Free Republic

A fired Fannie Mae contract employee allegedly placed a virus in the mortgage giant’s software that could have shut the company down for at least a week and caused millions of dollars in damage, prosecutors say.

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead." Chris Lippincott, director of media relations for the Texas Department of Transportation, confirmed that a portable traffic sign at Lamar Boulevard and West 15th Street, near the University of Texas at Austin, was hacked into during the early hours of Jan. 19. "It was clever, kind of cute, but not what it was intended for," said Lippincott, who saw the sign during his morning commute. "Those signs are deployed for a reason —...

<p>Kanye West says someone has taken control of his Twitter. Not to mention his Gmail and MySpace accounts.</p> <p>The rap star says that someone is using all three services to spread false reports, including one that claimed he was open to launching a new career as a bisexual porn star.</p>

Identity thieves install spyware to monitor transactions from the inside In a press release timed to coincide with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems announced Tuesday that it suffered a grievous security breach sometime in 2008, allowing hackers the opportunity to steal credit card information on what is possibly more than 100 million accounts. Heartland is the sixth largest payment processor in the country, and specializes in transaction processing for small-to-medium-sized restaurants and retailers. According to Wired’s Thread Level, it processes more than 100 million transactions a month. Federal investigators determined the source of...

"IT'S NOT SO MUCH THAT THE HAMAS OFFICER WAS KILLED... ...it's that he was killed operating a mortar that his subordinates were not firing, because they refused to come out of hiding."

"OPERATION CAST LEAD The IDF's Fight Against Terror in Gaza" # A blessed New Year to everyone here and abroad. Today's thread beginning January 1, 2009 (U.S.A. Time)

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC) November 23, 2008 Iran and Hamas declare digital war against Israel: Hamas recently participated in a digital communications exhibition in Tehran and was involved in establishing a group calling itself “The Digital Intifada.” Its objective was to develop websites to fight Israel and encourage the criminal activity of hacking Israeli websites.

A U.S. district magistrate judge today pushed back the trial date for a University of Tennessee student accused of accessing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private e-mail account. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley set a May 19 trial date for David C. Kernell, 20, before U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips. Defense attorney Wade Davies and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle told Shirley a delay was necessary because the case involved computers and almost all the evidence in the case comes from computers, requiring the use of experts skilled in forensic analysis of such equipment. Shirley asked Kernell if he was okay with...

Attorneys for the University of Tennessee student accused of breaking into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's email account have filed a small forest's worth of court documents in defense of the high-profile suspect. Among them is a motion to prohibit prosecutors from referring to their client as a hacker. The terms "hacker" and "hacking" have no basis under the statute Kernell is accused of violating, a motion filed in US District Court in Knoxville argues. It goes on to seek an order forbidding prosecutors and their witnesses from using those words when referring to the case. "Because of the negative connotations...

Chinese hackers have penetrated the White House computer network on multiple occasions, and obtained e-mails between government officials, a senior US official told the FT. The cyber attackers managed to penetrate the White House system for brief periods that allowed them to steal information before US government experts each time patched the system. US government cyber experts suspect the attacks were sponsored by the Chinese government, although they cannot say for definite. “We are getting very targeted Chinese attacks so its stretches credulity that these are not directed by government-related organisations,” said the official. The National Cyber Investigative Joint Task...

I went on line to find the phone number of my local GOP headquarters and I googled California GOP. What I got was a list of valid GOP sites but every one has a warning stating that the site may harm your computer. I notified the GOP rep. about this. He believes a hacker is at work. No such problem with Yahoo.

For the past week or so, a couple of really strange things have been happening with my FR account. One, I keep getting mysteriously 'bumped' off the site (logged out). Once bumped off I am unable to get back on (log in) for hours. Two, a few days ago, nearly every one of my posts were deleted from the message board. All of the posts were direct responses to questions asked and contained powerful spot-on facts about the issue at hand. Now, as a lot of you know, I've compiled quite a bit of evidence on the ObamaRats' connections to...

The son of a prominent Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker was indicted Tuesday on charges of hacking into the Yahoo! Web mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. David C. Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, was indicted by a federal grand jury on a single count of accessing Palin's e-mail without permission. The FBI said Kernell turned himself in to federal authorities and will be arraigned today.

Knoxville, TN—In what could land David Kernell in prison for up to five years, the hacking of Sarah Palin’s email account is, like David Kernell, completely misunderstood. On Wednesday, Kernell was charged with one felony count of accessing a protected computer for allegedly breaking into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Sarah Palin, R-AK, cooking up his own original recipe. Kernell has plead not guilty to the charge, and noted that he will have his day in court. “My time will come to give my side of the story,” stated Kernell, a 20-year old University of Tennessee student. “I believe...

The son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hacking the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn. entered the plea in federal court in Knoxville, the same day prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging him with intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account... Kernell, an economics student ... was brought into court wearing handcuffs and shackles on his ankles. He was released without posting bond, but the court limited his computer use to checking his own e-mail and doing class work. Kernell's father is longtime state Rep. Mike Kernell of...

Lawmaker's son must stay off computer except for college workDavid Christopher Kernell walked into federal court this morning in handcuffs, shackles and tennis shoes to plead not guilty to hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account. He can stay out of jail for now as long as he stays off his computer.The University of Tennessee student, who is the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, D-Memphis, turned himself in today after being indicted by a federal grand jury.He made his first court appearance this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley and could go to trial...

The son of a Democratic Tennessee state legislator surrendered to authorities in connection with the hacking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

When he heard the name connected to the story – the one about the college kid who allegedly "hacked" his way into a personal e-mail account for Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin – Tracey McDaniels was not surprised. There was, after all, a history there. "He did the same kind of thing when he went to school here," said McDaniels, a history teacher at Eastern Hills Middle School. "He and another kid found a way to get onto the school's server – they just sat down and figured out the password." A taste of things to come for...

In what is slowly turning into a endless loop of hacktivism activities, Bill O’Reilly’s BillOreilly.com has been compromised during the weekend, with personal details including passwords in plain text for 205 of the site’s members already leaking across Internet forums, as a response to his remarks regarding Wikileaks as a “one of those despicable, slimy, scummy websites” which recently published private information of Sarah Palin’s private email.

The way I read it, no indictment was returned today, but the process is not over.