Republican Aide Tries to Hire Hackers 427
Noryungi writes "It seems as though a Republican Communications Director contacted Attrition.org, trying to hire hackers to improve his educational records. I don't know what is his dumbest move: (a) contacting Attrition in the first place, (b) using a real name Yahoo email address or (c) speaking at length about what he needed? Kudos to the Attrition crew for posting the whole email dialogue online! A sample from the conversation: 'Jericho: First, let's be clear. You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and multiple felonies. Obviously I can't trust anyone and everyone that mails such a request, you might be an FBI agent, right? So, I need three things to make this happen: 1. A picture of a squirrel or pigeon on your campus. One close-up, one with background that shows buildings, a sign, or something to indicate you are standing on the campus. 2. The information I mentioned so I can find the records once I get into the database. 3. Some idea of what I get for all my trouble.'"
Republican Aide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the? (Score:3, Insightful)
-R
Re:What the? (Score:4, Insightful)
They were just messing with him. They were playing on the whole "hacker movie" stereotypes of being able to do anything with even the slightest bit of information*. The request to get a sign or buildings in the background was to solidify the idea that they wanted this information for verification purposes. They probably wanted him to believe they could zoom in from a live satellite and see the location he photographed.
They continued to jerk his chain with email exchanges like this one:
It sounds good (lots'o techno-jargon), but it's obviously nonsense to anyone who knows better.
* I don't watch 24, but I've heard some rather amusing takes on their entire "hacker" philosophy. In particular, they seem to be able to do the impossible without blinking an eye, just by wrapping it up in some techno-babble that's intended to sound good to the average joe.
Re:Slashdot's petty partisanship. (Score:4, Insightful)
We see Democratic boobs do all sorts of stupid, venal stuff. But when it comes to craven, cynical behavior, you have to hand it to the Republican for the no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty politicking.
Keep up the pressure on the bad guys.
Re:Slashdot's petty partisanship. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot's petty partisanship. (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, slashdot has to protect only one reputation: "news for nerds". Now, granted, lots of what is posted on slashdot is neither news nor for nerds, but THIS story is. It's hilarious.
Second, slashdot isn't making this a partisan issue. The fact that the guy works for the republican party is what makes this a partisan issue. In this case slashdot is only reporting the news, not trying to make it.
Re:You've gotta read the entire email trail! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Few years" - that's a bit harsh considering nothing illegal was actually accomplished. Keep in mind that for a lot of violent crimes short of murder, the prison time isn't even a "few years." More like *a* year. The best punishment is exposing this guy for a fraud and making sure that he'll lose his job and be a laughingstock boob.
One more thing: who's to say that this was actually him not a prank designed to discredit the guy? It's not like they check ID before you surf the 'net. Maybe the article has more info, but it's currently slashdotted!
-b.
Re:Republican Aide? (Score:1, Insightful)
This sort of shenanigan is typical of ambitious, young-republican types. Theirs is a culture of corruption, straight up. The end justifies the means, as long as you don't get caught.
Just look at the recent leadership & history of the party...Rove, Gannon, DeLay, Ambramoff, etc., etc.
Just goes to show: You can't really trust somebody with a straight-A grade point average.
Re:Hilarious (Score:3, Insightful)
That's definitely fair, as long as you allow for various congressional expenses to be charged back to the congressional budget. Expenses such as travel and running their office are too expensive to come out of pocket, and we wouldn't want them running to outside money at the first opportunity. Of course, such an expense account opens up other possibilities for fraud (need I remind anyone of the congressional postal abuse scandal?) so it's not a perfect solution.
In the end, we need a set of changes that would convince the cheaters that politics isn't worth it, and that the only reason to get into office is if you want to see something changed. One has to wonder, how much better would politics be if we dissolved the parties backing these politicians?
Re:posting the emails was illegal and unproductive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yet another. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians are politicians. Tis part of what makes me tire of our system. Remember the Dem that had the Nat'l Guard load up his private stuff during Katrina, asking them to defer food, troop, and rescue transport?
Lord Acton was right, will be right... forever.
That's why I would traditionally vote for Republicans, at least they are/were for smaller federal gov't more state/local control. However, this last group has hosed that whole concept up.
Professional politicians are power hungry sociopaths. How do we solve that problem?
Re:Republican Aide? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a guy gets busted for BBQ'ing a bald eagle, would it make it more, or less, of a story if he worked for PETA?
Although the last 12 years have made the whole concept into something of a joke, the Republicans tout themselves as the "party of reform". And we just keep seeing scandal after unethical scandal from them.
No worries, though, in another 12 years we can say the same thing about the Democrats, who apparently didn't learn from the Republicans error and now want to position themselves as the Party-O'-Reform. But, having the same complete and utter lack of ethics as all politicians, they'll start making the same egotistical blunders as the Republicans did, once they take their new seats in January.
Meet the new boss...
Re:Hilarious (Score:1, Insightful)
A Christian University (Score:1, Insightful)
B people hire C people, and so on down the chain.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a classic comment that A people hire A people, but B people hire C people. Bush has not exactly been known for great job appointments. If you actually follow his appointments, it's embarrassing, even if you're a Republican. They're loyal, but often not very good. (It's not just that lightweight at FEMA, "Mr. Torture" at Justice, and the economic advisers from Enron; there's a long, painful list of bad high level hires.)
Once you get the institutional idea that each level hires dumber people below them, a few steps down the food chain, people like this turkey are getting jobs.
Re:Republican Aide? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mentioning this guy's Republican-ness in the OP's title was nothing more than a thinly-veiled, irrelevant dig on the Republican Party, when the story is really about some moron in a low-ranking political job who tried to cheat on his resume.
Punishment, Web 2.0 style (Score:5, Insightful)
Todd's punishment is going to be uniquely modern... or will it?
The punishment is that this is going to go viral. It's just too darn interesting seeing people doing something they shouldn't. For the rest of his life people will be reading about this. It's not yet mentioned in Denny Rehberg's Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org], but it will. Todd will probably get his own Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] [dead link as of this moment but we'll see how long that lasts]. There will probably be a Snopes article too.
In other words, Todd will be publicy humiliated. It'll be like having to wear a big red letter...
Re:What the? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot's petty partisanship. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Would we be reading this if he were a democrat? (Score:5, Insightful)
a) The republican party claims to be the party of morality and "family values".
b) There's been a rash of republican political gaffs in the last few months which, in the face of 'a', are really pretty funny.
So laugh, ffs. 'cuz, lets face it... it really is funny.
Re:Hilarious (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot of gray between unemployed, and where people ought to be employed. Unfortunately, when you want a quick statistic, it's going to show you very little of the overall picture.
-dave
Me am Republican! Me am victim of everybody! (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy made Slashdot because he was especially stupid, not simply because he was caught, and not because he was a Republican. He tried to commit a crime, but went about it in a very idiotic way - made contact with someone he had no logical reason to trust and requested an illegal job, discussed details that were way out of his depth and technical expertise, freely gave away his personal information, went outside to take a picture of some pigeons (I guess to prove that he is one himself) - the whole story just shows an incredible lack of intelligence and sophistication - any kind of subtlety or careful discretion in how he sought criminal help - and he got completely suckered as a result. A tale like this is great "News For Nerds" fodder - dope who knows nothing about computers tries to contract for a system intrusion goes in over his head with someone who actually knows a thing or two, and gets exposed.
Stealing national security documents isn't "News for Nerds", it's just "News". Go watch some Fox News if you want to see that story, I'm sure they'll rattle their sabers and go on about it for weeks - because they are not part of the conspiracy. They are not biased. They will give you the straight story, just the facts, and let you draw your own conclusion. England Prevails!
As a hard-core liberal, I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
Until I read the summary, I was hoping this was some kind of political hack attempt that would put another big black eye on the Repugnicans, but no such luck, it's just some dumbass trying to get his grades changed. The story is funny enough to warrant being on Slashdot's front page without mentioning the word "Republican" at all.
Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Would we be reading this if he were a democrat? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question isn't whether or not there are idiots on one side or the other. The question is how many idiots there are on one side or the other, to what extent are those idiots informing policy and decision making, and most of all, how many of those idiots happen to be President right now.
Re:Republican Aide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry. When Fox News reports this story the closed captioning will reveal he's become a Democrat overnight.
I only wish I were joking.
Re:Hilarious (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a good theory, but in the US every 2 or 6 years our parliamentarians are hit with a multi-million dollar liability, known as a "Campaign." The legislators are up to themselves to raise the money for these, and there are no caps on how much they or their opponent can spend.
If you want to make legislators bribe-proof, you have to make it so that they need for no money in the course of their work, which means paying them well, enough to maintain a domicile in the capital, and strictly capping campaign spending (capping fundraising, and all the exceptions and codicils on that, and the attendant free-expression issues, gets more and more unworkable all the time).
I would say all campaigns should be publicly funded, private donations forbidden, and equal money to the top 3 primary victors, but most Americans consider a campaign donation a form a free speech, and thus beyond legitimate restraint. (I think this is bullshit, but there we are.)
Re:What the? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How to bias a story summary (Score:1, Insightful)
This guy is a "F" so now we know what his boss is. That is what democracy is all about. Acting on good informations.
G
Re:Quick question (Score:3, Insightful)