Palin Email Account Hackers’ Carelessness Could Lead to Capture
Oops. You would think that the group of hackers who recently dug into one of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s email accounts was smart enough to cover its trail. Unfortunately for them, it looks like you would be wrong. By now you must have read the hacker group known as Anonymous recently found its way into one of Palin’s email accounts and released a variety of screen shots, family photos and Palin’s entire contact list. As it turns out, Anonymous may have shot itself in the foot in the process. A quick glance at the screen shot above reveals that the hackers included a large portion of the proxy URL along the bottom. While this means nothing to most people, it will likely mean game over for Anonymous or at least one of the team members. The hackers used the proxy service Ctunnel.com to mask their IP from anyone who might try to explore Yahoo logs. By displaying most of the proxy URL in the screen shots it published however, Anonymous left themselves wide open to Ctunnel.com owner Gabriel Ramuglia who will likely be called upon to assist in the investigation (in fact he has probably already been contacted).
Usually, this sort of thing would be hard to track down because it’s Yahoo email, and a lot of people use my service for that. Since they were dumb enough to post a full screen shot that showed most of the [Ctunnel.com] URL, I should be able to find that in my log.
Unless Anonymous pulled this stunt off from a coffee shop, or from McDonald’s using a Zune, at least one of the team members could be in a world of hurt pretty soon.
d’oh!
they didn’t even do a good job with the hack anyways. why not forward all of the e-mails on to another account? just screen shots?
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Personally, I hope that anyone associated with this goes to jail. Privacy, regardless of political persuasion, is a big deal!
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Does anone really care about this billy goat! Who care? We have huge problems in this country and we give a damn about an email account. WOW………
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Please- he was a down-home patriot. Do you think our fore-father revolutionaries that resisted the British followed the law?
I do not mean to say that breaking the law is inherently patriotic (if so, Palin and Bush and Cheney would have pictures in the dictionary next to ‘patriot’), but that it’s important to realize that sometimes it’s a Good Thing (and in this way relatively harmless but productive) to go above the law. The hackers obviously targeted Palin in an effort for truth.
I think they’re patriots and superheroes.
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Or, anon could simply have used the proxy after routing through TOR, or their neighbor’s unsecured wireless, or a net cafe somewhere in eastern Europe.
In all honesty though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was just some bored 15 year old in his mother’s basement.
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Who ever Obama paid to hack her email is going to jail for a long time
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And this is why Anon fails. It will be more epic if this causes the destruction of Anonymous. But really, if you kill one of them, it really only gives rise to about 10 more.
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whoever Obama Paid ?
Are you kidding me, you swear Obama would pay someone to do this. You’re an idiot. I support Obama but if this was the other way around i wouldn’t blaim McCain for paying someone. Who knows if the hackers even are obama supporters or McCain supporters who were just bored. Its just funny how people are so narrow minded they are quick to point the finger and say… oh yeah this was obviously something the Obama campaign did. Please people stop finding excuses to root against the political party you oppose. So if you say that obama paid this hacker, than i can say McCain paid the person who owned the camcorder who recorded obama’s priest, give me a break.
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I like how no one understands that this was probaby done for the lulz and has nothing to do with Obama or politics lol.
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That’s right Steve-
I’l bet he even paid them with a personal check! Boy what an idiot Obama is–and now they’re both gonna be going to the slammer!
Don’t worry, things will work out for Palin in the end.
She’s an important part of “God’s Special Plan for America.”
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It has everything to do with Palin using a private email account to conduct business thereby keeping her records of communication private. Idiots. It’s like getting mad at woodward and berstein for exposing scum.
clown shoes.
Books! Check ‘em out!
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Carelessness is typically what you’re going to find from groups like Anonymous. Also, calling them a hacker group is incredibly misleading, They are nothing more than a random grouping of people who visit 4chan.org (which coincidentally, is like the sewer system of the internet.)
On the other hand, all the press they’ve gotten from this will only add members to their ranks. They are like kids with severe ADHD, ignoring them is the only way to weaken them.
I do have to say, I love their attacking of Scientology, though. Two groups I can’t stand in what amounts to a playground fight, it’s amusing to watch.
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One of the biggest absurdities about this is how right-wingers like Bill O’Reilly are labelling it a left-wing attack and even trying to tie it to Obama.
It’s absurd because most users at 4chan are probably the equivalent of the “McLovin” kid from the movie SuperBad… i.e. pranksters doing the online equivalent of egging someone’s house, without truly understanding the massive effect it can have.
Once a celeb’s email address becomes known, it’s inevitable that pranksters will try to gain access (same thing happened to Paris Hilton). If Obama had been foolish/nefarious enough to do official government business using a Yahoo email address, one can be sure that pranksters would try to gain access to it as well.
I mean really, Palin is just lucky that it wasn’t some Chinese or Russian “hacker” who broke into the account.
And as has been pointed out already, “Anonymous” isn’t really a group… from Wikipedia’s page about them, it’s evident that the term “Anonymous” itself is because that’s the default username if someone doesn’t use a name when they post.
There’s no membership required, and anyone can go and post something over there even if they’ve never even visited the site before.
According to a Wall Street Journal article from July, 4chan gets over 3 million visitors per month… and in each month, it could be millions of different people.
So for right-wingers to accuse this of being a left-wing attack is absurd. It was likely just a teen prankster looking at it as a challenge to break into the email account to snoop around. The lame emails the “hacker” highlighted (instead of ones that had obvious government business in them) highlights that fact.
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Loving the sarcasm from ol’ Jesus Christ! Seriously though, I’m more worried about the fact that two of the supreme court Justices are nearing the end of their lifespan, literally, and that if a right-winger with heavy ties to the christian cult will appoint two like minded Judges which will undoubtedly lead to multiple appeals on cases such as Roe v. Wade and amending the ol’ Constitution to make it illegal for same sex marriage. Wait a minute, this is politico.com right? How bout McCain creating Blackberry! ha haha
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@ illa et all:
Yeah, except none of the emails contain actual business…just talk. Not even the one between her and her Lt. Gov is business, just banter about a talk show host. I truly enjoy how all the anti patriot act, anti electronic surveillance crowd that usually rails against the big bad gov’t for looking at email has suddenly embraced this criminal act as “patriotic”, “superhero” like and seemingly acceptable! Epic hypocrisy to say the least. Bottom line is that these are personal emails and the criminals that hacked this account will be caught because there is no true anonymity when using email. That’s why high gov’t officials don’t use email stupid…
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Regardless of who broke the law here, Palin used an alternative method of communication which bypasses all audit trails that would have been in place if she used her official email service. I’m sure she’ll say this was tainted as well. This is the leadership we want for our country? Let’s not begin calling me an Obama supporter either because there is no canidate worthy of a vote, just like the past two elections. Palin needs to be woman enough to face a punishment for not following procedures. Plain and simple, abuse of power again. Rah rah for the “Original Mavericks”. Maybe McCain can endorse this message as I’m posting it from a Blackberry….
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Superhero? Any means? Patriotic to break the law?
What’s amazing is how Obama supporters agree with any method to try to get the dirt on Palin. Yet, they’d be the first ones to scream bloody murder if someone hacked Obama’s email account.
I’m not for either candidate - they both suck. But, I’m very, VERY tired of the massive double standard applied by the press and Obama supporters - his life, his friends, his family, his record are sacrosanct - but attack and smear McCain and Palin by any and all means possible.
Nicely open-minded and fair. It’s obvious where this country is headed.
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The people who hacked her account are idiots but the people who blame Obama’s campaign for it are even bigger idiots, you guys are exactly what’s WRONG with America!
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to the hackers:
Hello, Captain Obvious
Here’s your sign…..
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Who cares. She’s a power whore, the daughter is the perfect icon of American white trash, the Palin family probably scared the father of the bastard child with threats of rape charges, so he went ahead and agreed to marry the ugly little demon spawn. Couldn’t get the kids hitched beforeMcCain pulled Palin for the VP seat (I guess Vegas would have been to tacky). Why the hell are we putting this woman on a pedestal? Because she was a beauty queen? Some of the worse women in the world that think their looks will take them everywhere and then give her the slightest power and look at all of the fowl play called by her and her party. The Republicans that started the investigation all agreed to the committee at first, but now Democrats are “tainting” the investigation. “Nicely open-minded and fair. It’s obvious where this country is headed.” This issue is about her email and wasn’t an attack against her party at first but it looks like it is now. The country is going to hell in a hand basket because of one reason. Good ole’ W. You’ll regret your decisions once McCain finally admits that the growth on the left side of his face is actually a tumor, he gets hospitalized or potentially passes from the illness, and the wicked witch from the west begins her rule. Ladies, make sure you keep your chin up, vasoline on your teeth to keep smiling, and make sure you have a good answer to the question, “Why do you want world peace?” Hockey moms…. Most of the woman in this country are just a bunch of sheep just like the minority population. Vote for BGR for president! BGR! BGR! BGR!!!!!
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tiredofitall is a douche nozzle, plain and simple.
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dude, you are retarded
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JIMBO,
Can’t handle the truth or are is your head still stuck up the orifice of your choice?
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Nice factual reply…
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Sarah Palin is awesome. I hope everyone can just stop hacking her and leave her alone. http://www.holyshnikes.com/p/Sarah-Palin-Rocks/3823
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