The ongoing investigation into the hacking of Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account now appears to center on the son of a Democratic state legislator in Tennessee. A federal grand jury convened Tuesday morning in Chattanooga to hear testimony from friends of David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics student at the University of Tennessee whose apartment was raided by the FBI early Sunday morning, but ended their session for the day without issuing an indictment.
Kernell, whose father is Tennessee State Representative Michael Kernell, is the target of widespread speculation in the blogosphere. The attention came after a post appeared on the online chat board, 4chan, describing how it “took seriously 45 mins on wikipedia and google to find the info” needed to access the Alaska governor’s personal e-mail account using Yahoo’s password reset feature. (A Yahoo spokesperson indicated that the company is continually reviewing its security procedures, but had not planned any specific changes yet.)
According to the 4chan message, the author’s curiosity had been piqued by press reports concerning Palin’s alleged use of another, more public, Yahoo account, to conduct state business. After gaining access to the account, the self-described hacker wrote, he had searched without success for incriminating e-mails, and posted the new account password to the board so others could do the same. He soon realized that “if this sh*t ever got to the FBI I was f—ed, I panicked.” The author of the post used the handle “Rubico,” which was tied to a Yahoo e-mail address easily linked to Kernell via Google searches—though given the penchant for pranksterism at 4chan, this was scarcely definitive evidence.
Law enforcement officials did not appear to have taken an overt interest in Kernell as quickly as bloggers had. But after IP logs retained by the proxy service Palin’s hacker had used pointed to the Commons at Knoxville apartment complex where Kernell lives, FBI agents arrived at the student’s residence early Sunday morning to search the premises, breaking up a party in the process.
Archive
Tag: YahooThere’s a lot of buzz today about Yahoo!’s latest major updates to its Yahoo! Mail application. This latest version makes it easier for contacts to stay in touch in two ways:
The first is by instant message from Yahoo! Mail to mobile phone. Yahoo! Mail users can now send IM’s directly to mobile numbers in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines without leaving the Yahoo! webmail interface. Simply enter a mobile number, type the message and hit send.
The second is by instant message from Yahoo! Mail to Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger users. This opens up the possibility of chatting to millions of other IM platform users, straight from the Yahoo! Mail interface. These new features make it easier to connect with friends by converting emails to instant messages to text messages.
The new features are supposed to begin rolling out today. Smart move, Yahoo!
Rumors about a possible $100 million acquisition by Yahoo of sports content site Rivals surfaced today. But two previous deals to acquire the company died once it was discovered that the CEO, Shannon Terry, was found to have been involved in a classic “pump and dump” scheme, and violated the anti-touting and antifraud provisions of U.S. securities laws in 1998.
Shannon was a principal of SGA Goldstar Research, Inc. In 1998, he and at least two others, Sheldon Kraft and Charles Huttoe, were accused of engaging in “a massive ongoing market manipulation” around touting shares of a company called Systems of Excellence, Inc. Kraft and Huttoe were sentenced to prison terms. Shannon, who reportedly “cooperated” with authorities, got off with a $828,000 fine. For background information, see here and here.
In 2005, sources say, Fox killed a deal to acquire Rivals at the 11th hour after a routine background check on Terry revealed the fraud. Terry had not previously disclosed the issue to Fox. Fox went on to acquire competitor Scout Media for $60 million in September 2005.
Shortly thereafter, AOL was supposedly close to acquiring Rivals as well, for as much as $90 million. Again, Terry reportedly failed to disclose the fraud, which was discovered during the due diligence phase of the negotiations. The deal was killed. continue reading…
Yahoo has just announced a cool new wifi device, called the SanDisk Sansa Connect, that comes ready to listen to Yahoo Music (see Yahoo Music overview here along with competitors) and it also syncs up with your Flickr account.
This gives them something to promote as Apple spreads its iPod empire and Microsoft markets its Zune music (and soon, phone) device.
The Sansa Connect is $250 and comes with 4 GB of memory and a (small) 2.2 inch screen.
If you are a subscription music fan and willing to pay $15 or so per month indefinitely for access to a large library of songs, this may be a device you’ll want to have. Certainly having access to Yahoo’s entire music collection of 1 million+ songs on a portable device is going to be attractive. But as the DRM walls fall, owning songs outright will be more attractive to many users than the indefinite subscription approach.
Yahoo’s Ian Rogers (listen to my interview with Ian Rogers here) is touting the device and the Yahoo subscription plan v. downloadable music. He does make one off-putting remark at the end of his post when he suggests that iPod users only have pirated music on their iPods: continue reading…
We got the scoop on some very special Yahoo news! Yahoo Mail will be celebrating its 10 year anniversary shortly, and they REALLY want to celebrate. Everyone that has a Yahoo mail account will be offered unlimited email storage starting May 2007, rolling out to all users over a couple of months.
The current version of Yahoo Mail started out in 1997 when they acquired RocketMail and offered users a mere 4MB of email storage. Hmm, what could you fit in there now? Let’s just say not much by today’s standards. By 2005 the email capacity reached 100MB, then on to 1GB where it sits at today.
Will this groundbreaking new move from Yahoo make a few of the main free email providers like Google and Microsoft wonder how many users will switch over? Imagine never deleting emails again, storing countless mp3′s, and data backups all in your Yahoo email account.
Yahoo issued a slew of press releases today, at CES, all about their mobile Internet services. The main news is the launch of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 (now available for java-based handsets) and Yahoo! oneSearch. This comes on the back of recent initiatives by Google, which appears to be leading the Mobile Internet and search space right now – over half of US users go to Google for mobile search, according to M:Metrics, with Yahoo in second place. So, not to be outdone, Yahoo has ramped up its Go brand for mobile and introduced the new oneSearch product – which essentially creates an on-the-fly portal page for each search query.
Yahoo also made several joint announcements with key operator and device manufacturer partners, related to the two product launches: with Nokia, Opera, Blackberry (RIM), Samsung and 3 Group. In addition, Yahoo says it is working with Sony on a release for “BRAVIA Internet Video Link”, one of Sony’s new digital home initiatives.
Go 2.0 beta
The launch of the beta version of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 introduces a new mobile-optimized search UI and product design. The main design feature is the iPod-like “carousel”, which allows you to navigate around the various Yahoo! Go widgets.
The Yahoo! Go 2.0 beta is being promoted via a partnership with Motorola’s new MOTORAZR maxx V6 and MOTORAZR V3xx devices. Beginning in the first half of 2007, Yahoo! Go 2.0 will be pre-loaded on select new mobile devices from Motorola. Yahoo! Go 2.0 is also available to download onto “more than 70 other mobile devices from major manufacturers worldwide and use it on most wireless networks.”
oneSearch
As of now, Yahoo! oneSearch is available only on the Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 beta. However according to the press release, by the end of January 2007 Yahoo! plans to have oneSearch available across all their Mobile Web and SMS services. As well, Yahoo! oneSearch will roll out in additional country and language versions in the coming months. More details at the Y! Search Blog.
Mobile Internet Search Hots Up
As mentioned at the top of this post, Google is currently leading the charge in the Mobile Internet search space, with various international mobile deals inked (particularly inn Asia, where mobile is very big) and an apparent lead in the behind-the-times US mobile market. So these announcements by Yahoo are in a sense a game of catch-up, at least in public perception. Expect there to be many more announcements and improvements in mobile search before the year is out though, from Yahoo, Google and MSN.
New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, has filed a lawsuit against Yahoo, Inc., on November 20, 2006, claiming Yahoo! used his image without his consent. Yahoo! allegedly (they’re not officially guilty yet) used his image in ads published in Sports Illustrated magazines and on the Yahoo! web site to promote the Yahoo! fantasy football service. Bradly is seeking damages and demands that Yahoo! stop running the ads. Yahoo’s fantasy football site apparently generates 800 million page views per day during the football season. I’d hate to think of how that has damaged Brady’s reputation, being all exposed to millions of adoring fans like that.