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Palin Email Hacker Found
mortonda writes to tell us that the person responsible for breaching Sarah Palin's private email account has been found. We discussed the breach last Wednesday, shortly before the hacker, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student, posted a message detailing his methods. Wired has a story examining the potential legal consequences for the hacker.
If you have followed the story, he didn't guess the password. He used publicly available information to fool Yahoo's password recovery tool to give it up.
As simple as it may sound, it is a bit more involved than 'guessing' a password.
Forum account? 4chan doesn't have 'accounts' to be compromised. And tripcodes don't give any user information, just verifiers the username. The only identifiable info on 4chan would be the IP.
He put a name he uses elsewhere in the name field. That name was then connected to an email account.
Like the GOP staff that used an exploit to read their oppositions email? Hmm, there were no legal consequences in that case. Maybe there should have been? Report Finds Republican Aides Spied On Democrats http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E0D7103FF936A35750C0A9629C8B63
Actually she was using her yahoo email accounts to conduct state business.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
What I've seen here is that Palin properly followed the demarcation line between "official business" which is done via official state systems, and "private communications" which may NOT be done via state systems.
Then you've seen only what you've wanted to see. Palin thoughout her time in office has consistently blurred the official with the personal.
For starters, if she wished to keep the line clearly marked, she should have chosen an email handle other than gov.sarah.
Then there's this from the New York Times:
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a "personal device" like a BlackBerry "would be confidential and not subject to subpoena."
Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account "when there was significant state business."
On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin's state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: "Frank, this is not the governor's personal account."
Mr. Bailey responded: "Whoops~!"
Whoops, indeed. I wouldn't consider this a distraction from the issues, especially given the Bush Administration's record. I find it among the scariest aspects of her prospective election.
The Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?pagewanted=all
Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
That's actually not true. If you take the time to look at the information posted on wikileaks, you'll notice a number of emails have titles such as "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax", "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", "Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", "Court of Appeals Nominations", "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter". Those definitely sound like official state business, although it's impossible to know now that the account has been deleted.
As for the lack of any sort of incriminating information, what does that prove? It's not an official email account. There's no requirement that the information is archived; if any of the emails did contain information that would provide evidence of wrongdoing, Palin can simply delete them at any time. That's the issue: Palin promised transparency in government, but she's done the opposite, and has made herself unaccountable for her actions as Governor.
For the complete list of emails, see: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008i
Ever heard of Hans-Martin Tillack? His office was raided and his equipment seized by Belgian police because he had the audacity to protect a whistle-blower in a fraud case. He eventually got compensation, but as far as I'm aware he hasn't re-gained his possessions. I would bet money on the whistle-blower having been sacked by now. The whole sorry saga is here. In the mean time the accounts have not been signed off for the thirteenth year running (the Tories are reporting a fourteenth).
I hate it when we Europeans pretend to be so vastly superior to those ghastly Americans out of sheer ignorance.
p.s. I am a Europhile, I just don't think this kind of thing should be covered up out of misguided solidarity with the European Project.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Sorry, that's just not true.
Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.
Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.
He is not right:
1. U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officerswho do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous HerÂitage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonÂstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.
2. Members of the all-volunteer military are sigÂnificantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 perÂcent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) proÂgram, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoodsâ"a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
3. American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted perÂsonnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18â"24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelorâ(TM)s degree.
4. Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of SouthÂern military tradition.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda08-05.cfm
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra