back to article Memo to US Secret Service: Net proxy may pinpoint Palin email hackers

Memo to law enforcement investigators tracking down who broke into Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account: Gabriel Ramuglia might be a good place to start. The 25-year-old webmaster and entrepreneur is the operator of Ctunnel.com, the browsing proxy service used by the group that hacked into the vice presidential candidate's …

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  1. Solomon Grundy

    Why?

    Why doesn't he just delete his records? It seems to work for just about everyone else in the news these days...

    I refuse to use any of these icons until they're not fuzzy anymore.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Wikileaks "bullet-proof"?

    It's suddenly become awfully hard to get through to wikileaks right now, and most of the mirrors appear to be inaccessible too. I wonder who's behind that?

  3. Adam Williamson
    Thumb Down

    @AC 03:04

    That would be Slashdot.

    And man, how dumb do these people have to have been not to use tor? Sheesh.

  4. Someone

    Even without those unique URLs?

    “That often isn't enough to track down people who access extremely popular websites.”

    It might be better to say that often it’s not worth the effort. Yahoo has a timestamped log detailing the access to Palin’s account from the Ctunnel.com IP address(es). Ctunnel.com has a log that shows which user IP address(es) accessed Yahoo mail and when. Without the unique URLs, you can still attempt to correlate the two sets of timestamps. Investigators may want to pin down as much of the access as they can, regardless of whether it has an associated screenshot.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a f'in maroon

    Prosecute these libs, VictiCrats, to the fullest extent of the law.

    GO MCCAIN/PALIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

  6. Bob Reece

    Chicago?

    The server is in Chicago? Hmmm. I hope the idiot(s) who did this are connected to Obama. I really do. I would not doubt it either. Shall we give it a name? How about Hackergate.

  7. Bob Gulien
    Jobs Halo

    Is this Webster....

    SHOUTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    The Sun

    Am I the only one who thinks Palin looks like she should be on Page 3 of The Sun rather than a Vice President....? Slightly worrying considering the age of McCain!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ What a f'in maroon

    Where would you like them to go?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Bob Reece

    *facepalm*

    The initial screenshots were posted on 4chan /b/. Somehow I doubt any of Obama's associates visit that website..

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    C'Mon!

    "Am I the only one who thinks Palin looks like she should be on Page 3 of The Sun rather than a Vice President....? Slightly worrying considering the age of McCain!"

    At some point or another, we've all hired fit birds to .. you know... pretty up the office, and stuff.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    n00bs

    real anonymous is behind 7 proxies

  13. Erik Aamot

    nice to see El Reg co.uk ..

    ... can handle the traffic from a top of the page, in red headline at drudgereport !

    nice original story my friends !

    BTW .. El Reg is my home page .. go to Drudge after reading here .. lol ..

  14. LaeMi Qian
    Boffin

    @ Solomon Grundy

    At a long-shot guess in the pitch-dark, I assume he doesn't delete his records before the Feds ask for them because he is happy for the Feds to catch and prosecute the people who are breaching his terms of service on his anon proxy by using it to commit crimes. He says so pretty clearly in the article. You did ... um... read the article didn't you? ;-)

  15. Dave Gregory
    Pirate

    Seems a bit clumsy

    to be Anonymous. I thought the internet hate machine was operated by hackers on steroids?

  16. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Coat

    I guess, Sarah...

    All your emails are belong to us!

  17. Smapdi
    Paris Hilton

    recipe

    I have been trying to get a copy of her secret moose stew recipe, I hope it is in one of the screenshots.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Idiots

    These 'hackers' should be hauled before a judge and sentenced to PMITA prison for life for pissing away a great opportunity. Governer Palin was using her yahoo email for public business, something which is highly illegal, and now we will never know what she was doing as she has presumably deleted these accounts by now. All because the idiot 15 year old who did this needed to post the login credentials to Ebaumsworld as soon as he logged in.

    What could have been another Watergate is wasted because some kid wanted e-fame. Good job Internet.

  19. John Q Public
    Boffin

    why?

    why would you want to out someone who is basically performing a public service? when the government does whatever this so called hacker did, it's called the patriot act, but when a private citizen does it it's considered a crime? Don't you find that ironic? how about hypocritical? have you ever read the constitution?

    The rights and powers of a private citizen must be protected. Palin is not a private citizen, she is a public servant and therefore must have all her activities scrutinized, by her future employers. -- The citizens of the united states. this is no different than an employer running a background check on a prospective employee.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Caught red handed?

    I don't think it's very likely that a single anonymous proxy service was used. I mean really, this isn't even a truely anonymous service is it? And anyone with half a brain would know that.

    IF said "hackers" did only use the ctunnel service from a tracable IP source, and then went on to publish the full URL then they simply deserve to get stung.

    For me this is just another story of "how we could get you"...

    In my opinion this will go no where (f-a-s-t).

  21. Mick Russom
    Alert

    If he helps turn "anonymous" in I consider him a traitor

    If he helps turn "anonymous" in I consider him a traitor.

    If someone offed him and I was on the jury I would hang it. This is simply a public figure who isn't above it all or above the law being exposed to the public. Persecuting "anonymous" proves that this is much to be embarrassed about it seems.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    What are they doing with this case???

    "The breach of Palin's account "is pretty clearly against my terms of service," he said."

    So why are the secret service involved? IF Palin isn't discussing government secrets using private email, there's only a privacy issue here. If Palin's email account was used to pass government information then this would make it grist for the secret service, but they should first find out what Palin's email system contains to see what may be compromised, then indict Palin for breaking the law and putting government information at risk and THEN go after Anonymous /b/.

    1) Damage assessment

    2) Most serious offence

    3) Less serious offense

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lol

    newfags going down, that would increase the lulz of this already lulz worthy event.

    What would increase the lulz even more would be if newfag made it all look like a democrat conspiracy! Then newfag may become upgraded to epic.

  24. Neil Stansbury

    Uh?

    So Sarah Palin uses Yahoo to avoid regulatory email disclosure, but you'll cough up the logs quite happily.

    Apparently, what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @That would be Slashdot.

    What, and (almost) every single one of the mirrors too?

    I guess it's possible that it's just service overload, it's a news-worthy event, and I haven't checked how many of the mirrors are just DNS entries pointing to the same servers (which works around registrar's disabling their domains, but won't help if there's not a lot of server capacity). But it seemed a little funny how hard it was to get through. I dug up a list of mirrors from a few months back:

    http://www.binaryfreedom.info/node/312

    Even allowing for some churn and out-of-dateness, almost all of those links were down. I finally managed to get through to spacetechnology.net and maidlab.jp, but almost every single other one was unavailble or routed to a domain parking page.

    I'll get my tin-foil coat!

  26. go
    Coat

    Using yahoo mail for government business...slick

    Have they been taking lessons from us in incorrectly storing sensitive data or something?

    Seriously......

    Mines the one without the mandatory unencrypted usb stick containing important data.....

  27. paul

    I want secret service / FBI / whoever to help me out

    If 'my personal' email were hacked I doubt I would get the same level of response from the authorities.

    I would expect the feds to come down hard on any hacking on the work email side. But surely this is just her 'personal' email - so why the special treatment? Oh its because shes a MILF.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Number of proxies

    According to someone who claimed to be responsible on 4chan, he only used one proxy.

    Jolly Roger, looks like the guy needs to prepare for boarding!

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: The Sun

    @AC:

    "Am I the only one who thinks Palin looks like she should be on Page 3 of The Sun rather than a Vice President....?"

    Is she -- phwoarrr! -- just legal? Is she studying social sciences as the college of Upper Thickieton? Does she like puppies and think that the current economic climate is bad news for old people?

    No?

    Don't let the facelift fool you -- she's a fogey too.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    What an idiot

    I hope they only used one proxy and get dragged into court. They had an incredible opportunity to expose corruption and shape the world, and wasted it by posting shit on fucking 4chan before they had a chance to save copies of her emails. What an idiot. Deserve everything they get. Epic fail.

  31. Gemini Storm
    Linux

    John Q. Public?

    Public servant or not, her private correspondence is protected by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which I am sure you have neither read nor understand. Via court order or certain provisional powers of the Executive office, in the protection the US, that right can be set aside if there is suspicion of criminal activity. The Patriot Act uses those provisions to allow the government to monitor overseas calls that appear suspicious and without sufficient time to obtain a court order. All sides of the political spectrum realize that this is a necessity, which is why Congress authorized it in the first place. Despite the BS rhetoric, if you feel your rights have been violated, then by all means, please bring a lawsuit against the US government for invading your privacy. Until that time, I have a bucket of sshhh for you.

    Anonymous is not an authorized agent of the US government (AFAIK) nor do they have permission to access and publish Sarah Palin's **private** e-mail. As such, he has committed a federal crime(s). Agree or not with Sarah Palin's political ideology, the KKK, the ACLU, or whomever your favorite enemy de jour is, their rights must be protected so that all of *your* rights remain protected. To claim that it is somehow the citizens' right to view a public servant's e-mail is idiotic. They are a citizen first and a public servant second. Their right's are not circumvented due to their service. That is a slippery slope that you better hope never gets breached, or your rights *will* have been forfeited.

    Try now telling us that we should now have full access to Barack Obama's house, all letters, bank accounts, e-mail accounts, school records, medical records, etc. Same for Bill Clinton, George Bush, Judge Judy, Mayor Bloomberg, and so on. You are so ill-informed that I'm really concerned that you either have, or will have, the right to vote in the US. Hopefully, this is just a case of your hate of conservatives (or any government figure?) getting in the way of your reason.

  32. Gemini Storm
    Linux

    SS involved

    The reason that the Secret Service is involved is because she is a candidate for the Executive or Vice-Executive office. As such, she is provided SS protection. You might recall a certain senator from Mass that was murdered in a hotel in 1968?

    I'm not sure about candidates when they're in the primaries, but once they become a major candidate for office, they get protection from the SS. I'd bet that even Bob Barr and Ron Paul are getting protection. Al Gore and Hillary, of course, will get SS protection for the rest of their lives whether they run again or not.

    The SS needs to determine the threat level of this action, the same would be true if the PotUS's e-mail account were hacked and published. They probably aren't as concerned about prosecuting the individuals involved as they are about determining how dangerous of a threat they present. It makes no difference if Palin was committing a crime or not, the SS wouldn't be involved in that investigation, they are only there to protect her. The SS's job is tied to the US Treasury (investigating forged currency for example) and protecting the Executive office. As such, all past and present Presidents, VPs, and their families are under constant SS protection. The FBI will most likely investigate and prosecute the crimes that are involved, although I'd hope that they (the FBI and SS) share resources and information on all of this.

  33. Gemini Storm
    Linux

    Etc.

    Paul,

    Yeah, if your e-mail were hacked, you'd receive about zero response from authorities. But then again, you're probably not a public figure or a candidate for the Executive office are you? When you walk out the front door, do SS agents appear and escort you around all day? Think about this, you're neither the most powerful person/position in the world nor a candidate for that position. Simple logic here, I'd bet the papers outside of your town wouldn't report on your death either...

    Anonymous Coward,

    What corruption are you talking about here? Do you *know* of something we don't? If you want to expose corruption, you should investigate every politician in the country, I'm sure we could dig up a lot of back room deals, money changing hands, pork, illicit affairs, outright illegal activities, etc. especially in Washington DC. Or, did you just want to investigate Sarah Palin/conservatives for some dirt?

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    There is no certainty, only opportunity.

    What makes OP and everyone else think the ctunnel screenies were taken by anonymous? Did OP fail to notice the most recent subject? Perhaps said screenies were taken by the white knight who logged in, sent an e-mail to her husband to notify of the breach, then changed palin's password to protect from further damage.

    And why aren't the rest of you thanking anonymous? Would you rather have a foreign government reading her mails while staying stealthy? If anonymous hadn't chimed the bell, would any of you know who reads her mails? Why should we wish for anonymous to stop now? This is Government oversight by the people, for the people, and we need more of it. A free pen test is what it was, and Palin failed.

    There are no coincidences, Dan... only the illusion of coincidence.

  35. Gemini Storm

    14th amendment & 9th

    Sorry.

    The14th Amendment is "due process" (thinking about that from another post in the thread). The 9th Amendment is interpreted to be the "right to privacy".

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ "GO MCCAIN/PALIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111"

    Yeah, please go. Very, very far away, better yet into permanent political obscurity. Or at least somewhere you can't do any harm with your warmongering, lies, cover-ups and weak email passwords. Can you take your wingnut fanboi with you too, he's smelling the place up something shocking, it's like an elephant just took a shit on the carpet.

    And don't come back when you're done. Thanks!!!111!!ONE!

  37. Gemini Storm

    Make sure we get all of them!

    I'm with Anonymous Coward here, let's test the security of all politicians' e-mail accounts. We wouldn't want any foreigners doing it and sneaking off to their respective governments about anything someone might write in an e-mail! We need government oversight into everyones' lives, we need to make sure that no one is giving away secrets or using weak passwords!

    Um, wait a sec...I'm confused here. Are we in favor of the government invading our privacy or not?

    /sarc

    Are you even from the US? You don't seem to know much about our Constitution, the role of our government agencies or even have a firm grasp of reality...are you off your meds? I'm just askin'...

  38. Pierre

    Gemini Storm and his WTF moment

    No-one said he had the *right* to break in the account. But she doesn't have the right to conduct state business on this account. So it should be a normal privacy-related investigation. You know, the ones which are NEVER conducted when "normal" individuals are the victims. Oh, and SHE should be kicked out of office, and face quite serious charges, for using Yahoo! to do state-related things.

  39. Gemini Storm
    Linux

    Pierre

    Read the comments by John Q Public above. Statements saying that its a public service is saying that its ok to do so because she is a public servant. I said that she has an expectation right to privacy regardless of her public service.

    And, conducting state business on a personal e-mail account is what...a big deal? Should we get the US Attorney General involved to see if we can get her put in jail? Catching her doing company/state business on personal e-mail means it OK to invade her privacy and post her kids' pictures with phone #s out to the wild?

    If you want to catch someone doing something illegal, you can't break the law in obtaining that information or evidence or it will be thrown out in court. Its plain and simple.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Email security red herring

    The fact that Sarah Palin was using a Yahoo! account is almost neglectable in light of the fact that Anonymous members were illegally cracking the email account and deliberately spread private and government information on the internet, on top of all endangering the safety of Palin's family. No "public interest" exists for this, and their doing was just plain illegal. Anonymous is known for illegal and harassing actions for a long time.

    Article: http://www.nolanchart.com/article4803.html

    Fox11 News on Anonymous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY

    Anonymous response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjU8bZR19A

    Another Fox11 report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYH-5ke_bOU

    Anonymous documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwNyKXux70 or http://www.anonymous-exposed.org

  41. Mike Powers

    This is why we can't have nice things.

    You know, it's hard to keep advocating free and unmetered and unmonitored Internet usage when THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE DO WITH IT.

  42. Gemini Storm
    Thumb Down

    Government corruption

    Don't get me wrong, I find it admirable that people want to root out corruption in our government. But, you can't use illegal means to do so or use evidence obtained during the commission of a crime. Also, you can't cherry pick your subjects, you must make it an across the board oversight. Every mayor, governor, US/state senator or congressman, president, vice-president, or candidate for those offices would have to be monitored and investigated. Otherwise, you're just a partisan muckraker without ethics.

    Regardless of your political leanings, this action was wrong and criminal. If you say otherwise, you are ignorant. Anonymous is not some whistleblower or watchdog to be admired. At best, they sought to besmirch someone's reputation in order to further their ideology or those that espouse their ideology. At worst, they invaded the privacy of a well known public figure and her family, possibly endangering their well being.

  43. Jodo Kast
    Joke

    And that's why,...

    they call them: "Anonymous Coward".

    Look! Anonymous is fighting anonymous. Bizarre.

  44. Chris
    Stop

    @Gemini

    "If you want to catch someone doing something illegal, you can't break the law in obtaining that information or evidence or it will be thrown out in court. Its plain and simple."

    You're absolutely correct. All of the "evidence" collected in the hack should not be used. With that said, we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that the law may have been broken by the Governer as well.

    For instance, say a burgular breaks into the house of one of your neighbors and finds your dead body in the living room. The perp calls the local news to tell of the break in and your dead body. Should the fact that you're dead not be investigated because it was reported by someone breaking the law? You seem to imply that. No one, not being flamebait, is questioning whether the hacker broke the law (he/she did). The real question is, did the Governer?

    I'm not Democrat or Republican and anyone who follows them blindly should be lead to a cliff and be pushed off.

  45. Dennis Price
    Paris Hilton

    Conspiracy Theories be Damned!

    I know of several government agencies here in the US that use Comcast email... dot.gov nothing... comcast.net

    Much ado about nothing.

    Paris because the new icons suck.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @Gemini Storm and the rest

    No, dofuses, the point is she was conducting state business on a Yahoo email account, which is not subject to US govt. record keeping requirements (Sabarnes Oxley for private companies, IANAL but there ARE laws covering the same thing for government, even at a State/Federal level). Moreover, she was deliberately KNOWINGLY doing so...here email address was gov.palin@yahoo.com, FFS!

    14th amendment or not, public servants have to abide by the rules. This is a cynical, naiive attempt to get round them. Surely a women of her intelligence will have heard of the 'never write something in an email you wouldn't be happy to write on a postcard' rule?

    @AC quoting Fox11 (that oh-so-balanced network)

    "Anonymous members were illegally cracking the email account and deliberately spread private and government information on the internet, on top of all endangering the safety of Palin's family." - This still does not alter that fact that said government information should not have been on a Yahoo email account. Let me repeat that: Government information has no place on a Yahoo account. And yes, before you flame me, obviously the her kids do have the right not to have their personal details (phone numbers, email addresses) published online.

    Coat. Door.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    you know

    I really look forward to one day someone in the media actually doing a proper semi informed piece about "anonymous." As opposed to warh intorwebz terrorists, cyborgz cowbois, haxxorz on steroidz.

    Do you people not do such a piece becouse it means that suddenly they'll get very very dull.

    I mean seriously. It'd be pretty funny. Talk about gets, habbo, myspaz raids, blame ebaums world, 7chan vs 4chan, hal turner, raids on stormfront, pools closed, shoop da whoop. serious cat, desu, sage, failget, o rly, yes rly, motivational posters, damn 50% of the memes out there came from anon strongholds of one sort or another and another 40% from 2ch.

    And the fox article? Man that had me laughing so hard I almost died - even fox admited that they only aired it becouse it was a slow news day on local news and that the story was bulls--t.

    @And that's why,...

    No the reason "they" (lol) ended up with the name anonymous is becouse of forced anon on a message board - there were no more tripfags - only anonymous. Where you trolled each other day in and day out, had a laugh, did stupid stuff, then got bored and moved on

  48. This post has been deleted by its author

  49. Rob
    Pirate

    Fail. Choose a better tool.

    torrentfreedom.com, trueonlinesecurity.com, etc. are better tools, because they're anon.

    Nice try, tho' :)

  50. Gemini Storm
    Linux

    Reposte

    Chris,

    I think the real issue is the hacking, not the governor's use of personal e-mail to conduct any state business. Subverting SOX (wife's an auditor, I'll quiz her about this in the morning to get more info) isn't going to get much traction regardless if it was found legally or not. Your analogy is sort of backwards because it would be more accurate to say that during the robbery the robber discovered that the home owner was stealing cable. Of course, if during the hacking it was discovered that Palin were engaged in a child pornography ring...that would probably lead to an end to her public service, but I would hesitate to say she would get prosecuted.

    AC (green icon),

    See above. Conducting state business on a private/personal e-mail account is a minor issue. Certainly there are government officials with greater skeletons in the closet than this (see any number of examples from both major parties). The point is that the hacker did something illegal, and anything that they discovered is so under the radar that no one will even care. I'm involved with network security, so I know that e-mail and password "rules" aren't followed even by the smartest people I know. Most people are too busy to be bothered by using strict security guidelines. So, I don't think its indicative of her intelligence or lack thereof.

    Throatwobbler,

    My comments about the Constitution were in response to those that were flinging it around without knowledge. And, contrary to your statement, the Constitution does apply. The Constitution not only states the rights of the citizens and limits the government, but it also prevents the government from enacting/enforcing laws that infringe upon those rights. Thus, my rights are protected against all infringement, not just the infringement of the government.

    "...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States..."

    As an example, recently, the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms was challenged in the state I live in. The case involved whether an employer could prevent its employees from having licensed weapons/guns in their vehicles because it was on the employer's property. And, to enforce that rule, the employer would be able to search any vehicle on its property to insure the rule was followed. The rule was struck down as unconstitutional. Therefore, my rights were protected from infringement from entities outside of the government. An employer could be an individual or a huge corporation, it matters not.

    Both the 9th and the 14th apply in this case, which is why I was bringing them up. The 9th secures her privacy, while the 14th secures due process. I was thinking about due process in response to the whole "can't use evidence in the commission of a crime" line of thought. To obtain Palin's e-mail, a court order would have to be issued to an authorized agent of the government. I miswrote that the 14th secured her privacy, and corrected myself in a subsequent post (because I can't edit my previous post). Perhaps you don't make errors of this nature so you can't relate?

    Again, circumventing SOX compliance is a minor matter. If you want to argue "right and wrong", that is different, but in reality, invading her privacy and breaking "Electronic" laws supercedes anything Palin did wrong.

    ---------------------------------------

    As much as people want to string up Palin because she's a; conservative, NRA member, Christian, whatever, taking her to task for this is as idiotic as the whole tanning bed issue. Ding her on her political ideology or something. So far, the dirt diggers that flew up to Alaska haven't found much, so its looking pretty pathetic to Americans that see the efforts that have been made since the day of her selection to besmirch her and her family. Americans have a tendency to circle the wagons around someone that is being hounded like this, so the smears will lead to more votes for McCain/Palin, not less. If you want to have an effect, counter her positions with *your* solutions and explain why McCain/Palin are wrong. Most of the posts I read here sound like a bunch of children calling each other names in the schoolyard and saying my dad can beat up your dad. No one will pay any attention to this crap if you don't elevate it to an adult level of discussion.

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