Tsunami donation: jailed for using a non-standard browser (lynx)

[Andor Demarteau]

:) luckily you can set your browserstring in nearly all unix browsers
includidng lynx.

I'd set it to IE as specially if I was hacking thy'd mistake it for a
virus ;)
probably a win200[03] IIS webserver and admin I'd say otherwise he/she
certainly would know what lynx is. stupid windhoosadmins

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Aldo wrote:

 > Src: BoingBoing.net
 >
 > Thursday, January 27, 2005
 >
 >    Jailed for using a nonstandard browser
 >    A  Londonder made a tsnuami-relief donation using lynx -- a text-based
 >    browser  used  by the blind, Unix-users and others -- on Sun's Solaris
 >    operating  system. The site-operator decided that this "unusual" event
 >    in  the system log indicated a hack-attempt, and the police broke down
 >    the donor's door and arrested him. From a mailing list:
 >
 >      For  donating  to  a  Tsunami  appeal  using Lynx on Solaris 10. BT
 >      [British Telecom] who run the donation management system misread an
 >      access log and saw hmm thats a non standard browser not identifying
 >      it's type and it's doing strange things. Trace that IP. Arrest that
 >      hacker.
 >
 >      Armed  police,  a  van,  a  police cell and national news later the
 >      police  have  gone in SWAT styley and arrested someone having their
 >      lunch.
 >
 >      Out  on bail till next week and preparing to make a lot of very bad
 >      PR for BT and the Police....
 >
 >      So  just  goes to show if you use anything other than Firefox or IE
 >      and  you rely on someone else to interogate access logs or IDS logs
 >      you too could be sitting in a paper suit in a cell :(
 >
 >    [*]Link (Thanks, Patrick!)
 >
 >    Update::  The  source that told me about this has corroborated it with
 >    more  detail  in  private  email, but is leery of going public. I hope
 >    that  more  publicly available details appear soon, and will post them
 >    when I have them.
 >
 >    posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:08:00 AM
 >
 >   [*] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4195339.stm
 >
 > http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/27/jailed_for_using_a_n.html
 >
 >
 >
 >

-- 
Andor Demarteau                 E-mail: andor at nl.linux.org
student computer science        www: http://www.nl.linux.org/~andor
UU based & VU guest-student     jabber,icq,msn,voip: do ask ;)
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chairman Stichting Studiereizen Storm 2002-2004
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