COMPUTER HACKING BY MPR? #2
I want to be fair, I want to be accurate. But I have questions about the series of events that led Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, to uncover potential security breaches with a CD from the Republican Party of Minnesota.
Below is my timeline.
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1. Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, gets a copy of the Party's CD from a colleague Tom Scheck.
"Reporter Tom Scheck just gave me a copy of the CD the Republican Party is mailing out to voters in certain districts." Source: Polinaut
2. To access the presentation on the CD, Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, must have agreed to the "Terms of Agreement" on the CD.
Included in the terms:
"4. You may not use, copy, or modify this Software or materials or any copy, modification, or merged portion, in whole or in part. You may not sublicense, assign, loan, rent, or otherwise transfer this Software to any other person without Our prior written consent. You may not reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, temper with or alter this Software."
3. The "Terms of Agreement" that Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, agreed to specifically states that you may not "decompile" this software, yet Collins asks on his blog "Anybody got a good decompiler?" Source: Polinaut
4. In violation of the "Terms of Agreement" on the CD, Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, works with someone to decompile the CD.
"And let's assume -- and remember this is a hypothetical here -- I [Bob Collins] had enough intelligence to decompile the program and figure out what data is being captured and sent. Could I do it?
Yes. Someone did." Source: Polinaut
5. Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, claims he did nothing wrong.
The series of events I laid out above begs the question:
Maybe I missed something, but when did it become acceptable for the media to break into a computer database of a political party?
What if the Republican Party of Minnesota decided to break into an MPR database? Is that okay, too?
Below is my timeline.
##
1. Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, gets a copy of the Party's CD from a colleague Tom Scheck.
"Reporter Tom Scheck just gave me a copy of the CD the Republican Party is mailing out to voters in certain districts." Source: Polinaut
2. To access the presentation on the CD, Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, must have agreed to the "Terms of Agreement" on the CD.
Included in the terms:
"4. You may not use, copy, or modify this Software or materials or any copy, modification, or merged portion, in whole or in part. You may not sublicense, assign, loan, rent, or otherwise transfer this Software to any other person without Our prior written consent. You may not reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, temper with or alter this Software."
3. The "Terms of Agreement" that Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, agreed to specifically states that you may not "decompile" this software, yet Collins asks on his blog "Anybody got a good decompiler?" Source: Polinaut
4. In violation of the "Terms of Agreement" on the CD, Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, works with someone to decompile the CD.
"And let's assume -- and remember this is a hypothetical here -- I [Bob Collins] had enough intelligence to decompile the program and figure out what data is being captured and sent. Could I do it?
Yes. Someone did." Source: Polinaut
5. Bob Collins, an employee of MPR, claims he did nothing wrong.
The series of events I laid out above begs the question:
Maybe I missed something, but when did it become acceptable for the media to break into a computer database of a political party?
What if the Republican Party of Minnesota decided to break into an MPR database? Is that okay, too?
3 Comments:
From what I understand, it is possible to have gotten the information needed to access the database without decompiling the macromedia flash presentation on the cd. It is possible to watch everything passing through a firewall, especially if it is not encrypted. So this may simply be a matter of a non techie using the wrong vocabulary.
In fact, if you read on Polinaut, this exactly what they did:
"Now that's pretty basic stuff: what your IP is, what your CPU is, what your operating system is. But is it possible for me to find out how you vote in elections? What your position on abortion is? Or even how long it takes you to answer those questions? ? Can I get your private phone number, your address, your name, your spouse's name, your IP?
Yes. Someone did.
Using the stream indicated above, people way smarter than me were able to figure out the destination for the data being accumulated, and then poked around and found the site. And the data was not secured at the site."
Now, he states that he didn't do it. Nor did he state that he supplied the media the so called "hackers", however, he does state that he poked around in the data. But not whether he did it on the site or whether the info had been downloaded by another for him to look at.
In any case, I certainly feel that the issue here is that some unauthorized person accessed the database. Which may or may not be legal. I haven't a clue.
Wow, this is pathetic.
If the Minnesota Republican Party put its database online with an intro page that said "OMG! Totally don't click this link unless your allowed!" like a teenage girl trying to protect her LiveJournal you would defend it.
Is there anything the Republican Party could possiblely do that you woudln't defend?
Hello,
The DNC runs nefarious data manipulation operations all the time. Below is research I did after people were bragging about a stupid poll unfavorable to Bush. It turns out the poll was systematically posted on SEVERAL lefty blogs BEFORE completion of the poll and nothing was disclosed.
http://forums.twincities.com/kr-tcitiesnews/messages?msg=1485.10
This came from several OBL's including
December 21 2005 talkleft.org
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013478.html
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013547.html
http://talk.ocregister.com/showthread.php?t=17904
http://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2005/12/msnbc_poll_and_.html
http://maybe_meme.gnn.tv/blogs/11624/Impeach_Bush_MSNBC_Poll_85_YES_Vote_Now
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/22740
http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout
This enabled Democrats with nothing to do all day but submit opinions from OBL's to create this biased poll while republicans are engaged in their community. The Democrats then brag about how a majority thinks this or that.
Out Bound Links to polls (OBL) and high class Spam machines that can be used as DOS weapons are introduced as ready made "letters to the editor" are maintained by Howard Dean's DNC.
The DNC website says:
In the era of cable news, conventional wisdom is formed in real-time. You can help influence the way the county looks at the President’s performance (editor: spelling corrected) by taking these online polls
http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout
http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout/honestgoverment
Honest Government
To get started, enter your zip code below and click 'Participate'
Use this tool to write letters to the editors of national, regional and local newspapers. Start by entering your zip code on this page, then use Democratic talking points on honest government to compose your letter on the next.
If you want more information on how Democrats want to ensure an honest government, you can click here to visit that section of the website.
http://myopiczeal.blogsome.com/2006/02/01/howard-dean-promises-to-capture-obl/
OBL means OutBound Link
http://www.webmasterbrain.com/seo-articles/seo-glossary/o/definition-obl/
The DNC runs direct OBL links to various polls including MSNBC as part of some type of response system. These links are in various DNC or Democrat friendly websites including the DNC website below
http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout/sotu
MN1
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