“Ramuglia logs each user’s IP address, along with the time and web destination. That often isn’t enough to track down people who access extremely popular websites. But in this case, the perpetrators included a whole string of random-looking characters when posting screenshots of Palin’s hacked account. That will probably be enough for him to pinpoint the proverbial needle in the haystack.

The information at the moment is on a server at a Chicago colocation site owned by FDC Servers. Logs are automatically flushed after seven days, so the clock is ticking for law enforcement, who presumably are under intense pressure to protect the privacy of a candidate for the White House. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Ctunnel.com was only one of multiple anonymization services the email hackers used to cover their tracks, but there’s only one way to find out.”

Ctunnel logs its users. That log information is stored on servers in Chicago right now. That information must be located to identify the user’s originating IP

The /b/tard took a screen cap that had a portion of the Ctunnel URL assigned to him and this makes the log information easier to locate.

If you missed the missed the “big” story on news yesterday, and there is a good chance you did, hackers from the group Anonymous claimed to have cracked Sarah Palin’s email account. The group, the same which has been going after the Chur…

In the middle of my shift yesterday news broke that Hackers broke into Gov and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account: Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted…

IT’S NOT A HACK PEOPLE!

“Hacking” = Exploiting technical weaknesses in a computer or electronic system to gain access, OR finding inventive ways to use a physical, electronic or virtual system to do something or create something unintended by the original inventors of the system.

THIS is “password guessing”. NOT hacking.

As a Geek, I find the amazing lack of knowledge about what hacking is and is not to be incredibly frustrating. This kid is NOT a “hacker.” He was barely a Script Kiddie. (a Script Kiddie is a punk who takes hacking and security tools invented by REAL hackers, and uses them to perpetrate mischief.)

Most REAL Hackers are actually nice guys. They aren’t crooks and bad actors. The majority of them are simply interested in computer, electronic and social systems and the security (or INsecurity) inherent in them. The VAST majority of them have great concerns over the extreme LACK of security of many of our modern systems of communication and business, and the ease with which one can break in and steal from those systems. These types are often referred to as “White Hat” Hackers. These hackers will attempt to contact and work with those whom they find with critical security flaws in their systems, in an attempt to try and help them improve.

Unfortunately, many ignorant business and governmental types have attacked the White Hat Hackers responsible for discovering the security flaws. This has resulted in the second class of hackers, known as the Grey Hats.

These guys have the same concerns as the White hats, but having been burned by ignorance, are content to simply discover a problem, and then anonymously release it to the world, consequences be damned.

Ironically, while this does result in SOME loss to innocent parties, it tends to get the problem fixed faster. Thus perpetrating and extending the Grey Hat phenomena. Many Grey Hats also hack for notoriety as well, irrespective of whether they assist in fixing a problem or not.

Lastly, there is the smallest group, the “Black Hats”. (Incidentally, NO direct connection with the “Black hat conference” held each year for hackers.) The Black Hats are, simply put, criminals. They hack systems for fun and profit. But mostly Profit. Most of them work for foreign interests, of which a large contingent is the Russian Mafia. These guys are the ones responsible for the major financial and trading institute break-ins you hear about on the news. They are small, but organized , and hooked in with some of the largest criminal organizations in the world. These are the guys the White Hats are trying to help protect against.

Ok, that’s a general overview and description of what hackers are and are not. It’s not a perfect description, and a tad simplistic, but it’s enough to give you a functional understanding of the hacker community.

The punk that gained access to Sarah Palin’s yahoo account was absolutely NOT a hacker. Password guessing is a trivial task if you just spend some time thinking about and gathering readily available public info on the person’s who’s email you want access to. MOST people use crappy, easy to guess passwords. Sarah Palin is apparently no different in that respect than almost any other non-technical person.

In regards to Anonymous, Michelle has a GREAT description of who they are. It’s not a hacker group people, it’s a nebulous, random group of people that hang out on the various *chan boards and IRC channels. Heck, I am a sometime member of Anonymous! (I watched, lent moral support and advice to Anonymous’ crusade against the horrible cult of Scientology. Which, as most things Anonymous does, fizzled.)

So it’s not some mysterious cabal of criminals, it’s just a random bunch of people from the Internet who like to do sometimes clever, sometimes stupid, sometimes cruel things. In this case, ONE of them took it WAY too far, and thankfully, a more responsible member of Anonymous took action and tried to stop it.

I’m sure the bad actor here will be outed by “Mookie” (The guy that runs 4chan. He and the FBI work closely together on cases like these.) and crook will soon be V&. (IE: “Vanned”. Meaning, hauled off to prison in an FBI black van.)

As far as Sarah Palin is concerned, while I’m sure she is upset about it, I’m guessing she will be much more security conscious in the future. Also, since there really was NOTHING bad in her personal e-mail, this ONLY speaks well to her as an Honest and forthright candidate. I suspect this will give her and McCain a bump in the polls.

The youtube account to this guy has been closed the last login was back on the 12th of september. They all share the name Rubico10. Probably not coincidence.

I have some policy and ideological differences with the Cuda, and would hope she would do some reexamining in those regards. But on this score, I believe I’m the one who needs to learn. If nothing else, GOV Palin has given true, viable “hope” to millions of us. Allahpundit can discourage us from hope for success this election, but not that higher and deeper hope.

Thank you, Governor Palin.

As an aside, I’ve always thought the ‘information wants to be free’ thing to be silly. My information “wants” to be secure. Oh, and my information “wants” to win Powerball tonight.

YYZ on September 17, 2008 at 4:42 PM
As in Rush YYZ?
Cool name.

carbon_footprint on September 17, 2008 at 4:44 PM

Airport code for Toronto. Not as cool as you think.

Her life has been so publicized that the lowlife — he really doesn’t deserve the “hacker” label for something this simple — was able to reset her password.

So if you really want to learn from the experience, be careful about trusting your email to a site that allows you to reset the password by guessing the answers to fairly obvious questions.

David Kernell
rubico10@yahoo.com
20
Memphis, TN
amateur chess player
son of democratic TN 93rd district rep. Mike Kernell

perhaps?

I wanna toilet paper their house. :)

The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply.

What happened to the freedom of information?? I think there is someone that the AP is either covering for or its a nefarious source

Look a up a few posts.
This is an “electronic break-in”………. eMailGate

scruplesrx on September 17, 2008 at 10:18 PM

eMailGate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SORRY FOR THE ALL CAPS PEOPLE BUT I’M PRETTY TICKED ABOUT THIS.

I WANT WATERGATE-STYLE HEARINGS ON THIS.

JustinCase -

but when has a man politician ever had to prove he was his children’s father?
Most of the time, the male politician tries to prove that he ISN’T the father! Silky pony, for example.

Kevin71 on September 17, 2008 at 11:28 PM

I don’t know… I’d like to see the DNA on Web Hubbel and you know who’s daughter…

CC