Some hackers are more brilliant than others. Some are motivated by greed, others by curiosity, still others by the challenge of hacking as much as possible. In the case of one bright hacker, the challenge of mapping all Internet users was simply too irresistible to resist.
A recent report revealed one yet-to-be-revealed hacker used various hacking methods to gain knowledge of every IP address known to the Internet, and has publically revealed that information. This has created somewhat of a global map of Internet users. The purpose of this so-called hacking was according to the hacker, for the good of all.
The individual used a database to help provide research on computer users and their location. But, unfortunately, getting and acquiring all of this information was not legal. As with any attempts to gain information about an individual users IP address without their knowledge and information, and map that information, what the hacker did was… illegal.
Hacking Into Identity Information
The hacker in question could have hacked much more than the users IP address. Fortunately what he did was in the best sense, relatively benign by only logging IP addresses. For the most part he simply posted the IP address of user’s computers. This is much like creating a map of people’s addresses throughout the United States. Anyone could basically do that. All they would have to do is walk down every street in the U.S. and write down an address.
Of course, physically doing this would take a lot longer. And, not everyone in the U.S. has a computer. Each computer has a unique ID assigned to it.
How Did He Do It?
This hacker located the address of each individual using what is called a “bot” net of over 400,000 computer devices. There were many more computer devices available however, according to the hacker. That means that this was only a small portion of the computer users available to map in the nation. Some of the tools mapped were routers and other computer-related hardware including printers.
The hacker in question scanned devices submitting information like common passwords that were easy to break into, including “admin” user names and “password” or “default.” This again shows how important it is to secure devices with solid user names, and passwords that are challenging to break into. If you have not updated your password yet, not might be a good time.
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