HACKERS MAKE ONLINE DEMAND TO FREE MITNICK.Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Reports Hackers broke into Yahoo!, the Internet's most popular site, demanding the release of an imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- comrade and threatening to unleash a crippling crip·ple n. 1. A person or animal that is partially disabled or unable to use a limb or limbs: cannot race a horse that is a cripple. 2. A damaged or defective object or device. tr.v. computer virus if he is not freed. Computer security experts were skeptical of the hackers' claim that they had implanted such a virus. The hackers, calling themselves PANTS/HAGIS, got into Yahoo!'s World Wide Web site Monday night, leaving a digital ransom note for the Sunnyvale company. Yahoo! is a computer directory widely used for searching the Internet. The note appeared briefly in place of the Yahoo! home page, preventing people online from using the search engine, which got 17.2 million visits in October. ``For the past month, anyone who has viewed Yahoo's page & used their search engine, now has a logic bomb/worm implanted deep within their computer,'' it read. ``On Christmas Day, 1998, the logic bomb part of this `virus' will become active, wreaking havoc upon the entire planet's networks. ``The virus can be stopped. But not by mortals.'' The note said an ``antidote'' program will be made available if San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. hacker Kevin Mitnick Kevin David Mitnick (born October 6, 1963) is a controversial computer cracker and convicted criminal in the United States. Mitnick was convicted in the late 1990s of illegally gaining access to computer networks and stealing intellectual property. is released. Mitnick, 34, was indicted INDICTED, practice. When a man is accused by a bill of indictment preferred by a grand jury, he is said to be indicted. last year on charges involving a multimillion-dollar crime wave in cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. . In June, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer Mariana Pfaelzer is a U.S. District Court Judge in the Ninth Circuit. She is probably best remembered for her role in striking down California's Proposition 187, which would have denied services to illegal aliens. sentenced the habitual hacker to 22 months in prison for using ``cloned'' cell phone numbers and violating his parole on an earlier computer fraud conviction in the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. area. The judge further ordered him to stay away from cellular phones, the Internet and anything remotely resembling a computer once he is released from prison. Yahoo! representatives did not immediately return calls for comment. Jonathan Wheat, manager of the Anti-Virus Lab at the National Computer Security Association, said it is at least theoretically possible to exploit security flaws on the Internet and implant such a virus. But he said he doubts this group of hackers - already known to security experts - pulled it off. ``That's pretty much ridiculous,'' agreed Jamonn Campbell, an information security analyst at the association. Wheat said there was little reason to be concerned that the popular Web site was hacked. ``A lot of Web sites get hacked constantly (to no effect),'' he said. Wheat added that while Yahoo! is a high-profile site and should be expected to have better security than most, ``no site is completely hack-proof.'' |
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