September 2008

I'm still in catch up mode from being offline all last week, but I have to chime in on this whole Palin's email account being hacked thingy. The right wants you to believe some massive hacker fiddled his way through cyberspace, altering bits and warping the very space-time continuum in order to hack into Palin's email account at Yahoo. Sounds like a scene out of Live Free or Die Hard, or even War Games. Oh so scary.

The problem is that it was nothing like that. She had an account on Yahoo, which has been a hackers favorite target for years. Back in the hay days of Yahoo Chat, people lost accounts and a daily basis through hacks. Yahoo has done a little to make their accounts more secure, but not much.

PC Magazine has taken a look into this and published a decent article putting it out in laymen terms. Basically all you need to know is some personal information about a person in order to get their account. That's apparently what the hacker did. Information like that isn't hard to come by either when the victim is in the public spotlight.

So what happens if your account or mine ends up falling victim to some bored hacker? Do we receive the full investigative force of the federal government? Absolutely not. This is a tax payer luxury only afforded to people of high power - like the Governor of Alaska.

Oh and if you are wondering how to protect yourself from such a simple hack, that answer is simple. Don't use actual information for the password recovery forms. I never use actual information. Instead I use some items I came up with years ago and it's never the same between any two sites. Instead I keep a nice notebook with it all written down. That's not some super secret thing I learned in my three decades of software development. It is nothing more than simple common sense - something we would want our people of power to posses.

The McCain campaign doesn't like being called what they are - liars:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

Shark jumping by Schmidt? Joe Klein thinks so.

Here is the latest one from McCain's campaign being attributed to Sarah Palin (with my own thoughts injected):

When I joined John McCain as his running mate, I knew I was in for a roller coaster ride of ups and downs on the campaign trail. But, I want you to know that I joined John McCain and the others on our ticket in this great election because I'm putting our country first.

John McCain and I have been called "mavericks" and "reformers" because we're guided by shared values and principles and we're not afraid to stand up to the status quo in their defense. And that's why we want you to send us, and other reformers like us, to Washington.

Will you help send us to Washington by making a generous contribution of any amount to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 right away? Your financial support will go a long way in electing Reform Republicans in November.

FACT - John McCain has revitalized much of the Bush administration in his campaign.

FACT - McCain is the same as Bush.

FACT - Palin is not the same as Cheney. At least Cheney has some knowledge of Washington. Palin has none and a lack of knowledge coupled with her ideology is a recipe for disaster.

FACT - John McCain is a 72 year old cancer survivor trying for the most stressful job in the world. His ability to carry out the office of the President is a serious question. It doesn't take death for him to loose his office. Something as common as a stroke could push Palin into the top job. Do we want a dumb-down version of Dick Cheney running this country?

Make no mistake - McCain/Palin will be the same, if not worse than the Bush administration.