More “Private E-mail Server” News
Remember the Clintoon “private” e-mail server brouhaha? You know, the one where the serving (at the time) SECSTATE refused to use government email, had her minions set up a “private” email server – which later was professionally wiped, but which has been confirmed to have contained over 2,000 classified items, including 22 items classified Top Secret as well as more than one SAP and/or TS/compartmented item?
Well, we have some recent news concerning that little “shortcut” taken by Clintoon. And from Clintoon’s perspective, the news isn’t that good.
First: the Romanian hacker “Guccifer” was extradited to the US a few weeks ago. That apparently was not coincidental. You see, it appears “Guccifer” – who is currently in Federal custody – may well now be cooperating with the FBI in their investigation of related to the Clintoon “private” e-mail server. (The administrator of that “private” e-mail server, Bryan Pagliano, is also believed to be cooperating with the FBI.)
It also appears that Guccifer penetrated the Clintoon “private e-mail server” – easily. He claims to have done exactly that. While the claim cannot be independently verified now (due largely to destruction of the original server), longtime cybersecurity experts who have knowledge of his claims say that the method Guccifer claims to have used to penetrate what little security did exist on Clintoon’s “private” e-mail server is eminently plausible.
The “so what”? Well, “Guccifer” may well be quite good at breaking computer security – and security on Clintoon’s “private e-mail server” was reportedly rudimentary at best. But I’m betting the foreign intelligence services of Russia, China, and maybe a few other adversaries are likely even better than Guccifer, and have access to even better methods and tools. And if Guccifer relatively easily penetrated that private server and thus obtained access to the classified information illegally stored there, well, . . . .
Second: it also appears that Clintoon may be forced to give a deposition regarding the case. So far, she’s been spared the “horror” of telling her story under conditions requiring a truthful answer – like a LE interview, or a deposition given under oath. Looks like the latter may be upcoming, presumably in the relatively near-term future.
Third: while Clintoon herself hasn’t yet been deposed, apparently the same is not true of her “close aide” Huma Abedin. Abedin was reportedly interviewed by the FBI recently. And while the FBI hasn’t commented on the interview, I’m guessing it wasn’t a social call to discus the weather, or to ask her opinion on the latest fashions. (smile)
And, finally: a curious expense on the part of the Clintoon campaign has been uncovered and made public. In Feb and March, apparently the Clintoon campaign made payments to a Nevada company – a firm that provides IT security services. What services do they provide? Well, it seems that the company – American Document Destruction, Inc. – apparently specializes in document and hard disk drive destruction. The payments could have paid for the destruction of up to 14 hard drives. Hmm.
Yeah, I think I’ll keep following this story. This could easily get really interesting.
(Author’s note: yes, I know that “Clintoon” isn’t the way the individuals I reference when using that spelling spell their last name. The variant spelling here is intentional. IMO, the individuals I’m referencing when using that variant spelling are little more than poor cartoonish caricatures of individuals worthy of holding high national office. The spelling “Clintoon” is intended to highlight that fact.)
Category: Crime, Foreign Policy, Legal, Military issues
Hondo:
Totally agree with your spelling. There’s a tshirt there I’m sure, I just can’t quite see it.
Think Roger Rabbit and a 70 y/o version of Jessica – who’s also butt-ugly. (smile)
I just hope that the interviewing agents do not handle her or her minions with kid gloves. I’m sure they will adopt a holier than thou attitude. I’ve run into it myself with suspects. Just treat them like any other skel and they might get somewhere.
One of the more interesting public comments that Guccifer made is that when he was extradited it was by the FBI and the State Dept. Hmmm. A non-US citizen gets a Dept of State escort during transport on a criminal charge? If that claim is true, that is a most interesting development.
The hard drive destruction the campaign paid has nothing to do with the clinton.com investigation, per Snopes. Just a routine destruction of donor pay information.
http://www.snopes.com/clinton-hard-drive-destruction/
That being said, the rest doesn’t look good for the Shrillary campaign. They may have to schedule her inaugural ball at a federal penitentiary.
your taking snopes as a reliable source on Clintoon?
It is more reliable than the majority of sources being quoted on this board.
In fact its entire existence is based on its credibility. Unlike political sites who gain traffic and advertising revenue by saying the partisan shit people want to hear.
And don’t say I am just defending Clinton. I despise her. Though I think the email server is not a violation in of itself since she was only supposed to transmit unclassified.
If she knowingly transmitted classified or if she created the server to prevent FoIA requests then she should charged.
If classified was sent inadvertently then there is a range of consequences, most not criminal.
Email me Lars. I’ve got info that may help you with the VA.
Oh hell yes! Jonn surely knows to check with the “People who are afraid of Communism” bureau chief before giving credibility to any source. And I DO say you are defending Clintoon.
By the way, instead of taking up valuable space….add 47 sons, fathers, brothers etc. from the Dominican Republic to the number of people killed by Communists whom you claim we’re all “Foolish for worrying about.” We’re working on 87 million lives ended by Communist who you claim we are foolish to worry about.
Your words of ANY wisdom are kin to a jackass’s fart.
“Unauthorized disclosures, as defined in the NdA, carry the same penalties regardless of the classification level. It is also critical to understand that information that is “unclassified” does not automatically mean that it is publicly releasable. Some unclassified material may be especially sensitive, the handling of which is governed by other U.S. laws (e.g., Privacy Act, litigation, etc.).”
Straight from the “Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information” from the Director of National Intelligence. Classified or unclassified it does not matter. Also it does not matter if she knowingly released classified materials or not. Ignorance is not an excuse of the laws that sensitive information reside under.
Additionally:
“If they can’t, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,’ – Email from Hillary Clinton, June 17, 2011 ”
From an email, it seems HRC is subverting derivative classification here. (As well as acknowledging that she wants to send classified information over her webserver.)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information
Defines the policies on this. Additionally, details what “knowingly” would mean.
“Unknowningly” release of classified information would be considered a spillage. After she found out her server was hacked or what have you, or found she was doing the wrong thing, she would have to report the spillage, have her clearance revoked for a period of time(it can be reinstated) but is no longer allowed access to any class materials.
Damn Lars, I thought you were in Intel. You should know the affects of all of this.
Considering that DHS (or FBI?) paid a hacker a boatload of cash to hack the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, escorting Guccifer that way doesn’t surprise me.
Just how deep does this go?
Unless they have knowledge of considerably more detailed claims, the plausibility of the claims means very little. What’s been described publicly is the equivalent of a thief, describing how he robbed a house, as saying, “Well, I went up to it and checked for unlocked doors and windows…”. That’s pretty much the explanation any thief -or in this case hacker- would give.
The lack of specific detail likely means one of three things: 1) He didn’t do it, 2) He did and is holding on to juicier details so he can get a better deal, or 3) He did,.. but doesn’t remember the actual details. In the case of 3, this would mean what exploit -a program that takes advantage of a weakness in the server- he used.
If I had hacked a domain that traced to ‘clintonemail.com’ (and yes, he’d check that), you’d damn well better believe I’d have copied everything (he claims to have 2GB of data somewhere), probably installed a rootkit to hide the hack, and remembered how exactly I got it.
(A good friend does ‘white hat’ -good guy- penetration testing of computer systems. He can still tell you how he got into most client’s systems many years after the fact, and plenty of details on high-profile ones.)
All in all, it’s hard to give any merit to his claims without detailed proof. If the FBI has more details, and some corroborating evidence such as OS type, patch levels and a (lack of) IDS capabilities from the sysadmin, then things would get interesting.
Given that Guccifer is the hacker that hacked Sidney Blumenthal’s e-mail account, I’d say that an assertion by him that he did the same to Clintoon’s server – coupled with a description of a method deemed workable by experts – should probably be taken at face value. But then again I’m not of the liberal political persuasion, so I have no vested interest in seeing Clintoon stay out of jail.
‘Hacker’ is a broad term – when he ‘hacked’ Blumenthal’s email account, he means he guessed a password. That is one type of hacking that probably falls under the umbrella of ‘social engineering’. But then he pivots and talks about tools like nmap, which is part of a toolset for people doing technical hacking… which some have said isn’t his area of expertise.
To put it in military terms, in the broad category of ‘soldier’ you have many types of people, including analysts and door-kickers. If an analyst says he pieced together information about X, and then says he pieced together information about Y, there’s probably an inclination to believe them. If an analyst says they pieced together information about X, then kicked down the door of suspect Z and took him in… well, it’s possible, but you don’t extend the same level of credibility since it’s outside their known skill-set.
Again, the ‘method deemed workable by experts’, absent any additional information, is the highest-level method any hacker seeking to compromise a system would use. It’s like being asked, “How did you shoot that person?”, and someone answering, “Well, I carefully aimed my gun at them,.. then pulled the trigger.” True for nearly all cases, and gives no additional information that might corroborate things.
For the record, I have zero love for Mrs. Clinton either. I’m not defending her, just saying there’s too little information to determine whether Guccifer is telling the truth. Me personally? Given the stories of how insecure the server is, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hacked it -that’s a high profile target for foreign intelligence agencies. But I’m leaning against Guccifer having done it for the moment.
LC,it’s difficult to accept that someone of Guccifer’s reputation would not have sensed a possible gold mine when scrolling through Blumenthal’s mailbox and finding all those Clinton contacts. That he would not have tracked them to their source and penetrated that potential gold mine is impossible to believe.
Details for something like Guccifer’s invasion will not be likely to become public until this is over with. We’ll get the surface info, but the rest of it will be kept out of the prying eyes of the media for a long time.
At the same time, the disturbing news came last night that your new car with all the electronic doodads and toys and stuff can be hacked in the blink of an eye. Don’t you think that’s important, too? Is it possible that all those Toyotas that were subject to sudden acceleration were part of a larger hacking experiment? It appears to have been linked to the onboard computers in those cars, so why would that not be feasible?
Title for a sci-fi novel: ‘Gucifer’s Invasion’.
Certainly true – and I admit I haven’t followed the developments as much as I should, but while we aren’t learning more about his ‘hack’ on the Clinton server, we have learned more about his other attacks – and often times they’re compromised accounts, not compromised servers. There is a difference in terms of what he’s claiming, even if there isn’t one in terms of remotely accessing classified information.
As for the cars, that’s been known in the security realm for ages – look into all the conspiracy theories about Michael Hasting’s death for kicks. But I’ll apply Hanlon’s Razor to the notion of the Toyota acceleration – bugs, not hacks. The vast, vast majority of cars aren’t fully networked.
The last 3 years’ models ARE fully-networked through Onstar and through dealership and other links. They can be tracked through your tablet, phone or whatever devices and apps you have, because people are literally stupid enough to link to their property that way. That leaves the vehicles wide open for theft, among other things.
“The administrator of that “private” e-mail server, Bryan Pagliano, is also believed to be cooperating with the FBI.”
Of course he’s cooperating- he’s been granted immunity by the DOJ. Another very bad sign for Das Hildebeast.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politics/hillary-clinton-email-server-justice-department/index.html
I’m wondering how thoroughly that server was “wiped” if data was recovered. Was it just erased (the sectors were merely released for re-use, which I doubt was done) or were zeroes written to the drive(s) and how times–once, seven, thirty-five?
Then again, I’ve heard NSA et. al have some incredible techniques.
I was told by a former tech that decades ago a pharmaceutical company would drill holes in drives prior to disposal.
In regards to “Guccifer,” I think Greg Gutfeld said it best, “usually, it’s Bill that is repeatedly penetrating servers.”
For Lazar, a plea agreement where he cooperates in exchange for a reduced sentence would be advantageous. He told Fox News he has nothing to hide and wants to cooperate with the U.S. government, adding that he has hidden two gigabytes of data that is “too hot” and “it is a matter of national security.”
If it is true he has hidden that much data in a cloud which the assumption is, he still has access to, than that could mean there are possibly classified emails still available for the FBI to see. Now, he could be just trying to pad his worth to the prosecutors, but if it is true, then Hillary is wearing three panty shields because she is sweating so much. I hope the “Obama hates the Clintons” undertow is strong enough to have him push the DOJ into high gear now. of course she will legally paperwork this to death to avoid testifying but if it comes about she either tells the truth or takes the Fifth. The truth and she’s out and the Fifth is just as incriminating in the minds of voters. As for paying a company that specializes in data destruction, again that says there is still information out there she does not want seen. I hope they heel and hide her. IMHO.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again ask the Chinese the Russians!!!!!
But why bother…
they DOJ. ain’t going to charge her anyways. it appears she has a lot
or should we say she knows where a lot of bodies are buried in D.C.
So I guess it makes her too dirty to charge
Anybody check Fort Marcy Park lately?
?
You would think something by now would have come of all this but there is a lot of foot dragging going on I wonder why
I wonder if obummer will pull a President Ford and grant her a full pardon for ‘any and all’ crimes she may have committed. He should also grant her a pardon for the future crimes she may/will commit. She acts as if the law applies to us mere mortals, not to herself and Billy Bob. IF she is elected (God help us) I wonder if the moving vans will cart off the WH furniture as happened when Billy Bob left the WH? She made a statement within the past few weeks in which she said she has always been open, honest and transparent with the American people and that the public knows this. I don’t know in what universe she is living. So many people don’t even care what BS she spouts. She has the most impressive qualifications, as far as they are concerned: First, she’s a Democrat. Secondly, she’s a woman (there is serious debate re this). Thirdly, she feels their pain or some such foolishness. Fourth, she had sooo many accomplishments as Secretary of State. What’s not to like? Oh, and she came under a barrage of sniper fire and lived to tell of it. Oh, yeah, Brain Williams was with her during the sniper fire episode. /Sarc Off