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Georgia secretary of state says cyberattacks traced to DHS addresses

VanceMack said:
Well...Obama just took what Bush gave him.
Yeah he did...and made it worse!
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not true. this was the Patriot Act under bush

"
The Bush administration built an unprecedented surveillance operation to pull in mountains of information far beyond the warrantless wiretapping previously acknowledged, a team of federal inspectors general reported Friday, questioning the legal basis for the effort but shielding almost all details on grounds they're still too secret to reveal.

The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks

Report: Bush program extended beyond wiretapping - USATODAY.com

actual report http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/psp.pdf

President Obama extended sections of the Patriot Act:

—Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

—Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

—Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Obama signs Patriot Act extensions - Washington Times

yea, not worse.

Holy ****...how about "If this turns out to be true, heads should roll at DHS and people should probably be arrested"
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Holy ****...how about "mmmmm, I wonder if this is this is just more lying and inflammatory BS that's constantly spewed to conservatives? " see above.
 
Erod said:
But these are Dept of Homeland Security computers. What does that say about the competence of the department if this is just grandma opening the wrong email? You'd think they'd be more protected than that, given what they do there.
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The government always has a hard time getting good IT people. If you work in IT, working for a bank or the government are both pretty much the worst jobs you could have due to all the change control and bureaucracy. For example, lets say I am a Senior Systems Admin for the Department of Homeland Security. In my position, I think for security reasons we need to deploy some Layer 7 Web Filters to block malicious sites, ad networks, and so on because that is how networks these days are typically exploited. Think about the bureaucratic nightmare I am going to have to go through to get those appliances purchased and deployed. Of course, if they outsource it, then there is yet another layer of bureaucracy. This is why good IT people don't want to work for the government or banks. So what banks and the government primarily get for IT people are guys that are past their prime and just want a job with good benefits that they can do the last few years of the working life until retirement.

I don't know what the fix is for that either. There are some sectors like finance and government that by their very nature have a hard time attracting the best and brightest IT guys (other than in a handful of departments like parts of NASA or NOAA).
 
I don't believe any of this. The Georgia SOS has no idea who the hacker was. It could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.
 
Fearandloathing said:
It is Bush's fault.

He was in office and approved it, announced it and ran on it. It's his greatest legacy.

But, it was Obama who expanded it, it was Obama who gave 99 years of life, and it was Obama stood proudly in front of teleprompter said of spying on private individuals and national leaders "it's what we do."

Your fawning and near illiterate media never actually asked him if the executive branch was prying into American lives and institutions.

So the fault, deer readers, lies with the voter. You cheered and gave Bush more power than any other president has ever had, and approved his actions to the tune of 85%....never asking what oversight might be needed or whether thees powers would be misused.

Even at this juncture, like all pressing issues you are arguing about who to blame, not what to do about it.
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Who was in office when Obama expanded it?
 
Grand Mal said:
Conservatism. "What are you afraid of if you have nothing to hide?"
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That when you find I have nothing to hide, you'll outlaw something I do have in order to have power over me...
 
RickJames3000 said:
I don't believe any of this. The Georgia SOS has no idea who the hacker was. It could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.
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I knew it. It's those damned Hobokeners again.
 
Erod said:
Georgia Secretary of State says cyberattacks linked back to DHS | WSB-TV



So is the DHS now a weapon against Americans like the IRS, DoJ, etc?
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Some people need to get a little bit educated on topics before they talk about them in public. Step #1 when you hack: Mask your identity. So if this was DHS, the would have masked their identity as being some dimwit in Albania, not left their identity wide open by not masking their IP or simply using a TOR network connection.
C'mon, Mr. Governor, get educated on the fundamentals of hacking before you make yourself look any stupider...
 
apdst said:
Who was in office when Obama expanded it?
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You are the winner!

The stupidest question of the year!

I believe the point is that the MAJORITY of Americans SUPPORTED the Patriot Act, and apparently still do. Understanding impartiality and unbiased is not a concept the right can embrace I guess, or your hate for all things Obama clouds thinking
 
Fearandloathing said:
You are the winner!

The stupidest question of the year!

I believe the point is that the MAJORITY of Americans SUPPORTED the Patriot Act, and apparently still do. Understanding impartiality and unbiased is not a concept the right can embrace I guess, or your hate for all things Obama clouds thinking
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Now, how did I know you were going to avoid my question like the plague? :lamo
 
KevinKohler said:
Not saying they're innocent. That would be partisan hackery.
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Yep, but there are plenty of folks here, who scream and bitch about partisan hackery, but NEVER hold obama to account.
 
Chillfolks said:
When Obana was a senator and running for the presidency he pledged he would end these kinds of surveillance programs. Just another lie told by Obana to scam his way into free housing.
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You should chill on the racist comments.
 
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apdst said:
Yep, but there are plenty of folks here, who scream and bitch about partisan hackery, but NEVER hold obama to account.
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Probably because most of what you want people to complain about would be partisan hackery. [of course not including the many broken promises of Hope/Make America great again because trump voters fell for it again]
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Probably because most of what you want people to complain about would be partisan hackery. [of course not including the many broken promises of Hope/Make America great again because trump voters fell for it again]
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Partisan? You mean like when the Left NEVER held Obama accountable, for anything? Is that what you're talking about?
 
apdst said:
Partisan? You mean like when the Left NEVER held Obama accountable, for anything? Is that what you're talking about?
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It depends what you think Obama should be held accountable for. Personally i find the part of the ACA that forces US citizens to purchase health insurance to be deplorable. And there is a list of other things, but I suspect that most if not all of yours are hyper partisan attacks.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I work in IT and deal with this kind of stuff all the time. What this almost certainly means is that there are computers or servers at DHS that have been compromised with malware and are thus being used for a botnet to conduct brute force or DDoS attacks (or some kind of a variant of that). It could literally be as simple as someone's workstation being infected by a malicious ad.

I can grep the logs on our ADCs at any given point and see attacks coming from dozens of different networks and organization across the country at any given point.
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Really, you think malware botnet might be responsible?

The timing of the attacks to coincide with the election is pretty interesting, too.
 
Moot said:
Really, you think malware botnet might be responsible?

The timing of the attacks to coincide with the election is pretty interesting, too.
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Most likely yes, it was a botnet. The article doesn't give any details about the attack. Just some dates. I think the Sec of State there doesn't know anything about these kinds of attacks and is just trying to politicize it.

Had there actually been coordinated attacks from DHS, you can bet it would have been all over the tech news sites like arstechnica.com and theregister.com.
 
Chillfolks said:
When Obana was a senator and running for the presidency he pledged he would end these kinds of surveillance programs. Just another lie told by Obana to scam his way into free housing.
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And Senator Obama voted in favor of FISA II which gave immunity to the various telecoms for the dirty work they did for Bush in domestic spying.
 
It speaks to the degeneracy of the American right that they believe Russians over their own organisations. It's deplorable.
 
Thoreau72 said:
And Senator Obama voted in favor of FISA II which gave immunity to the various telecoms for the dirty work they did for Bush in domestic spying.
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mmmmm, so immunity to a third party is worse than Bush's dirty work? Can you please explain why telephone companies should be held accountable for believing the lies the Bush admin told them. thanks in advance.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Most likely yes, it was a botnet. The article doesn't give any details about the attack. Just some dates. I think the Sec of State there doesn't know anything about these kinds of attacks and is just trying to politicize it.

Had there actually been coordinated attacks from DHS, you can bet it would have been all over the tech news sites like arstechnica.com and theregister.com.
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Funny thing is....the DHS doesn't seem to be denying the attacks. Instead they seem to be trying to figure out the source in their own department...IE: U.S. Customs and Border Protection internet gateway, an employee in Corpus Cristi or a contractor in Georgia." Or so Kemp says.
 
Moot said:
Funny thing is....the DHS doesn't seem to be denying the attacks. Instead they seem to be trying to figure out the source in their own department...IE: U.S. Customs and Border Protection internet gateway, an employee in Corpus Cristi or a contractor in Georgia." Or so Kemp says.
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Which is exactly what you would expect an agency to do if they believed that the attack was from malware infected devices on their networks.
 
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