LulzSec hacks NHS.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13712377

by martswite • 15 years ago

91 41 15 years ago

bbc.co.uk

saulrh2• 15 years ago

Anonymous literally could not have asked for a better representative on the information security front. Not only are they demonstrating that nobody's information is safe right now, they're doing it in a way that gets the message across without making everybody angry at them or any other geeks or netizens. Keep up the good work.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

I'm not sure they're Anonymous. Let's just say, I hope the governments of the world don't use them as an excuse to crack down on internet freedom and try to regulate it.

dools• 15 years ago

When you use "literally" like this, it's to indicate that what follows, whilst normally metaphorical, is in this case literal. How is "asking for a better representative on the information security front" a metaphor?

The incessant misuse of the word literally, literally makes my blood boil.

(See what I did there?)

BasDirks• 15 years ago

literally, like, amen.

rimantas• 15 years ago

Once upon the time: http://literally.barelyfitz.com/

antidaily• 15 years ago

I figuratively want to kiss you for this.

saulrh2• 15 years ago

Eh, I've never actually heard anybody ask for something in the context of "could not have asked for". And you can always ask for something better if you're willing to go to figurative lengths. Still not really defensible, though, and I wish I could edit it now that I'm being downvoted strictly on the form of my content rather than the content itself.

gaius7• 15 years ago

I completely believe that no patient records have been compromised - because the project to put them online is so late and over-budget (to the tune of GBP 20 billion) that it's likely never to be completed.

Let me put that number into perspective: We could buy a replacement fleet of Trident submarines from the NHS IT budget alone...

ovi256• 15 years ago

The project is such a clusterfuck that Accenture UK reccused itself from it. You know it's doomed when consultants decide to leave.

Rats do leave a sinking ship, as they say.

robin_reala2• 15 years ago

It’s wasted either way. £20bn would be much better sunk into renewables and energy independence.

gaius7• 15 years ago

It's a matter of perspective, there are shrill voices saying that if we scrap Trident all our economic woes will be over, but really there are much, much lower hanging fruit than that. A windfall tax on the big IT outsourcing firms would be a good start.

arethuza3• 15 years ago

Or perhaps not taken from the taxpayers in the first place?

[Edit: I am actually fairly left of center politically, but this does not mean that I am completely uncritical of what a government does with taxpayers money - and the last Labour government went insane with so many stupid projects and initiatives that we will have to live with for decades.]

Nat02• 15 years ago

I work at a company that implements medical IT solutions for hospitals and anything with the NHS takes 3-5 times longer than in the US and other parts of Europe.

mrvc• 15 years ago

How come? What's causing it?

paulnelligan• 15 years ago

Somehow I've a feeling that we're going to soon lose a lot of freedoms that we've previously had online. This further supports the argument that the internet should be 'policed and legislated' - of course this means restricting information also ... Hackers are winning right now, but in the longer term Government and Big Business will crack the whip ...

omouse2• 15 years ago

Somehow I've a feeling that we're going to soon lose a lot of freedoms that we've previously had online.

You've already lost them :| apathy is a bigger enemy than anything. As long as people have access to their netflix or amazon or whatever, they'll be ok with internet crackdowns.

Big business and government have been winning for a long time and the hackers aren't really doing enough.

dsplittgerber• 15 years ago

Anonymous is the best that could ever happen for proponents of a crackdown on freedom (through/via/on the internet).

No one knows who's behind it, so no one will stand up for them, no one will complain if they get harassed and all the blaim for everything that goes wrong in the future goes to Anon/hackers. It's the perfect scapegoat for incompetence.

mhansen• 15 years ago

This isn't Anonymous.

omouse2• 15 years ago

Yeah it is. Everyone's Anonymous :|

GrangalanJr• 15 years ago

Not officially, anyway.

And that may be even worse when it comes to a potential "crackdown": if it is just one group of hackers running amok, putting them down solves the problem, or at least the public discourse can pretend so. But if we come to have two, three, four, or even more groups on the loose, then there is an "epidemic" that will "require" a broader, more draconian response.

jbooth4• 15 years ago

Does it really matter who the scapegoat is? At all? A few short years ago we had scary arab terrorists, I think they're still a bigger scapegoat than anon.

Anonymous doesn't change anything as far as excuses. If they're looking for an excuse to crack down, they can always make up an Emmanuel Goldstein.

tkahn63• 15 years ago

> A few short years ago we had scary arab terrorists, I think they're still a bigger scapegoat than anon.

Both Anon and arab terrorists have carried out numerous attacks...

bh42222• 15 years ago

Oh please, like proponents of a crackdown on freedom need any excuses.

Or like "save the children" isn't the political slogan which always has been, and always will be, used to justify anything.

I am not sure if LuLzSec is good or bad, or a wash, in terms of how politician will use them. It does not really matter, politicians will use anything and nothing to get what they want.

But this BBC coverage is surprisingly fair. And if coverage like this becomes the norm, who knows LulzSec might actually be good for the public image of what anonymous hackers on the internet are.

motters• 15 years ago

The outlook for internet freedoms appears quite doomy over the next few years. Although in this case LulzSec doesn't appear to have done anything other than highlight security failings stories like this, along with the various doings of Anonymous and any other similar groups or individuals, can easily be exploited by politicians to advocate for a Chinese-style censorship regime and an end to net neutrality. Any hint that medical records might have been compromised would cause considerable public fear and alarm, which could then be channelled for political purposes.

m0nty• 15 years ago

I was quite surprised to find that the NHS uses password-less logins for its "Flexible Worker Portal":

https://erecruitment.nhsponline.nhs.uk/Portal/LoginForm.aspx

So all you need is the DoB, email address and postcode of someone, and you can view their private information. Genius.

LulzSec hacks NHS.

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