Well, well - it turns out that the "hacking" of Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account was perpetrated by the son of a prominent Tennessee Democrat.
A Tennessee state legislator has confirmed that his son, a 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, is the person being named on blogs and message boards in connection with the hacking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account, a Nashville paper reported late yesterday.State Rep. Mike Kernell told the Tennessean that his son, David Kernell, is at the center of speculation about the identity of the hacker who gained access to Palin's account. Kernell, a Democrat, represents District 93, which encompasses the University of Memphis and other parts of southeast Memphis.
I wonder where the ACLU, the media and the other zealous defenders of privacy are? I haven't heard them out in front on this one. Surprise.
Of course, if the inverse were true - if, say, a Republican's son had accessed Michelle Obama's e-mail account - it would be the end of the world.
Also, it seems the illicit method used to gain access is possible with many mainstream e-mail systems. That's disturbing.
Yahoo Mail isn't the only Web-based mail service that could be duped into giving up someone else's account password, the tactic that some have argued was used to break into Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail earlier this week.Posted by Alan at September 21, 2008 07:30 AMGoogle Inc.'s Gmail, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Inc.'s Mail all rely on automated password-reset mechanisms that can be abused by anyone who knows the username associated with an account and an answer to a single security question, according to quick tests run by Computerworld.
Computerworld reporters and editors were able to "break" into their own and colleagues' accounts on all three services, then reset passwords armed only with the account's username and the correct response to one of a limited number of common security questions, such as mother's maiden name, the name of a favorite pet or the make of a first car.