Trial Delayed for Alleged Palin Email Hacker
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Instapundit notes that the trial for the University of Tennessee student who allegedly hacked into Sarah Palin’s email has been delayed. According to a Knoxville News Sentinel article, the delay is necessary because of the involvement of forensic computer experts.
I don’t care what the outcome of this case is but if the defendant is found guilty, I don’t think there should be jail time but I strongly support a sentence that prohibits him from writing a book or article about his exploits. I doubt that will know that won’t happen but, hey, I can hope.
— DRJ
I think he should serve a few weeks. He hacked into the email account of a national figure and posted the results for political purposes. That’s a pretty horrific precedent. What if this happened to a sitting president?
Rhyme not intentional, but it might sound good to a hip hop track.
JP (f6ffef) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:32 pmThe kid will go down in history as Obama’s first pardon.
Perfect Sense (9d1b08) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:33 pmI’d be surprised, and disappointed, if it were Constitutional to impose a sentence like that.
roy (78d4a2) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:37 pmroy,
I know. He might be prohibited from writing for profit but I don’t think he could be censored.
DRJ (a50047) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:46 pmYeah, there is no way to keep this kid from profiting from this story, but on the plus side the story is not in any way compelling or interesting so no one will pay for it.
He didn’t hack or crack any protected servers, all he did was do a bit of googling to guess Palin’s obvious responses to the “forget your password?” questions. Good luck trying to make a buck off of that.
Aplomb (b6fba6) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:50 pmSorry, I don’t agree with any of you. I hope this kid spends some time trying to tell Big Bubba he really isn’t Big Bubba’s type.
We have a right to assume a certain amount of privacy and when those rights are violated by a person such as this kid, there should be severe consequences. Would you feel different if it were your emails, say to your CPA, that had been hacked into? What if some UT computer geek hacked into Patterico’s emails to his CPA and released oh, I don’t know, say Patterico’s tax information?
You see, it was a violation of a privacy that Palin has a right to expect. And all those who were screaming because the President wanted to monitor calls originating in terrorist nations or from terror suspects to people in the U.S. seem to have no problem with this kid.
Either we are entitled to certain privacy rights, or we’re not.
retire05 (00e6cb) — 11/14/2008 @ 7:58 pmI’m with retire05. There needs to be some kind of deterrent message sent with whatever sentence is handed down assuming he is found guilty. Aplomb’s gauzy dismissal that there was no server hacked is bullshit.
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 11/14/2008 @ 8:14 pmMy mail comes through a slot in my decorative wrought iron security door, so somebody who wants to steal it will need to, at a minimum, smash the storm glass and wrestle it out between the bars. My neighbors just have an old-fashioned mailbox outside their front door. If somebody wants to steal their mail all he has to do is walk up and take it. I don’t think that somebody who steals my neighbors’ mail is less guilty than somebody who steals my mail because my neighbors’ mail is more vulnerable.
nk (87c95e) — 11/14/2008 @ 8:42 pmI’m a law and order type and I agree that mail theft is a crime. But I would be surprised if a (presumably) first-offense like this would merit a federal prison sentence.
At the risk of sounding older than I already am, in my day a conviction alone would prevent someone from getting admitted into law school, being eligible for the bar exam, or from becoming an attorney. I have the feeling that in today’s world, an applicant might use it in his Personal Statement as an example of how he would be an attorney that dares to speak truth to power.
DRJ (a50047) — 11/14/2008 @ 8:55 pmIf there is no jail time or an equally serious consequence (and I don’t consider not being able to profit off of this a serious consequence), then what’s to stop this young man from invading the privacy of someone else and perhaps upping the ante and hacking into bank accounts rather than just email? A little jail time might be the perfect remedy to encourage him to develop serious self-restraint with his unique skill set.
Dana (79a78b) — 11/14/2008 @ 10:01 pmDRJ,
Young people today do not think beyond the next episode of “Grand Theft Auto”, can’t wait for it to arrive so they can find some more scenes of sex in it!
I’m a bit mixed in the confinement time for him. Sure as hell beats having to register as a sex offender for banging his G/F that was a month away from being “legal”! Well maybe, actually not.
For sure would scare him straight as an arrow, just send him lots of KY, and hug him when he gets out, hopefully with lots of KY with him.
There is something called common respect, and if we, as a society do not covet such then, well maybe we need to sacrifice some lambs. (not exactly an uncommon practice with the justice dept now is it)?
I’ve noticed, especially during this election, that it seems only one side is treated with respect.
Point of ponderment;As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we’re all united now, let’s consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.
Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.
She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching “inclusion,” and she decided to see how included she could be.
Tolerance Fails
No, I’m willing to sacrifice his professed innocence to the betterment of us all, he and his supporters need to think about what he did to another person! One who’s views he may not have agreed with, but someone with as much validity as he himself possessed. He did not do such out of anything but some form of direct or more likely indirect prompting from those supposedly educating him. They are the ones that should take note, but won’t as they and their ilk, seem to think planting bombs and killing others is A OK!
bubba will also aid his further education.
TC (0b9ca4) — 11/15/2008 @ 2:26 amHow about mandatory volunteerism? Community service?
Make the kid spend 100 hours cleaning the toilets at a Republican convention. Or licking envelopes for a Republican mailer.
Hacking into a national political candidate’s email…and suggesting that he should get a slap on the wrist, is setting a dangerous precedent and the wrong message.
Have any of you ever had your system hacked, lost your information, crashed your system, invaded your privacy? I guarantee you…your first thoughts of what you would do if you got your hands on the little piece of scum who did it…wouldn’t be a wrist slap.
As far as I’m concerned, my first thought was…hang em and hang em high.
A full, formal, SINCERE..public apology…standing next to his father in front of the media is the first order of business.
The second, a full conviction, not capable of removal from his record.
Third, compensation required for damages, in the way of a hefty fine to repair the system and rebuild the firewalls.
Fourth, 6 months sentencing, to be reduced/replaced by serving 100 hours community service in a Republican organization doing menial labor nights and weekends. Otherwise, he can serve his time in the gen pop of the local county jail. This isn’t a prank, it’s a criminal offense.
cfbleachers (1f4df1) — 11/15/2008 @ 7:01 amKevin Mitnick has made a tidy living after doing his time in prison. Doesn’t seem right.
When this story about Palin broke I pointed out there were more serious things that we should really be concerned about;
From Newsweek here
“The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown “foreign entity,” prompting a federal investigation, NEWSWEEK reports today.
At the Obama headquarters in midsummer, technology experts detected what they initially thought was a computer virus—a case of “phishing,” a form of hacking often employed to steal passwords or credit-card numbers. But by the next day, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: “You have a problem way bigger than what you understand,” an agent told Obama’s team. “You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system.” The following day, Obama campaign chief David Plouffe heard from White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to the same effect: “You have a real problem … and you have to deal with it.” The Feds told Obama’s aides in late August that the McCain campaign’s computer system had been similarly compromised. A top McCain official confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the campaign’s computer system had been hacked and that the FBI had become involved.
Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information on the evolution of both camps’ policy positions—information that might be useful in negotiations with a future administration. The Feds assured the Obama team that it had not been hacked by its political opponents. (Obama technical experts later speculated that the hackers were Russian or Chinese.) A security firm retained by the Obama campaign took steps to secure its computer system and end the intrusion. White House and FBI officials had no comment earlier this week.”
This is just the tip of a very ugly iceberg. Consider that the above is not classified information then do a little speculation on what is.
voiceofreason2 (4b3df0) — 11/15/2008 @ 7:36 amWe are missing the forest big time.
I don’t think the kid should walk the plank or anything. I’d recommend a year or two probation and 100 hours of community service. It’ll give him a “common esperience”.
I also enjoy the “her password was too easy to guess” crowd.
I would be highly amused at their reaction if their house were robbed because they left the back door unlocked, and the cops reaction was “it was just too easy for the thief to get in”.
Techie (62bc5d) — 11/15/2008 @ 8:21 amThirty days in the hole.
Alta Bob (4456c1) — 11/15/2008 @ 8:33 amLot’s of community service (200-hrs min.),
Another Drew (bb1716) — 11/15/2008 @ 8:45 am+ 4-weekends in the slam, just so he’ll know what it’s like.
It is an absolute lock that the trial won’t finish before January 20th. After that the kid has no worries. After all, he was serving the One.
Ken Hahn (e27b63) — 11/15/2008 @ 9:03 amThere is no truth to that claim whatsoever.
voiceofreason2 (dcd181) — 11/15/2008 @ 9:05 amHe needs only one Obama supporter/Palin hater on the jury.
nk (87c95e) — 11/15/2008 @ 9:09 amThere ought to be jail time if the charges stick i felony form, if only because he has been caught doing this sort of cracking before, and would do it again, and others would be more likely to attempt it, if there were a penalty too light.
Years in the pokey, perhaps not. but a weekend or two behind bars is hardly beyond the pale.
If his motivations and methods of getting the information can be minimized, his eagerness to supply the information for others to use cannot.
SarahW (a6e80b) — 11/15/2008 @ 11:55 am90 days. That should be long enough to allow Bubba to ‘hack into his system’.
Icy Truth (84d054) — 11/15/2008 @ 12:27 pm