Blogosphere lynches 'Palin hacker,' minus evidence
Can someone please arrest the blogosphere and put them all away? Don't worry about gathering evidence or building a case, just lock them up and throw away the key — they'd do the same to you.
Drunk on the prospect that the 20-year-old son of a Democratic legislator in Tennessee was behind Wednesday's Palin e-mail hack, many blogs, political and otherwise, have summarily convicted the young man based on an impressive array of rumors, recycled nonfacts, misinterpretations and outright negligence. Then some TV stations and newspapers picked up the canard, running stories whose factual underpinning was that the hacking accusation was "the topic of heated discussions by bloggers all day."
The whole circus started with the resemblance between a pseudonym of someone who claimed to be the hacker, and the supposed e-mail address of the politician's son. Both contained the word "rubico." For many reporters, that might prompt a few phone calls. For bloggers, it was enough to light the torches.
Leading the misinfo-pack is conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, who began a post on the subject by quoting Nashville's Tennessean newspaper's report that, among other things, that "the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell has been contacted by authorities in connection with a probe into the hacking."
But — and this bears strenuous emphasis — the Tennessean has completely changed its tune. Without a note or correction, it soon replaced the version that Malkin quotes with one in which Rep. Kernell merely acknowledges that his son "is at the center of heated Internet discussion into the hacking."
Malkin doesn't mention the change, and the original, incorrect version has been cited more widely than the less exciting up-to-date version.
Malkin does, however, link to Gateway Pundit, a blog whose modus operandus is apparently to trumpet falsehoods with multiple exclamation points so other blogs can at least have a source when they want to spread rumors. Here's the headline of the Gateway post Malkin links to (the ellipses are part of the headline): "FATHER OF HACKER Is Tennessee Dem State Rep!!!!! ...Update: Name- [first name deleted by Web Scout] Kernell ...Update: He's Been Contacted by Feds!" Then later: "Kernell Confesses?"
What? Every one of these statements is dead wrong. There's been no admission of guilt nor official suspect named by any agency. No one, not even the Tennessean, has stood by reporting that the younger Kernell was contacted by the authorities. (Rep. Kernell has said explicitly, including in the WREG-TV video that Gateway itself posted, that neither he nor his son has been contacted at all.) So seriously...huh?
But here's where the snake really begins to eat its tail. To back up its suggestion that Kernell confessed, Gateway links to an article on a British tech site called PC Pro, which claimed that "a message was posted by Kernell on the 4chan forum claiming that he was behind the attack."
But the message that PC Pro was referring to, widely disseminated by Malkin, apparently came from the image board 4chan.org. I say apparently because 4chan's posts are not archived, and often disappear without a trace in a matter of minutes, making it difficult to prove anything originated there. Moreover, the confession that Malkin posted carried only the ID "rubico" — it did not contain the younger Kernell's name anywhere — and was itself sent to Malkin by an unnamed source.
So, to recap: A pseudonymous message on a nonarchived discussion board famous for mischief and anonymity was rescued by another anonymous user (Malkin's), and Malkin unquestioningly posted it on her blog. From there, the account was passed around until it was picked up by a British computing site that mistakenly attached Kernell's name to it — based on an e-mail address someone found by Googling the pseudonymous rubico.
Then, with the fiction gaining steam (but no fact), Gateway Pundit and others were free to run with it until — surprise! — their posts were linked by Malkin, who helped create the story in the first place. Ain't it pretty?
The blogoshere has assembled numerous details and speculation about what's going on, but it's my contention that there's not one verifiable truth in this story. The clue that started it all — the tale of two rubicos — is certainly worth a raised eyebrow, but it's a far cry from enough evidence to conduct a virtual lynching.
Web security firm says of China's Xinhua.net: Run!
Xinhua.net, the website of China's state news agency, carries a number of downloads that computing security firm McAfee identifies as what "some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs."
According to McAfee's SiteAdvisor tool, which warns users about websites that post potential security risks or load down users' computers with nuisance software, Xinhua is classified as "red" -- the highest warning level -- because it attempts to install at least four programs that McAfee considers questionable.
One program McAfee says Xinhua installs is FlashGet (003.exe), an executable file that in turn saddles the user's computer with three more programs that can, variously, automatically connect to other websites, automatically change a computer's settings and add toolbars to a user's browser -- all with minimal awareness on the part of the site's visitor.
The programs appear to fall into the category of adware -- that is, tiny pieces of software that can silently track and gather user behavior and relay it to some distant home base. Adware is not considered as threatening as so-called malware -- a category of unwanted program that includes viruses and worms -- but McAfee still describes one piece of Xinhua adware as "any piece of software which a reasonably security- or privacy-minded computer user may want to be informed of."
"China's got some serious troubles," said McAfee research analyst Shane Keats, who pointed to a study called Mapping the Malweb, which revealed that in terms of e-mail spam, harmful programs and unwanted downloads, China is among the riskiest subsections of the entire World Wide Web.
Still, it remains notable that a government news website would be trying to foist suspicious downloads on news consumers (of note: the website of China's People's Daily, one of the world's largest newspapers, ranks "yellow" on McAfee's test).
For reference, I used the SiteAdvisor tool to tested the websites of the 30 largest newspapers in the world, according to this (outdated but useful) list -- and no site but the People's Daily generated a warning, nor did any of the five largest U.S. newspaper sites.
Perhaps another reason to be vigilant about where you get your news.
-- David Sarno
