Update:Corrected hacker’s yahoo address. Like it matters.

My little expose on Drudge’s attempt to make a Watergate out of the Palin Email hacking is taking footing. Pitifully unsurprising, the right has taken to conspiracy theories abound trying to link this incident to the Democratic Party.

I think I just discovered something new. Like a new species of Lemur, or a new quark. I say this because this is something I’ve never seen before. It’s a conspiracy theory… from the Right…

Let’s break it down. This is what I’ve been reading today…

• The hacker was named “rubico” therefore a google search returns someone with the email address rubico10@yahoo.com, which MUST mean its the same person.
• The teenager who owns the rubico10@yahoo.com email address is the son of a Tennessee (D) congressman, so the Democrats MUST be behind it.
• The screenshots posted are of Sarah Palin’s email, so they MUST have been made by the hacker himself, making the proxy in the screenshots the one that he used .
• The proxy service in the screenshots is in Chicago, so the hacker MUST ALSO be in Chicago.
• Obama’s headquarters are in Chicago, so HE MUST BE BEHIND ALL OF THIS.

Lets take these one by one, shall we…

The hacker was named “rubico” therefore a google search returns someone with the email address rubico10@yahoo.com, which MUST mean its the same person.

Not only is it hearsay that this email address was even used in the posting of the supposed confession by the hacker, 4chan.org allows anonymous postings from anyone through a form so anybody could have entered that email address into the posting. Hell, the hacker could have entered in Michelle Malkin’s email address if he wanted to (and had a sense of humor). Would the Right wingers give it any credence then? Probably not. The fact remains that because the thread is deleted, it is only hearsay that this was in any way the actual email address used, if there even was one. Chances are the hacker DID NOT EVEN PUT his email address, because he is NOT AN IDIOT. If you robbed a bank would you leave your driver’s license? If you were a serial killer and mailed a confession note to the cops, would you include self-addressed stamped envelope? These morons seem to think so.

The teenager who owns the rubico10@yahoo.com email address is the son of a Tennessee (D) congressman, so the Democrats MUST be behind it.

This poor kid. He happens to have an email address that includes the same word as the alias used by the hacker. Is this how one puts 2 and 2 together? I can just imagine Hurley seeing the Numbers on a fortune cookie fortune and freaking out. Again, why would a hacker use a handle so close to his actual email address to write out a confession for the world and the Secret Service to see?

The screenshots posted are of Sarah Palin’s email, so they MUST have been made by the hacker himself, making the proxy in the screenshots the one that he used .

Everyone is missing an important detail here. The images and text files that are on Wikileaks were compiled by the 4chan users that were able to get into the Yahoo account before the password was changed. In fact, at least one of the screenshots was taken by the very person who changed the password. That said, there is very little likelihood that any of the screenshots that show the Proxy URL are even the hacker who cracked into Yahoo in the first place, nullifying the notion that the Proxy seen in the URLs of any of the screenshots was even the original hacker. Although everyone who was in the Yahoo account is an accomplice in some way, it’s clear that the person who discovered the password is the culprit everyone wants to vilify, so let’s for the sake of argument give the conspiracy theorists the benefit of the doubt and say it was in fact the hacker who used the Proxy found in the screenshots and continue on…

The proxy service in the screenshots is in Chicago, so the hacker MUST ALSO be in Chicago.

The Proxy service is indeed in Chicago, but the whole point of using a proxy service is to throw the trail off as far away from you as possible. People immediately assumed that because a server in Chicago was involved, that the entire thing must have originated in Chicago. This is not, of course, the case. If the hacker was in fact using any servers in Chicago as a Proxy, he was most likely far far away from Chicago, because that’s the fucking point of proxies.

As if this wasn’t enough to close the case (at least for now):

Obama’s headquarters are in Chicago, so HE MUST BE BEHIND ALL OF THIS.

Give me a fucking break. I can’t believe the Right really thinks this. Yes, the hacker hates republicans and was hoping to damage the reputation of Sarah Palin enough to wake voters up to the reality that she is grossly inadequate to be VP. I think anyone with any sort of love for this country and a conscience would do the exact same thing if they had a chance. But just because there is a large number of liberals out there who know how to use a computer does not mean there is some vast left wing conspiracy. That’s kind of like saying that everyone who hates America is a terrorist who wants to destroy us. I know a few international friends who hate Americans (particularly right wing Americans) but they are much happier to watch us destroy ourselves on our own rather than take any part in trying to do it for us.

I won’t go into a long diatribe about logical fallacies, but I hope the above post quells the suspicions of people who don’t know much about the details of this case, and just by chance I might get a Right winger to take off their tin foil hat and quiet down a bit before blogging about something of which they know nothing about.

Chris Addendum: The other aspect of this that needs to be mentioned is that this all originated at 4chan. I think an appropriate motto for 4chan would be “for the lulz.” The idea of a confession being genuine on 4chan is remote; it’s much more probable that this is a giant troll attempt. Someone just doing it “for the lulz.” I don’t know if I can adequately describe 4chan culture here, but it’s about as close to amoral as you can get. Nilhilistic mischiefs with enough knowledge to be dangerous. If there is any place that could be called “hell” on the internet, 4chan is it. So, yeah, consider your source.

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