On 26 March 2009, the Classification Board website was hacked, and the text on the homepage was replaced. The altered site was available for around three-and-a-half hours before it was taken offline. And, five days later, a placeholder page was posted.

Today, nearly a full month after the site was hacked, the site is now back online:

The entire website appears to have been overhauled. Most notably, the design and layout of the site has been updated. Presumably, attention was given to security too.

While I hadn’t spent much time on the old Classification Board website, the new site appears to be an improvement. It’s certainly better than the Courts Administration Authority of South Australia website, which is still firmly lodged in the ’90s.

Three versions of the ACMA blacklist have leaked to Wikileaks. Then it was revealed that anyone could extract the blacklist from the Integard filter in a 30-second hack. Now the Classification Board website has been hacked:

The text on the homepage has been replaced with the following:

This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ. The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC. We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN, and therefore must be KILLED WITH A LARGE MELONS during the PROSECUTION PARTIES IN SEPTEMBER. Come join our ALIEN SPACE PARTY.

Wouldn’t it have been ironic had the hackers elected to post the leaked ACMA blacklist on the site and then report the site to ACMA?

Update: The first report of the hack was made at around 8:00 pm AEDT on 26 March 2009. At around 11:30 pm AEDT, the site started returning HTTP status code 400, ‘Bad Request’. On 29 March 2009 at around 3:00 pm AEDT, the site started refusing connections altogether.

Now, on 31 March 2009 at around 6:40 pm AEDT, the site is now back up, albeit showing only a temporary placeholder page.

Near the head of the page is this:

Important note: We are currently upgrading our website and some features are temporarily unavailable. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

It took five days to get to this stage.

Update: On 24 March 2009, nearly a full month after the site was hacked, an overhauled version of the site is finally back online.