Palin's E-mail Hacked!

Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo e-mail account was hacked a couple days ago.

An anonymous individual utilized the standard password reset process to get access (by making some enterprising guesses on Palin's personal information) to Palin's personal e-mail account, and quickly uploaded pictures, personal e-mail addresses, and other private details to a message board. The details can be found in the links below, but the short version is that the hacker and others from the message board were looking for dirt that could be used against Palin. One of the board's users, however, saw the unethical feeding frenzy and logged in, changing the password (thus locking out the other users), then notified a friend of Palin's what had happened.

Naturally, the McCain campaign immediately condemned the act, calling it a shocking invasion of privacy and a violation of law. Hacking a private e-mail address is a federal felony with a penalty of several years in prison, so it's no laughing matter.

The FBI and Secret Service are looking into the matter, though the AP has refused to help try to track down the hacker who started it all. Fortunately for the investigation, the webmaster who runs the proxy service for the message board has offered his help. Apparently, in his haste to post screenshots of Palin's private information, the original hacker had also captured most of the web address of his login session, which should allow the webmaster to track him down.

Though the investigation is underway, it is being reported that one individual being investigated is David Kernell, son of Tennessee Democrat state Representative Mike Kernell.

In keeping with its political views, the AP is actually framing this whole thing as being Palin's fault! Commentary from Michelle Malkin:

The AP publicized Palin’s other personal e-mail accounts, as well as her husband’s, which were derived from information obtained illegally by the hacker. Bridis says having Yahoo accounts is an open invitation for hackers and that the victims are to blame for invasions of privacy.

By refusing to cooperate with the federal investigation into the hacking crime and publicizing the Palins’ other personal Yahoo e-mail account information, the AP openly invited hackers to break into those family accounts as well and endorsed illicit activity to raid private family photos.

The issues are inextricably linked, to borrow a phrase, and raise questions about the propriety of AP’s continued flacking for Barack Obama under the guise of objective journalism.

Little Green Footballs asks why the tech-savvy Obama campaign (which has used the Internet with tremendous success so far) hasn't condemned this illegal and unethical behavior. That's a good question...where is the Obamessiah's statement? Was this an officially sanctioned action? I would hope not, but the very least Obama should do is condemn the invasion.

Regardless, it sounds like we may know who perpetrated this crime in a relatively short time, and it will be very interesting to know who it was...and why he/she did it.

In the meantime, it is useful to know that the AP is content to perpetuate an actual crime against a Vice-Presidential candidate simply because they don't like that candidate, even to the point of hindering a federal investigation. Personally, I'd love to see all of these hackers and message board users get prosecuted for being accessories to this crime. Will it happen? Time will tell.

There's my two cents.



Sources:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31294_Script_Kiddies_in_Trouble#rss
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/17/sarah-palins-private-e-mail-hacked-family-photos-raided/
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/17/the-story-behind-the-palin-e-mail-hacking/
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/18/palin-e-mail-hack-update-ap-wont-help-feds-tech-operator-will/
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/18/closing-in-on-the-palin-e-mail-hacker/
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/18/ap-reporter-e-mails-yeah-its-all-palins-fault/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31298_Tenn._Democratic_Representatives_Son_Focus_of_Palin_Email_Hacking#rss
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/09/david-kernell-under-investigation.html