Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account hijacked, e-mails posted online

ZDNet ^ | 9/17/2008 | Ryan Naraine

[Domandred]

Mod note: Do no post any screenshots of Governor Palin's Yahoo account on Free Republic.
Thank you.

On the heels of media reports that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was using a private Yahoo e-mail account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) to conduct Alaska state business, hackers have broken into the account and posted evidence of the hijack on Wikileaks.

An activist group calling itself ‘anonymous’ claimed responsibility for the compromise and released screenshots, photographs and the e-mail addresses of several people close to Palin, including her husband Todd and assistant Ivy Frye.

[Genoa]

Ha! Yahoogate! Love it!!!

[BGHater]

You know why, October surprise.

[Knitebane]

Oh, so it's her fault that a felon stole her data? Talk about blaming the victim.

The lion's share of the blame should always go to the person that performed the illegal act.

That said, if the victim doesn't perform due diligence then they deserve some blame too. There's nothing unusual in "blaming the victim" of a car theft if the victim left the keys in the ignition. That doesn't take anything away from the blame assigned to the car thief, but the car owner still should be chastised for leaving the keys where they provide easy access to a thief.

And, as usual, it all comes down to Layer 1. In computer networking Layer 1 is the physical layer, the wire. It's also a euphemism for the physical part of any network infrastructure from the room that it's in, to the cabinet the server sits in to the server case itself.

If you don't have physical control of the hardware, you don't really have control at all. Using a third party to manage your email means that a third party has access to your email. There's just no way around that.

My email server is at my house. A person wanting physical access to it is going to have to deal with locks, dogs, guns and alarms.

If your email is at Yahoo! or Google then the people that run the network there have access to it. If you're using your email account to receive email from eBay when you win something then it doesn't much matter.

If you're doing official government business then it does. If you are exchanging messages with someone and you'd rather not find them on the front page of the New York Times, then it does.

No one is saying that it's all the Governor's fault. But she did something dumb and someone else took advantage of that.

[steve-b]

Yes but that allows her to keep correspondence beyond the reach of the Alaska legislature.

Though not, apparently, beyond the reach of a l33t hacqer d00d.

[Antoninus]

Not blaming the victim but simply stating that a governor of a state should not trust the security of their communication to a company that has very little e-mail security.

Ah yes. Don't be outraged that some scum broke into a private email account and spread it all over the internet. Criticize the victim.

Got it. What's next? Critizing rape victims for wearing skimpy clothes?

Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

[Aquinasfan]

Nope, it means that they gots bupkiss. Idle threat. If they had anything, it would already be on kos.

Yup.

[Chet 99]

her use of the Yahoo accounts was public for some time. I’m surprised she didn’t zap the accounts earlier.

[Genoa]

I’m wagering nobody cares how much “business” she might have discussed on her PRIVATE email account that was HACKED by some LOWLIFE. She will get so much love from this that the October Surprise, whatever it is, will be the October Yawn. Irrelevant! LOL

[Knitebane]

I delete all emails, and recommend others do the same...

That is better than nothing, but doesn't mean that the system admin of the email server can't see your email.

It's trivial to make a copy of any mail that hits the server and store it elsewhere.

[jilliane]

At the bottom of the home page at yahoo.com is a contact us link. Every single day I send them emails pointing out the bias of the “headlines” - all democrat hugs and kisses and all republican hatred.

[jilliane]

At the bottom of the home page at yahoo.com is a contact us link. Every single day I send them emails pointing out the bias of the “headlines” - all democrat hugs and kisses and all republican hatred.

[EBH]

Wonder if this has any relation to staff members not being forced to speak to investigators? Boy they are digging and from what I can tell...it seems most of what here is personal email.

[Mediocrates]

..I consider ANY email to have the same level of privacy as shouting across my pasture.

Yes. If I wouldn't put a message on a post card, I don't put it in email of any kind.

[steve-b]

No online account is safe from an administrator account with full privileges.

You'd think that by now people would have learned that anything sensitive needs to be encrypted (on your system before it's uploaded).

[murron]

Also, why would she use such an obvious login name?

[Aquinasfan]

Most of the ‘email’ seems to be personal in nature. Includes blurry picture of Bristol and Trig on a plane, list of emails with dates, subjects, size an all her contacts, which also appear to be real.

The Demwits are re-defining stupidity here. Can they say, "BACKFIRE"?

[mmichaels1970]

Doesn’t look legit at all to me. Even going through the wikileaks files didn’t make it any more convincing. Somebody has two photos and some screenshots?

I could easily go to yahoo and set up an email box called gov.soandso@yahoo.com. I can easily fill it full of some fake emails and capture a screen shot.

gov.palin@yahoo.com looks too obvious to me. If it were her personal email box, I’d think it would be unrelated to the “gov” title.

There is an email in there that says “Look at Trig” which implies to me that there is a picture of Trig attached...yet there is not attachment to the email. This just doesn’t smell right.

I’d make sure those that would criticize her for having a yahoo box would wait for further confirmation.

[Genoa]

I should add that the “destroying evidence” gambit that some will be trying to play up is a hoot, too. Evidence of what and who cares anyway??

[AnAmericanMother]

Until my parents retired and moved to the country, they always left their keys in the cars in the driveway. In the city of Atlanta.

This probably had something to do with the fact that my dad shot a burglar and it made the news . . . .

Word gets around.

[Boiling Pots]

It appears she has/had several “Official” contacts in her account.

It would seem to me, if they had anything more destructive, they’d have released it, or does Wikileaks only have the few screenshots that were sent to them...