Most mainstream dating sites promise to connect like-minded people of any race, gender, or sexual identity.
A far more niche corner of the online dating world, it turns out, promises to match white supremacists by creating safe havens that are inherently based on hate and discrimination.
But cybersecurity doesn’t appear to be a strong suit among those running these sites, giving hacktivists a golden opportunity to wreak havoc on the platforms.
A hacker who goes by the pseudonym Martha Root made a big splash during the annual Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, last month, as Hackread reports. While dressed as the Pink Ranger from the Power Rangers, Root unceremoniously deleted the servers of WhiteDate, a site described by writer Eva Hoffman as a “Tinder for Nazis.” While she was at it, she also wiped WhiteChild, a service that connected white supremacist sperm and egg donors, and WhiteDeal, a blatantly racist marketplace for freelance labor, at the end of her 44-minute speech.
In an even more unusual twist, Root also trained an AI chatbot to engage with WhiteDate’s users to extract as much information from them as possible, demonstrating how the tech can be used to root out fascists on the internet.
The hacker collaborated with Hoffman and journalist Christian Fuchs, who authored a revealing piece about WhiteDate that was published in the German newspaper Die Zeit in October.
During the latest presentation, titled “The Heartbreak Machine: Nazis in the Echo Chamber,” Root can be seen opening a terminal window on her MacBook following a brief question and answer period, and running a Python script called lol.py.
“Delete whitechild.net,” reads the window, followed by a checkmark emoji and the word, “Done!”
The message was met by thunderous applause from the audience gathered at the event.
“Delete whitedeal.net,” it continues. “Done!”
... continue reading