0x80 is a
hacker interviewed by
Brian Krebs of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' about his lucrative business in running "
botnets", or networks of remotely controlled personal computers without the owner's consent. The article in the 2006 February ''Washington Post'' detailed 0x80's earnings of around $6,800 a month infecting controlled
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s with
adware
Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...
and
spyware
Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their privac ...
in exchange for a per-computer commission.
[Brian Krebs. "Invasion of the Computer Snatchers."]
The Washington Post. Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive. 2006. Retrieved September 01, 2012 from HighBeam Research
Leaked data
0x80 agreed to be interviewed for the ''Post'' article under the condition that he'd not be identified by name or home town.
After a link to the article on
Slashdot, a reader used the
IPTC The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), based in London, United Kingdom, is a consortium of the world's major news agencies, other news providers and news industry vendors and acts as the global standards body of the news media.
...
information encoded into the image to learn that
Roland
Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...
,
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
had been entered as the picture's location. The ''Washington Post'' removed all of the images from their site and commented "As you know we take our obligations with sources very seriously and I don't want to comment about any speculation about sources" in response to an interview question asking "Are you aware that the Post failed to scrub the metadata from the images used in this article, leaving information about your town?" (question text edited by ''The Washington Post'' to remove a specific referenced town name).
References
External links
{{wikinews, Washington Post source outed by SlashDot reader
Washington Post articleSlashdot comments exposing image metadata
Botnets
Computer criminals
Hackers
Unidentified criminals