Palin hack

A person who identified himself as the student's father, when reached at home, said he could not talk about the matter and would have no comment. The father is a Democratic state representative in Tennessee.

Threat Level is not identifying them by name because authorities have not identified any suspects in the case, and the link to the student so far is tenuous. The father, in a second call with Threat Level late Thursday afternoon, said that neither he nor his son has been contacted by any law enforcement authorities.

A local Tennessee paper had erroneously reported that his son had been contacted by authorities, he told Threat Level. As detailed in the postings, the Palin hack didn't require any real skill. Instead, the hacker simply reset Palin's password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse -- the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered Wasilla High by a simple Google search.

The hacker said that he read all of the e-mails in the Palin account and found "nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Suggest a correction.

What's Hot. Because even if the answers are not available on the Internet, as they were in this case, the answers to most simple password reset questions are easier to figure out than cracking even a simple password. For example, a common password reset question is "What was your first car? Another favorite question is "What is your pet's name? I was surprised to find my dog's name, Abby, among the first names listed. There are a lot of other legitimate political and legal issues opened up by the Sarah Palin hacking incident, but the real problem is bigger than that.

We know that a large majority of politicians and CEOs use public e-mail accounts. And after this high-level incident, do you think password-reset-question hacking is going to become more or less popular now? It's almost scary to think about. How do you solve this problem? One way is by absolutely ignoring the password reset questions -- for the most part. No, not that we know of. Moreover, he had no clear political views. Yet six years later, after a far-left Bernie Sanders-loving terrorist shot and nearly killed Republican Congressman Steve Scalise on a Virginia baseball field, the Times tried to change the subject back to the Giffords shooting to deflect blame from the left.

The whole Palin link was simply made up because the left hates her, and the Times editorial board stepped in a mess out on Bullspit Boulevard.

And if you do, I like my chances.