Or not. And sayeth the kid, who really wasn't much of a hacker at all:

The hacker said that he read all of the e-mails in the Palin account and found "nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped. All I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor…. And pictures of her family."

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

but I really wouldn't want anyone reading my extremely mundane personal email. Maybe because I'd hate for the whole world to know how extremely mundane my life really is.

don't hack into other people's email, especially if a close relative holds elective office. Just because you can do it doesn't make it right.

Hate to break it to you, but Bush has been reading our email for years, now. lol

I agree with Lambert, too. Really, could she have made this any easier? BTW, this kid needs punishment. I don't care if it were my enemy, going through someone else's mail is about as low as you can go in my book. I don't have any sympathy for hackers and wannabe hackers.

I know! But I figure I must be doing something wrong, because Bush hasn't been around to bug me about my private email. See, too mundane. Too low on the threat matrix. That's probably better protection against hacking or cracking anyway.

Unless...maybe it's all just a big head fake by Palin.

...and it's all over the news here in Knoxville. Given the politics of E. TN I'd say the he will see punishment enough from the community -- much of this area has been GOP since prior to the Civil War.

PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!

...there's some question on whether or not the story is entirely correct. Also, the Rep. is apparently receiving death threats over this.

linky

PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!

I asked because if they've remained Republicans even while the rest switched to Democrats prior to the 60's and then back, again, then they must be some pretty foreign Republicans to the rest of the Southern Republicans.

teaching McCain how to navigate the internet.

Aren't they saying that Kernell has admitted it was his son?

For them to have been GOP during the Civil War, and to have remained as such in the South is nothing short of amazing, to me.

had an easy account to get into? Some computer types I used to know would always claim it was the victim's fault for not being security-conscious enough, even if the hackers were doing high tech stuff. The hacker got into the account in the first place for one. Anyway, let's not blame Palin--if she did use a simple answer, it was in response to a prompt written by the company. Should she have known better than the advice of her e-mail provider--or other businesses like say banks that do this too? They are supposed to have enough protection to prevent hacking.
Don't worry about the hacker--he'll have to pay his debt to society--but many of these guys do no jail time. Instead, they do community service like helping increase town computer security--and many of them get hired by computer companies, although usually for higher tech hacks.

to get the banner on the page. It's pretty compeling and suprisingly he's not asking for money, just trust. I think he deserves it and I'm going to give that to him.

I love this job!

DOJ View on Email Privacy May Hamper Prosecution of Palin Hackers

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

is behind this. Clearly just a theory and I have no linky goodness, so dispell my comment if you like.

I love this job!

Yes, I have been thinking over the past day what we (his constituents) can do to support him, since I don't trust the party leadership to do so.

Elixir, I did not receive an email. I'll go do what I can to get on his list now. Oddly, that had not occurred to me before now.

Whatever merit there is to the charges being leveled against him, this is so obviously a campaign against this one particular person (I have no doubt similar stuff could be dug up on practically anyone in Congress) that I really have to wonder who is behind it.

(Edit: Oops, sorry, I thought I put this on the wrong thread and then realized it was the right thread. More coffee needed!)

being overturned, no matter who wins in November.

The temptation is too great.

not covering the Rangel charges. Not even BTD. No mention at all in the posts, that I can see.

I am disappointed.

but don't have much time. But, dagnabbit, I'll make the time. May not get anything ready before Sunday night, if then, though.

What I'm wondering is, where is the rest of the left/progressive blogosphere? I mean, isn't this the kind of thing TalkLeft covers? Is everybody so distracted by PalinSpain that they can't even pause to mention this campaign (whoever's behind it) to find something to bring down the most powerful, arguably most reliably liberal member of Congress? I mean, cause that's sure how it looks to me.

I'm sorry I posted. I blew off all the blog reports but figured Wired would be ok. (although come to think of it, the editors at Wired probably are getting their news off the blogs).

Hacker’s dad seems to be a Democratic state representative in Tennessee, Mike Kernell.

Where do you see this? Both the father and the TN kid denied these allegations. When did this kind of bullshit become fact??!!

When they catch the kid, then I want to know about it.

This is sad, sad. You realize you are basing your accusations on a 4chan confession. At least update your fictitious bullshit post Val.

Thanks, but after I got over my annoyance at intranets and my ever-happy-to-dog-me pal BIO, I realized that my original headline was misleading. That was really bad. The Wired article didn't name names, I found those on one of the local sites, I should have followed Wired's lead on that.

Lambert posted a link the other day that also had information about how people process and store information, here, on source amnesia.

Some of the more interesting points for PB2.0 and media critique is that people forget the source of the information and only remember the information; after a while they remember information as true, even if the original statement came with a disclaimer.

But the article points to one of the possible antidotes, too:

In the same study, however, when subjects were asked to imagine their reaction if the evidence had pointed to the opposite conclusion, they were more open-minded to information that contradicted their beliefs. Apparently, it pays for consumers of controversial news to take a moment and consider that the opposite interpretation may be true.

With this story there are a bunch of possible opposite possibilities:

1. The son actually has no connection to any of it (eg, the original tracers of the hacker were mistaken).

2. The son is the person who wrote the admission of the hack (really, more like a weak crack), but isn't the hacker. Just as people falsely confess to crimes for attention-seeking, maybe he's claiming responsibility falsely.

3. He actually likes Palin and did hack her email, so he could release some innocuous emails and then claim they were all innocuous.

There's no more evidence for any of the above, really, than the original article, but they are alternative interpretations. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm guessing that if he turns out to not be the hacker, it won't make much MSM but is more likely to be followed up in the TN news.

The hack was the work of "Anonymous," who do it for the lulz. It's not just one person.

The Times Sunday Magazine did a profile of a not-Anonymous hacker, but also discussed Anonymous and how that worked. Jaclyn Friedman also did an article in Bitch in May or June about the Anonymous attacks on feminist blogs last year.

They do this because they feel they have a right to teach people lessons. One of the hackers interviewed for the NYT piece hacked into the site for the Epilepsy Foundation and installed code that made the site display flashing graphics, which can trigger seizures. He justified it by saying that they deserved it because they left themselves vulnerable.

Interestingly, Anonymous is also anti-Scientology and protested outside the premiere of Katie Holmes' new play because Tom Cruise was there.

I was wrong when I said they "denied the allegations", but rather they "denied to comment" or denied they had been contacted or denied they were being investigated.

Here's the latest:
Some google hacking looks to be pretty solid 2003 links to David Kernell

Another non sourced story about father confirms his son being investigated

Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, said his 20-year-old son David had been contacted by authorities investigating the hacking of Palin’s personal e-mail account, the newspaper reported on its Web site this afternoon.

Internet digging on "rubico" and links to Kernell

It's not conclusive, but good enough for internet digging. I had not seen so many links from chess lover "rubico" back to Kernell names in profiles. The person in question appears to be 20 not 17.

...it appears the UT student has been served a warrant by the FBI.

http://www.wbir.com/news/breaking/story....

PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!

.

...allegedly..

But too many fingerprints are point at one person.
Not only does the "rubico" go back to Kernell, but the proxy used and the unique URL from the proxy screengrab have been traced the ISP from his dorm room.

This kid is really, really dumb to (a) reset Palins password, then (b) post details to 4chan, then (c) not even post anonymously and used personally identifying username, then (d) post a screengrab with the full unique URL.

He is barely computer literate let alone a hacker. 4chan is not the kind of place you use a unique username on that easily googles back to your real name.

Witnesses say Kernell and his friends fled the apartment when the FBI agents arrived.

For your last note. I hate the taste of crow. But I have found that sometimes it is good for the soul. Well done.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.