Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Angelides Campaign Manager Denies Arnold was Hacked

To update the post, I wrote yesterday - the Angelides campaign is now admitting they leaked information to the press - but claims they found it on the Schwarzenegger website.

Here is the story from the AP, courtesy of Yahoo:

The campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Democratic rival acknowledged Tuesday that it downloaded — and leaked to the media — a recording of a private meeting in which the governor described a Hispanic legislator as having a "very hot" personality.

But Cathy Calfo, campaign manager for Democrat Phil Angelides, said the campaign had done nothing wrong because the file was available publicly on the governor's Web site.

Link, here.

Schwarzenegger's office is maintaining someone would have to snoop to have found the file.

Of note, I went to Governor Schwarzenegger's site and couldn't find his taped conversations?

Link, here.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a "hacker" is:

Hacker in a security context refers to a type of computer hacker who is involved in computer security/insecurity and is able to exploit systems or gain unauthorized access through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge.

If a normal person couldn't have found this information - and it was found via an "exploit," the term "hacking" applies - at least to me?

Sadly enough, there are important issues to consider in the upcoming campaign and wasting resources on "trashing people" doesn't exactly serve the best interests of the people.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta love how politicians try to explain things.

Anonymous said...

From Yahoo Article: "The file that was leaked to the Los Angeles Times was in a private area of the governor's server not accessible to the public without manipulation of information," he said.

Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, Andrea Lynn Hoch, said the sound file was stored in a password-protected area. She said she forwarded the Internet Protocol address used to download the file to the California Highway Patrol, which is investigating.

And - As you quoted - - But Cathy Calfo, campaign manager for Democrat Phil Angelides, said the campaign had done nothing wrong because the file was available publicly on the governor's Web site.

So it should be simple for Cathy Calfo to point the world to the line on the website that will give us all the original file.

I dug around a bit looking for, "speech-writing session in the governor's office last March", and did not see it listed under radio addresses. Is it under speeches? Press room? Media center? So where is the link??? C'mon Cathy Should be easy!

Thanks Ed - You reminded me of what I wanted to post about! A little different slant on the same story.

Anonymous said...

it looks like cnet's article has the actual link. apparently it was under http://speeches.gov.ca.gov/dir/ but is now offline.