4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak • Hacker News Board

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#651

Post by ctchocula » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:19 AM UTC

ultimafan wrote: post #482

kypro wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like /pol/ and although I'm not really interested in defending it (I 100% understand why people don't like it) I will give my opinion of it because I think most people don't get it and take the board wayy too seriously. /pol/ isn't trying to be like the millions of other politic discussion forums online. It's literally intended to be politically outrageous so when people like yourself complain that it's full of out…

There's little doubt in my mind that for every person on websites like /pol/ that's taking the piss with subversive "be as offensive/absurd to the status quo as you can" style of humor there's at least one other person that's internalized those kinds of views as a genuine belief system. I don't browse 4chan anymore though I did used to (a lot) years ago. Take what I say as anecdotal evidence but I used to chat with a…

Essentially the plot of "Mother Night" by Kurt Vonnegut. An American spy sent to Germany before WW2 who works there as a radio host, but who ends up spreading even more anti-semitic messaging than Nazi members themselves. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#652

Post by tapoxi » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:20 AM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #633

Shekelphile wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then some morons connected them to the internet for no good reasons. Elon Musk and Franz von Holzhausen, to be precise.

No. Not even close. Far closer to Obama and his circle. Around Carpocalypse 2008, a bunch of three letter agencies started pushes for internet connected vehicles knowing the tech wasn’t there; but would be. I watched it happen. There was some shady shit, and the reality was 2008 wasn’t just about GM and Chrysler but and entire JustInTime mistake that could have stopped almost all car production around the world. Diff…

Obama wasn't president until January 2009.

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#653

Post by karel-3d » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #493

robotnikman wrote: post #397

I did some digging and the hacker posted which exploit he used. Apparently some boards allowed uploading PDF files, but the site never checked if the PDF file was an actual PDF file. Once a PDF file was uploaded it was passed to a version of Ghostscript from 2012 which would generate a thumbnail. So the attacker found an exploit where uploading a PDF with the right PostScript commands could give the attacker shell ac…

This is an old well known exploit. Don't run versions of ghostscript from 2012?

Newer Ghostscript versions are Affero GPL, that might be problem for some people, although probably not for 4chan (they don't modify it so it should be fine)

(incidentally I am now working on compiling this old GPL ghostscript to webassembly with file isolation... it works fine... but the compilation is kind of annoying)

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#654

Post by duskwuff » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

donnachangstein wrote: post #552

jrochkind1 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an old well known exploit. Don't run versions of ghostscript from 2012?

> Don't run versions of ghostscript from 2012? Per Wikipedia: In February 2013, with version 9.07, Ghostscript changed its license from GPLv3 to GNU AGPL. With the AGPL license being legal kryptonite I wonder if license compatibility drove the decision (and how many other installations of Ghostscript share this concern)?

> With the AGPL license being legal kryptonite I wonder if license compatibility drove the decision

Unlikely. There's a number of other strong indications that basic maintenance was being neglected, including shell transcripts showing that at least one server was running FreeBSD 10.1 (released in 2014, end-of-life in 2018), and PHP code using the mysql extension (which was deprecated in PHP 5.6 = 2014 and removed in PHP 7.0 = 2015).

It's probably not a coincidence that 4chan was sold to a new owner in 2015.

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#655

Post by ggm » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:29 AM UTC

Is there anyone doing something akin to the data analytics which happened for the Panama Papers?

I appreciate this has overtones of doxxing. I am not asking for "the list" but more if there is an intent to tie up some loose ends about influence relating mainly to /pol/

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#656

Post by kriro » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:33 AM UTC

robotnikman wrote: post #397

I did some digging and the hacker posted which exploit he used. Apparently some boards allowed uploading PDF files, but the site never checked if the PDF file was an actual PDF file. Once a PDF file was uploaded it was passed to a version of Ghostscript from 2012 which would generate a thumbnail. So the attacker found an exploit where uploading a PDF with the right PostScript commands could give the attacker shell ac…

Fascinating, that has been the attack vector in a couple of hackthebox like systems I've done over the last couple of years. The easier ones usually just require file name changes, the medium ones intercepting and mimetype change.

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#657

Post by LeafItAlone » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:34 AM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #433

shipscode wrote: post #126

The take on 4chan on here is super intriguing. I always felt that the current social media/doomscroll/memesharing landscape which has become so common worldwide is indiscernable and in some ways worse than 4chan. It feels like 4chan left it's homepage and went worldwide sometime in the early 2010s when iPhone-style phone use became more commonplace. I remember that 4chan users had more honor than users on the interne…

modern 4chan has a certain authentic charm to it. this is missing from most other places. you have to sift past loads of junk to get it, but you have to do that on any app to get the content you want. with no names, likes, virality, accounts, etc there’s less focus on writing the basic filler comments. less companies trying to sell me stuff. less focus groups trying to tell me what to think. and with less censorship…

>there’s less focus on writing the basic filler comments

I’m not sure you’ve actually been to 4chan…

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#658

Post by Uptrenda » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:36 AM UTC

Watching hacker news try use cold analytical intellect to deconstruct 4chan's jokes and culture (and still missing the point) has got to be the funniest joke ever. Perhaps a little more analysis will yield the answer to understanding the complexity of a green frog or running bear. Though I wouldn't count on it. It has to mean something nefarious. Much like the soft 'schlop schlop schlop' of a dog's tongue lapping up water -- its meaning to us is a mystery.

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#659

Post by brigandish » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:42 AM UTC

Philpax wrote: post #135

brigandish wrote: post #98

I see a lot of hate for 4chan here. Why? I’ve never used it, know it by reputation, but not sure why there’s so much hate for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Controversies_and_harass...

Honestly, that didn't help. There's a wide type of "controversy" there, and I don't see how 4chan are inherent to any of them, they could've been done via any forum. Or maybe I missed something, specificity would be good.

Re: 4chan Sharty Hack And Janitor Email Leak

#660

Post by brigandish » Wed, Apr 16, 2025, 5:48 AM UTC

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #307

ozmodiar wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this isn't too contentious but I'll try to cover most things. I've posted this a few times, but I checked out 4Chan about twice in the early days and saw CSAM both times and it gave me personally a visceral hatred of the site. I've heard it got better/that's not representative but it's a hard thing to shake. The origin of the site is also supposedly Moot getting kicked off SomethingAwful for posting 'lolicon'…

> It actually used to be slightly left leaning or at least libertarian or anarchist, but over the years pol in particular has been known to be hard right wing. If your bar doesn't kick out nazis, your bar becomes the nazi hangout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

That's not what the paradox of tolerance says, nor is it relevant. Popper gave two explicit standards for working out who is intolerant:

- they shun debate ("begin by denouncing all argument", "forbid their followers to listen to rational argument")

- they use violence instead ("answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols")

I, for one, prefer having peaceful Nazis to the other sort, and to - as Popper puts it - "counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion". Unless 4chan officials or the Nazis on 4chan were meeting both standards then I fail to see a connection.

Were 4chan or the 4chan Nazis doing so?