[SecurityRatty] tag: republican

Laptop stolen from McCain campaign in Missouri

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Republican campaigners in Missouri are beefing up security after a laptop containing "strategic information" was stolen from a campaign field office of presidential contender John...

Palin and politics: lots to talk about

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:00:00 +0000

Gibbs discusses reader feedback to last week's column about the break-in of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail account and the heady intersection of IT and politics.

Palin Hacker Group's All-Time Greatest Hits

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:00:00 +0000

The group of online troublemakers that busted into and shared private emails from Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls itself Anonymous, but its work in attacking Scientology and causing seizures in epileptics is earning it a name online.

HP layoffs, Wall Street blues, Palin's hack

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:00:00 +0000

The week got off to a rough start with the collapse of Lehman Brothers sending shudders through global financial markets and raising questions about whether there will be a ripple effect on the IT industry. After the market closed Monday, Hewlett-Packard added to the dismal mood by announcing it will lay off 24,600 employees as it integrates Electronic Data Systems into the HP fold. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the victim of an apparent hacking attack on the Yahoo account she uses for official business as governor of Alaska, and in other government-related IT news, a GAO report says the U.S. does a lousy job of following its regulations regarding electronic-waste shipment and disposal.

Web proxy firm working with FBI to trace Palin e-mail hacker

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:00:00 +0000

The Webmaster of a proxy service called Ctunnel.com, which may have been used by a hacker to illegally access the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is working with law enforcement authorities to track down the person behind the break-in.

Hackers Hijack Sarah Palins Yahoo Account, E-mails Published Online

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:47:29 +0000

Members of Anonymous, a hackers activist group, have apparently hacked into a Yahoo! email account belonging to Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. According to Wikileaks, “activists loosely affiliated” with Anonymous somehow gained access to the account at around midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST). Screenshots of emails purportedly lifted from this [...]

Sarah Palins Yahoo Mailbox Compromised

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:57:33 +0000

A group of individuals has compromised VP candidate Sarah Palin’s personal email and sent the information to Wikileaks which has posted the information publicly.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_email_hack_2008

Circa midnight Tuesday the 16th of September (EST) Wikileaks’ sources loosely affiliated with the activist group ‘anonymous’ gained access to U.S. Republican Party Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account gov.palin@yahoo.com. Governor Palin has come under criticism for using private email accounts to avoid government transparency mechanisms. The zip archive made available by Wikileaks contains screen shots of Palin’s inbox, example emails, address book and two family photos. The list of correspondence, together with the account name, appears to re-enforce the criticism.

Internet security has finally become an issue in presidential politics.

Palin’s use of a Yahoo account has been the subject of recent newspaper articles. The Washington Post published her Yahoo email address, which was likely a precursor to the attack.

Update: Hackers claim to break into Palin's Yahoo Mail account

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Wikileaks claims to have published details from Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account.

Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Sarah Palin Account

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:50:57 +0000

Online troublemakers known as "Anonymous" crack Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and posted portions on the web Wednesday.

The Real Migration Problem

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:38:33 +0000

Preview of Tom Friedman's thinking for his new book - Hot, Flat and Crowded. Killer quote (emphasis added):

FP: And what about drilling? Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin, and President George W. Bush are implying that lifting environmental restrictions on drilling is the way to promote energy independence.

TF: Well, I think it’s patent nonsense. No one believes that somehow offshore, there’s enough oil in any near term and even the long term to provide us oil independence. It’s the wrong approach because in a world that’s hot, flat, and crowded, fossil fuels—and particularly crude oil—are going to be expensive and exhausting. Therefore the focus should be on the next great global industry: clean energy technology. When I hear McCain pounding the table for “drill, drill, drill,” it reminds me of someone pounding the table for IBM Selectric typewriters on the eve of the IT revolution.

I’m not against offshore drilling, by the way, because I believe the technology and the safety has improved far beyond where it was back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, even. What I’m against is making it the centerpiece of our energy policy. If all McCain said was, “Let’s drill, but let’s also throw everything into innovating the next generation of clean-energy technologies,” I’d say, “You’ve got it exactly right, pal.”

Its funny because as someone who has done a half dozen legacy migration projects (with mental and emotional scars to prove it), I was thinking the same thing. The entrenched mindset. "If we just dig our trench deeper (in this case literally) then we will be ok."...at least until the person in question retires...

One of the legacy migration project I worked on, I was the third consultant that tried to get this company off of mainframe and onto distributed systems (which are no panacea but this company really did need to make the move). The core developers of the mainframe were actively hostile to change, as opposed to simply passive aggressive, which we expect. For example, if you asked about how a piece of functionality worked, say a report writer, the developer would not answer, stand up, walk out of the room, come back with a 800 page "data model", slam it on the table and walk out of the room. Good times.

A chief objection beyond fear of the unknown was the perceived lack of elegance in the distributed systems as opposed to the control from say JCL. Anyway, what progress I made was due to analogizing that we were leaving Greece which has a rich culture, history, philosophy and moving to Rome which maybe was not as elegant as Greece but still people like circuses, roads and acqueducts. So when, several times a day, a perceived go/ no go issue arose, I would gently remind the developers that "we are now in Rome and things work differently here."

Intransigently digging the trench deeper is not the way, instead we need to better understanding the energy problem in a larger context, and finding deployable technologies to help address it. If you think drill, drill, drill is the answer, then I think the answer for you is the same as someone who knows COBOL and flat refuses to learn modern languages even when that is required - a nice retirement house on a golf course somewhere.