Weiner Story Another Breitbart Scam
Correction: Weiner story not another Breitbart scam.
On Saturday evening, conservative activist Andrew Breitbart published a story suggesting that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) sent a photo on Twitter of his underwear-clad penis to a female college student in Seattle.
This story, like others pushed by Breitbart in service of his right-wing agenda, appears to be factually questionable.
Weiner had more than 40,000 Twitter followers at the time the alleged tweet was sent, but only one of those users either responded to it or shared it: Patriotusa76. That account belongs to Dan Wolfe, a self-described "conservative Reagan Republican" whose Twitter history reveals that he's obsessed with Weiner. Wolfe created the account Jan. 6 and has posted hundreds of messages about the congressman and his wife Huma Abedin. His first 19 messages were all about the Weiners, as were around 175 of his first 400 Twitter messages.
Wolfe's primary use of Twitter has been to post extremely crude criticism of the Weiners and correspond with a small group of other right-wing users who share his sentiments. Among his messages, more than 200 of which were addressed to Weiner at his @RepWeiner account so he'd see them, were claims that Weiner is gay, that his wife is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's lesbian lover, that she's a Muslim who sympathizes with Al Qaeda terrorists and that she's so ugly she should wear a burqa. Here's a typical message he posted about them:
@goatsred LOL! Now there's an image not far from the reality! He's out looking for wiener while his "wife" is with her husband, Hildabeast
One of the technical aspects of how Twitter works is that you can't make a message disappear simply by deleting it quickly after you send it. Twitter messages are received and stored instantaneously by numerous Twitter clients and websites around the Internet. A user such as Weiner, even if he had deleted a message sent accidentally only seconds after it was transmitted, would not be able to stop copies of it from being saved. Tens of thousands of users receive his Twitter messages.
Yet in this situation, no one other than Wolfe responded on Twitter to the supposed crotch tweet. It was not present on Weiner's Twitter account when Breitbart's story was published. The only person who can vouch for it ever being posted at all is the rabid antagonist of the congressman.
The photo referenced in the alleged tweet was hosted on YFrog, an image-hosting service where people can post photos to be shared on Twitter. The photo did exist on Weiner's account for a brief time until it was deleted, presumably by him or someone on his staff.
YFrog has a huge security vulnerability that makes it possible to post photos to someone else's account without their password. If you know the person's email address on YFrog, you can send a photo to that email address and it will show up on that site under their account. Godfrey Dowson of the Cannonfire blog tried this out, sharing his YFrog email address gdowson153.gudom@yfrog.com and encouraging readers to send a photo to it. One of them did, and it appeared on Dowson's account.
Considering this vulnerability, I think the most likely scenario for what took place is that someone posted the crotch photo on the congressman's YFrog account without his permission using the security vulnerability and it never appeared on Twitter. Wolfe shared this link as if it had been posted on Twitter, either because he was involved or because he monitors Weiner's YFrog page closely.
To believe Andrew Breitbart, Weiner sent a picture of his crotch over Twitter to thousands of people, but only one responded to it -- a person who has devoted his entire online life to hating that congressman and his wife. The media has once again fallen for a bogus story being pimped by the biggest charlatan on the right.
Related:
- Yet Another Andrew Breitbart Smear Falls Apart, Charles Johnson
Comments
Antisemitism is the greatest threat in America today. Go Anthony Weiner! Go Israel!
See how easy it is to hack a photo onto someone's yFrog account! Read for step-by-step. tinyurl.com Given it is THAT EASY, doesn't it make more sense that a political enemy did this than that Weiner did it to himself?
This Liberal bastard just got caught! Another fruit cake from the left.
Here is a stange thought Rogers, maybe Wiener is a liar. I know that doesn't fit what Rachel Maddow told you to think, but just stretch your imagination for a second and consider that Wiener is actually responsible for his own actions.
Wiener is a punk, he is busted and there is now way out of what he did. You can try and deflect onto Breitbart or any other boogie man on the right, but Wiener twittered his future away.
He and he alone is responsible for this, now matter how much you and MSNBC wish it wasn't so.
The problem with that theory is that the only way to know what the e-mail address is to log into yFrog. The yFrog e-mail is [username].[random set of 5ish-to-10ish letters]@yfrog.com. There is no way to know what those letters are unless you were already logged into the account (or if you wrote a script to try a set of letter variations).
The proper analogy is that Godfrey Dowson published his yfrog account name and password to see if people could post a photo from his yFrog account. When they could, he would then call it a "security hole". It's not. It's just semi-secure way to use yFrog.
It's not semi-secure at all. Anyone who got access to that email address somehow could send a photo as Weiner. It could be in the outbox of any email client or mobile phone he used to post photos. It also might have been revealed to others inadvertently. An email address is not treated like secure information by any software that transmits email.
I am watching Wiener on Maddow right now, and even with her licking his boots, he looks like a laughable doltish liar.
Unreal, what a piker, what a pathetic loser this clown is...
How sad for the people who supported this scumbag, the same people who are twisting themselves into knots trying to believe his lies and cover them with other lies..
CNN needs to be the first to appologize for their reckless reporting on this bullshit story.
Helping to repeat accusations over and over when there's no actual evidence is a new low for CNN.
I'm sure today has been great for ratings, though.
Wolf Blitzer... smear merchant.
(Of course, just jumping on the smears wagon instead of doing some research saves them from having to spend money on those pesky and expensive journalist thingies... plus the people they DO have don't have to get up from their desks.)
Yeah, whoever it is is fucking with the wrong guy. You can bet Weiner's getting his shit together in private for a tight one-two knockout punch on this one, and the guilty party will be going down in spades, in real-time, in a very public way.
Mr. Cadenhead,
Is it safe to assume then that you will be supporting an FBI investigation into the actions that led up to this event. I mean don't you want to see Brightbart publicly and legally exposed for this scam?
If Wiener's new bride recognizes his underwear, he's doomed!!!
What's the bigs? I'd like to see MORE Congressmen Tweet pics of their underpants. Ooh la la!
Check out my feed (at my name's link) for how I've been treating (and using) this story. Consider doing the same.
The problem with this theory is that your hoaxers are the ones calling for a police investigation while your innocent victim isnt.
'Inside the squirming mind of a liberal apologist'
1. Weiner tweets the time frame in Seattle for a news interview.
2. A Seattle college student tweets that Weiner is her boyfriend.
3. A tweet of Weiners package is sent out as a mass mailer from Weiner's twitter account, one intended for only the college girl in Seattle, then immediately deleted by Weiner.
4. Weiner refuses to say it's not a photo of him.
Obviously it Breitbart's fault, nothing else makes sense.
It's kinda amazing how so many right-wing deniers are ignoring the obvious facts brought up by this and several other articles to gleefully point out a liberal scandal while trying to cover up conservative scandals or just flat-out deny that they exist.
Breitbart has a history of seedy deceit. Such as dubbing over videos (which the police have proven in court regarding ACORN and Planned Parenthood)
But they'll ignore this because it doesn't support their agenda 9_9
And for the record, the people calling Bush "Hitler" are just as bad, so we left-wingers have our crazy share, too. Unlike the right-wingers, though, we don't let them run the party :-)
To the article writer: Kudos on bringing good logic to a crazy situation.
The problem with this theory is that your hoaxers are the ones calling for a police investigation while your innocent victim isnt.
Dan Wolfe (PatriotUSA76) isn't calling for a police investigation. He's hiding from everybody after sending emails that cast further doubt on his behavior.
Sorry, actually the only issue is 'Did Anthony Weiner' send the message. If he didn't, he could make this issue an easy one for him - just have the police investigate.
But we all know that Weiner doesn't want to do this - as it will cause additional problems for him.
Just fess up Weiner & resign!
Weiner should resign when David Vitter resigns, and Newt stops pretending to run for President.
Breitbart is a known liar, and worse, manipulator of the "facts"; I take what he says with a pillar of salt.
Anthony Weiner is too smart for the news media. He studied Barrack Obama and how he made the right wingers look foolish with the birther claims. Mr. Weiner is from New York and he knows the right is gunning for him because he is an outspoken liberal. However, like the police conducting an investigation you never give the public too much information and you let the person who committed the crime say something or do something publicly that only the criminal knows. Mr. Weiner is waiting for Andrew Brietbart to say something publicly that only he knows and he will file a criminal complaint and lawsuit against him that will shut him down once and for all. Brietbart and maybe someone from Fox News hacked his twitter account and photo shopped or cropped the picture into a phony tweet. Mr. Weiner is too calm to be guilty of the alleged. He also enjoys the attention to help him become a more vocal political figure in the National dialogue so he is prolonging the story to gain more political clout.
Anyone who counts Anthony Weiner out at this point doesn't really know Anthony Weiner.
This will backfire on (not-so) Brightbart.
Wait. Watch. See.
Be Well.
Why do conservatives continue to support the nonstop lying and manipulation of Breitbart? If you're going to get your panties in a twist over every non-scandal, at least make sure said scandal actually happened! What a bunch of gullible idiots.
LOL at you brainless moronic koolaid drinking libtards claiming Breitbart Pulled the Weenie hack and defending this scuzzy freak weiner weasel. No wonder the Democrats keep being able to shit on you and lie to you but still get your votes. You dipshits can't even think clearly for yourselves. Occam's Razor - go google it you bunch of dumb fucks.
I like the cut of Lol's jib.
Well, here they come, more porn pics from wiener.....
If it wasn't so pathetic it would be sad....
Rogers, any revision of your earlier remarks based on this new information?
Yfrog confirms that e-mail upload feature “has not been compromised in any wayâ€
WEINER'S TALE UNRAVELING
The Daily learns tweet originated from app that pol used the night pic was posted
There is new evidence that Congressman Anthony Weiner may have sent the now-infamous 'crotch' photograph to a young coed via his Twitter account.The New York Democrat says his account was hacked, but The Daily has discovered that the crude post appears to have been made with the same software program as other messages Mr Weiner made the night of May 27.
Hey Rodgers, Looks like you owe Breitbart an UNQUALIFIED apology.
And not just in a one line comment here.
You got it wrong. Breibart got it right. AGAIN!
Waiting for a correction to this post.
Oops.
Uh oh, damn now someone needs to go back and apologize.
OMG, do you feel stupid??? Because you lefty Weiner apologists need to "do" some apologizing.
Do I feel stupid? Not as stupid as a married congressman who got caught with his pants down, but yes. I've updated this post with a correction.
Thank you for exposing how Breitbart set up Weiner. You need to keep going after Breitbart on this hoax that he is perpetrating. Weiner is an innocnet victim of the right-wing smear machine.
Hannity tonight said "Why does this keep happening in politics"? Power was tossed out as a possible contributor to the unfortunate problem; however, even though power often corrupts in one way or another I believe the issue is more about the epidemic of sexual addiction in our country.
Let's face it, many men have lost their job because the internet screening systems in place in the workplace have caught them surfing porn on company time. Politicians may not have fallen prey to sexual addiction anymore than the average laborer or professional man.
Millions of men have finally admitted, after months or years of denial, that they have a sexual addiction. In perhaps over 90% of the cases, online porn viewing is a significant if not the major acting out behavior for these men. Often men come for help because their marriage has been stressed over this issue, sometimes the wife has already given them the ultimatum that she will seek a divorce if he does not seek help. Anthony Wiener, though a politician, is still a man and men have not handled our over-sexualized culture very well---any counselor who deals with sexual addiction will tell you that men are visual---it is not hard to imagine how they so easily get hooked on porn---one thing sometimes leads to another--they may later get hooked on gentlemen's clubs, massage parlors, and sometimes even escort services.
It is sad what has happened to Congressman Weiner; however, my belief is that if he were a CPA, a lawyer, or in some other line of work, this or something similar to it would still have happened, perhaps causing him to lose his job and perhaps it would have jeopardized his marriage.
There are certainly a whole lot of details like that to take into consideration. That may be a great point to bring up. I offer the ideas above as common inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you convey up where crucial thing might be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged round things like that, however I am sure that your job is clearly identified as a fair game.
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