Mr. Bean rules Europe

A neat bit of hacking yesterday, when some guy with computersmarts hacked into the official Spanish government website of its European Union Presidency for 2010 (it's still not working) and got Mr. Bean to pop up when visitors checked it out. The site was inundated with hits and then went down a few hours later.......

.......and Spanish officials then stupidly denied any hacking had taken place, probably embarrassed because of the fanfare they'd made of it. Officialdom's big mistake was to announce it had spent 12 million Euros in security measures on Spanish gov't websites....a red rag to a bull for any self-respecting blackhat. Anyway, message to Spanish flunkies is "Liar liar, pants on fire, we got the screenshot, suckaz".

The whole joke is about Spanish PM Rodriguez Zapatero, who has picked up the nick of Mr.Bean because of the lookalike thingy...

you be the judge!
(My thanks to Bina for improving this part with the better lookalike photo above)

.....but not cos of his Goth daughters.

¡Que viva España!

Argentines are good at hacking

When on the campaign trail last month, Nestor Kirchner had quite a few pops at Argentina's best-selling daily newspaper, Clarin. There's no love lost between the two sides and his catchphrase was "¿What's up, Clarin..are you nervous?" in allusion to the beating he'd give his enemies at the polls on June 28th.

So last night some geek hacked into the main Peronist (PJ) party website and although the page is now down (click thru and get 404 right now) we got the screenshot. Here's the message left on the front page for all to see (translated underneath).

What's up Nestor, are you nervous?

What you reap is what you sow....

Sincerely

The Republic (goodbyekirchner (AT) gmail (DOT) com)

PS: What's up Nestor, have you been hacked?

Bing! Microsoft gets hacked in Argentina in fine style

Microsoft has been hacked. The new Bing search engine has had the treatment done by some Argentine with a cool sense of humour.

Instructions:

1) Go to the Argentina homepage of Bing (right here)

2) Write in the word "ladrones" (Spanish for 'thieves') and hit enter

3) The top returned page is this homepage for the President of the Nation (pasted below as seen)

• • Ladrones

  Presidencia de la Nacion Argentina ... Si usted desea comunicarse, puede hacerlo por los siguientes medios: Correo Postal:

  • www.casarosada.gov.ar
  • · Página en caché

It also works if your keyword is "delincuentes" (criminals), the top return being the Ministry of Industry. ENJOY!! It'll only work til it doesn't, but to prove I'm not making it up here's an EFE newswire report about the hack (Spanish language).



UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Matteo, we now know that if you type in "chorros" (slang for thieves) you get the Arnet website, the internet service run by Telecom Argentina (TEO)

Thanks to commenter Un Tal Lucas, we now know that if you type in "hijos de puta" (slang for ...well, visit BsAs more than five minutes and you'll hear it) you get the website for Telefonica.

Glad to know you're having fun out there, guys.

Argentine Humour

This one isn't for everyone. Knowledge of Spanish and of Argentina both vital here, but it's too good to miss this week.

'Revista Barcelona' is the Argentine version of maybe The Onion in the States or maybe Private Eye for you UK viewers. But it's different to both, too. What it does have in common is sharp satirical humour aimed at its local politicos. This is the cover of this week's issue that hits the Argentine newsstands tomorrow and features the leaders of the farmers associations mashed with local youth culture fashion. As long as you know what you're looking at, it's hilarious.

UPDATE: More Argentine visual humour tonight, but from a different source. The website of the Kirchner's FpV party was hacked and images and messages left behind, including this one.

Again Spanish is needed, but this time the picture speaks for itself. This one is of 'Patota' Moreno, loyal Kirchnerite and head of the ridiculed Argentine Stats office INDEC that insists Argentina's GDP is growing and there's no inflation.