"Anonymous" Hacks Palin's Private Email

netbuzz writes "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine.

Comments

The crossed the line this time

[Anonymous Coward]

Attacking Scientology is one thing. We all know that it is a crock of crap. However, when somebody hacks a VP candidate, the FBI and Secret Service will react strongly.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[joshtheitguy]

Try telling Tom Cruise that Scientology is a crock. I'd imagine he'd scream incoherently at the top of his lungs, jump up and down then rip your face off.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I, for one, think the laws should be applied equally to all parties regardless of their insane beliefs.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Beached]

He and John are still in Stan Marsh's closet, so noone will hear them.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Anonymous Coward]

This was on CNN a few minutes ago and they confirmed that the Secret Service was already involved in the investigation.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand.. I agree they crossed the line.. on the other I kind of understand people's motives. Now I am in no way shape or form advocating hacking someone's email account, but there's something important to consider here. There's a great article at NY Times which talks about Palin's rise in politics. Here's one excerpt:

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

If she does infact use her private email address for correspondence with other staff members or governmental bodies, can you really consider it a private email account anymore? I'm not asking for response from slashdotters with analogies here, but if she does infact potentially use her personal email to avoid subpoenas then why the hell should it be considered personal. She is paid by the taxpayers and they have a right to know what is going on. Why have her staff members been studying the use of personal email accounts for official business anyways?

Maybe the deal with her using personal email for work is just a rumor, and maybe the whole deal with "Anonymous" is not true, but still things aren't just black and white here.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[philspear]

I would imagine though that hacking into a yahoo e-mail account, even if it's a political figure, is not really going to get any serious penalties. It's not like they hacked into a government e-mail account. It's also not as if she has launch codes yet. McCain has to be elected, then die of a heart attack for her e-mail to be of much real importance. ... of course, if she did, they would probably end up in her yahoo account. And we'll be dead soon anyway. As Matt Damon said, someone who belives in creationism should not be an (old) heartbeat away from the football.

But I suspect secret service is investigating mostly to determine if there's a real security risk IE if she e-mailed out that there was a spare key to her house under a fake rock in the garden, or she was going to be in room 287 of the doubletree hotel.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I think Scientology is a dangerous cult, the actions of Anonymous to date have been demonstrating that they are just a group of dangerous radicals. Anonymous is dangerous because they attack and slander groups they disagree with and hide behind masks so that their opponents can not adequately defend themself. Now, I know many of the people who hate Sarah Palin and the Republicans won't see a problem with this, but for a moment imagine how you would feel if a similar group performed the same action on Barack Obama (or a political leader in your own country) and see how 'wonderful' it would be.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[philspear]

Right, remember this is the same group that hacked an epilepsy support page to try to induce seizures. Also realize this is pretty much the opposite of constructive: Palin is being used as a distraction to keep us from thinking about real issues. This only furthers that distraction. It would be one thing if they found evidence of corruption, but this is merely digital tabloid fluff.

Anonymous is doing this entirely to feed their own egos.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[moderatorrater]

Yeah, ever since Bourne Identity, I've come to rely on Matt Damon's advice more and more. I mean, I betrayed the organization because it was right, and he's got kick-ass fighting moves. That's the guy I want my political commentary from!

Re:The crossed the line this time

[TubeSteak]

But I suspect secret service is investigating mostly to determine if there's a real security risk IE if she e-mailed out that there was a spare key to her house under a fake rock in the garden, or she was going to be in room 287 of the doubletree hotel.

I suspect the Secret Service is investigating mostly because this is high profile and will end up being publicly embarrassing. Not so much to Palin as to the people she was communicating with.

No doubt someone archived the entire account in their e-mail program and will dump it all online sometime before the election.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[onefriedrice]

I agree. I'm disappointed in Anonymous, if this is to be rightly attributed to them. What I liked about them is their order and how they didn't tolerate illegal acts...

Re:The crossed the line this time

[h4rm0ny]

Anonymous is doing this entirely to feed their own egos.

Anonymous most likely are doing this because they got lucky. I would guess hack attempts are made at a number of public and political figures. If they have a successful strike, then I'd expect them to run with it. I wouldn't overplay the deliberateness of this.On the other hand if a possible vice- or actual president is daft enough to have unencrypted emails floating round a public system, then it's hardly surprising those emails surface. And anyone can be Anonymous - that's it's greatest strength (even more so than the technical competence of some of its members).

Now if they have found that she was conducting official business through private email accounts and was doing so to avoid scrutiny, then that is interesting.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Fyz]

I'll take your NYTimes article and raise you a Financial Times editorial.

The dumbest thing the democrats have done so far in this campaign is focus on Palin. What the hell happened to the issue-driven debate? This was really the time for Obama&Co to shine, so if they botch the whole deal because they chose to make the election a question of character, which is the republicans' favorite playing ground, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Get back on topic!

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Martin Blank]

Yes. GP keeps a lot of monkeys in the basement.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[beckerist]

and then I PULL OUT MY GUN!!!

(now I'm in the closet too!)

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Tyger]

When the McCain announced Palin as his running mate, I recognized quickly it was quite an ingenious move on their part. I wouldn't be surprised that one of the big reasons she was picked was because of all the issues and drama surrounding her. It is enough to create a media feeding frenzy, diverting the major coverage away from the issues that could defeat them. As they say no publicity is bad publicity, and all the negative coverage paints her as the victim or underdog, whom literature has taught us to root for.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[creysoft]

What the hell are you talking about? Anonymous the name attributed to (and embraced by) the many and varied denizens of 4chan's Random (/b/) board. They rose to fame with their protests against scientology, but anyone who has ever visited /b/ could tell you that:

1) Anonymous is a 'group' only in the loosest sense of the word. There's no organization, no leader, and no real agenda. It works more like flash mobs. One person suggests something, and if enough people go along with it to achieve critical mass, then it's epic. Otherwise, it's just a few internet nerds making idiots out of themselves.

2) Anonymous has no real code, moral stance, or ethical guideline. /b/ frequently delves into such subjects as drug use, murder, petty crime, and child porn.

3) Anonymous does everything they do for their very own personal amusement. Any claim to be standing on principle is really just part of the joke. Since anonymous is kind of an intersection of Slashdot and MySpace when it comes to demographics, you'll find you agree with many of their 'positions.' However, don't expect any real loyalty from them.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[schnikies79]

"no publicity is bad publicity"

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about marketing. One of the first things I was taught in my marketing classes is how that is a crock.

Bad publicity has bankrupted companies, people and countries. It's drove people to suicide. There IS bad publicity.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[vux984]

Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?

Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[The Snowman]

no publicity is bad publicity

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about marketing. One of the first things I was taught in my marketing classes is how that is a crock.

Bad publicity has bankrupted companies, people and countries. It's drove people to suicide. There IS bad publicity.

You misunderstand. Bad publicity is bad publicity. No publicity is also bad publicity. Sometimes slightly bad publicity can drown out the really bad stuff, or divert attention without hurting too much. Especially when the issue is not selling a product to make a profit (like a business), but flinging mud at a political opponent.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[lgw]

Except that's just not true. People put blinders on when it comes to their religion. For example, the best mathematician I've ever met personnaly was a prof at Rice University--an altogether brilliant man--who was a devout Christian. I doubt he was specifically a creationist, but he believed in literal interpretation of equally odd parts of the Bible. The last day of class before finals he would always give a lecture on the importance of developing a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and pass out Bibles or portions thereof. The students always put up with it because he was a once-in-a-lifetime combination of genius and great lecturer.

I can't explain it, but it's true nevertheless. Heck, look at William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.

It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[spazdor]

Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?

Maybe not, but if she's getting the launch codes, I sure as hell care about whether she is counting on the Rapture.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[NevermindPhreak]

Yeah, everyone knows actors should just stay away from politics. Now, who's this Reagan fellow I keep hearing about...

Re:The crossed the line this time

[philspear]

Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.

More specifically it's because I'm a biologist dependant on federal funding. There should be no one within arms reach of the federal budget who has such a flagrant misunderstanding of something so basic. She would have the power and the motivation to bring biomedical research in the US to a dead standstill. It's kind of like putting a pedophile in charge of the preschool.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Hungus]

In that case, you should worry if she is a dispensationalist and not if she is creationist as only dispensationalists believe in a rapture. BTW Woodrow Wilson was a creationist, fundamentalist and dispensationalist.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Digital End]

Anonymous isn't a group any more then the western hemisphear is a group. There's not exactly an application. All this means is someone from 4chan got into her account and posted it for a laugh. Also: " It would be one thing if they found evidence of corruption, but this is merely digital tabloid fluff. " You won't find anything if you don't look.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[iron-kurton]

Yes, instead, let's listen to some anonymous, opinionated asshole on the internet. (And no, the irony that I'm also one of those assholes is not lost on me)

Just because someone's occupation might not be in high academic regard (i.e. an actor), does not mean he has no smart things to say.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Bonker]

they are just a group of dangerous radicals

You're giving 'Anonymous' a bit much credit there. Anonymous doesn't have an agenda, per se. They do it for the Lulz. Scientology is an easy target. Mrs. Palin is, if anything, an easier target due to her sudden and dramatic rise. I have no doubt in my mind that if Anonymous could find Mr. Obama's personal email account, they would do the same thing with exactly the same glee.

'Anonymous' extends from the anonymous posting habits on 4chan and certain other message boards, where it's easy to bullshit, dickwave, and otherwise behave in a sociopathic manner. They hate because it's fun and not because it serves any purpose. It's not about supporting one candidate or the other. It's about hatred, misanthropy, ego gratification, and taking sadistic pleasure in torturing someone. Bigotry, sexism, and racism probably play into the mix as well.

Anonymous published Mrs. Palin's email address with exactly the same glee that they would report a Camwhore's secrets to her family and school administration.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[commodoresloat]

There's no evidence that Anonymous was behind the epilepsy thing, and many have suggested that Scientologists did it to discredit Anonymous.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[DittoBox]

No, it's not. The US Secret Service working out of DC that protects former PsOTUS and FLsOTUS for up to ten years upon exiting their respective offices (it used to be lifetime), candidates for president are covered under this as well.

They also had a number of duties that until only recently put them under direction of the US Treasury and oversaw most if not all of the investigations therein. Before their move to the DHS they were assigned to investigate federal computer crime laws, a jurisdiction not removed with their transfer of ownership, as it were. Although publicly perceived as only protecting the president they are much like a handful of other somewhat small federal law enforcement agencies that do many other things than just what the public thinks they do. They were originally created in 1865 to go after currency counterfeiting, only being given the duty to protect presidents-and only informally-in 1901.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[phoomp]

Hacking a citizen's personal email account should be punished. Hacking a governor's/VP candidate's personal email account should be punished any more severely than hacking a regular citizen's personal email account. I mean, there shouldn't be any government business in there, right?

Re:The crossed the line this time

[geekoid]

Having someone who knows how to play politics, can talk to the right people on your behalf, and understand the balance of favors is a good thing. Obama can fight for change, make plans for changes, An experience VP can really help those plans become reality.

Obama wants change in the way the government works, this is good but you can't just start doing everything you want immediatly. If you so you will get no where.
Change is a process not a goal.

Nice of you to determine who is worthless and who isn't~

Re:The crossed the line this time

[MagdJTK]

It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.

No, it doesn't. Not necessarily. But being a creationist shows that you're willing to overlook overwhelming evidence in order to believe something written in the bible. What happens when there's a Second Cold War and the fundamentalist with their finger on the big red button starts reading about Noah and how God killed everyone but Noah and his family?

And remember, Bush's "crusade" is still killing people every day.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[anaesthetica]

Palin was a trap that the Democrats walked into. There are many substantive policy issues upon which one could attack Palin, instead she was attacked personally and her family was made the center of attention. Within a week, Obama's poll numbers took a nosedive and McCain led in both national polls and electoral vote count. The Guardian commentary summarized it nicely:

[I]nstead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska.

Two weeks ago an Obama volunteer who knew from class came up to me and gave me that well-tread talking point about Palin's lack of experience, and the hilarious "heartbeat away from the presidency" cliche.

The bottom line is that both Obama and Palin have been at their presidency-qualifying jobs (Senator & Governor) for less than four years. Obama having two years on Palin is insignificant compared to the experience that McCain and Biden have: 25 years and 35 years in Congress, respectively.

It's also insignificant compared to the experience that our three youngest presidents--TR, Jack Kennedy and William Jefferson Clinton--had before assuming the presidency. TR had already been Asst. Sec. of the Navy, Governor of New York, and Vice President. Jack Kennedy was in the House and Senate for a combined 13 years. And William Jefferson Clinton was Governor of Arkansas for 14 years.

The major difference between Obama and Palin, in terms of experience and bracketing their policy differences, is that the former is running for the presidency, whereas the latter will only assume the presidency if McCain keels over. The big threat the democrats keep speculating about is how inexperienced Palin will be if she is called up to the presidency, schizophrenically trying to ignore that by voting for Obama they're guaranteeing someone with an inexcusable dearth of experience will be the president. Doublethink. On experience alone, neither Obama or Palin should be in the race, both are bad choices (again leaving aside their policy positions and "vision").

What's so unbelievably hypocritical on the Democratic side of things was their opposition to Hillary's "experience experience experience" propaganda that she used against Obama. Now they're turning around and reproducing the same failed strategy by doing exactly what Hillary did, giving lie to their protestations that experience wasn't the most important thing when defending Obama against Hillary's OMGTHREEINTHEMORNINGPHONECALL attacks.

There are significant substantive problems with Palin. Instead Democrats emphasized their own weaknesses in attacking Palin. Dumb.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[NtroP]

What is Obama? I thought he was a Christian too. From what I hear his church doesn't exactly put a mild spin on things. Or is the problem that Obama is from your party so his Christian views don't count? I am a devout Christian myself. I am also a scientist. I do not agree with Palin's views on creation. However, I don't think that having those views makes her any more dangerous when making decisions in office than someone who is convinced that Windows is the One True OS. Of course, she's just going to be the VP so will more than likely be responsible for setting the good china out for tea than making decisions. It's McCain and Obama we should be worrying about.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[calmofthestorm]

Anyone who is voting based on issues has already made up his mind. Unless you have strong feelings on one of the flip-flops.

Now it's time to convince the other 95% of the country.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Kazoo the Clown]

Well, well. So VP candidates don't like being spied on any more than the general populace does. To bad *we* don't have the Secret Service to defend our privacy rights.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Culture20]

William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.

Committed atheists could easily condemn legal abortion as a great evil if they believed that purposefully killing a human being was wrong. Person-hood is the legal test for inalienable rights. The test could just as easily be "existing as a distinct being with human genes". Pro-life isn't just a religious cause, even though the religious folk are the most vocal.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Jardine]

Obama is a socialist. I don't want that kind of change. On the other hand McCain isn't any better, just another version of the current administration. So, the choices appear to be keep the poor status quo or make a change toward socialism.

You think Obama is a socialist? Silly American, you have no idea what socialism is.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[SilentChris]

Thank f'ing god someone understands how this works.

The fact that "Anonymous" has somehow been given a group designation baffles me. It's a bunch of internet trolls (mostly males, aged 14-24) that are happy -- ecstatic -- that they are getting media attention. They're just a bunch of individuals laughing at the fact that people take them so seriously.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[spazdor]

She might be less shy with the nukes than she would otherwise if she doesn't expect to be on Earth when they land.

I want someone who knows, right down to her balls, that if she helps start an apocalypse, she's going to fry on Earth with the rest of us.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[IndustrialComplex]

I'm very non-religious, having had most of the religion driven out of me by my experience at the Air Force Academy. However, I became fairly pro-life on all counts.

You don't need religion to be pro-life and anti-abortion (Two separate topics in my opinion).

I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.

Of course, I'm also very much opposed to the death penalty.

I also, thankfully, have not had my beliefs tested at any extreme level (Child with downs syndrome, or due to rape, or had a loved one murdered and the suspect caught). I am very thankful for that. So while I do not know if I'm strong enough to hold to my convictions, I hope that I never have to face them, but if I do, that I remain true to my beliefs.

So please don't assume that it is just the religious that are against abortion. You can have completely secular objections against it.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[inKubus]

So Anonymous is like Al Quaeda then? A name for a concept that's treated like a group to sell newspapers.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Atario]

Obama is a socialist. I don't want that kind of change.

1. Define "socialism" as you meant it above.

2. Why not?

Re:The crossed the line this time

[philspear]

Why can't you make something useful and sell it?

It must be nice on your planet where all knowledge is directly sellable and profitable! Biology is not all about making cures for the common cold and viagra. The most important work going on today is understanding the basics. Discovering a gene that maintains chromesomal integrity will get you absolutely nothing that you can sell but would be absolutely essential to a real cure for cancer. Just not directly. That's why the government gives grants, because the research that it buys proves its worth in the long run and isn't rewarded by market forces. Same reason the military isn't a private enterprise.

Being dependent on the federal government especially does not entitle you to run any portion of it.

I was explaining my reasoning for my statement that I didn't want a creationist in the white house, not saying I get to decide the next president. Keep up with the conversation or go play with your toys somewhere else.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Atario]

The big threat the democrats keep speculating about is how inexperienced Palin will be if she is called up to the presidency, schizophrenically trying to ignore that by voting for Obama they're guaranteeing someone with an inexcusable dearth of experience will be the president. Doublethink.

What is a threat about Palin is not her inexperience, it's that her policies, ignorance, and will to corruption are essentially Bush on steroids. And the fact that McCain picked her is just one more piece on the pile of evidence that he has abandoned whatever principles he may ever have had, if any.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Eskarel]

The US political system does not allow you to vote for a third party.

If you vote for a third party, you may as well vote for whichever of the two candidates you hate the most because that's what you're doing.

Voting for a third party does not, never has, and never will, send a message. The two major parties are well aware of what the outliers in their party want. They don't care. Democratic candidates are not going to move further left, the Republicans are not going to move any further right, no matter if you vote for a Pat Buchanan or a Ralph Nader.

They're not going to do this because catering to the lunatic fringe loses you the middle which is where elections are determined. No one gives a rats if you vote for a lunatic fringe party because catering more towards your ideology would lose them the election faster than losing your vote.

As a side note, before you start throwing around the word "Socialism", learn what it means. By any global standard, Obama is not even remotely socialist. He believes in things like universal health care, but that's not socialism, it's just universal health care. If you don't agree with universal health care say you disagree with it, but don't try to claim that it's socialist and bury it under the "I hate the commies" pile.

You might also want to consider that the current Republican Administration currently owns controlling shares in the largest insurance company in the country, as well as two major investment bankers.

The "free market" ideals of the current government have forced them to take a more "socialist" control of the economy than any previous government in US history, just to fix up their mistakes.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[CTachyon]

I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.

See, now, when I look at the stages of pregnancy, I see fertilization as "large cell plus tiny wannabe-cell equals large cell", not some sort of dramatic change worthy of special treatment... much less a supernatural event where a hidden deity sneaks a soul in, as claimed by the religious folks. This view is validated by the fact that a single fertilization can readily lead to two (or hypothetically more) resulting embryos, resulting in multiple unique individuals with identical DNA. This tells me that DNA is not really central to what it means to be an individual, unique person. Therefore, the moment when two haploid genomes join into a diploid genome isn't a particularly good moment to start saying that a cell has become a person.

Instead, I ask myself the question: what makes a person a person? And my answer is that a person (1) reacts to the surrounding environment; (2) remembers the past, learns from it, and makes predictions from it; and (3) has a personality, which seems to be a second-order effect of established memory plus genetic biases. (Yes, by this standard, many animals count as "persons". I'm not terribly concerned about that: in this context of "person", I'm concerned with how to treat a person ethically, and it's clear that animals with these traits must also be treated ethically.) And it's obvious to me that, while some of these things start while the fetus is in the womb — certainly the first, and the beginnings of the second — they definitely don't start until after the embryo has become a fetus, and based on how the brain works they definitely don't start prior to the formation of the human-style frontal cortex around weeks 22-26.

As a result, I don't see any moral issues whatsoever in abortion in the first trimester or the early second trimester, for the same reason I don't see moral issues in masturbation or exfoliation or hysterectomies. The bigger moral concern is the emotional well-being of the mother. Pregnancy is a big deal, after all: the choices surrounding pregnancy — abortion included — take on a very weighty importance due to their massively life-changing consequences.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[VJ42]

Obama is a socialist.

I live in the UK; I can assure you that he's actually a centrist, It's just that centre ground of US politics is so far to the right (compared to global politics), that anyone who expresses even the mildest left leaning thoughts is labeled a socialist over there. When he starts campaigning for nationalisation of major industries, then he'll be a socialist.

Re:The crossed the line this time

[Xonstantine]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say he doesn't want to vote for a socialist because he's not a socialist and doesn't believe in socialism.

Socialism doesn't work because of the moral hazard issue. The lazy get to profit off of the labor of the hard working. Sure, you lift the bottom up a little relative to everyone else, but the cost is destroying innovation and potential for growth.

If I'm going to make the same if I mail it in and work 30 hours or if I work 80 hours, guess what? I'm mailing it in...

No way to tell?

[Naughty Bob]

Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax.

Translation: Wikileaks has been down for hours.... Wonder why?

Re:No way to tell?

[LoverOfJoy]

Slashdotted record?

Re:No way to tell?

[DigitalisAkujin]

Here's a mirror:
http://secure.sunshinepress.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_account_2008

Re:No way to tell?

[DigitalisAkujin]

Ok here's the full list of Wikileaks domains:

        * http://www.wikileaks.org/
        * https://secure.wikileaks.org/
        * https://wikileaks.cx/
        * http://wikileaks.org.uk/
        * http://www.cauce.us/wiki/Wikileaks
        * https://secure.wikileaks.be/
        * https://secure.freedomsbell.org/ â" alternative name to bypass the Great Firewall of China
        * https://secure.libertypen.org/ â" alternative name to bypass the Great Firewall of China
        * https://secure.ljsf.org/ â" alternative name to bypass the Great Firewall of China
        * https://secure.sunshinepress.org/ â" alternative name to bypass the Great Firewall of China

Re:No way to tell?

[Kazoo the Clown]

Well, at least we know that someone is better at shutting down websites than Scientologists are.

Re:No way to tell?

[stinerman]

Have at

I've looked. Check Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

So far only two emails, some personal photos, a contact list and some inbox screenshots have been posted. Nothing incriminating.

Re:I've looked. Check Gawker

[slaker]

I'm fairly certain that this is legit. I'm also fairly certain that members of Anonymous are not all based in the USA and may or may not have anything to fear from the Secret Service.

However, one of the features of a Yahoo Mail account is the ability to download a backup copy of your mailbox as a single file. I believe the file format is the one used by Outlook Express, rather than the more universal .mbox format, but still, if the "hackers" didn't think to grab everything, I would be shocked.

I'd be willing to bet that someone out in internet land has a copy of Sarah Palin's whole mail spool right now.

Re:I've looked. Check Gawker

[uberotto]

As I understand it, what is in the emails isn't what's important. There have been several people accusing her of using her personal email account to conduct public business, in order to hide the emails from becoming part of the public record (sounds familiar). The catch was that the people who were supposed to be investigating this claim stated there was no proof, therefore nothing to investigate...

Now, there is proof...

What she said isn't the story, it's who she said it to.

Re:I've looked. Check Gawker

[vux984]

So far only two emails, some personal photos, a contact list and some inbox screenshots have been posted. Nothing incriminating.

Depends how you define "incriminating".

Work email goes to and from work accounts. Personal email goes to and from personal accounts. That's a policy common in corporations and in government, and is increasingly strictly adhered to the higher up the ranks you go.

As a member of public office, she is accountable to the public, and her email pertaining to her office is a matter of the public record, and subject to things like the Freedom-of-Information-Act (FOIA). Using a personal Yahoo account to conduct government business would be hugely inappropriate for a multitude of reasons; not least of which is undermines her accountability to FOIA.

In Palin's case its evident that a number of her contacts are @alaska.gov... meaning she was corresponding as 'personal palin' to other public officials using their office-accounts.

While perhaps not incriminating, it is hugely inappropriate. Either she was sending them personal messages -- which is inappropriate; she should have sent those to their personal accounts, or she was sending or receiving work related messages which is completely unacceptable.

Palin clearly didn't adhere to this separation of work and personal (hell, her "personal" account is 'gov.palin' which is itself inapprorpiate) and while I'm sure many many people are guilty of it, its still inappropriate, and most of us aren't angling to be 2nd in line to the presidency, so the scrutiny on her is warranted. It would be nice if we could unmask the other canditates personal accounts too, to have a more balanced exposee, but that's beside the point.

Re:I've looked. Check Gawker

[Anonymous Coward]

the scuttlebut on /b/ yesterday was that no, Anon did not download a backup file, and got cold feet when he realised where he was and that partyvans would be dispatched shortly. There was much crying and gnashing of teeth among /b/tards yesterday, I tell you, who were hoping for complete copies of the e-mails, and were denied.

Row row

[Shin-LaC]

Fight the power.

Re:Who?

[Free the Cowards]

I'll pardon your ignorance if you pardon my advice to just fucking google it.

Confirmed by her campaign

[benjackson520]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/group-posts-e-m.html

It has been confirmed by her campaign and Amy McCorkell, the sender of one of the emails that has been posted.

Re:Confirmed by her campaign

[LordKronos]

No...I think the summary (courtesy of uberotto) is that she lied and said she wasn't using her personal email for government business and this "proves" otherwise (assuming you don't question the validity of these email, at least part of which has already been confirmed as valid).

Re:Confirmed by her campaign

[Neoprofin]

Except that no one has read the emails. The "damning evidence" is a screenshot with a few potentially public matter subject lines. The email from Amy McCorkell mearly tells her not to let criticism get to her. Is that an email between two public officials? Yes. Is it an email of public business? Not even close.

It's often said you can't believe everything you read on the internet, you're banking on something you haven't even really read yet.

She's probably guiltier than sin, but I try to wait till something is verified before I bring out the tar and feathers, especially if your news source is Anonymous.

History in the making

[krog]

This might be the first time the Secret Service has encountered the Streisand Effect.

From what I gather...

[gasaraki]

she's the mother of a famous hockey player.

Probably Genuine

[amaupin]

Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax.

Wired has confirmed from one sender, Amy McCorkell, that the displayed message from her to Sarah Palin is genuine.

Re:Probably Genuine

[DigitalisAkujin]

Plus Gawker called a phone number in one of the emails which went to Bristol Palin's voicemail:

http://gawker.com/5051249/bristol-palins-voicemail

Re:Probably Genuine

[wellingj]

Wow... She's going to be popular with the boys now... uh... waitaminute...

Hacking?

[Gr33nNight]

Since when is it 'hacking' to guess that her email password is her zip code? You can't hack stupidity and ignorance.

Re:Hacking?

[Gr33nNight]

Yes it was. I was following the 4chan discussion on it but please don't make me go back YOU CAN'T FORCE ME OH GOD.

Hooray for women's rights!

[philspear]

Sarah Palin is proof that there is no glass ceiling for women, as long as you're not ugly, have fufilled your reproductive obligations, don't have any actual power, will be subordinate to a man, seem clueless, and hiring you will keep a black man out of the white house.

Re:Hooray for women's rights!

[Greyfox]

Have you seen what the White House does to people? It sucks their life right out of them. White House years are like dog years. I predict that if elected, McCain will die of a stress-induced heart attack within 2 years and Palin will be President.

exposure?

[quonsar]

famed for its exposure of unethical behavior by the Scientology cult

yah, 30+ years after it was known to the general public.

Encryption, maybe...

[gillbates]

This wouldn't have even been an issue if she'd used encryption.

Maybe high-profile leaks like this will help convince the public at large that encryption is beneficial, even if you aren't doing anything wrong.

Re:Who?

[Ecuador]

Duh... Famous comedian, member of the Monty Python.

Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

This is why you use official email systems

[LordKronos]

This is a really good reason why they should NOT be using their private email. Sure, using the government systems opens them up to having their corruption on record, but having it on something like Yahoo mail opens it up to something like this, potentially exposing WAY more information than that. Not that government email is unhackable, but I'd certainly expect it to be at least a little bit more secure.

What will happen in retaliation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is true, I think it's possible that Anonymous has just painted a gigantic bulls-eye on a free internet.

I am all for ferreting out corruption, but what I worry about is how many will paint this: "Terrorist Rogue Hacker attacks Vice Presidential Candidate."

What limits are there on privacy now? I hope I am wrong.

Alrighty then...

[Anonymous Coward]

HEY TOM CRUISE!!!!

If you're reading this, then I tell you that your hokey sci-fi, pseudo-religion CULT is a crock of crap.

And I also think you're a faggot weenie too.

So there.

PS: Your acting sucks too.

Re:Alrighty then...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Tom Cruise will see this the next time he logs onto his /. account. And he surely thanks you for your opinion.

Re:Alrighty then...

[philspear]

PS: Your acting sucks too.

Insult the man's beliefs, fine, they are crap, but his part in "Tropic Thunder" was hilarious.

Re:Alrighty then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Katie, welcome to the internets.

Re:Alrighty then...

[mattcasters]

Woosh.

It was a Monty Python quote ("what have the Romans done for us") from The Life of Brian. You can all hand in your geek license at the door on your way out.

Wow, no spam!

[darkvizier]

I can't believe she gets so little spam at yahoo. My yahoo account is overrun with spam, even years after I've stopped using it. She's definitely paying someone off...

Re:Wow, no spam!

[VoltCurve]

she is close enough to Russia that all the spam comes by boat.

Re:Scrutiny

[JaiWing]

Repeat after me: STATE/FEDERAL business MAY NOT use NON-STATE/NON-FEDERAL Email servers.

It is not legal, it violates records retention acts and it is unethical as well as it
keeps the business of OUR government from OUR scrutiny.
To head off the quips, yes the business of government is not normally availible to the public,
however it MUST BE MADE PUBLIC upon lawful order. If the exchanges are not on STATE/FEDERAL
servers, then the public release of it may not be possible.

Slashdotted; check the Coral Cache

[KingSkippus]

The site's either been Slashdotted, or the Secret Service has had the people who run it killed. In either case, you can see the article via the Coral Cache if you want.

Re:Not cool...

[LordKronos]

Then she shouldn't have mixed her official business (as a public servant) with her private business.

Re:First impression: not cool

[dougr650]

I would actually agree with you there, were it not for the fact that she had discussed using her Y! mail account as a way to conduct communications regarding state business that would not be archived, as the law requires. In other words, she wasn't just using it as her "personal" account to send family picnic invites and negotiate deals with wealthy Nigerians, she was using this account as a way to skirt the law and conduct official business in her capacity as governor without the accountability that the law requires.

Since she's advertising herself as a candidate with strong ethics who's trying to clean up government and get rid of backroom dealing, she clearly feels that she's not accountable to the same standard of ethics that others should be held to. This is a huge lapse in judgment that voters need to be aware of before they cast their votes.

Re:First impression: not cool

[sdnick]

Slashdot readers and posters are very big on privacy.

...unless the privacy being violated is that of some politician they don't like. The ability to download and install Linux doesn't imply the existence of any consistent ethical system.

Something or Other

[fm6]

The "something or other" suggested is conducting public business using private email. For Federal officials, that's illegal, because it amounts to hiding your paper trail. Don't know if Alaska has a similar law for State officials, but even if it doesn't, hiding her actions is not what you'd expect from the reformer Palin claims to be.

Of course, even if proven, Palin will just add these charges to her list of Things That Never Happened, like her initial support for the Bridge to Nowhere.

The ol' double standard...

[Stanislav_J]

"McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Manager Rick Davis: 'This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment'..."

When someone does this sort of hacking/eavesdropping/snooping to a government official, it's called "a shocking invasion of...privacy and a violation of law."

When the government does it to you, it's called the "Patriot Act."

Re:The ol' double standard...

[Nimey]

If a wingnut hacker had gotten into a Democrat's account, the drama queens at Fox would be all over what they dug up, spinning like mad.

Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[spineboy]

I think that I understand the reasoning of anonymous actions, in that s/he thinks Palin is doing wrong, and s/he wants to call attention to it.

This may just backfire, and generate support for Palin, thereby defeating his actions purpose. Indeed, this type of attack could even be used as a method for generating support by Palins camp.

The end is not justified by the means, and these types of attacks should not be pursued, either by the attacker, nor by the readers of such "information".

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[smilindog2000]

I respect your opinion on this issue, though I don't agree. Sarah Palin has done the exact same thing that Bush did - hide governing related communications on non-government servers. I believe this is illegal. I also think republicans have been doing this since Nixon got caught with tapes. Rather than reform their integrity, they reformed their communication systems to illegally hide their activities. Sarah Palin is scary, and Anonymous is doing us a favor. Only the light of scrutiny will reform our government.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[phanboy_iv]

And I'll wager Democrats have been doing it for just as long.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[PortHaven]

No, it's more of the fact that they have view points that are different than Sarah Palins. And therefore targeted here.

If they really were trying to prove corruption they'd have surely hacked the other candidates as well. Especially McCain and Biden who have been in Congress long enough to have a thousand times what either Palin or Obama would have.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Wingnut64]

If they really were trying to prove corruption they'd have surely hacked the other candidates as well.

It's also possible that their 'hacking skills' don't go too far beyond guessing a password and the other candidates aren't stupid enough to use a Yahoo account for official government correspondence.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[LaskoVortex]

And I'll wager Democrats have been doing it for just as long.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[cheater512]

In a election campaign, a trial isnt required to do damage.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[EaglemanBSA]

A state court recently upheld evidence in a case (I can't remember exactly when it was on Slashdot, but within the last month) in which a man stole information from a server and introduced it as evidence. If that's not enough legal precedent, then maybe a better route is to compare such a gathering of data to what happens to citizens by the NSA every day?

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Pantero Blanco]

You thought wrong.

Evidence seized illegally by law enforcement is inadmissible, unless it can be proven that they certainly would have come across it anyhow.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[phanboy_iv]

Of course not. But the OP's tone indicated he considered this a vice particular to Republicans, which is facile, of course.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[smilindog2000]

Yes, I agree (I am OP). Democrats are also to blame, like that guy with $200K cash in his freezer who just got re-elected... if not in jail, he should certainly be kicked out of the party. However, this specific need for secret communication seems particularly republican, and I feel it is due to Nixon getting caught.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[frieko]

You're overthinking Anonymous. It's a group of people whose only collective goal is epic lulz. It's like saying "the secret terrorist organization Every Slashdot Troll hacked Palin's email. Will this truly forward Every Slashdot Troll's agenda???" Um, well, technically yes, because it was lulzworthy.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[beav007]

No, no it isn't. phanboy_iv has explicitly stated that he/she(/it?) will place that wager. What you are seeing is first-hand - a direct quote.

If that had actually said "Democrats have been doing it for just as long", then yes, citation would have been needed.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[LaskoVortex]

If they really were trying to prove corruption they'd have surely hacked the other candidates as well.

I finally found these emails on the web. They are a bunch of goody-goody feel good mush. There was nothing incriminating there, just some stuff that looked like an obvious hoax by a Palin supporter. That you are writing to an official doesn't mean it's official business. It's an easy "defense" if anyone tries to make a case of the emails. Plus she gets the privilege of claiming she was victimized without having anything really compromising or incriminating being released. Read the prose, it's made to give her a particular appearance and you don't see anything incriminating. Also look at the supposed text by the person from Anonymous. They use proper capitalization everywhere except for the group the supposedly represent. Why no capital A? Its Always a Capital A. But this person screws it up twice in the same text? They weren't in a hurry, they just didn't fake it correctly.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[ngworekara]

The story here for people that are missing it: This is evidence of a private account to circumvent Alaska's record retention laws. This is exactly like what was done in the White House to hide evidence of political firings in the justice dept. This is something like her 8th well publicized crime/bending of the law/lie, amusingly enough, not the first one tied to misdeeds of the kind that got so many thrown out of congress just two short years ago. . No one will care anyway. There is a quiet and unspoken truth to Republican success. America is a-ok with being criminally complicit, as long as they see a profit. We are happily being run by the mafia. Have fun with President Palin.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[eh2o]

Yes, its the Alaska Public Records Act.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[DriedClexler]

What's worse, I found some strong evidence that phanboy_iv won't actually place any such wager. zomg!

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Plekto]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/17/palins_yahoo_account_hacked.html

This is from the Washington Post

"Among the e-mails released as part of the records request in June were several from Frye asking a state official whether private e-mail accounts and messages sent to BlackBerry devices are immune to subpoena, then reporting the answer to the governor and her husband, Todd, who also uses a Yahoo! mail address."

She's screwed. She's using her personal address to ask if here blackberry account can't be subponea'd. It looks pretty conclusive to me that she was doing or planning to do bad things with her personal accounts to keep the courts from getting ahold of it easily. So says the Washington Post, and well, that's about as good as it gets.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Arkham]

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

But 4 lefts do.

Sadly, that's incorrect. 4 lefts makes you go straight. Try three next time :)

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[NotBornYesterday]

Anonymous is not doing us a favor by hacking Palin's email. First, anyone concerned with privacy rights should be alarmed not just by the intrusion, but by the 'it's okay, we did it for a good reason' defense. I would think that a group known as Anonymous would get that. Second, Scientology gets the benefit of watching/gloating as the Secret Service does all the heavy lifting in uncovering these guys. I'm pretty sure that when the Feds are done with these guys, the one thing they won't be is anonymous.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[QuickSilver_999]

She's screwed. She's using her personal address to ask if here blackberry account can't be subponea'd.

Or she's trying to make sure that her lovey-dovey notes to hubby don't get plastered all over the news media when the Obama-ites on the "impartial" committee "investigating" troopergate subpoena everything then leak it all to the press. I had similar questions at a job I once worked at. I sent a similar message from a home email to one of the partners of the firm, who happened to be a lawyer. I was not planning to do anything illegal, but I did want to make sure that if anything ever happened, my personal and private emails would not be grabbed. When he told me it was a possibility I began using PGP to encrypt anything really personal and private.

I think that it's far more possible the democrats, wanting to make a mountain out of this molehill, are pushing this big time. It will backfire I do believe, since the same hacked email account doesn't appear to actually have any real business work. Of course, that doesn't matter to people that want to believe the worst of someone. A hacked Obama account without any emails to Ayers or Rezko wouldn't stop me from believing the he had regular email contact with known terrorists and criminals. But at least I recognize that I feel that way because of my own predisposition to dislike socialist elitists who want to keep me from ever experiencing the American Dream that they have gotten to live.

So you believe everything in the Wash Post? Well, the National Enquirer says Elvis was spotted in a KFC in Alabama! I'd better believe that too! Believe 1/2 of what you hear and 1/8th of what you read. And always remember that these days so called "impartial" reporters are anything but. And that goes for both sides of the spectrum.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Lobster Quadrille]

There is no law against her having and using a personal Yahoo account. However, when she is conducting official business, as the head of the state of Alaska, transparency is required.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Mr Z]

I turn left 157 degrees each time. GP is an insensitive clod.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[inKubus]

She's not a private citizen, she's a public person in a public position. By conducting work business on the Yahoo account, it basically became the State of Alaska's email address, NOT Sarah Palin's. So, while it's illegal to break into email, that information should be considered public records anyway. It was her mistake, and someone busted her. Maybe they "hacked" or whatever, but who cares? It was a good hack because it broke hidden public records out. Justice is served. Information wants to be free. This is way bigger than the individual now. He may perish for hacking, but the information will live on forever, and Justice will be served to Palin for breaking the Public Records laws.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Fallen Seraph]

You seem to misunderstand... Anonymous isn't 1 person, it's "they". There were at least 50 people in and out of her email account the night it was hacked... I'm tempted to compare her yahoo account to her daughter, but I'll refrain from jokes in such poor taste.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Hal_Porter]

Or any evidence.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[Hal_Porter]

Anonymous is not doing us a favor by hacking Palin's email. First, anyone concerned with privacy rights should be alarmed not just by the intrusion, but by the 'it's okay, we did it for a good reason' defense. I would think that a group known as Anonymous would get that.

Are you kidding? These are the guys that torment teenagers with webcams until they cry, or post flashing gifs on forums for epileptics. They're doing for the lulz, i.e. to create chaos and then laugh at it. People that mention ethics get denounced as 'moralfags'.

Seriously, spend some time on 4chan's /b/ board for a while and you'll realise who silly what you just said is.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[meringuoid]

Second, Scientology gets the benefit of watching/gloating as the Secret Service does all the heavy lifting in uncovering these guys. I'm pretty sure that when the Feds are done with these guys, the one thing they won't be is anonymous.

You think they're the same people? Anonymous isn't an organisation. It's a meme complex, nothing more. It's a collective term used for the posters on a variety of independent imageboards sharing a common culture of in-jokes, comic references, stock trolls and memes. Some Anons protest scifags; others crack email accounts; others go on Habbo Hotel dressed as Samuel L. Jackson and announce that the pool's closed; others grief furries on Second Life; others go to online memorials for teen suicides and declare the dead kid an hero. Although actually, it's usually ebaumsworld doing that stuff and not Anonymous at all.

It's actually very unlikely that the Anonymous we're dealing with here have anything to do with the Scientology campaign. That's mostly moved off the chans to its own dedicated forums now. Most of the sentiment among the Anonymous mainstream is that protestfags are part of the cancer that is killing /b/.

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[GSloop]

Clinton won the Democratic popular vote, but higher-ups disenfranchised her supporters anyway

Oh, get off it.

Sheesh. The rules for the primaries don't have any frigging thing to do with popular vote.

They have everything to do with delegates.

It's not like Clinton was hoodwinked into thinking she needed to win the popular vote and just stumbled onto the fact that she had to win delegates. She knew from the start.

She talked up how she'd win the delegates - at least she did until she was losing on the race for delegates. Then she (and STOOPID people like you) began harping on the "popular vote."

BO won and HRC lost on the rules of the contest - delegates. If the race had been on popular vote, you would have to assume that all the candidates would run their races differently. (And you can be sure they would have done so.)

Since the primaries are about the candidates meeting the voters and vice-versa, a system that doesn't simply focus on popular vote is probably better. (It tends to get the candidates out to less population dense areas and meet with more people - rather than blasting only at large groups of people...)

Now, if you want to complain that the delegate system currently in place is a poor system, you'd probably get me to agree with you.

BUT! Hillary most certainly didn't get screwed by the party ignoring the "popular vote," That's just the sound of a loser reaching for another set of rules that favors them, when they're losing by the rules they agreed to play by.

And people who do that - they're not only losing, they ARE losers.

-Greg

P.S. And even if you want to play a loser argument...exactly how do you count popular vote in caucus states? Hmmm. Just another huge, gaping, enormous hole in your inane, bullshit postulation that "Clinton won the Democratic popular vote, but higher-ups disenfranchised her supporters anyway"

And I'd bet you are REALLY PISSED that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, and the WHOLE FRIGGING NATION was disenfranchised. Right?

Sheesh!

Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail

[CTachyon]

Sadly, that's incorrect. 4 lefts makes you go straight. Try three next time :)

Nah, I tried that years ago, and I'm still gay.

Bah-dum-bum.

Re:Who?

[lgw]

I'll pardon your ignorance if you pardon my advice to just fucking google it.

Now that's just rude! The least you could do was provide a link.

Re:First impression: not cool

[blind biker]

This is what I don't get, after reading about half of the posts in this thread: About 95% of the posts don't mention the right to privacy, at all. But monitoring e-mail traffic by secret service in order to catch terrorists or prevent possible terrorist attacks, is frown upon by the great majority of Slashdotters.

Ugh...

[Sitnalta]

I don't like Palin or the entire McCain campaign in the least... but how is this even remotely acceptable? We cry and bitch and moan about warrantless government wiretapping, yet when some group of a-holes breaks into an elected official's personal email account and posts screenshots on the web, we see it as just some more dirt on a candidate. The best word that describes that is "despicable."

Mark this as flamebait all you want, but people running for public office have constitutional rights too. I've always considered Anonymous a bit shady in their dealings, and this justs seals the deal.

Re:Ugh...

[rantingkitten]

I was listening to Sean Hannity blathering on his radio show this afternoon about this topic and had the same thought, but somewhat inverted. He was filled with self-righteous indignation about the immorality of breaching someone's privacy like this, making all sorts of comparisions to listening in on people's phone conversations, checking their mail, etc. Of course, Hannity and his ilk lack the self-reflection to realise they're the same ones who just love warrantless wiretaps, pen registers, sneak-and-peek maneuvers, things like Carnivore and Echelon, and all the other invasions of privacy the government has been heaping on the American public in the past few years.

Apparently it's okay to do it to the masses because it might catch THE TERRORISTS OMG!, but when it happens to a candidate they like, suddenly it's the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

Personally I agree that privacy is important and Palin shouldn't have been put through this, but that's because I'm against that sort of invasion on principle, and I'm not willing to pick and choose who it's okay for and who it isn't.

Too much attention to entertainers

[mi]

Try telling Tom Cruise that Scientology is a crock. I'd imagine he'd scream incoherently at the top of his lungs, jump up and down then rip your face off.

Matt Damon or Lindsey Lohan would do the same to you, if you tell them, Obama is a crock... With Barbara Streisand singing a notch lauder to drown your screams...

Seriously, there is a good reason, Romans considered entertainers to be among the lowest class of citizens — above only prostitutes... They weren't even allowed to serve in the regular army units.

Re:Too much attention to entertainers

[Waffle Iron]

Yeah, that guy wanted a smaller, more efficient government.

And after 8 years, we were left with a bigger government, much more deeply in debt. But thanks to his impeccable acting skills, he convinced most people that the opposite had happened.

Re:Too much attention to entertainers

[cayenne8]

"Seriously, do you want the US to behave like the Roman Empire?"

And just what have the Romans done for us?

The aqueduct.

Reg: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true.

Masked Activist: And the sanitation!

Stan: Oh yes... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.

Reg: All right, I'll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done...

Matthias: And the roads...

Reg: (sharply) Well yes obviously the roads... the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads...

Another Masked Activist: Irrigation...

Other Masked Voices: Medicine... Education... Health...

Reg: Yes... all right, fair enough...

Activist Near Front: And the wine...

Omnes: Oh yes! True!

Francis: Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if the Romans left, Reg.

Masked Activist at Back: Public baths!

Stan: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now.

Francis: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order... (general nodding)... let's face it, they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

(more general murmurs of agreement)

Reg: All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

Xerxes: Brought peace!

Reg: (very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh... (scornfully) Peace, yes... shut up!

Bloody Romans....

Re:Too much attention to entertainers

[jandersen]

The two distinguishing features of the Romans were that they were clever engineers and better at organising soldiers. They were not so much a superior civilization that conquered the barbarians by historic necessity, as a bunch of barbarians themselves, who had harvested the achievements of the Greeks, Egyptians, Persians etc etc. They just had a stronger military at a time when their neighbors didn't, and they got to write the history books; they, and later the Christian church, who in many ways were their heirs.

All those inventions you mention were not theirs.

Aqueducts: just canals on stilts, known and used for thousands of years in arid regions.

Sanitation: Known and used all over the world long before the Romans - have you ever heard of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands? Occupied from 3100 BC and with advanced sewer system.

Roads: You are joking, right? Paved roads have been found everywhere there were people.

Medicine: the Greeks, Egyptians etc.

Education: organized schools are as old as human society, the idea of intellectual study for its own sake was invented by the Greeks, among others, and so on.

Health: in which sense? Health care? Do you think other cultures didn't take care of their sick?

Wine: Just read your Bible, mate. If we are to believe the Christians it was written well before the Romans and it mentions wine.

Public baths: Well, yes, obviously nobody ever washed before. Makes you wonder what Jesus smelled like.

Public order: There was a sort of police force in Rome itself, sort of, -ish: the quaestors. All four of them. I suspect the public order mostly just kept itself like in every other human society in the world. It is not as if it something the government has to force on people, normally.

Peace: Nonsense, and in plain contradiction of the known facts. The Roman empire existed by constantly waging war and perished when they could no longer keep it up. The so-called Pax Romana existed not because the Romans were there, but despite. You see, people generally just want to get on with their lives, they don't want to fight at every opportunity. And if the tribes of Gaul and elsewehere stopped fighting each other it was because they united against a common enemy, even after the occupation.

In fact the Roman Empire only stands out as a high point of civilization when you compare with the state of the Roman Empire after it crumbled.

Re:Too much attention to entertainers

[shutdown -p now]

On the whole, you miss the point. Yes, Romans were not great innovators; but they had put all the innovations that, say, the Greek have come up with before, to widespread use throughout their entire empire, including the "barbarian" regions. The comparison is not Romans vs everyone else - it's Romans vs the "barbarian" Germanic and Celtic tribes, and specifically in the age where the Empire was at its peak.

Aqueducts: just canals on stilts, known and used for thousands of years in arid regions.

While generally true, Roman aqueducts were a step up in the engineering sense, and their ubiquity across the Empire was unmatched. Romans also used them not just for irrigation, but for water supply of cities.

Sanitation: Known and used all over the world long before the Romans - have you ever heard of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands? Occupied from 3100 BC and with advanced sewer system.

It's one thing to have an isolated sewer-like system in a single specific place. It's another to establish it as a standard thing expected to be present in all major cities of the empire. And, again, engineering.

Roads: You are joking, right? Paved roads have been found everywhere there were people.

The difference is, again, ubiquity and quality. Romans built roads everywhere, not just in the cities proper; and their roads were so good that a lot of them lasted to our time.

Peace: Nonsense, and in plain contradiction of the known facts. The Roman empire existed by constantly waging war and perished when they could no longer keep it up.

It waged war on its borders. Pax Romana, by definition, is the condition that was within those borders.

The so-called Pax Romana existed not because the Romans were there, but despite. You see, people generally just want to get on with their lives, they don't want to fight at every opportunity.

A quick look at the list of all-out wars between various Germanic tribes during their migration age is all that it takes to disprove it. What Romans did was conquered them once and for all, and ensured that no fighting took place within their borders. It's hard to ask for anything beyond that, really.

In Florida she would go to jail...

[microTodd]

Can't get to the wikileaks site, but if the summary is correct, then this is interesting because in Florida, with the Sunshine Law, this could result in her prosecution. In Florida you cannot conduct, or even discuss, government business in private.

http://www.fsne.org/sunshine2005/news/history/index.shtml

For example, W. D. Childers went to jail for discussing government business in private.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/08/State/Ex_Florida_Senate_pre.shtml

Not sure if Alaska has something similar.

A generation gap...

[Propagandhi]

1) Yahoo e-mail account
2) Password was her zip code
3) Prominent public figure
4) No attempt to disguise her identity in the user name

Are the over 30 year olds really that stupid? This is stuff I'd expect from my grandmother, not a governor/VP candidate.

The sad thing is the media isn't going to note that her behavior was unsafe. Instead it will be the dirty hacker's fault, nevermind that the account has likely been "hacked" several times. Even if it hasn't it sure as hell would be if this info wasn't made public and the account was shut down.

It will really twist my nuts if:

1) Everything in the account becomes a inadmissible when an investigation of the legality of the account is conducted.

2) The issue of the McCain/Palin ticket's technological illiteracy is not brought up. Maintaining the security of your e-mail account is something every user has to be able to do, and that includes using a real password. And, no, I don't think Biden's a competant human either, but the top of that ticket hasn't really given me reason to worry, yet...

Fuck, people are stupid. But nevermind that, it's those damn tricky kids... so crafty these days!

Who did?

[jcr]

It's entirely likely that some scientologit did this and claimed that "anonymous" was behind it. Google for "operation freakout" for another example of the criminal nut-cult framing an innocent party for a crime.

-jcr

Re:Who did?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Well then, let me be the first to say fuck you for condoning a crime.

What's the bigger crime - abusing the system to avoid accountability to the public, or abusing the system to bring the prior to account from the public?

No privacy rights here

[unity100]

excuse me, but she lost her privacy rights on that account right at the moment she sent the first government related email, or replied to a government related email.

the fact that we weren't in the know in regard to her violation of law, her illegal act before the hacking, doesnt make her any more right about the matter. a crime is being committed, you just dont have proof.

its like someone filming a gang operation and publishing it, and then gang coming up and claiming that their privacy rights were violated.

Re:No privacy rights here

[unity100]

I guess its OK to warrrantless wiretap and watch emails then because they could involve illegal activity?

its already ok to warrantless wiretap and watch emails. HER party legislated it. her party was using it against anyone not from her party. people used it against her. observe the irony.

More to the point, what would happen if nothing had been found? The difference between your analogy and what actually happened was, filming an event in progress (assuming its in a public space) is not a breach of privacy. This is more like breaking into someones house, with, based on the usual goings on /b/, vandalising the inside of said house, and then happening to come across evidence of misdoing. It might have been there, but that doesn't make what you did right.

privacy cant, and shouldnt be allowed to be used for shielding illegal activities. imagine a citizen filming someone suspicious doing something in his backyard. if the filming shows stuff of a criminal nature, it is evidence, discovery. noone can claim privacy rights and make the evidence illegitimate. at least, they shouldnt be able to do. it would be an abuse of rights and exploitation of law. if, there is nothing wrong in the film, then it is indeed a violation of privacy.

The worst bit is based on the your opinions on other issues I quickly browsed, you seem to be willing to throw away your moral standpoint in an instant. You post negatively about border checks of laptops and the Bavarian trojan thing, yet when it happens to this politician its suddenly OK? While I agree that something untoward may have occurred here, if we don't respect the principles of our common law justice system in our most scrutinised cases (corruption in high office), what hope does the man on the street have?

see, its like this. if you were living in 1938, and happened to discover evidence that nazis were planning mass murders of ethnic groups, would it be immoral to use that evidence and act upon it ? OR, you had 'illegally' uncovered evidence that nazis were behind the reichstag burning ?

there are some stuff in the world that has much more aspect than an individual's privacy rights. this woman is no ordinary bavarian citizen. she is poised (by any chance) to become vp of the country with most powerful army in the world, and god forbid, she may be president in 1-2 years due to the other biting the dust out of old age. risks are paranormally high. she is a religious nutjob, she may start a world war 3, in which all of the rights, legalese and modern values of life are sure to be trampled to dust, during and after.

no. while poised to a position like this, she doesnt have similar rights as a citizen. sorry. cant let her. she has to pass a lot of tests, be them legal, or illegal, to prove that she is not dangerous. and up to this point, she has proven to be someone who tramples rule of law, and ignores citizens' rights at whim. she is just one person, and when her rights are ignored, just one person's rights will be ignored. but she is in office. she already ignored the rights of 700.000 alaskans, and already (as of today) defied a subpoena from a legitimate court of law. and if she takes a higher office, she has the possibility of trampling rights of not only 300 million americans, but also many other people of this world.

no she doesnt have any rights.

How they did it - it was the "Tinkerbell hack"

[kroyd]

From the file "protip.txt" in the rapidshare archive:

account recognizes
b-day 2/11/64
ZIP code 99687
for password change.

The zip code is of course that of Wasilla, Alaska.

It would seem that the republican VP candidate is at least twice as security aware as Paris Hilton. Paris' had just one security question, the name of her dog (Tinkerbell), while Palin had two extremely obvious security questions.

Of course, two times "nothing much" is not a lot at all..

None of this would have been a problem if ...

[Grendol]

They had nominated Michael Palin instead!

Secret Service, No. USAF... yes.

[maz2331]

Outside of the US, there is a non-zero possibility that the issue will be handled by a stealth plane dropping a bomb on a house.

It's her fault, really

[TheMCP]

And thus, by conducting state business on an outside, cheapo email account instead of the state-provided one she was supposed to use, Sarah Palin has exposed state business data to hacking, public exposure in potentially inappropriate ways, and corruption of data.

Shame on her!

Re:i dont get it

[samkass]

I can count five candidates without even looking them up, not to mention write-ins.

The US electoral system, with winner-takes-all contests and single votes, is designed as a two-party system. Any third party that does not drop out and endorse one of the existing candidates (generally in exchange for concessions on their favorite issues) takes votes away from the candidate that most closely represents their views. Thus, third party candidates generally end up hurting their causes in exchange for personal gratification.

So the parent poster was mostly right: you have 3 choices. 1. Obama, 2. McCain, 3. don't vote/vote for third party/otherwise throw vote away (all equivalent).

Scientology setup?

[elrous0]

Am I the only one who thinks this stinks of a Scientology setup? They've been known pose as their enemies and send fake threats to government officials before. They might not be above hacking Palin's email account and trying to pin it on 4chan and Wikileaks.

Clear Evidence of Government us of Personal Email

[Punchinello]

Here is a small sample of the email messages related to governemnt business. I like the last one about a confidential ethics matter:

Ruaro, Randall P (GOV) Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax Thu, 8/28/08 12KB Read

Ruaro, Randall P (GOV) FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues Tue, 8/19/08 11KB Read

Ruaro, Randall P (GOV) Court of Appeals Nominations Sat, 8/16/08 11KB Read

Nizich, Michael A (GOV) another records request Fri, 8/15/08 5KB Read

Nizich, Michael A (GOV) FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter Thu, 8/7/08 5KB Read

Posting near the top....

[ptbarnett]

There's a posting here from someone that observed the entire episode:

The story behind the Palin e-mail hacking

Pre-emptive warning: it's a partisan blog, but the explanation is quoted in full.

Short version:

• After Palin's email addresses were publicized, the account was locked by all the people trying to login.
• Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".
• He looked through all the emails, was disappointed that he couldn't find anything incriminating.
• Announced it on /b/
• Someone else reading /b/ changed the password and notified a friend of Palin.
• The account has since been deleted.

The original cracker attributed his /b/ posting to another yahoo.com address. He claims to have done all this through a single proxy, but admits that he is a bit scared of the FBI at the moment.

Re:Posting near the top....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe ANYTHING on /b/ you have no idea what that board is about.

That includes the person that thinks they know what happened.

No facts, no truth.

Re:Posting near the top....

[Walkingshark]

Um, first of all if you want to know the truth, ask Michelle Malkin what it is and then believe the exact opposite. Thats her super power. Second, check this excerpt out from the article:

Palin has come under fire for using private e-mail accounts to conduct state business. Critics allege that she uses the account to get around public records laws, as the Bush administration has also been charged with doing.

An index of the e-mails in her inbox, which includes sender, subject line and date sent, indicates that Palin received numerous e-mails from her aides in the governor's office, some of which could be work-related.

An e-mail from her press secretary, Meghan Stapleton, indicates the message is about the "Motor Fuel Tax Suspension".

The subject line of an e-mail from Randall Ruaro, her deputy chief of staff reads, "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger." Another one from Ruaro says, "Please approve" and another one is about "Court of Appeals Nominations."

Other e-mails from Ruaro indicate they're about employee and budget issues for the DPS. DPS is how Alaska refers to its Department of Public Safety.

Palin's chief of staff, Michael Nizich, sent her an e-mail August 22 with the subject line, "Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans." The subject line of another e-mail from Nizich reads "CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter."

E-mails from the governor's scheduler, Janice Mason, indicate that they're about Palin's schedule for the week of August 10.

Re:Posting near the top....

[Spazmania]

Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".

What's with that anyway? Sites insist on a long gobbledygook password (God forbid we use something that doesn't have digits and capital letters) and then let us change the password by typing in something where a list of 100 covers about 99% of the answers. Just how stupid are these supposed security experts?

Re:Posting near the top....

[cayenne8]

"Um, first of all if you want to know the truth, ask Michelle Malkin what it is and then believe the exact opposite. Thats her super power...."

Well, in her defense....she is kinda hot looking....

Re:Posting near the top....

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I've been watching this since it started, I think a bit of clarification is in order.

The guy who originally cracked the account immediately went online and started telling everyone about it, giving them all the info to get in.

Someone else [referred to as a 'white knight'] decided to change the password and then sent an email to Palin's daughter letting her know what happened, the email he sent included the new password so she could log in. He posted a screenshot of this email [WITH the password in it!] and everyone started trying to log in again trying to change the password themselves.

This triggered Yahoo's automatic security and the account was shut down. Eventually it was taken down entirely.

One thing I have to say is that I wish the original person who had cracked the account had actually saved everything onto his hard drive and uploaded it to rapidshare before divulging the information. We had a huge opportunity to get all sorts of juicy info on Palin and it was thrown away by idiots, who only took a couple screenshots to 'prove' anything.

And yes, I do realize that this is a gross invasion of privacy, but you know what, I honestly don't care. The government's been spying on us through illegal wiretaps, it's nice to see the tables get turned for once. Also, using a yahoo account for government business!? It was asking for trouble.

Doesn't add up ...

[PGreg]

As a Canadian I have almost zero interest in this but I do need to ask: "Has anyone looked at the domain affixed to the the supposed Sean Parnell email?" The domain is not owned by the state of Alaska but by a media outlet in California. Emails that come from government sources usually have the core state domain: in this case "ak.us" I dunno about anyone else here but it just doesn't seem to add up. In this case I would have to call foul. There really isn't enough evidence. IF Palin was actually using this email address for business there would be a lot more traffic in the account. Funny enough almost all of the email subjects say "Hello". Unless somebody is sending me spam I can't remember the last time I received an email with the subject line "Hello"

Fuck yes!

[SatanicPuppy]

I want the person with their finger on the button to think that they're going to murder billions, not send them all to happy fluffy fucking cloud world.

POTUS is no job for someone with a world view that's more conservative than the one espoused by the Catholic church.

wikileaks down - files at cryptome

[e**(i pi)-1]

http://cryptome.org/palin-email.zip

Password recovery questions

[Charles Dodgeson]

Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".

Can someone give me the rationale for those password recovery mechanism that are usually far weaker than the passwords themselves? They seem like such a blatantly bad idea, that I must be missing something in failing to understand why they exist at all

Re:Password recovery questions

[symbolset]

Can someone give me the rationale for those password recovery mechanism that are usually far weaker than the passwords themselves?

They're not. Of course I've changed it since, but yesterday my answer to "Where did you meet your spouse" was "At the intersection of Beta Sirius and EO5F4KNwSfIWsTv94VyXSCRXbRrOeUzcAOozDUpeYRHFmmKJbRImqt5XPr5lDZ1"

Re:Password recovery questions

[Charles Dodgeson]

Of course I've changed it since, but yesterday my answer to "Where did you meet your spouse" was "At the intersection of Beta Sirius and EO5F4KNwSfIWsTv94VyXSCRXbRrOeUzcAOozDUpeYRHFmmKJbRImqt5XPr5lDZ1"

What a coincidence. That's where I met mine, too.

Re:Password recovery questions

[straponego]

That's the combination to my luggage!

Re:Password recovery questions

[raju1kabir]

Married all these years, and only today you discover that you both sneak off and read Slashdot.

Re:Password recovery questions

[Critical Facilities]

Makes me wonder if they both like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain.

Ha! Insightful Python!!!

[Mjlner]

I love it! A whole post, consisting of nothing but a long Python quote, gets modded "5, Insightful". I love it!!!!

And all these years people thought I was just trying to be funny!

Re:Ha! Insightful Python!!!

[pimpimpim]

Just for fun, try the exact same post in a topic about Bill Gates and Microsoft, see what response you get ;)

Haha

[someone1234]

Then nothing has been violated. We just got the transparency!

Re:Too much attention to detail

[mini_razor]

Lighten up, "have you ever heard of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands? Occupied from 3100 BC and with advanced sewer system." No, I haven't and doubt many others have either, and as much as that information will help me sleep better at night knowing all those people could crap hygienically I think next time you watch a film you should maybe not analyse every detail to extremes. Next you will be telling us that Brian wasn't the messiah just a very naughty boy.

Re:You need to watch Magnolia

[coastwalker]

Never mind his acting ability or lack thereof, he is a member of a pseudo criminal pyramid selling cult and legitimizes its existence by his membership.

Now if he switched to supporting the Freezone I might have more time for him but he is a figurehead for a vile cult and should be called out as a nasty piece of work.