Mystery hacker a folk hero for struggling population of Latvia

[security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0308/1224265794239.html

The Irish Times - Monday, March 8, 2010
Mystery hacker a folk hero for struggling population of Latvia

LATVIA LETTER: The person known as Neo has been embarrassing the .fat 
cats. in a country with the EU.s highest rate of unemployment, writes 
DANIEL McLAUGHLIN

IN THEIR hour of need the people of Latvia, the European country hardest 
hit by the economic crisis, have found an unlikely new hero.

Neo is the nickname of a computer hacker who has stolen millions of 
supposedly confidential documents from the Latvian tax authorities, and 
exposed just how much cream the nation.s .fat cats. have been guzzling 
while urging ordinary citizens to swallow crippling cutbacks.

[..]

His victims include the head of a state heating company, who was shown to 
have paid himself a 16,000 lat (.22,500) bonus in 2009, and top central 
bank executives who received salaries of 6,000-23,000 lats (.8,495 to 
.32,566) per month in 2008.

They trimmed their wages last year after the previously booming Latvian 
economy went into tailspin, but their earnings still caused outrage in a 
country where the average monthly salary is the equivalent of about .600, 
and people live with the constant fear of redundancy.

After publishing the salaries of police chiefs, Neo urged the police union 
via his Twitter account .to analyse the data and determine whether the 
salary reform is fair and to continue the fight against crime.. And to 
accompany his exposure of central bank pay, he wrote: .Rise up and take 
the power back, it.s time that the fat cats had a heart attack, you know 
that their time is coming to an end..

[..]
_______________________________________________
Dataloss Mailing List (dataloss () datalossdb org)
Archived at http://seclists.org/dataloss/

Get business, compliance, IT and security staff on the same page with
CREDANT Technologies: The Shortcut Guide to Understanding Data Protection
from Four Critical Perspectives. The eBook begins with considerations
important to executives and business leaders.
http://www.credant.com/campaigns/ebook-chpt-one-web.php