Representative Anthony Weiner on Monday tearfully admitted having a number of inappropriate relationships with women over the Internet, saying he was deeply ashamed but would not resign.
Weiner, a New York Democrat and leading liberal voice in the House of Representatives who was expected to run for mayor of New York City in 2013, admitted to inappropriate Internet and telephone conversations with six women but said none of them developed into a physical relationship.
"I'm deeply regretting what I have done and I'm not resigning," Weiner, who had been seen as a rising star among Democrats, told a news conference while wiping away tears as he apologized for his actions and for lying in the cover-up.
"I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle," he said of an image sent over Twitter of a man in his underpants, which sparked the scandal more than a week ago.
"Once I realized I had posted it to Twitter, I panicked. I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued to stick to that story, which was a hugely regrettable mistake," he said. "The picture was of me, and I sent it."
Calling his actions "very dumb" and "destructive," he stressed he did not have sex with any of the women.
Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The couple was married in a ceremony officiated by former President Bill Clinton.
"I love my wife very much and we have no intention of splitting up over this," he said.
Last week, Weiner denied tweeting a photo of a man's bulging boxer briefs to a 21-year-old female student in Washington state, insisting his account had been hacked.
FORGET ABOUT MAYOR?
Weiner said his affairs were conducted over several years on Twitter, Facebook, email and by phone with women he met online, primarily on Facebook. He said he sent the women explicit pictures of himself but broke no law, mostly used his home computer and never used his congressional mobile device.
"Certainly he can forget about mayor," said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs, at Baruch College in New York, adding that while Weiner might weather the storm, he will likely face a tough challenge if he seeks re-election in 2012.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called for an ethics probe "to determine whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred." Weiner said in a statement, "I welcome and will fully cooperate with an investigation by the House Ethics Committee."
New York State Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox called for his resignation, saying, "His actions are at best despicable and at worst illegal."
"To further a cover-up he stood by while encouraging others, including Congressional employees, to lie, slander and discredit the professional reputations of those who were telling the truth," Cox said. "His inappropriate behavior has irreparably damaged his ability to serve."
Former Senate Republican aide John Ullyot, a communication consultant at Hill & Knowlton in Washington, said Weiner, "lost a big chance to salvage some dignity by resigning promptly."
"Weiner's handling of this situation is an absolute disaster -- a textbook example of how not to act in a matter involving personal scandal," he said.
"By holding a news conference and answering 30 minutes worth of questions, Weiner opened up many more lines of inquiry than he resolved: the possibility of underage victims, use of office phones, questions of whether his wife was aware ..."
Earlier this year, two other members of Congress, both Republicans, stepped down amid scandal. John Ensign resigned from the Senate amid an ethics committee probe into his extramarital affair with a campaign aide. And Representative Chris Lee resigned after he posted a shirtless and flirty photo of himself online.
On Monday, more pictures of Weiner, this time of him from the waist up sitting at his desk naked, surfaced online.
On Monday he characterized his relationships with the women as "a frivolous thing" and admitted that the affairs were conducted both before and since he was married.
Weiner's denials and eventual admission was evocative of President Bill Clinton who in 1998 admitted to an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky after vigorous denials.
Unlike Clinton, who was accused of being evasive even after admitting his dalliance, Weiner took many questions from the press on Monday, answering them plainly as he choked back his emotions, pausing to sip water on several occasions.
Unusual revelations by politicians in the New York metro area are nothing new. Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after frequenting prostitutes and former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who was married, tearfully resigned after it was revealed he had a homosexual affair with an aide.
Still Weiner being undone by his own actions while using social media tools such as Twitter which he was successfully using to bolster his personal political brand is certainly a modern twist.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-politics-weitre7555ya-20110606,0,6811144.story?track=rss
Showing posts with label posted on web. Show all posts
Showing posts with label posted on web. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2011
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Network flaw causes scary Web error
Alarming network glitch makes the Internet lose track of who is who on Facebook
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information.
The glitch -- the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T -- revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.
In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn't appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers' warnings that there are many ways online information -- from mundane data to dark secrets -- can go awry.
Several security experts said they had not heard of a case like this, in which the wrong person was shown a Web page whose user name and password had been entered by someone else. It's not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But experts said such flaws could occur on e-mail services, for instance, and that something similar could happen on a PC, not just a phone.
"The fact that it did happen is proof that it could potentially happen again and with something a lot more important than Facebook," said Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, a research organization.
Candace Sawyer, 26, says she immediately suspected something was wrong when she tried to visit her Facebook page Saturday morning.
After typing Facebook.com into her Nokia smart phone, she was taken into the site without being asked for her user name or password. She was in an account that didn't look like hers. She had fewer friend requests than she remembered. Then she found a picture of the page's owner.
"He's white -- I'm not," she said with a laugh.
Sawyer logged off and asked her sister, Mari, 31, her partner in a dessert catering company, and their mother, Fran, 57, to see whether they had the same problem on their phones.
Mari landed inside another woman's page.
Fran's phone -- which had never been used to access Facebook before -- took her inside yet another stranger's page, one belonging to a young woman from Indiana. They sent an e-mail to one of their own accounts to prove it.
They were dumbfounded.
"I thought it was the phone -- `Maybe this phone is just weird and does magical, horrible things and I have to get rid of it,'" said Candace Sawyer.
The women, who live together in East Point, Ga., outside Atlanta, had recently upgraded to the same model of phone and all used the same carrier, AT&T.
Sawyer contacted The Associated Press after reporting the problem to Facebook and AT&T.
The problem wasn't in the phones. It was a flaw in the infrastructure connecting the phones to the Internet.
That illuminates a grave problem.
Generally Web sites and computers are compromised from within. A hacker can get a Web page or computers to run programming code that they shouldn't. But in this case, it was a security gap between the phone and the Web site that exposed strangers' Facebook pages to the Sawyers. Misconfigured equipment, poorly written network software or other technical errors could have caused AT&T to fumble the information flowing from the Sawyers' phones to Facebook and back.
Fortunately, Hamiel said, the vulnerability would be of limited use to a hacker interested in pulling off widespread mayhem, because this hole would let him access only one account at a time. To do more damage the criminal would have to pull off the unlikely feat of gaining full control of the piece of equipment that routes Internet traffic to individual users.
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said its wireless customers have landed in the wrong Facebook pages in "a limited number of instances" and that a network problem behind those episodes is being fixed.
The Sawyers experienced a different glitch. Coe said an investigation points to a "misdirected cookie." A cookie is a file some Web sites place on computers to store identifying information -- including the user name that Facebook members would enter to access their pages. Coe said technicians couldn't figure out how the cookie had been routed to the wrong phone, leading it into the wrong Facebook account.
He also said AT&T could confirm only that the problem occurred on one of the Sawyers' phones, possibly because they had logged off Facebook on the other two before reporting the incident.
Facebook declined to comment and referred questions to AT&T.
Some Web sites would be immune from this kind of mix-up, particularly those that use encryption. A Web browser would have trouble deciphering the encryption on a page that a computer user didn't actually seek, said Chris Wysopal, co-founder of Veracode Inc., a security company.
Sensitive sites and those used for banking and e-commerce generally use encryption. But most other sites, including some Web-based e-mail services, don't use it. One way of checking: The Web addresses of encrypted sites begin with "https" rather than "http." Facebook uses encryption when user names and passwords are entered, to cloak the sign-on from snoops, but after the credentials are entered the encryption is dropped.
It's unclear how many people were affected by the problem the Sawyers discovered, and whether it was limited to Facebook.
The reason all three women experienced the glitch is a function of the way cellular networks are designed. In some cases, all the mobile Internet traffic for a particular area is routed through the same piece of networking equipment. If that piece of equipment is misbehaving or set up incorrectly, strange things happen when computers down the line receive the data.
Usually that means a Web site simply won't load, said Alberto Solino, director of security consulting services for Core Security Technologies. In the Sawyers' case, "somehow they got the wrong user but they could keep using that account for a long period of time. That's what's strange," he said.
The AP tried to contact two of the people whose Facebook pages were exposed to the Sawyers, but the calls and e-mails were not returned. It's unclear whether they are also AT&T customers, though security experts said that's likely the case.
Indeed, it was the case in a similar incident in November.
Stephen Simburg, 25, who works in marketing, was home for Thanksgiving in Vancouver, Wash., when he logged onto Facebook from his cell phone. He didn't recognize the people who had written him messages.
"I thought I had gotten really popular all of a sudden, or something was wrong," he said. Then he saw the picture of the account owner: A young woman.
He got her e-mail address from the site, logged off and wrote the woman a message. He asked whether he had met her at some point and she had borrowed his phone to check her Facebook account.
"No," she wrote back, "but I was just telling my family that I ended up in your profile!"
Simburg and the woman figured out they were both using AT&T to access Facebook on their phones. (AT&T had no comment because the incident wasn't reported to the company.)
"I felt like I had been let down by the phone company and by Facebook," he said.
He says he has put the incident behind him. But one piece of it remains: He and the young woman are now Facebook friends.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-Exclusive-Network-flaw-apf-3043392874.html?x=0
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information.
The glitch -- the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T -- revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.
In each case, the Internet lost track of who was who, putting the women into the wrong accounts. It doesn't appear the users could have done anything to stop it. The problem adds a dimension to researchers' warnings that there are many ways online information -- from mundane data to dark secrets -- can go awry.
Several security experts said they had not heard of a case like this, in which the wrong person was shown a Web page whose user name and password had been entered by someone else. It's not clear whether such episodes are rare or simply not reported. But experts said such flaws could occur on e-mail services, for instance, and that something similar could happen on a PC, not just a phone.
"The fact that it did happen is proof that it could potentially happen again and with something a lot more important than Facebook," said Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, a research organization.
Candace Sawyer, 26, says she immediately suspected something was wrong when she tried to visit her Facebook page Saturday morning.
After typing Facebook.com into her Nokia smart phone, she was taken into the site without being asked for her user name or password. She was in an account that didn't look like hers. She had fewer friend requests than she remembered. Then she found a picture of the page's owner.
"He's white -- I'm not," she said with a laugh.
Sawyer logged off and asked her sister, Mari, 31, her partner in a dessert catering company, and their mother, Fran, 57, to see whether they had the same problem on their phones.
Mari landed inside another woman's page.
Fran's phone -- which had never been used to access Facebook before -- took her inside yet another stranger's page, one belonging to a young woman from Indiana. They sent an e-mail to one of their own accounts to prove it.
They were dumbfounded.
"I thought it was the phone -- `Maybe this phone is just weird and does magical, horrible things and I have to get rid of it,'" said Candace Sawyer.
The women, who live together in East Point, Ga., outside Atlanta, had recently upgraded to the same model of phone and all used the same carrier, AT&T.
Sawyer contacted The Associated Press after reporting the problem to Facebook and AT&T.
The problem wasn't in the phones. It was a flaw in the infrastructure connecting the phones to the Internet.
That illuminates a grave problem.
Generally Web sites and computers are compromised from within. A hacker can get a Web page or computers to run programming code that they shouldn't. But in this case, it was a security gap between the phone and the Web site that exposed strangers' Facebook pages to the Sawyers. Misconfigured equipment, poorly written network software or other technical errors could have caused AT&T to fumble the information flowing from the Sawyers' phones to Facebook and back.
Fortunately, Hamiel said, the vulnerability would be of limited use to a hacker interested in pulling off widespread mayhem, because this hole would let him access only one account at a time. To do more damage the criminal would have to pull off the unlikely feat of gaining full control of the piece of equipment that routes Internet traffic to individual users.
AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said its wireless customers have landed in the wrong Facebook pages in "a limited number of instances" and that a network problem behind those episodes is being fixed.
The Sawyers experienced a different glitch. Coe said an investigation points to a "misdirected cookie." A cookie is a file some Web sites place on computers to store identifying information -- including the user name that Facebook members would enter to access their pages. Coe said technicians couldn't figure out how the cookie had been routed to the wrong phone, leading it into the wrong Facebook account.
He also said AT&T could confirm only that the problem occurred on one of the Sawyers' phones, possibly because they had logged off Facebook on the other two before reporting the incident.
Facebook declined to comment and referred questions to AT&T.
Some Web sites would be immune from this kind of mix-up, particularly those that use encryption. A Web browser would have trouble deciphering the encryption on a page that a computer user didn't actually seek, said Chris Wysopal, co-founder of Veracode Inc., a security company.
Sensitive sites and those used for banking and e-commerce generally use encryption. But most other sites, including some Web-based e-mail services, don't use it. One way of checking: The Web addresses of encrypted sites begin with "https" rather than "http." Facebook uses encryption when user names and passwords are entered, to cloak the sign-on from snoops, but after the credentials are entered the encryption is dropped.
It's unclear how many people were affected by the problem the Sawyers discovered, and whether it was limited to Facebook.
The reason all three women experienced the glitch is a function of the way cellular networks are designed. In some cases, all the mobile Internet traffic for a particular area is routed through the same piece of networking equipment. If that piece of equipment is misbehaving or set up incorrectly, strange things happen when computers down the line receive the data.
Usually that means a Web site simply won't load, said Alberto Solino, director of security consulting services for Core Security Technologies. In the Sawyers' case, "somehow they got the wrong user but they could keep using that account for a long period of time. That's what's strange," he said.
The AP tried to contact two of the people whose Facebook pages were exposed to the Sawyers, but the calls and e-mails were not returned. It's unclear whether they are also AT&T customers, though security experts said that's likely the case.
Indeed, it was the case in a similar incident in November.
Stephen Simburg, 25, who works in marketing, was home for Thanksgiving in Vancouver, Wash., when he logged onto Facebook from his cell phone. He didn't recognize the people who had written him messages.
"I thought I had gotten really popular all of a sudden, or something was wrong," he said. Then he saw the picture of the account owner: A young woman.
He got her e-mail address from the site, logged off and wrote the woman a message. He asked whether he had met her at some point and she had borrowed his phone to check her Facebook account.
"No," she wrote back, "but I was just telling my family that I ended up in your profile!"
Simburg and the woman figured out they were both using AT&T to access Facebook on their phones. (AT&T had no comment because the incident wasn't reported to the company.)
"I felt like I had been let down by the phone company and by Facebook," he said.
He says he has put the incident behind him. But one piece of it remains: He and the young woman are now Facebook friends.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-Exclusive-Network-flaw-apf-3043392874.html?x=0
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Italian tax details posted on web
Privacy watchdogs have ordered the Italian authorities to block access to every Italian's personal tax details.
This comes after they were published on the internet and made available for almost 24 hours.
The move to release the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government - and has shocked many tax-shy Italians.
Without warning, the tax authority posted on its website every tax payer's declared earnings and tax paid.
With just a couple of mouse clicks Italians were able to see just how much their favourite footballer, TV star or singer earned and paid in tax.
The idea was also an open invitation to nosey neighbours, making it just as simple to see how much the couple next door earned, or how much your local doctor or priest paid in tax.
The site proved a massive hit. Within hours it was overwhelmed and impossible to reach.
The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency. Critics condemned it as an outrageous breach of privacy.
The timing of the move, just days before the current administration hands over to Silvio Berlusconi, was intriguing too.
The outgoing government came to power promising to tackle Italians' notoriously lax approach to paying tax - prompting some sceptics to see the move as just end of term sour grapes.
Mr Prodi's coalition cracked down on tax evasion
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7376608.stm
This comes after they were published on the internet and made available for almost 24 hours.
The move to release the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government - and has shocked many tax-shy Italians.
Without warning, the tax authority posted on its website every tax payer's declared earnings and tax paid.
With just a couple of mouse clicks Italians were able to see just how much their favourite footballer, TV star or singer earned and paid in tax.
The idea was also an open invitation to nosey neighbours, making it just as simple to see how much the couple next door earned, or how much your local doctor or priest paid in tax.
The site proved a massive hit. Within hours it was overwhelmed and impossible to reach.
The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency. Critics condemned it as an outrageous breach of privacy.
The timing of the move, just days before the current administration hands over to Silvio Berlusconi, was intriguing too.
The outgoing government came to power promising to tackle Italians' notoriously lax approach to paying tax - prompting some sceptics to see the move as just end of term sour grapes.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7376608.stm
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