Ron Paul’s Spambots

11:58 am EST November 1st, 2007 | News | 6 Comments

If Texas congressman Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to computer-security researchers who’ve analyzed a recent flurry of e-mail supporting the long-shot Republican candidate.

“This is clearly a criminal act in support of a campaign, which has been committed with or without their knowledge,” says Gary Warner, the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s director of research in computer forensics. “The question is, will we see more and more of this, or will this bring shame to the campaigns and will they make clear that this is not a form of acceptable behavior by their supporters?” Warner pointed to provisions of the federal Can-Spam Act.

I wonder how real the money they’ve raised is?

Topic: 2008 Election

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6 Responses to “Ron Paul’s Spambots”

Vik says:

November 1, 2007 at 5:15 pm

Probably more real than the idea that the Redskins are a good team.
C.S.Strowbridge says:

November 1, 2007 at 5:51 pm

“Probably more real than the idea that the Redskins are a good team.”

They are above .500, when was the last time Ron Paul earned more than the margin of error in a scientific poll?
Tara says:

November 1, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Ron Paul Campaign Under Cyber Attack

There has been a recent flurry of news articles that have made the conjecture that the Ron Paul campaign or his supporters are in possession of a botnet and are using it to generate spam emails for the candidate. I have been in the business of computer technology for a long time and have good friends in the IT security business and we have discussed this at length. Cui-bono (who benefits)

I find it far more likely that this botnet spam attack is not the design of the Paul campaign or any of its supporters. It is far more likely that this is the release of a first round of direct cyber attack against the Ron Paul campaign. I base this opinion on the fact that the attack is becoming clearly targeted at the youtube videos of Ron Paul. Youtube links to his videos are beginning to be inserted into the the body of these spam message and as a direct result the video’s are being pulled by youtube for violation of their terms of use policy.

This attack method can do far more harm than good for the Ron Paul campaign so I will make a guess that this is the work of those in the NSA using cyber war tactics out of loyalty or possibly under orders to use this stealth attack method to derail the Ron Paul campaign by using the campaign’s online strength against them.

I expect that after these attackers have used this method to remove the best google and youtube videos touting the Ron Paul campaign, that the attack method will change and will then go after other key components of the campaign’s online strength such as the Web 2.0 communities. These utilities will likely be spammed and the organizations using the applications will be banned from their use.

This is nefarious and demonstrates the kind of tactics that the establishment could use to serve their interest in stopping the advance of Ron Paul and the Revolution for freedom that he is leading as well as his Presidential bid. I can only hope that the Ron Paul online army has some equally talented cyber warriors that can help stop this attack before it is ramped up even further.

http://www.nolanchart.com/article259.html
FormerReader says:

November 1, 2007 at 6:57 pm

Seriously how can you hate on Ron Paul. If his campaign is spamming then shame on them. I am with Tara, this is most likely some Neocon setting up Paul.

Paul is the only genuine candidate out there. All of the other candidates are the same person just masking being their party’s platform. All of these bums will be bought and paid for and only look out for the big corporations.

RP08!!

Anyone that is not sure go check out the site.
FZappa says:

November 1, 2007 at 7:01 pm

What a manufactured bogus “scandal”.

You don’t think Ron Paul’s support is real? Wait until Nov. 5th. http://www.thisnovember5th.com
C.S.Strowbridge says:

November 2, 2007 at 4:48 am

“I have been in the business of computer technology for a long time and have good friends in the IT security business and we have discussed this at length. Cui-bono (who benefits)”

Who benefits when regular spammers send spam? The people sending the spam.

So if there’s a bunch of pro-Ron Paul spam being send, it was likely designed to help Ron Paul.

Wow. That was easy.

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“Seriously how can you hate on Ron Paul.”

Cause he’s a hardcore libertarian who would take us back to the days of the Robber Barons and implement a system that was used in the past to help the richest 1% practically enslave the bottom 50%.

——————————

“You don’t think Ron Paul’s support is real? Wait until Nov. 5th.”

You think he’s going to be President? Wait till November 5th. He’ll bomb out of the Republicans nomination process, jump to a third party, lose badly, and likely even lose his seat in Congress in 2010 when the Republicans boot him from the party.