Monday, November 27, 2017

The FBI failed to notify scores of Americans that they were being targeted by Russian hackers.

Courtesy of the AP: 

The FBI failed to notify scores of U.S. officials that Russian hackers were trying to break into their personal Gmail accounts despite having evidence for at least a year that the targets were in the Kremlin’s crosshairs, The Associated Press has found. 

Nearly 80 interviews with Americans targeted by Fancy Bear, a Russian government-aligned cyberespionage group, turned up only two cases in which the FBI had provided a heads-up. Even senior policymakers discovered they were targets only when the AP told them, a situation some described as bizarre and dispiriting. 

“It’s utterly confounding,” said Philip Reiner, a former senior director at the National Security Council, who was notified by the AP that he was targeted in 2015. “You’ve got to tell your people. You’ve got to protect your people.” 

The FBI declined to discuss its investigation into Fancy Bear’s spying campaign, but did provide a statement that said in part: “The FBI routinely notifies individuals and organizations of potential threat information.” 

Three people familiar with the matter — including a current and a former government official — said the FBI has known for more than a year the details of Fancy Bear’s attempts to break into Gmail inboxes. A senior FBI official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the hacking operation because of its sensitivity, declined to comment on when it received the target list, but said that the bureau was overwhelmed by the sheer number of attempted hacks. 

“It’s a matter of triaging to the best of our ability the volume of the targets who are out there,” he said.

The AP did its own investigation and identified 19,000 lines of targeting data and over 500 organizations and people who were in the cross-hairs.

It might have been helpful for these people to know that they were being targeted, as they could have taken precautions that might have helped to curtail the attacks.

I consider myself to be a low level target, yet I have been inundated with phishing attempts for well over two years, and they continue today.

17 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:24 AM

    Hey Jesse, did you catch this article? Just wow.

    Hardly Anyone Showed up to a Brain-Melting Anti-LGBT Conference in Texas

    The #Teens4Truth conference had few teens but numerous speakers explaining how equal rights for gay and transgender people could lead “to the death of Christianity.”

    David Pickup, ex-gay psychotherapist, takes the stage at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary’s conference center in south Fort Worth. Pickup specializes in reparative therapy, the process by which people with deviant homosexual urges are rid of them. Run out of California, the land of looney liberals, he’s come to Texas to ply his trade and now presides over a conference on “traditional gender and sexuality,” with an eye to the young. #Teens4Truth, the mid-November conference is called. The event is an act of love, he says, as he kicks it off. “The two key words here are truth and compassion,” he tells the room. No hate in anyone’s heart, here.

    https://www.texasobserver.org/hardly-anyone-showed-brain-melting-anti-lgbt-conference-texas/

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous12:49 PM

      "Once Again, the Right Hijacks That Old-Time Religion
      A new museum in Washington reminds us that the Good Book is subject to interpretation — and abuse."

      https://billmoyers.com/story/right-hijacks-old-time-religion/

      Delete
  2. Anonymous11:25 AM

    Trump calls Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ at event honoring Native American code talkers

    ...“And I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people. You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago, they call her Pocahontas. But you know what I like you.”

    The president has derided Warren as “Pocahontas” because she has claimed to have some Native American heritage. She has faced criticism for having little evidence, besides family stories, that she has Native American ancestry.

    Watch video below.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/trump-calls-elizabeth-warren-pocahontas-at-event-honoring-native-americans-code-talkers/

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous11:55 AM

      “Trump’s Pocahontas remark in front of Navajo code talkers is offensive and shows his complete ignorance for Native American history during Native American Heritage Month.”

      http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/native-americans/

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:06 PM

      FB:"″You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”

      "They" call her Pocahontas.
      He literally made this racist joke in front of an event "honoring" WWII Navajo Code Talkers.

      Because he thought it was funny." <Jim Wright

      Delete
    3. Anonymous12:09 PM

      "Welker shot back. “Why use that term?”

      “I think Senator Warren was very offensive when she lied about something specifically to advance her career,” Sanders responded. “I don’t understand why no one is asking about that question and why that isn’t constantly covered.”"
      {fuck-a-bee$ting}

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:12 PM

      Trump Has His Most Racist Moment Yet As He Calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas In Front Of Native American Vets

      ...The President made his comment while standing below a picture of Andrew Jackson, who is the president who signed the Indian Removal Act. The only way that Trump could have made the situation worse would have been to sign an executive order confiscating all the property of the vets in attendance while handing them some smallpox-infected blankets.

      When it comes to racism, the neo-Nazi supporting President has given himself a high bar to clear, but Trump has just outdone himself. The racism and bigotry are relentless with Trump. Anytime, he is taken off script; he disgraces the country.

      http://www.politicususa.com/2017/11/27/trump-racist-moment-calls-elizabeth-warren-pocahontas-front-native-american-vets.html

      Delete
    5. Anonymous12:13 PM

      Hahahahaaa.

      This is actually hilarious. Trump has no political 'manners'. Why would anyone be surprised by this? It is what he does, and why shouldn't he call her out on faking her native ancestry?

      Delete
    6. Anonymous12:30 PM

      ‘What’s the Navajo word for jack*ss?’: Internet rains hell on Trump over ‘Pocahontas’ joke at Code Talker event'

      https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/whats-the-navajo-word-for-jackss-internet-rains-hell-on-trump-over-pocahontas-joke-at-code-talker-event/

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqN28elSzCU

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUoqI2zSMtU

      IRA HAYES

      Delete
  3. Anonymous11:29 AM

    Former CIA director James Woolsey — a key witness against Flynn — had dinner with Trump at Mar-A-Lago

    ...James Woolsey, the former CIA director and board member at Mike Flynn’s lobbying firm, took part in a “lengthy conversation” Saturday with the president, reported Business Insider.

    The conversation was revealed by a tipster to Politico Playbook.

    Woolsey, who was the guest of Newsmax chairman Chris Ruddy, spoke with Trump at the main dinner table, where the president and first lady Melania Trump dined with Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife Laurie.

    Seated nearby were Eric and Lara Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary, Howard and Michele Kessler, Kimberly Reed, Lee and Erika Lipton, Jack and Barbara Nicklaus, Bret and Amy Baier, and Robin and Richard Bernstein.

    Woolsey was present at a Sept. 19, 2016, meeting where Flynn and Turkish government officials discussed forcibly removing Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen from the U.S. — a plot that has fallen under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/former-cia-director-james-woolsey-a-key-witness-against-flynn-had-dinner-with-trump-at-mar-a-lago/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:32 AM

    Whoo hoo!

    The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback on Monday to gun rights proponents including the National Rifle Association, refusing to hear a challenge to Maryland’s 2013 state ban on assault weapons enacted after a Connecticut school massacre.

    The court turned away an appeal by several Maryland residents, firearms dealers and the state NRA association, who argued that the ban violated their right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. The conservative-majority court on Monday also declined to hear a challenge to Florida’s ban on openly carrying firearms.

    The justices, who have avoided major gun cases for seven years, sidestepped the roiling national debate over the availability of military-style guns to the public.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/us-top-court-spurns-challenge-to-maryland-assault-weapons-ban/

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anonymous12:43 PM

      http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/11/donald_trump_will_supercharge_voter_suppression_if_the_rnc_consent_decree.html

      ", the RNC hired off-duty law enforcement officers to patrol polling places in minority precincts. The officers wore armbands that read: “National Ballot Security Task Force,” and some carried two-way radios and firearms."With the consent decree gone, the RNC will for the first time in 35 years be free to begin anew efforts to spur purges of voter rolls and take potentially suppressive ballot security measures in the name of preventing voter fraud."

      Delete
  5. Anonymous12:52 PM

    ""I hope that a common sense, pragmatism and an instinct of self-preservation would prevail among our partners," The Russian diplomat's remarks come amid global concerns over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's refusal to abandon his nuclear ambitions despite mounting international pressure."
    On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the U.S. of attempting to provoke a war with Pyongyang. “We are alarmed that in the last two months when North Korea conducted no tests or rocket launches, it seemed that Washington was not happy about that, and tried to do things that would irritate and provoke Pyongyang," Lavrov said. "It’s as if [U.S. officials] are hoping that [North Korea] will lash out again, and then it would be possible to engage in military options.”"

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/north-korea-situation-seen-becoming-apocalyptic/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:19 PM

    FYI-diaper donny jr>
    "a direct message he received from the WikiLeaks Twitter account on September 20, 2016. After the group contacted him, Trump emailed several senior Trump campaign officials to say he had received
    “a weird twitter,”
    ties to a Russian organized crime group. Torshin, who also heads a Russian pro-gun group, hoped to meet with then-candidate Trump at a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016. Trump did not meet with Torshin there, and after taking office, he canceled a planned meeting with Torshin at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Torshin did, however, get face time with a Trump at the NRA confab: He met with Donald Trump Jr."

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/donald-trump-jr-wondered-if-weird-twitter-from-wikileaks-was-real/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Gmail? Don’t do that either.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous8:38 AM

    Russia is running out of options.
    They got SO use to it, addicted.
    Now they got the $$$ plug pulled.
    Oh it hurts bad hu Fuckers?
    If you expect me to feel sorry for you dont, because I won't.
    Remember that Russia in the End.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:43 PM

      Something is up. Stocks. Hm

      Delete

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