Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted 846
doomsdaywire writes "A University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Memphis legislator has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail. [...] If convicted, [David C.] Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. A trial date has not been set."
What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Interesting)
Gee, I wonder why the system is failing (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, why is the system failing. What could possible have happened to the US and democracy in general. Could there be some clue. Maybe something in your post. Geez, lets see.
Personally I forgot it happened
The powers that be thank you, dear consumer with the attention span of a kitten in a chicken plucking factory.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that there are hundreds of news stories every week, are you suggesting that it's realistic to keep track and remember them all without reminder?
Re:Gee, I wonder why the system is failing (Score:5, Funny)
The powers that be thank you, dear consumer with the attention span of a kitten in a chicken plucking factory.
Dear poster, I am literally in awe of your skills with the metaphor. This has to be one of the best things I've ever seen.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know from where you post, but in the USA very few (actually, I can't think of any) professions have a legal salary cap.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know from where you post, but in the USA very few (actually, I can't think of any) professions have a legal salary cap.
I've always been told that most engineering fields, doctors, and athletes, have salary caps. I tried doing a google search, but all I get is page after page talking about salary caps for various sports leagues, so at least the athletes have salary caps, although from the results it looks like those are mandated by the leagues, not law. Seeing as I can't find any results to backup that statement I guess I'll have to retract it, but the rest of the post is still valid, and we do give the lawyers and judges way too much power. I wish we could come up with some way of separating attorneys and politicians, otherwise it's the case of the fox guarding the hen house.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll admit the same thing. I was going to vote Democrat for the first time ever until that reversal went down (voted independant or republican before.) Sadly I wasn't being funny though. The rage on the FISA act was in a full storm, Obama voted for it, storm went away and now no one talks about it.
Me:"He broke his promise!"
Slashbot:"Stop trying to confuse the issue!"
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Media publication of this information has nothing to do with whether or not the data was obtained illegally. News organizations publish information obtained from criminals about their criminal acts on a regular basis, and most of them are willing to shield their sources against investigation.
The fact that Palin was using non-state-sanctioned e-mail for purposes of administering the state is, if not outright illegal under either federal or Alaskan law, certainly underhanded and something that the people should know about.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all well and good, but bragging to the world about what you did because you thought it would make you leet is still stupid.
I personally think this deserves punishment, regardless of whose email account he happened to crack. It doesn't matter if it was the Republican nominee for VP or Joe Six-Pack's, and it doesn't matter what portentous revelations came of it.
But the punishment needs to fit the crime. Certainly any sort of jail time would be excessive to say the least. But kids like these need to understand that there are limits and rules which are more important than having a chuckle with the internet. At the very least it should be a lesson on how not to announce to the world what you did.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the key. How many webmail accounts do you think are compromised every day in the world? Now, how many are investigated by the secret service and result in a federal indictment?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd wager it's about the same amount that receive national attention.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except she wasn't conducting business illegally, and I'm puzzled as to why you'd falsely post that as a justification for an immoral and illegal act. As the hacker Rubico apparently said:
See, for example, here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/17/the-story-behind-the-palin-e-mail-hacking/ [michellemalkin.com]
Personally, I prefer Tina Fey to Sarah Palin, but the emails I saw reprinted, while to political colleagues, were the kind that would be illegal (at least at the federal level) to send using government email accounts. For instance, she talked about her Lt-Governor's election campaign. Doing that kind of business on state accounts is a no-no.
But even if all that were not true, you're saying it's just fine to hack into someone's personal email account because you suspect they are guilty of something. So it's fine for the police to do that to you? You must love the Patriot Act and think it doesn't go remotely far enough.
Call that 1984.
Even if Palin had improperly conducted state business on yahoo (which would be stupid and illegal), hacking her email account is still immoral and illegal. I'm surprised that many people who normally are pro-freedom turn out to have very situational ethics when it comes to people they regard as political enemies. As others have said in this thread, a guy called Richard Nixon seemed to think that way.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians don't deserve the same freedoms as citizens. Sorry to say this but they cannot be trusted with as much freedom. The most a citizen will do doesn't matter to national security w/e. But the president/vicepresident, congresscritters they can cause really big problems and when there are allegations of corruption and wrong doing they should NOT get the same level of privacy citizens are supposed to (but dont get regardless). Look up congression level hacks and almost ALWAYS corruption is found. Sorry, privacy is nice and all but when you find they took a few hundred grand or a house in bribes (previous congressmen) then the hack was well justified. Its the same as hacking/investigating people when you have a warrant. The bar should simply be set lower for politicians since they seem to set it lower.
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Sorry, privacy is nice and all but when you find they took a few hundred grand or a house in bribes (previous congressmen) then the hack was well justified.
Machiavelli, is that you? As a fun mad-lib replace politicians with illegal immigrants, terrorists etc. in the beginning of your paragraph, then reread it.
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Also politicians are well identified. I'm perfectly comfortable with known criminals (terrorists) not having as many rights as citizens. Its called prison :/ you get very little privacy in there.
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Or maybe they won't find anything incriminating, like in this instance, and he just looks lik
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. So the Obama campaign will be publishing all of Joe and Barrak's e-mail in the next few days then. 'Cause, how can we know if they're conducting public business with those private accounts, unless we see it all??
The Big Rule of a democratic society is Equality Before the Law. Same rules for everyone. So if Palin's e-mail must all be public record, then the same goes for Biden and Obama, and Kennedy, and everyone else. And you.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
I do think that Bidens and all other congressional emails (through GOV accounts) should be available/read by 3rd party. And when corruption is found like in palins case...
Uh, nothing was found. You can keep saying that, but there was nothing there. Sorry.
If a congress person (palin)...
Palin is not in Congress. She is the governor. That is an executive position.
She fired the Chief because he was going after funding after Palin denied it. He was trying to go over the Governor's head to get things done. Governor's don't like that much. What would your boss do if you went to his boss, or more accurately, the head of a different department to request funding after your boss had denied it? I suspect you would end up in the same place as this particular chief.
...then she should have her logs checked. Seems pretty simple... citizen emails would not need to be public because we don't make billion dollar decisions.
Government officials are still citizens. They deserve privacy just like you or I do. If they are not above the law, then they have the same rights as you or I. Otherwise, we would be allowed to see into the private lives of the old lady at the DPS office. She is just as much a government employee as the governor.
But, hey! Don't let the facts cloud your judgment.
You have to fight dirty... (Score:3, Funny)
. I'm surprised that many people who normally are pro-freedom turn out to have very situational ethics when it comes to people they regard as political enemies.
when your political enemies run the media as a propaganda arm of their party, then whistle innocently or cry "tinfoil hat" when anyone points out the obvious.
When your political enemies start arresting people for wearing "give peace a chance" t-shirts in the mall.
When your political enemies create "free speech zones", and their partisan court appointees uphold the obvious constitutional breach
When your political enemies engage in domestic surveillance which makes watergate look like piss in the ocean.
When y
Re:You have to fight dirty... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? The contents of the emails were generally posted on-line. Which emails were you referring to?
In any case, remember that the appropriate standard here is what ALASKA law says she should do with her email. The current President is in some hot water over the Presidential Records Act, but that act doesn't apply to the Governor of Alaska.
If you have both personal and business relationships with people, it's quite common for information to be intermingled in personal and business email accounts. Nothing generally wrong with that.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
How could you have learned that?
The entire mail archive was posted to wikileaks. Post ONE email from that archive (with appropriate obfuscations, of course) that supports that claim.
note: I'm not suggesting that she did or didn't do anything, only that I'm not convinced the evidence available supports the claim that she did.
note2: I'm not going to look through the archive myself. I don't want to look through someone else's private mail, and the burden of proof falls on the claim that she did commit wrongdoing, anyway.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand, the archive didn't make it; just a few screenshots before the guy freaked out and asked 4chan to glom it for him, which is when/where someone changed the password and alerted Palin. (The screenshots are also supposedly what made it possibly to backtrack him through his weak-sauce anonymizer.)
In short, epic fail for Palin and this cracker schmuck. But a quarter million $ and 3 years? Not going to happen. This kind of thing happens hundreds of times a week, if not day. How many times a day in the US, does someone steal a piece of physical mail (a Federal crime)? Probably in the thousands.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
The entire archive wasn't uploaded as far as I know, unless it was done long after the buzz died down, there were screenshots of like 3 emails, a couple of family pictures and contact list.
Basically the guy just released enough to prove he did it, I doubt he cared about the rest of it. He just wanted to look like an internet tough guy.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
Wikileaks hasn't posted the full e-mail archive to the general public.
The Guardian looked through them, and found e-mails related to a draft letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and emails from "DPS" - the department at the center of Troopergate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/sep/17/uselections2008.sarahpalin
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
To the extent that there may have been e-mail there that was intended to avoid Alaska's public records law, there could have been a crime. However, we will now never know if that alleged illegal activity was taking place, because by compromising the account, this bozo gave Palin a perfect excuse to close the account and (presumably) destroy all the evidence. (And any evidence that can be recovered will be tainted.)
Given the presumption of innocence in US law, we now must presume that she did nothing wrong... even if she had in fact been doing exactly what is alleged. Way to go, fella!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm..., you don't suppose Yahoo might have backups? Naw, a little company like Yahoo probably never thought to do that.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned that Sarah Palin was illegally using personal email accounts for business email
Um, that's perfectly legal.
What you meant to say was that she was illegally using personal email accounts for government business, which is not.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
Close your eyes; it's not illegal.
The freedom of information act would disagree.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Alaska Public Records Act. [sunshinereview.org] FOIA is a Federal law, not a state law.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called incorporation [wikipedia.org], so yeah FOIA applies no matter what the Alaska law says.
Also, she hasn't been elected yet, so don't try to the whole "executive privilege" thing either.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
"Incorporation" concerns the Bill of Rights and various other rights. FOIA is an act of congress that applies to certain documents of certain federal agencies. FOIA is not a right, and thus is not incorporated.
-Loyal
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
I do not think you know what you are talking about. Executive privilege is used TO RESIST SEARCH WARRANTS.
Yet the page you link to as proof says it can be used to resist search warrants "and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government."
Maybe you should fully read links that you post backing up you point of view from start to finish in order to not comes across looking like an idiot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I know how much you love the government, so anything the government says is legal must be morally correct, right?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't expect the vice president of an auto company to know about mechanics. I'd expect her to know how to sucessfully run a company, particularly if I were a customer or stockholder.
Fuel injectors (they don't use carbs any more) are no more a part of the auto industry than accountancy or IT.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
For the slow: Lots of older folks, especially, are not completely tech-savvy. It doesn't mean that they are incompetent at their jobs.
I'm also willing to bet that if this had happened to Joe Biden, these types of comments wouldn't be thrown around so liberally (har har, pun not intended, but realized and appreciated after typed).
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the maximum penalty is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, "Guilty" is a dumb thing to say.
You can't make a deal with a prosecutor if you have zero leverage.
Remember, because of lawyers, common courtesy is dead. For example, you can no longer apologize at the scene of a car accident that's your fault, because then you might be sued.
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost irrelevant. Those were the MAXIMUM allowable sentences, not the minimum. Most likely, this kid gets hit for 3-11 months (so he won't be tainted with that "felon" label), mostly community service, plus $5000-10,000 in fines.
Which is less than he deserves, really. If you're serious about privacy rights, you shouldn't have the attitude that privacy rights only attach to people you like.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
Listen, I am no lover of the McCain-Palin ticket I can assure you, so this is not a partisan slant. But I'll say this: what this dumbass did is _completely_ out of line and he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We don't allow this sort of behavior to go unpunished in a civilized society.
This stance does in no way let Palin off the hook for transgressing her government's policies on using outside email for business work, but that's not the point. Her privacy was violated in an illegal man
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:4, Insightful)
although it is illegal, i just dont care because since she is a celebrity right now, she has the pwer to do something about it. just goes to show you dont want her in office, because she thinks that she deserves special treatment. Also, although her daughter is hot (and so is she)
Obama, FTW!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish i could sue for 250K when i lost my JMS account. Some one broke into my server last week, that should net me another 250K right? Point is that it is a PERSONAL email account. She should be protected as much as you or me when our accounts get hacked.
Was he dumb? Of course
And the difference is that he hacked one person in the gov and risks 250k and 3years. The gov hacks millions and waves it off. Where's my 250,000,000,000$ in damages?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What we have is some people who thought that Palin was conducting official state business on her personal account, and for some reason, even though her personal emails have been exposed and cleared as appropriate, they still can't drop their belief that she was/is conducting state business on her personal account.
Let it go--she obviously wasn't, and we know that thanks to the idiot who accessed her emails.
Re:indict Palin (Score:5, Informative)
Why should she be indicted? None of her emails were very inappropriate.
Government officials have record and reporting requirements. By using an external E-mail provider, she avoided those.
even though her personal emails have been exposed and cleared as appropriate
The account was called "gov.palin" and contained messages like this:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008 [wikileaks.org]
Let it go--she obviously wasn't, and we know that thanks to the idiot who accessed her emails.
She was using the account inappropriately, that much is clear. One can argue about whether this should be a big deal, given that there was no obviously incriminating information she was trying to hide.
I'd usually say this shouldn't be a big deal. But given her apparent history of abuse of power, this is quite relevant.
Re:indict Palin (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, I'm a Constitutionalist, and would be voting for Senator Dr. Paul, if I were given that chance on the Republican ticket. As it is, I'm voting Obama. Although he clearly does not share most of my Constitutional values; I believe he may be the most important political figurehead of my lifetime.
All of that being said, I dont think Palin did anything illegal with her Yahoo account. Sh
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
She's no more a separatist than any other Alaskan. There is not a functioning separatist movement in Alaska any more than there is in Texas (which has it's groups claiming that the state is a republic not a state and there-fore should stand on its own). Efforts to create one in order to paint Palin in a bad light are simplistic and misinformed.
As for being an idiot, I disagree. She's managed to leap herself onto the national stage in a relatively short time period. I don't think it has been a carefully
Security fix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Security fix (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Security fix (Score:4, Funny)
How strange! (Score:5, Funny)
My understanding was that illegally wiretapping American citizens carried neither fine nor penalty.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My understanding was that illegally wiretapping American citizens carried neither fine nor penalty.
Your argument is pretty weak. Using your logic, because police officers detain suspects we the public should be able to as well. The public is not granted the same powers as law enforcement. The public enacts laws that apply in different ways to the general population vs law enforcement.
Re:How strange! (Score:4, Informative)
Using your logic, because police officers detain suspects we the public should be able to as well. [wikipedia.org]
Or are you suggesting that people aren't allowed to detain those they catch stealing from them? You should not be calling anyone's argument "weak".
You seem to be unaware of the fact that all the powers of (our) government are granted by those that it governs, as are all the laws the define legal behavior for both the government and citizen alike. It starts with Constitution and derives from there.
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that's not fraud, it's something else
Where has reading comprehesion gone :/ (Score:3, Informative)
Classic lack of understanding... (Score:4, Informative)
...encapsulated in one, simplistic know-it-all sentence.
The so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) no longer exists, and hasn't since 17 January 2007 [nytimes.com].
All surveillance was happening under the guise of the Protect America Act [whitehouse.gov], which was designed exclusively to allow foreign intelligence collection without a warrant when the traffic travelled through the United States, whether incidentally or by design. Foreign intelligence collection is always allowed without court oversight; the changes explicitly allowed such collection on US soil as long as the target was reasonably believed to be a non-US person physically outside of the United States, regardless of the other end of the conversation.
Now the Protect America Act has expired with its automatic sunset, and all surveillance must again happen only via FISA [washingtontimes.com], as amended.
Also, TSP, in its entirety, was never as clear cut as being simply "legal" or "illegal" (court decisions on individual aspects aside). Those who claimed that it was "illegal" did so largely for political reasons. The other mistake is equating "traffic that *could be* listened to" with "traffic that *is* listened to" -- unfortunately, they are not at all the same. This also ignores that to even determine whether traffic is subject to legal collection, it must -- to be blunt -- actually be able to be collected. Thus the things like "secret rooms" at telecom facilities.
Having the capability to instantaneously examine traffic of international origin, where one or both endpoints of a communication are international, necessitates such wholesale monitoring capability. However, such capability being present does not imply its use for all traffic.
There are two issues here:
1. Monitoring the contents of a communication
2. Monitoring the metadata or "envelope" (source and destination information) of a communication
The first is allowable without a warrant or court oversight when one or both endpoints of the communication are international, and when the target of such monitoring is a non-US Person outside of the United States. Such foreign signals intelligence collection does not require a warrant or court oversight.
The second point above has multiple functions. One is using advanced data mining techniques to look for troubling patterns in communications.
Such collection has been found to be legal without a warrant or court oversight by the US Supreme Court:
Source: Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) [findlaw.com]
Courts have subsequently found that pen register statutes apply similarly to computer network addresses known as IP addresses, lists of web sites visited, and the "envelope" of an email message -- its To: and From: addresses and related information. The NSA itself has long understood that while the capture of the "metadata" of communications is fair game, the capture of the *contents* of the conversations of US Persons is not, without a warrant:
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Just because I don't agree with what the current administration has done, doesn't mean I should let the same transgressions be passed against them.
It's because I think that the wire taps were wrong that I think this guy should be punished. It's not an excuse that just because Bush and the teleco's got off scott-free then all republicans shouldn't be given any rights.
Is that you're logic? Really? Because it's a
Bummer (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
One can only hope that he is prosecuted to the exact same extent that he would be prosecuted for hacking my Yahoo mail account.
Re:Bummer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, he is.
Please stop reposting from the DailyKos.
Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
He is being punished for breaking the law. He is being prosecuted for making Sarah Palin look bad.
Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
He's being punished for breaking the law in a high-profile way. Millions of people get away with speeding every day, yet if I were to speed past a vigil for children killed by reckless drivers, and TV cameras caught it and it became a big news story, I'd expect to get busted for it. High profile crimes are typically prosecuted in a high profile way.
As for the assertion that it made the GOP look bad, how so? There was nothing incriminating there, he even commented himself on how disappointed he was when he was unable to find something to use against her. If anything, it's a net positive for the GOP since they've been victimized by a crime from Obama's supporters without any damage being done in the long run.
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Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
> rather he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
That would only make sense if he actually *found* any of the kind of thing he was looking for and, thus, actually made the aforementioned persons look bad. The only people who really look bad here are Yahoo, and perhaps other sites that follow a similar practice of encouraging users to use fundamentally highly insecure "Security Questions.
At worst Palin comes off looking she's not a computer security expert (everyone who is surprised about this, raise your hand), and at best she comes off looking like she has nothing to hide. The only way she'd look bad out of this would be if she got hateful and vindictive and angry about it and started screaming for justice, but she presumably has better political sense than that, having already run a successful campaign for office at the state level.
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Right, because the SON of a CONGRESSMAN (D) hacking into accounts for POLITICAL GAIN isn't "bad" because it is a (D) CONGRESS person. If this had been flipped around 180 degrees, I bet it still would be (R) bad (D) good.
Partisan HACKS like your are idiots, because all you see is (R) bad (D) good.
I HATE our (USA) politics because it is run by stupid idiots, who think everyone is like them (ie stupid).
Some are more equal than others... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times a day do bitter exs break into each others accounts? Nothing ever comes of those incidents.
Re:Some are more equal than others... (Score:4, Informative)
It probably helps to be a public personality, but there are cases where people breaking into less-than-presidential-candidate-email have found themselves losing to the law:
http://news.google.com/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&tab=wn&nolr=1&hl=en&q=%22Larry+Mendte%22&btnG=Search+News [google.com]
Re:Some are more equal than others... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell fucking yes. If burglars break into Obama's mansion he should get the exact same response that I would get if a burglar broke into my place.
Obama is not King and we are not his subjects. He's a citizen like everybody else, who just happens to hold a high office. Law enforcement should not treat him specially just because of that.
Re:Some are more equal than others... (Score:4, Funny)
I really don't see the problem. Plenty more where they came from.
Balance (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does that sound a bit excessive for guessing the answers to her all-too-obvious "forgot password" questions? I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished, but no actual harm was done. How does this compare to what the punishment would be for, say, hacking into an ISP's mail server and obtaining root access? Or defacing a company's web site?
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Tell that to Gary McKinnon who logged into US DoD and NASA computers because they had no blank passwords and is being extradited from the UK to the US with the possibility of spending the rest of his life in a US jail.
Whilst I agree there's something horribly wrong with such a simple crime with being punished so harshly it seems it's treated as if you walked round someones house looking through their stuff because they left the door open.
I do think realistically the punishment should be capped drastically l
Turned himself in? Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Is this paragraph from the article misleading? I assume what they are getting at is that he didn't try to run away. I don't think he voluntarily went to the police and told them what he did. He was investigated and got caught, or at least the evidence points in his direction. Now he will take the heat like a man.
Either way, when he gets out of jail, he is going to get some major liberal/hacker tang!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
*Democrat* State Legislator (Score:5, Interesting)
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Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to The Anchorage Daily News [adn.com] her use of secret accounts for state business was already an issue before McCain selected her as his running mate. A records request this summer by a fellow Republican (Andree McLeod) turned up the fact that she was playing fast and loose with the state records laws.
The Republicans in Alaska had had just about enough of her before McCain swooped in. There was bipartisan support for several investigations against her and a growing consensus towards impeachment.
Now, of course, that's all forgotten, at least in some quarters.
I think that's the whole point. They haven't seen the emails, but their existence has been made clear by (among other things) the privilege logs, other e-mails, and sworn testimony of her staffers. So far, she's refusing to turn them over.
--MarkusQ
how about the guys shouting "kill him?" (Score:3, Interesting)
At Geezer and Gidget's recent speeches, they had people shouting "treason!" and "kill him!", the object of their vitriol being "that one." So, is the McCain Campaign helping the Secret Service in investigating these death threats?
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Yes, you might call them *Presidential* standards...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy [wikipedia.org]
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. I'm not saying that this guy deserves to get away scot-free, but I would suggest that perhaps the crime here is fraud, not breaking into a computer system (though all the sources I've seen are unclear as to what he's actually being charged with).
Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough with this.
I can't believe how many blindly partisan people simply ignore the violation of her privacy.
Would you have the same attitude if you had been the victim?
You'd be OK with someone hacking into your email, or perhaps browsing around your home to look for something that *might* indicate that you've done something wrong?
Would you say, "I guess I had it coming"?
I think it's sad that this (eternal) election has divided American citizens into Republicans or Democrats and not much else.
Damn.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's rather the opposite, really.
Perform this thought experiment. You discover that your e-mail account has been hacked. You call the police. What happens then?
If you answered "sweet fuck all" then you are correct! A normal person is never going to get law enforcement to dedicate any resources to the hacking of a free e-mail account. If you are very lucky then perhaps you'll be able to do all the legwork yourself, gather all the evidence pointing to the perpetrator, and convince the DA to prosecute. But eve
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not really relevant, since old persons don't use email. Just ask John McCain.
John McCain can't type because his arms were repeatedly broken by the Vietnamese while he was a POW. Why do you insult disabled veterans?
Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Insightful)
John McCain can't type because his arms were repeatedly broken by the Vietnamese while he was a POW. Why do you insult disabled veterans?
Well, that's what his campaign claims when the embarrassing topic of his technological ignorance comes up. On the other hand, here [flickr.com] you can see him firmly holding a pad in one hand, while signing his name with the other hand, standing up, with no awkwardness that I can observe. He's hardly an invalid. If he can do that, he can type on a keyboard.
While I respect McCain's sacrifice 35 years ago as a single data point, unfortunately he's also proved himself to be a dishonorable liar since then.
Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the example it makes is that you can get away with crimes as long as the victim isn't important.
Re:It could become interesting to prove outside (Score:4, Interesting)
What strikes me about Obama, Biden and McCain is that whilst they may have some level of corruption I think to be fair on them all they do genuinely believe they can better the country if they become president.
Palin is the only one out the 4 who strikes me as only seeming to care about increasing her power rather than improving the country.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On one hand, we have the Governor of Alaska and potential VP of the United States using a public e-mail system (with a really simple password hint) for state work.
Sometimes the written word is tough to interpret, so please don't take this as some sort of macho challenge, but do we really have any official proof that the governor was doing what you've said? I don't want anyone to simply answer "Yes" or give some anecdotal diatribe. I want someone to provide some real proof that I and a bunch of other curious people can read.