"Hacked" website goes offline

The website at the heart of a controversial hacking claim by the NSW Government appears to have been taken down.

The website, nswtransportblueprint.com.au/project, contained the details of the state government’s Transport Blueprint proposals for the state.

It was accessed by Sydney Morning Herald journalists, which then reported the contents of the site on Saturday.

In an article yesterday, the journaIists claimed the site was freely accessible by the public.

In a speech to Parliament Transport Minister David Campbell said the company which was responsible for the website, Bang the Table, had claimed it was secured and had experienced 3727 unauthorised hits on the website's firewall over a two-day period.

“I am advised by Bang the Table that at no time was the website available to casual viewers,” Campbell said.

“On the advice provided by Bang the Table, it seems that the only way to enter the site was to hack into it. And allegedly someone did. It was not a one-off but a concerted effort.”

Campbell added that the attacks were sourced from four different IP addresses in Sydney and Melbourne, with one person using a Sydney media IP address hitting the site 209 times.

According to Sydney Morning Herald editor Peter Fray, the information on the NSW public transport blueprint was freely and publicly available on Friday afternoon, February 19.

Additionally, accessing it did not require a password. You just had to put in the web address.

“The website was run by Bang The Table. West attempted to contact the principals of Bang The Table, Matthew Crozier and Crispin Butteriss - in Mr Crozier's case, twice - but neither returned his calls,” Fray said in the story.

“The so-called hacking involved typing a URL into the address bar. Bang The Table erred in making the material publicly available prematurely. The minister appears to be acting on behalf of Bang The Table.” A call to the Transport Minister’s office were not immediately returned.

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