16 y/o Hacks $84 Million Porn Filter (Australia)

[veN]

Omg, this kid is awesome!!!

"After investing a cool $84 million in devising a porn filter the Federal Government in the land down under are now reeling, thanks to a 16-year-old schoolboy. Tom Wood, (who could actually be a porn star with that name), managed to hack the security measure within 30 minutes of it going live, last Tuesday (21/08/07)

Not only did our hormone raging hacker get round the filter, he managed to preserve the status bar, indicating a functional security system. Not only is it possible for him to look at porn, he is able to deceive his parents into thinking he only ever uses the Internet to check New Scientist—the sneaky devil!

The Australian government, understandably embarrassed by the situation, attempted a remedy. A new filter called Intergrad was uploaded to central servers for domestic distribution. A whopping 40 minutes later, Tom rescued puberty-infested individuals across Australia once again.

Senator Coonan, a government official did the best she could to salvage the sorry situation with, "Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important." Basically what I interpret that to mean is; "Tom is really getting on our tits; if you don't want your kids looking at porn don't have them in the first place."

The flawed Internet filter is available as a free download here. As for Tom, he is no doubt quickly being escalated to national treasure status. Add him as a friend to your Facebook account, tell him he rocks and ladies, get him laid; if his cyber security cracking skills do not impress you, what ever will?"

Found on Gimodo.com - For full article/source go here.

[GSG9]

haha rad

[rustybob]

The title of the article makes sound a lot bigger than it really is. It's not like the Australian government spent $84 million developing it's own porn filter; the $84 million cost is what they paid to license a program for every family.

Unless they were to attempt to completely block porn in all of Australia, no amount of money will block it. Any software that is local to the computer can be bypassed no problem.

I don't blame them for using such a loaded title for the article though. Guaranteed nobody would read it if it read: 16 year old bypasses $30 porn filter.