http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/13/gawker-hacked-passwords-posted-online/?page=1
Special note to my readers: I do not like Gawker, or their network of sites. I never have. This post may come off as 1/3 current events, and 2/3 rant.
Gawker Media, pretty much the most arrogant media house and blog conglomerate on the planet, got their ass handed to them by a group calling itself "Gnosis".
This weekend Gnosis beat Gawker like a red headed stepchild by posting about 200,000 user account emails and passwords for their various sites. note: Gawker runs Gawker.com, the gadget shithouse known as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and various other sites where idiots pose as writers and journalists.
Of course anybody that graduated high school knows Gawker is pretty much a gigantic POS, so this doesn't come as much of a surprise. However, the really great part about this is the attack yielded a whole pile of lulz with defacement, posting of source code, additional cracking of twitter accounts, and posting of instant message logs. Not to mention the 1.5 MILLION ACCOUNTS CRACKED.
So yeah, it's safe to say that Gawker was served its ass on a silver platter this weekend.
To make matters worse for the imbeciles at Gawker, they actually brought this on themselves. First, you have to understand how arrogant and pretentious Gawker, their staff, writers, and sites are. This isn't hard. Browse any one of their sites and pick an article, the crap overflows the page, off your screen and onto the floor. Read about anyone who was ever critical of Gizmodo, or any of their other sites, you'll see so much arrogance on the part of staff and editors it's hard to believe people still visit their sites.
Second, you need to turn back the clock a bit to this summer. And refresh your memory on a certain young girl with the initials "JS". Yeah, Gawker saw fit to call out anyone and everyone who even laughed at the plight of said girl. They went on and on about "griefing", as if somehow they are god's gift to morality and we should all look to their sage wisdom.
Here's a tip boys and girls, it's never good to call people out on the internet. Nor is it a good tip to do in a bar, on the sidewalk, or really anywhere - at anytime. Except if you're Mike Tyson, it's the 90's, and you're standing in a boxing ring.
But the story doesn't end here, oh no. Gawker had the balls to talk even more trash in IRC, via email, and via IM once they started noticing "suspicious" attacks on their sites. Yeah, keep on poking that lion, it totally looks sleepy and lethargic..it's behind a cage, what can it really do?
Well, Gnosis and their group of "script kiddies" (yes, Gawker called them that) just showed them what a sleeping lion can do. It can go medieval on your ass, at a moments notice. Tearing your servers, database, accounts, and files to shreds.
Let's hope that some lessons are learned from this by both Gawker, it's readers, and the public in general. I'll try to encapsulate said lessons into simple points, in the hopes that they sink in, though I seriously doubt they will. Especially since everyone at Gawker has a history of acting like a complete jackass anytime anyone says anything even slightly negative about their "empire" or one of their sites.
- Lesson #1 - Gawker, and their sites suck.
- Lesson #2 - Never think you're too high and mighty, because someone will come over and knock your ass off that pedestal.
- Lesson #3 - DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR EVERY SITE YOU VISIT!
- Lesson #4 - Get your blog news, tech news, and other info from somewhere other than Gawker sites.
As a last and final note, I'd just like to send a shout out to a certain jerk editor at Gizmodo:
You suck. Your writers are worse than the average high school student, and your site is a POS. Most of the articles couldn't pass for scrawl on a bathroom door at a truck stop. I don't care how much ad revenue it earns, or who wants to suck on your ugly balls. I don't like you, your writers, or your site, and I never will.
that guy in the last picture looks pretty heavy duty :)
ReplyDeleteHaha that rejoice picture made me laugh
ReplyDeletei downloaded the torrent and you would be amazed at how many people had "password" or "qwerty" as their passwords... about 200,000 i think
ReplyDeleteWow that's crazy. Glad to know I'm not on that list :D
ReplyDeleteGet down off the fence. What do you really think?
ReplyDeletelol hate those guys
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Gawker until now. I guess that means I'm safe.
ReplyDelete"ya done goofed" lol. good times.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGawker sounds very extreme
ReplyDeleteBTW how did you set your webpage to shouw up when clicking you (Blogger) username ?
I'd also love to know the answer to tigey's question
ReplyDeleteThe last picture is hilarious
ReplyDeletebasement dweller
ReplyDelete@tigey and @smile - no problem, i'm actually drafting a post on "blogger settings you should know"...things like captcha, adding your webpage to username, etc. etc. should be finished by tomorrow
ReplyDelete@unablogger - SAVED! :D
Hmm I learned a lot
ReplyDeleteI agree I hate nearly all the sites associated with Gawker.
ReplyDeleteExcept Kotaku. Kotaku is the exception I find the writers, mods and commentors a lot nicer and intelligent. Also, I'm a gamer so I like to keep up with the news.
I just got banned, and have to now open my eyes to the possibility that the overwhelming amount of spelling/grammar mistakes equates to a shitty reading experience. I'm not really sure why I've put myself through it all these years. Thanks for venting with me.
ReplyDeleteI googled "boycott Gawker media" because I hate Gawker so much. The way they moderate comments is incredibly dishonest and entirely political (or relies on the whims of whoever approves the comments). I've done honorable things like defend certain political people from being called "cunts" or "bitches" or "fucking idiots" because no one deserves the sexist treatment. I've also tried putting up my own comments so that I could maybe balance things a bit. I've almost always been courteous too, unlike EVERY OTHER rude, arrogant, douchey, commenter. I've also contributed to discussions, so it's not that I'm only commenting about one thing. The ONLY time my comment was approved almost immediately was when I commented on Jezebel that Michelle Bachmann was an idiot. Here's an email exchange I had with someone from Lifehacker (this is the third of such email exchanges. I've done this before):
ReplyDelete---------------
Gawker,
I swear my comments aren't getting approved, and this happens a lot. I've sent probably 4 emails about this issue but it never seems to get fixed. I don't want to chock this up to political biases on the part of Gawker editors/comment approvers but I'm really starting to think that this is, in fact, the issue. To be clear - some of my comments don't have the typical "outraged Liberal" snarkiness or strict liberal perspective associated with them. I did comment on Jezebel once on Michelle Bachmann's craziness and that comment was approved right away. Here's my take: If you want to moderate your comments so only one point of view comes across, that's fine (of course), it's your website; but I would like to know if this is the issue so I can boycott Gawker Media sites and make sure other people know what's going on. I have never been mean, degrading, sexist, or even harsh (if I'm remembering correctly), but there are people that ARE routinely those things; it just seems like it has to be a particular type of comment. As long as someone is calling Michelle Bachmann a "bitch," or Sarah Palin a "cunt" sexism is fine, comments in their defense (not even politically) aren't accepted; and this is true of all kinds of other hateful, disgusting comments. This sort of "Thought Police" type of moderation seems to be rather dishonest too - Telling someone their comments aren't approved for other reasons. Why would comments that offer a different POV be considered a bad thing as long as they aren't against the commenting policies? I honestly would like a real answer, even if the answer is you'd rather Gawker be a political, social, whatever, type echo chamber.
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His response:
Hi *******,
The reason your comments are not appearing is because you are commenting on sites that you are still auditioning for. You currently have been approved to comment on Jezebel, but an approval on one Gawker site does not grant you network-wide permissions to comment freely on all of our sites. Each site has its own culture, community, and commenting ethos so you automatically have to audition and get approved individually on each of the sites. For more information about the auditioning process you can visit http://help.gawker.com/entries/20107478-why-isn-t-my-comment-showing-up
Thank you,
Steven C.
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ReplyDeleteMy reply:
Steven,
I know that just because I'm approved on one website doesn't mean I can comment on others (Gawker Media). The point is - why aren't my comments being approved? Have you read some of the absolutely ridiculous comments left by some people on these websites? I should also be approved at Lifehacker. In fact I was told that I was approved, but I'm having the same problems there. I know for a fact that the "quality" of my posts on Lifehacker is pretty decent. Again, I would like to know what the "ethos" and "culture" is on these websites; as far as I can tell they are news and technology blogs (minus Jezebel). Are you saying that you must have a particular political view to comment? Again, I'd like to have some clarity. I just remembered a little exchange I had with a Giz editor:
I wrote:
"Since you might or might not see this in its original location, I'm going to post here in hopes that you do. I don't mean to be "sensitive" or "PC," whatever...but it's extremely offensive to Christians that you'd use Jesus as a way to curse. Like I said: (before people start throwing around "OMG ur so uptight about ur fairy tale!") I'm not trying to be overly sensitive, but it's worse than someone cursing a family member really, for a Christian at least, and it's especially bad when you add "holy." I don't care if you think "it's like insulting Santa", "grow up, it's in the movies" or any other douchey sentiment you use to justify saying it; from my vantage point it sounds like you're barely educated and trying to sound "cool" or fit into some techie internet crowd. Here's a good practice substitute "holy Christ" with "flaming faggots", "ugly dykes", the "N" word, or any other extremely offensive language, then maybe you'll understand. I understand it's your "right" to say whatever you want, but being a fan of this website I can say for certain you're really turning off a subset of your readers."
I realize now that I was rude, but anti-(any)group speech is much more rude.
-*******
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His reply, showing that he didn't even understand the email I sent:
Hi *******,
I cannot speculate on whether or not there is a political bias involved, as you claim, but auditions aren't determined only by the site editors. Star commenters also have the power to approve auditioning commenters, so it isn't just the editors or moderators who are in control of the approval process. The approval process serves to kill any unfairness or bias that may exist, because editors as well as Star commenters can approve new commenters. Unfortunately, pointing out a bad comment does not justify your comments being approved because the bad comment was offensive. If the bad comment was offensive, you can report that and it will be taken down, as we do not tolerate such comments. You can continue to audition on those sites but unfortunately I cannot speak for the editorial team nor for all the star commenters on our sites.
Thank you,
Steven C.
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I think he thought that I was pointing out my OWN comment as being offensive because I made it plain that it was sent to a Gizmodo editor (one of the article titles on Gizmodo had "Holy Christ" in it which I find to be extremely offensive). It's their right to post whatever they want, but they pretend like they are "fair" and "unbiased" in the comments they approve and I just wanted to know if that was actually the case; it's not. It's like this for almost every Gawker media site. I think my take on Gawker is different from others, but I'm sure it's in the same vein as everyone else.
Sorry these posts are so long… I feel that everyone should know what they’re getting into with the Gawker Media sites.