Sydney Morning Herald caught Hacking

[creampie]

The editor of the Sydney Morning Herald has hit back at claims his staff hacked a state government website before its launch, saying his journalists "may well be hacks, but they are not hackers".

Police have been called in to investigate if the New South Wales Government fell victim to hackers in the lead-up to the release of its $50 billion transport blueprint.

Today Transport Minister David Campbell told State Parliament a secure government website sustained almost 4,000 hits two days before the Sydney Morning Herald published key details of the project.

The Sydney Morning Herald said it obtained key details of the transport blueprint from a website.

"Reports they were uploaded accidentally [to a website] are incorrect," Mr Campbell told Parliament.

"This is akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents.

"A person using a Sydney media IP address hit the site a total of 209 times."

"The Herald reporters Matthew Moore and Andrew West, who wrote the transport articles, may well be hacks but they are not hackers," he said.

"The information on the NSW public transport blueprint was freely and publicly available on Friday afternoon, February 19.

"The real issue here is that the Government's spin machine did not control the release of the information," he added.

"The Herald spoiled the Government's plans for a glossy launch of the information on Sunday."

Mr Fray says the Herald is unaware of any police investigation but the paper will be happy to assist with inquiries.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... 828255.htm