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2009-09-27 Home Front: Politix

NBC producer to anti-ACORN group: "Bite me, Jew Boy!"

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Posted by Fred 2009-09-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 "How hard can it be to look at server logs?"

Depends. How hard are they trying to hide the ugly truth?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2009-09-27 00:16|| 2009-09-27 00:16|| Front Page Top

#2 I can't find a link, but I read somewhere that there's a good chance this is a hoax. I recommend a degree of skepticism.

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2009-09-27 00:31|| 2009-09-27 00:31|| Front Page Top

#3 Yes, it was Jane Stone's dog who typed it on her blackberry, Scooter.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-09-27 03:44|| 2009-09-27 03:44|| Front Page Top

#4 3:1 odds this is BS. Who says "bite me" anymore? Ditto for the last two words.

Last time I heard "bite me" in any public utterance was from a kid who grabbed a microphone ca. 1984 at a Texas Rangers game and said, "Bite me, Howard [Cosell]! The whole state of Texas hates yore guts!" As repeated by David Brinkley at the end of his Sunday a.m. news talk show.

Posted by lex 2009-09-27 04:50|| 2009-09-27 04:50|| Front Page Top

#5 ALG will release the email headers Monday, reports Newsbusters.

That will at least partially lay the controversy to rest.

My guess: Ms Stone is lying.

Posted by badanov 2009-09-27 07:34|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2009-09-27 07:34|| Front Page Top

#6 Its so damn easy to fake email to be coming from someone else its laughable. Spammers do it all the time.

Email is both insecure and untrustworthy.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-09-27 07:40|| 2009-09-27 07:40|| Front Page Top

#7 I strongly support what Breitbart and his colleagues are doing at biggovernment.com, but this one had damned well better be true or their credibility will be trashed permanently.

Posted by lotp 2009-09-27 07:57|| 2009-09-27 07:57|| Front Page Top

#8 Its so damn easy to fake email to be coming from someone else its laughable. Spammers do it all the time.

Spammers can only fake the email address; They can't alter the indicator of the origination of the email, data which is in the header. It is possible to spoof an IP address within a mail server ( to have the mail server list a false IP ), but you would have to be a c or some other internal script programmer to make it happen.

However, most modern anti-spam measures included in mail servers would catch the difference in a DNS query and disconnect from the offending mail server instantly.

All the above is beyond of the ken of the people we are talking about. Even NBC's IT folks have better things to do, I suspect, than to fake email, headers or spoof IP addresses.

And the people in the NGO ALG? I doubt such a scam would be worth perpetrating given the resources required to make it happen.

Jane Stone is lying.

Posted by badanov 2009-09-27 09:04|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2009-09-27 09:04|| Front Page Top

#9 their credibility will be trashed permanently.

The way CBS's was after Memogate? They will be chastened and some sort of prophylactic practices will be introduced, like calling the smearee before you publish. But Breitbart has more than one gaffe's worth of credibility to burn.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2009-09-27 09:11|| 2009-09-27 09:11|| Front Page Top

#10 Anyone have a picture of Jane Stone? Being Jewish, I may want to take her up on her offer, especially prior to my Yom Kippur fast.

Posted by Penguin 2009-09-27 11:05|| 2009-09-27 11:05|| Front Page Top

#11 One comment I haven't seen regarding this controversy: Blackberry claims their e-mail function is secure and encrypted.

If NBC has implemented the secure Blackberry server - then I think it would have complicated any email shenanigans.

I know when I was responsible for wireless communications at my company - I made sure our corporate communications were as secure as I could make them. If NBC hasn't - I don't know what's wrong with them.

Posted by LeighG 2009-09-27 11:20|| 2009-09-27 11:20|| Front Page Top

#12 Anyone have a picture of Jane Stone? Being Jewish, I may want to take her up on her offer, especially prior to my Yom Kippur fast.

She sounds like a female version of Jesse Jackson. You might want to consider a rabies shot first.

Posted by Woozle Uneter9007 2009-09-27 11:29|| 2009-09-27 11:29|| Front Page Top

#13 "I don't know what's wrong with them."

Got a couple of free hours, Leigh? I could start telling you.... ;-p

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2009-09-27 11:30|| 2009-09-27 11:30|| Front Page Top

#14 How hard could it be to extract the contents of her Sent Items folder?

Posted by Fred 2009-09-27 11:30|| 2009-09-27 11:30|| Front Page Top

#15 See comment #1, Fred.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2009-09-27 11:31|| 2009-09-27 11:31|| Front Page Top

#16 Email, as its basis is ultimately just text. Were it to be transported as encrypted text, it would have to be transmitted as a MIME attachment, and therefore the terminus would have to either have a means of decrypting the text, or the encryption would have have to be filtered before being delivered.

All the above is frightfully expensive.

Blackberry's claim to encryption has more to do with access to a web mail interface over a SSL session which is encrypted end to end and is secure from prying third parties.

This is ultimately a transport wrapper, not necessary secure email, but for its transport from the server to the reader. Even gmail.com offers an SSL wrapper for accessing its webmail.

Ultimately IT security is physical security foremost. If you can't secure a mail server from physical tampering, all the secure encryption protocols in the world won't keep your information and emails safe. IT security also means that if someone can access your mail device, you have a lot bigger problem than a Nazi for a television producer. You have what I would term a severe IT security problem.

Email inasmuch as it is plain text is usually transported reliably from one node to the other. That spammers and similar folks exist to pollute mail servers with their particular brand of online robbery, doesn't make mail unreliable.

At the moment there are a number of claims throughout that email is easy to hack and alter, which is true once it gets to its final destination, and it is just as easy to alter sent mails.

It is likely that ALG uses a third party email service which has no dog in this fight and can reliably provide the raw spool from which the mail comes. If it does and the spool is unaltered, it would put the controversy to rest in ALG's favor.

NBC's only proof is from a sent mail spool, eminently alterable with the right tools.

Posted by badanov 2009-09-27 11:44|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2009-09-27 11:44|| Front Page Top

#17 she's also faculty at NYU (HT to Dan Riehl):
Jane Stone has worked over the past 17 years investigating everything from corporate negligence at Fortune 500 companies to bogus retirement homes to the trafficking in endangered species by the country's prestigious zoos. She has investigated dangerous abortion clinics, explored Pat Robertson's religious and political philosophy and profiled a dangerously overcrowded public hospital. The investigations have changed laws, shut down shoddy companies and increased workplace safety standards. They have also helped shed light on important public policy issues.

She has won three national Emmys, including one for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, three regional Emmys, an Ohio State Award, A DuPont-Columbia Award, a Peabody, and the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Excellence in National Affairs Reporting. She was a producer for 60 Minutes, West 57th, PBS Frontline, Dateline NBC and the CNN Special Assignment Unit. She also helped start Court TV, and in the last few years has developed a strong interest in legal journalism. She was recently awarded the American Bar Association Gavel Award for educating the public about important legal issues. Professor Stone continues to produce stories for Dateline NBC.

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2009-09-27 11:49|| 2009-09-27 11:49|| Front Page Top

#18 I was searching out the background on this story. I clicked on one of the links and one of these malicious software sites jumped on my site and started supposedly scanning my computer files. It started to report all the viruses and bad things that I have on my computer. I noticed some of the words were mispelled. I was running Mozilla browser at the time. The next step was that if I downloaded their program, I could clean up the problem for price. I'm pretty dedicated to keeping up with virus definitions, malicious software, and use a layered protection. Be careful of these malicious shits. Wish that I could send a power surge into their computers or reach through my computer and do bad things to them.

Posted by JohnQC 2009-09-27 15:53|| 2009-09-27 15:53|| Front Page Top

#19 The only way to stop this is by always cryptographically signing your email. The vast majority have neither the capability nor the inclination to do it. Otherwise, email is completely untrustworthy, far less so than images.

But if it is cryptosigned, it's more trustworthy than notarized paper.

Posted by KBK 2009-09-27 20:42|| 2009-09-27 20:42|| Front Page Top

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