Moveon.org subscribers exposed

Subscribers to MoveOn.org's mailing lists may have found their interest in the anti-Bush political site a matter of public record.

A Web page misconfiguration left dozens of the liberal political group's subscriber pages easily searchable through simple Google queries. Each page included a subscriber's name, e-mail address and the mailing lists to which he or she is subscribed. CNET News.com confirmed that several related searches turned up more than two dozen individual subscriber pages.

"This is extremely disturbing," said one subscriber, when contacted through e-mail. The subscriber asked that his or her name not be used. "I'm not sure if I should be worried or not, but I am," the person said.

The subscriber Web pages linked member's names with interests in various topics, "Distortion of evidence" for one, and, for another, Errol Morris, the director of the documentary "The Fog of War," which won the Oscar for its portrayal of the life of Vietnam era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

MoveOn.org fixed the problem on its site after being contacted by a member. The search results on Google now redirect people to MoveOn.org's front page. The organization is implementing further changes to protect the user information.

The information leak is the latest version of "Google hacking," using the search engine's advanced features to find data leaked by Web sites. Earlier this month, security researchers found a way to use the search engine to find lists of credit card numbers, along with card holder information, that had been posted online by traders of illicit financial information.

The incidents highlight increasing concern that knowledgeable Web surfers can turn up sensitive information by mining the world's best-known search engine. MoveOn.org stressed that no financial information was leaked in the most recent incident, and that the site does not retain credit card numbers.

The discoverer of the MoveOn.org problem, Web developer Shawn Smith, found the information accidentally, he said. Smith, a member of MoveOn.org, had searched Google for information on recent video clips sponsored by the political group. Along with a link to the clips, he found that several of the other search results pointed to Web pages with subscriber information.

"I just wanted to see the (video) spots," Smith said. "Instead, I found these other sites."

MoveOn.org is best known for its use of Internet video to distribute 30-second spots attacking President Bush's policies. The spots, called Bush in 30 seconds, gained widespread recognition for the site and for the Internet as a medium for grassroots political speech.

Other sites have also profited from the interest of Web surfers, including Senator John Kerry's and President Bush's campaign sites, and a political parody created by JibJab.

Shocking indeed and did you hear that some of the Swiftvet supporters are rich republicans from Texas?

What! Are those darn CEOnistas on the loose, again?!?

REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT

Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican Border

El Paso, Texas
Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000 remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense.

"They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my daughters."

Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against pension fund gains. By late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200 percent profit for the fiscal second quarter.

This morning, the outlaws bought the city of Waco, transferred its underperforming areas to a private partnership, and sent a bill to California for $4.5 billion. Law enforcement officials and disgruntled shareholders riding posse were noticeably frustrated.

"First of all, they're very hard to find because they always stand behind their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting," said posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every time we yell 'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they refer us to investor relations. I've been on the phone all damn morning."

"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"
The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by preying on a common executive weakness. "Last night we caught about 24 of them by disguising one of our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."

Also, teams of agents have been using high-powered listening devices to scan the plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most of the time we just hear leaves rustling or cattle flicking their tails," said Lewis,"but occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally out of the loop on that.'"

Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this method were Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas, Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal and Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the CEOnistas as they have already been indicted.

So far, about 50 chief executives have been captured, including Martha Stewart, who was detained south of El Paso where she had cut through a barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing off Highway 375. "She would have gotten away, but she was stopping motorists to ask for marzipan and food coloring so she could make edible snowman place settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the arms," said Border Patrol officer Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning sun really adds texture to the stucco walls."

While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves up at the Alamo.

"No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport," she said. "They're rotating all the tires on the minivans and accounting for each change as a sale."

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