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Palin E-Mail Snoop Gets Year In Prison
netbuzz writes "David Kernell, whose prying into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account caused an uproar two months before the 2008 presidential election, was today sentenced to a year and a day by a judge in Knoxville, Tenn. Kernell was convicted of misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice back in April. His attorney had argued for probation on the grounds that what Kernell did amounted to a prank that spun out of control."
It was guessing the answer to her Security Question that was publicly available on the internet. If that's "hacking" then I'm fucking Kevin Mitnick.
Worse than regular fraud, because I don't understand computers.
He committed a crime, so he goes to jail. What damage is it you want to mitigate here?
Let's face it; he hacked the email account of a Vice Presidential candidate. Regardless of how one feels about Sarah Palin (I can't stand her myself...the things she says makes me want to slam my head in a file cabinet drawer) it's not rocket science to recognize that what he did is a bit more severe (and consequence-prone) than going after your typical person. He should consider himself lucky that he only got a year, really...I figured they'd do much worse.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked Into Rival ConnectU In 2004
...At one point, Mark appears to have exploited a flaw in ConnectU's account verification process to create a fake Cameron Winklevoss account with a fake Harvard.edu email address.
Mar. 5, 2010
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-connectu-2010-3
In this new, fake profile, he listed Cameron's height as 7'4", his hair color as "Ayran Blond," and his eye color as "Sky Blue." He listed Cameron's "language" as "WASP-y."
Next, Mark appears to have logged into the accounts of some ConnectU users and changed their privacy settings to invisible. The idea here was apparently to make it harder for people to find friends on ConnectU, thus reducing its utility. Eventually, Mark appears to have gone a step further, deactivating about 20 ConnectU accounts entirely...
... was not being in the Federal government. If he had been, his actions would've been deemed legal.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
So this kid gets a year in prison... but most cases like this will not even get a return call from the police. I guess it is not just 'how much justice can you afford' but 'how much your victim can afford'.
That's a long time for making such a small mistake... There's got to be some sort of easily phrased lesson to be learned here. "If you're going to anger politically powerful people, do it anonymously" ? He should have sent all the data he found to wiki leaks then burned his computer.
check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
In related news, Sarah Palin is still on the loose, endangering all sanity as we know it.
Would he have received the same sentence if he had hacked the email of a random neighbour?
What punishment would the guilty person get? I'll bet you London to brick it wouldn't even get to court.
One law for the power elite, and the rest of us can bugger off.
Really? His "only crime was his political alignment?" Do you actually believe that? I'm personally glad we have laws that make it punishable to access other peoples accounts and spread their private information without permission. Right to privacy and all that.
Incidentally I'm not sure if you're missing the details or not, but the felony was obstruction of justice -- attempting to hide and destroy evidence (and so on). Had he not done that, he would have been fine (well not fine, he was still hit with a misdemeanor, but less of a big deal than a felony!)
I haven't followed O'Keefe closely at all -- what did he do that warrants a felony?
So are you claiming he didn't illegally access her account? This isn't a political thing, he clearly broke the law.
If he accessed your account, my account or Barack Obama's account, it'd still be a crime.
Try an experiment. Create a new account and make some stupidass post in the first remotely political article that is either anti-republican or anti-democrat. See what happens!
Well, my point is, if you make that post and it's not a stupidass post, i.e. you're backing up your position with facts and you're not just regurgitating talking points, it probably won't end up mod-bombed no matter what position it takes. It might get slapped with a negative mod or three, but in the long run it will end up at least where it started and probably higher.
The real joke is that this kid wasn't some computer genius on the contrary it was Sarah Palin's stupidity that should be sentenced to a year.
Her password question: What high school did you attend?
Answer: Wascilla High.
Palin is an idiot.
Obama is also in favor of increased wiretapping and specifically Internet wiretaps. Would it then be okay to break into Obama's accounts?
Don't do the crime if you can't afford to do the time.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Whats the point of costing us money for him to be "Punished"? How about letting him give restitution by teaching PC skills at a public school, pick up trash for so many hours. Why do we think locking someone in another cage is doing anything to help the victim?
Jail should be only for violent or particulary dangerous people, the rest of them we should be coming up with ways to restore the loss to the victims of these crimes.
Ok, fine -- throw this guy in jail for computer trespass.
But while you're at it, throw Sony in jail for their rootkit. Throw Starforce in jail for their rootkit. Throw the "ACORN pimp" in jail for his tampering with the phones in the Democratic office.
If you're going to apply a law, apply it consistently. The way it's being enforced now is way too arbitrary.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
time to read it.