Rep. Weiner (D-NY) is one of my favorite politicians, but he's been acting rather odd as of late. He said someone hacked into his twitter account to send a weiner shot to a college student in Seattle. But he refuses to answer why he hasn't called the police about the hacking. And now he's hinting that the photo, although not sent by him, may nonetheless be of his actual weiner. Say what?

I just watched his interview tonight on Maddow. He's lying his ass off. He flat out refuses to say that the photo could not have been of him. He mumbled some crap about how he shouldn't rule himself out because photos can be doctored yada yada. Translation: it was him.

Yeah. The situation is just weird. Amusing, but weird. And not knowing if it is him? Does he have a flickr account somewhere with pics in his undies?

Yeah, I like him too and just assumed he was innocent, but I really don't like the statements I was hearing yesterday.

Somewhat offtopic. The day after this story broke, a candidate in my provincial riding (equivalent to state district) also tweeted his, um, junk. He as well claimed that his blackberry was stolen.

This is a very strange world we live in.

It's all Brett Farve's fault. He started it.

At least Weiner wasnt wearing orange crocs.

Once again, a grump defies Pappy.

I saw the photo and it's basically lame. It's an underwear shot featuring a bulge.

It sounds to me like he had this photo in his yfrog account, at a minimum. Maybe someone hacked into his twitter account and sent it to the girl? Or maybe he accidentally tweeted it to her when he was trying to DM it?

You know part of me thinks this is a childish prank. Come on Congressman Weiner releases his Weiner? It just seems like something juvenile. His statements do seem to be avoiding the issue a bit. From what we do know the exif data doesn't match the camera normally used on his account and the photo was discovered by someone who had been harrassing the woman in question.

I've been trying to follow this story. The GOS has tons of diaries up about it, which seem to have screen shots of tweets made by some RWNJ over two weeks ago, long before the tweet in question went out. The problem is, this twitter and yfrog stuff is really a language unto itself, and the diaries don't explain in clear and concise English what they think went down.

I think the story is that Weiner had these pictures, but that someone hacked into not only his Twitter account but wherever he stored the pictures. But yeah, Weiner's actions and words subsequent to this sure are strange. I did read that one of the persons who is suspected to be behind this is none other than Roger Stone. Doesn't that name ring a bell?

If anyone who speaks Twitter and yfrog can explain this to me in English, it would be much appreciated.

When they have pictures of Weiner with a whore and wearing a diaper get back to me. Until then

I am not a techie. (IANAT)

The folks that have explained the twitter/yfrog stuff seem to be saying that it's pretty clear that Weiner did not send that pic. Since that is also what he is saying, I feel pretty safe in concluding this. Add Breitbart to the mix, and I'm just thinking it's a nothing. (One exploit mentioned was that you can email pics to yfrog and the email address to do so is visible/public in yfrog pics. And that that would trigger the tweet. Or something. Tech stuff is all flamingos and sweet potatoes to me.)

What was bugging me yesterday was that every time I turned on CNN or MSNBC, there was the story. Chris Mathews was being all disapproving and moronic while attempting to say he didn't know if there was something to be disapproving of. Cover the tornadoes, Chrissy. You can disapprove of tornadoes.

Where's Polarik when you need him

Well yeah that is possible. I know I have my website automatically grabs RSS feeds from top gaming sites to post a topic which then gets pulled by my twitter account and reposted and then my facebook grabs the topic from my twitter account. So if everything is pulled from yfrog onto the twitter account it is more than possible to trick the system.

Weiner sounds to me like a guy with lawyers. I wonder, for our FB lawyers, how would you advise a client in his situation to proceed?

I should say, I haven't paid a lot of attention to this story about a photo that looks like an ad on the side of a bus, except for the size of the member, which looks more like a giant dildo growing out of a person's right hip.

Last night I did see the photo and I watched Weiner on Blitzer and on Maddow. I had seen the press conference where he called a news producer who was being an asshole an asshole. That's about it.

Since I was fooled by Eric Massa, I try not to judge these things too quickly, but since I'm posting in the thread, I should also say I actually believe Weiner. I may be the only one, but I think he is correct to have an investigation taken to get to the roots of the matter before deciding about law enforcement without even knowing how it happened.

I guess I'm not going to get an explanation in English. WTH is mimi? Maybe GG can explain this.

I just hope he doesn't get shafted by all this.

I know how Twitter works but not yfrog, so I don't think I can really help you. Yfrog seems very intertwined with the whole technical aspect of this situation, since that's where the photo was apparently stored. I think Twitter allows you to send tweets out with photos attached to them by yfrog, which is the purpose of the yfrog service. He's claiming that he didn't "send" the photo, but so far he's avoided saying that the photo was not of him in the first place. According to him, then, someone hacked into his twitter account, accessed his yfrog photos since the two services are linked together, and publicly/openly tweeted his weiner to the college student in Seattle.

There's no dispute that he did not intend to openly tweet the picture. I assume an elected, married Congressman would have no incentive to do that. What remains at issue is whether the picture is of him. Of less interest to me is whether someone hacked his account to send the tweet.




I could only give him legal advice. This is a political situation. As long as he doesn't make any false statements to law enforcement, there are no apparent legal dangers for him to worry about. Which is exactly why the press is hounding him for not talking to law enforcement: he's not talking to them because doing so would require him telling the truth.



As is often the case, the cover-up is worse than the "crime." I don't know what is actually going on here or how relevant it is, but I always hate it when I see someone in government get on television and lie to me. I really hate that.



I know he's lying when he claims he doesn't know if the photo is of him or not. He knows damn well that it's either him, or that it's not him.

I don't understand any of this stuff either, Tex, but this is a simple explanation from NY Mag:

I don't believe for a New York minute that that's Weiner's wiener. I think he's being coy - if you noticed, he has been slipping all kinds of puns into his interviews, like "They are taking a hard look at the photos ." - and trying, perhaps lamely, to make a point about how batshit this stuff is. I don't remember Vitter's story being this big a deal. Larry Craig, yes.

If Roger Stone was involved then they probably have a prior relationship, given NY politics. Stone's MO is all about sex, cuz that's where his sleaze shines best. It's what he knows.

Like Weiner said, he has been dealing with jokes and pranks about his name since he was five years old. The way he said it demonstrated that it was still a very sensitive issue for him. The photo is question is not nearly as 'lewd' as the press is making it out to be and it is strange to see some of them blurring it in ways that hide nothing. It is also not clear who was being pranked....Weiner, the young woman or both. What is maddening is the obsession of the media with this while Congress is debating whether or not to let the country go into free fall credit wise while the Republicans are holding Medicare hostage. Weiner is right about the distraction from serious matters.

Why would the hacking be of less interest to you? It seems to me, that is the essence of this story (admittedly clouded by Weiner's interviews). Personally, I don't care what kind of pictures he takes of himself. That's his business. When those pictures get published, by someone who allegedly hacked into his accounts, that's a public issue. As far as I've been able to discern, there is a Twitter person with the handle patriotusa76 or something like that. He tweeted this was coming (no pun) two weeks ago. Then the tweet went out, and patriotusa76 starts tweeting that out like crazy. That, coincidentally, gets published and trumpeted by Breitbart. As I understand it, patriotusa then deleted all of his Tweets, but the Kos kidz have screenshots. At least I think that's the story. So, this appears to be another James O'Keefe type situation. Of course, Weiner having that picture seemed to have facilitated this "prank".

Seriously.

I mean, the publishing of the pic (whoever's it is) IS the story.