Technology helps us to live more comfortably. It makes everything easier to do, which also means it increases our productivity. Moreover, it also saves more money and energy to do something that in the past cost more than you ever imagined. One of them is communication and far distance meeting or conference.
For communication purposes, the internet is the best solution. It gives you a fast and smooth connection that you won’t find on other technologies. Of course, to get this kind of connection for communication, you must use the best internet technology. The best technology won’t only give you the best connection but also safety. It is an important element that all internet users must use for this communicating type.
The safer communication that internet technology provided is also chosen by many organizations when they are holding an important meeting or sending secret information and preventing the leak. It is doable with today’s internet technology. Unless there is an organized and big online attack, it is almost impossible to break the protection. However, a small human mistake could lead to a disaster which removes the protection feature of online communication.
One of the recent incidents that cause a big problem in the online secret meeting was happened on the EU Defense Ministers confidential video conference event. This event is supposed to be an event that only the internal party of the organization can attend and involve in it. The communication is provided by using the online video call platform, with a specific method to login into that platform. And, the only participant in this meeting knows about this method. The PIN and password as well are only known by the person who has an account in this event.
However, in the middle of the meeting, a Dutch journalist, Daniel Verlaan of RTL Nieuws, has successfully “infiltrated” the meeting that is said to be the most confidential meeting attended by important figures of the EU. The participants were shocked by the appearance of Daniel on their monitor. They questioned his purpose of breaking into the meeting.
One of the participants, Josep Borrel, the Chief of EU Foreign Policy, advised him to leave the video call platform because what Daniel did is wrong and breaking the law. It is a criminal offense, and the journalist will deal with law enforcement later.
Daniel seems to understand, which is because he is a journalist, about this situation. So, jokingly, he apologized and left the video chat room. However, this incident forces the meeting to be ended or put on hold sooner than its schedule. The participant of the meeting and the organization that holds this meeting plans to report Daniel for this incident. There is no information on whether this case is still active or not. But, we can see it as a big blunder from the EU organization.
So, here is the question. Why did it happen? Why Daniel can easily break the confidential event that uses the best safety feature? Is he a top black hat hacker behind his profession as a journalist that capable to break any online protection? The answer is not and maybe, silly is more appropriate here.
Daniel found one of the conferences’ participants, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld upload a screenshot of the login address of the video call platform used in that conference. Worst of all, she also posts part of her PIN code on Twitter.
The Nieuws crew found out about this and then tries to use it to login and access the video conference platform on that event. It could be hard and took too much time, especially with the PIN code. Fortunately, the PIN code that Ank Bijleveld posted only requires one more number to enter, before you can access the online platform of that conference. With one less number, the searching was much easier. The crew needs to try the number from 0-9, and they got it. Daniel can enter the video conference platform and join the event for a while.
The representative of the Foreign Affairs Council said that they will report this incident to the authority. However, they also added that what Ank Bijleveld did was a stupid mistake.
This incident shows that how advanced and perfect a technology is, if the human behind that technology makes a mistake, which is also human’s nature there is a big change of it messing up the situation. Therefore, technology can only work perfectly well with a reliable and skillful human behind it.
