Mary-Ann Russon provides additional details on Weev’s hack of printers to spew an anti-semitic message:
Auernheimer used a single line of Bash script code to scan the internet for unprotected printers that were connected to the web using the open port 9100, and then created a PostScript file containing a flyer advertising a white supremacist news website called Daily Stormer. Since the printers were programmed to automatically print this file format out, they immediately complied.
Read more on IBT.
So… will everyone now secure their printers? I bet “no.” Remember how many stories we did on misconfigured MongoDB database installations and still people didn’t check or secure theirs? I suspect this will be no different: the unis and colleges that were affected will do something (hopefully something appropriate), and everyone else will go on their merry way.
What weev did is likely offensive to many people, but given that he appears to be out of reach of the long arm of U.S. law, the question of whether there’s even a violation of CFAA will likely go unanswered by any court. He seems to think that he’s got a good defense and a first amendment issue. It would be interesting to read his lawyer, Tor Ekeland’s, analysis.
In the meantime, you can read weev’s tweets on Twitter.
New York Times reported on this very specific article today…
[link deleted]
apparently anti-gay and transgender fliers were printed at a college in Berkeley California too, but Weev is denying his part in that.
Just so you know: I generally don’t allow links in comments because it adds a risk for readers.