On March 19 of this year, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta received an alarming email that appeared to come from Google.
The email, however, didn't come from the internet giant. It was actually an attempt to hack into his personal account. In fact, the message came from a group of hackers that security researchers, as well as the US government, believe are spies working for the Russian government. At the time, however, Podesta didn't know any of this, and he clicked on the malicious link contained in the email, giving hackers access to his account.
Months later, on October 9, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of Podesta's hacked emails. Almost everyone immediately pointed the finger at Russia, who is suspected of being behind a long and sophisticated hacking campaign that has the apparent goal of influencing the upcoming US elections. But there was no public evidence proving the same group that targeted the Democratic National Committee was behind the hack on Podesta—until now.
The data linking a group of Russian hackers—known as Fancy Bear, APT28, or Sofacy—to the hack on Podesta is also yet another piece in a growing heap of evidence pointing toward the Kremlin. And it also shows a clear thread between apparently separate and independent leaks that have appeared on a website called DC Leaks, such as that of Colin Powell's emails; and the Podesta leak, which was publicized on WikiLeaks.
All these hacks were done using the same tool: malicious short URLs hidden in fake Gmail messages. And those URLs, according to a security firm that's tracked them for a year, were created with Bitly account linked to a domain under the control of Fancy Bear.
Related Stories
John Arquilla at ACM writes:
What a pity that senior leaders in the American government and intelligence community have decided to play political football with the alleged Russian hacks of John Podesta's and other Democrats' emails. By using these intrusions to gin up fears about the "integrity" of the electoral process—which is already befouled by the focus on finding and spreading dirt on the opposition—the real story is being neglected. And what is that real story? It is that, despite more than two decades of consistent public warnings that have reached the highest levels of government, cybersecurity throughout much of the world is in a shameful state of unpreparedness.
Take the United States, for example. Since the mid-1990s, there have been approximately 200 cybersecurity bills brought before Congress. Only one has passed, quite recently at that, and it only calls for voluntary information-sharing about cyber incidents. Legislation aside, there have also been several government-sponsored commissions and top-level exercises focused on understanding and illuminating the cyber threat. Each of these has signaled that "the red light is flashing;" that is, American cybersecurity is in very poor shape. Indeed, former cyber czar Richard Clarke and Robert Knake, in their book, Cyber War, list the U.S. as having the poorest cyber defenses among the leading developed countries.
TL;DR: The lesson(s) are: we must improve defenses, better use of strong encryption, and don't wait for government policy to protect you.
Previously:
Obama Orders Sweeping Review of International Hacking Tied to U.S. Elections
How Hackers Broke into John Podesta and Colin Powell's Gmail Accounts
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:11PM
All these hacks were done using the same tool: malicious short URLs hidden in fake Gmail messages.
You mean, "idiot clicked links and got what he deserved"
Why do people still click on links in mails?
(Score: 4, Funny) by ikanreed on Friday October 21 2016, @04:17PM
Jeez, I bet your penis is still under 14 inches, your long-lost nigerian relatives can't get in touch with you, and you've not met any sexy singles in your area.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:27PM
holy shit... I completely forgot about uncle N'Golo
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:11PM
You mean, "idiot clicked links and got what he deserved"
Why do people still click on links in mails?
He clicked a link in a message he thought was from google that he was reading in gmail.
If there is one kind of phishing attack you'd think google would be good at filtering out it would be messages impersonating google on their own systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2016, @04:45AM
This man is not your 90 year old grandma. He's in a position where he has played and continues to have a huge influence on a wide range of political issues including, for instance, encryption. A huge number of nation-states would have much to gain by hacking his devices and given he's the sort of person that clicks on links to a a Bitly site in an email and then let's all scripts run on some scammy looking .tk site - well it's a given that top secret discussions in the US are pretty much open mic night as any enemy regime's intelligence agency's are concerned.
If people in this sort of influence are this mind-bogglingly naive and ignorant then it's no wonder our country is in the shape it is. The country is being run by idiots.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:11PM
Are these the same agencies and media establishments that said there were WMDs in Iraq? Forgive me for not believing a word they say.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @04:40PM
From various articles I've read about the whole thing, it looks like there was evidence littered all over the place pointing to the Russians. From "names left in file metadata" to using assets that were formerly known to be used by FSB agents. I'm just an asshole on the internet, but it doesn't pass the sniff test. It implies there's one of three things that could be happening:
- Russia really wanted to thumb their nose in the US's face.
- Russian security agents are sloppy.
- Someone wanted to blame Russia hard for this.
Of those, I think that the first and last one are possible. I don't believe the second one for a minute.
It's borderline off-topic, but I kind of feel the same way about the attempt to paint Assange as a pedo. You're seriously telling me that a silicon valley exec with ties to Clinton set up some elaborate, yet bizarre attempt to discredit Assange with accusations of pedophilia and then left a trail of breadcrumbs so simple that a bunch of loser reddit neckbeards could trace right back to him? I mean, maybe. It's pretty incredible though.
It definitely seems like someone is trying to fuck with this election, but I don't think it's the Russians.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:54PM
> Of those, I think that the first and last one are possible. I don't believe the second one for a minute.
Someone's razor isn't it? Attribute first to incompetence, then to malice..
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @05:22PM
I don't know if Hanlon's razor is applicable here, frankly. We're potentially talking about actors who's intentions and capabilities would directly include the deliberate use of subterfuge WRT an event that was already intended to be malicious toward another party. It's a little late for that.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 21 2016, @05:44PM
When working backwards from a conclusion it's amazing what evidence people are willing to discard.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @06:07PM
Do you have some evidence that I don't have? Almost every place I've looked for actual evidence has either written a piece worthy of being a Hollywood script that chases more shadows than I do or merely said "our evidence is that we're told by the .gov and the DNC that there's evidence".
I'm not TOTALLY unreasonable. I can be swayed as long as I read something that's, ya know, swaying.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 21 2016, @06:42PM
You literally just said there was "evidence littered all over the place pointing to the Russians."
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @06:51PM
I also said that "every place I've looked for actual evidence has... written a piece worthy of being a Hollywood script".
Hey, I also fully admitted that it could well have been the Russians, but they were hella sloppy. That was in the original comment. As in, I'm allowing for it to be true, I just wonder if it's not more complicated than that. I kinda feel like you're more serious about my idle speculation than I am.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:57PM
> - Russian security agents are sloppy.
You are presuming that the guys who did it are russian security agents and not just free-lance contractors who pick up a lot of work from Moscow. They may even have done it "on spec" but I gotta assume that once they got ahold of Podesta's email they went directly to Moscow with it and the decision to give it to wikileaks rather than just keep it for intelligence purposes was directed from Moscow.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 21 2016, @05:17PM
"You are presuming that the guys who did it are russian security agents and not just free-lance contractors who pick up a lot of work from Moscow. They may even have done it "on spec" but I gotta assume that once they got ahold of Podesta's email they went directly to Moscow with it and the decision to give it to wikileaks rather than just keep it for intelligence purposes was directed from Moscow."
You are presuming that the guys who did it are russian security agents and not just free-lance contractors who pick up a lot of work from Beijing. They may even have done it "on spec" but I gotta assume that once they got ahold of Podesta's email they went directly to Beijing with it and the decision to give it to wikileaks rather than just keep it for intelligence purposes was directed from Beijing.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @05:30PM
Or anyone else who would have a vested interest in making sure that Russia and the US do not ever form a cozy relationship and do something crrrraaaaaazy like work together to try to stabilize the middle east or something.
Honestly, this one feels like those responsible are not trying to fuck up Hillary for the election, they're trying to piss her off enough to set the stage for Cold War II. Admittedly, I tend to chase shadows, so I'm going to be forward and just admit that it's my pet conspiracy theory, it probably belongs somewhere like zero hedge, and I'm probably crazy for suggesting it. Hey, that's cool though, I'll own that.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday October 21 2016, @08:45PM
and I'm probably crazy for suggesting it.
Remember kids, post Snowden, crazy-paranoid is the new pragmatic.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @09:24PM
Well, way I figure is that if it somehow turns out I'm right, I get to feel super hip and laugh about it over beers with friends. If I'm wrong, well, being crazy doesn't really change much in the long run.
I do think I need to disconnect from the news though. The last year and half or so of deliberately looking at any article claiming to be news no matter how mainstream or sketchy (including comments) has admittedly had a pretty negative impact on me. I wanted to see what it was like to have as many viewpoints on as many issues as I could crammed into my head all at once. Sort of some effort to try to be able to figure out where the line was between "well-informed" and just thinking you are. I think it's just got me less sure of, well, pretty much everyone's mental state, myself included.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @03:04AM
Surprise, quantity over quality is a losing proposition.
You have to find sources that are trustworthy and also understand their limitations.
Uncredentialed bloggers should be the first on the trash-heap because they rarely know enough about a topic to even realize where the holes are in their own knowledge.
Anything that gets trumpkins and their alt-right fellow travelers worked up, next on the trash-heap because that crowd is so profoundly tribal that they refuse to type the word "debunk" into google since it would demolish 99% of their world view.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @06:30PM
> You are presuming that the guys who did it are russian security agents and not just free-lance contractors who pick up a lot of work from Beijing.
Do you have any evidence that they have also free-lanced for Beijing in the past?
No, I did not think so.
There is plenty of evidence that the same group has done a lot of work for Moscow.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 21 2016, @07:32PM
Okay, show me this evidence.... but it has to be evidence NOT touched in any way by U.S. intelligence agencies.
I know intelligence agencies NEVER lie, but
HAHAHAHA.... couldn't keep it together, there. Sorry.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @07:48PM
Oh please. Yours is the logic of conspiracy theories. As a rule intelligence agencies do not lie to the civilian management of the US government. If they do lie, there is a huge stink. If you believe they regularly lie. then you can basically make up your own reality.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday October 21 2016, @08:50PM
As a rule intelligence agencies do not lie to the civilian management of the US government.
Have you lived under a rock for the last... erm... forever?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @02:20AM
> Have you lived under a rock for the last... erm... forever?
Citations? Because the OP of this sub-thread claims about WMDs have already been debunked in other posts.
I can also point you at the recent case of analysts raising holy hell about what they consider to be manipulation of their reports. [thedailybeast.com] The fact that they are complaining loudly is the huge stink I was referring to, and which you elided from your quote.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 21 2016, @05:36PM
"paint Assange as a pedo"
I've never heard that one. US media wants to paint him a rapist, but that isn't the story in Europe. Transcripts from interviews with both of the "victims" show that in each case, she seduced him, she specified that he use a condom, he did so, but the next morning when he had no more condom, he went back for seconds. Both stories are the same. There was no offense until the two women met, talked, and decided that they were outraged. But, both state very plainly that there was no rape.
It's some kind of European thing - a prosecutor decided that she had a case, then decided that she didn't, then changed her mind again. And, all at the same time, that prosecutor is in conference with authorities in the USA.
US media portrays the ongoing case as a rape investigation, but from both women's own lips, there was no rape. I can only conclude that it is entirely political.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @05:47PM
It's a pretty recent one. Last couple of days I think. Forgive the dailykos link, but it looks like it actually sums the situation up pretty well before the author gets into speculation:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/19/1584613/-The-Assange-Pedo-story-has-morphed-into-a-huge-anti-Clinton-conspiracy-theory-w-Russia-pushing-it [dailykos.com]
The graphic at the top is the one that's been circulating around. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 21 2016, @06:09PM
If you have time, read the second link at the bottom of TFS - it sounds plausible although cannot be verified as accurate.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @06:20PM
I've read that one. It sounds like a Hollywood script. I'll agree though, it's plausible.
Thing is, I never said it was IMPOSSIBLE. I even allowed for a possibility in my little theory for it to actually be the Russians. It was just sloppy, if so.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @04:44PM
Yeah, ever since Russia is trying to keep us from turning Syria into an anarchic nightmare, like we and our satellites did in Libya, Russia is being blamed for everything but the weather.
We always need to find some sinister, foreign, source to blame our fuckups on. Remember when it was supposedly the North Koreans that were fucking with a film studio? (haha)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @07:07PM
Well Russia is still one of the World's leading producers of fossil fuels. So if the climate is changing...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:07PM
> Are these the same agencies and media establishments that said there were WMDs in Iraq?
No US intelligence agencies said there were WMDs in Iraq. What they did say was that they had no current intelligence, but the intelligence they did have from ~5 years prior was that Sadam had been working on getting WMDs. The Bush administration decided that was sufficient for their purposes and extrapolated that Sadam had been working full-speed ahead on WMDs so he must have produced something in the meantime. If the internet wasn't being flakey I'd have a better citation for you, but here is one:
Morell's remarks support the basic charge: Bush and Cheney were not misled by flawed intelligence; they used the flawed intelligence to mislead.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/michael-morell-bush-cheney-iraq-war [motherjones.com]
That sort of willful blindness does not seem to be in operation here.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 21 2016, @05:39PM
Are these the same agencies and media establishments that said there were WMDs in Iraq? Forgive me for not believing a word they say.
No.
On Tuesday night, former CIA Deputy Director and Bush’s intelligence briefer [salon.com] Michael Morell appeared on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” where he, under an amount of good cable news duress, admitted that the administration intentionally misrepresented intelligence.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday October 21 2016, @04:47PM
In case there was any doubt in your mind prior to this, both the means employed and contents of the downloaded material have demonstrated that the top political operatives in the United States are, for the most part, idiots. For example, then-chair of the DNC Debbie Wasserman-Schultz comes off about as smart as your typical
This must be a new definition of the word "sophisticated": They used a standard phishing technique, and it worked. Other times, they've been able to get in using standard password dictionary attacks.
Also, I would presume that Russian intelligence is after, first and foremost, understanding the intentions of the American government. If, for example, the US is planning to shoot down their military aircraft over Syria, the Russians would kinda like to know that. That's their job, and I wouldn't expect them to not try to use tools at their disposal to carry out their mission. It's not their fault that their US counterparts are, apparently, morons about this.
As for releasing the info to the US public via Wikileaks, OK, maybe they're trying to influence the election, or maybe they think it's in their best interests to rip the mask off of what the government is doing. Regardless of their motives, I appreciate them giving us that valuable insight into what our supposed leaders are really doing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:14PM
> Also, I would presume that Russian intelligence is after, first and foremost, understanding the intentions of the American government.
That former NSA guy who is on all the news talk shows made that exact same point. He said nobody is complaining that the campaign was a target for espionage, that's assumed. Its the releasing of the information rather than using it for intelligence purposes that they are pissed about.
> OK, maybe they're trying to influence the election, or maybe they think it's in their best interests to rip the mask off of what the government is doing.
That's a distinction without a difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:54PM
No, there is a difference in that all the released info has been one-sided. They are acting more in the manner of wanting to influence who wins, not as much to unmask behind the scenes events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @06:35PM
Ok, I was being overly simplistic and assuming my point was clear when I should have explained. Obviously Russia has no interest in "ripping the mask" for purposes of transparency. Their only interest in "ripping the mask off" is to provoke a reaction for their own benefit.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 21 2016, @05:33PM
I kind of get the feeling that, in the eyes of most modern journalists, anything much more complicated than twitter is "sophisticated".
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:54PM
You forget that the above was written by a press reporter. Someone who's technical knowledge is likely so limited that they are likely impressed that moving a physical mouse their desktop will cause a little pointer on screen to move.
I.e., the writers tech. knowledge was likely so limited that the mere fact that the account was broken into seemed impressive to them. Therefore, there must have been some pretty "sophisticated" techniques at work.
Remember the Author C. Clarke quote: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". For most press members, the computers they touch every day seem like magic to them.
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Friday October 21 2016, @05:36PM
http://myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk/security/signinoptions/password?e=am9obi5wb2Rlc3RhQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ%3D%3D&fn=Sm9obiBQb2Rlc3Rh&n=Sm9obg%3D%3D&img=Ly9saDQuZ29vZ2xldXNlcmNvbnRlbnQuY29tLy1RZVIPbHJkVGp2WS9BQUFBQUFBQUFBSS9BQUFBQUFBQUFCTS9CQIdVOVQ0bUZUWS9waG90by5qcGc%3D&id=1sutlodlwe
I had trouble distinguishing "I" from "l" because of the font that was used.
The e parameter is an e-mail address, with John Podesta's name in it, encoded in Base-64.
The fn parameter is
John Podesta
encoded in Base-64.
The n parameter is
John
encoded in Base-64.
The img parameter is
//lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QeRlrdTjvY/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAABM/B@U9T4mFTY/photo.jpg
encoded in Base-64. When I prepended http: to turn that into a URL and tried to retrieve it, there was a 404 error.
I've probably mistyped the id parameter. I tried a few combinations of "l" and "i" but didn't get valid Base-64. However, when I tried to open a mistyped variation of the google.com-securitysettingpage.tk URL, namely
http://myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk/security/signinoptions/password?e=am9obi5wb2Rlc3RhQGdtYWIsLmNvbQ%3D%3D&fn=Sm9obiBQb2Rlc3Rh&n=Sm9obg%3D%3D&img=Ly9saDQuZ29vZ2xldXNlcmNvbnRlbnQuY29tLy1RZVIPbHJkVGp2WS9BQUFBQUFBQUFBSS9BQUFBQUFBQUFCTS9CQIdVOVQ0bUZUWS9waG90by5qcGc%3D&id=1sutlodlwe
this happened:
Resolving myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk (myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk)... 195.20.46.133
Connecting to myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk (myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk)|195.20.46.133|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 203 Non-Authoritative Information
Length: 739 [text/html]
[...]
Last-modified header missing -- time-stamps turned off.
I received this document:
<html>
<head>
<title>myaccount.google.com-securitysettingpage.tk</title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1; URL=http://domain.dot.tk/p/?d=MYACCOUNT.GOOGLE.COM-SECURITYSETTINGPAGE.TK&i=46.105.100.149&c=33&ro=0&ref=unknown&_=1477068470996"/>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
function redir(){ var $fwd = 'http://domain.dot.tk/p/?d=MYACCOUNT.GOOGLE.COM-SECURITYSETTINGPAGE.TK&i=46.105.100.149&c=33&ro=0&ref=unknown&_=1477068470996'; if(window.parent){ window.parent.location=$fwd; }else{ window.location=$fwd; }}
//-->
</script>
</head>
<body onload="redir()">
<script language="text/javascript">
<!--
window.setTimeout('redir();', 50 * 1);
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday October 23 2016, @08:52AM
In English for the technoserfs?
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Monday October 24 2016, @03:27AM
Bit.ly is a URL shortening service. In the Vice Motherboard article there's a picture of a Bit.ly page, showing the expansion of the URL that was sent to John Podesta. The shortened URL is redacted from the picture. I attempted to read that long URL from the picture and type it out. There was some guesswork because the characters "I" and "l" look similar to each other (sorry but I don't know the English word for that).
When I used the term "Base-64" that was incorrect. It's properly known as "base64url" and it's a means of representing an arbitrary series of bytes as plain text that can be included in a URL. Encoding the victim's name and e-mail address wasn't necessary for any technical reason, but makes it so that information isn't human-readable. Also encoded was something called the "id" which is a few bytes of non-textual information.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4648#section-5 [ietf.org]
It's similar to the Base64 encoding that's commonly used to encode e-mail attachments. If you look at the actual contents of an e-mail with a binary file attached, you're likely to see "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64" followed by a series of number, upper- and lower-case letters, "+", and sometimes--only at the end-- "=". There's an online encoding/decoding page at motobit.com [motobit.com] (no Javascript needed). If you encode "John" with that page, you'll get Sm9obg== as the result. In a URL, "=" has a special meaning, hence it is escaped [december.com] as "%3D" and the encoded text becomes Sm9obg%3D%3D.
Have a look at the URL of this page. You're likely to see part of it that looks similar to comments.pl?sid=16108&threshold=-1 which means is that there's a software script called comments.pl that runs on the SoylentNews server; the URL contains information that is passed to the script. In this case, sid is a number (16108) which identifies the story and threshold is a number (-1) indicating the "Threshold" I've chosen for reading comments. That's what I mean by "parameters." The script uses them to generate pages from a database. Similarly, the attacker's server could have generated pages using the parameters in that long URL; presumably it would have presented something along the lines of "John Podesta, you need to log in with your Google password to confirm you wish to opt out of Google+." Because the victim's name and e-mail address are contained in the URL, a database server may not have been needed.
When I tried to open (my guess at) the URL in a browser, it redirected to http://www.dot.tk [www.dot.tk] which informed me that .tk domains can be registered free of charge. That's convenient for someone doing unsavoury things, because there's no payment to trace.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday October 26 2016, @12:16AM
Thank you very much!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Username on Friday October 21 2016, @05:48PM
Ok, let’s say Putin was bored one day and decided to phish logins of random lawyers at the DNC to prove they’re corrupt. He succeeds at it and proves they’re corrupt. Isn’t he doing us a favor? Isn’t it a good thing to know our corrupt politicians are corrupt? He should get an award.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday October 21 2016, @05:51PM
PS: Be funny as all hell if it was actually Snowden.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @05:56PM
He's doing us no favors if he is trying to pick the winners for us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @06:33PM
There is literally 0 reason to think this is the case. There's a good chance Trump's campaign doesn't have high level players willing to click on random urls in emails while using browsers that have scripts enabled. That is some epic level of stupid for somebody who you'd think would be used to phishing attempts. The fact they're trying to spin this as 'state level' hacking is beyond ridiculous silly and clearly just a distraction attempt.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday October 21 2016, @09:05PM
He's doing us no favors if he is trying to pick the winners for us.
Does it really fucking matter what shade of bad you get, if you get wall street or wall street? Only shimmer of hope was Bernie, now the world is fucked unless some miracle happens.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @02:33AM
There is plenty of hope. For one thing, if the democrats win back the senate, Bernie is going to be chairman of the senate budget committee which is a position that will give significant power to effect the changes he was campaigning on. In fact, its such a big deal that Paul Ryan has been using that fact to try to scare republicans into doing "split ticket" votes against trump, but for republican senators. [washingtonpost.com]
Beyond that, the Podesta emails have revealed the price Clinton paid for Senator Warren's support - putting progressives into key administrative posts. [vox.com] Warren believes that people are policy. If you keep the wall-streeters out of the cabinet, then the people making the decisions about policy won't be stuck in that mindset.
The end result is that we are likely to get even more done under a Clinton presidency than we would have under a Sander presidency because Clinton's made public campaign promises and, unlike Obama, she won't get a pass on accountability just because she's not an old white guy. Meanwhile both Sanders and Warren are in positions of strong power in the legislative branch.
I can understand why you might think its hopeless. But quit whining like a trumpkin and deal with the opportunities we have because we've got a lot of them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @06:45PM
> Isn’t he doing us a favor? Isn’t it a good thing to know our corrupt politicians are corrupt?
If he actually proved they were corrupt rather than just reveal a whole bunch of political inside baseball gossip that might be a good point.
Its been great for getting members of /r/The_Donald/ frothing, but in the real world its been a big yawner. Maybe there is some big scoop yet to come, but so far its just been humbug.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 21 2016, @05:58PM
All these hacks were done using the same tool: malicious short URLs hidden in fake Gmail messages. And those URLs, according to a security firm that's tracked them for a year, were created with Bitly account linked to a domain under the control of Fancy Bear.
Who the fuck would log in to an URL shortening site? Why do URL shortening sites even have logins??
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @06:37PM
Try again.
The shortening site forwards to a page that appears to be a google login page.
This is not terribly complicated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @01:39AM
First they sort through Clinton's email and delete whatever is problematic (apparently about 50%). It wouldn't surprise me if Podesta released these new ones himself after similarly scrubbing them. That's why there's nothing really juicy. The Russians (at least Putin's lackeys) will be smart enough to not leave their fingerprints all over.