Hacker Disrupts New Zealand Election Campaign

An anonymous reader writes New Zealand is facing its weirdest election ever with a hacker calling himself "Rawshark" progressively dumping emails hacked from a controversial blogger. This weekend, revelations forced the resignation of one Government minister and nobody knows what will drop next. Emails revealed that the blogger, called "Whale Oil", was in contact with both a government minister in charge of New Zealand's white collar crime investigations unit and with a PR man acting for a founder of a failed finance company then under investigation.

Comments

Way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

We need alot of more this kind of hackers.
They keep tabs on us, invade our privacy, no reason not to do the same to them.

Hack the planet!

Re: Way to go

[maitas]

The role of the Patriot is to protect its country from its government.
Way to go!

Re: Way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great to love your country and do things that show that love.

I find that "showing love to a country" is a stupid thing to do...
A country is an inanimate concept, it's not even a thing. It can't (and most definitely doesn't) love you back.
Do you also show your love to a potato? What makes a country different than a potato or, say, a chair?

Re:Way to go

[Livius]

We are not completely sure what kind of hacker this is. Revealing the truth selectively could create an unfair situation, which is not what you want for an election.

Voip SMS Fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

The Whale Oil blogger was also involved in revealing a sex scandal involving the PM trying to remove a Mayor. Threatening text messages where sent and the NZ Herald newspaper put out a public appeal to unearth the sender. It turns out that the Caller ID was one of the free international Voip SMS local forwarding numbers that had for years been diverted by the local Telecom in their attempt to frustrate its users. When this Voip SMS connection was made known to the newspaper, details of how to crack the exchange were picked up by the Intelligence Services and within hours the anonymous Caller ID hole which Whale Oil had been using was plugged.

"Rawshark"...

[He Who Has No Name]

...sounds like a reference to that exact accented pronunciation of Rorschach's name in Watchmen (the original graphic novel, when Veidt calls the police to tip them off).

That can't be a coincidence.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

His full name is Whale Oil Beef Hooked

[Anonymous Coward]

But you have to pronounce it really fast

feeding the whale

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly there was the book "Dirty Politics" by Nicky Hager which contained the allegations backed up now by selective releases by whaledump :D (Theres an ebook on a certain nautical site i wont mention ;)
The National government have been feeding sensitive info to this vitriolic blogger called Cameron "WhaleOil" Slater (WO) and using him to do their dirty work.
There has been information "released" to WO under freedom of information, that had been denied other more legitimate journalists so that WO could launch his attack, there is evidence he was instructed as to which information to specifically request and the request was processed in an extremely short time.
This is what has brought down our (Ex) Minister for Justice (ROFL) Judith Collins. The filth washes right to the Prime Minister John Keys "Office" and as an ex corporate banker involved in the Derivatives trade there are quite a few people that are not surprised, only elated that the filth gets shown before our election and not after.

Assange to help Kim Dotcom drop bombshell on PM

[twosat]

As if Prime Minister John Key does not have enough problems, Kim Dotcom has revealed that he will drop a bombshell on him. He is warning that something big will come out on September 15, just five days from the election. He says WikiLeaks founder and fugitive Julian Assange, who's holed up in Ecuador's London embassy, is set to take part in a pre-election attack on John Key. The addition of Mr Assange confirms the event will be about New Zealand's spying.

http://tvnz.co.nz/vote-2014-ne...

Alliteration fail :(

[wonkey_monkey]

for a founder of a failed finance company

So close! The correct word to use here was "firm."

Re:Alliteration fail :(

[FatLittleMonkey]

for a founder of a failed finance company then under investigation

"for a founder of a failed finance firm then facing..." Can't make "investigation" work. Although that "V" might be close enough already. "Official fact-finding"? Doesn't really carry the same meaning.

[Aside: The headline is misleading. It implies that a hack somehow interfered directly with the election mechanism. The hacker revealed corruption, it's the corruption which will disrupt the election chances of one of the major parties. "Hacked revelations threaten NZ National Party re-election bid". It's not like the hacker sabotaged a party's campaign site, or got into the ballot-printing or e-voting system. The difference between someone poisoning your company's products and someone revealing the poison your company puts in their products. In one case, they are the cause of the disruption, in the other they are just the messenger, you are the cause.]

Naive New Zealand

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a NZer, though I live in London now. When I lived in Auckland, an American exchange student once described NZ as the country that is like America was before everyone got fucked over by someone else. It is so painfully is true. Our naive innocence is now being exploited by a bunch of international con artists (dotcom and john key) and we are just being take for a joy ride. Give us another five years of this and we'll all become a bunch of suspicious unfriendly people like the rest of the world.

Re:Naive New Zealand

[Jack Griffin]

I have a theory on this. Why is it that countries like NZ and Iceland etc are nice and friendly while others are angry and hostile. Two key components, size and isolation. Being small means you are always manageable and less prone to corruption (yeah it's still there, but at a far smaller scale as to not be an major issue). Being small also means everyone knows each other, so it's harder to be a jerk when your decision directly affect people you actually know. Isolation creates the benefit of not having every Tom, Dick or Mohammed coming through the place trying to take pieces of it. It offers no strategic value so all the jerks focus on bigger targets, leaving you with only lightweight jerks. Neither of these things are going to change in the short or medium term, so I wouldn't worry too much. One outcome of this idea, is that along the lines of the Monkeysphere theory, maybe countries like the US and China are too big? Maybe the best path for humanity is smaller countries and/or states? Corruption seems to be a function of size, so if the world was divided into NZ/Iceland type chunks would we all be better off?

Re:Left wing hitjob

[Hairy1]

Nice way of trying to turn this around. What this has done is expose how these National politicians have gone beyond the normal politics in New Zealand to actually support muck raking and character assasination. It is the kind of politics New Zealanders hate. You see while it isn't perfect we still have a functional democracy, unlike the United States. This 'attack' would have had no impact if the Government had not done anything wrong, but clearly they have. There is now clear evidence of a corporation buying off favour to slander a senior investigator with the cooperation of a senior Minister. The senior Minister appears to have oiled the wheels to get previously restricted information released under the Official Information Act in order to harm a political opponent. Reminds me of the saying - live by the sword, die by the sword.