German Hackers allegedly steal pop music
Dec 3, 2010 21:46:48 GMT -5
Post by kevinkdc on Dec 3, 2010 21:46:48 GMT -5
German hackers allegedly steal pop music
Two young German computer hackers allegedly stole pop songs from Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Ke$ha and Kelly Clarkson, selling them online and forcing the advanced release of several singles, officials said Friday.
An 18-year-old high school student from Duisburg, and his alleged accomplice, a 23-year-old unemployed man from Wesel, are under investigation for using a Trojan Horse to hack into the artists' computers for about 12 months before being discovered, Duisburg chief prosecutor Rolf Haferkamp told The Associated Press.
During that time, they earned more than ?10,000 ($13,240) in illegal sales of tracks acquired from the stars' computers. Haferkamp would not comment on specific songs that were stolen.
Both men live with their parents in the western German cities, which are about 20 miles (30 kilometers) apart.
Reached at his home the 18-year-old, an amateur disc jockey known as "DJ Stolen" whose name has been reported in the German media as Deniz A., told the AP he had been out of touch with his alleged accomplice, Christian M.
"I haven't heard from him for a while," he said.
Deniz A., who is a German citizen of Turkish origin, refused to comment on the case or give any further details, saying his attorney had told him not to speak with the media.
According to local media reports, the two had attached the Trojan to an MP3 file that was then sent to the official addresses of the stars, their managers and their record companies.
Deniz A. also allegedly downloaded a sexually compromising photo of one artist and used it to blackmail her. Haferkamp would not comment on which artist it was.
The lawyer for Deniz A., Burkhard Benecken, told the AP he had only taken on the case Thursday and not yet seen the police and court files of his client.
He said he talked to Deniz A. for an hour Thursday and that his client had told police that he had "made mistakes." He stopped short of saying Deniz A. had fully confessed, as had been reported by local media.
"Definitely, my client made some mistakes and he has already told police that," Benecken said. "However, I'm convinced that he is not that big blackmailer that everybody is trying to depict him as now -- that's way over the top."
The lawyer described Deniz A. as a self-acclaimed DJ and big music fan, especially of R&B music.
"When you first see him, he seems so innocent and young that you would absolutely not expect him to do anything of such far-reaching impact," Benecken said.
Benecken said Deniz A. told him he decided to stop selling the illegally downloaded music on his own accord six months ago.
Benecken characterized the entire hacking case as "ultramodern" and said that, in a way, it exemplified the "downside" of today's digital age "that can easily been taken advantage of by savvy youths with those skills and a lot of time."
"Deniz told me that he felt like being in a movie -- I think sometimes young people can't really differentiate between imagination and reality," Benecken said.
Before he was reached by the AP, Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper quoted Deniz A. as saying he didn't mean to do any harm.
"I'm a fan and I just wanted to have cool music," he was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "I'm no blackmailer."
Haferkamp said the police were informed of the hacking after a fan of Kelly Clarkson alerted her management that unreleased songs of the singer were being sold online.
A Duisburg police spokesman, speaking on departmental condition of anonymity, said that the two had been under investigation for "several months" and that authorities had a 1,000-page file on them.
Haferkamp said the investigation should be concluded by January and can lead to criminal charges. If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to five years in prison or face stiff fines for damages.
Clarkson and Ke$ha are represented by RCA, and Timberlake is represented by Jive, both subsidiaries of Sony. Sony Germany had no immediate comment.
Jive spokeswoman Wendy Washington said in an e-mailed response that "in light of the fact that this is an ongoing legal investigation, the label has no comment."
Lady Gaga is represented by Universal Music. Her manager in Germany did not immediately return requests for comment.
Laptops of Lady Gaga, Timberlake hacked?[/size]
by Chris Matyszczyk
We are all ducks, meekly sitting while those who have the hacking skills infiltrate our mind's eyes, aka our laptops.
It seems, sadly, that among the latest victims of boys riding Trojan horses are acclaimed worldwide singing personality Lady Gaga, as well as other notable performing stallions, such as Justin Timberlake.
According to the Telegraph, Lady Gaga and more than 50 other fine icons of our cultured times have suffered hacking at the hands of two Germans lads who desired access to their unreleased songs and their unreleasable intimate photographs.
German prosecutors claim that among the hackers' haul was a picture of the singer Kesha in a state of considerable nudity, and, simultaneously, considerable pleasure.
Indeed, the prosecutors say that instead of attempting to sell this image to an unscrupulously enterprising Web site, the hackers tried to blackmail Kesha. That does seem to be somewhat culturally unaware behavior.
Was she a hacker target?
It also seems a little dense that the hackers--reportedly a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old--began to boast about their Trojan prowess on the Web. So here were two people proving that nothing was safe on the Web by exposing themselves in that very same maze.
The two hackers have not been formally charged. However, it seems that only the loyal, passionate, and thoroughly responsible fans of the original American Idol, Kelly Clarkson, plucked up the temerity to expose these alleged fiends.
These fans were perplexed that Clarkson's unreleased music was available on the Web. In booming online voices, they sounded the alarm, and soon the FBI, together with their German allies, swung into action.
The German publication Deutsche Welle does cast some doubt as to whether it was the stars' most personal laptops that were accessed by these alleged miscreants.
Suggesting that perhaps the hackers managed to access the laptops of managers and others close to these legends, Deutsche Welle quotes Ralf Haferkamp of the Duisburg prosecutor's office: "I can't say whether the laptop sitting on Lady Gaga's nightstand was among them, but I think that's pretty unlikely."
This is a curious assertion. Is Haferkamp truly suggesting that stars' laptops enjoy greater security than those of the mere minions they have at their disposal for a mere 10 percent (or less) of their earnings? Do these stars employ their own hacker protection squads (paid by the hour, naturally) in order to fend off unwanted assaults? Or might these stars' managers wish to discourage those who would now believe that accessing the very heart, the very control(-freak) room of the world's cultural greats is an easy process?
No one is safe. Just like Kesha and every other great star in the world, we are all one small step from overexposure.
Two young German computer hackers allegedly stole pop songs from Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Ke$ha and Kelly Clarkson, selling them online and forcing the advanced release of several singles, officials said Friday.
An 18-year-old high school student from Duisburg, and his alleged accomplice, a 23-year-old unemployed man from Wesel, are under investigation for using a Trojan Horse to hack into the artists' computers for about 12 months before being discovered, Duisburg chief prosecutor Rolf Haferkamp told The Associated Press.
During that time, they earned more than ?10,000 ($13,240) in illegal sales of tracks acquired from the stars' computers. Haferkamp would not comment on specific songs that were stolen.
Both men live with their parents in the western German cities, which are about 20 miles (30 kilometers) apart.
Reached at his home the 18-year-old, an amateur disc jockey known as "DJ Stolen" whose name has been reported in the German media as Deniz A., told the AP he had been out of touch with his alleged accomplice, Christian M.
"I haven't heard from him for a while," he said.
Deniz A., who is a German citizen of Turkish origin, refused to comment on the case or give any further details, saying his attorney had told him not to speak with the media.
According to local media reports, the two had attached the Trojan to an MP3 file that was then sent to the official addresses of the stars, their managers and their record companies.
Deniz A. also allegedly downloaded a sexually compromising photo of one artist and used it to blackmail her. Haferkamp would not comment on which artist it was.
The lawyer for Deniz A., Burkhard Benecken, told the AP he had only taken on the case Thursday and not yet seen the police and court files of his client.
He said he talked to Deniz A. for an hour Thursday and that his client had told police that he had "made mistakes." He stopped short of saying Deniz A. had fully confessed, as had been reported by local media.
"Definitely, my client made some mistakes and he has already told police that," Benecken said. "However, I'm convinced that he is not that big blackmailer that everybody is trying to depict him as now -- that's way over the top."
The lawyer described Deniz A. as a self-acclaimed DJ and big music fan, especially of R&B music.
"When you first see him, he seems so innocent and young that you would absolutely not expect him to do anything of such far-reaching impact," Benecken said.
Benecken said Deniz A. told him he decided to stop selling the illegally downloaded music on his own accord six months ago.
Benecken characterized the entire hacking case as "ultramodern" and said that, in a way, it exemplified the "downside" of today's digital age "that can easily been taken advantage of by savvy youths with those skills and a lot of time."
"Deniz told me that he felt like being in a movie -- I think sometimes young people can't really differentiate between imagination and reality," Benecken said.
Before he was reached by the AP, Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper quoted Deniz A. as saying he didn't mean to do any harm.
"I'm a fan and I just wanted to have cool music," he was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "I'm no blackmailer."
Haferkamp said the police were informed of the hacking after a fan of Kelly Clarkson alerted her management that unreleased songs of the singer were being sold online.
A Duisburg police spokesman, speaking on departmental condition of anonymity, said that the two had been under investigation for "several months" and that authorities had a 1,000-page file on them.
Haferkamp said the investigation should be concluded by January and can lead to criminal charges. If convicted, they could be sentenced to up to five years in prison or face stiff fines for damages.
Clarkson and Ke$ha are represented by RCA, and Timberlake is represented by Jive, both subsidiaries of Sony. Sony Germany had no immediate comment.
Jive spokeswoman Wendy Washington said in an e-mailed response that "in light of the fact that this is an ongoing legal investigation, the label has no comment."
Lady Gaga is represented by Universal Music. Her manager in Germany did not immediately return requests for comment.
Laptops of Lady Gaga, Timberlake hacked?[/size]
by Chris Matyszczyk
We are all ducks, meekly sitting while those who have the hacking skills infiltrate our mind's eyes, aka our laptops.
It seems, sadly, that among the latest victims of boys riding Trojan horses are acclaimed worldwide singing personality Lady Gaga, as well as other notable performing stallions, such as Justin Timberlake.
According to the Telegraph, Lady Gaga and more than 50 other fine icons of our cultured times have suffered hacking at the hands of two Germans lads who desired access to their unreleased songs and their unreleasable intimate photographs.
German prosecutors claim that among the hackers' haul was a picture of the singer Kesha in a state of considerable nudity, and, simultaneously, considerable pleasure.
Indeed, the prosecutors say that instead of attempting to sell this image to an unscrupulously enterprising Web site, the hackers tried to blackmail Kesha. That does seem to be somewhat culturally unaware behavior.
Was she a hacker target?
It also seems a little dense that the hackers--reportedly a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old--began to boast about their Trojan prowess on the Web. So here were two people proving that nothing was safe on the Web by exposing themselves in that very same maze.
The two hackers have not been formally charged. However, it seems that only the loyal, passionate, and thoroughly responsible fans of the original American Idol, Kelly Clarkson, plucked up the temerity to expose these alleged fiends.
These fans were perplexed that Clarkson's unreleased music was available on the Web. In booming online voices, they sounded the alarm, and soon the FBI, together with their German allies, swung into action.
The German publication Deutsche Welle does cast some doubt as to whether it was the stars' most personal laptops that were accessed by these alleged miscreants.
Suggesting that perhaps the hackers managed to access the laptops of managers and others close to these legends, Deutsche Welle quotes Ralf Haferkamp of the Duisburg prosecutor's office: "I can't say whether the laptop sitting on Lady Gaga's nightstand was among them, but I think that's pretty unlikely."
This is a curious assertion. Is Haferkamp truly suggesting that stars' laptops enjoy greater security than those of the mere minions they have at their disposal for a mere 10 percent (or less) of their earnings? Do these stars employ their own hacker protection squads (paid by the hour, naturally) in order to fend off unwanted assaults? Or might these stars' managers wish to discourage those who would now believe that accessing the very heart, the very control(-freak) room of the world's cultural greats is an easy process?
No one is safe. Just like Kesha and every other great star in the world, we are all one small step from overexposure.