Gov. Palin's Yahoo Email Account Hacked (EFF)

[Drew Wilson]

Last night, someone apparently obtained access to the Yahoo! email account of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Screenshots of Gov. Palin's email account are now widely available on the sites such as Wikileaks and Gawker.

It is unclear how the account was compromised. Possibilities include guessing the Governor's password, getting a new password by using "basic verification information, such as your birthday and the ZIP or postal code you provided when you registered," or even using a previously unknown flaw in Yahoo! Mail's security.

The McCain-Palin campaign responded to the news with a statement that "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 FBI and the Secret Service told Wired's Threat Level that the agencies are investigating.

While we don't yet have all the facts, based on the public information a court would likely agree that the access was illegal under the Stored Communications Act or SCA. The SCA prohibits access "without authorization [to] a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided" (i.e. Yahoo! Mail), where the perpetrator "obtains ... access to a wire or electronic communication [i.e. email] while it is in electronic storage in such system." The goal of the SCA is to allow people to use third party email services like Yahoo! without compromising their privacy, and the federal privacy law rightly provides strong penalties for illegal access. The law provides the same privacy protection of personal email messages to everyone, from political figures like Gov. Palin to ordinary folks like you and me.

More...

When an unknown person peers into Palin's e-mail account, it's a shocking invasion of privacy. When the government peers into your e-mail, it's known as the rule of law through the "Protect America Act"

[El Comandante]

One of the screen shots of the emails included a message from "anonymous". These people are the same ones that battle the Scientology crowd. It was meant for Ivy Frey, an aide to Palin. The text of the message reads:

Dear Ivy, You don't know me, but I am part of an internet group.
We call ourselves anonymous.
This email was hacked by anonymous, but I took no part in that.
I simply got the password back, and changed it so no further damage could be done.
Please get in contact with Sarah Palin and inform her the new password to this account is.
[xxx]
Thank you and best wishes,
- The good anonymous

[Excrement_Cranium]

I can't wait for teh nudez@

[Sarah Palin]

Whoever did this are real idiots. Don't they know that I am packing heat? They better hope the FBI or other United States Security Agencies gets to them first. People who do such things are a National security risk and should be arrested and treated as terrorists. And quit calling Bristol. She already has a man, and if Levi finds out who you are you will find out what a real redneck is.

[Excrement_Cranium]

Whoever did this are real idiots.

Werd.

zomgimasturbatetosarahpalin

[Mels_Smileys45]

A few days ago, someone going by the name of “Rubico” gloated on 4chan.org that he managed to hack into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account. He forced a password reset by answering questions about Palin’s birthdate, zip code and where she met her spouse, Wasilla High School. Of course, by being the Republican candidate for Vice President, this information is all very easily found on the Internet. After answering the questions, Rubico reset the password to “popcorn” and read through Palin’s emails.

And it seems he was pretty thorough, saying he read, “ALL OF THEM” on the boards. He even posted up screenshots of the Yahoo email page, complete with the full URL (we’ll talk about that later). Rubico says he didn’t find anything incriminating and the emails were actually fairly mundane family pictures and correspondence. But his jubilation turned into horror as he realized that he didn’t take proper precautions in covering his tracks.

Rubico used a proxy server that shields the source IP address from website logging scripts. While this sounds great, Rubico posted, “Yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this sh** ever got to the FBI I was FU****”

In his gloating, Rubico posted up screenshots of the Yahoo account complete with the full URL which included the proxy server url (ctunnel.com) appended with a unique identifier. For example, we used ctunnel.com to surf to YouTube and the URL reads - http://ctunnel.com/index.php/1010110...ebe14f44221026. So it doesn’t take a genius to go through the logs and match up the ID to the appropriate IP address and BAM, you got the hacker.

But it gets even better. White hat hackers didn’t even need proxy information to find the culprit because they discovered that the Rubico forum handle was linked to [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it A few searches on Google and YouTube further links this email address to 20-year-old David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His father is Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell.


TGdaily


Yep, IDIOT!

[mountain_rage]

A few days ago, someone going by the name of “Rubico” gloated on 4chan.org that he managed to hack into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account. He forced a password reset by answering questions about Palin’s birthdate, zip code and where she met her spouse, Wasilla High School. Of course, by being the Republican candidate for Vice President, this information is all very easily found on the Internet. After answering the questions, Rubico reset the password to “popcorn” and read through Palin’s emails.

And it seems he was pretty thorough, saying he read, “ALL OF THEM” on the boards. He even posted up screenshots of the Yahoo email page, complete with the full URL (we’ll talk about that later). Rubico says he didn’t find anything incriminating and the emails were actually fairly mundane family pictures and correspondence. But his jubilation turned into horror as he realized that he didn’t take proper precautions in covering his tracks.

Rubico used a proxy server that shields the source IP address from website logging scripts. While this sounds great, Rubico posted, “Yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this sh** ever got to the FBI I was FU****”

In his gloating, Rubico posted up screenshots of the Yahoo account complete with the full URL which included the proxy server url (ctunnel.com) appended with a unique identifier. For example, we used ctunnel.com to surf to YouTube and the URL reads - http://ctunnel.com/index.php/1010110...ebe14f44221026. So it doesn’t take a genius to go through the logs and match up the ID to the appropriate IP address and BAM, you got the hacker.

But it gets even better. White hat hackers didn’t even need proxy information to find the culprit because they discovered that the Rubico forum handle was linked to [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it A few searches on Google and YouTube further links this email address to 20-year-old David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His father is Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell.


TGdaily


Yep, IDIOT!

LMFAO, what a bloody idiot. Not only has he set himself up for an arrest, but he also affected his father in the election. Hope the 15 minutes of fame are wroth the butt blisters from inmates and his father.

[Drew Wilson]

You know your e-mail is insecure when a complete idiot breaks into it.

[mfgbypooter]

Yep, IDIOT!

lamo!!!

*

[Feather]

LMFAO, what a bloody idiot. Not only has he set himself up for an arrest, but he also affected his father in the election. Hope the 15 minutes of fame are wroth the butt blisters from inmates and his father.

I second this.