Paulo Rebêlo

Paulo Rebêlo (*)
Observatório, 25.maio.2004

Hoje lemos uns quatro jornais diferentes e às vezes temos dificuldade em recordar as diferenças entre uma e outra matéria entre eles. Com o super-enxugamento das redações, é cada vez mais difícil oferecer material diferenciado ao leitor – assunto já requentado, batido e debatido neste Observatório.

Outro problema surge quando leitores e jornalistas procuram a internet para se aprofundar. Foi-se o tempo em que a internet brasileira era uma excelente fonte de aprofundamento, com redações completas e jornalistas empenhados em procurar notícias e produzir reportagens especiais – sem depender da boa vontade (ou interesse) das fontes e das assessorias.

Com a queda de muitos sites e a demissão ou não-remuneração de bons profissionais, basta acontecer algo diferente e todos saem correndo atrás, sem olhar direito aonde estão pisando.

Spy vs. Spy

Jornais e sites brasileiros publicaram a “bomba” de que um grupo, denominado Hackers Against America (HAA), e com brasileiro(s) no meio, estava planejando ataques aos servidores do governo americano, roubo de documentos confidenciais e invasões nos computadores do jornal New York Times.

Em tempos de ojeriza generalizada aos americanos e aos Larry Rohter da vida, a causa até pode ter soado interessante para muita gente. Mas, em seguida começam a aparecer notícias sobre o HAA ajudando grupos terroristas, como o al-Qaeda, e de um suposto integrante que seria até mesmo um agente duplo infiltrado no exército americano.

Agora passou e não vale mais a pena procurar saber quem errou mais: a imprensa por não buscar uma melhor apuração ou os pseudo-hackers atrás de seus 15 minutos de fama antes do tempo. Algumas pessoas, inclusive, cogitam a hipótese de o HAA não ser um grupo de hackers coisa alguma: apenas querem mostrar que a própria imprensa não precisa nem de hackers para atacá-la, visto que às vezes ela fuzila a si mesmo. Sinistro cenário.

Questões delicadas

O especialista em segurança Marcos Flávio Assunção, de Lavras (MG), parece ter seguido a máxima de Confúcio ao lembrar que, para comandar uma cidade, é preciso arrumar a própria casa primeiro. Após trocar e-mails com um dos integrantes do HAA, Assunção percebeu que o suposto hacker estava em um sistema inseguro e poderia ser facilmente invadido.

No final das contas, os hackers contra a América terminaram sendo hackeados e todos ficaram contra eles. Uma outra ironia do destino é que Assunção já foi personagem de uma reportagem do próprio New York Times sobre os hackers brasileiros, ano passado, assinada pelo correspondente Tony Smith.

Se os verdadeiros hackers brasileiros querem divulgar falhas de segurança em empresas, alertar administradores de rede, mostrar quão inseguro é a plataforma que os usuários usam, então tudo ótimo. Se quiserem ajudar a resolver ou dar dicas, melhor ainda. Mas a imprensa precisa fazer a parte dela também. Não sigam o exemplo adotado neste caso do HAA, pois não foi a primeira e nem a segunda vez.

Somente na área de tecnologia, aconteceu e continuam a acontecer situações similares com algumas questões delicadas como cartuchos de tinta remanufaturados, software-livre, (in)segurança dos sistemas bancários online, falcatruas e politicagens em parques tecnológicos, relações escusas de trabalho no setor de TI e assim por diante.

(*) Jornalista no Recife (PE); URL: (www.rebelo.org)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: economia, hacker, imprensa, segurança

INQ unravels the truth

By Paulo Rebêlo in Brazil
The Inquirer, Friday 21 May 2004, 15:12

A SUPPOSED group of international hackers declares digital war against the United States directly from their headquarters in Russia. They call themselves Hackers Against America (HAA) and their purposes are based on stealing classified documents and launching mass virus attacks against government servers. They claimed to have active members from China, Hong Kong, Brazil and Russia and were already planning a massive attack for the next days.
Sounds appealing, mate?

In a suspicious [perhaps ingenious?] move, it seems that someone in Brazil started to spread too much news among the Brazilian press. In a couple of days, tons of websites and newspapers around the country published stories about HAA and their newer plans of aiding terrorists groups around the world, attacking the New York Times computers and helping Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

Just when you thought that genuine hackers don’t like publicity, huh?

That’s exactly what moved Brazilian Security Expert, Marcos Flávio Assunção, to deface HAA’s website on May 19 and to write only a short message: ‘this site has been taken down in spite of bad use of the term ‘hacker’ and for spreading ridiculous and nonsense ideas’.

In a phone interview with The Inquirer, Assunção was quite straightforward: “When I noticed them for the first time, their cause seemed a bit interesting… but suddenly they want to help Al Qaeda and terrorists groups that kill innocent people? C’mon.”

HAA’s announcement against The New York Times also proved to be a silly move. Assunção, aged only 23, is a well-known security expert worldwide who last year played a significant role in a Times story about Brazilian Hackers.

Assunção is also the one behind two anti-intrusion tools: Defnet Honeypot and Defnet Guard. After an e-mail thread with one of HAA members, he used the Honeypot tool to hack into the member computer and get their FTP login and password.

“COUNTER-TERRORISTS WIN” – Before the defacement of HAA’s website, Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo got an interview with a supposedly HAA member who had the guts to say that one of its newest associates was a soldier from the U.S. Army, born in Russia and somehow connected to Al Qaeda.

In a Hollywood-like comment, this new member of HAA says that during the 70’s his father helped CIA agents with secret documents from the KGB. Later, CIA agents murdered his grandfather, a KGB official. Afraid of revenge, father and son migrated to the United States.

He continues saying that he became an American citizen to avenge his grandfather death. In order to do that, he constantly sends classified documents to ’several terrorists groups’. As an evidence of his will to join HAA, he says that some of these classified documents would be published in a ’suitable time’.

Just when you though that you were watching too much TV.

The Action
In order to take down HAA’s website, Assunção used his own honey pot tool. After a small talk by e-mail with one HAA member, he looked up the DNS and found out that the ‘hacker’ was using an insecure system.

For those curious about it: a non-firewalled Windows XP using a Bind version for Cygwin (a Linux emulator for Windows). Just when you were about to make fun.

Using the honey pot, the HAA member was misled to believe he was connecting to HAA’s FTP server in Russia but, truly, he was connecting to Assunção’s computer. After gathering the login and password, ‘the difficult part was only the translation of some words… I don’t speak Russian, you know’, says Assunção.

* Paulo Rebêlo is a journalist in Brazil - rebelo@rebelo.org

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: economia, hacker, imprensa, segurança

Paulo Rebêlo
5 May 2004
Source: SciDev.Net

Chile’s government has launched a wide-ranging programme to increase the use of computers and boost the role of information technology (IT) in the country’s economy.

As part of the initiative, the government aims to establish fast Internet connections in all universities, and at least 80 per cent of schools, by 2006.

The Digital Agenda initiative, which aims to transform Chile into a digital country by the year 2010, will seek to attract foreign investment into the country’s technology sector in order to promote IT development.

It also includes projects to increase Internet access, improve computer training, and develop e-commerce activities. As part of the initiative, the country’s laws and regulations on new technologies will be revised to make each of these goals easier to achieve.

In addition, at least one million people will be trained in digital technologies in the next two years. And to increase the number of homes with Internet access, the initiative will reduce the price of computers and broadband services.

At the official launch of the initiative, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos said that increasing the use of computers and boosting Chile’s IT sector would help to enrich the country’s economy and reduce social exclusion.

Chile has an advanced telecommunications infrastructure and is one of Latin America’s most stable economies. But the extent of computer usage and the development of the IT industry are low.

A report released earlier this year by the Santiago Chamber of Commerce shows that the IT sector represents just 1.2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), well below the 3.5 per cent of GDP invested by industrialised nations.

Furthermore, the report shows that although 69 per cent of Chilean companies have email and Internet access, only a quarter have a website and only a tenth use the Internet as a platform for sales.

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Tags: ciência, English, inclusão, pesquisa, tecnologia