What could go wrong if-as a joke-your being asked if you could hack the former prime minister of Australia Tony Abbott? Well Alex Hope has documented it. Finding pictures of boarding pass he could log into the booking system of the airline (without additional authentication). Then he found out that the systems leaked sensitive information (passport number, telephone number, airline-internal comments about the passenger). He then went through the whole charade of finding someone in government responsible for concrete data security issues. 😵
There’s even an interesting section on when he finally gets through to Tony Abbot and they talk on a very personal level. Given the reason they were talking in the first place it also revolved about how complicated technology seems to be and how you learn how it works.
This lead Alex to reflect about how he started learning things and how you have to change your thinking when you are “hacking.” He gives a great example which he summarizes with:
In conclusion, to be a hacker u ask for tap water.
😂