Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/02/hackers_tax_the_stupid/

Hackers tax the stupid

What a great idea

By Linda Harrison

Posted in On-Prem, 2nd November 1999 16:10 GMT

Romanian pranksters have hacked into a government Web site to levy a tax on the stupid. The group broke through top level security at the Romanian finance ministry's site to change government information. One of their alterations included placing a tax on stupidity. And the more important the person, the higher the tax. The cash collected from this would then be used to bribe NATO into accepting Romania into the fold, according to the new look Web site. Romanian officials said they had started an investigation into the security breach. A group of UK hackers were also believed to have tried a similar attempt on their own government's Central Office of Information Web site. However, they were forced to abandon the task after the site crashed repeatedly due to "hardware problems". ®