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SecurityFocus HOME News: e* Closes Accidental Anonymizer @ MyAccount | AboutUs | Page 1 of 2 hfedia Kit Ts , ms SS securityFocus le Entire Site u The Basics. “IDs Incidents‘ Microsoft UNIX virus" TBI WIS WNILASSIZIES TE 02 By FO BR Senate Closes Accidental Anonymizer << Printable version >> By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Dec 10 2002 1:24PM Never let it be said that the United States Senate has done nothing for Internet privacy. Network administrators for the U.S. government site www.senate.gov shut down an open proxy server over the weekend that for months had turned the site into a free Web anonymizer that could have allowed savvy surfers to launder their Internet connections so that efforts to trace them would lead to Capitol Hill. A proxy server is normally a dedicated machine that sits between a private network and the outside world, passing internal users’ Web requests out to the Internet. But they're sometimes misconfigured to accept and forward connections from the outside as well, allowing anyone on the Internet to route through the proxy with a simple browser configuration change. Because server logs at destination sites show only the IP address of the proxy server, and not the end user, some hackers and privacy-conscious netizens catalog open proxies and use them to anonymize their surfing. Tracy Williams, director of technology development for the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, blamed the Senate's accidental public service on misconfigured devices "associated" with the Web site. "Those have been taken offline until they can be configured correctly,” said Williams. Although open proxies sometime allow unauthorized ingress to an internal network, Williams said that in this case the Senate’s networks were not exposed. The proxy was discovered by hacker Adrian Lamo, who's still free, and wandering the San Francisco Bay Area with a new laptop. The hacker said he noticed the Senate Web site's undocumented feature while reviewing a list of proxy servers he scanned and cataloged last April. Uncharacteristically, Lamo said he made no ‘effort to hack the Senate's internal network through the system. Instead, late last week he used it to send a message to any administrators monitoring the site. ‘Banned’ 4 Book sel DE —1 Mayos, bD7C -1 Report: © Watch Li May 02, RIAA me faces cor Apr 30,: Rise of tf Zombies Apr 25,¢ FROM 1 Tenable’ Tracks A Network May 12, Hacking postal May 12, Al-Qaedz using ste May 12, Recyled« numbers tisk May 12, FBI(19-cv-1495)-1793 hittp:/Awww.security focus.com/news/1780 5/13/2003 a