Congressman Weiner's inappropriate tweet

[Alareth]

Apparently, yfrog is really easy to hack

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ans-twitter-account-might-be-yfrogs-fault.ars

 

[TraneWreck]

Two things: first, starting a message with @____ is different than having a @____ within the message. The second, and perhaps more relevant to your observation, is addressed below:

http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/how-replies-work-on-twitter-and-how.html



That hilighted bit seems to be what you're observing. I don't use twitter, so that page is where I'm getting my information from. So I guess there's a third way that people could have found the message, but I don't know how often people actually go to his profile page rather than just follow his feed. Possibly not very often.

Yeah, I have no idea the frequency of any of this stuff. The only interaction I have with twitter is when it's linked, so I'm obviously not an expert. I just know I've seen a bunch that look like, "@KeithOlbermann why are you such an *******?"

 

[thaiboxerken]

I don't get this point. If this guy was willing to be dishonest toward his wife (of 11 months) then why would anyone expect him to be honest toward his constituents ?

Have you ever exceeded the speed limit while driving? If so, why would anyone expect you to have any respect for the rule of law?

 

[leftysergeant]

I do not know, and do not claim to know, whether that guy was following both parties or whether he had changed his settings.

It's bloody obvious that he was. He knew some compost was about to hit the fan. The only way he could have known that would be if he were about to throw it.

Remember how BigPerjury.com's pet pimp announced that there would be a major political scandal in New Orleans just before he and his gang of thugs got busted trying to bug Landrieu's office?

This is not brain surgery.

 

[What Slayde Says]

My email account was hacked last month. Did I call the police? The FBI? No. What do you think they would've done had I reported it? Nothing.

I'm guessing Rep W. realizes the authorities have more pressing issues than hacked Twitter/Facebook accounts.

 

[leftysergeant]

The issue is his suspicious handling of the matter. The picture itself is just a brief bit of congress critter humor. Weiner has unnecessarily brought the focus to this by his apparent attempts to hide the truth.

There are actually perfectly legitimate reasons for a married man to have a suggestive picture of himself that he could tweet to somebody. So it doesn't matter whether it is Weiner's stuff.

Maybe the cyberspy put in a picture with a smaller package to insult Weiner on top of sending it to where it wasn't supposed to go. This would not be surprising, seeing how the BigPerjury.com crew are so deficient as men and have this pathetic need to drag down real men.

So it might not look like the one that Weiner put up, so he couldn't say for sure that it was his.

This is far from proof that he sent it to anyone to whom he had no business sending it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.htm

In case knowing how to find this information is too much to ask of a federal lawmaker with 10+ years experience and his legal advisors, I'm sure the local police department has a copy of this information.

So, as I said earlier, it's in the realm of federal law enforcement who were all aware of the allegations as soon as this hit the national press. For a Congressman to start crying for an investigation might be seen as petty whining.

Also, viewing it as a prank sounds more and more plausible.

And, as I mentioned, Wiener might have something (non-criminal) he wants to hide even if he were the victim of a prank (and didn't send the photo himself).

I think people are reading far too much into his not contacting the police.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

My email account was hacked last month. Did I call the police? The FBI? No. What do you think they would've done had I reported it? Nothing.

I'm guessing Rep W. realizes the authorities have more pressing issues than hacked Twitter/Facebook accounts.

Yep. I made the same point even with the more serious crime of credit card fraud. (I'm not sure, but I think the banks involved probably turned the matter over to law enforcement, but I only dealt with the bank myself. What I was most concerned about was quickly canceling the cards on which the fraudulent charges were made or attempted, sort of analogous to removing any photos a third party might have posted on yfrog, I would say.)

 

[thaiboxerken]

This is just the GOP trying to find ways to keep the political spectrum off of Ryan's "kill medicair" bill. I don't know that the GOP is responsible for the photo, but they are certainly fanning the flames of this silly "scandal."

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The issue is his suspicious handling of the matter. The picture itself is just a brief bit of congress critter humor. Weiner has unnecessarily brought the focus to this by his apparent attempts to hide the truth.

So his attempts to keep his private life private is in itself bringing trouble onto himself?

 

[johnny karate]

So his attempts to keep his private life private is in itself bringing trouble onto himself?

My sentiment exactly.

Apparently, all one has to do is make an accusation, and then gauge the response of the person being accused in order to determine guilt.

 

[Ziggurat]

So, as I said earlier, it's in the realm of federal law enforcement who were all aware of the allegations as soon as this hit the national press.

I've told you this before: it doesn't matter if they're aware of the story, they won't start an investigation unless there's a criminal complaint.

For a Congressman to start crying for an investigation might be seen as petty whining.

Yeah, um... no. That's not a credible excuse. Not for Weiner.

 

[JohnnyG]

So, as I said earlier, it's in the realm of federal law enforcement who were all aware of the allegations as soon as this hit the national press.

Aware of =/= Investigating. It normally takes a complaint to start an investigation.

Also, viewing it as a prank sounds more and more plausible.

And, as I mentioned, Wiener might have something (non-criminal) he wants to hide even if he were the victim of a prank (and didn't send the photo himself).

I think people are reading far too much into his not contacting the police.

I don't disagree with this, but you made it sound as if it is difficult to know who to call - which is complete rubbish.

 

[JohnnyG]

My email account was hacked last month. Did I call the police? The FBI? No. What do you think they would've done had I reported it? Nothing.

I'm guessing Rep W. realizes the authorities have more pressing issues than hacked Twitter/Facebook accounts.

Did the hackers actions cause you public embarrasment, strain your marriage, cost you legal/PR fees, and potentially harm your career?

 

[Neally]

There are actually perfectly legitimate reasons for a married man to have a suggestive picture of himself that he could tweet to somebody. So it doesn't matter whether it is Weiner's stuff.

This is far from proof that he sent it to anyone to whom he had no business sending it.

Which has nothing to do with my quote. This event has persisted simply due to the way he has handled it and his evasive answers.

So his attempts to keep his private life private is in itself bringing trouble onto himself?

No, his private life became public when the photo was posted. If he would have come clean and said it's a private matter between the woman, me and my wife, that would have been the end of it. Instead we have a claim of hacking with no contacting the police, hiring lawyers, and evasive answers which all leads to suspicion of lying and coverups.

Apparently, all one has to do is make an accusation, and then gauge the response of the person being accused in order to determine guilt.

Apparently your partisan bias is showing or you haven't been following the facts.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I've told you this before: it doesn't matter if they're aware of the story, they won't start an investigation unless there's a criminal complaint.

Aware of =/= Investigating. It normally takes a complaint to start an investigation.

So the reasoning is circular now.

Weiner claims it was just a prank and not serious enough to call for a complaint. The coed doesn't consider herself a victim (if indeed Weiner did do what was alleged).

So for Weiner's actions (or rather inaction) to be considered inconsistent, you have to assume there was a crime (or at least a serious enough crime to worry about). And his inaction is being given as evidence that he is lying.

And yet again, I think it's far more likely that Weiner would prefer his private matters to be kept private (that maybe there was something going on he doesn't want the whole world to know about) even at the cost of passing up a chance to investigate a crime of which he was the victim. That is, such an investigation might victimize him more than the crime did.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Did the hackers actions cause you public embarrasment, strain your marriage, cost you legal/PR fees, and potentially harm your career?

More importantly, would investigating and prosecuting the hackers cause you a greater amount of public embarrassment, strain on your marriage, legal and PR fees and even terminal harm to your career?

Generally, if the "cure" is more harmful than the disease, you don't take the cure.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I don't disagree with this, but you made it sound as if it is difficult to know who to call - which is complete rubbish.

I was primarily responding to calls that he should have "called the police". As a couple of us have pointed out, that's not at all what comes to mind when you're the victim of a minor cyber crime.

 

[johnny karate]

Apparently your partisan bias is showing or you haven't been following the facts.

What facts would those be?

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

Strangely enough my e-mail (g-mail) account was hacked last month. It was used to send inappropriate and spam emails to anyone I'd had contact with. Apparently I wasn't the only one.

Considering that Andrew Breitbart was the one to break the story, his calls for an investigation lack any credibility; and he is very likely to have perpetrated yet another fraud.

But this fraud is likely to be his cleverest yet, as the CNN report (referenced in the first link of my second paragraph) provided strong evidence that the Tweet was sent from someone else's account altogether.

CNN:

The website biggovernment.com, run by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, first reported the photo of a man's lower body in underwear being posted on Weiner's Twitter account in connection with a tweet to a Seattle woman. The woman, identified as a 21-year-old college student, subsequently issued a statement to the New York Daily News in which she said she never had met Weiner though she followed him on Twitter and had once jokingly referred to him as her "boyfriend" in a tweet. She indicated that the post had come from someone other than Weiner, and added that "this person had harassed me many times."

"I am not sure whether or not this letter will alleviate any future harassment," said the statement by Gennette Nicole Cordova, published Sunday by the Daily News. "I also do not have a clear understanding as to how or why exactly I am involved in this fiasco. I do know that my life has been seriously impacted by speculation and faulty allegations. My reputation has been called into question by those who lack the character to report the facts."

<snip>

The photo and others posted on Weiner's account have been taken down, and Cordova also has removed her Facebook and Twitter accounts. In her letter to the Daily News, she said she recognized the Twitter account of the tweet that sent her the photo.

"Friday evening I logged onto Twitter to find that I had about a dozen new mentions in less than an hour, which is a rare occurrence," Cordova's letter said. "When I checked one of the posts that I had been tagged in, I saw that it was a picture that had supposedly been tweeted to me by Congressman Anthony Weiner. The account that these tweets were sent from was familiar to me; this person had harassed me many times after the congressman followed me on Twitter a month or so ago. Since I had dealt with this person and his cohorts before I assumed that the tweet and the picture were their latest attempts at defaming the congressman and harassing his supporters."

Andrew Breitbart is a liar and perpetrator of numerous frauds against liberals. He is the #1 suspect.

GB

ETA: It also seems that Breitbart skirts the law very cagily. As the harassment of Cordova and the picture of Weiner's (alleged) wiener came from the same account, then no account was actually hacked and thus no law broken.