RedTube Hacked, Shorts in a Twist
On Writing (and/or Media), Telecom Comments (8)
Update 12:48 p.m. — RedTube seems to be offline again, at least from where I am. My attempt to connect times out when trying to hit the server at www.atspace.com. I can ping www.redtube.com just fine. I have no idea why they’re down; could be the technical staff took the site offline to work on it, could be a denial of service attack, could be another kind of hack attempt. I’m going to assume they still have a problem until they don’t. Spot check, 6 p.m. — They seem to have the site back up, for now.
(Feb. 6 update with RedTube’s comments here)
To sum up (as of this morning, Feb. 5):
1)RedTube.com was down yesterday for four or 5 hours, during which time the front page of the free porn sharing site looked something like the screen shot above.
2) It’s reasonable to assume that the folks who took credit for taking it down are telling the truth — they’re anti-porn, they have computer skills, and they did it because … well, they wanted to and they could.
3) Specifically, they’re against child porn, and I’ll go out on a limb and say that just about everyone is with them on that. As to whether RedTube or any other adult video sharing service is enabling the distribution of child porn — I have no idea. I am sure that’s not why they’re in business and that the last thing they want on their servers is child porn because if they get caught with that, they’re going to have much bigger problems than fending off hackers.
4) If people who like porn want to get bent out of shape and blame Muslims for this just because the alleged perpetrators are from Turkey … well, they’re giving porn-lovers a bad name, because there are a lot of people who think porn and sin and such is a disgrace, including Christian fundamentalist hackers and Jewish hackers.
5) I’ve got nothing back from RedTube.com management on the attack … nor did I really expect them to answer my email quickly. And I have no idea about how the site was hacked. If you’re a big user of the site, be glad that they don’t require registration or that you didn’t leave your credit card number there. If you’re an advertiser or affiliate or somesuch — you’d best assume that your data has been shared, unless proven otherwise.
6) “As ye reap, so shall ye sow,” eh? I’d better get back to work.
(Previous/Initial RedTube post)
jss @ February 5, 2008
I’ve had a little website I was working on hacked by the people from Turkey before. They where most likely script kiddies, as I was using an OSCMS (Open Source Content Management System) that had security issues (learned after the fact). In my case, they just did a web search for the copyright info that is usually included with the front page, and then ran a script (that I’m sure you can find by doing another web search) against it to gain access, and then just deleted all the files in the webroot, and replaced it with some lame picture, and text claiming how cool they where.
So long story short, be sure to remove any copyright information from any OSCMS that you use, it will make it harder for them to find you.
Thanks, Spudicus. If that is the case … I think my main reaction is still shock that a site with that much traffic, and that kind of traffic, would not be more secure. I guess they’re trying to hire a good sysadmin …
what the hell is wrong with these morons? If they got a problem with porn what the F*** can we do about it? Will redtube come back online?
Screw these maggots…..I feel like my chick just died………….F******************** @#$%^^&$$#^%#^%&$#&^%#$#
As far as I know, Redtube.com has had no particular problems in weeks. It’s a puzzle to me why this thread remains kind of insanely popular, other than that this blog now pops up in search engines when people look for information about RedTube. Talk about unintended consequences.
— da management (Jeff)
pwnd.
It’s off now too.
But it didn’t stay off, I guess. It happens …