Throw the book at Palin's email hacker

This is not about politics....

This is about protecting the rights of those who innocently use the Internet from scofflaws and perps who think they can get away with anything simply because they are smart and clever.

Get off your high political horse.

Scott

Uh, anonymous....

Well, let's take your rant one point at a time.

First of all,plenty of people still call it cyberspace. Many of them are in government. The feds call it cyberspace, and that makes it legit. Just because you have moved on does not mean everyone has. Do not demean those readers who have not.

Second, don't dare try to lecture me on information security terms. I know full well what a hacker is and does. My track record speaks directly to that. In another post, I draw the distinction between the old "hacker" and "cracker" and explain that the latter term has vanished from the popular lexicon.

I remember the days when hacking was an honorable pursuit and was done to try and warn people about their soft spots. That day has come and gone, my friend. There is no more honorable hacking unless you are an "ethical hacker" practicing that craft for a company that performs it for a fee to expose corporate or government vulnerabilities. People who hack outside of those margins are a nuisance at best, felons possibly, and terrorists in the worst case.

Your vitriol underscores your problem and you make my point: You are clearly against McCain/Palin, so you believe that the end justifies the means. You see nothing wrong in what this punk did. I am certain that if someone had done this to Obama, you would be calling for the hacker's head.

This is not about politics: It is about rulesets and securing cyberspace/Internet in order for more people to do more things free from worry. It is about putting miscreants and cyberfelons in their place, which is prison.

This punk (yes, he IS a punk in my book) is not a whistleblower, is not a hero, and is not worthy of any accolade. He is someone who has done these things before (check the clips), is emboldened to do them again, and was so cock-sure of his abilities that he posted someone else's emails all over the Internet for people to see. He has proved no point about government documents going out over Webmail accounts, has proved no point at all, other than he allegedly committed a federal crime and he is in a world of hurt.

And in order for others to obey the laws of this nation and resist the temptation to commit similar crimes, he must be made an example of.

So divest yourself of the political leanings you might have, and ask yourself: What if this had happened to Barack? Or your mother? I will bet your take becomes different. And that is what this is about. It is about people being free from worrying if some smarmy know-it-all is preparing to hack their email accounts, databases, or banking activities (yes, hack is the operative word, because hacking is synonomous with illegal entry into a computer, regardless of what was accessed).

If you side with this punk, then you've taken the wrong side both morally and legally. You have no high ground. Only quicksand.

Scott

A couple of observations: I

A couple of observations:

I think I missed something here. When did an indictment become the same thing as guilty? No trial, no conviction, but already a punk, a miscreant, already guilty, already in jail.

Not siding politically either way, it seems to me there were more vitriolic comments in your post than in that of Anonymous, and your political persuasion is as obvious as his/hers.

I would offer the following:
IF and When found guilty, he should get a punishment equal to the crime - no more, no less. The same as anyone else would get for the same crime. I do not now, nor would I ever support making an example of anyone. That is not justice.

And, yes, it is about politics. If it were my email that was broken into, it never would have made the Podunk Gazette.

If he's innocent....

If he is found innocent, then I agree to apologize on this site. If he's guilty, I expect everyone who is railing against me to apologize to me. And if he is indeed guilty, then he is also by my definition a perp.

That seems fair.

Scott

A question of rulesets...

Of course you are right, Joyce, all this is academic until the trial. A look at the media coverage of the evidence, however, seems pretty cut and dried.

The issue is not Palin; substitute "Biden" and I would feel the exact same way. The issue is charging and punishing those who make the Internet/cyberspace an unsafe place. We must have rulesets to govern and protect those who use it innocently. Whether it be Palin or a housewife in Peoria, they deserve the same protections from smarmy punks who think it is their right to go anywhere and poke their noses into everything, just because they can.

We call these people "sociopaths" when they do it to conventional institutions. It is time to apply the same label here.

Scott

Sorry, sir, you are mistaken....

In 2000, I was working on the Census 2000 project, universally praised in Florida by both parties, the NAACP and the media for its nonpartisan effort to count everyone, regardless of who they were. After that, I built the Florida Office of Information Security, the first state government enterprise-wide cybersecurity office in the nation.

So I was not involved in Victory 2000, sir. All you had to do was ask Jeb. I did tell Greta Van Susteren two days after the election that it would all come down to "chaff," what we called computer chads back in Miami in the 1980s. And I was right.

Scott