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Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Governator hack investigated

September 11, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Governator hack investigated

California Highway Patrol officials have opened a criminal investigation into a number of hacks into Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger's office computers, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

It comes after an embarrassing private taped conversation, in which Schwarzenegger referred to Latinos and African Americans as having "hot" blood or a passionate temperament, was leaked last week to the Los Angeles Times.

From the Chron report:

"...there was immediate suspicion the tapes were obtained by someone hacking into the computers in the governor's office, where the tapes were stored digitally."

Some experts said government computer systems are among the most vulnerable to outside hackers -- especially some systems used by California state agencies that are well known as antiquated.

"Government systems are penetrated on a regular basis," said Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based group concerned about electronic voting and hacking.

Is this any surprise, when the federal government is failing in cybersecurity fives years after 9/11?

Talk back to us.


Posted by Mike Barton on September 11, 2006 02:52 PM


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Wouldn't it have shown just a tad bit of professionalism to spell the word "governor" correctly instead of rhyming with Terminator?

The Los Angeles Times, which has shown a tendency to really dislike him, spelled it properly. (I am just tired of the movie jokes and Schwartzenegger has smartened up and toned his movie persona way down.)

Posted by: Linda Robinett at September 12, 2006 12:49 PM

No surprise. We should never confuse activity with action. While there has been much activity around cybersecurity in the past five years, there has been in government, and especially in state and local government, woefully little meaningful action to improve security.

Sadly, most of the security activities have been centered around gathering and maintaining political power for an agenda contrary to the majority of Amercians beliefs and needs, and not on action towards specific meaningful objectives.

As one European observer put it, "It appears that the Republicans know how to get elected, but once there can't govern, and the Democrats know how to govern, but not how to get elected."

Posted by: RLJ at September 12, 2006 02:11 PM

I found the governator comment cute for the title and very unprofessional for the text. I see editorial values are in decline - I expect more from Infoworld.

Posted by: Patrick at September 12, 2006 05:45 PM

Actually, the Los Angeles times got the wrong movie. Wire tapping and conspiracy happened in "Total Recall" not the "Terminator".

Posted by: Eric Zayas at September 13, 2006 04:01 AM

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