Is Sarah Palin's Inbox Causing Controversy?

[rootX]

What's with that?

http://pastebin.com/f652c44fb

 

[Evo]

Hackers break into Sarah Palin's e-mail account

She used a yahoo e-mail account.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/palin_hacked;_ylt=AlkJVy4aZNNGSWkbNsB5ukZh24cA

 

[rootX]

She used a yahoo e-mail account.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/palin_hacked;_ylt=AlkJVy4aZNNGSWkbNsB5ukZh24cA

Wikileaks has all her inbox content.

I didn't know that she isn't suppose to use her personal inbox for government communications ...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Wikileaks has all her inbox content.

I didn't know that she isn't suppose to use her personal inbox for government communications ...

wikileaks is currently offline

 

[rootX]

wikileaks is currently offline

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_account_2008

works on my computer:

Wednesday September 16, 2008
File
sarah-palin-hack-2008.zip (click to view full file)
sarah-palin-hack-2008.zip (alternative address)
Contents
screenshot 01.jpg
screenshot 02.jpg
screenshot 03.jpg
screenshot 04.jpg
screenshot 05.jpg
contacts.txt
email-account-info.txt
email-index.txt
family1.jpg
family2.jpg

Circa midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) activists loosely affiliated with the group 'anonymous' gained access to U.S. Republican Party Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account gov.palin@yahoo.com and passed information to Wikileaks. Governor Palin has come under criticism for using private email accounts to conduct government business and in the process avoid transparency laws. The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin's inbox, two example emails, address book and a couple of family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name tends to re-enforce the criticism.
The list of emails include an exchange with Alaskan Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
The e-mail, a message of support to Palin, tells her not to let negative press get to her and asks Palin to pray for McCorkell, who writes that "I need strength to 1. keep employment, 2. not have to choose."
According to Kim Zetter of Wired Magazine, McCorkell confirmed that she did send the e-mail to Palin.
Subsequently tests by Wikileaks reveal that both Palin's gov.palin@yahoo.com and her unrelated gov.sarah@yahoo.com account have now been deleted, almost certainly by Palin herself.
According to the Guardian, who has looked at the Wikileaks data, among the emails in Palin's account were several from addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing "DPS", the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
DPS supervises the Alaska state troopers. Could the e-mails in question be relevant to the brewing ethics storm over Palin's push to sack her former brother-in-law from the force?
Wikileaks may release additional emails should they prove be of political substance.
Nb. The 'ctunnel.com' reference in the browser screen shots is to a proxy service used to prevent the criminals from being traced.

 

[BobG]

Wikileaks has all her inbox content.

I didn't know that she isn't suppose to use her personal inbox for government communications ...

That's correct. Official communications one makes as a part of one's job belong to the employer. That's true for government officials and private employees (in other words, you, too, can get in trouble with your employer if you use your personal e-mail to conduct company business).

Technically, she (or any other employee) could probably meet the legal requirements by printing and filing copies of the e-mails from her personal e-mail account, but that's tossing a wrench into what should be an automated, almost paperless system.

A more efficient method of meeting the requirements would be to forward the e-mails to your business e-mail address. That would meet the legal requirements and avoid throwing a wrench into the system.

The best method is to use your business e-mail for business and your personal e-mail for personal mail. Since a lot of folks will both of your e-mails in their contacts list, the only thing you can do to people who send stuff to the wrong address is to remind them of your business address. You can't stop the problem completely. (Especially from the people who send their stuff to every e-mail they have for you, just in case.)

If the e-mails contain proprietary information (more for private companies than government), then you definitely want to remind the person to use your business e-mail. They can get into trouble for distributing proprietary info to the wrong destination even if you can't (presumably, a company's e-mail would be harder to hack than Yahoo, but that's not necessarily true).

If there's a pattern to the e-mails, then you can get a whole new situation. If it looks like the governor is using the e-mail to hide official business from government officials, then you're going to have an investigation. Usually a person tries to hide business e-mails from their employer because they're doing something unethical or illegal.

 

[LowlyPion]

She used a yahoo e-mail account.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/palin_hacked;_ylt=AlkJVy4aZNNGSWkbNsB5ukZh24cA

"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.

The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply.

You can bet if the McCain Campaign had any Obama emails, they would be splashing them about.

Good for the AP not cooperating. The Secret Service is out of line expecting to plug the bottle.

As to appropriate authorities ... What exactly is the charge?

 

[edward]

This may cast doubts on Palin's knowledge of security.

There was an occasion when I needed to get into my son's Verizon account. His company had given him a new blackberry several months previously, so he gave his old phone and prepaid account to my wife.

There was a problem because he could not remember the password to the old phone. He was busy so I went to the account online, but was stopped by the password.

I clicked on "forgot Password" a screen popped up with two security questions. One was mothers maiden name. Hey that is my wife. The next was dogs name. LOL I trained that mutt. With that information I changed the password to one that was easy for my wife to remember.

After that I made a bet that with my daughter in law that I could get access her Yahoo account. It was simple. I had her e-mail address, dogs name and son's middle name were the security questions.



If one knows a bit of personal information about a someone it is fairly easy to access an account. And a lot of companies use simple family related security questions because people tend to forget them. A bit of trial and error and a hacker is in.

 

[LowlyPion]

This may cast doubts on Palin's knowledge of security.

Looking at the other areas of her expertise, Foreign Policy (I can see Russia) to Energy (dril, drill, drill), I guess knowing what to do with "You've got mail" qualifies her as an IT guru.

Couple that with John McCain's positions on banking ("Mr. Keating on line 3 for you Senator") to the economy (Who needs Glass Steagall?) and the claim that McCain contributed to bringing about the Blackberry, looks like the McCain Palin team offers the opportunity to bring multiple areas of incompetence into the Executive offices.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

If one knows a bit of personal information about a someone it is fairly easy to access an account. And a lot of companies use simple family related security questions because people tend to forget them. A bit of trial and error and a hacker is in.

This is why I never use real info for any of those questions. I just make it up and generally use the same questions and answers so as to not forget.

Edit:
By the way does anything in therestate anything about the actual content of her e-mails? Maybe they were about campaigns and such but were just idle chat and nothing of actual importance.

 

[BobG]

If one knows a bit of personal information about a someone it is fairly easy to access an account. And a lot of companies use simple family related security questions because people tend to forget them. A bit of trial and error and a hacker is in.

This is why I never use real info for any of those questions. I just make it up and generally use the same questions and answers so as to not forget.

Edit:
By the way does anything in therestate anything about the actual content of her e-mails? Maybe they were about campaigns and such but were just idle chat and nothing of actual importance.

Supposedly, there was no damaging info. (Hacking Sarah Palin

Gawker has posted a few screen shots of the messages found in Palin's account; they reveal nothing damaging about Palin, other than that she has a penchant for typing in ALL CAPS when exercised.

Still, using the typical challenge questions are just setting a person up to be hacked - especially a public person that lots of people know a lot about.

Also interesting:

McCain abstains from e-mail, as do George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who sent just two messages during his time in the White House (and one was a test e-mail).

Even with a VP that "invented the internet", Bill Clinton didn't use it? (Gore, Hillary Clinton, Romney, and Obama almost never stop using their Blackberrys).