The Dennis Kucinich CBS News Hack
Hacking, in most cases, is a very selfish act. Most hackers are in it for the money or the information they can turn into money. But in some cases, hackers commit cybercrime because they believe it is for the ‘greater good’. However, even these hacks boil down to the desire to spread a personal agenda. One example of such a hack is the CBS News hijack involving the promotion of Dennis Kucinich’s campaign for president. You might be wondering why a politician would even want to hijack one of the biggest news platforms in the world. Well, he didn’t, in fact he claims he wasn’t involved at all. To this day we still don’t know who hijacked CBS’s site to promote Kucinich.
Dennis Kucinich has had a lengthy political career starting as far back as 1970 when he became a member of the Cleveland City Council. He served on this council until 1973 and again from 1983 to 1985. He also served as mayor of Cleveland and as a member of the Ohio Senate. Kucinich was also a member of the U.S House of Representatives from 1997 to 2013. He unsuccessfully ran for President in 2004 and 2008 as a Democratic nominee.
During his first presidential campaign in 2003, it was safe to say that Kucinich was struggling. One morning in October Kucinich got a bit of a boost from a hacker who hijacked CBS News’ website. Instead of the regular homepage, visitors were greeted with a blue screen brandishing Kucinich's campaign logo and information on the outcome of a recent CBS News poll. The poll showed that 77% of Democrats were unfamiliar with Kucinich. It also displayed a 30-minute video of Kucinich discussing his policies and a message reading "Since we cannot expect the media to provide this information, I decided to help them out." The hacker also provided links for donating and volunteering for the campaign. Representatives of the campaign denied any involvement, going as far as to say "Our campaign would never do such a thing or condone such a thing. We are not interested in taking over someone else's Web site, I can assure you."
The hijack didn’t do much for Kucinich in the long run. He was generally unsuccessful in most national polls. Still, he was the last candidate to drop out and throw his support to Kerry just before the Democratic National Convention. While the hacker’s actions may not have led to the intended result, they were still able to get away with, having never been caught.
