Hacked Ebay Accounts and Conspiracy Theorys

Roswell, the Kennedys and a hacker named Vladuz

The Register
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Published Tuesday 20th February 2007 22:38 GMT

Eagle-eyed conspiracy buffs have pounced on a recent rash of compromised eBay user accounts as proof of a mile-wide hole in the auctioneer's front lines, giving new life to a theory that could one day rival the intrigue surrounding Roswell UFO crashing and Kennedy assassinations.

Details remained sketchy, and of course, eBay managers have assembled the requisite wall of plausible deniability, but here's what we've pieced together so far: Over the past few days, several dozen eBay auctions - many selling pricey items such as Cartier Tank watches - have been hijacked by crooks who append legitimate auctions with notes suggesting would-be buyers contact a Gmail account for a special, "buy-it-now" discount.

An eBay spokesman says all indications suggest that the accounts were compromised through plain-vanilla phishing techniques, in which unwitting users fall prey to spoofed emails and give passwords to their attackers. End of story, right?

Not quite. While the more timid among us would be tempted to agree with the company's party line, a chorus of eBay critics say there is something much more nefarious going on. They argue the episode is the latest proof of the existence of back door that has been built into the company's corporate network, allowing an attacker or a cadre of attackers to siphon login credentials and other confidential information from the site's users.

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