Hack attack or desperation ploy?

August 8, 2006

It wouldn’t be the Connecticut Senate primary if it didn’t include craziness like this.

On the day of perhaps the toughest political battle of his life, Sen. Joe Lieberman finds himself fighting a challenge in an unexpected battlefield — cyberspace.

The Lieberman campaign says its Joe2006.com Web site has been down for almost 24 hours and the campaign has been unable to send e-mail messages from that domain.

A message on the site says, “This account is currently under construction…please check back soon.”

Web site hacks during political campaigns are nothing new. But e-mail is now used as part of a get-out-the-vote campaign during election days, making this cyberattack a bit more noteworthy.

Naturally, the Lieberman campaign is blaming “political opponents” for the incident; the Lamont campaign has denounced the alleged attack. (There’s some question about whether the denial-of-service attack is as the Lieberman campaign described it.)

This has quickly become the political story of the day. And if you’re feeling some relief right now that this is the last day of the primary fight, then we’re in the same boat.

Here’s the latest:

* The AP account of the story notes Lieberman’s charges, but neglects to mention the full and categorical denial from the Lamont campaign.

* Team Lieberman says it has filed a complaint with the United States Attorney’s Office and other agencies regarding the alleged attack.

* Lieberman’s internet consultant told Paul Kiel that this is the second time the campaign’s website has been hacked.

* Lamont’s statement on the incident is here. Moreover, the Lamont team has offered to go to Lieberman HQ to help try and fix the tech problem.

* The networks, bored on an otherwise slow news day, are all over this story.

I have no idea what happened here, but I can’t help but wonder how this incident might influence tomorrow. If Lamont wins, will Lieberman use the alleged attack as an excuse to launch his independent bid?

“[T]he Lamont team has offered to go to Lieberman HQ to help try and fix the tech problem.” – CB

There is a subtle dig at the Lieberman campaign here, that they are so old fashioned that they need help from Lamont’s campaign even to keep a web-site up and running.

I don’t believe the Lamont campaign had anything to do with this. I hope the primary voters of the Connecticut Democratic Party aren’t fooled by this either.

  • Could it be THEY DIDN’T PAY THEIR BILLS? Check out daily kos. he has the story over there.

  • Yeah, this is so much more important than that whole 2000 Presidential race. Good thing it wasn’t close.

    http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001292.php

    TPM has a letter sent as “proof” it was DOS attack and then an update that the author, Dan Geary, is actually a paid consultant for the Lieberman campaign.

    This smells of Rove and the media is being a good little dog for the Lieberman camp. Evidence, bah, who needs evidence?

    I hope Lieberove looses handily, and the evidence comes out after the race that nothing more than a “forgotten” bill that shut his website down. That should be enough to shame him out of an independent run.

    Go Ned!

  • This smells rotten to me. I wouldnt put it past the Lieberman people, borrowing a page from the GOP sleaze machine, to create this fictional DOS attack, then try and blame the Lamont camp. I think that Americans, especially intelligent, progressive types in the northeast, you know, the REALITY BASED community, to see through this nonsense. reminds me of a certrain forged document planted by the GOP in the ’04 presidential ‘elections’ concerning Bu$h’s failed military obligations.

  • Reminds me of the time in a Bush Texas campaign where Rove claimed his office was bugged….right before the election. Guess who set it up?

  • It wasn’t a Bush campaign, it was Bill Clements in ’86. From Wikipedia:

    1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign
    In 1986, Rove helped Bill Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements’s papers in the Texas A&M University library, Rove quoted Napoleon: “The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack.”

    In 1986, just before a crucial debate in campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by the Democrats. [20]. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that bug’s battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. [21] Critics suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor’s race. [22]

  • Kos nails it (from dailyKos):

    “They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients. “

    As if Leiberman didn’t look like a big enough chump.

  • It takes like 20 minutes to setup a Yahoo account. You don’t think they could figure out some way around the issue? Nobody in Connecticut who can host a website supports Joementum? Didn’t Joe’s people have a BCP plan? I don’t want someone in charge of Naitonal Security who does not take security seriously. Joe, it was great knowing you, enjoy the lecture circut.

  • “LOL… imagine that… a jewish guy going on the cheap… ”

    Hey, the Mel Gibson thread is on Michelle Malkin’s site. Move it on over, hate-boy.

  • MNProgressive… don’t get you panties in a wad, it was a joke. My wife is of Jewish descent.

  • I can’t stand Holy Joe any more then the next guy, but ethnic slurs and stereotype are not welcome here. It’s just as easy to call Joe and his campaign inept and still be civil.

  • Lamont should run on the Indy ticket if he doesn’t win. At least keep Joe sweatin’ like a ho in church.

  • This is just too-oooo funny! Myhostcamp.com is now being tagged—by Google, no less—with the dreaded “suspended.page” label. I guess it’s “the host site” that’s not paying “their” bills….

  • Hey citizen-pain, maybe you should have said “Imagine that, a neocon doing internet war on the cheap.”

  • It’s looking like Dan Geary, the Lieberman Internet consultant , screwed the pooch and tried covering his ass with the DoS story. This raises the question, who the hell is Dan Geary ? Here is what I have learned. He runs an e-consulting firm named Geary Advocacy. which identifies itself as a division of Geary Interactive. The Geary Iterative web site carries the following disclaimer:

    Please note that Geary Interactive has had no involvment with the official website for Senator Joseph Lieberman, http://www.Joe2006.com. We have never contracted or provided services for the creation, or hosting of this website. For more information, please contact Jean Walcher at J Walcher Communications[Walcher Communications is Geary Interactive’s PR flacks.] at jean@jwalcher.com or Andreas Roell, Geary Interactive’s president and CEO, at andreas@gearyi.com.

    Why is the parent company disavowing knowledge of its political division?

    Most of the clients which Geary Advocacy lists are Nevadians amongst them is Harry Reid. It is likely that Harry got Dan Geary the gig with Lieberman. So was he doing Joe a “favor” or was he doing Dan a favor?

  • Hacking a web site off the air is a crime isn’t it? If it was not there are a lot that the religious right with their billions in tax free dollars would take down. Here’s one that’s proving to be a thorn in their sides, http://www.hoax-buster.org

    They’re probably afraid that would lead to a lot of free publicity for a site. The knowledgable set is growing quiet nicely I understand despite a lack of and free publicity.

  • Who the hell cares? Is anybody out there undecided who goes to the website to check what Joe’s stances are the night before the election? Sure, you idiots check carpetbagger 48 times a day in between jaunts at kos and some other crap you’re not doing at work, but c’mon, a campaign website the day before an election is pretty much useless, as are “get out the vote emails”. chriminy, i just opened this email and remembered I should vote?

  • hey, i see Time.com has a headline up on a story called “How Hezbollah hijacks the Internet” — I bet they hacked Joe’s site!

  • #25 (alex):
    Is anybody out there undecided who goes to the website to check what Joe’s stances are the night before the election?

    I might. As the saying goes, “my memory is very good, but it doesn’t last long”.

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