A group of Brazilian hackers botched their attempt at a moral victory against the National Security Agency when their message, “Stop spying on us,” went to NASA instead.
We need to back up some. First, why are Brazilian hackers mad at the NSA? Well, it’s not on our behalf. See, we all recently learned in another Snowden leak that the NSA has spied on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. They’ve read his emails and have been keeping tabs on his state-run energy giant Petrobras.
So a couple of Brazilian Internet vigilantes took justice into their own hands, hacked a few government websites, and placed the message “Stop spying on us” on the page along with a list of political demands.
The only problem is that the websites in question didn’t belong to the NSA. They belonged to NASA.
Houston, we have a problem.
“Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target,” a Brazilian news blog reported.
Their other political demands were pretty simple, if dated. They want us to not attack Syria, and they’d like an explanation for the NSA’s spying programs. Get in line, pal.
NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said that NASA’s missions and operations weren’t compromised in the attack, and they bounced back pretty quickly.
Between these guys and the Syrian Electronic Army, it seems pretty clear that all of the smart hackers still belong to Anonymous.
