A diarist at ColoradoPols called "databoypols", who had his diary promptly promoted to the front page of the left-leaning blog, is claiming that he has pulled Marilyn Musgrave's campaign website offline:

Musgrave's site had a security hole the size of the gap between her record and her campaign. I thought I could create an account like at Barack Obama's site, and I did. I didn't think I should be able to re-configure the whole site! So I did -- sorta. I turned off the site, like unloading a gun that you find but you really, really wish you hadn't found it because now you're all responsible in case any one gets hurt and why can't this ever happen to someone else...

The diarist is pleading ignorance in this matter and seems to be trying to pretend to be some sort of computer novice who simply stumbled into this. Here's my take on this:

The person in question is claiming to have disabled Musgrave's site with good intentions to prevent anyone from vandalizing it. Hacking to expose security holes is known as "white-hat hacking." White-hat hackers are people with a great deal of computer expertise who probe computer systems as a hobby or profession and alert the administrators to any problems they find. Here's the problem with our ColoradoPols fan: he disabled the site! A white-hat hacker would never disable the site in this manner, their creedo is "do no harm" and taking a system offline counts as harm. Here's the next problem for our ColoradoPols fan: white-hat hackers, no matter how pure their intentions or how little damage they cause, often end up facing federal charges anyway when they play around with systems without permission.

The next glaring problem I see with this is the fact that Musgrave's website is running a Drupal installation. This is the same platform that powers Rocky Mountain Right as well as several commercial projects I have set up. The manner in which the ColoradoPols diarist claims to have disabled the site is curious in that, while possible, it would mean that Musgrave's webmasters actually changed the default settings to make the site less secure. The next big problem I see is that "databoypols" is feigning ignorance and claiming to have stumbled onto the account registration area and attempted to create an account "like at Barack Obama's site." This claim makes no sense since Google caches of the Musgrave site show that the user account section was not linked off of the front page. It would seem that "databoypols" had a little bit more knowledge of the Drupal platform than he let on if he just happened to know the default URL in the Drupal system for the user account registration section.

The bottom line: Musgrave's site is either undergoing maintenance and this is a hoax or "databoypols" is looking at some serious prison time no matter how pure he claims his intentions were.

Marilyn Musgrave's campaign is going after ex-Salazar aide Betsey Markey for her conduct while working for Ken Salazar:

Last week, a prominent New Jersey party boss who may be tied to Salazar was indicted on eight counts of criminal corruption and questions were raised about Salazar's relationship to a prominent New Jersey democratic law firm. All these problems coming out seem to be getting under Ken Salazar's skin as The Coloradoan reports:

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's first attack ad of the campaign implies that challenger Betsy Markey used her position as a Senate aide to enrich her family business, an allegation presented with no evidence that drew unusually harsh responses from Markey and her former boss.

"Marilyn Musgrave's ad is absolutely false in every way," Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., for whom Markey worked from 2005-07, said in a statement. "In Colorado, knowingly making false statements against your political opponent is a violation of the law. Marilyn Musgrave's false accusations should be thoroughly and fully investigated by the authorities, and Marilyn Musgrave and her campaign should comply with that investigation."

Musgrave's ad said federal contracts for Markey's family company, Syscom Systems, "more than doubled after she took a key congressional job" and said "she actually got rich on noncompetitive Halliburton-style contracts." The latter comment referenced the controversial post-Iraq war contracts that went to a company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently hosted a fundraiser for Musgrave.

Markey and Salazar both denied that Markey used her Senate aide position in Fort Collins to influence contract awards by Bush administration agencies in Washington, D.C.

Is this the last of the problems stemming from Ken Salazar's Senate office and his questionable sources of fundraising? Or will even more come out on Salazar over the next few weeks causing him to become a liability to every Democratic campaign in the state? We'll soon find out...