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Crime Government United States

How ISIS Finally Hacked the Arkansas Library Association (softpedia.com) 58

An anonymous reader shares this story from earlier in the week: "ISIS hacking crews aren't the most talented hackers you'll find," reports Softpedia, noting that the terrorist group had finally succeeded in leaking the addresses and phone numbers of of over 800 employees of Arkansas high school and college libraries. "The Arkansas State Police is not working on the case," reports Newsweek, "and is leaving the follow-up to the Arkansas Library Association." In addition, "It appears that the FBI does not believe the threat from ISIS's cyber-hacks and lone-wolf directives is serious enough to occupy its resources on each individual." The ISIS hacking crew's previous targets have included a church's website in Michigan, a Japanese dance instructor, and an SEO optimization site which they'd apparently mistaken for Google.
One small-town library director told Newsweek that he personally found their library hack "vaguely amusing".
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How ISIS Finally Hacked the Arkansas Library Association

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12, 2016 @06:45PM (#52301697)
    Oooh, a library! Boy, you guys must be really tough, if you hacked the web site of a library!

    My biggest fear right now is some massive and misguided response to the Florida shooting. ("We've got to strike back! Let's bomb somebody...") I actually really appreciate this story, just for the fact that it underscores how weak ISIS really is, and that alot of what they're doing is just a lot of bullshit bluster, in the desperate hope they can inspire someone else to do their dirty work for them.
    • Personally, I would worry. These hacks sound more like school homework than anything else. Just learning how to hack better stuff.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Why does it say finally?

    Doesn't finally mean something like they've been trying for a long time, everyone knows about it, and it just happened?

    If that's the case, why wouldn't you post earlier updates that they were trying to hack a tiny library in Arkansas?

  • Clearly (Score:5, Funny)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Sunday June 12, 2016 @07:00PM (#52301815) Journal
    Do you know why we can report with five 9's certainty the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas?

    Anywhere else, it'd would've been called the teethbrush.

    • Do you know why we can report with five 9's certainty the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas?
      Anywhere else, it'd would've been called the teethbrush.

      Not sure I can see the connection to Daesh here, but to comment on what you are saying: It would be called a toothbrush anywhere; indeed, the singular, "tooth", is what is used in all the languages I know of. I think it is common to use the singular, when you talk about a "mass object" (sorry, don't remember the proper term); hence "water" and "money". You can talk about waters and monies, but then you refer to several specific bodies of water/ sums of money. So, a toothbrush is for brushing "tooth" in gene

      • You're a hoot at parties, aren't you?

      • not so in french (plural) or slavic languages (either plural or in the possessive case where there is no clear difference between singular and plural). maybe the singular form is common for germanic languages, but i only speak german and english from that group, so can't say about swedish or danish.

  • ISIS is outside the country, clearly the job ofor the Creeps In Action... or so they got called in "Greatest American Hero".
  • They have their war machine, we have ours.
    They have their remote control death robots, we have ... wait.
  • Why would anyone want to hack the Arkansas library association?

    • by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Sunday June 12, 2016 @08:29PM (#52302307)
      ALA -> ALLAH
      Just saying, you know how confusing the interwebs can be. It's a natural mistake...
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        There's a catchy song in there somewhere

        "Oh Susanna, dontcha cry for me, for I come to Allahbama with explosives strapped to me..."

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      To check out The Catcher in the Rye?

      Seeing as how this is Arkansas, the only circulating copy has a long waiting list.

      • To check out The Catcher in the Rye?

        Seeing as how this is Arkansas, the only circulating copy has a long waiting list.

        That's an interesting comment.

        My father who is 78 told me that in the 50's his mother (my grandmother) had the SMUGGLE "The Catcher in the Rye" back for him from Europe in her "dainty things" because she was sure they would not look there, her being an upstanding woman.

        This is a true story.

        • Do NOT f*ck with librarians. They are passionate defenders of your right to read whatever you chose, and will come down hard on any school board or town council that tries to limit that right.

          The ISIS "hacking crew" has met their match. // ALA =/= Allah ...lost in translation :-)

    • They treat girls equal to boys. Allowing girls to read is of course an abomination unto the eyes of muslims.
  • The GLA (Score:5, Funny)

    by lucm ( 889690 ) on Monday June 13, 2016 @12:17AM (#52303433)

    When I see the low-quality gifs those hackers use when they deface the websites of random dance studios and libraries, it reminds me of the game C&C Generals, where the Americans and Chinese have tanks and fighter jets while the GLA (islamic warriors) have pick-up trucks and suicide vests.

    With all the lone wolves and oil money they have access to, why can't they be bothered to make better images? Nobody's asking them to use Bootstrap and make responsive death threats, but they could at least spend a few minutes with the eraser in MS-Paint to improve the edges of their poorly-cropped cliparts.

    It's already annoying when your website is pwned because the Wordpress setup of your $3/month webhost hasn't been patched for years, it just adds insult to the injury when the hackers replace your content with something that looks like it was design in HoTMetaL Pro and uploaded via WS_FTP to a free AngelFire account in 1996.

    • Well maybe that's the point, you've been pwned and the results look hideous. I mean if they hacked a website and made it look better people probably wouldn't realize it was a hack.
  • This is crap. ISIL, or whomever, "hacks" a site and discloses information on 800 americans - not worthy of an investigation. But if an American security researcher did it they would do hard time...

If all else fails, lower your standards.

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