The mischievous hacking collective Lulz Security apparently does know when to stop. The group that over the last week has hacked PBS, Sony, an FBI security affiliate, and met a challenge from an Internet security firm, today released an e-mail it sent to the British National Health Service, warning the service of its security shortcomings but promising not to do harm. Here's what they sent:

[Snip]

The bit at the end about little girls' bones refers to the British Bone Marrow Registry. The UK Guardian picked up the story and got in touch with the NHS, which said the breach was no big deal.

"This is a local issue affecting a very small number of website administrators. No patient information has been compromised. No national NHS information systems have been affected. The Department has issued guidance about how to protect and secure all information assets," a departmental spokeswoman said. "We are confident that there was no damage done and no harm done in terms of patient information or anything else."

But plenty of other organizations are fuming at the hackers. Sony today told Daily Tech that LulzSec's claim it compromised a million pieces of user information was exaggerated. Instead, Sony wrote, the hackers took less than 38,000 pieces. Lulzsec countered via Twitter this afternoon: " 'Sony Says LulzSec Lied About Number of Records Lost' - we didn't say we stole 1 million, we said we compromised 1 million. Silly @sony :3" 

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Adam Martin