No, it wasn't. "popcorn" is the password after the reset that was posted on /b/. If you look at the screenshots, you'll see that her password was reset using the "Forgot Your ID or Password?" feature.

To reset a Yahoo! Mail password, you need the person's birthdate, zip code, and answer to their "secret question". That information is easily accessible for public figures like Palin. Try it sometime with your friend's email/screenname and Facebook; it's quite easy.

If that's true, I think it's very interesting. I wonder if the security community will step up and take advantage of this opportunity to discuss the inherent security issues with the "secret question" method of account recovery.

Bruce Schneier's one of the more prominent security writers around, and he covered that one over three years ago: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/the_curse_of_t...

Where I work, all webmail is blocked, so the IA department is grateful to Palin for the object lesson supporting the policy.