Brazil hackers accidentally posted a political message to NASA’s website when, in fact, their target was the US’s National Security Agency, or NSA for short.
The hack was meant to serve as retaliation following the recent disclosure — obtained via documents released by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden — that the NSA spied on emails sent by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as well as those sent to and from state-run energy giant, Petrobras.
“Some activists decided to protest this US practice but it seems that they picked the wrong target,” a blog for the Brazilian news site, Uol, wrote. “They hacked NASA's web page and left the message: Stop spying on us.”
The screenshot above shows the posted message: “Stop spy on us. The Brazilian population do not support your attitude!”
The hackers also put in a request that the United States not attack Syria.
“At no point were any of the agency's primary websites, missions or classified systems compromised,” NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said in a statement. “We are diligently taking action to investigate and reconstitute the websites impacted during web defacement incident.”
While the hacker story is somewhat amusing, the US has a serious situation on its hands in terms of its relationship with Brazil, which slammed the alleged spying as unacceptable and demanded explanations from Washington.
Brazil has since announced that it will actively work towards making local use of the internet less dependent upon US-based services, so as to limit the level of access US spies have to the country’s information.
Additionally, Rousseff has postponed her state visit to the US capital following a call she had with President Obama in which she voiced her country’s concerns regarding the allegations.
Story via: phys.org
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