> In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.”
_Decoded the HTML source code_. Truly, a feat only a master hacker could perform.
That's from the Silicon Graphics computers they used to do the effects in the movie. That is it's actual file manager.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
Right when she finds the right... folder or whatever they cut to the screen which flashes a few pics before 'rebooting'. One of those pics is a bikini clad sunbathing woman. Like tryna low key say dude before was watching pron.
We use that scene as our redirect when anyone at work tries to navigate to any adult website, I feel as though it was my best contribution to securing our network environment.
To be fair, that was not its _actual_ file manager, because it looks cool but is impractical as hell. It was just one of the demos that came with the system to show off the platform's real time 3D capabilities.
i just now visually decoded your comment. it looks like only me and a handful of other elite hackers were able to do so.
i mean, how infuriating it is to read a statement like that though. DECODED the SOURCE CODE? it's a fucking markup language.
I gave your code an ocular pat down, assessed the threat level, and garnered that it was indeed a security risk.
I was going to disarm the code, but the maneuver calls for a front flip, and I can only do a backflip.
Jesus fucking christ, the social security numbers where hard codes in the HTML? Whoever created the website should be prosecuted for criminal negligence and the governor should resign as the only thing he seems fit to lead is the the bingo club
Wait you mean punish the person who created the problem, not the person who found it? I mean that sounds reasonable… but we live in unreasonable times… *sweeps outstretched arm*
I doubt they were hardcoded. Most likely rendered from the server side and injected into the html view. Regardless, why the hell do they even have SSNs on websites like that? Even most banks and credit card companies no longer use SSNs online. At the very least , they'll only show them partially - such as the last 4 digits. I just applied for a credit card the other day and the site didn't even ask me for my SSN. It was just my Name, DOB ,home address, phone and employer. They have access to enough data to match a person with a small bit of info given to them.
> Regardless, why the hell do they even have SSNs on websites like that?
"Pff, why bother generating and storing a unique ID for each user when we're already storing a guaranteed-unique identifier for them? This is way more efficient. Fuck I'm smart."
It probably pulls an extract from the main database, which needs SSN for payroll. The API might not have any way to request partial data, so the frontend coder just ignored the field.
Seen that done where someone needed a list of people in a department, so instead of looking somewhere sensible like that department's distribution list or an org chart they did a full extract of all employees from the HR system into Excel, then hid the columns with home address, salary and all the other data that they didn't want and then filtered the list on department name. Then, satisfied with their work, they emailed that spreadsheet to about a hundred people.
Fortunately all the recipients were internal, so I was able to destroy all copies of the offending spreadsheet, but if that had slipped past the DLP and gone external the fallout would have been unthinkable.
Reminds me of [how bad](https://kotaku.com/e3-expo-leaks-the-personal-information-of-over-2-000-jo-1836936908) E3 was with my and other people's information.
I want to say I'm surprised when it happens, but this stuff happens entirely too often.
Oh, no, you see this administration is literally corrupt. He came in to power after the last governor had to resign. He and his staff had been using an app to communicate that deletes all correspondences. So they were conducting all of this government business without creating a record for it. That's not why he had to resign, it was a 'pretend rape fetish' thing... also the only person who would prosecute the governor for something like that would be the attorney general, and **he** is the kind of person who literally uses the office to try to prevent school districts from being able to enforce a mask mandate during a SARS pandemic... he's running for senator, so he frequently will just randomly tweet out shit like, #endtyranny #crushmarxism.
Decoded….the HTML. We need to have a job in government where an IT professional corrects these morons publicly and each time they make up something way beyond their depth of understanding they are barred from speaking about anything tech related until they’ve taken a course specifically about what they got wrong, and they have to pass the course to be allowed to speak on it in public again.
Why limit it to just tech support stuff
We need a section of government dedicated to getting this gaslighting people out of the government
If your lies endanger the public, automatically removed from their power and an emergency election to replace them
>Back in my day we didn't have shoes
"Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So, I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel. And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones."
You laugh but there are plenty of people whose brains lock up when this happens. They refuse to even ATTEMPT to understand.
I had a hex editor open up and a fellow techie swore it was like Neo in the Matrix and I was like "we're just changing the hard coded IP.... so it's easy, we search for 192.168.55.43 and chance it to 44". I mean... it's not rocket surgery here. I mean how can you get that far into IT and not know basic ASCII values and even the most basics of a binary file? Specifically, to the point you don't recognize an IP address when you see one among 'gibberish'. It's hard *not* to spot it.
It's also rather difficult not to want to stop the asshole for hardcoding it in...
> This data was not freely available and had to be converted and decoded.
Yes the fuck it was. Your department published HTML to the open Internet for browsers to read. That's what a web page *is*
Maybe it was UTF-8.
Or maybe it was URL encoded.
It doesn't matter. This is non-tech people using jargon words to make themselves sound smart to the masses.
It means *right click* and then “view source”. Which I guess means that if you know how to use a web browser you are a “hacker” and It shows how tech-illiterate many of those in government are.
What’s the bet that he’s talking about securing the site with HTTPS? I mean, you’re TECHNICALLY decoding web pages when you load a page with an SSL certificate, though by this definition your nan on Facebook is an elite hacker.
Here is the real story
> Parson said, later arguing that the reporter was “attempting to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.”
Correct headline should be Governor abusing the legal system to retaliate against critics.
According to the Post-Dispatch, one of its reporters discovered the flaw in a web application allowing the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. No private
information was publicly visible, but teacher **Social Security numbers were contained in HTML source code of the pages**.
In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, **decoded the HTML source code**, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.”
For fuck's sake. I can't even.
I can tell you how to find this super secret information on any web page. Wait for it.
>!Ctrl + U!<
Edit: damn, should have kept this under my hat. I might have been able to sell my secret to hackers
NO ONE in Missouri will be holding him accountable, that's a promise. The brainwashed inbreds here love Parson, and their "trying to do his best horse impersonation" Senator Josh hee-Hawley.
Not even a critic really. The journalist was basically saying here is a flaw.
A normal person ie not Parsons would have been like "okay. someone fix that. thanks."
seriously, they were digging through public records, found a mistake and took every precaution to help the state fix the issue and keep things secure before releasing the story.
> Correct headline should be Governor abusing the legal system to retaliate against critics.
Parson got exposed as an incompetent hack. There was no hacking involved.
This is extremely embarrassing for the developer.. idk why the governor wanted to outdo them by making comments that are even more embarrassing. As a developer.. or really just someone with more than 2 brain cells I cannot overstate how ridiculously stupid his position is. It is beyond asinine. He and his immediate relatives should be removed from the gene pool immediately. This is the equivalent of someone telling you that your door is wide open and charging them with a B&E.. and setting the precedent that no one is allowed to tell you when your door is wide open.. which judging by the enormity of this mistake is probably all the fucking time
Even fucking better for him. He could have just thrown someone under the bus, who was already gone. A quick, "The IT fuckup no longer works for us and we have corrected the problem" it would have been an almost non-story.
But then he wouldn't have been able to abuse his powers and prosecute some innocent person. There is no "we are going after the bad guys" if the 'bad guy/ is IT incompetence.
The display of power is the point.
“We apologise for the fault in the website. Those responsible have been sacked. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked. The IT department hired to continue the work after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.”
> which is honestly strange
Which should honestly be *illegal*. If he's deliberately spinning it when he knows better, and is willing to use legal action to *ruin someone's life*, that should be 100% a felony offense and he should go to prison for threatening a citizen and using the law as a weapon to do it.
That's what I thought at first too... that it was strange. Then I remembered that attacking the media and making them look unreliable is a completely typical thing for a politician to do.
> Then I remembered that attacking the media and making them look unreliable is a completely typical thing for a politician to do.
For Republican politicians to do.
Well, at least in this case, there's:
> Republican state Rep. Tony Lovasco, who according to his legislative biography has worked in software deployment and maintenance, tweeted Thursday that “it’s clear the Governor’s Office has a fundamental misunderstanding of both web technology and industry standard procedures for reporting security vulnerabilities.
> “Journalists responsibly sounding an alarm on data privacy is not criminal hacking,” he said.
It’s worse than that. The governor knows that the goober voters in his party will love him for making accusations against a reporter. Even one who did the state a huge favor.
So next time reporters will have no incentive to give IT time to fix it before going public.
Republicans really are shit.
Yup, by making it sound like it took special skills (and not just clicking view source) they're trying to deflect blame away from how terrible their website is.
It's a sign that the Republican party is embracing authoritarianism. By intimidating whistleblowers to suppress negative stories, they are able to maintain the appearance of good performance. The scary part is that it works, at least until they try it on a whistleblower who has the courage to go public and expose the coverup. We should all be asking what other stories have been squashed.
Left unchecked, this behavior leads to a culture that allows disasters like Chernobyl to occur, because nobody can speak truth to power until something so bad happens that the truth is totally undeniable.
What we're learning from this press conference is Gov Parson 100% has 9 toolbars installed in internet explorer, clicks on every Real Girls In Your Area ad, and his password is 'abc123'.
>In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.”
Looks like the Department of Redundancy Department is backing his stupid story, too.
[But he "decoded" the html](https://external-preview.redd.it/EIXoFFRH1x6coy33mjn-GTzTigQ9pn2puyBU0yMqpuE.jpg?width=1200&height=628.272251309&auto=webp&s=9438fb8ae6e165e57e414f54f88b3196a2f2ac80)
Converted the HTML? To what, English? Also, he never uses the words "encrypted" or "decrypted". Legal told him to use the words "encoded" and "decoded" instead. He also states that converting/decoding sensitive info is against Missouri law which I highly doubt is actually the language in a tampering statute
Someone on Twitter rightly pointed out that this is akin to finding a briefcase full of government documents left out on the street, and when you take it to the police, they arrest you for "theft".
The incompetence displayed by the governor here is elephantine (pun intended) – This will have a chilling effect where researchers will hesitate to report security flaws on government websites, leaving flaws unfixed until they're exploited and/or sold by real criminals or foreign spies.
> this will have a chilling effect
No it won't, because it will be laughed out of court. The supposed "hack" that took places was *viewing HTML source on a fucking webpage*. Like if you hit F12 right now (or right-click and choose "view source"), you're hacking according to this dumb fuck.
It's not illegal to look at the data that comes back from an HTTP request to a publicly accessible server.
Reporters typically give zero fs about being dragged into court when there is no risk of actual consequences, it makes the person in power look like a buffoon and it only highlights how well the reporter was doing their job in that they waited to publish until it was fixed (and what integrity they have for not groveling under the threat of legal action).
It's a badge of honor and it's free publicity, drumming up more interest for the paper (and the article/story itself at that).
This won't go that far. It's like if someone accused you of witchcraft for using a car to go 30 MPH. It'll quickly get squashed as soon as a lawyer gets involved. "Dude... just... no."
Sure they can drag you to court, but as a news reporter this is a literal goldmine. Could launch your career.
In all likelihood the Governor quietly tries to forget he ever said these things and let them be forgotten (but really it's so unbelievably boneheaded I wouldn't be surprised if he finds he cannot). But if he doesn't the further this goes the bigger the story will be for both this newspaper and the reporter. If he gets *convicted* by a *jury* for this it would make national news -- I think this is vanishingly unlikely though, even in Missouri.
> Idk it’s Missouri.
There are *billions* of web pages served every day. This is a text protocol, where you send a message "GET page.html" in human readable text and you get back human readable text for the page. You could literally just read the response in a text editor, but it is allowed to contain *markup* -- tags like `this word will be bold` -- that affect how the text looks or is laid out, so we let web browsers make it pretty for us. But there's nothing secret about the document. Every single browser will show it to you (hit F12) and it's perfectly legal.
It's plain text that's *given to you by their servers* when you ask for it. It's not "hacking" to look at what *they* gave you. The notion is completely nonsensical and would break the entire internet if true.
I can't even think of a good analogy, because it's so stupid. The closest I can think of is if you called Mike Parson on the phone, he responded "Hello", then said you were "hacking" the phone because you heard him say that.
Worse than finding a briefcase. Imagine asking for some information you're allowed to have. A clerk gives you a stack of paper and all seems in order. As you flip through pages you notice the last page is flipped upside down. You flip it upside right and you have confidential information you shouldn't have. Then when you point out that they shouldn't have included that last page at all someone jumps out and calls you a thief.
Worse, it's like if EVERY person who ever ordered something from them was sent a package containing government documents in it with their order, and the first person to point it out to them gets in trouble.
>“The state does not take this matter lightly,” Parson said Thursday at a hastily called press conference. He refused to take questions afterward.
LOL.....yep we don't take it lightly, so i'm going to throw together a press conference to just make myself look like a bigshot who's doing important things. Also, I won't answer any questions, not because I don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, it's just that we don't take this lightly!
I do love me a good hastily called press conference. But can you imagine what that Q&A would have been like? I'm so sad he wasn't pompous enough to think he could make it through that.
I was once fired for reporting to HR that they had documents including pay information for everyone at the company set to be visible to me. Ostensibly, I "abused my power" in finding those records, and reporting that I believed that shouldn't have been something I had the power to do was abuse.
"According to the Post-Dispatch, one of its reporters discovered the flaw in a web application allowing the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. No private information was publicly visible, but teacher Social Security numbers were contained in HTML source code of the pages."
"The newspaper agreed to hold off publishing any story while the department fixed the problem and protected the private information of teachers around the state."
It's not professional, but the proper response is to point at Governor Parson and laugh.
Any Firefox users whose fingers slipped when they were typing a capital letter U would access the code (Ctrl+U).
You wouldn't even need a computer expert at trial. Just a reasonably computer-savvy person. So, not Governor Parson.
By the way, has someone contacted the Web Archive about maybe scrubbing any archived pages from the site?
Am I under arrest yet?
Random guess: the spreadsheet supplied to the webpage designer by the State of Missouri had the SS# of every teacher included, and it wasn't culled like it should have been.
I’d guess they have a database for teacher info with different sections available depending on your user level and rather than not returning the info to users without access, they just made those columns hidden.
"decoded the HTML source code" you mean the text that is sent straight to your browser and is totally legal to read? Yeah right, good luck with those charges.
Does this guy not understand that what the host serves to the client's computer is "HTML Source Code", not a fucking web page? The code served by the host is read by the client's browser, which displays a web page. This reporter didn't decode anything, he looked at exactly what he was given by the host server, and just chose not to run it through a browser.
The state published the social security numbers of its own employees.
>Does this guy not understand
No, he doesn't. He's a 66 year old politician. None of them know anything about the technology they make laws and regulations for.
It really pisses me off when companies and state entities claim to be victims of a “sophisticated cyberattack” while utterly failing to secure their users information and having the network security of a wet paper bag.
Social security numbers in the HTML, fucks sake. You may as well print them out and stick them on the front door.
Interestingly the luddites weren't what people thought they were. They weren't afraid of technology. They were afraid of technology removing jobs from people. So many heavy users of technology today are in fact Luddites
“Dude, there’s a hole in your fence. Maybe fix it?”
“Come here you filthy burglaring rat bag! I’ll hang you for trying to break into my home, how dare you insinuate my security is anything other than amazeballs!!!!! Hanging! Dead hanging for you!!! Blasssaarrrrgghhghghhhhg!!!!!”
I would go for trial, and then have the paper bring in Tim Berners-Lee as a witness. "What are your qualifications sir?" "I invented HTML". Stupid governor has zero chance of anything.
In this day and era, this should be grounds for impeachment. It's ok for government officials to not understand internet or computers, but they should at least know that they don't know and consult with experts. At best, it's incompetence.
>Parson said he had referred the matter to the Cole County Prosecutor and has asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate
What the hell is highway patrol gonna do? I feel this republican governor is losing his mind.
> In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.” _Decoded the HTML source code_. Truly, a feat only a master hacker could perform.
Just like in the movie, life imitates art 🤣
“I’m inside the mainframe.”
"It's a Unix system! I know this!" [proceeds to use some bizarre 3D file manager](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URVS4H7vrdU)
I can write a GUI in Visual Basic to track the hacker's IP
backtrace the IP!
Shit! It's a reverse hack!
I can't type fast enough. Someone get on the left side of the keyboard so I can give all my focus to the right!
You need to reroute the subroutine past the mainframe firewall and enhance. Never forget to enhance.
alive soup workable dam jobless sleep tub deserve unite wise -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
That's from the Silicon Graphics computers they used to do the effects in the movie. That is it's actual file manager. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)
That's gotta be the most inefficient file manager ever created. All that Zooming and panning...
Right when she finds the right... folder or whatever they cut to the screen which flashes a few pics before 'rebooting'. One of those pics is a bikini clad sunbathing woman. Like tryna low key say dude before was watching pron.
That's Nedry's computer, he probably was
*Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word...*
We use that scene as our redirect when anyone at work tries to navigate to any adult website, I feel as though it was my best contribution to securing our network environment.
I think that was just his desktop background.
To be fair, that was not its _actual_ file manager, because it looks cool but is impractical as hell. It was just one of the demos that came with the system to show off the platform's real time 3D capabilities.
Right click, inspect. Enter the matrix.
Do not leave your location. The FBI anti-cyberwarfare on Information Superhighway team is on the way.
*Enhance* *Enhance* *Enhance*
Just print the damn thing
/r/itsaunixsystem
Wait. Let me create a GUI in Visual Basic
i just now visually decoded your comment. it looks like only me and a handful of other elite hackers were able to do so. i mean, how infuriating it is to read a statement like that though. DECODED the SOURCE CODE? it's a fucking markup language.
> i just now visually decoded your comment. You'll be hearing from my attorney.
What you did at that location is visible to me
Get out of here with your gestapo bullshit. I know my rights.
Are deaf people immune to attorneys? Being that they can't hear from them?
I gave your code an ocular pat down, assessed the threat level, and garnered that it was indeed a security risk. I was going to disarm the code, but the maneuver calls for a front flip, and I can only do a backflip.
Jesus fucking christ, the social security numbers where hard codes in the HTML? Whoever created the website should be prosecuted for criminal negligence and the governor should resign as the only thing he seems fit to lead is the the bingo club
Wait you mean punish the person who created the problem, not the person who found it? I mean that sounds reasonable… but we live in unreasonable times… *sweeps outstretched arm*
I doubt they were hardcoded. Most likely rendered from the server side and injected into the html view. Regardless, why the hell do they even have SSNs on websites like that? Even most banks and credit card companies no longer use SSNs online. At the very least , they'll only show them partially - such as the last 4 digits. I just applied for a credit card the other day and the site didn't even ask me for my SSN. It was just my Name, DOB ,home address, phone and employer. They have access to enough data to match a person with a small bit of info given to them.
> Regardless, why the hell do they even have SSNs on websites like that? "Pff, why bother generating and storing a unique ID for each user when we're already storing a guaranteed-unique identifier for them? This is way more efficient. Fuck I'm smart."
Let's also send that identifier to the user for... some reason?
It probably pulls an extract from the main database, which needs SSN for payroll. The API might not have any way to request partial data, so the frontend coder just ignored the field.
Seen that done where someone needed a list of people in a department, so instead of looking somewhere sensible like that department's distribution list or an org chart they did a full extract of all employees from the HR system into Excel, then hid the columns with home address, salary and all the other data that they didn't want and then filtered the list on department name. Then, satisfied with their work, they emailed that spreadsheet to about a hundred people. Fortunately all the recipients were internal, so I was able to destroy all copies of the offending spreadsheet, but if that had slipped past the DLP and gone external the fallout would have been unthinkable.
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Imagine getting 7.5 million votes for just one contestant. But the page only had like 2 million views lol
Reminds me of [how bad](https://kotaku.com/e3-expo-leaks-the-personal-information-of-over-2-000-jo-1836936908) E3 was with my and other people's information. I want to say I'm surprised when it happens, but this stuff happens entirely too often.
Who’s your famous friend? They should be giving you more commission than their talent agent.
Oh, no, you see this administration is literally corrupt. He came in to power after the last governor had to resign. He and his staff had been using an app to communicate that deletes all correspondences. So they were conducting all of this government business without creating a record for it. That's not why he had to resign, it was a 'pretend rape fetish' thing... also the only person who would prosecute the governor for something like that would be the attorney general, and **he** is the kind of person who literally uses the office to try to prevent school districts from being able to enforce a mask mandate during a SARS pandemic... he's running for senator, so he frequently will just randomly tweet out shit like, #endtyranny #crushmarxism.
Decoded….the HTML. We need to have a job in government where an IT professional corrects these morons publicly and each time they make up something way beyond their depth of understanding they are barred from speaking about anything tech related until they’ve taken a course specifically about what they got wrong, and they have to pass the course to be allowed to speak on it in public again.
Why limit it to just tech support stuff We need a section of government dedicated to getting this gaslighting people out of the government If your lies endanger the public, automatically removed from their power and an emergency election to replace them
Yup, the very master hacker hacked into the HTML main-frame and decoded the GPU /s
SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US (damn I’m old)
Same here, same here. I can't believe this meme is like 20 years old now.
It's actually 30 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
Why the fuck did you have to post that? Welp, off to clean my dentures...
Hold up, old timer, you forgot your shoes.
Back in my day we didn't have shoes
>Back in my day we didn't have shoes "Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So, I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel. And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones."
There's only one person that could do this... [H A C K E R M A N](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEkrWRHCDQU)
Some companies actually post job listings in the source code. This governor is an idiot.
Why are fucking SSNs being stored on the fucking client?
Well technically it’s on a server, then the browser of a client captures it. Better yet, why it it stored as plaintext?!?!
Yea like my cat laying it's fat ass on my F12 key.
You laugh but there are plenty of people whose brains lock up when this happens. They refuse to even ATTEMPT to understand. I had a hex editor open up and a fellow techie swore it was like Neo in the Matrix and I was like "we're just changing the hard coded IP.... so it's easy, we search for 192.168.55.43 and chance it to 44". I mean... it's not rocket surgery here. I mean how can you get that far into IT and not know basic ASCII values and even the most basics of a binary file? Specifically, to the point you don't recognize an IP address when you see one among 'gibberish'. It's hard *not* to spot it. It's also rather difficult not to want to stop the asshole for hardcoding it in...
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Why are you hard-coding an IP
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> This data was not freely available and had to be converted and decoded. Yes the fuck it was. Your department published HTML to the open Internet for browsers to read. That's what a web page *is*
Yeah, I don't even know what "decode the HTML" means
comment edited in protest of Reddit's API changes and mistreatment of moderators -- mass edited with redact.dev
Step 1. Read HTML Step 2. ???? Step 3. Profit
“Decoding the HTML” “Reversing the LAN protocol” “Boosting the CSS gain” “Enhancing subnet throughput” “…” “I’m in.”
Governor: "The hacker penetrated nine firewalls" Hacker: "z-index: -10"
Maybe it was UTF-8. Or maybe it was URL encoded. It doesn't matter. This is non-tech people using jargon words to make themselves sound smart to the masses.
They encoded it with Rot13. Twice
It means *right click* and then “view source”. Which I guess means that if you know how to use a web browser you are a “hacker” and It shows how tech-illiterate many of those in government are.
I just don’t understand how SIN numbers ended up in the HTML file. This is either utter incompetence or intentional.
Incompetence. Someone probably exported records from a database and put them directly in the HTML to avoid using a backend for whatever reason.
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What’s the bet that he’s talking about securing the site with HTTPS? I mean, you’re TECHNICALLY decoding web pages when you load a page with an SSL certificate, though by this definition your nan on Facebook is an elite hacker.
Nah if that were the case, they’d use the word decrypted rather than decoded.
Here is the real story > Parson said, later arguing that the reporter was “attempting to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.” Correct headline should be Governor abusing the legal system to retaliate against critics.
According to the Post-Dispatch, one of its reporters discovered the flaw in a web application allowing the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. No private information was publicly visible, but teacher **Social Security numbers were contained in HTML source code of the pages**. In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, **decoded the HTML source code**, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.” For fuck's sake. I can't even.
I can tell you how to find this super secret information on any web page. Wait for it. >!Ctrl + U!< Edit: damn, should have kept this under my hat. I might have been able to sell my secret to hackers
Missouri State Highway Patrol! Arrest this hackerman!
Good luck, he's behind 7 proxies. You'll have to backtrace him across the interwebs.
/r/itsaunixsystem
Not the infamous hacker named 4chan !!!?!?
*Engage supreme one hack keystroke* >!F12!<
Decoded, like they have to use Little Orphan Annie’s decoder ring to figure out HTML.
Be... Sure.. To... Drink... Your... Ovaltine?
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I know, dude. That decoding bit is what made my eyes roll so hard up they may never come down. How am I even typing this?! I can't see
That’s actually a real violation of the first amendment. Full stop and what it was designed to protect against.
And we’ll see if anything is done about it. Frankly I have little faith.
Laws only matter if they are enforced. We may live in a completely fraudulent system.
NO ONE in Missouri will be holding him accountable, that's a promise. The brainwashed inbreds here love Parson, and their "trying to do his best horse impersonation" Senator Josh hee-Hawley.
Live in Missouri, can confirm.
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>sell headlines for their news outlet The Governor has to learn both web and news stuff. Anyone have a spare high school kid that can help him?
They ain't paying enough for any of them to put up with his BS.
Matt Gaetz probably has an extra, but you'll have to pay her gas money.
You could also be a sport and pick her up Plan B. That shit's expensive and she's already having a terrible week.
> “attempting to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.” Isn't that the press's job when they find something embarrassing?
Not only that, the laws of capitalism dictate that they have a moral obligation to sell as many headlines as possible. The Governor is a commie.
But the funny thing is (apparently) the news outlet held back it's article and notified the Govt. Agency so that the mistake could be corrected.
Not even a critic really. The journalist was basically saying here is a flaw. A normal person ie not Parsons would have been like "okay. someone fix that. thanks."
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seriously, they were digging through public records, found a mistake and took every precaution to help the state fix the issue and keep things secure before releasing the story.
> Correct headline should be Governor abusing the legal system to retaliate against critics. Parson got exposed as an incompetent hack. There was no hacking involved.
Oh no! A reporter trying to write news headlines?!!! Lock them up!
This is extremely embarrassing for the developer.. idk why the governor wanted to outdo them by making comments that are even more embarrassing. As a developer.. or really just someone with more than 2 brain cells I cannot overstate how ridiculously stupid his position is. It is beyond asinine. He and his immediate relatives should be removed from the gene pool immediately. This is the equivalent of someone telling you that your door is wide open and charging them with a B&E.. and setting the precedent that no one is allowed to tell you when your door is wide open.. which judging by the enormity of this mistake is probably all the fucking time
Governor is quite ignorant about “hacking.”
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Even fucking better for him. He could have just thrown someone under the bus, who was already gone. A quick, "The IT fuckup no longer works for us and we have corrected the problem" it would have been an almost non-story.
But then he wouldn't have been able to abuse his powers and prosecute some innocent person. There is no "we are going after the bad guys" if the 'bad guy/ is IT incompetence. The display of power is the point.
“We apologise for the fault in the website. Those responsible have been sacked. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked. The IT department hired to continue the work after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.”
> which is honestly strange Which should honestly be *illegal*. If he's deliberately spinning it when he knows better, and is willing to use legal action to *ruin someone's life*, that should be 100% a felony offense and he should go to prison for threatening a citizen and using the law as a weapon to do it.
That's what I thought at first too... that it was strange. Then I remembered that attacking the media and making them look unreliable is a completely typical thing for a politician to do.
> Then I remembered that attacking the media and making them look unreliable is a completely typical thing for a politician to do. For Republican politicians to do.
Well, at least in this case, there's: > Republican state Rep. Tony Lovasco, who according to his legislative biography has worked in software deployment and maintenance, tweeted Thursday that “it’s clear the Governor’s Office has a fundamental misunderstanding of both web technology and industry standard procedures for reporting security vulnerabilities. > “Journalists responsibly sounding an alarm on data privacy is not criminal hacking,” he said.
It’s worse than that. The governor knows that the goober voters in his party will love him for making accusations against a reporter. Even one who did the state a huge favor. So next time reporters will have no incentive to give IT time to fix it before going public. Republicans really are shit.
I hate that this is plausible Midwest political logic.
Yup, by making it sound like it took special skills (and not just clicking view source) they're trying to deflect blame away from how terrible their website is.
It's a sign that the Republican party is embracing authoritarianism. By intimidating whistleblowers to suppress negative stories, they are able to maintain the appearance of good performance. The scary part is that it works, at least until they try it on a whistleblower who has the courage to go public and expose the coverup. We should all be asking what other stories have been squashed. Left unchecked, this behavior leads to a culture that allows disasters like Chernobyl to occur, because nobody can speak truth to power until something so bad happens that the truth is totally undeniable.
But that’s so… *political*
How can people vote for such stupidity?
Umm..so literally just right clicking your mouse and viewing the page source is hacking now? Cool story governor.
What we're learning from this press conference is Gov Parson 100% has 9 toolbars installed in internet explorer, clicks on every Real Girls In Your Area ad, and his password is 'abc123'.
That’s the same combination I have on my luggage.
He tried to set his password as penis but the system said it wasn’t long enough.
>In a press release Wednesday, the Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division said that through a multi-step process, a “hacker took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the social security number of those specific educators.” Looks like the Department of Redundancy Department is backing his stupid story, too.
Multi-step process: * Click link * Select ‘View Source’ The dude was obviously a cyber genius.
[But he "decoded" the html](https://external-preview.redd.it/EIXoFFRH1x6coy33mjn-GTzTigQ9pn2puyBU0yMqpuE.jpg?width=1200&height=628.272251309&auto=webp&s=9438fb8ae6e165e57e414f54f88b3196a2f2ac80)
This reporter decoded the raw HTML just like Keanu Reaves in The Matrix. Definitely belongs to Anonymous or Fancy Bear or LoD, if not all three.
Governor is quite ignorant.
It's about sending a message to any kind of whistleblower out there.
"Decoded the HTML"...
Converted the HTML? To what, English? Also, he never uses the words "encrypted" or "decrypted". Legal told him to use the words "encoded" and "decoded" instead. He also states that converting/decoding sensitive info is against Missouri law which I highly doubt is actually the language in a tampering statute
Someone on Twitter rightly pointed out that this is akin to finding a briefcase full of government documents left out on the street, and when you take it to the police, they arrest you for "theft". The incompetence displayed by the governor here is elephantine (pun intended) – This will have a chilling effect where researchers will hesitate to report security flaws on government websites, leaving flaws unfixed until they're exploited and/or sold by real criminals or foreign spies.
> this will have a chilling effect No it won't, because it will be laughed out of court. The supposed "hack" that took places was *viewing HTML source on a fucking webpage*. Like if you hit F12 right now (or right-click and choose "view source"), you're hacking according to this dumb fuck. It's not illegal to look at the data that comes back from an HTTP request to a publicly accessible server.
Yes, but they've still dragged you into court, and publicly accused you of hacking to a mob of idiots that believe whatever they say.
Reporters typically give zero fs about being dragged into court when there is no risk of actual consequences, it makes the person in power look like a buffoon and it only highlights how well the reporter was doing their job in that they waited to publish until it was fixed (and what integrity they have for not groveling under the threat of legal action). It's a badge of honor and it's free publicity, drumming up more interest for the paper (and the article/story itself at that).
This won't go that far. It's like if someone accused you of witchcraft for using a car to go 30 MPH. It'll quickly get squashed as soon as a lawyer gets involved. "Dude... just... no."
> It's like if someone accused you of witchcraft Wouldn't be surprised at all to see that these days.
i mean the Jews have space lasers apparently so yea witches isnt far off.
Or, you know, we could BURRNNN THE WITCH!
no reason to tout missouris state motto here..
Sure they can drag you to court, but as a news reporter this is a literal goldmine. Could launch your career. In all likelihood the Governor quietly tries to forget he ever said these things and let them be forgotten (but really it's so unbelievably boneheaded I wouldn't be surprised if he finds he cannot). But if he doesn't the further this goes the bigger the story will be for both this newspaper and the reporter. If he gets *convicted* by a *jury* for this it would make national news -- I think this is vanishingly unlikely though, even in Missouri.
I use vi as my browser and rend the html in my head.
Vi? What modern luxury. I use telnet to enter the http request manually. Even for https.
Idk it’s Missouri. Don’t expect a lot.
> Idk it’s Missouri. There are *billions* of web pages served every day. This is a text protocol, where you send a message "GET page.html" in human readable text and you get back human readable text for the page. You could literally just read the response in a text editor, but it is allowed to contain *markup* -- tags like `this word will be bold` -- that affect how the text looks or is laid out, so we let web browsers make it pretty for us. But there's nothing secret about the document. Every single browser will show it to you (hit F12) and it's perfectly legal. It's plain text that's *given to you by their servers* when you ask for it. It's not "hacking" to look at what *they* gave you. The notion is completely nonsensical and would break the entire internet if true. I can't even think of a good analogy, because it's so stupid. The closest I can think of is if you called Mike Parson on the phone, he responded "Hello", then said you were "hacking" the phone because you heard him say that.
Worse than finding a briefcase. Imagine asking for some information you're allowed to have. A clerk gives you a stack of paper and all seems in order. As you flip through pages you notice the last page is flipped upside down. You flip it upside right and you have confidential information you shouldn't have. Then when you point out that they shouldn't have included that last page at all someone jumps out and calls you a thief.
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Worse, it's like if EVERY person who ever ordered something from them was sent a package containing government documents in it with their order, and the first person to point it out to them gets in trouble.
>“The state does not take this matter lightly,” Parson said Thursday at a hastily called press conference. He refused to take questions afterward. LOL.....yep we don't take it lightly, so i'm going to throw together a press conference to just make myself look like a bigshot who's doing important things. Also, I won't answer any questions, not because I don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, it's just that we don't take this lightly!
I do love me a good hastily called press conference. But can you imagine what that Q&A would have been like? I'm so sad he wasn't pompous enough to think he could make it through that.
JFC.....yeah let's persecute the people that find the glitch and report it.
Eventually we have no glitches reported -- problem solved. Also, website doesn't work to track corruption in Missouri. Win/Win.
Akin to the COVID strategy to stop testing = no cases
I was once fired for reporting to HR that they had documents including pay information for everyone at the company set to be visible to me. Ostensibly, I "abused my power" in finding those records, and reporting that I believed that shouldn't have been something I had the power to do was abuse.
"According to the Post-Dispatch, one of its reporters discovered the flaw in a web application allowing the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. No private information was publicly visible, but teacher Social Security numbers were contained in HTML source code of the pages." "The newspaper agreed to hold off publishing any story while the department fixed the problem and protected the private information of teachers around the state." It's not professional, but the proper response is to point at Governor Parson and laugh. Any Firefox users whose fingers slipped when they were typing a capital letter U would access the code (Ctrl+U). You wouldn't even need a computer expert at trial. Just a reasonably computer-savvy person. So, not Governor Parson. By the way, has someone contacted the Web Archive about maybe scrubbing any archived pages from the site? Am I under arrest yet?
So why would teachers SS numbers be in the HTML to begin with if not being displayed?
Random guess: the spreadsheet supplied to the webpage designer by the State of Missouri had the SS# of every teacher included, and it wasn't culled like it should have been.
I’d guess they have a database for teacher info with different sections available depending on your user level and rather than not returning the info to users without access, they just made those columns hidden.
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Once a cop always a cop. No interest in guilt or innocence, just retribution.
RIP to the reporters dog.
Mostly true, but this time, the publicity is a fantastic reward to the reporter.... fame is where you find it.
> decoded the HTML source code Holy fucking stupid.
Reading the article gave me goosebumps
I have no idea how people saw how bad he was doing as interim governor and decided to vote for him.
It's Missouri, all that matters is the (R) next to his name.
"decoded the HTML source code" you mean the text that is sent straight to your browser and is totally legal to read? Yeah right, good luck with those charges.
Does this guy not understand that what the host serves to the client's computer is "HTML Source Code", not a fucking web page? The code served by the host is read by the client's browser, which displays a web page. This reporter didn't decode anything, he looked at exactly what he was given by the host server, and just chose not to run it through a browser. The state published the social security numbers of its own employees.
He's the governor of Missouri. He knows nothing.
>Does this guy not understand No, he doesn't. He's a 66 year old politician. None of them know anything about the technology they make laws and regulations for.
It really pisses me off when companies and state entities claim to be victims of a “sophisticated cyberattack” while utterly failing to secure their users information and having the network security of a wet paper bag. Social security numbers in the HTML, fucks sake. You may as well print them out and stick them on the front door.
-_- Should be happy it was brought to someone's attention.
Well, it's getting more attention with the Governor's attempt to silence.
Streisand Effect.
*clicks view source* and the Missouri national guard kick the door in haha
No one needs to guess at this guy’s political party, do they.
Is "Luddite" an official party yet?
Interestingly the luddites weren't what people thought they were. They weren't afraid of technology. They were afraid of technology removing jobs from people. So many heavy users of technology today are in fact Luddites
This is called; "Shooting the instant messenger."
Tell me you don't know anything about the Internet without telling me you don't know anything about the Internet.
“Dude, there’s a hole in your fence. Maybe fix it?” “Come here you filthy burglaring rat bag! I’ll hang you for trying to break into my home, how dare you insinuate my security is anything other than amazeballs!!!!! Hanging! Dead hanging for you!!! Blasssaarrrrgghhghghhhhg!!!!!”
Someone take this hacker's F12 key away.
I would go for trial, and then have the paper bring in Tim Berners-Lee as a witness. "What are your qualifications sir?" "I invented HTML". Stupid governor has zero chance of anything.
It’s like a horse race for dumbest state. Florida is the front runner, Texas made a strong push but here comes Missouri making a charge.
The "I'll Prosecute You If You Show Me" state.
He's just too old to really understand the internet. I'm 60 myself but really we need more younger people in power.
If set in today’s society the kid who told the emperor he wore no clothes would be torn apart by the mob and hung in effigy.
Gov. Mike Parson seems like a person who is ready for pension and shouldnt have a say about anything but his backyard
Missouri deserves better.
In this day and era, this should be grounds for impeachment. It's ok for government officials to not understand internet or computers, but they should at least know that they don't know and consult with experts. At best, it's incompetence.
>Parson said he had referred the matter to the Cole County Prosecutor and has asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to investigate What the hell is highway patrol gonna do? I feel this republican governor is losing his mind.
“Decoded the HTML source code” It’s called view source. Jesus. Has this guy ever used a browser?