Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

blogs.forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#71

Post by david_shaw »

I'm not particularly close to this issue, but the sexism I'm seeing here is pretty astounding. If this were a 16 year old guy, no one would bat an eyelid. Seriously.

Look at Mafiaboy back in 2000 -- he took down Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*TRADE, eBay, and CNN. I'm not even sure that he was 16 yet (I don't have his age offhand).

Is this a crazy and possibly fake story? Of course. Does that mean that it can't be true? Not by a long shot.

I work in information security, and at 16 knew a hell of a lot about SQL injection, buffer overflows, cross site scripting and oodles of other vulnerability classes. This girl didn't work alone, but part of a hacker group -- to me, it seems totally feasible.

I'm not saying that we should take every word an anonymous "16 year old girl" says on the Internet as absolute fact, but discounting this attack because it seems like a girl couldn't pull it off seems sexist and wrong. Again, if this were some pimply-faced male high schooler, no one would bat an eye.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#72

Post by gridspy »

noahc wrote: post #47
ErrantX wrote: post #8

This could very likely be a carefully (and cleverly constructed) identity. This girl might not exist; but because we all really really want a 16 year old girl to be the hacker the discrepancies are glossed over (the art of a good lie is not giving too much detail and letting other people's imagination fill the gaps). On the other hand the personality strikes me strongly as female, so if it is an facade it is a very w…

When I had a lot more time, I would go into Yahoo chat and basically phish for pedophiles usernames/passwords. I can tell you that a "hehe" after anything will set the hook. I could on average phish about an account a minute and I was never figured out. I only fell out of character once to warn an 18 year old kid, that talking to 14 year old girls sexually online wasn't the best use of his time. He freaked out and th…

This would be a great answer to the "Real life hacking" YC question, especially with your mention of the formula behind human interaction you discuss in another reply.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#74

Post by noahc »

gridspy wrote: post #72
noahc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I had a lot more time, I would go into Yahoo chat and basically phish for pedophiles usernames/passwords. I can tell you that a "hehe" after anything will set the hook. I could on average phish about an account a minute and I was never figured out. I only fell out of character once to warn an 18 year old kid, that talking to 14 year old girls sexually online wasn't the best use of his time. He freaked out and th…

This would be a great answer to the "Real life hacking" YC question, especially with your mention of the formula behind human interaction you discuss in another reply.

That was always my thought too.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#75

Post by pyre »

lsb wrote: post #69
noahc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I had a lot more time, I would go into Yahoo chat and basically phish for pedophiles usernames/passwords. I can tell you that a "hehe" after anything will set the hook. I could on average phish about an account a minute and I was never figured out. I only fell out of character once to warn an 18 year old kid, that talking to 14 year old girls sexually online wasn't the best use of his time. He freaked out and th…

Welcome to the internet, where the men are men, the women are men, and the kids are cops. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1546789

That phrase is older than Hacker News. I could have sworn that it used to be on bash.org, but the best reference I can find is:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kids+are+the+...

I'm pretty sure the phrase even predates 4chan though... Mostly likely originates from USENET or IRC.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#76

Post by samfax »

I think the reason people keep saying she is fake is because they don't want to believe someone so young is capable of doing what she did. I've spoken to her via email and she said she doesn't care what people think about her, shes going to do what she does regardless and she has my full support.

Maybe instead of asking questions about her here, you ask her like i did?

kayla@anonleaks.ch

If she really is who she said she is that's one smart kid!

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#77

Post by digitalvisions »

david_shaw wrote: post #71

I'm not particularly close to this issue, but the sexism I'm seeing here is pretty astounding. If this were a 16 year old guy, no one would bat an eyelid. Seriously. Look at Mafiaboy back in 2000 -- he took down Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*TRADE, eBay, and CNN. I'm not even sure that he was 16 yet (I don't have his age offhand). Is this a crazy and possibly fake story? Of course. Does that mean that it can't be…

You bring up a great point - which is actually contradictory in the story. She said was hassled for being so young. I know a lot of hackers and most got started very young like you point out, and all were welcomed into the hacker community without any issues - female or not.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#78

Post by SageRaven »

dguido wrote: post #46
SageRaven wrote: post #12

Is the phrase "Windows Opcodes" (from the article) a subtle troll on the part of "k" or a journalistic goof? I'm no programmer by any stretch, but that phrase jumped out at me as phony. I know there are system calls for operating systems, and opcodes are processor instructions, so this use of the term raised my b.s. meter a notch.

Hate to break it to you but that actually means something. The technical details are surprisingly on target for being written by a tech journalist. Ex. http://www.metasploit.com/users/opcode/syscalls.html

Not sure I see your point. Sure, the URL has "opcode" in it, but the page clearly says "Windows System Call Table" -- nowhere is the word "opcode" mentioned on that page.

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#79

Post by bl4k »

so she goes to extraordinary lengths to coverup her online activity, but grants an interview to a national news outlet where she divulges a large part of her personal history?

obvious troll is obvious

Re: Is This The Girl That Hacked HBGary?

#80

Post by nikcub »

SageRaven wrote: post #12

Is the phrase "Windows Opcodes" (from the article) a subtle troll on the part of "k" or a journalistic goof? I'm no programmer by any stretch, but that phrase jumped out at me as phony. I know there are system calls for operating systems, and opcodes are processor instructions, so this use of the term raised my b.s. meter a notch.

correct. opcodes are unique to a processor architecture, not an operating system.
Post reply on HN