S.C. Candidate’s Site Hacked By Jihadists
The website of S.C. lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Bill Connor was hacked Tuesday morning – ostensibly by Islamic extremists who oppose his military service and views on the current conflict in Afghanistan.
“This site is hacked and owned,” reads a message from an anonymous individual, called “Dr. Hiad,” who claims responsibility for hacking the site.
Connor, a military officer who led the U.S. police advisory mission for the particularly violent Helmand Province (in the Southern region of Afghanistan) last year, wrote an exclusive column back in May for FITS outlining his views on the “way forward” in the troubled nation.
At the time, Connor called on the administration of President Barack Obama to “develop a solid and realistic vision of success and give our military the proper guidance and tools.”
Obama will announce that he is sending 30,000 additional U.S. troops to the war-torn, scandal-ravaged nation over the next six months in a nationally-televised address Tuesday night. There are currently around 70,000 U.S. troops currently serving in Afghanistan.
Here is a screen shot of the Connor website taken shortly before 11:00 a.m. Tuesday …
“We are investigating the breach,” Connor campaign spokesman Joshua Gross told FITS. “Obviously it’s Islamic in nature so we’re assuming it’s related to his service in Afghanistan.”
Gross declined to speculate as to who may have launched the attack.
“Our focus is getting the site back up,” Gross said.
While in Afghanistan, Taliban leaders put a price on Connor’s head – a strategy often employed against top U.S. military officers.
UPDATE: An early version of Connor’s site is back up.
UPDATE II: Wowzas! A hack attempt similar to the one that brought Connor’s site attacked FITS this afternoon as well. Crazy stuff, indeed.
Comments
By Katherine Jenerette on December 1st, 2009 at 11:21 am
If this is the work of Islamic extremists it seems that they are learning to play according to the rules of Good Old South Carolina hardball politics. Kindred spirits in training?
that’s all for now – Katherine
By Todd on December 1st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Actually, this makes his stock go up with me. If “they” hate him so much, he must be doing a pretty good job.
By dirtbogger on December 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
(Fucked server) really sounds like something that a religious nut would write, I dout it was Islamic in nature and the word owned appears mostly in places like break.com along with college drunk pranks. The war on terror is a fraud!
By Liberty For Me on December 1st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
This is exactly what real terrorists do.The other day they short-sheeted my bed.AWWWWW you bad terrorists.Are you people really this dumb??
By Billy on December 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Actually dirt, it has been determined the perpetrator is a rather well known Islamic hacker. What you said is not surprising judging by your final comment.
By Stupid Stupid Stupid on December 1st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
blah blah blah. Does this mean that electing Connor will inspire more terrorist attacks on the people of SC?
By skeptic on December 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
If this was for realz they’d be calling in teh FBI. Sounds fishy to me.
By Nathan Earle on December 1st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
What does the Arabic(?) at the bottom mean?
By Knocktwice on December 1st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I like Bill. I knew him in school. Nice guy. Had some problems with keeping his gun in his holster, but other than that, a stand up fellow. I am glad to see he and his wife keep it together. It would be a shame for someone who holds family values so dear to divorce due to infidelity. I hope something like that doesn’t hurt his chances in the campaign for Lt. Gov. People might be a little sick of having public officials with issues of staying faithful to the covenant of marriage.
By K Trane on December 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I seriously doubt that Islamic jihadists hacked his site…
By NotRacistInSC on December 1st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Oh yeah. Looks like radical Islam. Racist. My God I hate this state sometimes.
By ohara on December 1st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
This appears to be the work of a tribe of South Carolinian GOP jihadists. Start with the young Republicans & see which one of them manipulated the prank. They probably went to BabelFish for the Arabic. Not discounting the threat, but to me looks like he’s been pwned.
By NotRacistInSC on December 1st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Oh, and nice use of an image not related to the story at all fitnews. Racists.
By Dr. Google Search on December 1st, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I am sorry to ruin everyone’s fantasy but I do not think this is the work of Islamic extremists. A simple google search shows babynecessaries.com, sp-homelighting.com and jdyfurniture.com were also recently hacked. My guess is that they have better things to do than try to interject themselves in SC politics, especially in the GOP primary for the all so powerful part-time position of Lt. Governor.
Will, you should know better than to listen to Joshua Gross; but if you are going to listen to him at least tell him that a war hero like Conner can take care of himself, Josh needs to be warning jdyfurniture.com of the Islamic plot to disrupt the vital barcalounger supply line to our troops.
By ohara on December 1st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
PS-Jihadists in Helmand Province usually don’t walk around with rocket launchers & laptops.
By Minto W. McGill on December 1st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I’d love to see Bull Connor and Joshua Gross give a sworn statement to law enforcement stating that they have no direct or indirect knowledge of what actually happened to the website. Otherwise, this appears to be a cheap publicity stunt by Gross. Surprised to see Folks aid and abet such rank amateurism.
By Jeff on December 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
wow, just wow. A candidate’s site hacked by someone assumed to be radical islamist and ken ard’s goons jump all over Connor.
How friggin ignorant are you idiots?
Do a little more searching on this character and you will indeed see he is actually islamic.
I absolutely HATE political hacks like ard and his goons
Can’t wait to see Connor thrash this clown in June
By Billy on December 1st, 2009 at 3:03 pm
My apologies.
The question marks are arabic symbols that obviously won’t show in the comments here. You can go to the link to see what I attempted to post.
By John on December 1st, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“Obviously it’s Islamic in nature so we’re assuming it’s related to his service in Afghanistan.”
LOL. That was obviously done by some script kiddie teenager. Probably by a kid whose not even Islamic. God people are dumb.
By Bill Who? on December 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Now you wasted 30 minutes of my time explaining the name of the whoever that is running for first loser. Stop it. Dude did this hisself in order to get his name out there. Fits you bit on it and perpetuated this elementary school prank. Geez. I guess if I was running and getting no traction I’d be willing to claim just about anything. But claiming jihadists and mercenaries is tantamount to Chicken Little.
By Stupid Stupid Stupid on December 1st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Jeff,
I’m not a “ken ard goon.” I am posing a serious question. I really don’t care who wins the Lite Guv race. I am worried about future attacks on South Carolina- on our soil and in cyberspace.
By Toyota Kawaski on December 1st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Check the local 7-11 for suspects
By BIN News Editorial Staff on December 1st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
This was probably orchestrated by Bin Laden himself. Yawn. Everyone knows that Wild Bill Hicup’Conner was a combat terror over there. :-)
Not many soldiers can go to combat, stage cute photo ops with princes and dodge bullets, write a book to further their political ambitions all while engaging in “combat operations.” What a political pimp! What a Fobbit.
Our friends tell us Wild Bill was just a cute little Fobbit.
We had to Google it, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobbit
Our Funding Editor flew into an outrage when she heard about this.
Why, who would think a stand up soldier (Fobbit) who spent all his time in combat writing his (Fobbit) book to further his (Fobbit) political ambitions would ever be subjected to such a terribly offensive trick.
Sounds like a “black op” from osama’bin’sic’willie.
By Mike Reino on December 1st, 2009 at 8:17 pm
This confirms what we knew all along…. Osama bin Laden is Ken Ard’s Bitch.
By WorkingTommyC on December 1st, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I know nothing of Ken Ard as of now. However, if the attacks above are typical of his kind of politics, it looks like the same good ol’ boy corruption at it again.
But, y’all go ahead. I’ve seen crap like this blow up in politicians’ faces before and Ard wouldn’t be the first if he is indeed behind it.
From what I know of Bill Connor, he’s a stand up fellow who is working hard to do the right things in his life. He has actually fought the system and the proceeds from his book go to support a private Christian school. He’s making things actually happen in that regard.
He seems like a real man of action and I’m ready to vote for him.
By Stupid Stupid Stupid on December 1st, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Mike,
Don’t you have a fourth rate blog to run over there in the Pee Dee. Get back to for the love of Pete.
By King Cotton on December 1st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
http://southcarolina1670.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/just-whos-trying-to-hack-own-whom/
By Martha Washington on December 1st, 2009 at 10:21 pm
How do so many idiots have so many hateful opinions which have no legitimacy. Perhaps it want hacked by crazy Moslems but it is as possible as many other scenarios. I read many of the comments on articles here at FITSNEWS and am shocked by the level of cynicism, hate and jealousy. What is wrong with you people. Why dont you spend your time on Bubble-Shooter or something more suited to your intellect.
By Earl Capps on December 1st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Geez, talk about campaign spin.
Groups with loose political agendas or ethic group pride carry out mass website defacements all the time. They hack and trash dozens, many of which are ordinary websites. A few months ago, they trashed my company’s corporate website – http://www.USGroupInc.com. A few days later, it was back online and our host ended up moving to a more secure server.
Odds are the defacement of Connor’s website was purely at random. Nothing heroic or noble about it. No pranks by opponents, no publicity stunts by a campaign. Just piss poor web server security. Connor should change his website hosting service and stop trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
(Can’t wait to see the shots they throw at me over this)
By GreenWeb on December 2nd, 2009 at 8:45 am
Todd, this is not the work of an Islamic extremist – not threats where made no statements regarding policy or nationality was made. It was just a hacker letting the site owner know he got owned, and that he should get a better hosting company/webmaster.
Connor is just playing polictis with it to get more attention to his campaign and military service.
By Terry R McDonald on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
It is just hard to believe that so many of y’all who must follow this, at least, enough to be able to use your rear ends as mouthpieces have no real clue. Bil does and I don’t know him very well and I am not a campaign volunteer, just a survivor in this war on stupidity. If you are foolish enough to think these jihadists aren’t near, check out their training camp near Rock Hill. Yes that’s right a radical Islam training facility, training maniacs for jihad right in our state. I truly hope you don’t actually believe that they aren’t watching everyone they consider their enemies that’s in any way involved in politics, from trash collector to president, then all you have to do is to look in the mirror to see one complete ignoramus.
For God and Country, Terry R McDonald
By dirtbogger on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Terry, think about it for a second a terrorist camp that you personally know about that the FBI has not shut down. Did you eat paint chips or something?
By weighing in on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:59 pm
man this guy is a desperate as his campaign manager….really, Jihadists care about the Lt. Gov of SC…really?
By Calling BS on December 2nd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Check out this article.
http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=delawareonline&sParam=32190233.story
This has been used on 4,500 other websites. It has nothing to do with Connor’s military service, it has more to do with his low-tech website.
His campaign manager is acting like they are “closing in” on the hacker, although it is a technical impossibility, demonstrating that he is full of it.
His campaign manager thinks someone from Morocco is “Middle Eastern” because Morocco is in the “same neighborhood” (over 2,000 miles apart and on different continents). I would not let someone that misinformed manage my kid’s lego collection, much less my campaign – but hey, I’m no Bill Connor.
By Mike Reino on December 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Stupid XXX,
I was going to jokingly agree with you, but click on here. Go to Conservative Influence Ranking. Read it, and then you can officially kiss my ass!! ;) Time to go back to my mud hut in Florence.. http://www.blognetnews.com/influence/
By Brian Frank on December 9th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
He sounds like McSame!
Obama’s PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TASK FORCE http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/policy/HSPIPTTFProceedingsReport.pdf page 32
Nidal Hasan
Uniformed Services University School of
Medicine
Trackbacks