Category Archives: NSA Spying

Hillary Email Server Timeline and Facts

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Like everyone else, tracking the pieces of this scandal takes imagination and could require a spreadsheet that includes names and dates. So, below will be some facts and dates and for sure could be amended as more developments are realized.

1. Bill Clinton had/has his own server dedicated to Clinton business, Foundation operations and speeches.

2. Hillary needed an IT based system during the time she was running for president in 2008, could not use the existing server due to capacity limitations, so she bought yet another which came with an IT person.

3. Server 2 was installed in the basement of the Chappaqua home and managed by a person listed as Eric Hoteham. Likely the real name is Eric Hothem, who was a DC stockbroker and a Democrat fundraiser that worked for Bill. Eric was also an aide to Hillary during her time as First Lady.

4. Several email addresses were created on the 2nd server where they had some numbers assigned like [email protected]. Several identified run from 18-22 but leads to a question ‘were there email addresses created 1-17? There is also a strange email address on the server known as [email protected]. It should be noted that Guccifer hacked the email address of hdr22.

5. Hillary used several communications devices: a Blackberry which is government issued, an iPad and an IPhone. Questions include, were any of these fitted with encryption features, including her server(s)? So far that answer is no.

6. In the handful of emails released to date as required by the Judge via the State Department, Hillary did not know how to use email and there was a time when the server was down which caused issues for Huma Abedin.

7. In June of 2013, the Hillary team went to an outside IT provider known as Platte River, located in Denver. All electronic communications were moved to Platte River and the Hillary server was moved to a data center in New Jersey and subsequently wipe clean. Now the question is what the Denver IT company Platte River providing redundant services and or an encryption platform to protect classified data for the emails? So far the company is not responding to media questions. The decision to transfer the server services was at the same time the emails that included Sidney Blumenthal were hacked by Guccifer.

6. Two weeks ago, the FBI made a call to Platte River to determine the basis of their work for the Hillary communications platform. On Thursday of last week, Hillary’s lawyer, David Kendall surrendered the 3 thumb drives to the FBI. On Wednesday of this week, the FBI took control of the server located in New Jersey.

7. The recent 2 of 4 emails in question that were marked with the top secret classifications due in part that they included geo-spatial information were sent via a compartmentalized system to the State Department. From State Dept., they were then removed from the protected compartmentalized system and sent to the uncertified Hillary system. All the top secret designations were removed, which is a felony.

8. David Kendall, the Hillary lawyer who maintained the 3 thumb drives was also the lawyer of record for General David Petraeus during his email investigation.

9. All of government uses the same ‘sensitive compartmented information security procedures and there is a manual.

10. Additional details on Hillary email server scandals can be found here.

11. Hillary Clinton statements on the email scandals proving the lies so far.

12. Wrap up to date on the server and the law.

13. Huma Abedin, Hillary’s personal aide and confidant has lawyered up with Karen Dunn on two fronts, the overpayment of $10,000 and for the email scandals.

14. In a recent batch of Hillary emails released was an inquiry about a book describing how to delete emails and the consequences that could result in a jail term.

ISIS Hacking Division Takes on Military and Govt Personnel

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Alleged ISIS leak compromises hundreds of U.S. military & intelligence emails — Dept of Defense is ‘looking into it’

and

The top of the page containing the leak appears to show an unconfirmed link to ISIS

Above: The top of the page containing the leak appears to show an unconfirmed link to ISIS

A Twitter account claiming to be the “IS Hacking Division” has published what appears to be an extensive directory of government emails, passwords, credit cards, phone numbers, and addresses spanning U.S. military departments and divisions, the FBI, U.S. embassies, the Library of Congress, U.S. city officials, the British Embassy, the FTC, and NASA, as well as possible personnel at Wells Fargo.

VentureBeat is able to confirm that the U.S. Department of Defense is “looking into” this alleged hack. We’ve also independently verified that at least several of the items included on that list contained accurate information, but that several of the people were not aware that the leak had occurred.

Other details in the document appear inaccurate or outdated; it lists two Intel Corporation email accounts which apparently do not exist in Intel’s “company email directory,” an Intel spokesperson told VentureBeat.

IS hacking division tweet

The content was published onto a site entitled “zonehmirrors.org,” a domain which was registered under the name Redi Alberto in the city of Lugano, Switzerland.

ISIS Group Claims to Have Hacked Information on U.S. Military Personnel
NBC: A hacker group claiming to be affiliated with the terror organization ISIS on Tuesday posted what it said was the personal information of hundreds of members of the military and government personnel, and urged terrorists to carry out attacks.

Flashpoint Intelligence, a global security firm and NBC News consultant, said it could not authenticate the claim by the so-called “Islamic State Hacking Division” or the accuracy of the information. Islamic State is another name by which ISIS is known.
The Twitter account used has been affiliated with infamous ISIS fighter Abu Hussain Al Britani, Flashpoint said. The account has since been suspended.

The group claimed the information contained names, emails, passwords, and phone numbers of personnel that included individuals from the Air Force, the Marines, NASA and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. There is no indication as to how old the information is, or whether the email addresses and passwords are still valid.

“We are aware of the report but cannot confirm credibility at this time,” a spokesperson for the Department of Defense said in an email. “The safety of our service members is always a primary concern.”

The group had previously claimed it hacked American servers and distributed information on military personnel, but analysts believe that claim was overstated, and the information was instead culled from freely available social media accounts, Flashpoint said.
T he information released Tuesday also included the purported credit card information of several U.S. State Department officials as well as screenshots of private Facebook messages between purported U.S. servicememebers.

Flashpoint analysts said the “hack” — if true — could be significant as it would represent a growing effort by pro-ISIS groups to distribute personal information that could be used in lone-wolf attacks.

The list of those hacked with names, locations, government divisions, embassies and P/W’s is here.  I was just notified that the original link has been taken offline, after some searching I located this link. http://tu3ek4yox26tber2.onion.nu/   Consider the risk if you choose to open it.

Advances and Secret Information on Hacking of Classified Systems

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Hacking never has the sizzle when it comes to terror or scandals, yet it is the cheapest and most effective means of destruction.

So, below are some items you cannot overlook.

A few weeks ago, the unclassified email and information system at the Pentagon, mostly used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was taken offline due to suspicious malware activity. That system is back online as of this week after all clues pointed to the hack by Russians which led to up to 4000 Pentagon employees losing access to email.

***

Then it has been determined the Chinese have accessed top government officials private emails since 2010.

Chinese hackers have been accessing the private mails of some top United States officials since April of 2010, which coincides with Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and her decision to use a private email server, Morning Joe’s Willie Geist reported Tuesday.

“The email grab, first code-named Dancing Panda, targeted top national security and trade officials,” Geist said. “It continued as late as 2014. The timing does overlap with Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state and her use of a private email server.”

“Many” top officials have been hacked, according to a high-level intelligence source and a top-secret document obtained by NBC News.

***

Now comes a global network of hacking and their successful and criminal activities.

Exposing a new front in cybercrime, U.S. authorities broke up an alleged insider trading ring that relied on computer hackers to pilfer corporate press announcements and then profited by trading on the sensitive information before it became public.

In morning raids in Georgia and Pennsylvania, federal agents arrested five men in the plot, while four others indicted on hacking and securities fraud charges remain at large.

The hackers, who are thought to be in Ukraine and possibly Russia, allegedly infiltrated the computer servers of PRNewswire Association LLC, Marketwired and Business Wire, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., over a five-year period.

They siphoned more than 100,000 press releases including corporate data on earnings that could be used to anticipate stock market moves and make profitable trades. The hackers passed the information to associates in the U.S., who allegedly used it to buy and sell shares of dozens of companies, including Panera Bread Co., Boeing Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Oracle Corp., through retail brokerage accounts. A must read for the rest of the details is here.

***

Most chilling of all is the forward leaning and creative uses of drones.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Forget Facebook drones that broadcast Wifi. The future is drones that hack from above. A company called Aerial Assault has turned a quadcopter into a flying hacker that scans the world below for insecure devices and vulnerable Wifi ports. Its makers say they built the tool for penetration testing — to help “good guys” diagnose their own weaknesses — but they concede that with a bit of modification, it could be used to exploit those vulnerabilities and install malware from the air. This is why it’s paramount to get your I.T. network looked at by a penetration testing company, you may think this is a scary thing for your company to undergo however, it will actually prevent people (hackers) from stealing your companies information as all of the weak spots would of been identified and then rectified.

The unnamed drone, which may be the first unmanned aerial penetration tool for sale to the public, was on display at the DEF CON hacker conference here last week. It uses a small Raspberry Pi computer running the Kali Linux penetration tester software with the broadcast range extended by alpha radio antennas. It will retail for $2,500 when the Web site goes up in a few days, its makers say.

“We’ve set it up so it does some basic [penetration] testing stuff and coordinates all that data with GPS coordinates from the flight controller. From that, you can extend it with every type of capability that you want Kali Linux to do,” said David Jordan, a representative from Aerial Assault who was selling it on the floor at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday.

While the drone isn’t specifically designed to distribute malware, Jordan acknowledged it could be modified to do so. “It is up to the user to decide what they do with it. If the user, they have Raspberry Pi with Kali on it, they can reprogram custom scripts. That’s good for doing more extensive [penetration] testing. But, you know, scripts can be whatever they are,” he said. “Our intended use is for pentesters to be able to diagnose vulnerabilities and help people understand what their Wifi accessibility is, even up in the air.”

 

IRS: Lois Lerner, Texas and Abraham Lincoln

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Lerner Lincoln Email

From the Federalist:

“As you can see, the Lone Star State is just pathetic as far as political attitudes are concerned,” Lerner’s friend Mark Tornwall wrote in 2014.

“Look my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best,” Lerner responded, according to USA Today. “He should’ve let the south go. We really do seem to have 2 totally different mindsets.”

Finance Committee Releases Bipartisan IRS Report

Committee Concludes Two-Year Investigation into the IRS’s Treatment of Tax-Exempt Organizations

WASHINGTON – Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today released the Committee’s bipartisan investigative report detailing their investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) treatment of organizations applying for tax-exempt status after the Committee voted to report out the findings in a closed executive session.  As required by law, members were briefed by Committee staff with 6103 authority to review private taxpayer information in a number of closed-door briefings on the findings and recommendations of the report before the vote.

“This bipartisan investigation shows gross mismanagement at the highest levels of the IRS and confirms an unacceptable truth: that the IRS is prone to abuse,” Hatch said.  “The Committee found evidence that the administration’s political agenda guided the IRS’s actions with respect to their treatment of conservative groups.  Personal politics of IRS employees, such as Lois Lerner, also impacted how the IRS conducted its business.  American taxpayers should expect more from the IRS and deserve an IRS that lives up to its mission statement of administering the tax laws fairly and impartially – regardless of political affiliation. Moving forward, it is my hope we can use this bipartisan report as a foundation to work towards substantial reforms at the agency so that this never happens again. ”

“The results of this in-depth, bipartisan investigation showcase pure bureaucratic mismanagement without any evidence of political interference,” said Wyden.  “Groups on both sides of the political spectrum were treated equally in their efforts to secure tax-exempt status.  Now is the time to pursue bipartisan staff recommendations to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Bipartisan findings of the report include:

  • During the years 2010 to 2013, IRS management failed to provide effective control, guidance and direction over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status.
  • Top IRS managers did not keep informed about the applications involving possible political advocacy and thereby forfeited the opportunity to provide the leadership that the IRS needed to respond to the legal and policy issues presented by these applications.
  • Lois Lerner, who headed the Exempt Organizations Division, became aware of the Tea Party applications in early 2010, but failed to inform her superiors about their existence.  While under Lerner’s leadership, the Exempt Organizations Division undertook no less than seven poorly planned and badly executed initiatives aimed at bringing the growing number of applications from Tea Party and other groups to decision.  Every one of those initiatives ended in predictable failure and every failure resulted in months and years of delay for the organizations awaiting decisions from the IRS on their applications for tax-exempt status.
  • The Committee also found that the workplace culture in the Exempt Organizations Division placed little emphasis or value on providing customer service.
    • Few if any of the managers were concerned about the delays in processing the applications, delays that possibly harmed the organizations ability to function for their stated purposes.
  • The Committee made a number of recommendations to address IRS management deficiencies as follows:
  • The Hatch Act should be revised to designate all IRS, Treasury and Chief Counsel employees who handle exempt organization matters as “further restricted.”  “Further restricted” employees are precluded from active participation in political management or partisan campaigns, even while off-duty.
  • The IRS should track the age and cycle times of applications for tax-exempt status to detect backlogs early in the process and allow management to take steps to address those backlogs.
  • The Exempt Organizations Division should track requests for assistance from both the Technical Branch and the Chief Counsel’s office to ensure the timely receipt of that assistance.
  • A list of over-age applications should be sent to the Commissioner on a quarterly basis.
  • Internal IRS guidance should require that employees reach a decision applications no later than 270 days after the IRS receives that application.  Employees and managers who fail to comply with these standards should be disciplined.
  • Minimum training standards should be established for all managers within the EO Division to ensure that they have adequate technical ability to perform their jobs.

Issuance of the report was delayed for more than a year after the IRS belatedly informed the Committee that it had not been able to recover a large number of potentially responsive documents that were lost when Lois Lerner’s hard drive crashed in 2011.

  • By failing to locate and preserve records, making inaccurate assertions about the existence of backup data, and failing to disclose to Congress the fact that records were missing, the IRS impeded the Committee’s investigation.  These actions had the effect of denying the Committee access to records that may have been relevant and, ultimately, delayed the investigation’s conclusion by more than one year.

A table of contents for the appendix can be found here. The appendicies can be found below:

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

Part 3 here.

Part 4 here.

A timeline can be found here.

Additional views from Chairman Hatch can be found here. A summary can be found here.

Additional views from Ranking Member Wyden can be found here. A summary can be found here.

 

Background:

On May 20, 2013, the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee sent a detailed, 41-question document request to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seeking information about the alleged targeting by the IRS of certain social welfare organizations applying for tax-exempt status based on those organizations’ presumed political activities. That letter marked the beginning of a bipartisan investigation by the Committee into the IRS’ activities related to the review of tax-exempt applications and related issues raised by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) in his May 14, 2013, report.

In June 2014, the Committee learned that Lois Lerner had experienced a hard drive failure in 2011, which raised questions about the IRS’s ability to produce all the documents necessary to complete the Senate Finance Committee investigation. As a result, Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Wyden asked TIGTA to investigate the matter. Specifically, TIGTA looked into: 1) what records the IRS lost; 2) if there was any attempt to deliberately destroy records, or otherwise impede congressional and federal investigations; and 3) whether any of the missing information can be recovered.

TIGTA provided their findings to the Committee on June 30, 2015.

Upon completing the report, Committee investigators had interviewed more than 32 current and former IRS and Treasury employees and reviewed nearly 1.5 million pages of documents.

Putin Officially Stakes Exclusive Claim to the Artic

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Without even so much as a whimper from anyone in Washington DC, Putin made his final submission to the United Nations in writing claiming expanded sovereignty of Russia for the Artic.

This was tried before by Russia and it was denied in 2001.

The question is why is the United Nations the final approval authority for such a claim under which the matter is governed by the Law of the Seas?

Obama’s feeble position on the Artic

In May 2013, President Obama published the National Strategy for the Arctic Region, defining the desired end state as an Arctic Region stable and free of conflict, where nations act responsibly in a spirit of trust and cooperation, and where economic and energy resources are developed in a sustainable manner. In November 2013, the Secretary of Defense published the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, identifying two supporting objectives to the National Strategy:

• Ensure security, support safety, and promote defense cooperation;
• Prepare for a wide range of challenges and contingencies.

In support of National and Department of Defense aims, the Navy will pursue the following strategic objectives:

• Ensure United States Arctic sovereignty and provide homeland defense;
• Provide ready naval forces to respond to crisis and contingencies;
• Preserve freedom of the seas; and
• Promote partnerships within the United States Government and with international allies and partners.

Full detail here.

Russia’s Application Summary to the United Nations

INTRODUCTION

The Russian Federation signed 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“Convention”) on 10 December 1982 (then the USSR) and ratified it on 26 February 1997. The Convention entered into force for the Russian Federation on 11 April 1997. In accordance with Article 77 of the Convention, the Russian Federation proceeds from the fact that the rights of the coastal state over the continental shelf exist ipso facto and ab initio.

This Submission of the Russian Federation, which is made on the basis of Article 76.8 of the Convention, is a partial revised submission and covers the part of the Arctic Ocean region. The area under consideration was included in the first Submission of the Russian Federation (made on 10 December 2001) in respect of the extended continental shelf, which was considered at the 11th session of the Commission from 24 to 28 June 2002.

Recommendations relating to the Arctic Ocean adopted at that session of the Commission (L. Recommendations / D. Summary of recommendations. Central Arctic Ocean) say: 154/166. The Commission recommends that the Russian Federation make a revised submission in respect

of its extended continental shelf in the Central Arctic Ocean based on the findings contained in these recommendations.

155/167. The Commission recommends that the Russian Federation follow the scientific and technical advice contained in its Scientific and Technical Guidelines, and as indicated in the various sections of these Recommendations of the Commission.

156/168. The Commission recommends that according to the materials provided in the submission the Lomonosov Ridge cannot be considered a submarine elevation under the Convention.

157/169. The Commission recommends that, according to the current state of scientific knowledge, the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge Complex cannot be considered a submarine elevation under the Convention.

Guided by the provisions of the Rules of Procedure and the STG, and also taking into account the practice of the Commission, the Russian Federation reserves the right to introduce amendments and additions to this partial revised Submission that can be based on new or additional research data and may provide changes to the presented OLCS line of the Russian Federation.

1. EXTENDED CONTINENTAL SHELF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN

This partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation for establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean is made to include in the extended continental shelf of the Russian Federation, in accordance with article 76 of the Convention, the seabed and its subsoil in the central Arctic Ocean which is natural prolongation of the Russian land territory.

The basis for the extension of rights to the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean is the identity of the submitted areas to the continental shelf, as well as the OLCS position under Article 76 of the Convention at a distance of more than 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. In the case of the Russian Federation, this distance coincides with the boundary of the Russian exclusive economic zone. Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the Federal Act “On the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Russian Federation”(No. 191, dated December 17, 1998) states that:

PARTIAL REVISED SUBMISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE COMMISSION ON THE LIMITS OF THE CONTINENTAL SHELF IN RESPECT OF THE CONTINENTAL SHELF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN

The outer limit of the exclusive economic zone is established at a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured, unless otherwise is stipulated by the international treaties of the Russian Federation.

Requirements of Paragraph 1 of Article 75 of the Convention provide that:

Subject to this Part, the outer limit lines of the exclusive economic zone and the lines of delimitation drawn in accordance with article 74 shall be shown on charts of a scale or scales adequate for ascertaining their position. Where appropriate, such limit lines or delimitation lines may be substituted by a list of geographical coordinates of points, specifying the geodetic datum.

The line of the Russian exclusive economic zone is shown on the chart of Central Arctic Basin (admiralty No. 91115), publication of the Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Russian Ministry of Defense in 2014.

The list of straight baseline points was approved by Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers of 15 January 1985 and published in the book “Maritime Legislation of the Russian Federation” (1994) by the Main Department of Navigation and Oceanography (admiralty No. 9055). An English translation of the said list has been officially handed over to the UN Secretary General and placed on the UN website (see List of straight baseline points 4450 “RUS_1985_Declaration”).

The List contains coordinates of the straight baseline endpoints. The position of the normal baselines adjoining the straight baselines in this document is recorded with the text: “onwards along the low-water line up to the base point …. No.”.

The area of the seabed of the Arctic ocean (Fig. 1), considered in this revised partial submission and relevant to the OLCS determination of the Russian Federation under article 76 of the Convention, covers the geomorphological continental shelf of the Russian Arctic marginal seas, part of the Eurasian basin (Nansen basin and Amundsen, the Gakkel ridgeThe Arctic Ocean seabed area considered in this partial revised Submission that for establishment of the OLCS of the Russian Federation under Article 76 of the Convention includes the geomorphological shelf of the Russian Arctic marginal seas, part of the Eurasian Basin (the Nansen, Amundsen basins and the Gakkel Ridge), and the Central Amerasian Basin consisting of the Makarov Basin and Complex of the Central Arctic Submarine Elevations, which includes the Lomonosov Ridge, Podvodnikov Basin, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise, Mendeleev and Chukchi basins, and Chukchi Plateau.

Partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation on the establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean proceeds from the scientific understanding that the constituent parts of the Complex of the Central Arctic Submarine Elevations, namely the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise, and Chukchi Plateau, and separating them the Podvodnikov and Chukchi Basins have the continental origin and belong to submarine elevations that are natural components of the continental margin under paragraph 6 of Article 76 of the Convention, which are not subject to distance limit of 350 nautical miles from the baselines.

The submitted OLCS line under Article 76 of the Convention in accordance with this partial revised Submission is shown on the schematic map included in the Executive Summary (Fig. 1). A more detailed description of the claimed OLCS is given below in the corresponding section of the Executive Summary.

In accordance with Paragraphs 3.2.1 and 3.2.3 of the STG, all distances in the partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation for establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean are given in nautical miles (M) or metres (m).

Many more details and the full Russian document is found here.