My Favorite Hackers The short list for which aspiring hackers strive.

As a self-proclaimed hacker, who means you no harm, I stand on the shoulders of giants. The following people have set the standard for hacking and have given all of us newbies something to the strive for. These are some of the Great Ones, the ones we admire, emulate. These are my favs.

1. Kevin Mitnick

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. This guy was the top hacker in the world for a good part of the late 70s and early 80s. He was one of the first, and in his time, gave the pre-silicon valley tech bigwigs a good shakedown. He broke into systems owned by Sun Microsystems, IBM, DEC, Motorola, and even managed (allegedly) to wiretap FBI conversations. He did time for it, but now works as a security consultant. Though most hackers today consider his technical knowledge to be archaic, he has one of the sharpest minds in social engineering even today.

WATCH VIDEO: Darren Kitchen, hacker and host of tech show Hak5, says why hacking isn't the same thing as cyber crime.

2. Fyodor

Fyodor, aka Gordon Lyon, gave us hackers one of our greatest tools. NMAP. NMAP is a powerful piece of software that lets us analyze the topography of any given network. With a quick nmap session, we can tell what Operating System is running on a given machine or set of machines, we can tell what services are running on the network, and we can tell what IP Addresses are active or inactive within any given network, among an infinite number of other functions. NMAP is indispensible and hackers would be virtually shooting in the dark without it. Today, Fyodor is responsible for overseeing the Honeynet Project, a distributed computing project that uses false open access points in a network (honeypots), to gather data regarding intrusion attempts on networks all over the world.

3. Michal Zalewski

Michal is currently in the employ of Google as a security researcher, but has been active in the hacker community since the early 90s as someone known for finding vulnerabilities where no one else could. His knowledge of web browser security is unparalleled.

4. Eric Corley

Eric founded the H.O.P.E. hacker conference as well as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a quarterly magazine about hacker culture. He's been an active member in the community since the 80s.

5. Solar Designer

Solar, aka Alexander Peslyak, is a Russian hacker responsible for the Openwall GNU/Linux project. Openwall is a Security-hardened Linux distribution meant for servers. In addition to his responsibilities with Openwall, he has been responsible for some of the most influential exploits within the Open Source community.

6. Robin Wood

Robin may be new to the scene, but he's definitely been talked about. You might remember me mentioning man-in-the-middle attacks and a piece of firmware called Jasager? Well, that's his baby. He wrote it and designed it. The man is a genius with anything wireless. Jasager's popularity though, is owed largely to the next name on the list.

7. Darren Kitchen

Darren is the host of Hak5, a web show dedicated to information security and generally making electronic devices do things they weren't intended to do. The show is hosted by Darren, Shannon Morse (aka Snubs) and Matt Lestock. Darren is to our community what Flava Flav was to Public Enemy, only, with more talent and without the myriad drug addictions. He always has his ear to the ground and always knows what's going on in the scene.

The prestigious Wall Street Journal expose passwords in plaintext CEO members

Business News & Financial News – The Wall Street Journal is the place to Traffic Rank 88 in U.S., by Alexa.
“WSJ online coverage of breaking news and current headlines from the U.S. and around the world. Top stories, photos, videos, detailed analysis” …and a big SQL Injection. A secured bad parameter allows access to databases on the server.
In the first picture we can see MySQL server version, available databases, as well as a very serious mistake. Not only is the website vulnerable to SQL injection but it also allows load_file to be executed making it very dangerous because with a little patience, the writable directory can be found and injection of malicious code we get command line access with Which we can do virtualy anything we want with the website: Upload phpshells, redirects, infection PAGES WITH TROJAN DROPPERS, even deface the whole website.

In the second picture we see a more serious problem. One of the users (ffi2009uk) is % the host and NOTHING in the password. This means that from any IP we can connect to MySQL server on his account without any password. Unbelievable !!!

In the next picture we have personal data, address, phone number of the members of the press.

The penultimate picture we can see how CEO members passwords are stored in clear text !!! The list of members whose password has been exposed is diverse, starting from presidents and executives of corporations to the senators.

We are not surprised nor that even the Admin password, the chief account is stored in clear text !!!

Organisations still failing on IT innovations

IT innovation is becoming more central to organisations' growth plans, but many projects are still missing their targets, according to new research released today by global consultancy AT Kearney.
The study found that, although 84 per cent of C-level executives believe that innovative IT projects are key to a successful business strategy, they think that investment in these projects misses target levels by more than 75 per cent.
Farhan Mirza, principal at AT Kearney, argued that IT leaders need to free up extra money for IT innovation by outsourcing operational tasks, and giving more responsibility to end users for the day-to-day running of their systems.
"Everyone talks about innovation, but money is not being put aside for these projects because it gets used on operational fire-fighting," he said.
"IT departments need to pull back and think about automating and outsourcing more. The budget you're releasing will then allow you to do the interesting work everyone in IT really wants to do."
The AT Kearney study highlighted six areas crucial to successful IT innovation, including balancing IT leadership with business partnerships, integrating products and services with back-office IT and collaborating better with customers, employers and suppliers.
The firm also advised IT leaders to place IT initiatives and investment targets under a single umbrella to give innovation the investment it needs.

Finnish Emissions Dropped Below Kyoto Level in '08

And now for some good news: Finland's greenhouse gas emissions in 2008 dropped by 10 percent compared with the year before, reports Statistics Finland. That exceeds its Kyoto Protocol 'assigned amount' commitment by 1.2 percent.

Last year marked the beginning of the official five-year commitment period for industrialized countries that signed the pact, including most of Europe as well as North America and Japan.
By far Finland's biggest producer of greenhouse gases is the energy sector, which accounts for three-quarters of emissions. Its greenhouse gas output fell by 13 percent last year compared to 2007. The largest drop within this sector was the energy industry itself, which posted a dramatic 21 percent reduction. Emissions from energy production within the industrial and construction sectors were down by six percent.
Gasses produced by the Finnish energy sector fluctuate significantly from year to year, impacted by consumption and availability of hydroelectric power -- both of which are in turn affected by the weather -- as well as the level of electricity imports.
In Finland, agriculture and forestry act as a net sink, i.e. removals from atmosphere exceed emissions. Their ability to absorb carbon rose by 15 percent. The key factor in this was tree growth, as logging dropped significantly from the previous year.
The waste sector cut its emissions by seven percent. Compared with 1990, the benchmark year for the Kyoto treaty, it has slashed its greenhouse gas output by 45 percent. The most effective tool for doing this has been capturing landfill gases such as methane, which are being used to generate heating in some Finnish towns.
Transport emissions declined for the first time this century, edging down by four percent.
On the flipside, emissions from industrial processes grew by five percent.

Female Pastors often Harassed by Parishioners

Over half of the female pastors in the capital region say they have been recipients of offensive sexual advances, according to a survey by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church’s news website, Pod.fi.

About one-fifth of the female pastors in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa responded to the survey in November.

The most common type of harassment was inappropriate conversations. However, some congregates have shown up unwanted at a female pastor's home, according to Marina Tolonen, the industrial safety officer of Parish Union of Helsinki.

She says this type of harassment is particularly distressing because pastors cannot fire their parishioners.

”You can’t really ban them from coming to church events. Of course, security can be amplified in situations. For instance, guards in civilian clothes could be there ready to help if need be,” Tolonen told YLE.

The Church Council says it is aware of the problem. Other church workers as well have experienced harassment, says Pekka Huokuna, a council member.

”Church employees work in very different types of situations. Quite often they are working with people who have all kinds of problems,” he says.

Huokuna says workers should confide in others about their experiences. He adds that older workers may have had similar experiences and could offer help.

Setting limits

Pastor Eeva-Liisa Hurmerinta of the Kallio Parish in Helsinki has worked as a pastor for 20 years. She says she’s been harassed just a few times.

She adds that if a parishioner wants to talk about sex, pastors must set up boundaries.

”I could imagine that a young pastor in a new area would be embarrassed by these types of parishioners. With experience, one learns how to handle these types of situations and how to direct the conversation,” she says.

Progress Reported in Airport Dispute; More Flights Cancelled

The Finnish Aviation Union and the staff services company Barona reported progress on Thursday evening in the dispute over luggage handling at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. However, Finnair is expected to cancel as many as 13 flights on Friday as the two sides continue to bargain.

On Thursday, the two sides said that nearly all of their disagreements had been ironed out. The remaining disagreement was over a dismissal clause in the contracts of employees who were suddenly transferred from Finnair to Barona on Monday. The latter insists they will be guaranteed the same rights and benefits as when they worked for Finnair. However employees are sceptical, fearing for their job security.
Meanwhile the backlog of unprocessed baggage at the airport has risen to around 10,000 pieces.
Since late Wednesday, some have been moved to a warehouse two kilometres from Finnair's Terminal 2. From there, they are to be delivered individually to their owners. Finnair estimates that it will take several days after the walkout ends before the suitcases are all returned.
Operations at Terminal 1 are reported to be normal. This terminal is used by Blue1, SAS, Lufthansa and other airlines.
The national air carrier -- which insists it is not a party to the dispute -- has been losing nearly five million euros a day due to cancelled flights and other problems.
As the walkout by baggage handlers continued into its fourth day on Thursday, the financially-strapped Finnair axed more than 20 flights, for a total of at least 80 this week.
Airport Walkout Day Four; 20 Flights Cancelled Thursday

Finnish prison cells violate human rights…

Recently appointed parliamentary ombudsman Petri Jääskeläinen says prisons cells without toilet facilities are shameful. Jääskeläinen, who starts his new job on January 1st, had harsh words about Finnish prisons.

Finnish prisons have some 400 dry cells, or cells without toilet facilities. Prisoners are forced to use a bucket to relieve themselves. Correctional facilities in Kuopio, Mikkeli, Konnunsuo, Hämeenlinna and Helsinki have dry cells. The Hämeenlinna women’s prison alone has 84 dry cells.
Violation of human rights
Jääskeläinen says prison cells without toile facilities are a violation of human rights.
”The European Court of Human Rights considers dry cells to be humiliating. It is especially deplorable when several prisoners share the same cell. They are forced to relieve themselves in front of one another,” he says.
Several other parliamentary ombudsmen and international monitoring bodies have criticised Finland’s prisons for years.
”Abolishing these types of cells would be in accordance with the international human rights standard for the treatment of prisoners. Finland must finally address this matter,” he says.
Compensation for suffering?
Because the issue of toilets is a question of human rights, prisoners could be paid some sort of compensation.
“We already compensate for some offences. For each day spent in prison without just cause, a prisoner is paid 100 euros,” he says.
”If the government would have to pay prisoners compensation of say 50 euros per night spent in a dry cell, I think that those types of cells would disappear quite quickly.”