What do Obamacare, a hacker group and online pornography have in common? A White House email address. On June 26 the hacker group Lulzsec ceased operations after a 50 day hack-and-release program that made Wikileaks look like a force for moderation. The group published a variety of sensitive documents on its web site including a large stash of files from Arizona law enforcement sources, internal system files from various companies, and tens of thousands of email and password combinations from random site registries. Buried in one such list of 26,000 emails was flag@whitehouse.gov, the controversial address the Obama administration established to gather information during the debate over health care. “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy,” a White House press release from August 2009 said, “send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.” The effort generated a firestorm over internet privacy and raised questions whether the Obama administration was compiling a database of names and email addresses of Obamacare’s enemies. After three weeks of punishing controversy the administration dropped the plan. But those who worry about socialized medicine won’t be happy to learn that according to Lulzsec the password for flag@whitehouse.gov was “karlmarx.” Yet the hackers did not get this information by breaking into the White House server. It was looted from the registration files of the online pornography website pron.com. Granted, there is no way of knowing whether or not someone from the White House really used that address and password combo to sign up for online porn or whether this was a political statement from a disgruntled citizen. But whatever it is, it sure seems fishy.
