BPDNews home page hacked

Friday afternoon update: BPDNews is back up.

Friday morning update: Looks like the site is still having problems. Guys, might it be time to consider another hosting company - or let the city IS department host it?

Update: The site no longer has the hacker message, but the home page is a week out of date.

Looks like BPDNews has been hacked by somebody in Turkey. Instead of your latest Boston crime news and stats, all you get right now is:

hacked by metlak / Ownz here / Fuck papa

The source code shows this stunning page was built in Microsoft FrontPage set to Turkish. A Google search shows Metlak, some sort of Turkish hacker collective, has been quite busy; usually the defaced sites say something about Bush, or promise flaming death to anybody who disses Turkey.

The hacking seems limited to the home page - other pages still work, although without the toolbar on the home page, it's pretty impossible to navigate the site.

Although BPDNews is run by Boston Police, it's hosted on a third-party Web server rather than on a city computer. That host has a live online chat system; I used it to relay the news (I need my crime-news fix!) and they were already aware of it:

Our senior techs are working on this and will fix this ASAP