Posted on 03/12/2009 4:00:38 AM PDT by drellberg
""Wikileaks" explained in an earlier email that it was making public the information on Coleman's donors, including their credit card numbers, because of the "Coleman campaign's effort to impugn the election processes in the State of Minnesota." As a result of Wikileak's mass email of a spread sheet containing credit card information for thousands of Coleman donors, the Coleman campaign sent an email to its supporters today suggesting that they cancel their credit cards."
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
Just called Wells Fargo to cancel mine. Agent said they are getting all kinds of calls and they are all coming from Minnesota. If they catch the offending people just send them up here for a little “ice fishing”.
Nothing would exonerate Wikileaks from releasing the partial donor list, nothing. I don’t know why they did it, unless it was the same reason that a kidnapper sends an ear to the victim’s family, or to prove that they actually had the numbers. They claim that they did it to get the contributors’ attention. I’m not trying to defend their decision to post some of the numbers. But what they did does not somehow justify Coleman’s original errors, or his claims of being hacked.
Coleman’s db wasn’t hacked originally. Coleman’s IT security was lax. His storage of the numbers with their security codes is illegal. That was my original point in sum.
“When are the repubics going to start fighting back as hard as the libs are fighting us?”
Probably because most folks are who conservative generally have a great sense of decency and following the proper rules and etiquette in all things. Just compare how the Republicans handle defeat to how Al Gore and his fans handled his defeat in 2000. To the liberal(at least the modern liberal, anyway), the ends justifies the means since no matter what he does, he can always justify in his mind that he is committing the act in the name of “social justice.” I also find liberals tend to crave power more since their religion is the creation of a bigger and larger state whereas conservatives want a smaller government with less authority over the lives of its citizens. I surmise their out-of-control lust for more and more power drives many on the Left to act in a way that I don’t find to the same extent among folks on the Right.
Pick up your weapon and follow me.
When do we storm the Bastille?
While I agree with you about why dims are the way that they are, if we do not start fighting fire with fire... we will walk the wilderness for another 45 years of minority status... and I for one will do everything that I can do to actually wage the same kind of war against them that they wage against us.
LLS
I keep mine close these days!
LLS
Remember the new acronym:
O ne
B ig
A ss
M istake
A merica!
But, how ofen have they done these things and not been caught?
I don’t know how to evaluate your assessment that Coleman’s people screwed up. I’ll take that at face value and concede the point.
I don’t think this diminishes my fear one bit. Some evil force STILL had to be poking around the Coleman site looking for ways to do damage. And having found the data, whether by criminal means or not, they sent emails out saying to these 51,000 plus donors that they were in possession of their credit card information. I don’t find this act of intimidation any less chilling for having been catalyzed by a Coleman screw up, even if you are correct on that point.
And if this is why the MSM is looking the other way, I don’t find the MSM any less culpable. This is an act of intimidation, pure and simple. And it is of a breathtaking form and impact.
Or are you somehow maintaining, worst-case-scenario, that they act was any less heinous for having been enabled by some screw up IT person on the Coleman campaign? You seem to think that this point is relevant. I am having a difficult time understanding why.
He is right. If you do some research and look into wikileaks, it would appear that wikileaks actually did Colman's contributors a favor by letting them know that their credit card info had been hacked and had been floating around the Internet for several weeks before wikileaks became aware of it.
They only published the last four digits and security codes so that Colman's contributors would know that they were telling the truth. They did not publish the full credit card numbers so that anyone reading the data could use them illegally. Apparently they contacted the Colman campaign first but Colman did nothing to warn his contributors, so they they warned them instead.
PS. it was/is against the law for Colman's campaign to keep security codes on record. They messed up and it is likely Colman's campaign and not Wikileaks that will be held liable for any fraud committed using the hacked information.
The original hacker/hackers are unknown, but it wasn't wikileaks. It is claimed that instead of being hacked, that it was accidentally exposed to everyone on Colman's website for a short time on January 28 due to incompetence of his web site crew.
OK, I am beginning at least to understand your basic point, as well as the point being made by worst-case-scenario.
I still disagree, and just as vehemently. Under what scenario, Monday and Worst-Case-Scenario, is it Wikileaks’ place to send this email? Why is it their responsibility to do this? And even if I grant all that you are claiming, how could it STILL not be interpreted in a chilling fashion?
Here is a hard core left-wing group emailing 50,000 Coleman contributors saying “We have your credit card information.” Do you think that wikileaks did not give any thought to how that might be interpreted? Do you think that a significant fraction of the recipients interpreted this as anything other than a threat?
I’m frustrated that there isn’t significantly more outrage on this point, even if I concede all that the two of you are saying. And I’m still in the dark as to why this is appropriate behavior.
And I don’t think I would ever hire worst-case-scenario’s IT firm if he and his employees take the stance that once information is compromised, even momentarily, it is entirely in the public domain. I can’t imagine that I could trust him.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Nadhmi_Auchi
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Obama_and_ACORN:_Chicago-The_Barack_Obama_Campaign%2C_2004
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Obama_and_ACORN
“it would appear that wikileaks actually did Colman’s contributors a favor ...”
I’m not trying to be difficult. I really just want to understand. Having been to the wikileaks web site, could you in your wildest imagination conceive of the possibility that these reprobates had any interest in favoring Coleman’s contributors?
This “doing you a favor” was a fig leaf for a veiled and reprehensible threat wasn’t it?
If you stand by your position, I’d be interested in having you describe for me the thought process by which the folks at wikileaks arrived at the idea ... “Hey, those poor, poor Coleman contributors. Someone needs to go to a lot of trouble and expense tracking them all down and telling them they just might get ripped off. Darn, I guess it’s up to us.”
I assure you that events did not unfold in the way you are representing them.
They weren't trying to intimidate Colman's donors. They were trying to warn them to cancel their credit cards since Colman himself refused to do so. They didn't hack the information themselves, but someone did submit the information to them. That person may or may not have been the original hacker.
The point is, that information had been floating around the Internet for weeks and no one had bothered to warn Colman's donors that their information was being passed around by hackers and criminals. Wikileaks did Colman's donors a favor by informing them about this fact.
OK, I know I am now reaching the point of being truly annoying, but I have a specific question that you may be able to answer.
If someone comes by information about credit card numbers legally, let’s say through an anonymous email, or a visit to an unprotected web site, etc., is it then legal to retransmit those data to others?
I ask, because if it’s legal, it shouldn’t be. Right?
See the links on #53. They aren't left wing so much as anti government secrecy, and yes I think they thought they were doing Colman's donors a favor. They probably also thought they were exposing Colman as a fool and his campaign as incompetent. Two views that are hard to argue with given Colman's refusal to take responsibility for the accidental release of his donors information to the Internet.
No, I don't think so. Wikileaks didn't retransmit the full credit card #’s however. They did receive them from who ever passed on the info to them so that person could probably be prosecuted. If you receive credit card info as an email from someone, you haven't broken the law though just as long as you don't pass it on to someone else.
Actually it was no trouble or expense at all. They had all the affected donors email adresses in a convenient spread sheet format. It would have taken them about five minutes to write the email and send out a mass mailing.
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