Hacking is as hacking does in the US of A

You may have heard that there was an election recently in America.

If you’d been following it very avidly you’d be aware that one of the candidates for vice-president was the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

And if you were a true political tragic you’d know that at one point during the campaign, Governor Palin’s personal emails were accessed unlawfully and disseminated to the web.

Feel free to stop me if any of this is going too fast.

The miscreant who gained access to the governor’s emails has been scheduled for trial next month.

Meanwhile his defence team has begun laying the groundwork for its strategy.

For one thing, the team argues, the crime has been entirely misdefined.

He’s been charged with a felony, when they argue he should be charged with a misdemeanour.

The difference in terms of definition is that a felony is committed when a crime takes place in the furtherance of another crime.

The prosecution says he got access to Ms Palin’s password, and then used the password to get access to the emails — two events. The defence response basically amounts to “come on, really?”

Of most interest is the fact that the defence has requested that at no point should the crime under question be referred to as “hacking”.

Nor should their client be referred to as a “hacker” and, if at all, possible, could we avoid using the word “hack” at any stage during the trial.

Now, I’m not a legal expert, just your run-of-the-mill everyday hack – oops – but I think that’s a bit silly.

In case you don’t know, what the kid involved did was discover that Sarah Palin had a personal email account with Yahoo. He attempted to log in to that account, and was told that he had used the incorrect password (of course).

Then, using Yahoo’s Q&A process designed to ensure that only the right person can do so, he reset the password.

There were three “security questions,” the answers to which he found with some simple web searching.

At no stage did he obtain the governor’s original password – he changed it to something else.

So that first crime doesn’t appear to have taken place after all.

As anyone who has seen “War Games” or “Electric Dreams” can tell you, guessing passwords is precisely what hackers do. 1980s movies don’t lie.

OK, sometimes they do.

The plot of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was frankly unlikely.

At any rate, the defence feels that using the word “hacker” may prejudice the trial by making their client look like a criminal.

Of course sitting in the dock and responding to the name “defendant” won’t do that at all.

The hacker community, for its part, is on the kid’s side – largely because they reckon that calling what he did “hacking” just makes proper hackers look silly.

Highly skilled professionals, they are.

On a related note, the emails that were posted to the web demonstrated that Sarah Palin had been using a personal email account to conduct official government business.

Whatever you want to call it, that is most assuredly against the law.

Gotta love the US of A.

Matthew JC. Powell is glad the whole election thing is over, but he’ll miss it.

Commiserate on mjcp@optusnet.com.au