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Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted
doomsdaywire writes "A University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Memphis legislator has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail. [...] If convicted, [David C.] Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. A trial date has not been set."
When this whole thing came out, I learned that Sarah Palin was illegally using personal email accounts for business email, supposedly to avoid leaving the electronic trail. THAT was eye opening.
The only reason this is even news is because of the target. If there's no government communication on the account, why are the FBI and Secret Service involved?
How many times a day do bitter exs break into each others accounts? Nothing ever comes of those incidents.
"liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
Is it just me, or does that sound a bit excessive for guessing the answers to her all-too-obvious "forgot password" questions? I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished, but no actual harm was done. How does this compare to what the punishment would be for, say, hacking into an ISP's mail server and obtaining root access? Or defacing a company's web site?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
One can only hope that he is prosecuted to the exact same extent that he would be prosecuted for hacking my Yahoo mail account.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
This is the dumbest crime ever. If he really did it, I just wish he would say, "Yeah I did it, I'm an idiot - just look at my goofy hair." Then they could cite him with a $200 fine for disorderly conduct and we could all move on with our lives. But the fact that he's pleading not guilty is going to give this whole thing legs both in the court and in the media.
Fortunately we live in a society where the rule of law prevails. If you think tampering with email is small potatoes, you just got your wake-up call.
Yes, he is.
Please stop reposting from the DailyKos.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
He's being punished for breaking the law in a high-profile way. Millions of people get away with speeding every day, yet if I were to speed past a vigil for children killed by reckless drivers, and TV cameras caught it and it became a big news story, I'd expect to get busted for it. High profile crimes are typically prosecuted in a high profile way.
As for the assertion that it made the GOP look bad, how so? There was nothing incriminating there, he even commented himself on how disappointed he was when he was unable to find something to use against her. If anything, it's a net positive for the GOP since they've been victimized by a crime from Obama's supporters without any damage being done in the long run.
They are except when it happens to a republican then its all ok. Had this been Obamas' e-mail account they would be up in arms.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
> What sucks is that he not really being punished for breaking the law,
> rather he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
That would only make sense if he actually *found* any of the kind of thing he was looking for and, thus, actually made the aforementioned persons look bad. The only people who really look bad here are Yahoo, and perhaps other sites that follow a similar practice of encouraging users to use fundamentally highly insecure "Security Questions.
At worst Palin comes off looking she's not a computer security expert (everyone who is surprised about this, raise your hand), and at best she comes off looking like she has nothing to hide. The only way she'd look bad out of this would be if she got hateful and vindictive and angry about it and started screaming for justice, but she presumably has better political sense than that, having already run a successful campaign for office at the state level.
If you do something illegal, STFU!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Seriously. I'm not saying that this guy deserves to get away scot-free, but I would suggest that perhaps the crime here is fraud, not breaking into a computer system (though all the sources I've seen are unclear as to what he's actually being charged with).
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
When the maximum penalty is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, "Guilty" is a dumb thing to say.
You can't make a deal with a prosecutor if you have zero leverage.
Remember, because of lawyers, common courtesy is dead. For example, you can no longer apologize at the scene of a car accident that's your fault, because then you might be sued.
No.
Listen, I am no lover of the McCain-Palin ticket I can assure you, so this is not a partisan slant. But I'll say this: what this dumbass did is _completely_ out of line and he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We don't allow this sort of behavior to go unpunished in a civilized society.
This stance does in no way let Palin off the hook for transgressing her government's policies on using outside email for business work, but that's not the point. Her privacy was violated in an illegal manner, and this cannot be tolerated for an instant. How can a person stand against government electronic surveillance while at the same time say the behavior of this individual is acceptable?
I've been a email server administrator for years. Privacy is extremely important to me, and I consider the attack on Palin's privacy to be an attack against us all. We should work to protect everyone's privacy, and in particular, stand up for the privacy rights of those with whom we do not agree. This is called "taking the high road."
I seem to see dozens of posters who have decided that Palin was conducting government business over her email. I thought I'd read all the email that had been made public. Did I miss some? Where is this idea coming from? Is it just a meme that everyone believes because someone asserted it? Has anyone actually SEEN an email that was "conducting government business"? If so, can you please post the content?
Welcome to the Democratic Part...I mean slashdot
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
Enough with this.
I can't believe how many blindly partisan people simply ignore the violation of her privacy.
Would you have the same attitude if you had been the victim?
You'd be OK with someone hacking into your email, or perhaps browsing around your home to look for something that *might* indicate that you've done something wrong?
Would you say, "I guess I had it coming"?
I think it's sad that this (eternal) election has divided American citizens into Republicans or Democrats and not much else.
Damn.
My understanding was that illegally wiretapping American citizens carried neither fine nor penalty.
Your argument is pretty weak. Using your logic, because police officers detain suspects we the public should be able to as well. The public is not granted the same powers as law enforcement. The public enacts laws that apply in different ways to the general population vs law enforcement.
What id dont get is why if someone hacked my email, there is no way theyd get a penalty like that. the judge would look at me and say "tough love".
although it is illegal, i just dont care because since she is a celebrity right now, she has the pwer to do something about it. just goes to show you dont want her in office, because she thinks that she deserves special treatment. Also, although her daughter is hot (and so is she)
Obama, FTW!
Go go Gadget Nailgun!
Had this happened to Obama, by the son of a Republican McCain supporter, this would be front page, top of the hour news with the media demanding investigations into the republican political machine (the new Cyber-Watergate).
But-- since it was a conservative, we're all sure she was breaking the law and thus he was a justified hero.
After Obama wins all 57 states, he should pardon and appoint Kernell as the new Whitehouse Privacy head.
Well hot damn, why can't I get the FBI to investigate and charge someone when we get DDoS'd?
You're out of your fucking mind to call this 'the rule of law prevailing'. The rule of law only prevails when you're a VP candidate and only when it benefits you. Every business that's ever had some asshole root their servers or DDoS their network agrees - nobody gives a shit, nobody will investigate.
It's rather the opposite, really.
Perform this thought experiment. You discover that your e-mail account has been hacked. You call the police. What happens then?
If you answered "sweet fuck all" then you are correct! A normal person is never going to get law enforcement to dedicate any resources to the hacking of a free e-mail account. If you are very lucky then perhaps you'll be able to do all the legwork yourself, gather all the evidence pointing to the perpetrator, and convince the DA to prosecute. But even this is unlikely.
But if you're candidate for Vice President suddenly the FBI and Secret Service come swarming out of the woodwork and put this guy into PMITA Federal Prison post-haste!
Yeah, it sucks her privacy was violated. But I care much more about the fact that this guy is only getting prosecuted because he hacked the account of somebody "important".
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
The only SCUM on slashdot are those are loyal to a party, and completely against the other.
If you think one is more corrupt than the other, your a dumb motherfucker.
Gosh, why is the system failing. What could possible have happened to the US and democracy in general. Could there be some clue. Maybe something in your post. Geez, lets see.
Personally I forgot it happened
The powers that be thank you, dear consumer with the attention span of a kitten in a chicken plucking factory.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Why should she be indicted? None of her emails were very inappropriate.
What we have is some people who thought that Palin was conducting official state business on her personal account, and for some reason, even though her personal emails have been exposed and cleared as appropriate, they still can't drop their belief that she was/is conducting state business on her personal account.
Let it go--she obviously wasn't, and we know that thanks to the idiot who accessed her emails.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
You just proved the parent post in 2 ways- 1. Calling him an idiot instead of just disagreeing with him demonstrates that common courtesy is dead, and 2. If you get in an accident with someone and you caused it your best response to their justifiable anger is to tell them to go pound sand.
John McCain can't type because his arms were repeatedly broken by the Vietnamese while he was a POW. Why do you insult disabled veterans?
Well, that's what his campaign claims when the embarrassing topic of his technological ignorance comes up. On the other hand, here you can see him firmly holding a pad in one hand, while signing his name with the other hand, standing up, with no awkwardness that I can observe. He's hardly an invalid. If he can do that, he can type on a keyboard.
While I respect McCain's sacrifice 35 years ago as a single data point, unfortunately he's also proved himself to be a dishonorable liar since then.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Actually, I believe GP said *illegally* wiretapping. What you describe is *legal* detention.
Police who illegally detain someone should (and are) prosecuted, just as non-police would be.
Just because I don't agree with what the current administration has done, doesn't mean I should let the same transgressions be passed against them.
It's because I think that the wire taps were wrong that I think this guy should be punished. It's not an excuse that just because Bush and the teleco's got off scott-free then all republicans shouldn't be given any rights.
Is that you're logic? Really? Because it's a bit of the reason why these comments get modded down and off-topic. I'm sick and tired of people hijacking threads to complain about how evil it was of the administration to tap phone calls domestically. But apparently you fail to realize that, since the only probable explanation you think of is that there's a hoard of republicans modding down comments.
If it's ok for the citizens to hack accounts just because they're republican accounts and republicans are evil than congrats, go work for bush. It's the same logic he used with the phone taps. In the mean time, I hope you get modded down, because sometimes we'd like to read about the FACTS relevant to the discussion and not just your crusade.
Oh honey look... How cute... an angry slashdotter!
On one hand, we have the Governor of Alaska and potential VP of the United States using a public e-mail system (with a really simple password hint) for state work.
Sometimes the written word is tough to interpret, so please don't take this as some sort of macho challenge, but do we really have any official proof that the governor was doing what you've said? I don't want anyone to simply answer "Yes" or give some anecdotal diatribe. I want someone to provide some real proof that I and a bunch of other curious people can read.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Your missing the point.
The point is that it hurts you more if you admit your mistake off the bat as opposed to saying nothing and letting a lawyer speak for you.
I did something once and when the police showed up I said "Yep I know I did it". Went to court and my lawyer about shit bricks when she heard what I had said.
Its sad but if you just shutup and dont say anything, when it comes time for court you often get pleaded down because they dont feel like wasting time fighting you.
However if you ran around taking responsibility after it happened they know they have your ass and your in a lot worse of a position to negotiate.
Its pretty sad that you make out worse for doing the right thing and admitting your mistakes when they happen, on the other hand be a jerk dont say a word and it helps you much better. What a wonderful world we live in. :/
He is being punished for breaking the law. He is being prosecuted for making Sarah Palin look bad.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Almost irrelevant. Those were the MAXIMUM allowable sentences, not the minimum. Most likely, this kid gets hit for 3-11 months (so he won't be tainted with that "felon" label), mostly community service, plus $5000-10,000 in fines.
Which is less than he deserves, really. If you're serious about privacy rights, you shouldn't have the attitude that privacy rights only attach to people you like.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Many people on here are falling all over themselves to defend their favorite political party.
Democrats:
"He found illegal stuff, so it's OK." or
"No real harm done, it's an innocent prank."
Republicans:
"He broke the law!!! OMG, throw away teh key!"
"It doesn't matter what he found."
Somehow I imagine things would be the exact opposite if somebody hacked Biden's e-mail.
So, for partisan Democrats it's OK to violate privacy if you're sure somebody did something wrong. For Republicans, the whole Christian forgiveness thing goes out the window because their favorite candidate was harmed. Free Barabbas anyone?
It's funny how people abandon their principles so fast when it comes to politics.
I read through your citations, and not one of them are substantiated; They take a narrow and highly partisan view of the facts available in each case. The last claim is particularly absurd, given that no poll was done, and you have to read to the very end of the article (like many published articles in the press, sadly) to reach this gem:
Yet many on both sides of the political fence who initially were critical of Palin have rallied behind her.
"Everything that's flitting through my mind right now is better left where it is," Rep. Jay Ramras, a Fairbanks Republican who has been a strident critic of Palin, told the Anchorage Daily News last week. The governor, he said, has become "the American idol of politics."
But I flat-out don't believe him that he can't use a keyboard. If he can hold a pad (at keyboard height, I might add) and has the fine motor control to sign his name, then he can at-least do two-finger typing or use a mouse.
You're (deliberately, I think) missing the point: briefly holding a pad and pen to sign something or jot something down is NOT the same as taking on the long-term habit of communicating through typed messages, or spending hours delicately pointing a mouse at things. Even people who haven't had their bones shattered in torture sessions can find regular computer use tiring and painful. Why would you expect someone who doesn't have to type his way through his daily communications (because he has cheerful help from someone who's willing to do it for him) to take on considerable pain just so he can get keyboard street cred with you? I suppose you think Steven Hawking should have to pick out every letter in everything he writes because using software that can help him by predicting the words he's likely to be typing is... lazy?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.