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Items by Kim Zetter
Wired News: Top Stories
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Twitter Hacker Says Admin Password Was 'Happiness'
Fetched: January 7th, 2009, 4:31am CST by Kim Zetter
In an interview with Wired.com, an 18-year-old hacker with a history of celebrity pranks admits to Monday's hijacking of multiple high-profile Twitter accounts, including President-Elect Barack Obama's and the official feed for Fox News.
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Britney, Obama Twitter Feeds Hijacked After Phishing Attack
Fetched: January 5th, 2009, 3:16pm CST by Kim Zetter
Twitter acknowledges that "a number of high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised" on Monday morning, and used for pranks and spam.
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Prosecutors Charge 7 People Under New Cyberbullying Law
Fetched: December 23rd, 2008, 3:30am CST by Kim Zetter
Prosecutors in Missouri have been filing a flurry of charges under a new anti-cyberharassment statute that was passed as a result of the Megan Meier tragedy. But at least one defendant is crying foul.
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Severed Cables Cause Net Loss for 14 Countries
Fetched: December 19th, 2008, 10:11pm CST by Kim Zetter
Three key cables beneath the Mediterranean Sea are cut again. The trunks deliver internet service between the Middle East, Europe and parts of Asia, all of which is being rerouted.
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Vote on Whether the NSA Whistleblower Should Be Prosecuted
Fetched: December 17th, 2008, 1:18am CST by Kim Zetter
The incoming Obama administration will have to decide whether to prosecute former Justice Department official Thomas Tamm -- the anonymous source who blew the whistle on the NSA's warrantless spying -- for spilling classified information. What do you think?
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Lori Drew Files New Bid for Dismissal on Grounds that MySpace Authorized Access
Fetched: December 15th, 2008, 11:14pm CST by Kim Zetter
Attorneys argue that using trickery to gain permission to access a computer makes that access "authorized" as a matter of law.
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New York Times' NSA Whistleblower Reveals Himself
Fetched: December 15th, 2008, 11:14pm CST by Kim Zetter
The man who blew the lid off the NSA's warrantless surveillance program is Thomas Tamm, a former Justice Department official who held a top-secret clearance. He now lives under a cloud of uncertainty, as his former colleagues weigh felony charges of leaking classified information.
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Tor Makes Anonymized Content Available to All
Fetched: December 13th, 2008, 6:13pm CST by Kim Zetter
A new website serves as a portal to the underworld of anonymized content posted through the Tor network.
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Jurors Wanted to Convict Lori Drew of Felonies, But Lacked Evidence
Fetched: December 2nd, 2008, 4:24pm CST by Kim Zetter
The jury forewoman in the Lori Drew trial says jurors wanted to convict Lori Drew on three felony counts for unauthorized access to MySpace's computer system, but were stymied by lack of evidence from the prosecutor and had to convict her of misdemeanors.
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Can Lori Drew Verdict Survive Appeal?
Fetched: December 2nd, 2008, 4:24pm CST by Kim Zetter
The jury radically reinterprets a 20-year-old anti-hacking law to find Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanors. But juries do crazy things all the time. The only opinions that matter are those of the trial judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, neither of whom have weighed in yet.
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Lori Drew Not Guilty of Felony Cyberbullying
Fetched: November 26th, 2008, 6:40pm CST by Kim Zetter
Lori Drew, the 49-year-old woman charged in the first federal cyberbullying case, was cleared of felony computer-hacking charges by a jury Wednesday morning, but was convicted of several misdemeanors. The jury deadlocked on a charge of conspiracy.
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Cyberbully Jury Nears Verdict on Three Charges, Struggles With Fourth
Fetched: November 26th, 2008, 11:10am CST by Kim Zetter
The jury weighing a landmark federal cyberbullying case against 49-year-old Lori Drew resumes deliberations after asking the judge a question which suggests they have reached a decision on three of the charges and might be facing a deadlock on the fourth.
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Lori Drew Case Goes to Jury
Fetched: November 25th, 2008, 10:56pm CST by Kim Zetter
The landmark cyberbullying case of Lori Drew, accused of participating in a MySpace hoax that prosecutors said prompted a 13-year-old neighbor to commit suicide, is in the hands of the jury after three days of testimony from fifteen witnesses.
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Government's Star Witness Stumbles: MySpace Hoax Was Her Idea, Not Drew's
Fetched: November 21st, 2008, 7:54pm CST by Kim Zetter
The young woman who typed the final, cruel message to 13-year-old Megan Meier the day she killed herself says on the stand that it was she -- and not defendant Lori Drew -- who came up with the idea to create the fake MySpace account.
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Judge Considers Throwing Out Lori Drew Case
Fetched: November 21st, 2008, 7:54pm CST by Kim Zetter
A federal judge will rule Monday on whether the case against a 39-year-old woman accused in a deadly MySpace hoax can go to the jury, after testimony shows the defendant never saw the MySpace terms-of-service she's accused of criminally violating.
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Star Prosecution Witness Backs MySpace Hoax Defendant's Account
Fetched: November 21st, 2008, 7:40am CST by Kim Zetter
The young woman who typed the final, cruel message to 13-year-old Megan Meier the day she killed herself took seemed to undermine a key government point while testifying for the prosecution: it was her idea, not defendant Lori Drew's, to create a fake MySpace account to befriend Megan, and it was she who opened the account and clicked through the MySpace terms of service at the core of the case.
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Prosecutor: Lori Drew Intended to 'Prey' on Girl's Psyche
Fetched: November 20th, 2008, 6:18am CST by Kim Zetter
The woman accused of making unauthorized use of MySpace to inflict emotional harm on a 13-year-old girl, who then committed suicide, "fully intended to hurt and prey on Megan Meier's psyche," a federal prosecutor charged Wednesday, as opening statements began in the first federal cyber-bullying trial.
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Judge Reveals Long Witness List in Lori Drew Trial
Fetched: November 19th, 2008, 6:14pm CST by Kim Zetter
Witnesses in the so-called MySpace suicide trial include Ron and Tina Meier, the parents of the 13-year-old girl who committed suicide, and Ashley Grills, a former employee of Lori Drew's who helped set up the phony MySpace account that was allegedly used to harass Meier up to the day of her death.
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Defense Says Jury Pool Filled With 'Viciousness' Towards Lori Drew
Fetched: November 19th, 2008, 6:14pm CST by Kim Zetter
Jury questionnaires show 80 percent of the potential jurors in the MySpace suicide trial have heard of the case, and half already hold "devastating opinions" of the defendant, says Drew's defense lawyer. Is a fair trial possible?
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Jury Selection Begins in MySpace Suicide Trial
Fetched: November 19th, 2008, 6:14pm CST by Kim Zetter
Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of Lori Drew, a Missouri woman accused of making unauthorized use of MySpace to cause emotional harm to a 13-year-old girl, who committed suicide. Experts say the government's novel use of federal anti-hacking law to target Drew could have dark implications for the internet if it succeeds.
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Palin Hacker Denies Felony Charge and 'Hacker' Label
Fetched: November 14th, 2008, 11:46pm CST by Kim Zetter
David Kernell, the Tennessee student accused of breaching Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account, is seeking to have a felony charge against him thrown out. He also wants a federal court to bar prosecutors from referring to him as a "hacker."
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Jury in MySpace Cyberbullying Trial Might Not Be Told of Teen's Suicide
Fetched: November 12th, 2008, 2:48pm CST by Kim Zetter
A judge says the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier is irrelevant to charges that 49-year-old Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Missouri, illegally violated MySpace's terms of service.
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Machines Set to Count Votes Nationwide Flunk Last-Minute Accuracy Tests
Fetched: November 4th, 2008, 5:55pm CST by Kim Zetter
Vote tabulators that will be used in tomorrow's presidential election come up with different numbers for the same ballots every time.
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Report: ES&S Voting Machines Can Be Calibrated to Favor Specific Candidates
Fetched: November 4th, 2008, 5:55pm CST by Kim Zetter
Touchscreens in voting machines being used in 20 states can be maliciously calibrated so that votes for one candidate are mapped to another, according to report from computer scientists. The behavior is eerily similar to problems already seen in early voting in three states.
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Judge Angered Over Colorado Voter Purges
Fetched: November 2nd, 2008, 4:55am CST by Kim Zetter
Just hours after Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman reached an agreement in a lawsuit filed against him for allegedly illegally purging voters from the state's voter roll, Coffman purges an additional 146 voter records from the list.
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Israeli Hacker 'The Analyzer' Indicted in New York
Fetched: October 30th, 2008, 2:36pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Former teen hacking star Ehud Tenenbaum grows up to face a new federal indictment for an alleged fraud scheme.
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Video: Voting Machine in W. Virginia Switches Vote to Nader
Fetched: October 30th, 2008, 2:36pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Video shows a freshly calibrated touchscreen machine recording a vote for John McCain as one for Ralph Nader.
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E-Voting VP Receives an Award While Machines Malfunction
Fetched: October 27th, 2008, 9:34pm CDT by Kim Zetter
As voters find their votes mysteriously flipped from Obama to McCain on ES&S touchscreens, the former VP of the company gets an award of excellence from the secretary of state.
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Inside Operation Highlander: NSA's Wiretapping of Americans Overseas
Posted: October 10th, 2008, 5:15pm CDT by Kim Zetter
A top secret NSA wiretapping facility accused of wiretapping innocent Americans abroad was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former workers at spy complex.
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Palin Hacker Allegedly Involved in Another Computer Intrusion
Posted: October 8th, 2008, 11:28pm CDT by Kim Zetter
A 20-year-old Tennessee student who was indicted this week for gaining unauthorized access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo account, was involved in another computer intrusion years ago while in high school, a former teacher says. David Kernell and a fellow classmate guessed the password to a system storing lesson plans and got detention for it, the teacher says.
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Tennessee Student Indicted for Hacking Palin E-Mail
Posted: October 8th, 2008, 10:53am CDT by Kim Zetter
David Kernell, the 20-year-old Tennessee student who has been under suspicion for allegedly obtaining unauthorized access into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail account, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee.
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Florida Vote Surfaces Grave Problems One Month Before Elections
Posted: October 7th, 2008, 6:47pm CDT by Kim Zetter
In Palm Beach County, the results in a race for county judge have flipped twice, as thousands of ballots have been lost and found, while vote tabulation machines spit out different results on every recount. With November around the corner, voting advocates worry that the Sunshine State may wind up at the center of a new presidential election fiasco.
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Palin Had a Third Private E-Mail Account
Posted: September 30th, 2008, 11:20pm CDT by Kim Zetter
An e-mail system set up for Sarah Palin and her staff comes to light, apparently put in place last spring on PalinForGovernor.com (a campaign domain). Palin and her close confidantes could use it to communicate outside the official government e-mail system before the private system was shut down in September (after her Yahoo account was hacked).
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No Indictment Against Palin Hacker
Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 1:30pm CDT by Kim Zetter
A Grand Jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hears testimony from roommates of suspected Sarah Palin hacker David Kernell, but fails to return an indictment on Tuesday.
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FBI Searches Apartment of Tennessee Student Suspected of Palin Hack
Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 12:23am CDT by Kim Zetter
FBI agents executed a search warrant Sunday at the apartment of University of Tennessee student David Kernell in connection with the hack of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account. According to a witness, several agents arrived at Kernell's Knoxville apartment around 12 am Sunday morning while a party was in progress.
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Little or No Jail Time Likely for Palin Hacker
Posted: September 19th, 2008, 4:29pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Legal experts say the hacker who breached Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail most likely faces a misdemeanor charge and probation.
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Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy
Posted: September 18th, 2008, 12:05pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Answering a few biographical questions was all it took to crack Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account, according to a post allegedly authored by the hacker.
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Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Sarah Palin Account
Posted: September 16th, 2008, 11:50pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Online troublemakers known as "Anonymous" crack Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and posted portions on the web Wednesday.
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Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands
Posted: September 16th, 2008, 8:00pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Electronic voting machines have been the focus of much controversy the last few years. But another election technology has received little scrutiny yet could create numerous problems and disenfranchise thousands of voters in November, election experts say.
This year marks the first time that new, statewide, centralized voter-registration databases will be used in a federal election in a number of states.
The databases were mandated in the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which required all election districts in a state or U.S. territory to consolidate their lists into a single database electronically accessible to every election office in the state or territory.
But the databases, some created by the same companies that make electronic voting machines, aren't federally tested or certified and some have been plagued by missed deadlines, rushed production schedules, cost overruns, security problems, and design and reliability issues.
Last year, in Larimer County, Colorado, election workers got an error message when they tried to access the state's database to process absentee ballots, and had to log off for 20 minutes. In a mock election four months ago, clerks in other counties had trouble accessing the database from polling locations. Those who could connect said the system was sluggish.
Election officials in several counties said they didn't trust the system, and planned to load the database to county computers and use printed poll books on Election Day rather than access the central database in real time.
"The voter-registration databases are an underlying part of the voting technology revolution that has taken place in this country that has been the least noticed," says Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation. "We don't know how much of a problem (they've) been across the country. My guess is that there have been technical problems with statewide databases all across the country that have gone unreported."
This year, during primaries in several states, longtime voters phoned a national voter hotline complaining their party affiliation had changed from Democrat or Republican to unaffiliated, preventing some from casting ballots in states without open primaries. Others complained they weren't on the voter roll, though they'd lived and voted at the same location for years. One Maryland woman said the birth date in her voter record was several decades off her real age. Others were listed as "inactive," although they'd voted in the previous federal election. And one woman who said she voted in 2006 was told she wasn't registered and couldn't cast a ballot. Election officials told her the voter ID number she had belonged to a man.
But election experts say the real concern is how states are conducting database matches of new voters under HAVA.
The law requires each voter to have a unique identifier. Since 2004, new registration applicants have had to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number to register (voters who don't have them are assigned a unique number by the state). States are required to try to authenticate the numbers with motor vehicle records and the Social Security Administration database.
But databases are prone to errors such as misspellings and transposed numbers, and applicants are prone to make mistakes or write illegibly on applications. The Social Security Administration has acknowledged that matches between its database and voter-registration records have yielded a 28.5 percent error rate.
States vary in how they treat applicants whose records don't match, and experts say rules in some states could prevent thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots or having their votes counted in November. Those who don't match in Oregon, for example, can cast a ballot, but their vote for president or any other federal race on a ballot won't be counted. There are currently about 9,500 voters in Oregon who fall into this category, but a state spokesman says matching issues will be resolved with most of them before November so they can vote in federal races. Fewer than 500 voters were affected by this during the state's primary.
"One of the big problems is that states just haven't been very transparent about how they're operating their new database," says Dan Tokaji, law professor at the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. "So it's really hard to tell how this is going to play out. A few states have implemented overly stringent matching rules, the consequence of which could be that some citizens' votes don't get counted."
In the 2000 election, about 1.3 million registered voters said they didn't vote due to trouble with their registration, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey, which didn't elaborate on the nature of the troubles. In an election when record numbers of new voters are expected to participate, experts say the number of voters who find they can't cast a ballot this year could be higher.
Voter registration databases are central to the democratic process in every state except North Dakota -- which doesn't require registration. Everywhere else, the registration roll is the gatekeeper determining eligibility to vote in an election. Voter lists aren't used just for elections, however. Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, before statewide databases were mandated, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly ordered that voter registration lists be checked for links to terrorists.
Until HAVA, each county or election district in most states maintained its own voter list, which often resulted in duplicate registrations when voters moved and re-registered -- creating opportunities for fraud. States were supposed to consolidate their lists by Jan. 1, 2004, but most got an extension to 2006. Creating a statewide system that interfaces with multiple county registration databases built by different companies proved to be difficult. About a dozen states missed the 2006 deadline, and four were sued by the Justice Department.
There have also been a number of issues involving companies that make the systems. Some states built databases in-house; others outsourced to companies like Election Systems & Software (which also makes voting machines), and the Bermuda-based Accenture. Accenture was hired by several states, but lost contracts in all but one for missed deadlines and other issues.
Colorado -- a crucial swing state -- completed its $13 million database this year after firing Accenture in 2005. A little-known Oregon company named Saber, which has created databases for 11 states, replaced it. Accenture retained its contract in Pennsylvania, though problems occurred there as well. In 2005, one state official called the $20 million system "seriously if not fatally flawed."
HAVA requires databases to have "adequate technological security" but doesn't specify details, such as encryption. And although the databases interface with every county election office, access controls haven't been developed in some states.
A 2006 audit of Florida's registration system found that the state hadn't established adequate access levels for various users and had no process for maintaining or monitoring audit logs, making records vulnerable to theft and manipulation. A June 2008 follow-up found some of the same problems. One former election office employee, for example, still had access to the database three months after leaving his job.
In 2006 in Denver, electronic poll books made by Sequoia Voting Systems crashed extensively, causing long lines that resulted in an estimated 20,000 voters leaving polls without voting. During Georgia's primary this year problems with e-poll books made by Diebold Election Systems led to voting delays up to three hours long.
Despite various issues, Kay Stimson, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State, says the registration databases are ready, and states are confident they'll perform well for the election. She acknowledges, however, that issues over HAVA matches are still a concern.
"Generally speaking, the uncertainty that hangs over the process, including uncertainty that results from election challenges and litigation introduced shortly before Election Day, creates a greater likelihood for problems or confusion at the polls," she said.
HAVA leaves it to states to decide how to conduct matches. Some states require an exact match with the Social Security Administration database and only a substantial match with motor records. Others require an exact match for a voter's Social Security number, first and last name, and month and year of birth.
Exact matching, however, could mean that a woman who recently married and changed her name would fail to match government records containing her maiden name. Voters who have double last names or unusually spelled names might also fail. Everything depends on how a state's matching algorithm is designed.
Last month Wisconsin, whose database just became operational, conducted a test of 20,000 voter names against motor vehicle records and found 20 percent with mismatches, due mainly to typos and transposed numbers. Among those who failed to match were four members of the state's Government Accountability Board (.pdf), which conducted the test. Thomas Cane, the board's chairman and a retired judge, failed because he was listed by his full name, R. Thomas Cane, in his driver's record.
A recent report from the Academies of Sciences noted that "many (if not most) of the matching procedures used by the states have been developed on the basis of intuitive reasoning without further systematic validation or mathematically rigorous analysis, do not reflect the state of the art in matching techniques, and have not been validated in the market, scientifically, or otherwise."
Herbert Lin, one of the authors of the report, told Wired.com that the method states use to develop their procedures often involves "a bunch of guys sitting around a table saying 'Let's try this' and 'Yeah that seems reasonable.'"
The federal Election Assistance Commission advises states not to leave final matching decisions to algorithms, and to have humans examine records that fail and contact voters to resolve discrepancies.
HAVA doesn't say what to do with applicants when matching issues can't be resolved. It says only that first-time voters who register by mail, rather than in person, and whose records can't be matched, must show ID at the poll.
Most states will register applicants who fail a match and let them cast a regular ballot after showing ID at the polls. But three states -- Iowa, Louisiana and South Dakota -- won't register applicants who fail. Iowa does, however, permit Election Day registration, which may allow a rejected applicant to reapply for registration at the poll and cast a regular ballot. Louisiana and South Dakota let the rejected applicants vote after showing ID at the poll but only on a provisional ballot, which may or may not be counted, depending on circumstances and state law. A survey of the 2004 general election showed that states varied in the percentage of provisional ballots that were cast and counted. Most states fell in the 30-70 percent range.
"Provisional ballots are really problem ballots; we don't want people to use them if there's a way not to," says Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote, a voting integrity group.
Last week Florida, a battleground state, announced a new policy that voting groups say will likely disenfranchise numerous voters. A state law passed in 2005 initially prohibited applicants whose records didn't match from either being registered or voting. But after some 13,000 voters were blocked for bad matches in 2006, and more were blocked in 2007, the state was sued by several groups, forcing it to change its plan.
Beginning Sept. 8, new registration applicants who fail a HAVA match must mail a copy or bring a hard copy of their ID to an election office before Nov. 4 to show that the ID number on their registration application is correct. Officials plan to send a letter to such voters explaining what to do. Voters who forget or never receive instructions can cast a provisional ballot on Election Day, but it will be counted only if they bring or send a copy of their ID to an election office within 48 hours. ID presented at the poll will not be accepted, which could create confusion since Florida law already requires everyone to show ID at the polls.
Election experts say the policy places an unfair burden on voters who may fail a match through no fault of their own, especially since most states get huge spikes in registration applications just before registration deadlines, increasing the likelihood that harried clerks will make data-entry errors.
"Allowing voters to return within 48 hours is worrisome because, the truth is, a lot of them won't," says Tokaji. "Maybe, if it comes down to Florida deciding the presidency, God help them, they will return. But … the more complicated you make things, the more votes won't be counted."
Critics of the policy predict it will affect 10 to 20 percent of new registration applicants.
"That's tens of thousands of people in a state that decided a presidential contest by a few hundred votes (in 2000)," says Slater, whose group was one of the parties that sued Florida.
Florida's voter-registration list isn't new to controversy, of course. In 2000 a contractor hired to weed out convicted felons used broad criteria to match voter names against correctional records and swept up thousands of the wrong people. The same problem occurred in 2004.
Slater cites another troubling trend emerging with the implementation of statewide databases.
Several states have begun comparing databases for duplicate records of existing voters, then purging voters they believe have moved and registered in another state. The problem, Slater says, is the methods used can yield false positives, and officials are deleting voters without contacting them to verify that they've moved, or waiting for two federal election cycles to pass, which are requirements under the National Voter Rights Acts of 1993.
In 2006, Kentucky's attorney general successfully sued his state's board of elections after officials compared their list to ones from South Carolina and Tennessee and purged about 8,000 voters who appeared to have registered in those states at a later date than their registration in Kentucky and were presumed to have moved.
Project Vote is investigating Kansas, Louisiana and South Dakota for similar activity. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska have also been comparing lists.
"That is a trend that will accelerate, but there are inadequate safeguards, and I think it's very, very dangerous," Slater says.
To address some of the issues that may arise at polls in November, voting groups are advising voters to double-check their registration status before their state's registration deadline (.pdf), to bring ID to the polls in case questions arise about their eligibility, and call 866.MYVOTE1 to report problems.
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Despite Rumors, Republican VP Candidate Is No Hacker
Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:30pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Is Sarah Palin a hacker? Well, not exactly, but that's what a couple of articles and a nascent internet rumor might have you believe.
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Revealed: The Internet's Biggest Security Hole
Posted: August 26th, 2008, 7:00pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Researchers demonstrate a serious eavesdropping risk in the internet's fundamental infrastructure, putting proof to a theory that's long been whispered about in national security circles.
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Judge Tosses Gag Order Against MIT Students in Subway Case
Posted: August 19th, 2008, 12:07pm CDT by Kim Zetter
Too late for DefCon, MIT researchers are free to disclose how they hacked the fare-card system on the Boston subway. The move is seen as a victory for speech and academic freedom.
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Federal Judge in DefCon Case Equates Speech with Hacking
Posted: August 10th, 2008, 12:00pm CDT b