News that some Ron Paul supporters have committed computer fraud to further his run for President will not shock many Flopping Aces readers:
If Texas congressman Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may
be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a
global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to
computer-security researchers who’ve analyzed a recent flurry of e-mail
supporting the long-shot Republican candidate.“This is clearly a criminal act in support of a campaign, which has
been committed with or without their knowledge,” says Gary Warner, the
University of Alabama at Birmingham’s director of research in computer
forensics. “The question is, will we see more and more of this, or will
this bring shame to the campaigns and will they make clear that this is
not a form of acceptable behavior by their supporters?” Warner pointed
to provisions of the federal Can-Spam Act.~~~The finding is significant, because Paul’s online support
— as gauged by blog mentions, friends on social-networking sites such
as MySpace and popularity in online polls — has garnered him wide
mainstream print and television coverage, despite his relatively poor
performance in offline polling.The spamming allegations are based on a slew of e-mails captured by contributors to the university’s Spam Data Mining for Law Enforcement Applications
project, a research venture that receives 2.5 million spam messages a
day, and selects about 100,000 a week for analysis. The project
receives its spam from other researchers with ties to ISPs, and in some
cases from “trap” addresses that have never been used for any other
purpose.They were received by the lab following the latest televised Republican
debate Sunday afternoon, and had 16 different subject lines, including
“Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate! HMzjoqO” and “Ron Paul Exposes Federal
Reserve! SBHBcSO.” The random string of characters at the end is a
common spammer’s technique to circumvent bulk e-mail filtering.The spam went to “several hundred” e-mail addresses harvested for the university project, says Warner.
The e-mails had phony names attached to real-looking e-mail addresses.
When lab researchers examined the IP addresses of the computers from
which the messages had been sent, it turned out that they were
sprinkled around the globe in countries as far away from each other as
South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, Nigeria and Brazil.“The interesting thing was that we had the same subject line from the
same IP address, and it claimed to be from different users from within
the United States,” Warner says.
Sure, he doesn’t go out and recruit the kooks to do the spam but the views he has attract them like flies to a fluorescent lamp of death. Views like this vast government conspiracy: (h/t Right Wing Nut House)
A lot of times they think subsidies and welfare goes to poor people.
Now there’s some welfare that goes to poor people, but sometimes I
think they’re crumbs. The real big welfare in the system that we have
goes to the military-industrial complex and the big banks, that’s where
it goes. [applause]
attract the nuts, the twoofers, and those who believe that spamming a online pool actually accomplishes something:
After the debate 34% of Fox News viewers said that Ron Paul won the
debate with 27% saying that Mike Huckabee won the debate. That was in
stark contrast to the Fox News focus group who when asked if Ron Paul
won nobody raised their hands.
So now we can add hacking personal computers to spam people about the great “conservative” Ron Paul
How do they do it? A post to a Ron Paul forum provides a glimpse:
It is easy.. our meetup has some tools that are pretty cheap. We use
ipipi, you can send several thousand messages for about $100 and the
best part is because it doesn’t use phone numbers, it bypasses poll
secuirty.
The reasons they do it?
This is a rEVOLution, not a business as usual campaign. What they call
‘dirty tricks’ we call fighting the system. We hvae to do everything we
can to overcome the media blackout of our candidate and fight the
establishment media!
And the result? Incidents like this one where CNBC had to pull their online poll due to the hacking:
So there was our after-debate poll. The numbers grew … 7,000-plus votes after a couple of hours … and Ron Paul was at 75%.
Now Paul is a fine gentleman with some substantial backing and, by the way, was a dynamic presence throughout the debate , but I haven’t seen him pull those kind of numbers in any “legit” poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.
The next day, our email basket was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can’t help but admire that.
But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest “show of hands” — it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn’t our intention and certainly doesn’t serve our readers … at least those who aren’t already in the Ron Paul camp.
Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed “few” can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of “the many,” I get a little worried. I’d take it down again.
But rest assured dear readers, the Ron Paul supporters will quickly counter this with more conspiracies:
I find it far more likely that this botnet spam attack is not the
design of the Paul campaign or any of its supporters. It is far more
likely that this is the release of a first round of direct cyber attack
against the Ron Paul campaign.~~~
This is nefarious and demonstrates the kind of tactics that the
establishment could use to serve their interest in stopping the advance
of Ron Paul and the Revolution for freedom that he is leading as well
as his Presidential bid.
Sigh….
Other’s Blogging:
See author page
Giuliani behind alleged Ron Paul spam
Giuliani behind alleged Ron Paul spam
And there you go, within minutes the comment spam commences.
Ron Paul Spam: Cui Bono?
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123284.html
The thing that makes me think that the spammer may not be in this to try to help Paul is the inclusion of youtube links in the spam emails. The net result is that youtube gets a complaint, the terms of service are violated, and the video(s) get pulled. Someone who was trying to help the campaign should know this would happen and instead include links to Paul’s site (assuming they think the spam will actually help in any case, which is doubtful). Of course, it could just be that the spammer is stupid.
Wow… 5 minutes flat and a “drive-by” response is up.
disinter –
Giuliani has bigger fish to fry than Ron Paul. The attempt to make it look like Sarah Stirland took money to write the Wired article is a clumsy fake (see Stirland’s denial here). Think about it: with so many still in the running, would it make sense for any candidate to spend money attacking others instead of building themselves up? And if they did want to make someone else look bad, would their target be Ron Paul, who is polling maybe 3-4% nationally at best?
“News that some Ron Paul supporters have committed computer fraud”
Zero evidence for this statement, and the circumstantial evidence suggests to anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills that it was someone trying to discredit the campaign.
Two other things: 1) Sarah Stirland was NOT paid, that was a parody post on a parody website that some people took as real. Don’t spread that story, it’s bogus. 2) Don’t forget the 5th of November, Ron Paul’s big day! http://www.thisnovember5th.com
bbartblog, Giuliani doesn’t have many bigger fish to fry than Ron Paul. Over at intrade Paul has moved into 3rd place to get the Republican nomination, having just moved past Fred Thompson.
Giuliani 40.0% chance to get Rep. nomination
Romney 25.3%
Paul 9.0%
Thompson 8.1%
McCain 7.1%
Huckabee 4.5%
You guys are freaking insane.
How to Whip This Ron Paul Character and All His Whacky Followers.
Ron Paul can be defeated by ignorance. Ignore him if you can.
By lies. Misrepresent his positions whenever possible.
By word gaming. As Lenin advised, “First, confuse the vocabulary.â€Â
By contempt. Dismiss him as amusing and pathetic.
By smearing his supporters. Find the worst and spotlight them. Call them a cult.
By consensus. Dismiss him with peer-pressure ridicule.
By false accusations. Spread them quickly and far.
By never discussing his policies. Change the subject to his person.
By the polls. Ask the right people the right questions and get the answer you want.
By reporting his most unpopular votes. But don’t report his reasoning.
By rudeness. Wreck any debate where his ideas are winning.
With all these tools, he can be easily defeated. Use them generously.
But Ron Paul cannot be defeated by refuting him in an honest and courteous technical debate. Avoid that.
– Moderno Machiavelli
Wow…the Paulbots never cease to amaze. Hey I noticed something else in the link you gave of the RP speech on government conspiracy. This sure seems like he doesn’t believe it is the government’s right to outlaw abortions. This may come as a surprise to the one issue (abortion) voters who are considering him as a 3rd party alternative to Rudy. Here’s the quote:
But which group of people should this bring together? I say, “I don’t want to recognize your personal life.” And you say, “What does that mean,” I don’t want to tell you what you can eat, smoke, and drink, and whatever you want to do? [applause] Now the question is, is this going to offend the conservative Christian Right? It should not, and it’s something that I’ve worked on for many many years in the Congressional district, is to believe in individual liberty, not put on sanctions and not pretend I can regulate your personal, moral life… and have that appeal to the Christian Right. I happen to believe all life is sacred, so therefore I don’t believe that small little fetuses can be dropped away without concern about it. [applause] But this idea of personal liberty which might allow individuals to do things that others might not approve of is also exactly the liberty that we need to practice our religion and keep the government off our backs. [applause]
he doesn’t believe it is the government’s right to outlaw abortions
His position is that abortion should be illegal, but that just as laws against murder are enforced at the state level, so too should laws against abortion. He’s introduced bills in the past (Sanctity of Life Act of 2005) which would have made an end-run on Roe v Wade. But it is true that if you’re looking not just for an overturn of Roe v Wade, but an attempt to make abortion illegal at the federal level, you’d need someone even more pro-life than Paul. I think Keyes has called for a Human Life Amendment which I can only assume would make abortion illegal everywhere.
Hmmmm…that seems very similar to Giuliani’s states’ rights position. However, let’s not forget that RP voted against a bill that prevents minors from being transported across state lines to avoid parental notification laws. So much for states’ rights.
Unclear to me what the states’ rights angle is there. Obviously people are going to travel to other states sometimes if there are different laws and they want to take advantage of that; by itself, that’s not a states’ rights violation. Now as to why Paul voted against that bill, I can’t say. It seems dubious to me inasfar as they’re trying to make it illegal to be an accomplice to something (interstate travel) which is itself a protected right. But of course with minors in the picture things get more complicated.
FZappa:
“Zero evidence for this statement, and the circumstantial evidence suggests to anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills that it was someone trying to discredit the campaign.”
Ok asshat lets us look at circumstantial evidence.
1) Giuliani is number one or at worst number two in every legitimate poll. Ron Paul, not so much. In fact will probably run behind Colbert if he’s included in any poll.
2) The PaulBots have spammed each and every online poll in the known universe. The logical conclusion would be for the PaulBots to also use some PC skulduggery to send out thousands of spam emails.
But obviously logic is lost on you FZappa. Along with the not so common, common sense.
Curt! You couldn’t help but poke that stick in the monsters cage could you!
And now the little gremlins are coming out of the woodwork!
I found this especially interesting:
“This is a rEVOLution, not a business as usual campaign. What they call ‘dirty tricks’ we call fighting the system. We hvae to do everything we can to overcome the media blackout of our candidate and fight the establishment media!”
For people who go around talking about the Constitution all the time you’d think they would want to avoid using fascist tactics to advance their cause.
But then, you and I would think and that’s apparently a skill that these nit wits lack.
Fascist tactics? Spam is many things (annoying, illegal, antisocial…), but fascist?
I do get tired of the paranoid ‘media blackout’ claim though. Let’s see, google news for ‘Ron Paul’ and I get about 5000 hits. Paul has been invited to Colbert’s show and Jay Leno (and many others), and done a bunch of interviews on CNN, MSNBC and on and on. Not much of a ‘media blackout’. If his name recognition isn’t as high as some others, it’s because he started out as a relatively obscure figure, not because the media is deliberately ignoring him.
I know Mike, just can’t help it. He is so much fun to blog about and his bots are just sooooo nuts. Always brings a smile to my face when I’m feeling down. So let that be a lesson to you bloggers feeling down in the dumps, blog about the crazies at RP headquarters…..you will feel so much better.