Just goes to show...
Politicians and lobbyists who are stupid, self serving and malicious. I think I may be suffering from justifiable cynicism.
A hacker has claimed the scalp of New Zealand Justice Minister Judith Collins by releasing information showing a purported campaign to undermine government officials. The revelations, revealed last month, came from a hacker known as RawShark (@whaledump), who broke into the email account of conservative blogger Cameron Slater …
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Not knowing anything about NZ politics I found this a bit hard to follow as you seem to have mixed up peoples names. The article starts by talking about "Cameron Smith", who seems to change into "Slater", and then Fairfax mysteriously appears. If you're going to cover stories like this a bit more effor to make them comprehensible would be appreciated.
Yes, I also got completely lost trying to work out whether the names were getting mixed up or whether they are so well known you wouldn't need to be told who they are?
The Stuff article made it easier to understand. It seems Smith and slater are different people and Fairfax is running the investigation...
" you seem to have mixed up peoples names"
oh good its not just me! i quickly gave up the constantly changing names and actions in that first paragraph and skipped to the end, then the comments hoping someone else summed it up!
I wasnt intrested enough to go slowy and pick apart the sequence, its ither wrong, bad writing , or really complicated!
Cameron Slater is the premier political blogger in New Zealand. His page hit-count outranks a lot of main stream newspapers. He is the son of the former president of the National (read: Tory) party. He speaks to the current NZ PM several times a year. (and you are right, it is Slater, not Smith.). He is a personal friend of the (former) Justice Minister.
Someone has selectively released hacked emails from Cameron Slaters private correspondence, which he himself chose not to release at the time for various reasons. A lot is quoted out of context. He is very good at getting to the bottom of things quickly, hence the suspicion of insider knowledge. He has admitted he has emails that detail the following that neither he nor the hacker has released,..
Two high ranking Labour (read: Labour) officials having affairs
Gay sex claims from a left (straight) politician
Illegal employment of spouses in parliamentary services
Spousal abuse by left-leaning politicians
(Full details here http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2014/09/david-cunliffes-challenge/)
It is interesting to note that none of these unproven revelations have made it to press, only the ones that damage the right. This is unfortunately hactivism taking a political slant, and being very selective in what it views. This is not in the public interest, like the expenses scandal. Surf his website, you might find an actual Journalist lurking down under here.
Here's an example of Slater's blogging: after a 28 year old man died in a car-crash, in which he was a passenger, Slater writes: "Feral dies in Greymouth, did world a favour"
Slater is a vile individual who slimes and slanders and does so for money. The fact that the PM, journalists and members of the National Party are all embarrassed by their links with him shows that it's a view shared across the political spectrum.
"Surf his website" - if you do, shower afterward.
>>It is interesting to note that none of these unproven revelations have made it to press
So your upset this hacker hasn't released a bunch of left hurting emails that probably don't exist?
And from that you've judged and condemned the hackers politics with no sense of self awareness.
Bravo sir.
I love how she finds the "allegations disappointing". You can almost hear her mumbling to herself:
"Oh, I'm going to send this email which I will later regret doing...
Oh, it's so bad I can't believe I've done it!
I will now convince myself that it wasn't my email at all!
It's not mine! It's not mine! It's not mine! It's not mine!
Ah, what do you mean it's mine??!
OMG! I'M SO DISAPPOINTED!!"
No secret service involvement here.
From what I can guess (the information comes mostly from one persons e-mails/FB/blog) someone (Cameron Slater?) has had their password guessed/captured/brute forced. So either the password is easy and re-used or the password details have been been found.
Based on the e-mails, I'm guessing that password security was down the list of things to do after taking over the world, destroying the left and trying to be obnoxious.
Happy to be corrected on that if there are more details.
... coming to the UK for a while? Or he could telecommute. We have an increasing number of racists coming out of the closet, xenophobes, nationalists, Neo Cons, libertarians and assorted general bigots. If someone exposed their real comments and behaviour, we might have the possibility of getting them all out.
But who does that leave to actually stand for election once we dump the lawyers, journalists, business crooks and other undesirables? Perhaps we might still have a (very) few who are in there to do good?
When we're done, I'm sure there are plenty in the USA who can find similar work to be done!
On the other hand, if Cam Slater was in the UK, we wouldn't have to deal with his biased selection of stories here. The whole thing is quite funny though: a left-wing conspiracy (alleged) outing a right-wing conspiracy (alleged) using (alleged) hacked emails, tweets and FB postings. The good news for the (alleged) left-wing conspiracy is that in the last few days, the Teflon (TM) coating on the Prime Minister John Key has been visibly flaking. The election might even be interesting as a result.
"We have an increasing number of racists coming out of the closet, xenophobes, nationalists, Neo Cons, libertarians and assorted general bigots. If someone exposed their real comments and behaviour, we might have the possibility of getting them all out."
The problem is that Cameron Slater is on the side of such people for the most part. The current Prime Minister of NZ has been busy getting laws changed so that New Zealand can be sold off to all his rich friends.
Well... more so than has already happened under 30 years of rebuilding after a near-economic collapse driven by a past National(Tory) prime minister (Robert Muldoon, aka "piggy") using unsustainable pensions and farming subsidies to buy votes - and by all accounts the current prime minister is more than happy to stoop to the same levels of smearing and misuse of security services to undermine his opponents.
his unique motivations would mean he could be quickly caught if he slipped up.
This is why in a court of law you have the right to confront your accuser. Without knowing their motivation and why they haven't told the WHOLE truth, you just have another self-motivated probably partisan motive.