The Chaser Report - Dymocks Hackers' Commit Novel Crime

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

Charles and Dom unravel the page turning story of the latest data-hack scandal to shock Australia: The Dymocks Hack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigle Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, I have terrible news. Oh no. Another Aussie icon's secret passwords and user data. It's been leaked on the dark web, Charles, a company that is essential to all of our everyday lives, a beloved icon. Oh my goodness.

What is it? It's Google or Apple or something like that. It's Dimmix. Dimmix Bookshop. Their entire user database has been leaked onto the dark web, but at least a large part of it has. They've worn their customers. Yes, Dimmix still has customers, apparently.

And they have been sent an email, asking them to be vigilant, change their password, and monitor their bank account. Oh my goodness, because imagine all the sensitive data that that database would have. I mean, this is the first time Dimmix has been in the news in a very long time. This is amazing publicity.

Who knew they were still there? My local Dimmix has closed. years ago. Well, actually, it's strange. I actually was browsing at the mix the other day. They're not really a bookstore anymore. Like, their book section is this sort of thing out the front where they sell... Penit Simon's.

The latest tree house books, basically. 169-story tree house. That's why I went in. Oh, right, of course. So they tempt you in with books. Yeah. But actually, most of it's just cheap junk from China. Like, there was...

There's a whole wall of, that's called gifts. Yes, of course. And they're just really weird. things, like there was a piece of wood that you could put in a bottle of wine. Yeah. And it allows you to carry two wine glasses with the bottle of wine in one hand. I mean, that does sound better than books. I can understand that direction.

More in a moment. But it's a bit humiliating as Dimmix to end up. Like, I'm sure Mr. Dimmick or Mrs. Dimmick or whoever found the Dimmock. The Dimmock Empire. Yeah. didn't think we'll make our fortune out of books and then we'll end up selling cheap junk from China. Although that said, if you were a bookseller in 2023,

you would be wanting products to help you drink more effectively and drown your sorrows on, man. Now look, there are big dimmicks. There's a big dimmics in the Sydney CBD. It still does a lot of business. There was a period where humour books were prominently displayed and I did quite well out of that dimmics, and that's ended now.

But now I think it's basically just lifestyle, lifestyle stuff. So what is going to turn up on the dark web? Well, we're not actually hanging shit on Dimmix. We kind of need Dimmix to sell our stuff. So sorry Dimmix.

But again, there's no such a thing as bad publicity. No. Because the thing is, I'm a Dimmix member. I am too. I've got a book lover account. Surely the only thing,

like as far as I know, the only thing that you can do with that Dimmix number is buy books with it. That'd be lovely, actually, if people on the Dark Web bought us books. Actually, you know what I should do? My son.

has recently downloaded a tour browser and they have started browsing the dark web, right? This is true because for research purposes. This is the stuff he's telling you. I know, exactly. Just let me tell you what they've got. So, customers, postal addresses, old fashion, birth dates, email, mobile numbers, gender and membership details. Gosh, Chaka Rolling went like the gender. So presumably, my son could go onto the dark web, buy all these, this data.

Yes. And start sending greetings. cards to people who've been hacked using their home address. Yes, he could also help them with their marketing. He'd actually really help them out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm not sure, like, did you say date of birth? Is there date of birth there?

Data of birth? Yeah. Yeah, uh, yes, birthday. Yeah, but is it one of those databases where they don't bother with anything over 2000 because, um, nobody over 2000? There's no way Dimmix was across the Y2K. You're kidding me? Yeah.

The birthday is probably cut out about 1975. Can I just mention here, by the way. Just to clarify, Dimmix is a retailer. That's an old way of buying things from a physical location. Oh, yeah, sorry, yes, yes.

We should have explained that earlier. People used to have to go and get, actually, go to a physical location to buy things. And they sell a thing called books, which is if you print it out an e-book and put it with a nice cover and so on and had a physical object, that's what a book is. Yeah, it's probably the best way to explain it

is if you wrote down a whole, a whole lot of TikToks and printed them out on a piece of paper then that would be a book I think... Yeah, yeah, that's kind of how it would be... Now, Charles, the plot's thicken.

It's a truth universe to acknowledge that every dark web leak in recent Australian history I'm part of. Oh, yes. I have an email here from Dimmix. Yes. And it says...

Oh, right. It's dated the 8th of September and it says... It was only a couple of days ago. It says on the 6th of September, we became aware that an authorized party may have accessed some of our records.

As soon as we became aware, We launched an investigation, and we found that customer records on the dark web, 48 hours later, they send you an email telling you to protect yourself. Right. So it's got all the information. Your date, post-lidress, email, mobile, gender. Oh, gold expiry date could be on there. And by then, the hackers will have gone around and used points to buy the latest 169-story tree house.

They might have even bought books by you, Dom. This is probably the best thing that's happened to the book industry in a very long time. So they say no financial data But I mean this is old My information is by the dark web for years No it must be like they'd have bank card data wouldn't they A bank card data yeah Dinus Club

The Tom's Dinus Club And actually from when it was a club you could go to physically I think that was a thing Dimmix is certainly not have this much publicity In a very long time But the other reason we were talking about the dark web It was the midi bank data league

They confirmed the other day that, because I think they were demanding some extraordinary amount of money, the hackers. And Medibank refused to give it away. And that was very sensitive data, right? Let me look at the email I got from Medibank. Yeah. Well, my email from Medibank was hilarious. They even wrote me a letter saying that I'd been affected. But they kept on calling me Mr. Frith.

Well, that's very good. And I hadn't been a Medibank member for at least, I don't know, at least a decade. Yeah, yeah, no. And so there's a lot of information. But they say that they don't believe the criminal stole embarrassing information about health claims. No, but they did. They totally did because it's all now on the dark web.

Yes, they were wrong. Yeah. That's the thing about the dark web and hackers. It's always hard to work out. They actually didn't. No, no, because that all, like about a week ago, that got announced that all that data is now completely able to be bought on the dark web.

Dom, who should we buy the data of? From Medibank Private. I mean, I know we mentioned him a lot, but I wouldn't mind seeing Ben Robert Smith's Medibank data. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Injuries sustained while pushing someone off the cliff. If that were in the Medibank data, that would be a bit of a smoking gun, wouldn't it?

Not as smoking as his gun was, allegedly. But, yeah, that would be a good thing. So definitely check out the Ben Robert Smith. And what sort of books does he read? He'd be buying. It'd be whodunit, me. Who done it? Yeah.

And big heavy books to use of interrogations. I'll tell you what. In the DEMICs that I went into, which was the one in the city, their crime section is basically, like half the bookstore now is crime. Yeah, of course. Ironically, they should be more prepared. You think they would have got the heads up. There must be some book there about some shitting.

Shetty bookseller who got hacked. I like the idea of using stolen data from the dark web as a form of public accountability. Because you could extend it to politicians as well. Like, you could download the data of the Privacy Commission. Oh, that would be good. See whether they've read any books about how to protect data. One of the things that gets me, Charles, is that every Christmas, pretty much, the reigning Australian Prime Minister, whoever it might be,

gives, I think it's Troy Bramson from the Australian, the list of their favourite books of the year. I reckon there's very little chance they've got time to read a single one of them and they get some intern to do it. So we could get that data and see, has Albao read the books? Did Malcolm Turnbull read the books? Yes, that's right. Although Malcolm Turnbull would have bought them on his Kindle, wouldn't he, probably?

Yeah, yeah. But I reckon that would be fantastic to check that out. The Chaser Report Now with extra whispers Well Charles Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way I am It's because we're trying to think of

You know Who would have ironically amusing metadata Isn't the question Who can we blackmail I mean Oh yes You've got to think like a dark web hacker

Much better Yes That's much better Yes Who would have an embarrassing medical condition That they want to keep secret No one in this room

That I can think of I mean like Because even like When you get to our age, you're not embarrassed by any medical procedures anymore. Oh, everything, everything's going wrong. Of course. I mean, just the death is slowly closing in.

It's coming out slowly, surely, yeah, that's right. You know, we've reached that tipping point where I tend to go to more funerals than weddings nowadays, and I think that they don't accelerate. But don't worry. No, no, because there's the second wave and third waves of weddings to come. Oh, where we get our friends to break up, you know, like plant the sea. When things have gone horribly wrong in people's lives. they go and marry other people.

Yes, that's great. They're not quite up to that sort of 50s stage yet. Yes, 60s. We should start planning some seeds. You think? Who do we want to? Well, it's got to be somebody with money. So it's got to be like an Andrew Forest.

Yes, Twiggy. But I like the Andrew Forest thing. What we'll do? I'll get my son to browse the web and buy the data. Why don't we just go for all billionaires? Because we'll be able to trawl through. Oh, that's not a bad idea. Yeah.

And we'll report back. Although, actually, we won't. because blackmail is based on the threat of releasing information. Yeah, that's what we can't report back. We can tell it to this audience. That's right. So we'll just tell everyone that we're definitely going to do that. Yeah.

And that we'll send threatening letters at the plan. Yeah, yeah. Are I a co-conspirator? Am I getting so the upside of this? Because I'm fine with being a co-conspirator. No, no, but then this is the brilliant thing about having dirt on everyone is we'll then just download the information of all the police who try to arrest us and the prosecutors and the judges. Oh, that's very good.

And we'll run a whole scheme where everyone's too afraid to touch her. Now, Charles, there's an obvious thing that's going to happen. I want to just draw a line in the sand, right? Before the end of the year, Qantas's details will be leaked on the dark web. It's the one thing that hasn't gone wrong so far at Qantas. Oh, yes. And the best thing would be, if only the members of the Chairman's Lounge.

Yes, because it's secret. They won't tell you. No one knows who's a member of the channel. The only people you know the people who've made the parliamentary declarations. Who declare it, yes. But everyone else, no, they won't tell you. you. And I saw an infuriating interview where they kept asking Kwanis and Kwanis very smugly

went, we don't comment on the Chairman's Land. Which, of course, is their marketing thing for the Chairman's Lounge. So I reckon for the end of the year, you can mark my words on the dark web. Yes. And I'm not going to confirm what to know whether I'm in the Chairman's Souch. At my level of so pretty people can draw their own... Why are you laughing? People can draw their own conclusions about whether I would be a valuable asset in the

Chairman's up. I've never seen you there, Don. That's because there's an even more secret. I can't even mention the name off. I can't even do I say, nay, with the special lounge. You just have to say, Alan sent me. Yeah, okay. Oh, that was the way it used to work anyway.

Allens. Allens. Alan's lounge. Alan's little room. Yeah, which of course doesn't work. You knock on the door. You knock on the door and they go, sorry, it'll open in six hours. Anyway, so that's it.

Kwanis is going to have one of these dark. Because every company is going to have the dark web. I'm just amazed. The Chase's customer data isn't on the dark web. Well, I mean, every day, we've got cloud flare and all these protections. And every day you see hacking attacks attempting to happen. It's extraordinary. I mean, it does go to show how prevalent it is.

Yes. If people are bothering to hack the chase. I mean, that's got to be way to... In terms of lucrative prizes. I want the data of the 11,000 most pissed off customers in Australia. What I want to know, the data that I want to publish is who bought the avocado. Particularly... That's blackmail.

Who bought the avocado at full price? Yes, my question. If you're willing to acknowledge it, email podcast at chastor.com. Or we'll just get your details off the dark web. Our gear is from road. We are part of the Aconicless Network. And also the dark web. Get you tomorrow.