An ethical example

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 pm, August 23rd, 2014 - 12 comments
Categories: john key, national - Tags:

So National’s membership database isn’t so secure. A hacker found an easy hole to look at who members (and their photos are).

So, having found the back-door left open, what do you do?  You report it.

So all the time Key was going on about Jason Ede and his office looking at and downloading the Labour database being ‘fair enough’ and what anyone would do – National were busy fixing a hole in their own website that had been reported by someone who didn’t take advantage like that.

All that time he was rubbishing Labour for having left their back door open 3 years ago, his own back door was finally being shut.

So, Mr Key: taking advantage is not what anyone would do.

Careful – your ethics are showing.

12 comments on “An ethical example ”

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  1. McFlock 1
    23 August 2014 at 9:45 pm

    Things have been really poetic over the last couple of weeks, I must say.

    • karol 1.1
      23 August 2014 at 9:47 pm

      It’s certainly been an election of the unexpecteds.

    • Rich 1.2
      24 August 2014 at 10:49 am

      Look it’s only illegal if we do it. It’s not illegal if they do it.

      Please look up Sparta code on stealing from Helots.

      Although of course they’re not supposed to get caught, I think this part of the code has been superceded.

  2. Rich 2
    23 August 2014 at 9:49 pm

    Good luck with the ethics.

    It looks like the Herald has already decided who’s going to win;

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503581&objectid=11313257

    “After the election, however, it will be a different story. Ms Collins must be put in her place.”

    The assumption of course is that National is going to win. Does the Herald know something that I don’t?

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1
      24 August 2014 at 9:14 am

      Just the NZHerald’s built in bias towards National and the screwing over of our democracy.

  3. Psycho Milt 3
    23 August 2014 at 10:13 pm

    In the week between his discovery and the fix, Mr Brodie said he had winced every time he heard Mr Key make a statement about Labour leaving its website open.

    Key is, of course, not someone who’d wince at the kind of thing that would leave most people comatose with embarrassment…

  4. indiana 4
    23 August 2014 at 10:35 pm

    Just out of curiosity…does this post still mean that right wing sites are continuing to be hacked and if so why would the hackers want to update a left wing site that they have had success hacking a right wing site? Do left wing sites condone hacking?

    • McFlock 4.1
      23 August 2014 at 10:50 pm

      The Herald is a “left wing site”?

      Reread the post, and click on the links.
      Bunji read the paper, and commented on an aspect of an article.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 4.2
      24 August 2014 at 7:10 am

      I don’t speak for Left wing sites. ‘White hat’ hacking is a thing. Google CNSS 4011 if you want to learn what the NSA thinks about it.

    • dv 4.3
      24 August 2014 at 9:36 am

      Reposted from yesterday. Links to the original stories

      Well well well

      This
      Good to see some one has ethics!!

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11313017

      A former Whangarei Boys’ High pupil who describes himself as a “hobby hacker” has exposed security flaws in the National Party’s website.
      Mr Brodie said he had alerted the party and waited until the problem had been fixed before going public via his blog.

      http://www.joshbrodie.co.nz/2014/08/21/national-party-web-security.html

      I started looking into political party website security with a mind to start a roughly non-partisan ‘state of web security’ conversation. Moments into beginning on that, I was thoroughly blown out of the water by the Dirty Politics revelations. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been paying attention to the websites of left-wing parties but I haven’t been able to resist putting more of a focus into whether John Key may be throwing “Labour left the security off” stones from within a glass house.

      Every time he’s made a statement to that effect this week, I’ve winced. I’ve winced because earlier in the week I found that mynational.org.nz, which is a members only site, allowed visitors who were not logged in to cycle through profile pictures of members. This allowed members of the public to view/download images, mainly close-up photographs, of the 600-700 National members who have added profile pictures to their online accounts.

      I’m not a professional tester of security things

      To National’s credit, they got onto this pretty quickly once the situation was understood, with frontline phone staff very quickly escalating the issue, leading to National HQ confirming with me today that they’ve fixed it, which is why I’m happy to talk about it. They’ve also fixed an issue I raised even earlier which involved national.org.nz’s login system redirecting users anywhere you told it to, so a link to national.org.nz/sign-in/?

      [Click to Edit | Delete] (9 minutes and 24 seconds)

  5. Psycho Milt 5
    24 August 2014 at 7:05 am

    Do left wing sites condone hacking?

    Don’t think so, but if they were to they’d just be following the PM’s lead – he’s told us all parties do this kind of thing and it’s just how politics is.

  6. GRAEME STANLEY 6
    24 August 2014 at 12:06 pm

    At our Retirement Village on Friday National M.P. and Minister Nicky Wagner told me and the audience When I brandished the book DIRTY POLITICS we are reading that National Doesn,t Do Dirty Politics.Now I know She too is a “Hollow Woman “complicit by Association as The Christchurch Central M.P. And Minister in John Keys Cabinet.She only got the seat from Brendon Burns in a recount by about 50 votes.I am looking forward to Tony Milne becoming the next Member of Parliament.