[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Palin E-Mail Hack Shows Webmail's Flaw here

[gander]

"it seems that Sarah Palin was also doing this."
It was an ILlegal act to hack Palin's email. Are you ADMITTING that you ACTUALLY accomodated the hackers illegal act by LOOKING at the email??? Would you look at MINE if given the chance or your other readers email too??????????
Personal emails are personal, not public. Do your part in helping to keep it that way.

[mikew12345]

Actually, she didn't use it for official use. She sent a personal email to a colleague, it was not official business. But people would rather try to make an issue about Palin than focus on the invasion of privacy. If this had been a terrorist who had been hacked by the FBI, the liberals would have been screaming bloody murder.

[JasonDJ]

What's the big deal? Anonymous only did what Palin, and, for that matter, all first-party candidates are doing and wish to continue doing. Read our personal e-mails, record our personal calls, and all sorts of other things. Read the FISA bill. Look into the NSA.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchers? Anonymous.

[wwalker]

And you wonder why so many people balked about you stories on "cloud computing"? This is exactly why we don't want to go there. I'll keep my data to myself, thanks.

[ButchDog]

Hoping not to sound too paranoid but has anyone considered the idea that this is just a Republican setup to once again portray Palin as a poor victim and try to pull the medias attention away from real issues again?

[Montani]

ButchDog sounds like one of those people that think the 9-11 attacks were an inside job too. Please note that in her personal email, all they found was the decent above board communication of a Christian lady.

Gov. Palin is a decent honest hardworking representative of the citizens of Alaska. Her popularity (80% approval rating) has so frightened the ultra liberals that they attack her and her family in every devious way they can. The Republicans haven't gone after the previous marriage and illegitimate child of Michelle Obama, but the liberals would if Michelle was a conservative.

[rgreen4]

Exteremly unlikely considering that it was apparently the son of a Democratice State Representative in Tennessee.

[Montani]

I guess the PC World moderator is in the Obama camp, since my comments supporting Gov. Palin were removed from this site a few minutes after they were posted. She is a decent hardworking representative of the people of Alaska. All that was found in her email were the personal communications of a moral Christian lady. She has an 80% approval rating in her state and everyone there seems to love her as a governor. Her and her family have been attacked in many ways because her popularity scares the liberals beyond belief. To help make it a little harder for hackers to reset an online password, you can choose a security question such as What is your mother's maiden name and enter something like 4scoreand7years@go instead of her name. That way public information won't help the devious people that act as the "Peeping Toms" of the online world.

[Montani]

My first comments have mysteriously re-appeared now.

[rgreen4]

No one removes any post unless it violates the community standards. Many times an offending post would be edited and in both cases the member is notified by PM. Member Moderators discuss the action. Our aim is to maintain a civil discourse without insulting any other member, without using foul language or advocating an action that is either illegal or unethical.

What is more likely that the system was updating. There have been occasions when entire posts disappear, however, and I have had some disappear in the past.

Immediately after you send the post, you will see it appear on the screen with a message at the top stateing that the post has been received, but it will be several minutes before it appears in the discussion area. These few minutes can stretch out depending on the system load.

[Bong]

sounds like an inside job to me

[steverose]

Anyone who considers email private is not very bright. First of all, you are committing yourself in writing (as is also true with text chat). Second, your communication probably is forwarded through several servers, each of which holds a copy of your communication for some period, in environments over which you have no control. Third, your emails may be revealed by legal discovery or employment agreements on either end of the communication. Even without hacking, you are vulnerable. Never write anything for which you do not intend to be held accountable.

[Antioch16]

Lets get this straight-she was using government equipment while on government time to write personal email, notes and chit-chat . I believe this practice has been discouraged and even prohibited in most companies and governmental agencies for years. Just an observation.

[ZetaZeta]

All I can say is "NO, RLY???" because this is so incredibly obvious.

[digrizster]

All silliness to me...
Webmail, bah. If I wanted something secure I would encrypt it three ways with big keys or deliver the information in person.
What about online banking? Same issues, but more damaging to a persons life.
People need to use the brains God gave them. If Palin is as intelligent as I suspect, then she learned a valuable lesson here. Everybody makes mistakes, the key is to learn from them, instead of being good at covering them up.

[rgreen4]

You need to go back and read the reports again. There has been no report of usage of Government equipment for personal use. The e-mail in question was her personal Yahoo e-mail account.

[miacid]

Password recovery questions are foolish if one wants any security. The way to fix that is to provide a long (say 32 character) string of RANDOM characters as the name of ones pet and use a different pet name on every site. How could that be hacked?

[DuayneD]

@Montani -- thanks for a great tip on making those questions more secure. I only wish you would stick to that rather than adding to more irrelevant-even-if-it's-true-which-it's-not nonsense that you said about Michelle Obama. I mean, really, what's that got to do with this topic?

@rgreen4 -- you need to read something other than blogs. Several news stories have noted Palin that Palin's staff had looked into whether using the Yahoo Mail accounts to conduct state business could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
One of the hacked e-mails from her press secretary indicates the message is about the "Motor Fuel Tax Suspension".

[miacid]

@DuayneD -- The tip came from miacid, a different person from Montani. I am glad you appreciate the tip.