More Stupidity From the Halls of Congress

This story is just too good to pass up. When somebody associated with Congress does something really stupid, it just seems funnier than if some other average person did it. While the person in question here is not actually a congressman, he is (or was) the Press Secretary to Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg of Montana. His name is Todd Shriber and here is his incredible story.

It seems Todd, age 28 and a graduate of Texas Christian University, decided that he needed to improve his college grades and went looking for a hacker to break into the University's computers. He visited the web site of attrition.org, a security web site that is on a "crusade to expose industry frauds and inform the public about incorrect information in computer security articles."

Good-ol' Todd decided these were the very folks he needed to help him with his plan. So he started e-mailing two of the experts there about his needs. Needless to say, the fellows he wrote had no interest in performing anything illegal, but decided to goad Todd on to fully reveal is plan. Two members of attrition.org, "Lyger" and "Jericho" (a.k.a. "security curmudgeon") corresponded with Todd and fooled him into believing that they would carry out his wishes, with Jericho warning him at one point: "You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and multiple felonies."

But, Todd persisted and eventually revealed all. Jerico and Lyger kept goading him on, even including a story about using pigeons and squirrels to help with the hack. Good ol' Todd bought it all, hook, line, and sinker. Finally, the two hackers decided to end the conversations by telling him that they had been detected by TCU's security system and that they were about to be busted. They also told Todd that the university had information about him also, warning him of probable visit by law enforcement agencies.

In the meantime, the two imps from attrition.com published all the e-mails from Todd on their website, not really knowing who he was or where he worked. Around the same time, a very savvy reporter from Network World did a little digging and found out who Todd really was, then published to the story. Needless-to-say, Todd's employment as a congressional aide was terminated the next day.

Todd reaction, as quoted in the Network World article, "I did something that's greatly out of character for me and it's a mistake that I regret." He also went on to say, "A solicitation was made but no action was performed. These are people misrepresenting themselves for a laugh."

No one really knows how bad Todd's grades at TCU were, but he apparently felt the need to change them so people would not think him to be stupid. Now, why would anyone think that?

If you would like to read all the e-mails involved in this case, including those involving pigeons and squirrels, you can see them at the attrition.com web site. Here is also the link to the Network World article.