Hanson hacker nabbed

An Ipswich computer expert has teamed up with Council's (Ipswich City Council) Global Info-Links staff to help collar a hacker who has been using a University of Melbourne computer to alter information on Pauline Hanson's One Nation home page.

Scott Balson, the creator of the site, was updating material on the page late last week when the hacker breached security. Ms Hanson's office yesterday said the matter would be referred to the police and GIL, and praised the quick efforts of Mr Balson to bring it to light.

An angry Mr Balson yesterday said the attempt set a worrying precedent and threatened Ms Hanson's right to free speech.

"The fact that this could have lead to hacking and changing information on a political home page is distressing," he said.

Catching the hacker: Page 5

Ipswich Global Information Links (GIL) staff traced the hacker within minutes after being alerted to the security breach by the creator of the site, Scott Balson, who was working on one of the pages at the time.

The hacker broke into both the official Pauline Hanson home page and the Pauline Hanson One Nation home page on Thursday afternoon, changing the counter indicator of visitors to the sites back to zero several times.

Mr Balson said his company had also received a large number of obscene e-mail messages including notes from users branding the company "Nazi" for carrying the service.

However he said they had also received a large amount of positive feedback.

Mr Balson describes the incident as a threat to democracy and urged authorities to look closely at the situation, fearing the hacker could have gone further to alter official political manuscripts on the page such as Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech.

Yesterday a spokesman for Pauline Hanson said there were serious penalties in both Queensland and Victoria for hacking offences and his office would hold talks with GIL to take the matter to the police.

"At a time when we are looking at free speech in this country, it is distressing that a senior member of academia would attempt to tamper with the right of free speech on the internet," he said.

"There is a lot of media analysis into her views collectively and this is the one avenue where she can put her words across in a true and unbiased manner."

New offences of computer hacking brought in by the Borbidge Government under the Criminal Code this month carry a maximum penalty of five years.

University of Melbourne Director of Information Technology Services Norbert Reidl yesterday confirmed the incident but would not confirm or deny that a staff member was involved.

He said the University would launch an internal investigation into the incident on Monday. Mr Reidl said the University was treating the incident seriously and would take disciplinary action if the offender was a staff member or student.

“On the information given, it may have been one of our staff members,” Mr Reidl said.

“There are 5,000 staff members and 30,000 students at the campus and virtually all have access to the computers.”

He said other tertiary students also had access to the facilities and the break-in could have been achieved by anyone who had any knowledge of Netscape.

However Mr Balson said the link was traced back to a “secure staff machine at the University of Melbourne’s Information Technology Services department”.

The incident has prompted Mr Balson’s Karana Downs company Interactive Presentations to look at taking legal action to prevent further break-ins.

“I am confident that this won’t happen again,” he said, “GIL was terrific. They have tightened up on the area where the hacker got into and it won’t happen again,” he said.

Return to the hacker at the University of Melbourne