Greetings, and apologies for being a stranger.

I happened on the most hilarious story today. Missouri Governor Mike Parson has repeatedly vowed to prosecute a journalist for "hacking" the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) web site.

Here's the poop.

A reporter for the St. Louis Dispatch looked at the source for a public access web site at the DESE. If you've never done such a thing, all web browsers have a "view source" function. That shows the raw feed from the web site to your computer. The "source" is what the web server sends to you so you can use software, such as a web browser, to see the site. Without getting the source, you can't view a site.

The reporter saw, probably with some horror, that teacher Social Security Numbers were included in the site's source text.

The newspaper delayed publication of the story, informed the State they were bleeding SSN's, and published only after the offending pages were removed.

Instead of thanking the newspaper for finding the State's improper data leakage, the Governor wants the journalist prosecuted.

I'm not one to question authority, of course, but I was curious. I went to the Governor's main page, looked at the source, and discovered the Governor's office uses software from an outfit called New Relic to monitor visitor activity. Interesting. The Governor is collecting information about my visit.

Is he a hacker?

I used the Governor's site to ask about the data. Here's my comment:

I see from looking at the source for the Governor's main web page you use New Relic monitoring of people visiting your site.

What information do you retain?

Have a great day,

Carl

PS - Do you by any chance know how I could contact the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper? I'm considering a subscription.

I'm very eager to hear the Governor's response.