Slashdot Mirror
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."
Then I wonder what punishment the guy who uncovered this has waiting for him.
I am pretty sure the actual sentence was 1 year 1 day in custody; to be served at a halfway house.
The local source - http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=13490313&Call=Email&Format=HTML
He committed a crime, so he goes to jail. What damage is it you want to mitigate here?
Do you see "hacking" in there? He was convicted of computer fraud as he accessed an account that was not his. He also got busted for obstruction of justice by panicking and wiping his drive, which is what landed him the real jail time.
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'.
I gotta say, hacking a high-profile politician's email account (ESPECIALLY when they are running for vice president, which means everything of theirs is being watched 24/7) is a really stupid idea. There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
Living With a Nerd
Or, as the article says, he was sentenced:
by a judge who recommended that the time be served in a Knoxville, Tenn. halfway house
A little bit different!!
Rich banker gets to escape felony hit and run charges, because the judge felt "a felony charge would hurt his ability to make shit tons of money"
http://dailybail.com/home/outrage-morgan-stanley-banker-escapes-felony-charges-for-hit.html
If that's "hacking" then I'm fucking Kevin Mitnick.
I think Kevin Mitnick might have something to say about that.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
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?
This guy just got lucky and guessed a password. But he acted against a conservative in Tennessee, so he got a year in prison. James O'Keefe actually tried to physically bug the telephone of a sitting U.S. Senator. But O'Keefe acted against a liberal in Louisiana, so he walked with probation.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Actually, no, it's a more lenient sentence -- a year and a day means you're eligible for sentence reductions based on good behavior and the like; any less and you aren't.
No really how is that different to someone hacking the email of the randomer next door or anyone else?
After all a candidate is only a candidate and anyone whose email is hacked can have their reputation ruined for the next job interview or anything else.
If she was an actual vice president you could possibly attach some national security element to this but even that's a stretch, and giving these people extra protection will just promote the idea of government secrecy, big brother "we need to see your communication but you can't see ours" kind of thing. and there is no doubt in my mind she wouldn't fully back any kind of new mass surveillance initiative.
I gotta say, hacking a high-profile politician's email account (ESPECIALLY when they are running for vice president, which means everything of theirs is being watched 24/7) is a really stupid idea. There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
You think that when Sarah Palin became the candidate, that the government started monitoring traffic on her Yahoo account? That's not how this kid was caught, he was caught because he changed the password and posted it online.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
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.
I don't think you know Slashdot very well at all. It is primarily a Libertarian site. I don't think they would react any different if someone hacked in to some Democrat governor's site.
Yeah, violating someone's privacy is wrong. But does it deserve a year in prison? That is what people are objecting to...the overly harsh penalties assigned to crimes regarding computers. The less famous/rich you are the higher the chance you will serve a more severe sentence.
And seriously, try not to be such a partisan douche in the future.
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HP Pretexting Charges Dismissed: "Charges against defendants in the Hewlett-Packard pretexting case have been dismissed."
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.
Most people's (snail) mail boxes are unlocked, but it's still mail fraud to go picking through them.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
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?
might not be hacking, but he still had no business going into her email
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.
I can't stand her myself...the things she says makes me want to slam my head in a file cabinet drawer
See, this is what makes me different from you. The things she says makes me want to slame her head in a file cabinet drawer.
I am officially gone from
Of course, nothing ever came of that, did it? Sounds more like "shoot the messenger" to me.
Note he only got a misdemeanor, a slap on the wrist, for the actual computer fraud.
The government does not take obstruction of justice lightly and tends to give stiff sentences for it.
Aside from that, yes, an attack on an account for political gain to influence an election would reasonably bring a more severe punishment than simply doing it to see if you can. This wasn't just some kid. His dad is a powerful Democratic state legislator and was then a member of Obama's Tennessee campaign. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't doing dad's bidding, and is taking the fall to avoid ruining dad's career. Expect to see the payoff after this clears up, likely a well-paid position in a Democratic campaign in 2012.
Personally, I think he deserves extra time just for being stupid by using a single proxy that had a policy of turning over evidence of any illegal activity to the police. :)
Really? Breaking into someone's private email and then distributing what they found -- with clearly malicious intent -- is "such a small mistake" ?
I gotta disagree there. I don't think his intent was malicious at all - his goal was to expose corruption. He was clearly partisan in his motives, but if that's all it takes to legally qualify for "malicious intent" then all of congress should be in jail too.
My understanding is that Palin only got away with it because the alaskan court ruled that the state law forbidding what she had done was too ambiguous. But the intent - keeping official government business communications on the record for accountability purposes - was clearly violated, even if the letter may not have been.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Thank you, someone else who gets it.
Crime is not about how hard it was for the perpetrator to commit it. Crime is about intent, or sometimes criminal negligence. "But the door was unlocked" is not, has never been, and should not be a legal defence.
Now, "intent" itself can sometimes be vague or fuzzy enough to leave room for doubt. You cannot be tried with trespassing on land that a reasonable person would not have known was off limits. And the balance of the law, the concept of innocence until guilt is proven, should favour the accused; if there is reasonable doubt, acquittal should be the outcome.
But that was not the case here. There was no doubt as to the accused's guilt, both in the crime itself and the attempted cover-up. Political angles aside, this would have been criminal no matter who the victim was, or what the perp's motive.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
Pure unadulterated nonsense. Drive around town and find an open WiFi access point. Use an internet cafe. Use the TOR network. Hack a couple foreign computers (for some reason, Korea is especially easy), and bounce the connection through them. For best results, combine all of the above. There's pretty much no way you could NOT get away with it, unless you're a complete idiot. Which this guy obviously is since not only did he not bother to cover his tracks while breaking into the account, but he also didn't take any precautions when he released the information. He was just begging to be busted.
http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-emails
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32838
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/sarah-palins-yahoo-e-mail_b_127177.html
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=sarah+palin+emails+government+business&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Really? The Gawker article in particular has plenty of screenshots showing government correspondence. Do you think an email from another government official title "veep talking points" is personal? What about a draft of a letter to Schwarzenegger about a tax? Is that also personal business? Why use an email account which is not required to be archived for government business? What about the emails asking how to hide communications between each other?
We both know there's no way of proving intent, but that's a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence, youthink?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Well, using it to get around FOIA requests is a but misleading. It was never proven that was the reason. It could have been the result but the laws on it do not take the result as the reason automagically. It was argued by Palin and staff that it was a messup detailing that the blackberries used had both personal and government emails attached to them and by selecting a contact, it showed the name of the contact not the email address and it was simply a mistake that personal email addresses ended up being used. This was supported by numerous other politicians as well as businesses claiming they have realized the same problems in the past or present.
Stating the idea that the use was in order to to hide from FOIA requests and such accountability is nothing but speculation and inferred opinion. It could be but all official investigations into it determined that it was an accidental oversight caused by the complexity of having both accounts on the same phones. You may want to believe otherwise, but you shouldn't state your opinion as fact when it is little more then your opinion.