TalkTalk problem

[Dave2002]

Actually some of the people on breakfast TV this morning - The Papers - made the point that there's so much stuff out there, with people's facebook pages etc., that there's not much point in hacking to get it! I still think you need to remember that it's often not just one hacker, but a whole organisation of bad guys.

[ahinton]

No, I'm not saying that at all. All I was trying to say is that there are far easier pickings for a hacker then trawling through your or my Facebook pages (that is if we had one!).

Easier, yes - but, again, that ease in respect of individual Facebook pages and the like is in hacking them one at a time rather than hacking the entire Facebook system (not that this would necessarily be impossible - it's just that it appears not to have occurred yet); what anyone hacking an entire system like that of TalkTalk wants is telephone numbers' worth of accounts all in one go, as well as the oxygen of publicity provided through their announcements of the nature of the threat that they have brought about.

[P. G. Tipps]

... a whole organisation of bad guys.

Another striking example of gender inequality in our society ... ?

[ahinton]

Excellent so that's 1:1
I used to play a game of "tap quotes in context" in music workshops.
It's surprising how many of the UK's top orchestral musicians are able to seamlessly do this.

Did you know that the first performance in the west of England of Schönberg's Five Orchestral Pieces was given by the Bath Pump Room Orchestra, conducted by its then music director, the appropriately named Frank Tapp?

[Bryn]

... "/" is a forward slash ...

And there was I thinking it was a solidus.

[ahinton]

And there was I thinking it was a solidus.

Well, indeed, sir! - but my point, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, is that a backslash and a forward slash are by no means identical...

[Anastasius]

Watching a clip of Dido 'Rabbit in Headlights' Harding on BBC News telling people that they can tell if the email they just received actually was a legitimate one from TalkTalk by 'just looking at the From information' makes you realise just how woefully out of her depth she is.

[ahinton]

Watching a clip of Dido 'Rabbit in Headlights' Harding on BBC News telling people that they can tell if the email they just received actually was a legitimate one from TalkTalk by 'just looking at the From information' makes you realise just how woefully out of her depth she is.

Indeed so; hole - dig - deeper and all that. Yes, it is often possible to identify a scam email from someone that one is supposed to know or indeed does know because the scammer isn't actually sending from that person's legitimate email address but from one of his/her own invention that has the alleged sender's name as part of the address, which is easy to detect.

Somone earlier used the word "lamentable" to describe this CEO's performance and one can only suppose that Dido's Lament was what the poster concerned had in mind when so doing; frankly, having observed some of her performance in the wake of this problem, I take leave to wonder if indeed she even has a depth out of which to place herself...

[ahinton]

It now seems that, for all the claims and (not so many) counter-claims about the alleged Russian-based "Islamic" terrorist organisation that appears allegedly to have claimed "responsibility" for this cyber-attack, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a6709831.html reveals that a 15-year old from Northern Ireland has been arrested on suspicion thereof. I note also that my MP, in his capacity as chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is leading an inquiry into the alleged data breach. In the light of this latest revelation, such as it my be, one might wonder from whom the alleged ransom demand was received -time for Ms Harding to fess up, methinks; one might also wonder whether said MP, Dr Jesse Norman, is/was a TalkTalk customer although I for one hope not, given the standard of that firm's service.

[Petrushka]

Arrested? The lad should be given a medal for doing a lot of people a favour. Apart from that I just don't understand how a 15 year old gains the know-how to do something as big as this. He needs to channel that know-how into doing good not bad.

[P. G. Tipps]

Arrested? The lad should be given a medal for doing a lot of people a favour. Apart from that I just don't understand how a 15 year old gains the know-how to do something as big as this. He needs to channel that know-how into doing good not bad.

Yes, and this case is not particularly unusual. Despite all the warnings of the dastardly Chinese, practically every case of corporate hacking in recent times has been traced to a solitary boy/youth in the West. Certainly some youngsters would seem to be a lot more computer-savvy that many of our security 'experts' ... another reason why I'm extremely suspicious of anyone labelled by themselves or others as an 'expert'. Of course, we don't really know if this lad is responsible as he must be presumed innocent until any guilt is proven in a court of law.

As there already must be a fair number of former (and even current) crooks in the security business I see no reason why, after due punishment is dolled out to any young hacking miscreant, that he/she is offered some form of employment in the industry after his/her detention and scholastic education is completed, even if it's only in the form of an adviser.

There is no reason why such a person's knowledge should not be channelled in a worthwhile direction and rewarded at least as handsomely as any failed 'expert'. We used crooked safe-blowers to help beat the Nazis during Wor;d War II so why not do something similar in 'peacetime'?

[ahinton]

Yes, and this case is not particularly unusual. Despite all the warnings of the dastardly Chinese, practically every case of corporate hacking in recent times has been traced to a solitary boy/youth in the West. Certainly some youngsters would seem to be a lot more computer-savvy that many of our security 'experts' ... another reason why I'm extremely suspicious of anyone labelled by themselves or others as an 'expert'. Of course, we don't really know if this lad is responsible as he must be presumed innocent until any guilt is proven in a court of law.

As there already must be a fair number of former (and even current) crooks in the security business I see no reason why, after due punishment is dolled out to any young hacking miscreant, that he/she is offered some form of employment in the industry after his/her detention and scholastic education is completed, even if it's only in the form of an adviser.

There is no reason why such a person's knowledge should not be channelled in a worthwhile direction and rewarded at least as handsomely as any failed 'expert'. We used crooked safe-blowers to help beat the Nazis during Wor;d War II so why not do something similar in 'peacetime'?

You make good points here. However, until we know more, including but not limited to
(a) whether and to what extent the young man is guilty and of precisely what,
(b) whether he acted alone or for or on behalf of an organisation and, if the latter,
(c) whether that organisation is a known or suspected terrorist group or acting in some intermediary capacity for or on behalf of one,
it would seem idle even to speculate on such a possibility in this particular case.
Apart from the numbers of TalkTalk customers who may directly have been disadvantaged by what happened and whether or to what extent TalkTalk's security and communication shortcomings left them vulnerable to losses of funds and/or personal data, what perhaps bothers me most at present is the presumed source of the ransom demand allegedly received by TalkTalk; it is, after all, not unusual for such demands to declare something of their origins and to provide instructions as to where the sum sought is to be paid and for what or whose benefit so, unless that information has been passed by TalkTalk to the police who believe tht there are reasons not to make it public (at least fo the time being), TalkTalk ought to be TalkTalking about that as part of their PR.