Mumsnet hacking and swatting - who's the loser?

I suggest you check out the thread on site stuff.

Thanks ninathenana, I read that thread first. My last sentence was just a bit facetious about GN security, which I'm sure is really tight now, but the discussion question stands: who is actually gaining with this kind of thing? What do GNers think about hacking as a means of gaining publicity? There is a lot of it about, whether it directly involves us or not. Publishing email addresses or RL addresses seems to be rife.

Do people hack to gain publicity?

I thought they hacked becase
a. they can
b. they think it fun
c. they like to impress their mates
d they probably learn more about IT than they did before.

What I cant work out is, do they want to be caught? Or dont they care. Because the more they do, and the more high profile it is, the more that is likely to happen I would have thought.

I guess they like taking risks. e.!

Impress what mates?

I want to know how far the police have got with tracing the MN hacker. Apart from anything else he has wasted a whole lot of police time and money. Surely the police should be able to employ technical experts capable of hacking him.

Obviously it's an extremely serious crime, both from the point of view of the victims, and the waste of resources.

I can't see how we, the posters, could be compromised. GN do not store addresses or postcodes. Perhaps they could get your email address, but loads of others do that anyway. (who the hell is Mark Thornaby anyway, and why does he want me to Skype him? )

That website for people wanting to have affairs - that could have been down to them wanting publicity. They've certainly got it.

And 'police time and money' = tax payers' money / police time that could be used hunting burglars. I'd like to know how far they've got too.

As much as I enjoy Gransnet and the information and entertainment that is available on the internet, sometimes I wish the whole thing had never been invented. Ditto mobile phones.

eloethan I know that feeling, especially 're mobile phones. So I often don't carry mine or I switch it off and forget about it - bliss.

're facebook, mumsnet etc - sometimes I think it is naught but "hanging your dirty washing out in public" or people airing their opinions . Both things I was taught to avoid doing when I was growing up.

I think that they do have mates.

There is the dark web or something.

Gn do have some addresses and postcodes, but they are on a different server, or in a different more secure part of the gransnet site. People send them if they are competition winners or maybe even the Local Eds?

As regards the police. In my opinion, hackers are IT cleverer than the police a lot of the time.
They devote a lot of time to their craft!

If you remember recently, MI5 or MI6 or whatever it is called, was asking for recruits to try and defeat the IS internet activity.

And of course you need hackers to defeat other hackers.

GNHQ have said time and time again that they don't store addresses. That's why you have to re-submit your address if you get a second book.

The police would have to recruit the expert hackers. They probably do already. Not all hackers/technical whizzes are of a criminal persuasion.

Get Tim McGee from NCIS on to him

Fallen into the trap there, that should be him OR her.

I have no idea how long they keep them for.

But they do receive them, so they will be in the gransnet harddrive or whatever it is called.
I have no idea how hard it is for a hacker to be able to get at them.

It is thought that the adresses that were visited, the addresses were available from Twitter or somewhere.