Republicans infiltrate Democrats' computers

[evolu]

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

Greeaaaat.... (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive?mode=PF)

[Sun Baked]

...From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics....

... The computer glitch dates to 2001, when Democrats took control of the Senate after the defection from the GOP of Senator Jim Jeffords, Independent of Vermont...Is this another case of failing to use a Windows patch that had been available for years?

[coopdog]

I bet the computers where in office buildings behind routers and firewalls how did they get past them? With a router they would have to manualy messed with the settings. Or bypassed it?

[Dont Hurt Me]

under the patriot act im surprised they just didnt walk through the front door.

[Frohickey]

Here's to hoping that the culprits are fired, and the job positions never filled.

[rainman::|:|]

if you read to the bottom of the article, it explains in a bit more detail what went wrong. i'm really not sure about this one, obviously i have strong political biases but there is a good chance that this is non-actionable... i think it depends on where physically the data was stored.

this is pretty awful tho. shows how willing they are to gain the upper hand... and no, i'm not saying dems mightn't have done the same thing, but i don't think it would have gone on as long-- they're not as good at keeping secrets like this, as is apparent.

paul

[Rower_CPU]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56828