Cats led feds to suspect in Mitt Romney tax return hacking case

Two grainy photos of cats led federal investigators to a Tennessee man suspected of stealing former presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns to blackmail him for $1 million. "They said they're here to serve a search warrant for Romney's tax returns," Brown told WSMV-TV. "My first reaction was, 'You've got to be kidding me.'" What I want to know is: how lame of a hacker do you have to be to get a hold of Mitt Romney's highly-sought tax returns and *not release them*? (via Peter Feld)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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The Snowden Principle

Boundegar

Innocent until proven guilty – but it sounds like they have a pile of evidence.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Really? It looked to me like the evidence was a flash drive that he once owned that has a picture of someone else’s cats on it. It’s not like he’s claiming that his car or his gun went missing and he never reported it. Haven’t you ever lost a flash drive? They mostly exist so that you can hand them over to other people.
  - Boundegar
    
    “The Secret Service raided his house in 2009 after someone stole encrypted customer information from a Farm Bureau website, according to WSMV.”
    
    Maybe just coincidence. I mean, who hasn’t stolen encrypted data from secure file servers?
    - http://cobramcgiantballs.tumblr.com/ Xploder
      
      From the article, “Brown maintained his innocence and ultimately no charges were ever brought.”
      
      So he was accused of stealing encrypted customer information but no charges were ever brought? Sounds like innocence to me. At least in that case. This case however remains to be seem what will happen. That’s a rather large pile of hard drives, I have four internal and one external drive in my system. Seems to have been server drives. Also, I’ve never even heard of a “self-employed, wireless internet service provider.” What the hell?
    - Little Mouse
      
      It says they previously raided his house after allegations “someone” stole encrypted information and that no charges were brought against him. That’s not really evidence of involvement or relevant in this case.
      
      All three of those linked news blurbs are really saying a whole lot of nothing other than there’s a flash drive with one or more pictures of a cat on it and that this man and his wife were questioned and apparently released by the feds. That’s pretty much it. A whole lot of people are questioned and released about similar crimes all the time, but that doesn’t mean they turn out to be involved.
Rory Barr

Sir, are you guilty? What about meow?
$19428857

Should have just sold them to Larry Flynt. I’m sure he wouldn’t have called the Feebs. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/08/larry-flynt-mitt-romney-tax-returns_n_1867477.html
grimc

Cats will sell you out in a heartbeat. When will people ever learn?
Eark_the_Bunny

I just like the part of article that states, “former presidential candidate Mitt Romney”.
- EH
  
  Anything to stop hearing people say “Governor Romney,” like it’s a lifetime appointment.
  - http://twitter.com/AwesomeRobot AwesomeRobot
    
    You and 61% of the residents of the state he formerly governed.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    At least he served a full term.
lasermike026

The feds are filled with the most stupid and regrettable people in the world. They are the dumbest Americans and any legitimacy these agencies had have been swept away by nonsense like this. These people are a direct threat the common decency not to mention the principles law, justice, and the rights of people. I regret my statements are not an exaggeration.
nosehat

That grainy photo led them to their suspect. So wait, does this mean the feds have . . . a catabase?
Ping Kee

Best headline of the week!
wrecksdart

If you’re going to compose a (thankfully brief) screed railing against federal incompetency…well, put a little more work into it. Consider some noun-verb agreement, and then move on to the heavier stuff, like making sense. Do you mean the whole federal government, or just the Secret Service? Regrettable? Legitimacy? A direct threat to common decency? Did the Secret Service stop using the words “please” and “thank you”? I regret your statement, too, because it doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
And another thing! Why the hell are “the feds” regrettable? We’re moving, swiftly, from dull normal, to moronic, to imbecilic at a swift clip. What the deuce is wrong with yo…oh, wait.

Coffee. Haven’t had my coffee yet. Please disregard.