IP: The NYTimes hack

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

While the Times hacking was illegal, it should teach us a lesson.


I would like to propose a more sinister event (sorry John, a threat on you is serious). Suppose someone who was more cleaver hacked the Times Web page not to destroy it but to modify a piece of news. Say for example , the person, better yet a group, at 9am inserted into the  business page a news item with a very downbeat news item on a company -- preferably a widely traded company with a good short showing. It would, no doubt , drive down the price and enable the short sellers to made a lot of money while the Times/users recognized the breakin and fixed it. A well organized version of this might be very hard to solve.


What would happen if there was an announcement of a, for example, coup in Russia....


Times for places we trust to protect their windows to the public a lot better than the Times seemed to have.


Dave