[keithwinstein]

When HFG defaced the New York Times Web site in 1998, the group posted a long, apparently heartfelt screed that cited Voltaire, Tennyson, and Emerson, and tried to put the hacking in the context of big battles that mattered:

"Just because we type in all caps and use 'elite' speak doesn't mean we are kids, or we don't own your dumb ass. For everyone who calls us immature kids, it shows one more person has underestimated us. And worse, what does that say about their security? That 'immature kids' were able to bypass their 25,000 dollar firewalls, bypass the security put there by admins with XX years of experience or a XXX degree from some college. Nyah Nyah. [...] The injustice Markoff has committed is criminal. He belongs in a jail rotting instead of Kevin Mitnick. Kevin is no dark side hacker. He is not malicious. He is not a demon. He did not abuse credit cards, distribute the software he found, or deny service to a single machine. Is that so hard to comprehend?" (http://everything2.com/title/Hidden+Message+behind+the+New+Y...)

In 2012 when PYK defaces the Saturday Night Live site, they post "Greetz to oday, BRUT4L & S4VAGE Fuck the Feds, 419 is just a game~~ USER INFO - EXPOSED PASSWORDS - DUMPED".

Is this now the worst they can imagine? Grabbing my Saturday Night Live password?

Bring back the heartfelt screeds and the poets! At least HFG thought what they did was important.

Sheesh, kids these days.

[tptacek]

I've said this before, but I've always been truly and deeply disappointed that groups like this didn't plant realistic-looking stories about an alien invasion. They had the New York Times! They had The Washington Post!

Imagine: one day, the biggest papers in the country simultaneously run stories about an alien takeover of the government. Then, minutes or hours later, "poof!".

"Oh, nothing happened. Nothing you care about. It was just hackers. And swamp gas."

[omni]

This could easily lead to looting, displaced families, deaths, etc. as panicked citizens start totally losing their minds.

[X-Istence]

Will it get the citizens that are brighter than your average crayon thinking and questioning the things they read?

[morsch]

Why would it? The message was planted by a malicious group, that wouldn't affect people's faith in the legitimate authors.

[daeken]

For every interesting/funny defacement, there are a thousand boring ones; that's as true now as in the 90s. The only difference is that we've forgotten the lame attacks and remember the interesting ones.

Also, grabbing an SNL password means nothing for the SNL site, and everything for the security of users that reuse passwords. The value of a password database rarely has to do with the site it's from.