We had submissions from two different Soylentils on this story about an IT worker for the company which managed Hillary Clinton's email server apparently looking for help on how to wipe email addresses.
Clinton's IT contractor sought help removing or replacing to/from addresses on archived emails
The Gateway Pundit reports:
An employee with Platte River Networks, the company in charge of Hillary Clinton's home server, who was granted immunity from Obama's Department of Justice in their investigation of Clinton, reportedly asked for assistance in July 2014 from Reddit users on how to purge emails and how to strip VIP's email address from "a bunch of archived emails":
"Hello all- I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a PST file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. I am not sure if something like this is possible with PowerShell, or exporting all of the emails to MSG and doing find/replaces with a batch processing program of some sort. Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?"
Hillary Clinton IT worker asked Reddit how to tamper with email record
Paul Combetta, the IT guy who used BleachBit to wipe email servers for Hillary Clinton, went on Reddit in July 2014 and asked this question:
Remove or replace to/from address on archived emails?
Hello all- I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a PST file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out.
Paul Combatta was given immunity by the Justice Department.
If you check the timeline you find that in July 2014 there were outstanding FOIA requests but Congress had not yet subpoenaed the email server.
One of the commenters on the Reddit thread said: "If there was a feature in Exchange that allowed this, it could result in major legal issues."
(Score: 5, Funny) by mrsam on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:58AM
I can't understand this. Can someone explain to me why go through all this trouble just to delete your yoga pictures, and pictures of your daughter's wedding?
Puzzled...
(Score: 5, Funny) by inertnet on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:15PM
You're hillaryous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:57PM
Even more puzzled by the fact that the guy, having been granted immunity from prosecution by the DOJ, would then refuse to testify before the house oversight committee. What kind of yoga pictures require the use of bleachbit to erase 30,000 emails?
(Score: 1) by bucket58 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:03PM
What kind of yoga pictures require the use of bleachbit to erase 30,000 emails?
Do they make EyeBleachbit? Because that would actually be useful in this case.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:54PM
How is that puzzling? Don't the mafia use to do this kinda stuff on folks granted immunity by the authorities against them?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:14PM
Several people in the reddit thread warn him that this has legal implications, even though they didn't know anything about the context. Knowing what he knew, namely, that he was helping dodge subpoenas, he must have known that his actions were unethical. There is no gray zone here.
Granted, it's easy for me to say, however: This is where you warn your boss (whoever he was directly working for) that this is illegal. You refuse to carry out the action. You buy yourself insurance by documenting the hell out of the requests, your refusal, and the response you get. In cases this egregious, an ethical person should turn whisteblower, and reveal to the world what a corrupt slimeball they (used to) work for.
Corrupt scum can only exist with the complicit cooperation of people around them. It's a crying shame to see people voluntarily being complicit.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:19PM
I would usually agree, but it's the Clintons we're talking about. He probably did not want to die.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:26PM
Ethics in IT:
1. Do what the boss says.
or:
2. Get thrown in the gutter to die.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tonyPick on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:59PM
It is unlikely this will be a great comfort to the whistleblower employee who ends up on the welfare line, while the folks they blew the whistle on carry on regardless.
Given whistleblowers face serious, and potentially career ending, retaliation from their employer (and it's the kind of employer doing stuff they would need to blow the whistle on for a start) then voluntary is not the word I would use. And this is not just an IT problem.
Rapid Googling: http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294968656 [fraud-magazine.com]
"Seventy-four percent of the whistle-blowers in my review were terminated. Another 6 percent were suspended and 5 percent were transferred against their wishes. The remaining 15 percent were given poor evaluations, demoted or harassed"
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:05PM
"Rapid Googling" indeed.
I selected a random sample of lawsuits from the statewide cases reported in the LexisNexis database between 1994 and 2009. I keyed in the search term “whistle-blower” and found 380 cases
So this was looking at lawsuits already happening; not 100% of whistleblowers get targeted with legal action, I assume.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:00PM
Yep - that article is using at the breakdown of actions via lawsuits - obviously not everyone gets that far; if you're looking for numbers on how many from the general population of whistleblowers experience some form of retaliation the best I can find is a fairly dated survey reported on this article [cfainstitute.org] from 2012
We can argue over the details, but clearly it's a significant risk with serious consequences, and seen as so.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:08PM
From the summary:
If you check the timeline you find that in July 2014 there were outstanding FOIA requests but Congress had not yet subpoenaed the email server.
Assuming this was the case, this could be entirely legal. FOIA's frequently have lots of things redacted. As an example, imagine Clinton had the email addresses of every cabinet-level official within the government (which, as Secretary of State is fairly probable). Should all of those be given out to the whole world in a simple FOIA request?
On the surface this seems damning, but truth be told I need to think pretty hard to come up with actual nefarious behaviors masking from/to addresses could hide. There are some, but not nearly as many as first blush would seem.
Entirely agreed that the optics of this is terrible, and it definitely (and rightly) feeds into the narrative of "tricky Clinton."
(Score: 3, Informative) by mechanicjay on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:09PM
So, it seems it all comes down to timing and circumstances. Regardless, it seems to follow the classic Clinton playbook move of the cover-up being worse than the crime. Which is a brilliant play, btw, which they've more or less built their careers on. They can garner sympathy while they claim that they're being unjustly persecuted.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:29PM
Regardless, it seems to follow the classic Clinton playbook move of the cover-up being worse than the crime.
Worse than whatever happened regarding Benghazi, probably, but we don't know the full extent of what was covered up since we haven't gotten a full leak of her deleted emails (yet). The full dirt might be much worse than the cover up. It seems reasonable to assume that it is, seeing as the cover up was blatant even before stonetear got doxxed. Why do a blatant cover up if the truth is less damning?
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:27PM
That's kind of the classic Clinton conundrum. They cover up because of how something looks or because it might be damaging politically. They get caught in the cover-up, which proves as a distraction from the real issue. By the time it's over, the situation is so muddled and convoluted it's hard to take seriously. I think most of this stuff, if they would just own it rather then being shady about it, would go a long way to making me feel better about supporting HRC's candidacy.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 21 2016, @01:58AM
That's exactly what Colin Powell said: https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-13-at-7.18.37-PM.png [firstlook.org]
Not as colorful as accusing Bill of "dicking bimbos" though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:40PM
I call BS. The State Department separately went through these emails and redacted a bunch of stuff. It's not the Platte River guy's job to redact.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:25PM
actually, even worse, since he ADMITTED he knew they were not supposed to be tampered with or deleted BY COURT ORDER, and did so anyway... there was NO bull 'oh shit' mome t, he did what he did purposefully and knowing it was illegal as hell... he is an eee-vil minion, plain and simple...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:31PM
Seriously? He doesn't know how to do a search and replace? And he asked for help on Reddit?
That's hardly more than a one line Perl program: $emails =~ s/[.\w]+@[.\w]+\.\w\w+/REDACTED/g;
(Score: 5, Funny) by Marand on Tuesday September 20 2016, @12:52PM
Seriously? He doesn't know how to do a search and replace? And he asked for help on Reddit?
There's mention of Exchange being used, so probably a Windows admin. Says it all, really.
That's hardly more than a one line Perl program: $emails =~ s/[.\w]+@[.\w]+\.\w\w+/REDACTED/g;
Can you translate that to .bat? Just asking out of, um...professional curiosity. For a...friend. Yeah.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:08PM
And good luck doing anything like that with a Exchange PST file. Those things are a giant mess. If ANYONE can manage to do a find an replace like that I would be highly impressed.
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:45PM
Convert the .pst file to a Berkeley mailbox, edit, then convert back to .pst?
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-convert-pst-to-mbox [techwalla.com]
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/How-To-Convert-MBOX-To-PST-81cd3a4f [microsoft.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:18PM
You'd want it as a powershell script probably, assuming it was possible.
Once you've been managing Exchange long enough, you realize that the GUI doesn't do half the things you need. You need PS scripts or commands for everything else.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:24PM
So you are one of those website developers who doesn't know about "plus addressing"? Read RFC2822 my friend.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Delwin on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:49PM
It always irks me when a registration doesn't allow plus addressing. I use it extensively so I can figure out who sold my address to spammers.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:28PM
I didn't know about + addressing. Wow. This is exactly the kind of epic thing I love to learn about on soylent. Thanks very much!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:00AM
Well, congratulations on learning about one of the most frustrating email features you'll ever encounter. Now you can suffer with the rest of us every time you try to use a + in a webpage form and then get told it's not a valid address. Every "please enter an email" type form, every service that uses email as a username, seems to have a vastly different idea of what is (or is not) an email address, and the poor maligned + is usually the first casualty. It used to be a lot worse than it is now, but gmail's use of it finally popularised it enough that you can actually use it on many sites nowadays.
But when it doesn't work it gets extremely frustrating. The worst one I've run into was a site with a sign-up form that required email address for login. The initial sign-up accepted the plus, but something on the backend didn't handle it correctly. So, I managed to successfully create an account for foo+bar@example.com, but had no way to log in because the creation process accepted the + but the login process didn't.
There's a similar trick if you use gmail: periods are ignored in addresses. So, foo.bar@gmail.com, foobar@gmail.com, and f.o.o.b.a.r@gmail.com are all valid addresses that send to foobar@gmail.com. If you run into a site that won't accept the +, you can give it a gmail address with a period in a specific spot for similar purposes as using +foo.
Both of them are great not just for seeing who's giving your address out, but also for filtering purposes.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:11PM
Ok, fine.
$emails =~ s/(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:(?:(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\0 31]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\ ](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+ (?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?: (?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*|(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z |(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])*)*\@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\ r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )*))*(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])* )(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*) *:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)?(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+ |\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r \n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031 ]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\]( ?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(? :(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(? :\r\n)?[ \t])*))*\>(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)|(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(? :(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)? [ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)*:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:(?:(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]| \\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^() @,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|" (?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(? :[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[ \]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*|(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000- \031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|( ?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)*\@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([ ^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\" .\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\ ]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\ [\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\ r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\] |\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*)*:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)?(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \0 00-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\ .|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@, ;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(? :[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])* (?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\". \[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[ ^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\] ]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*\>(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:,\s*( ?:(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[ \["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ])*))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t ])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(? :\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+| \Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*|(?: [^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\ ]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)*\@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\[" ()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n) ?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["() @,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*(?:,@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@, ;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t] )*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\ ".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*)*:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)? (?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\". \[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\.(?:(?: \r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z|(?=[\[ "()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|"(?:[^\"\r\\]|\\.|(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]))*"(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]) *))*@(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t]) +|\Z|(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*)(?:\ .(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*(?:[^()@,;:\\".\[\] \000-\031]+(?:(?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])+|\Z |(?=[\["()@,;:\\".\[\]]))|\[([^\[\]\r\\]|\\.)*\](?:(?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*\>(?:( ?:\r\n)?[ \t])*))*)?;\s*)/REDACTED/g;
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:40PM
You sure you have the correct RFC? Should've pointed to RFC5233, as a quick search for "plus addressing" turns up in the Wikipedia entry on email addresses. There is no mention anywhere in RFC2822 of plus addressing, tagging, or sub-addressing.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:30PM
I guess the point was that the plus sign is a valid character in an email address, no matter whether the mail server interprets it specially or not.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:58AM
All I was trying to point out is that "+" is a valid character in email addresses if used before the "@" symbol. What the destination email server does with it isn't defined, and, as a website developer, you should not care about it.
There is no RFC for plus addressing and Exchange doesn't support it. Just about every other MTA supports it, including Gmail.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jummama on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:29PM
That's what she sed
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:29PM
Leaving aside the ethics and illegality of it all, they were just asking to get caught. I mean what the hell were they thinking?
1 - Why would you signpost the fact that you are working for a "VERY VIP" person in your question? It has no technical relevance to the query, it just invites people to speculate, snoop and then join the dots later on.
2 - Why ask on Reddit? Are there no other places to get the information? Assuming you can't just google up the answers for yourself, why not go to somewhere that won't make your dumb incriminating questions available to the internet at large for the rest of eternity?
3 - If you really have to ask on Reddit, couldn't you post anon or use a newly-created account that isn't easily connected to your RL persona? It might not be foolproof, but it would provide at least one more layer of obscurity.
This is so stupid it makes me wonder if they wanted to get caught. It could be either (a) an over-elaborate whistle-blowing attempt disguised as incompetence to provide some plausible deniability and therefore protect against the employer's wrath [b] one of those situations where people subconsciously allow themselves to get caught because they know they are doing wrong but don't have the courage to just turn themselves in or {c} some kind of mole or double agent planted in Hilary's operation by her enemies to rat her out.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:34PM
or (d) they honestly thought this was all legal and above board and they had nothing to fear and nothing to hide. I guess that could be the case if they are quite junior/ naive, and had been assured by higher-ups that there was nothing to worry about. The question asked does kind of imply that they were simply trying to keep the VERY VIP person's email address private.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:41PM
or (e) The reddit post is fake and designed to look like it was being posted by this particular person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:35PM
From 12 years ago? I might believe it was a fake if it was more recent. I'm sure a lot of internet users stuck with the same username across many sites (like me) until they get into a situation where they start using different usernames, like govt for example.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:24AM
putin was alive 12 years ago, wasn't he ? ? ?
check and mate ! ! ! (say the clintonistas)
The Russians are coming (again) !
The Russians are coming (again) !
(is this the farce part ? ? ?)
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:06PM
1 - Why would you signpost the fact that you are working for a "VERY VIP" person in your question? It has no technical relevance to the query, it just invites people to speculate, snoop and then join the dots later on.
2 - Why ask on Reddit? Are there no other places to get the information? Assuming you can't just google up the answers for yourself, why not go to somewhere that won't make your dumb incriminating questions available to the internet at large for the rest of eternity?
3 - If you really have to ask on Reddit, couldn't you post anon or use a newly-created account that isn't easily connected to your RL persona? It might not be foolproof, but it would provide at least one more layer of obscurity.
Obviously, this Reddit thread was posted by Donald Trump and the Russians in 2014 to smear Clinton.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:38PM
> This is so stupid it makes me wonder if they wanted to get caught.
Or... He didn't think what he was doing had any legal implications. Literally if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide. It seems to me that people are motivated to read the worst possible interpretation into his words. The details are really light, if you frame them a certain way it looks terrible and the more terrible it looks the more salacious the story.
I think most of us have had the experience of asking a technical question in a public forum, including background details in the question and then instead of getting helpful answers we get a bunch of people seizing on those details and twisting them to fit their preconceptions either to answer a question that we didn't actually ask or to judge us as an idiot or asshole for wanting to do something they think is stupid or wrong. I certainly have. It took me a long time to learn to pair my questions down to the very minimum to describe the problem I was looking to solve because while I want to have an open discussion there are just too many dickheads with nothing better to do but use people's questions as a launching point to push their own pet issues. Another variation on eternal september I guess. And now we are seeing the ultimate case of people wanting to use this guy's question push their own agenda...
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:07PM
... to learn to *pare my questions down
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:52PM
Why am I not surprised that the only response to an even-keeled post is a fucking grammar flame?
This site is clearly rigged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:35PM
This site is clearly rigged.
Ah, but is it Jerry-rigged, or Jury-rigged? Or Trump-rigged? Possibly Out-rigged?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:04PM
About every single programming question I've ever asked?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:16PM
1 - the "very VIP" bit was just standard self aggrandizement - you see it all the time from bloggers, pundits, and whoever.
2 - ignorant people go to reddit all the time. I often google stuff, and find hits posted on reddit. I've even browsed some of those results. I don't recall ever finding anything useful on reddit.
3 - would defeat the self aggrandizement bit. Imagine this post: "Oh, look at me, I'm so important I get to suck a very important person's ass! -anonymous"
Yes, stupid, stupid, stupid. But, then again, Microsoft and Google save all of your searches anyway. If I use either search engine to find "how to wipe my boss's email server", it's recorded. If I'm on Windows, then Windows records it right in the logs. If you're signed into either of the major search engines, they they save the search again. Linux and duckduckgo are great, because they don't record that crap. All of my research into assassination techniques has been kept secret because I don't use Windows and Google or Bing. :^)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:13PM
Don't look for conspiracy, where simple incompetence will do.
- The guy was a bit impressed with himself, working for such a highly placed political animal. That's why he mentions the super-duper-VIP stuff. This is pretty human. Imagine you have a special contract, working directly for some really important person whom you personally respect.
- He's likely your average admin, with average capabilities, nothing special. Trying to edit a PST file directly is pretty hopeless; indirect solutions never occurred to him.
- He's not security-aware. He probably figured that using his reddit pseudonym was plenty of security.
I think the latter point is particularly important. Even those of us who think we are security-aware, probably aren't. Security is hard. It's a lot harder than we think: when any one stupid action can give you a way, and a million people on reddit and 4chan are hunting for you - you are basically screwed.
I think all of this is understandable, except for the ethics. If that super-VIP, whom you personally respect, starts asking you to do highly illegal things that can land you in prison for decades, it's time and past time to step back and re-evaluate.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:59PM
Don't look for conspiracy, where simple incompetence will do.
It might not even be incompetence. Imagine the following.
Secretary Clinton comes to you and says, "we just got a FOIA request. I need to go through all these emails and strip out President Obama's email address from the from and to fields. We don't want those out in the general public." Assuming this is legal (I think it is, but I am not a lawyer), and you don't know how to do it, what do you do? I assume you check on Reddit/SN/StackExchange/wherever asking how to do it, with a request very similar to the one we see in this news article. I fail to see how this is a smoking gun of any nefarious activity.
Then again, some other posters mentioned that this might have happened after more formal requests for information came from congress which would not be legally redact-able... in which case then yes, this is somewhat suspicious.
(Score: 1) by guizzy on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:55PM
Most people would be, in the presence of someone as VIP as HRC, be understandably star-struck.
Probably to a point where they would not question what that person asks (as long as it's not obviously immoral like killing someone), in the hope of impressing them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:04AM
Personally, I'd be puking my guts out being that close to that much corruption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:59PM
> This is so stupid...
There is a generation now of people who consider being signed in, logged in, going public, getting karma points, and participating in memberships that get points, etc to be completely normal. And yes, this is stupid.
Nevertheless they're convinced that being digitally present is paramount above all else; and they cannot consider (or really fathom?) that they give away the farm by constantly broadcasting themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:06PM
> This is so stupid it makes me wonder...
Don't wonder too hard. It is just plain stupidity.
There is now a generation of people who consider is paramount to be signed in, logged in, go public, get karma points, and have online identities to be completely normal. To some, being digitally present is above all else; and they cannot consider (or fathom?) that they give away the farm when constantly broadcasting themselves.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:15PM
As mich as asking "was getting caught part of your plan?". I have a feeling that if it was he would also not have allowed that same username to be tracable to furry fanfiction. Might have been despirate though.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Covalent on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:37PM
I wonder why on Earth HRC used email in the first place.
Here in Detroit, we watch our mayor get taken down (and imprisoned) for texting. We all learned a valuable lesson that day: if you're gonna break the law, do it face to face. It's incredibly easy to impeach the credibility of a witness or keep them quiet with a little cash or blackmail.
But emails? They're forever, and if they go missing, they're as good as damning.
What bothers me more than the illegality and shadiness is the blatant stupidity and complete lack of understanding of how technology works.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @01:54PM
I prefer that our leaders damn themselves and get caught rather than get away with it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:23PM
If you think you're the corrupt and ruling establishment above the law, then it doesn't matter.
Look at what happened to Hillary. Oh yeah, the zillionth felony and she's not going to get prosecuted as usual.
Thanks to identity politics (the bane of democracy) its not like she's going to lose any votes either.
The only mistake Al Capone made was not going into politics.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:46PM
> What bothers me more than the illegality and shadiness is the blatant stupidity and complete lack of understanding of how technology works.
Do you know how direction injection internal combustion engines work?
Do you even know how elliptic curve encryption works?
Do you know the biochemical processes involved in your own fingernail growth?
We all use tools with only a minimal understanding of the details under the hood. Don't presume that your specialized knowledge about one set of tools is something everyone could have. There is a reason 99.99% of the population would never find a site like soylent even vaguely interesting.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:29PM
I believe you mean direct injection or was it just a misdirection.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:17PM
I am not passing laws and having broad effects on the lives of others by my lack of knowledge on those topics.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:17PM
a Slashdot user, with some IT & political comments over 10 years ago. https://slashdot.org/~StoneTear/comments [slashdot.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:39PM
...and? Nobody cares about TOS or what was posted there fifteen years ago. There are people directly involved with the scandal that post here on SoylentNews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:48PM
> There are people directly involved with the scandal that post here on SoylentNews.
WTF? You clearly have an exaggerated sense of this site's importance in the universe.
Either that or in your book "reading reddit" counts as being directly involved...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:54PM
LOL. Idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:50PM
"There are people directly involved with the scandal that post here on SoylentNews." Who, What, Where, and When?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:43PM
Don't comment directly after smoking weed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:59PM
> There are people directly involved with the scandal that post here on SoylentNews.
Hillary, is that you?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:32PM
The crazy part is he was even commenting on an article concerning document retention talking about how everyone saves everything for CYA purposes.
arg (Score:1)
by StoneTear ( 469183 ) on Thursday January 24, 2002 @04:38PM (#2896625)
I'm contracted to a state government, and let me tell you, everyone here saves EVERYthing for cover-your-ass purposes.. it's really sad to see every little memo back to 1997 in someone's inbox taking up PHAT amounts of disk space on the GroupWise server ... sigh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:39PM
I liked the comment he made about "Gasbag Joe Liberman".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:35PM
Is it possible "stonetear" comes from a video game or other "geek pop" reference and is thus a fairly common user-name? How do they know they are the same person?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:57PM
At least we know just where his politics lie.
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13233&cid=74764 [slashdot.org]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:54PM
If this is legit, we now have evidence that Hillary's people actually do research on topics of importance before taking action...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:48PM
If this is legit, we now have evidence that Hillary's people actually do research on topics of importance before taking action...
Let's hope Reddit does the same. Last time they fingered someone it was definitely not the Boston Marathon Bomber.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:00PM
His life expectancy isn't good.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:29PM
Let this be a lesson to those who fight the system. When you expose the system above and beyond what it might allow, the system starts to do its hidden activities out in the open. If HC wouldn't have been caught, this guy wouldn't have gotten immunity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:16PM
May be the idea was to respond to a Freedom of Information Request. Without publishing the email address of all the VIPs like the HRC or Obama
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:08PM
Since the story broke over the weekend, here is a list of mainstream media news companies that have covered the story.
Fox News.
80% of the press is not only rooting for Hillary, but actively refusing to cover important national stories because they make Democrats look bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:45PM
This is turning into the Digg Patriot site.
Note to the world. If you call yourself a patriot, that means you are not one. It is for History to decide, not you.