I know, I know, I said no more politics...!

[conuly]

But since I've barely even posted about politics at all, I share this interesting editorial about hacking into Palin's yahoo email.

I must ask what sort of politician, exactly, uses a yahoo email? I've been told that yahoo is pretty easy to hack (and anyway, most people, their passwords are gonna be easy to guess no matter what...!), which is largely why I don't do anything important via email. (I also firmly believe that one should never write in a letter - or say in an email - anything that one wouldn't want to see on the front page of the NY Times. So... yeah.) Once you get elected to public office, isn't it time to get a better email provider, at least for official business?

Comments

[ursamajor]

See, if I understand correctly, that's part of the issue here. She's supposed to conduct official business only through her official government email address (which she most definitely has an account for), but apparently she's been using her Yahoo account for conducting official business that she may have been trying to keep "off the record."

[conuly]

Ah-hah.

And, of course, various right wingers are rushing to defend this sort of thing as her right to privacy when, for those matters, she doesn't *have* a right to privacy to begin with.

[azurelunatic]

OK, that's *stupid*. You get your own domain and a webmaster (er, an email master?) for something like that.

[conuly]

Which goes back to "what sort of politician uses yahoo mail anyway?

There's an ad on SI busses for... I don't know, a podiatrist or something. Cracks me up every time, because the guy not only has a yahoo email but has random numbers in his UserID. Sure, that's great for your home life, but for work?

[azurelunatic]

And check *this* out -- http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/palin_email_investigation_continues/

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The official government email servers are subject to subpoenas and archiving and all that jazz. And there is a record of her staff sending her governance-related mail to her official address and being told "no! we don't talk about this here! use the private address you were given!"

Shenenigans. Stupid shenenigans.

[ursamajor]

See, if I understand correctly, that's part of the issue here. She's supposed to conduct official business only through her official government email address (which she most definitely has an account for), but apparently she's been using her Yahoo account for conducting official business that she may have been trying to keep "off the record."

[conuly]

Ah-hah.

And, of course, various right wingers are rushing to defend this sort of thing as her right to privacy when, for those matters, she doesn't *have* a right to privacy to begin with.

[azurelunatic]

OK, that's *stupid*. You get your own domain and a webmaster (er, an email master?) for something like that.

[conuly]

Which goes back to "what sort of politician uses yahoo mail anyway?

There's an ad on SI busses for... I don't know, a podiatrist or something. Cracks me up every time, because the guy not only has a yahoo email but has random numbers in his UserID. Sure, that's great for your home life, but for work?

[azurelunatic]

And check *this* out -- http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/palin_email_investigation_continues/

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The official government email servers are subject to subpoenas and archiving and all that jazz. And there is a record of her staff sending her governance-related mail to her official address and being told "no! we don't talk about this here! use the private address you were given!"

Shenenigans. Stupid shenenigans.