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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Hackers Attack MacRumors Macworld Keynote Coverage

Hackers Tuesday forced MacRumors to halt its live-blogging coverage of Apple marketing exec Phil Schiller’s keynote speech at Macworld Expo. The hack hit MacRumorsLive.com, a domain created for commenting on the annual San Francisco, Calif. Mac-focused tradeshow.

Interspersed with live updates about news of iPhoto upgrades were offensive messages, including one declaring Apple CEO “Steve Jobs just died.”

In a statement posted about an hour after Macworld Expo opening, the site’s founder Arnold Kim apologized to readers for the attack.

The source of the attack is unclear, although some evidence appeared to point to a group known as 4Chan. The phrase “4CHAN FTW” (”for the win”) was often part of the hacked blogging messages, according to CNET’s Caroline McCarthy.

McCarthy cited a Twitter user, writing “4Chan members had been circulating MacRumors passwords” Monday night prior to the keynote.

Another group called Myg0t, may also have been involved, according to the report.

The cost of the hack may go beyond embarrassment to lost advertising revenue.

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

Email the author | Read more posts by Ed Sutherland.

5 comments

    I witnessed the attack, since I was reading MacRumorsLive.com (always great coverage). It was a shame, and I hope those A.H. get what they deserve. LONG LIVE MACRUMORS!!! All my support Arnold!

    I noticed the following line in the CNET article:

    “The 4Chan skulduggery appears to have first been noticed by Twitter users and independent blogs like Topherchris.com, which took the screenshot above.”

    Really? Twitter users, eh? Actually, I noticed it at the time. I just don’t use Twitter because IT’S STUPID

    4chan’s IRC room was virtually silent durring the blitz.

    However, XKCD’s IRC room was livid with comments regarding the blitz as well as the admin login URL.

    From the discussion, it seemed that MacRumors failed to set the correct permissions on their bloging software thus allowing anyone with moderate familiarity to gain access.

    I saw the hacks live as they occurred. I did a few double-takes and quickly caught on to what was happening. Such a shame

    I saw it happen in real time. It was funny as hell.

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