G4 is a fav of my husband and daughter. They tend to focus on video games and tech toys for Gen Y. They are reporting that Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account was hacked.
Here's the weid part. Her password was posted on 4chan.org. If you don't know 4chan is a forum for anime enthusiasts and all things strange. Anything can be posted and the comments are brutal. dkos is tame compared to this site.
Anyway, this is the site that posted her email account's password. All sorts of people got in there, copied stuff, trashed stuff and had a rip roaring good time until some good samaritan went in and changed the password and bumped the interlopers out. The email account is now gone and any evidence that could have been used for....well, it's gone.
McCain's campaign is confirming the hack job.
4chan is deleting just about all threads Sarah Palin. The contents included photos and email exchanges. Here's a sample Palin thread, but it could be deleted any minute now. Most of the posters at 4chan are refering to this as the incident. The owner of 4chan is po'd because "guys in suits" hassled him into chasing down IP addresses all afternoon. He now is referring to his site (4chan) "retard daycare" wow.
I am getting links to 4chan threads via AIM and will update them as they come in.
I think this site does have people with a conscience posting on it. I just got a link to this thread. I think they get it.
Way to fail, b Anonymous 09/17/08(Wed)20:59:34 No.85848185
Thanks to you all the key evidence that could have led to a Palin conviction has likely been destroyed.
Special dishonor goes to the hero that set off the alarm on her account.
You are profoundly stupid. The Palin hack = EPIC FAIL.
This bullshit makes modern Chanology look like win.
You couldn't even wait for someone to DL the actual messages from the account.
http://img.4chan.org/...
Palin holding a gun at the camera.....
http://img.4chan.org/...
ah ha! That picture says a lot about the Governors's familiarity with aerial hunting.
I think the 4chan threads are quote worthy. This is what one commenter thinks of the FBI investigation. You should click the link to get the corny, fake FBI emblem.
Hello Members of 4Chan.org. The FBI in conjunction with Secret Service and DOJ is requesting records of IP and posting information from the administrators of this site. We are offering a limited time offer of limited immunity to those who confess to the recent hacking of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account. Those who step forward with evidence will be treated leniently, while the full force of law will be applied to those captured at a later date.
You may turn yourself in via report to The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) or you may call your local FBI office or call (202) 278-2000 and ask to be directed to Special Agent Henry Stewart at Bureau HQ in Washington, DC.
It is confirmed by WaPo blog site. People are Digging it and McCain want's an FBI investigation.
Wikileaks.org posted her subject lines but they seemed to have exceeded their band width and the link isn't working right now.
This link rich Information Week item had an interesting take on the hacking.
Normally, I'd say this was a gross invasion of privacy. But kharma can really get you sometimes.
I did find this screen shot of one of the alledged emails interesting. It says a lot about our VEEP candidate, considering the tone, word choice and all....
Pot meet kettle. Ms. Palin, I'm not sure you could work with both parties. But more importantly,
- Palin is complaining about Dan Fagan, an Alaskan conservative talk show host giving Sean Parnell a hard time on the air. It seems that she's annoyed that Fagan doesn't carry water as well as Rush Limbaugh.
- Palin seems to imply that people who disagree with her are dismissable as having "evil stuff" going on with them. That says a lot about Ms. Palin.
- It's like she has one important issue - Anti-Choice. That is very clear.
- Palin is focused on getting "People who are experienced and capable on the right issues" elected to congress. That's a disturbing statement to me. I can only surmise that precludes people with real experience in foreign affairs, health care and education....and oh, yeah, security.
I think the one thing this incident is pointing out to me is that Sarah Palin has a poor understanding of computer safety and security. She was using that email address for personal, business and government tasks. That means she should have used more prudence in caring for that email address. That email address is gone now with all the evidence it held, but it should have been checked every day and more often after becoming a VEEP candidate. The deletion of the account adds further insight into Palin's lack of computer savvy. The accound may be deleted, but Yahoo can still produce the information and has a legal obligation to keep that information because of the official inquiries surrounding that account.
Her Yahoo email address was fairly stratight forward. That's ok, you have email for communication, but her password is another matter. He email password should have been alpha numeric, had at least 1 number 1 letter and 1 upper case character and she should have changed her password every 4-8 weels. Even if the hacker used a brute force hacking program better security habits would have id'd the issue and she could have dealt with it proactively instead of reactively.
This incident gives me a great deal of insight into the McCain/Palin understanding of technology.