Palin Hacker Caught - Son of Democratic TN State Rep.
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By this admission, the media needs to drop the word "HACK" right now because that's not hacking. That's social engineering.
Just because he didn't use a personally crafted 0-day exploit doesn't mean he wasn't hacking (or cracking, if you're in to semantic debate).
Even better way of putting it, thank you. By all legal definitions this kid should get off scot free but he wont.
If nothing else, the kid committed some kind of fraud by telling the system he was Sarah Palin when in fact he wasn't.
I've also never heard of a case where someone told a computer they were someone they weren't and prosecuted on that alone or any sort of 'fraud' in a circumstance like this (though if you want to split hairs, Identity Theft that leads to punitive damages such as credit, or finances is another thing, but still doesn't fit the mold of this particular circumstance)
It's a perfectly fine defense, all things said. He retrieved the information he needed, he used the system the way it was built to be used and the system did what it was supposed to do. There is NOTHING illegal about lying to a computer system in this situation.
The burglar analogy only makes even a bit of sense if the burglar illegally obtained a key, made a copy of it and THEN gained access to the home. For the intents of this discussion, that's all this rubico person did. He obtained a key to the home, used the key to it's intended purpose and gained access.
So, if I go to the mailbox outside your home (assuming the classic unlocked US design) after the mailman leave, pick up your mail, open the envelopes and post what I find on /b/, you're just gonna shrug and blame yourself for using such a badly designed security mechanism?
You know, when I open your letters, the envelope does exactly what it's supposed to do, so I'm not committing a crime, right?
It's really just being able to use Google.
(Unless, of course, this guy is innocent, in which case the real culprit was very very smart.)
In other news, I sure hope everyone who feels compelled to express an opinion about what should happen to this kid now will stop for a moment and consider whether their opinion would be the same if he were the son of a Republican senator and got caught doing the same thing to a Democratic candidate, and to make absolutely sure that their opinion would be the same either way.
... will do so elsewhere?
I'm for punishing the kid just the same as if he had stolen checks and started writing checks against somebody's account.
My concern is that this will be a special case -- either giving the kid more punishment than normal or less punishment. Just guessing, I'm thinking a white-collar crime that involved no use of violence? 6 months to 2 years maybe?
Now is there an additional crime for political espionage in the course of trying to throw an election? I believe so, or at least that there should be. I think if you commit a felony in the process of trying to sway political opinion that should pump up the punishment some. As an example I use the Watergate burglars, who were anything but run-of-the-mill crooks (and got punished more than first time burglars as well, if I remember correctly)
Crime with deliberate political implications, whether violent or not, should be treated more harshly. Perhaps this kid didn't break into Palin's account to sway public opinion. I don't know enough about the case to determine that.
It also shouldn't have mattered if the kid broke into Palin's account or your corner shop owner. The fact is he did so, and put that information out there with malicious intent (posting her login info was seriously bad form).
If he had done so with and then alerted Palin about the security hole, then sure - I'd have a lot more sympathy. Even if he had broken in just to see if he could do it, then left it at that - that might have been acceptable, but the way he handled (I thought) was wrong.
No idea about hacking into personal emails.
1) Go to a well-trafficked coffee shop that you've never been to before. Pay with cash.
2) Use a bootable Linux CD or a virtual machine for the actual "attack." (Xen, VMWare, anything.)
3) Spoof your wireless MAC address. (if you are paranoid)
4) Perform your "special investigation." Post your info to wikileaks.
5) Reboot without the Linux CD or securely delete the virtual machine when you are done.
6) Don't brag about it.
See, you don't even need a proxy. It's not that hard.
How can anyone be so stupid to get caught anyway?
Also, a library may not let you install the tools that you need. If you bring your own laptop then you can do whatever. Also, a busy coffee shop offers more anonymity than a library most of the time.
Additionally, explaining why you went to a coffee shop may be easier than explaining why you went to the library (if you are like most people). Having to explain why you diverted from routine is what gets you caught.
But if there are a lot of laptop-using customers even a security camera shouldn't be too much of a problem. After all, just being there is not a crime in itself. And wiping your system will delete all evidence that could link you to any log files.
Even better, use a tiny embedded Linux device like gumstix (http://www.gumstix.com/). You could even hide it somewhere and leave, let it do it's thing, and either pick it up later, or have it transmit it's findings to you over the net (through some anonymous proxy, of course)
And this is why SSL is important.
Or better yet, drive down the road looking for a resident with an unprotected WiFi connection.
Like others have said, the defense provided sounds pretty feasible; I'm no legal expert, so it's very plausible he has done nothing really wrong, and it might be the case where prosecution will lead to a dangerous interpretation of laws that would make "truly" innocent people guilty. As usual, the end result will probably be less about law and more about the candidate involved making sure the situation turns out how she wants it to, the justice system is eager to put people in jail so I figure punishment will be likely. Everyone hates college students, lazy hippies!
Also, he should have probably just used TOR. I'm not really that good of a cracker, preferring to instead program useful things and then getting paid for it, so would this have covered his tracks pretty well?
Either way, it's pretty amazingly funny to see a /b/tard easily get access to a public figure's email and let 4chan get a hold of it, and then see the news media act like it's some sinister hacker network that did it. Well played.
I don't have any political preference in the matter (I'm an Aussie), but I predict that Republican extremists are going to take this and run with it as far as possible.
Not only are people going to see the Palin/McCain team as the underdog, because everyone loves an underdog, but they'll also be portrayed as the victim of evil attacks by the democrats (even though it was his son, and I'm sure his son has little political preferences yet)
That just sucks and frankly it scares the living shit out of me that someone like Palin could potentially end up being the "leader of the free world" when she has shown some incredibly odd positions over time.
EDIT - just adding this in as a clarification incase anyone wants to call this anti-right propaganda (as I saw myself downmodded earlier, if anything I'm anti-noob)
I've got no problem whatsoever with McCain being President if his age wasn't a factor. He's earned his right. It's just that there is a growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world (I see it all the time in Aus) and it would be a step backwards to have someone like Palin being literally a heartbeat away from the top spot, especially with the absolute mess that it appears Bush has made.
You guys need a leader, not a pretty face.
Of course there is - you feel safe. When that changes, you'll be pro-American again. Yes, we've noticed that when something bad happens, it's always "When will the Americans get here to help?" and (annoyingly often) "Why didn't the US stop {whatever} from happening to us?"
Feel free to rely on the Euros instead. Heck, maybe the Chinese or Russians will come through.
BTW - Your assumption that Americans should care about how "the world" feels is probably wrong. Yes, I know that you think that we should, but ....
At what point have I ever said (or implied) I was anti-American on this site, or any other site (I use a similar handle on every site, so it can be verified) or for that matter EVER. The answer? Never, because I am simply not anti-American.
Your kind of insular attitude proves exactly what I'm saying.
EDIT - For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies? Why else were the British and the Aussies the first 2 countries to sign up for the coalition on the willing and along with the American and British the only countries that provided significant military presence in the gulf (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2862343.stm)
Didn't we also send troops to Afghanistan?
Both of these military actions were unpopular in Australia from day zero and both of which hurt trade agreements in the middle east for us (depending on who you talk too, some have suggested it has increased our chances for retaliatory terrorist acts, I simply don't know though), but we went anyway.
Also, moving away from military alliances, we only had a change of Government last year so things have changed since but for a while, both the Americans and the Australians were the only 2 countries to have not signed the Kyoto Protocol. This was mostly due to Howard wanting to not have the Americans as the only country as not having signed (he was very pro-american).
Within a week of a change of government, Rudd had signed and it was well received by the public.
My apologies. I didn't intend "you" personally, but the "It's just that there is a growing anti-American sentiment in the rest of the world" (as I quoted).
> Your kind of insular attitude proves exactly what I'm saying.
Huh? You said that there was a growing anti-American sentiment. While I agree, how does what I said prove that?
Or, are you saying that I proved something that you didn't state explicitly? If so, what?
> For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies?
So?
Your strongest argument would be that Australians are probably Americans' most popular "not Americans". (Canadians have gone with a curious mix of invisibility and defining themselves as "not American".) And, you seem to take care of them yourselves.
However, that doesn't change the fact that much of what the US sees overseas is folks with their hands out. We also see folks screaming about the US "doing it wrong" when they're not doing it at all. Maybe we're incorrect, but I'm talking sentiment, as you did.
There is no shortage of problems in the world. Surely some of them can be taken care of by someone else. Rwanda was well within the capabilities of many other countries. Somalia is as well.
Well, I'll give an example - theres is/was fairly popular show (I don't watch TV all that much, so I'm unsure of its current status) here in Australia called CNNNN that satirised fox news/cnn. The guys who created it have since gone on to create a tv show called the Chaser's War on Everything"
Here's one of the more popular clips from CNNNN entitled "Stupid Americans"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp4iI59BfpQ
What I gleamed from your comment was the attitude of "Americans dont need anyone else, fuck the rest of the world"
In the above clip, particularly pay attention where they're placing pins in countries that these people want to invade.
These people more than likely vote and apart from 2 of them, they don't look like political radicals or crazy people.
>> For the record: I thought the Americans and the Aussies were allies?
> So?
That is the exact attitude I am talking about.
Semi related - A little anecdote I thought was absolutely hilarious (but also tragic) at the time was that in the early stages of the Iraq war the media was doing lots of broadcasts from that media center they set up.
One of the popular media outlets (I forget which, it was Fox or CNN) had a large map of the world which their reporters stood in front of to make broadcasts. It was just a general outline of continents.
They actually removed Australia from the map because it was where the reporters were supposed to stand and it was interfering with the shot. What a fantastic way to treat one of the 2 allies that sent military support :)
I'm pointing out that a lot of the US doesn't care and explaining some of why they don't. I'm also asking you to explain why they should.
Let's take Australia's contribution in Afghanistan. Australia's military, man for man, is amazing. However, it isn't that big. It's a smaller contribution than Texas.
If anti-American sentiment kept Australia from joining in some of the US' foreign activities, one of two things would happen - we'd go it alone with roughly the same outcome or we wouldn't go it at all.
As to the behavior of US media outlets wrt allies, you're seriously confused if you think that they give US interests any weight. The canonical example is a discussion of media ethics during the Vietnam war. A US reporter was asked if he'd tip off some US troops walking into an ambush. He agonized for a while and then said that he would, but would feel bad about it. His fellow media types jumped down his throat and he retracted.
Or, we can take a more recent example. AP is quite critical of surveillance of suspected terrorists and insisted that there's a public right to know of the methods. Fair enough. However, when the govt asked for information about the break-in to Palin's e-mail, AP declined.
Of course, if it had been Biden's e-mail, the reaction would have been very different.
However, your observation that they left out Australia because it interfered with their shot is probably correct. It wasn't a planned snub - they didn't give it that much thought.
1) McCain won't even remotely attempt to tie this to Obama. Even despite the recent negative turn, this campaign has been fairly civil. Just as Obama passed on commenting about Palin's daughter's personal troubles, McCain will not blame this on the DNC. (Michelle Malkin might be another story, but she doesn't influence anyone whose vote is up for grabs.)
It was the college-age son of some state politician who will probably publish remarks condemning it. That'll pretty much be the end of it.
2) In America, the rich old white male (especially one who doesn't know how many homes he owns) is never seen as the underdog to the young black man, even if he is.
3) Most of our worst leaders weren't noobs. George W had more executive branch experience than anyone currently running, and in his second term (which a lot of historians believe to be the worst in history) he'd already had 4 years of trial under fire as President.
A lot of times, experience just deeply ingrains one way of doing things and inhibits the mental flexibility needed for such an intellectual job.
(And don't get me wrong, I'm terrified as shit of having her as President, but it's not due to her inexperience).
I don't think that is necessarily true - even if McCain doesn't directly comment, that's not to say that other's wont (I'm fairly sure Bill O`Reilly will have something to say for example).
The Palin email hacking was a big news story in the US but barely registered in the news media in other countries around the world (even those that do follow the election closely).
2) In America, the rich old white male (especially one who doesn't know how many homes he owns) is never seen as the underdog to the young black man, even if he is.
Absolutely agree, but have you looked at the trends data of McCain/Palin/Obama lately? (http://google.com/trends?q=obama%2C+mccain%2C+palin&ctab...)
Palin is more of an underdog than Obama, the people are more interested in Palin at the moment than either Obama or McCain and the republicans know this. Why else would it have been suggested that McCain and Palin campaign together even though traditionally the Pres/VP candidates for each party campaign independently.
3) Most of our worst leaders weren't noobs.
I would never suggest that McCain isn't a good candidate, as that's simply not true... I just think there were more qualified VP candidates than Palin and I think it was an irresponsible political stunt.
(And don't get me wrong, I'm terrified as shit of having her as President, but it's not due to her inexperience).
Agreed. It was 4am when I wrote my original post, so perhaps I should have left in the original bits I deleted about my thoughts on Palin's stance on creationism and banning of books
Anyway, I've said what I thought, I expected to get downmodded to hell but I'll leave it at that and head to bed.
2) If google trends were a good indicator for elections, then our president would be "britney spears naked pictures" with "generic viagra" as her VP.
3) It's possible you might have heard some of the many false rumours about some of Sarah Palin's positions -- doing a bit of research might put your mind at ease on some of those.
In particular, she never supported putting anything other than evolution on the school curriculum, and she never tried to ban any books either. (Oh and while we're at it, she doesn't support abstinence-only sex education and she didn't pose in a bikini holding a rifle either.)
Yet you have Arnold Schwarzenegger as Californian Governor?
In countries where voting is compulsory, it is generally the more "visible" candidate that wins. So visibility is definitely a factor in politics. Politics is all about perception.
3) It's possible you might have heard some of the many false rumours about some of Sarah Palin's positions
I never said that they were true (I had actually written it but removed it because it would have tilted my argument more towards Palin bashing and less about the general argument I was trying to make)- Politics is all about perception, that's why there is a lot of mudslinging and misinformation.
doing a bit of research might put your mind at ease on some of those.
she never tried to ban any books either.
She may have not formally instigated a process into banning books, but that doesn't mean that when she spoke to Ms Ellons (the Wasillan librarian at the time) about how she should go about getting books banned and then threatening to fire her for not having full support that it wasn't an issue.
That's not what she asked. Moreover, why should librarians be the last word on book selection? (Librarians are political creatures too.)
> and then threatening to fire her for not having full support that it wasn't an issue.
Palin fired the librarian for supporting a political rival.
Politics isn't bean bag.
Realistically, for a country who holds some core ideologies such as the freedom of speech and the seperation of church and state, having a politician want to ban books because of religious views supports neither of these ideologies.
The reprinted article was removed from the Frontiersman website (the newspaper that ran the original story in 1996) but Google's cache still has it here.
http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:kJ5GvRlb5GQJ:www.fronti...
> Palin fired the librarian for supporting a political rival.
The point isn't that she fired the librarian for supporting a political rival, the point is that this woman has views that could be considered ... damn whats the word I'm looking for... it's like counterproductive. Non-progressive would be a good fit, but its not the word I'm looking for.
Which doesn't apply here, because there's no right to govt sponsored speech.
> and the seperation of church and state, having a politician want to ban books because of religious views supports neither of these ideologies.
Palin didn't try to get books taken out of the library, let alone ban them.
There's no "right" to the govt buying certain books. Libraries refuse to buy books every day. They refuse to accept book donations every day. They take books off the shelves every day.
Do you really think that a community can be forced to pay for a library that doesn't do as the community wants?
> The point isn't that she fired the librarian for supporting a political rival, the point is that this woman has views that could be considered
How about arguing against those views honestly instead of making up bogus charges?
I'm not sure how you go from Palin asking about banning books to the assumption that she wanted to ban books, and for specifically religious reasons. Why do you not assume that she heard complaints about books from her constituents, and wanted to know in advance what would happen if they actively wanted to ban books, and the librarian didn't?
We've seen what blind rationalism and blind belief both can do in 300 years of having people attempt to run their own governments. Your concerns are hardly new, and there's a lot of history to draw upon.
A moderate balance of faith in something greater than ourselves, humility, and the ability to hold reason as the highest of all virtues seems to work best -- or at least it has in our country's history.
Pure faith and pure logic alone are funny things -- they tend to bend to the emotional and cultural currents of those espousing them. And usually without the person's awareness.
We've had radical swings between rationalism (such as when we were founded), to faith, back to rationalism again, and back to faith. Each generation feels like it is the first or the only one going through something. We've been here before, and we'll be here again.
Hope I'm not trolling for an argument. That is not my intention, anyway.
Imagine the power a person would have as president: being able to call up the SEC chairman or the Fed chairman for an hour gives him more power than any entepreneur I know. If Bush is a complete bumbling idiot, surely some enterprising entepreneur would have been able to outsmart him in an election. Seeing as how that didn't happen, I'm forced to conclude he's at least slightly more intelligent than he appears.
Have you ever heard Tony Blair speak for any length of time? Blair appears to share many of the same views as Bush, but tends to express them much more clearly. I don't agree with Blair on many points, but the reason I disagree is not because Blair is an idiot; it's because he is working from a worldview / set of assumptions that I don't share.
I thought in the US system, swinging votes don't really matter. Those fence sitters aren't confident or interested enough to vote anyway. I thought the only thing that mattered was preaching to the choir & getting them to vote at all. Hence scare tactics.
Not at all. While you don't have a chance if your base doesn't come out, they almost always do. As a result, swing votes typically decide US elections.
There are, however, two kinds of swing votes. One always votes, but switches. The other shows up occasionally.
Why would you be sure of that? In the US, political preference is typically passed down along family lines. While there are exceptions, this is especially true of politican's families. Above the state level, it's fairly common for one or more kids to go into the family biz. (The Kennedys are merely the best known example.)
It's an equivalent level of security.
Reading someones private email is a crime, as is posting it, as is trying to mess with an election.
If you told the kid a lie in order to get in you could also be prosecuted for fraud.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.