By Nigel Thorpe
Senior English Editor – Albawaba.
As the snow begins to settle in Davos, Switzerland after the World Economic Forum that ran from January 25th to 30th, it is becoming obvious that the hackers have beaten the hecklers in the protest war.
As reported by CNN, over 13,000 of the world’s political and economic elite gathered at the conference center for five days of intensive lectures, seminars and discussions. The prominent politicians and diplomats who paraded through the conference halls included Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, the new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
On the corporate side, the program included luminaries such as billionaire software Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Sony Corporation chairman Nobuyuki Idei, and Bertelsmann chairman Thomas Middelhoff.
Throughout the conference, the Swiss authorities imposed unprecedented security measures to prevent the violent demonstrations that marred last year’s forum. Barbed wire, steel barriers and police patrols lined the streets around the forum site at the Davos Congress Center. Despite the closure of bus and train stations, hundreds of protestors declared their intention of descending on this chic and picturesque ski resort. After being checked for weapons and bomb making equipment by the police who outnumbered them, a relatively small band of protestors loudly expressed their views on capitalism, globalization, and the northern and southern hemisphere divide, in front of the conference center.
As the last delegates left Davos, the forum’s organizers expressed their satisfaction with the security measures which had, up to then, protected the security and privacy of their exceptionally well-heeled international guests.
The self congratulations were, however, short lived. The details of serious security lapses are beginning to appear this week in the European press. According to numerous European newspapers and a CNN news report, shortly after the end of the forum, anonymous callers telephoned the organizers claiming that, as a political protest, they had hacked into the
Congress Center computer and obtained personal details about the delegates including their addresses, home telephone numbers and most alarming of all from a financial point of view, credit card numbers and expiry dates. Several Swiss millionaires on the list of delegates whose personal details have been publicized by the protest group.
The highly embarrassed organizers are now contacting all delegates advising them to cancel their current credit cards in case some of the members of protest group have criminal as well as political motivations. The organizers have been widely criticized for making the hacker’s task easier by leaving personal delegate data on the computer rather than “wiping” it at the end of the conference.
Although the hecklers may not have had much practical success in the snowy streets of Davos, the protest movement’s hackers can certainly claim a virtual victory in cyberspace.
