Jeremy Wagstaff’s LOOSE wire: Cyberwar On The World SMS Capital?
Thursday
Nov 18, 2004
Bloghopping (with my online RSS reader), I came across Mr. Jeremy Wagstaff’s Loose Wire blog post for Wednesday, 17 November 2004. Now, I’m an avid reader of Mr. Wagstaff’s Loose Wire tech-oriented column in the Far Eastern Economic Review, and it’s good to note that writers of such stature acknowledge that the Philippines is the “World SMS Capital.” Mr. Wagstaff cites an INQ7 news report that a group of hackers “breached the short messaging service (SMS) servers of both Smart Communications and Globe Telecom”. He likewise posts links to other articles and blogs of note, that echo such concerns, including security holes in government websites.
I do recall that our very own NEDA Web Portal was hacked a few months back. I can say that NEDA’s tech services are among the most advanced in Philippine government today, and the hacking episode exemplifies the saying that if there’s a will, there’s a way.
An excerpt:
color:black;padding:10pt” align=”left”>Jeremy Wagstaff’s LOOSE wire: Cyberwar On The World SMS Capital?
Today’s article, since removed, says that to see “the hacker group’s message, one has to create a new SMS message, key in “FLT RB9″ on the message body, and send it to 2333 for Globe and 211 for Smart subscribers. After sending the cryptic text message to 211 or 2333, the subscriber will receive this message: “Greetz to PATz, Luvchris, Verum, Fed-X, hEps, ch1m3ra, TriSha22, powerb0xx, clown AFeD-XA, Bryle, royX, Crayden at sa mga wanabee hacker groups ng masang Pilipino!”” The article says that as of Wednesday evening, “the Smart service was still sending this same message to subscribers, while the Globe number gave an error message.”
Intriguingly, the earlier article, published Nov 6, said anonymous readers had posted messages on PI_Flashbulb’s blog saying that “that the digital subscriber line (DSL) service of both Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc.(Digitel) and Globe Telecom were open to possible attacks”. One comment appeared to suggest the hackers PI_Flashbulb were referring to are Indonesian. Many Indonesians — the world’s largest Muslim population — are opposed to George W Bush’s administration for his war on terror.
J. Angelo Racoma is a technology journalist and blogger. See more of his blog posts here at racoma.com.ph, commentaries at racoma.net, and Twitter feed at @jangelo.
Comments
imparare
April 15th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Interesting comments..
khy
January 12th, 2008 at 5:42 am
theres no pilipino hacker in the world, hahaha poor pilipino trying to be in