

Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers - ed209
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17231695

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driverdan
Why are foreign subnets even allowed to access JPL systems? Sure it's not
going to prevent someone from using a compromised system on a non-banned
subnet as a proxy but it seems like a simple step that would make it a little
harder.

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garg
They may be collaborating with the European, Russian, Japanese space agencies.
They have researchers traveling the world at any given time.

That said they certainly could restrict more access. It's a big challenge
because NASA is ultimately a research facility where freedoms of researchers
have to be carefully balanced with security and access control. Each
department and project has its own needs so it has a very varied attack
surface. It's not as simple as simply putting a giant international firewall
up.

And they do have strict restrictions in place but it takes a single project,
or sysadmin to drop the ball causing this sort of embarrassing situation.
Clearly it needs to be even more effective.

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spoiledtechie
From what I understand, it was a hackers playground to hack nasa computers
back in the day (90s). It used to be the easiest to get into and some of the
biggest systems to play around in.

Its no surprise that since it was so easy in the past, its still easy today.

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dmoney
I'd like to know what "key NASA computers" means. This could mean a computer
that can send commands to sattelites and rockets, or it could just mean a
central e-mail or file server used by office workers.

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Porter_423
The problem about the fact is that,if the hacker can break the NASA computer
security so easily then what would happen if this hacked information goes to
terrorists?I can't believe the top class US authority like NASA can blow their
head under the Hackers.

~~~
driverdan
What terrorists? If there were terrorists skilled enough to hack into "key
NASA computers" they'd be skilled enough to successfully blow things up in the
US. Which isn't happening.

This isn't the 90's anymore, NASA computers aren't a revolving door anymore.

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rbanffy
> they'd be skilled enough to successfully blow things up in the US. Which
> isn't happening.

I really agree with you on that, but I am a little bit concerned about
ignoring the possibility that there may be something going on we just haven't
seen yet.

~~~
nitrogen
_I really agree with you on that, but I am a little bit concerned about
ignoring the possibility that there may be something going on we just haven't
seen yet._

With seven billion people on the planet, there are _lots_ of things going on
that we just haven't seen yet, but most of them are benign. Excessive worrying
about the unknown will only lead us further down the path toward (and/or
beyond, depending on where you think we are now) a ubiquitous surveillance
society.

~~~
rbanffy
> Excessive worrying about the unknown will only lead us further down the path
> toward (and/or beyond, depending on where you think we are now) a ubiquitous
> surveillance society.

I think we should keep an eye on that too ;-)

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malkia
I have a problem that the word "hacker" was used in this context. Cracker (as
coined by RMS), or criminal is more appropriate.

I've just read Sam William's RMS biography, and the word hack has been used
since the 1950s for all things not done in harmful way.

And after all this is hacker news...

~~~
malkia
Downvoted for what? WTF?

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dillona
You are repeating a discussion that has happened literally thousands of times
over the last thirty years.

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Zirro
As someone who has not lived that long I would like to ask why and when the
word "Hacker" got a bad meaning attached to it?

~~~
dmoney
The movies "Hackers" and "The Net" were released in 1995. "Hackers" used the
term to mean "someone who penetrates computer security". The one use of the
term in in "The Net" [1] was ambiguous as to whether it meant this sense, or
Paul Graham's sense of the word[2]; but 90% of the movie was about security
and counter-security. So I'd say that the [counter]security connotation was
common usage by that time.

[1] [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/net-script-
tran...](http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/n/net-script-transcript-
sandra-bullock.html)

[2] <http://paulgraham.com/gba.html>

