Hacker Cracks Harry Potter Finale

[UnDeaD77]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...-posts-po.html

An anonymous hacker claims to have used computer magic to peer through the extreme secrecy surrounding the ending of the Harry Potter saga and posted online unverified details from the soon-to-be released final book in best-selling series.

The hacker, posting under the handle Gabriel, claims to have gotten a copy of the seventh and final installment of the blockbuster Harry Potter series that chronicles the adventures of a child magician by hacking into Bloomsbury, the series' London-based publisher.

Gabriel said he wanted to spoil the ending to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to protect people from its "Neo Paganism" and was able to get into the publisher's computer network by convincing an Bloomsbury employee to open an email with malware attached.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel wrote (Alert: Possible Spoiler Link)."It's amazing to see how much people inside the company have copies and drafts of this book."

In advance of the novel's July 21 publishing date, fans have been rabidly debating which characters the series' author J.K. Rowling might kill off.

The hacker made the claim and posted some plot details Tuesday to a security mailing list called Full Disclosure, which is re-posted on insecure.org, a website run by a white hat hacker known as Fyodor.

However, no portions of the novel were posted, casting doubt on the veracity of the claim.

Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for the book's U.S. publisher Scholastic, said she could not verify the plot details, saying there is a lot of material on the internet claiming to be from the book.

"Anyone can post anything on the internet and you can't always believe what you read," Good said. "The only way to know for sure is to read the book on July 21."

However, the claimed method of attack – known as spear phishing – is completely believable, according to Rick Wesson and Adam Waters, the top officers at the computer security firm Support Intelligence.

"This is being used against the State Department often," Wesson said. "This is how you steal any kind of intellectual property."

"We have so lost fundamental trust [in the security of networks] we can't tell if the story is true or not," Waters added. "Say it was a corporation's financial numbers for next month -- you could move a market with that information."

Even if the hack happened and the plot details are proven, the revelations are unlikely to affect the sales of the book, given the series' intensely loyal fan base.

But Wesson and Waters say the story illustrates that secrets – including copies of unreleased movies, policy statements by politicians and Federal Reserve announcements – are extremely vulnerable to targeted external attacks from hackers who can find their way into a corporate network as easily as sending an email to a summer intern.

ehhh. What a jerk.

[Trooper]

Did not see that ending comeing....gonna put some money on this with my wife...hehe

[norden]

But Wesson and Waters say the story illustrates that secrets – including copies of unreleased movies, policy statements by politicians and Federal Reserve announcements – are extremely vulnerable to targeted external attacks from hackers who can find their way into a corporate network as easily as sending an email to a summer intern.

Not if that network has proper security.

/no admin should allow interns to execute unauthorized programs...

[ScratchMonkey]

There's a lot of incompetence out there. I've seen the inside of one that makes it clear that Dilbert is an understatement.

But I'm not worried about someone revealing the Potter ending. The die-hard fans will still buy the book, and it's their own loss if they pay attention to this. It's a big reason I've stopped watching promos for TV and movies. They reveal too much and make the final product unwatchable.

[2 Para]

its like wen sum1 spoils the end of a film for you!!

nooo!!!

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by 2 Para

its like wen sum1 spoils the end of a film for you!!

nooo!!!

English, please.

[UnDeaD77]

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

English, please.

I don't understand his sentence that well either.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Wow that was a "creative" handle: Gabriel.

Someone has an unexplained fetish with girl names and Harry Potter.


My first reaction: This cracker (the correct term) needs a life. One that does not involve ruining the endings of possibly good books and movies.

[Tarenth]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

Wow that was a "creative" handle: Gabriel.

Someone has an unexplained fetish with girl names and Harry Potter.


My first reaction: This cracker (the correct term) needs a life. One that does not involve ruining the endings of possibly good books and movies.

Considering the quote saying he wanted to protect people from the 'neopaganism' of Harry Potter (oh COME ON! If you're going to be a stupid religious nut then at least get the crime right!) the handle 'Gabriel' would be in reference to the (Arch)angel Gabriel which is the messenger of god and bringer of truth.

[2 Para]

that was english. i just suppose you would like me to use more vocab>>

[Tarenth]

Twas not your use of the English language that was in question. Nay. It was the assumption that you were using English in the first place.

What you are using can be refered to as "IM speech". It is not the English language, per say, but a butchered form created in the 90's by people using instant messagers to quickly say something with the difficulties of a slow typing speed.

English Language:
This is an example of the English language. Okay, that's a lie. Its actually a form of writing that could be considered "think and type" since it uses punctuation and a turn of phrase that isn't proper written English. It would, however, makes perfect sense if someone was saying it to you.

...Yeah...you also get a lot of typos because while people definately think faster than they type, they also type what they think. So as thought races ahead they start typing in the past tense and skipping letters to catch up which makes some interesting typos they would never catch because it all seems right in their mind.

IM speech:
im spech uses lot of abrvs dat make sense if u no wat they r saying but skips things lik caps and periods. using im spech can b annoying 2 sum1 if they no u rn't in a hurry 2 type it out.


It hurts my head using IM speech. I actually learned how to type before going into the IM age so I was typing things out fully even then.

In a nut shell (yeah, you could've skipped all that up there and skipped to this part):

When typing to forums there really is no rush to get your words out there. Sometimes an intelligent response could be hours away so speeding things up by cutting out letters, skipping punctuation, ignoring capitalization, and just butchering things in general is rather unneeded. Take your time to write things out fully and maybe go back and give it a second look to make sure you didn't make any mistakes (I should probably take my own advice with that one actually -.-; ). Sometimes if you want to present something reasonably to people its better to not show the typing and grammatical skills of a 5th grader.

Though it would be amusing if we could start a thread using pure "text talk". However since I rarely text message it would just be baffling to me. Text talk is cutting out every letter possible and replacing them with abreviations or numbers in order to cut down the number of characters you have to send. Mostly because its fast and also because they used to charge per character used.

TMI? TB nob. TTYL

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by 2 Para

that was english. i just suppose you would like me to use more vocab>>

I assure you it was not. In English, the first letter of every sentence is capitalized. Modern English does not contain the word 'wen', or 'sum1'. English also uses apostrophes to indicate when words are contracted.

I'm not a nit picker, usually, but I really enjoy being able to understand other people's posts. It's respectful and mature to at least try to use English at TacticalGamer. If English is not your first language, then I'd say you're well on your way to being fluent, and that you just need to stop the disrespectful and lazy internet abbreviations in order to make yourself understandable.

[Acreo Aeneas]

In the future, 2 Para, just remember to use English and type in whole sentences without abbreviations with correct punctuation and grammer.

Tarenth, ah, I didn't read over all of it in detail so I missed the reference to the archangal Gabriel. Well then, it seems we have a wanna-be "cool" hacker. It's a nutty world out there.

[ChopStick]

I got to get started on my reading of the HP series so I can fit in with modern culture (trying to get back on topic here).

[VegaBond]

So whats the ending to Potter? 8)