Hacked? Riiiight...

by: Almoderate

Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 11:43:31 AM CDT

I was wondering why I wasn't getting any feeds from Birmingham Skews (who has now all but officially outed himself as a front for Alabama Power, particularly after his defensive rant regarding their "influence" fund).  Turns out they're using a new host, and here's the excuse given:

"Sometime on Sunday morning, someone hacked into my Gmail, my blog, and my Twitter accounts and took over those accounts.  I have since ported the Skews to this host, and recently regained access to my Gmail."

Plausible enough, but here's why I don't believe you:

"I am disturbed that some of these IP addresses are associated with areas the Birmingham News’ parent company has a presence."

Bull.  Because this list of IP addresses have nothing to do with the Birmingham News (as is perfectly confirmable via a quick Google search).  Yet the author claims that they're somehow associated.  Based on what?  One is a dynamic IP (meaning that it doesn't belong to any one owner, is typically residential, and this one is listed for Moody residents) and the other two are static IPs for mobile devices.

Even more interesting...  The residential IP that Skews wants you to dig up was mine.  As I stated, it's dynamic, so that's not currently my IP address.  (I don't live in Moody, but my IP address comes from that group.)  Now, I never hacked Skews, but I did leave quite a few revealing, questioning, and overly critical comments on his blog-- after which it mysteriously relocated to a site where commenting is no longer possible.  And there were at least two other critical commenters.

Here's a much more plausible scenario:

Skews starts getting thought-provoking questions raised in his own comments and is forced to respond or address the questions raised. Skews find himself backed into a corner and must find an excuse to relocate to a place where all comments are hidden and nobody can comment further. Skews then releases the IPs of critical commenters as "possible hackers" as both a cover and in hopes that some passer by might try to counter-hack his revenge for him.  Two birds and one stone.

That is a rather interesting turn of events, indeed.

Want proof that Skews wants folks to do their own vigilante hacking of his critics?  Well, here you go:

"I plan to pursue all legal action available to prosecute those responsible. But in the meantime, I am asking for your help.  Help me shed some light upon the people or organization behind this illegal attack.  Help me reveal to the world the people behind this attack and strike a blow in defense of free speech."

Oh sure...  *wink wink*  He's gonna go straight to the police...  *wink wink*  And there's gonna be an investigation...  *wink wink*  On exactly what the situation really is...  *wink wink*

But before that happens, you the freedom fighter should totally do some hacking of your own and get them back.

Meanwhile, if you do Google those IP numbers, you'll find several cross-postings from Legal Schnauzer, who I have now lost all respect for.  Not only is he being used as a tool by a now-obvious corporate shill.  Not only is he misleading liberals into supporting a cause propagated by one of the state's largest corporate interests thanks to blindly taking Skews at his word.  But now he's also (potentially unaware) assisting said corporate entity in encouraging cyber attacks on people who raised some very important questions by posting their IP addresses.

That's.  Not.  Good.  Hacking is also not legal, and I dare say that encouraging it is toeing a very thin line.