Day: October 10, 2024

The Internet Archive Has Been Hacked

October 10, 2024 by 33 Comments

There are a great many organizations out there, all with their own intentions—some selfish, some selfless, some that land somewhere in between. Most would put the Internet Archive in the category of the library—with its aim of preserving and providing knowledge for the aid of all who might call on it. Sadly, as [theresnotime] reports, it appears this grand institution has been hacked.

On Wednesday, users visiting the Internet Archive were greeted with a foreboding popup that stated the following:

Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!

The quote appears to refer to Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), a site that collates details of security breaches so individuals can check if their details have been compromised.

According to founder Brewster Kahle, the site was apparently DDOS’d, with the site defaced via a JavaScript library. It’s believed this may have been a polyfill supply chain attack. As for the meat of the hack, it appears the individuals involved made off with usernames, emails, and encrypted and salted passwords. Meanwhile, as Wired reports, it appears Have I Been Pwned first received the stolen data of 31 million users on September 30.

At the time of writing, it appears the Internet Archive has restored the website to some degree of normal operation. It’s sad to see one of the Internet’s most useful and humble institutions fall victim to a hack like this one. As is always the way, no connected machine is ever truly safe, no matter how much we might hope that’s not the case.

[Thanks to Sammy for the tip!]

Wimbledon Goes Automated

October 10, 2024 by 4 Comments

When you think of tennis, you probably think of Wimbledon, the All England Club’s famous competition that has run for 147 years. Part of that history has always been line judges who call the ball in or out, sometimes to the ire of players and fans alike. But line judges will be no more at Wimbledon. They are moving to ELC or electronic line calling on all courts in both the main draw and the qualifying tournaments, according to [Tumaini Carayol] writing in The Guardian.

Of course, in 2007, the competition started using “Hawk-Eye,” which allows for review and challenges of the calls. ELC has also been used in other venues, such as the US Open, which has also done away with all line judges.

In fact, the only grand slam tournament that isn’t using ELC now is the French Open. There is some concern, however. The increased availability of line judges will cut down on the demand for new line judges at lesser tournaments. However, these jobs are a common pathway for aspiring chair judges to gain experience and exposure.

According to the Bloomberg video below, the system uses cameras and microphones to keep track of the ball’s position. Other reports say there are 18 cameras and, apparently, the system uses a computer-generated voice to call “out,” “fault,” or “foot fault.”

Apparently, there are some downsides, however. Last month at the US Open, play was halted because the remote office of the technicians operating the ELC system had to evacuate due to a fire alarm.

[Lewin Day] thinks tech will ruin sports. He may be right. Of course, we are more likely to play sports on technology.

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