>Interesting email to Michelle Malkin follows. It explains how Palin's email
>was hacked. As you can see, the hacker was clearly looking to derail her
>candidacy. But instead he got nothing.
>
>I have little doubt that the individual responsible for this will be getting
>a visit from the FBI shortly. But this is interesting reading for netizens.
>
>---
>I missed the original incident, but monitored the discussion and repostings
>afterward to see what I could learn about what had happened and who was
>responsible.
>
>There are several misconceptions and errors in most accounts of this story,
>including your post. Most significantly, the perpetrator(s) were not members
>of an infamous group of hackers. I don't blame you for misunderstanding
>this, because in all the media coverage regarding the war with Scientology
>the media has completely failed to explain what Anonymous is.
>
>Anonymous is not exactly a group. It is people using the umbrella of a web
>discussion board for cover to be as offensive, funny, strange, or whatever
>as they want.
>
>Here's the short version: there is a site called
4chan.org. It is an image
>posting site based on a popular Japanese site. The site contains multiple
>boards, each of which is dedicated to a particular subject. The most
>notorious of these boards is called /b/. /b/ is the board dedicated to
>random images. /b/tards, as its denizens are called, are interested only in
>their own amusement. Their sense of humor runs the gamut from sick to cruel
>to merely strange. Lolcats, as made famous by
>
http://www.icanhascheezburger.com, originated on /b/. A lot of memes start
>there. There is a lot of racist humor - pictures of excited and happy black
>people in proximity to fried chicken abound. There is a lot of pornography.
>Sometimes it's child pornography, although posting that is moderator grounds
>for banning - no, it's not a pedophile ring; /b/tards post it because they
>think doing so is funny.
>
>4chan does not log participants. Most people don't use or have usernames,
>and post instead as "Anonymous." And every so often, a number of /b/'s
>anonymous denizens decide to make somebody's life hell. Sometimes it's a
>random person who offends /b/'s sense of propriety. Sometimes it's a forum
>dedicated to a serious topic. Sometimes it's Scientology. And Tuesday, it
>was Sarah Palin. Or it would have been.
>
>Sarah Palin's email account was hacked by one person. Not a group.
>
>This person read her emails, then posted the username and password on /b/.
>This happened at about 4 in the morning on Tuesday. The idea was that the
>sea of Anonymous /b/tards would download the emails, upload porn, and cause
>all manner of mischief. Anonymous is not a group of hackers. Anonymous is
>more like gremlins. They are hyperactive adolescents in search of amusement
>and joy, which they often get by upsetting people and making messes. That's
>what was happening here. Anonymous did not hack the account. A hacker tried
>to throw Sarah Palin to Anonymous. Not all of Anonymous was having it. One
>person threw a crowbar in the works. Other /b/tards were displeased to miss
>a chance at the lulz. The moderators stepped in. The thread was deleted.
>
>Later, other individuals created threads reposting screencaps of emails and
>the inbox, and put together a collection of these files. All mentions of
>these were purged by the moderators. So then some bright /b/tards decided to
>email what little stuff they had to the media.
>
>That's pretty much it.
>
>This afternoon, in a thread that was later deleted, an individual claiming
>to be the original poster gave his account of what happened. I've attached
>screencaps. Here's the text. The original poster used the name "rubico." The
>linked email address for the poster was rubico10@
yahoo.com.
>
>This is what rubico said:
>
>===
>
>rubico 09/17/08(Wed)12:57:22 No.85782652
>
>Hello, /b/ as many of you might already know, last night sarah palin's yahoo
>was "hacked" and caps were posted on /b/, i am the lurker who did it, and i
>would like to tell the story.
>
>In the past couple days news had come to light about palin using a yahoo
>mail account, it was in news stories and such, a thread was started full of
>newfags trying to do something that would not get this off the ground, for
>the next 2 hours the acct was locked from password recovery presumably from
>all this bullshit spamming.
>
>after the password recovery was reenabled, it took seriously 45 mins on
>wikipedia and google to find the info, Birthday? 15 seconds on wikipedia,
>zip code? well she had always been from wasilla, and it only has 2 zip codes
>(thanks online postal service!)
>
>the second was somewhat harder, the question was "where did you meet your
>spouse?" did some research, and apparently she had eloped with mister palin
>after college, if youll look on some of the screenshits that I took and
>other fellow anon have so graciously put on photobucket you will see the
>google search for "palin eloped" or some such in one of the tabs.
>
>I found out later though more research that they met at high school, so I
>did variations of that, high, high school, eventually hit on "Wasilla high"
>I promptly changed the password to popcorn and took a cold shower.
>
>
>this is all verifiable if some anal /b/tard wants to think Im a troll, and
>there isn't any hard proof to the contrary, but anyone who had followed the
>thread from the beginning to the 404 will know I probably am not, the
>picture I posted this topic with is the same one as the original thread.
>
>I read though the emails. ALL OF THEM. before I posted, and what I concluded
>was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing
>that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff,
>some clerical stuff from when she was governor.. And pictures of her family
>
>I then started a topic on /b/, peeps asked for pics or gtfo and I obliged,
>then it started to get big
>
>Earlier it was just some prank to me, I really wanted to get something
>incriminating which I was sure there would be, just like all of you anon out
>there that you think there was some missed opportunity of glory, well there
>WAS NOTHING, I read everything, every little blackberry confirmation. all
>the pictures, and there was nothing, and it finally set in, THIS internet
>was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this shit ever
>got to the FBI I was fucked, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there
>but I didn't know how to rapidshit all that stuff, so I posted the pass on
>/b/, and then promptly deleted everything, and unplugged my internet and
>just sat there in a comatose state
>
>Then the white knight fucker came along, and did it in for everyone, I
>trusted /b/ with that email password, I had gotten done what I could do
>well, then passed the torch , all to be let down by the douchebaggery, good
>job /b/, this is why we cant have nice things
>
>===
>
>The "white knight fucker" was the /b/tard who thought that going through
>Sarah Palin's email wasn't cool. He logged in, changed the password, and
>sent an email to a friend of Palin's warning her and letting her know the
>new password. Unfortunately, he then posted a screenshot of this email to
>let the other /b/tards know their fun was over. He failed to blank the
>password, and they all tried to log in and change the password - which
>tripped the automated Yahoo! freeze. Since then, the account has been
>deleted. "Rapidshit" refers to
rapidshare.com - i.e., rubico wanted to
>download the emails, put them into one file, and put that file up on
>rapidshare for /b/tards and the world at large to download. But he panicked,
>or didn't know how to download the emails, and so pawned that task off on
>Anonymous, which he didn't realize wasn't monolithic and in his favor.
>
>As Paul Harvey would say, "And now you know.. the rest of the story."
>
>---
