim revelation videos. I could have give
him 1 tip to be in God/Allah's good Grace: Don't steal other people's stuff.

------
gabaix
404 page has been pulled out 1 min ago.

------
rajpaul
"took a report and dusted for prints, performed typical forensics"

I'm impressed that the police dust for prints in England. I've never heard of
someone getting that kind of thoroughness for a domestic burglary where I
live.

~~~
jff
When my house was burgled, the cops sent out 3 cars, did a thorough
inspection, took inventory of what had been stolen, and dusted for prints in
places we indicated were likely to have been touched (the windowframe where
they came in, some doorknobs, and the box fan they had moved). This was in
Rochester's 19th Ward (New York), possibly the most dangerous and high-crime
part of town.

As far as I know, they never caught anybody, but at least they tried. I'm
pretty sure it was my drug-dealing neighbors two houses down... especially
since the guy _three_ houses down claims the security cameras on his porch
showed them taking stuff from our house to theirs. Oh well.

~~~
eneveu
Same in Paris when my brother's apartment was burgled a few months ago... 2
members of the French Scientific Police took pictures / fingerprints. I didn't
think they'd go that far, having read countless stories on how this is usually
handled in the US.

------
saturn7
How the world has changed, Hackers use macs?

~~~
dasil003
Wow, you are out of touch.

------
EGreg
Why didn't a real hacker have a keylogger installed on his machine instead of
just the webcam thing? You could have gotten the guys' password to his
facebook

~~~
chc
In my experience, hackers don't normally keylog themselves. That's the kind of
thing they'd rather avoid — it could be especially disastrous if your computer
were stolen like this.

~~~
drdaeman
Encrypt the logs with your public key. Do not keep the private key anywhere
near the machines, containing the encrypted logs. Move logs to a remote secure
storage (co-located or home-hosted) as soon as Internet connection's
available. Assure reasonable amount of electronic and physical security of the
storage servers.

Problem solved!

------
rickdale
I am sorry, but mere mortals have not heard of and don't use prey project.
Hackers use prey project. Professional ones.

------
xd
This article seems to imply this "hacker" used some actual skill set to
retrieve their stolen goods. Installing tracking software on a mac and then
bragging about it when stolen and then found doesn't fit with what I'd call
being a hacker.

Nice story though. And I'm happy another rioting / looting is going to court
to answer for there actions.

~~~
xd
The down votes seem to imply that I'm wrong. Please could someone enlighten me
as to why I'm out of line here. Yeah, sure this guy calls himself a "Security
Evangelist" but this has absolutely nothing to do with his skill set being
used as a "hacker". Any Joe on the street could and likely has done what he
has .. the title is sensationalism and frankly I've become tired of this
nonsense in the media over these riots.

~~~
lostmypw
I suppose it's people being tired by the whole "hacker" hoopla, especially
when people use the term to compare their e-peen, but also when the media
confuses hackers with crackers.

To me, the hacker/cracker thing is just a lost battle and thus a big waste of
time.

That being said, I'd only use "hacker" in the original sense, i.e. the hacker
philosophy about exploring, learning and teaching. To me, a person with no
clue about cars that learns to fix it themselves is by definition a hacker.

You all too often see people pulling the e-peen thing on the net, which I find
sad, as it's also just another waste of time. The "correct" use of the term
hacker is just a pretense imho.

In the same vein of whining and bitching: has there been another influx from
reddit lately or is the cooling effect (or what it's called) only gradually
noticeable? I've noticed that I'm more disappointed with the content and
comments on HN lately, even more so on reddit obviously.

~~~
xd
Couldn't agree with you more.

If you're a mechanic, you don't brag about calling the AA to home-start your
wheels. You would be pretty shocked to see a mechanic post a story about his
home-start on a hobby enthusiasts news site and see the community there voting
the story up.

~~~
lostmypw
Indeed, although I'd be sighing as in this case, not be shocked.

I wonder if it's just an illusion or if there really also is an influx in me-
too submissions. Not that I'm judging any submission in particular, but there
is clearly a difference in usefulness and novelty when you compare them.

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MatToufoutu
Maybe this guy IS a hacker, or maybe he's NOT, I don't care, but the word
hacker is worthless using in this story, didn't see any hack involved...

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dwrowe
"Hacking" is now referred to, someone posting on anothers facebook, since they
were still logged in. /facepalm

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lawlit
So now everyone who installs a "tracking software" on his laptop is a hacker.
Really, the internet has changed.

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budu3
Did Sam Odio's blog get hacked? Because I refuse to believe that the Sam whose
comments I've been reading on HN would steal from someone. Sam how is what
you're doing different from what Anonymous et al are doing? However irritating
Jonathan's experiment is, it doesn't give you the right to impose you idea of
morality on them.

~~~
hacketyhack
You're in the wrong comment thread.

