This is the first time I've posted two diaries in a single day since the DK4 rollout. So why not make them both about this stupid-ass story, right?
A lot of people here have gotten hung up on the fact that Rep. Weiner has been less than unequivocal about denying that it's him in the infamous photo. Several of the more annoying ones, having apparently taken leave of their senses, have even chosen to believe that this means Andrew Breitbart is right. These people are, of course, wrong, but if we would head off this nonsense, those of us with functioning brains must reluctantly give some consideration to understanding why the good Mr. Weiner might not be able to categorically deny that the photo is of him. What follows is my educated guess based upon what I know about people and technology. You are free to take it or leave it as you will.
In my professional life I do a lot of writing about computer security. Many people who aren't experts on technology have a tendency to misunderstand what malicious people can do with computers and connected devices. They're not wrong about the potential for danger, exactly, but they operate from a position of thinking of computers as basically being magic devices and they're not very good at differentiating between the things that are hard to do with a computer and the things that are easy to do.
So it's not uncommon to hear a complaint that someone's computer isn't working because a "hacker" installed a "virus" on it, when in fact what happened was that they got tricked into installing something that claimed to be an update for Flash Player and now they're getting bombarded with ads for fake security software. So yeah, at a high level they sort of understand what's happened to them, but they get the details all wrong. Similarly, it's not surprising to hear Rep. Weiner blame "hackers" for what almost certainly seems to have been an exploit of a third-party service's weak security that didn't involve intrusion at all. When I hear things like that I've become accustomed to shrugging my shoulders and saying "Close enough, I guess."
Now, if one has a mental picture of these dastardly "hackers" who can do these amazing magical things with computers, well, one might well wonder what they can't do? It's 2011, and we all walk around every day with phones that have little cameras in them and sometimes always-on Internet connections as well. And there are in fact malware families that can take a picture with your computer's webcam and send it back to the attacker without you ever knowing. I've seen the pictures. Why, who knows what these wily "hackers" can do with our cell phone cameras and red light cameras and super secret hidden gym locker room cameras and God only knows what other cameras are trained on us all at this very minute. Right?
So we have a guy who carries a Blackberry around all day, a guy whom half of America hates and would love to get a chance to take him down, and one day a "hacker" uploads a picture of a man in grey undershorts to his Twitter account. Well, Christ, what man doesn't own a pair of grey undershorts? It's not like they had little Scotty dogs on them or something. He knows he's just been "hacked." Who's to say this mysterious "hacker" didn't somehow take control of his Blackberry and take a picture of him, too?
In reality, of course, the "hacker" probably just spent about an hour figuring out how to spoof yfrog's incredibly weak security and then uploaded a picture he found on a porn site. But Rep. Weiner doesn't know that. Realistically, there's no reason to expect him to know that.
Now that the wheels are coming off of the cunning plan and Breitbart has once again been exposed as the charlatan and serial liar that he is, hopefully Rep. Weiner will have learned enough about how it all went down to be able to say emphatically that the photo is not of him. But even if that never happens, folks, that's no reason to throw in with Breitbart the way so many of you here have done this week. You owe yourselves better than that.