News UK police arrest tsunami donations hacker

He's out on bail, actually. And keeping someone detained does not prove guilt. Just look at Guantanamo Bay...

 

found somthing is not guilt

 

As has been stated he's now been released on bail. The fuzz will have taken his computer in an attempt to corroborate BT's claim that the PC contained hacking tools. It remains to be seen what, if any, evidence of either tools or illegal activity they've found.

I can eminently believe that the "non-standard" browser-OS combination *is* at the root of all this. All you need is one overzealous, inexperienced BT employee reading the logs to shout "Hacker", and before he knows it the thing's taken on a life of its own.

Given both the short notice with which the Tsunami service was set up, the high volume of traffic and the specific capabilities (or lack of) of Lynx, as mentioned above, it's by no means impossible that either a logging or system failure, or a simple misread/assumption by an inexperienced member of staff could have caused this entire episode.

Of course it's also possible that the guy was trying to hack the system. If this is true the BBC, and other media outlets, will continue to cover the story. If nothing further is heard, you can bet that the guy's version of events checks out, and that BT have hurriedly "compensated" him for his distress in an attempt to stop what would be an extremely bad news story for them.

Incidentally, have to lol at the respect shown to BT by meanmotion and Scotty. BT is a sprawling, anachronistic organisation whose size and market position is based almost entirely on the fact that it's a longstanding monopoly that still owns far too much of the comms infrastructure in the UK. It is also staffed by human beings prone to the same errors as any other. Just "because it's BT" doesn't automatically mean it's right.

 

You leave Bit-Tech alone!

 

Great first post.

 

Cheers quack! Been lurking for a good old while, finally gave in to temptation!

 

Well... welcome to the gang!

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Welcome to the forums, Ziptie! Great entry, a refreshingly eloquent post. May it be the first of many contributions.

 

Thanks Nexxo. Putting the pressure on now though, gotta think carefully about what I write, make sure it's up to standard!

Suppose the other, possibly significant factor in all this, is the competence of the police officers originally given responsibility for investigating the case.

While there are undoubtedly some clued up electronic crime people in various dingy New Scotland Yard offices, I daresay that there are rather more with less knowledge than your average PC World sales droid.

Most of these officers are seconded from other duties, and while they may have a bloodhound-like knack for detecting murderers and rapists, internet fraud is a totally different universe. In general the Police face a huge skills and resource gap when it comes to this sort of crime. That is, after all, largely why the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act forces ISP's to do the bulk of the logging/tracing donkey work themselves.

I would imagine that if your average detective constable received a phone call from BT saying "Someone's tried to hack the Tsunami appeal", the trace, arrest and search warrants would have been applied for largely as a fait accompli before BT's evidence, whatever it was, had been fully and forensically examined.

It could of course be that the guy is a vile, sicko hacker [/Sun headline] with possible Al-Qaeda links [/UK.gov-Police spin], but the handy thing, as mentioned above, is that in this case we can rely on our impartial, honest, non-sensationalist news media to tell us all about it.

If the charge does peter out through lack of evidence, it'd be awfully interesting to know whether, in addition to compensating the individual at the centre of the accusation, BT also compensate the Police for wasting what will no doubt be a considerable amount of time and money.

 

True to a degree. However, I think you're far more likely to have people overlook these sort of problems than do anything about them. Nonchalance is far more common place in large businesses than overzealousness!

 

Oops, looks like we're all wrong about BT after all...

This just in at the BBC:


Charge over tsunami 'hacking' bid
A man has been charged over an alleged attempt to hack into a website set up to raise funds after the Asian tsunami.

Daniel Cuthbert, 28, of Whitechapel, east London, has been charged with one offence under the Computer Misuse Act.

Scotland Yard said the charge followed an alleged unauthorised access of the Disasters and Emergency Committee site on New Year's Eve.

Mr Cuthbert is due to appear on bail before Horseferry Magistrates Court next Thursday.

The disaster fund has raised an estimated £250m to help victims of the tsunami.

Tens of thousands of people used its web pages to offer money to those caught in the Boxing Day tragedy.

That's the full story, but here's the link anyway.