Salocin

Hackers get at Greenfairy.com

Greenfairy.com got hacked today - I was wondering why it was down earlier. I'm very annoyed about it getting hacked - can't really explain why. It's a bit too much like gratuitous vandalism I guess.

Usually, I couldn't care less when someone gets hacked, but it's usually a company with backup servers and more IT personnel than they know what to do with. In this case, it's one person who runs a small website that quite a few people like to read. Some teenage idiots decide to run in and perform the digital equivalent of spray-painting the facade of someone's home. It feels cheap and malicious.

I guess my annoyances in this case fall into two categories. The first is that it's like going after the easy target. It's not like they attacked something like Slashdot, or something run by similarly tech-savvy individuals, so you can't even respect the challenge of breaking in.

My second gripe comes because I know the typical defense the "hacker community" employs: If you can't be bothered to patch properly, or you don't know how to secure your server properly, then you deserve it. This really makes my blood boil. What kind of an idiot thinks this is justification for anything? Perhaps a bystander can say that there are enough creeps out there it's predictable poorly secured sites will get hacked, but it's when the blame somehow gets shifted to the owner of the website for not knowing every nook and cranny of their webserver that I get irate. I get particularly irate when I visualise the hackers: poor UV-deprived melanin-deficient jerks with so few creative juices that they feel the need to destroy what others build in order to make their presence felt.

I love the idea of searching out deficiencies in security systems, but when it comes to inflicting damage on another website, even in passing, it'll never be criminalised enough as far as I'm concerned.

There. I feel better now. Let's hope she gets her site back up soon.