This was a long and yet one of the most interesting reads from WIRED I have seen in a long time.
Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
61–69 of 69 posts
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#62This is a bit over the top. He is not a master hacker who "saved the Internet"; He accidentally neutered WannaCry by registering a domain he found in the binary, which as it turned out, acted as a kill switch.
> He is not a master hacker Those who have watched his reverse engineering malware live streams would beg to differ.
To anyone in the biz, those live streams should reinforce the fact that Hutchins is little more than script kiddie.
He does have a lot of young, inexperienced followers however, who can't tell the difference and are willing to take him at his word.
Hutchins is a media creation. The hype around him and especially his portrayal as a hero is absolute fiction.
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#63Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#64Why wouldn’t the wannacry malware writers register the domain first? Should be possible to simply update the name servers or dns records should the kill switch need to be engaged?
Perhaps it wasn't a kill switch but rather a way to exempt certain organizations or countries from the effects of the malware.
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK we stop terrorists with Narwhal tusks https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/30/narwhal-tusk... What's more interesting on the "good deed - bad deed" ometer is > Among those who pinned down the attacker was James Ford, 42, who is also thought to have tried to save the life of a woman who had been stabbed. Ford was jailed for life in 2004 for the murder of 21-year-old Amanda Champion.
One good deed is not enough to absolve, but one bad deed is enough to condemn.
This man wasn't exactly jailed for jaywalking [1].
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/3659523.stm
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#66I cringed when it came to describing how he'd try to tell the FBI half truth. Even if they hadn't had enough evidence to get him for his involvement in the Kronos malware, they'd still throw the lying to a Fed charge at him.
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't know it was the kill-switch domain. He expected it would enable him to kill the malware, though, and was trying to figure out how to send the kill command before it turned out that simply sitting a server behind the domain was enough to kill it.
Nobody ever knows something until they do it. I don't understand what are you trying to say.
The same thing as everyone who's replied so far: that he deserves at least some of the credit for achieving what he set out to do.
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#68If you fellow HN'ers feel as compelled to thank Marcus as much as I did, I recommend supporting his Patreon:
Re: Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who stopped the WannaCry attack
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
One good deed is not enough to absolve, but one bad deed is enough to condemn.
This man wasn't exactly jailed for jaywalking [1]. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/3659523.stm
I was simply stating a truism, not complaining about it..