Sunday November 22, 2009 6:25 AM AEST

Flight sim website tracks hacker

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Flight sim website tracks hacker
By The Inquirer
Sep 10, 2009 | 2 Comments
Tags: Flight | sim | hacker | avsim | hacking | news

We know what you hacked last summer.

The outfit that ran a flight simulator website shut down by a cracker in May says it has presented a file of evidence to British police which it claims contains "incontrovertible evidence" about the hacker's identity.

Avsim, a US firm, lost data held on two servers and the attack "effectively destroyed" the site, which is still being rebuilt.

According to the firm it expects that the criminal complaint it filed with London police will lead to the alleged hacker spending "time behind bars".

Of course if this was in the US, the hacker would be locked up for many decades in a 'get tough policy', which obviously has deterred so many crackers that website hacking is non-existant there.

Tom Allensworth told the BBC that he would not name names, because in Blighty if you do you could stuff up a trial. However he said he had forensic evidence and provided that evidence to the London police.

The evidence was submitted on Monday to the Southwark division of the Metropolitan Police, which was "acting on behalf of another constabulary".

The US site, launched in 1996, covered all aspects of flight simulation, although its main focus was on Microsoft's Flight Simulator.

Avsim has spent $US50,000 to bring its website back online since the 12 May attack, with $US25,000 of that having been contributed by users.

It is fairly clear that the outfit has spoken to the hacker as it said it had given him or her "two opportunities to settle" which were ignored.

Allensworth said that Avsim is ratcheting this matter up to the next, criminal, level.

 

theinquirer.net (c) 2009 Incisive Media

 
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2 Comments
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
CloAkEd
Sep 10, 2009 11:35 AM
Make him BLEED!
smakme7757
Sep 11, 2009 5:00 AM
The fact of the matter is we NEED hackers/crackers, they show us our weaknesses so we can better protect ourselves.

Imagine we lived in a world without hackers and then all of a sudden a guy/girl decided to become a hacker, he/she could bring the world to it's knees in matter of days!

But then i guess you could counter that argument with: Do we need Wars and Murderers ect ect.
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Issue: 107 | December, 2009

Atomic is a magazine aimed squarely at computer enthusiasts, gamers, and serious PC upgraders.

Every month we bring you the latest reviews of new technology and PC components, in depth features on everything from overclocking to console hacking, and gaming previews and interviews.
 
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