4Chan's half-hack of Palin's email goes awry

Chatter on 4chan.org's /b/ board.

In perhaps the most astonishing development yet for the culture of online troublemakers, 4chan.org's /b/ board (see a few of their past exploits here and here ) apparently managed this morning to take over the e-mail account of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  The generally apolitical 4chan pranksters, who have now been widely profiled in the media, are known less for their social activism than for their propensity for pulling online stunts designed to evoke maximum anger, shock and disgust. 

But now the anonymous participants on 4chan's /b/ bulletin board--the home base of their community and launching pad for their pranks--seem to feel they blew a chance to do some real damage.

According to accounts so far, and chatter on /b/ itself, shortly after the password information to Palin's account was posted on the board, the account became inaccessible, either because too many people tried to access it at once, or because a dissenter from within /b/ changed the password.

Either way, the amount of information retrieved from the Palin account appears to be relatively small.  A screen shot of Palin's account shows it contained 84 unread e-mails and possibly hundreds more, but only two have made their way online, suggesting the rest were not saved before the account was locked. If they were, wouldn't we have seen them online by now? 

"/b/ is now 'epic fail /b/' for not finding anything good in Palin's e-mail," wrote one anonymous commenter on the site, slamming the board with /b/'s highest-order insult.  "Seriously, /b/. We could have changed history and failed, epically."

"I agree," said another.  "This is epic fail. How can there not be something good in those messages?"

One of the bits of data that appears to have been taken from the account is a text-only list of all the e-mails contained in its Inbox, including the subjects and names of the senders.  The list, linked here, looks authentic and matches with the data in the screenshots of the account. (Note: this link was having trouble Wednesday night because of interest in this story.)

The list contains several interesting-looking entries, including several from Palin's chief of staff Mike Nizich labeled "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter" and "RE: Request for Information and Documents," one by Palin aide Ivy Frye titled "veep talking pts" and a variety of others relating to judicial nominations, policy points and personnel and budget issues in the Alaska government.

Illegal invasion of privacy and e-mail hijacking will never be an acceptable way to express your political views, or your nihilistic lack thereof, or whatever was motivating the /b/ participants. So there's probably some poetic justice in the ending of this episode: This frenzied crew, having decided to break the law in order to gain access to a possible political motherlode managed--amazingly--to do little more than lock themselves out of it without having found much at all. 

Comments

[Lindsay]

What is someone under 13 too retarded to be allowed to post something on the internet?

By the way, I'm 20 and this is offensive to me and everyone.

[Felix]

Man, this is the truth about "Anonymous". When all the hype about Scientology started, it wasn't because they had some agenda. They wanted to create as much trouble as they could for as many people as possible.

They have no cause, no morals. They're just bored kids, and they get called "heros" for taking on Scientology. There's nothing honorable about them at all.

[Anonymous]

They're trying to hide the kids from the intarwebs so they don't get teh lulz.

Seriously folks, just do it for the lulz.

[Stephen Gianelli]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news /b/ but the "epic fail" is now the least of your concerns, if your IP address was recorded on the ctunnel site used to hack into or download Govenor Palin's email account.

"Epic fail"? More like F****** Jail.

News flash: The FBI and the secret service are all over this.

[Amanda]

First off...they didn't don't do things to become "heroes" If you would lurk more...you would know when they talk about being a hero...it means committing suicide. They are completely harmless...and not always underaged kids. It's too bad they did something so illegal...not out of character, but too bad

[Raptor J]

I heard that Governor Palin likes Mudkips.

[Sandra S]

Here is a 'vetting' report on Palin when she ran for Governor:

www.mudflats.files.wordpress.com/palin-2006-vetting.pdf

[kieran adair]

So the governments allowed to hack our email accounts, but this prank is nihilists BREAKING DA LAWZ!

excuse my language but this is bullsh*t

[qo]

Epic fail? Hardly. They've (/b/) has clearly shown that Palin hasn't the sense to avoid personal accounts for government business. Would you trust her with the security of our country now?

Then again, the GOP seems to favor the use of personal accounts for government business to avoid their emails being backed up on government servers where they might be subpoenaed in a criminal investigation.

[Amso]

Hey you know what's fun? Federal prison.

And you know what happens to dweeby little pasty-white internet tough guys, like the individual who illegally hacked a VP candidate's personal email account and put it on the web, when they go to big boy jail?

The idiot who did this is so utterly screwed.

[anon]

an hero :)

[truthseeker]

I heard the hackers have been traced to Obama's office in Chicago. It's the end for Obama for trying such lowdown trickery.

[holly]

The posts of the family photos are just wrong.

[Jay]

IT WAS EBAUMSWORLD.COM ARE YOU GUYS DUMB?

[WINSTON]

ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH

[Anon]

lol

[Scientologist]

Lulz. 4chan owned.

This is Tom Cruise, and I approve this message.

[itwasebaumsworld]

Okay I really shouldn't be doing this and my fellow anons would hate me for this... but here you go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Z2MP8vMWU

This video won't help much but it will shed some more light on the ways of the anonymous.

Good day sir.

[David]

This isn't 'epic fail'. Anonymous has no agenda, no ego. Someone retrieved Palin's password by using the security question, took a screenshot of her e-mails and posted it on the Internet.

It was funny. And some kid might get talked to by the FBI, which will be even more funny.

Her e-mail was wide open. Any kid with a computer could have done this. Just be glad it wasn't done in secret by some 'evil terrorists' 1 year down the track. The real issue here should be, "What the hell is a VP hopeful doing using an easily accessible Yahoo account to talk about government activities?"

[Anonymous]

L.A. Times is EPIC FAIL!!!

from your good friends at /b/

[Beck Childs]

Not "a hero," it's "an hero." Lurk moar yourself.

[anon101]

No one seems to understand anonymous ¬_¬ anonymous is just a term used to describe anonymity... srsly there is no one in charge, there is no one running the show. And if no one is in charge it means that the group cannot control itself at all. You cant compare one persons actions with someone else's. Those who are messing around with scilons are probably not the same ones who are hacking Palin, those who were involved in Habbo or the googlebombs (which are harmless fun in which no one gets hurt) are probably different too... you cant be sure. You also cant be sure that those who posted on 4chan in the messages mentioned above were not actually all one person, such is anonymity. To be honest, someone who is running for vice president should not have that bad a password, she should consider herself lucky that it was a group of unlinked self hating people that found it rather than a political rival.

[Anonymous]

i lold

[ChrisS]

If she has nothing to hide, then she has nothing to fear. Maybe a smarter person wouldn't use a personal email service like Yahoo to conduct official business. Maybe she should use a better password. Then again, it doesn't surprise me, she doesn't strike me as a very intelligent person. The password was probably one of her kids birthdays.

Funny how the theocrats and wingers think it's cool for the government to sweep through our private lives and data, but the second it gets turned around, privacy is a sudden major concern.

Much support for 4chan.

[Major Variola (ret)]

"If she has nothing to hide, then she has nothing to fear."

My irony meter just went off-scale.