Electronic Burglary in the Senate

earthworm2 writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee have spied on confidential Democratic files for a year, studying their strategies and passing on the juicy bits to the media."

The goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft backs the Republicans.

Microsoft shares exploit with the Republicans.

Democrats get sodomized.

Fuhrer Bush and Reichstag Security Head Ashcroft smile.

You KNOW it's true because it's on slashdot!

Damn Republicans

[arodland]

That's why I'm a... damn!

W@tergate ??

[supersnail]

W@tergate ??

I haven't had my caffeine this morning...

[gekkotron]

So I misread that as "Electronic Buggery in the Senate".

Confidential files

[stanmann]

If the files were supposed to be confidential, shouldn't they have been protected?

And if the Republicans are hackers doesn't that mean we should be supporting them??

Since information wants to be free and all.

In other news...

[Hiro Antagonist]

it is confirmed that Nixon will be replacing Cheney as Bush's running mate in the upcoming elections...

But the Patriot Act says that it's legal!

[Trigun]

After all, the Democrats were against the war, and thusly terrorist sympathizers!

We are exactly 20 years off on our calendar.

It's the Dem's fault

[L. VeGas]

Further investigation reveals that the Democrats were using Usenet for their correspondence.

Should have used DRM!

[ewg]

They should have used Digital Rights Management:

Ideological opponents: ( ) Allow (+) Deny

Grr!

[CaptainAlbert]

Stop spoiling my well-ingrained stereotype of republicans as slack-jawed rednecks who couldn't crack into a nut, let alone a computer! How can this be? :)

RIAA where are you? Dems should have...

[FerretFrottage]

told the RIAA that there were GOPs sharing music in Senate. That would have gotten them all sued and surely lead to a decline of unshared online documents.
It is believed that the Gops used a new p2p network called "Democrapster"

They had to

[Omni Magnus]

They had to do it. The Democrats are a threat to national security. Heck, many of the voted against the Patriot Act.*

*note: This is sarcasm.

Re:I haven't had my caffeine this morning...

[phorm]

Not that likely. After all we have this seperation of church and state...

Twisted with grains of truth it is, but let the mods judge its worthiness we shall

Re:In other news...

[Hiro Antagonist]

"Umm, Richard M. Nixon has passed away..."

Which means he's in a more stable condition than Cheney. And likely more photogenic to boot.

Unethical Repubs discover Democrats also unethical

[mc6809e]

Hmmm, Republicans use unethical means to determine Democrats also unethical.

File this under: double plus obvious, tell us something new.

Digital Commandments

[Bighph]

Thou Shalt not be suprised when the documents saved in a public share show up the the Wall Street Journal.

Old News

[pyite69]

This story is appalling, but also ancient. Let's
bring it back out closer to election time, though,
when it is again relevant.

Re:Confidential files

[mikerich]

If the files were supposed to be confidential, shouldn't they have been protected?

Perhaps they employ the same security consultants as Valve software?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Power Corrupts, and...

[DesScorp]

"Green? Libertarian? Reform? Independent?

Power corrupts."

And PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

You're forgetting:

[burgburgburg]

Microsofties are usually the last ones to know about exploits. They find out about exploits even after kids hanging around Radio Shack in hopes of being considered 1337 have already grown tired of them.

There is nothing wrong with this.

[cloudnine]

The Patriot Act allows Republicans to look at any computer files they want.

Bad choice of passwords

[scumdamn]

Maybe the "technician" set the password to "liberal" for the Democrats and "conservative" for the Republicans?

Re:You're forgetting:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to diminish your comment, but.....

> Microsofties are usually the last ones to know about exploits.

No, they are the last to *acknowledge* these exploits. Subtle difference.

Senator Hatch's Remedy

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Distinguished Gentleman from Utah, an appropriate response to the Republicans' illicit trafficking in Democrats' documents would be to destroy the Republicans' computers [slashdot.org]... right?

What's the big deal?

[EriDay]

It's not like anybody got a BJ or anything.

Re:Damn Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Power corrupts

So does NTFS...

well then

[geekoid]

here's hoping he goes to the theater to see a play.

Re:Confidential files

[kalidasa]

Yes, the "technician" (sysop) who screwed up the permissions was at fault, and whoever hired him should be punished (since I suspect from the article that he's no longer employed by the Judiciary Committee). Still doesn't make it legal for the files to be accessed and distributed; I'm sure the directory structure made clear what files belonged to whom. Under Mr. Ashcroft's laws, I would bet that what the Republican staffers did was felony computer intrusion. Hoist by their own petard.

What we've got here is a bunch of stupid Democrats and a bunch of dishonest Republicans. (Whereas the past two presidents have been a dishonest Democrat and a stupid Republican.)

Let's all get drunk.

Re:The goods

[DonK]

Will this year's Darwin Award go to the American Voter?

Re:The question everyone is asking

[BandwidthHog]

Very little; all his life

*braces for impact of (-1, Troll) mod*

GOP trolling

[jimmi_bob]

"members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos"

my god, that is horrid. GWB commanded his subversive agents to go through Democrat documents inserting phrases like:

think of the power of Howard Dean in a Beowulf cluster

i don't have any WMDs ... you insensitive clod!

all your polling booths are belong to us

i'd just LOVE to pour some hot grits over Ann Coulter

But I thought...

[uxo]

...Slashdotters were for file sharing.

Expected consequences

[Buschman]

Since it will take months to sort out whether a crime was committed, I've drafted a summary of expected consequences for people who do this sort of thing:

• Elected representative: Forced to appear on Meet the Press and explain yourself. Typical raise the following year. Possible book deal.
• Staff for elected representative: Fired. Possibly murdered.
• Journalist: Pulizer/Peabody
• Administrative staff (e.g., janitors, security guards): 3-5 years in prison
• Twentysomething hacker/cracker (USA): Legal action. Some jail time, but steet cred
• Twentysomething hacker/cracker (non-US): Legal action. Possible visit to Camp X-Ray.

Please note that the RIAA may seek additional punishment if the material was copyrighted. So kids, think before you act

I'm going to invade your privacy now

[richardmilhousnixon]

"They had an obligation to tell each of the people whose files they were intruding upon"

Doesn't that kinda take all the fun out of reading someone else's email?

Re:Mod Parent Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I have to spell EVERYTHING oput for you?

obviously not.

Isolationism and Imperialism

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, the US invasion of Cuba and the Philippines was part of the Spanish-American War and is actually considered to be the beginning of the Imperial Era in the US (although it could be argued that it began in 1890, when the census revealed there was no frontier). The US invaded Cuba because the Spanish were basically herding them into concentration camps. Well, actually, it was because the US had a $100M annual trade with Cuba. I guess it would have been analogous to invading Iraq to "free the Iraqi people." And we invaded the Philippines because...well...we could.