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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.
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.
> 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."
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?
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!
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.
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.