Slashdot Mirror
Linux Forcibly Installed On Congressman's Computer In Act of Terrorism
fermion writes with news of Windows computers being forcefully liberated: "The campaign headquarters of Michael Grimm, a U.S. House of Representatives member from New York, were vandalized. What has not been reported everywhere is that Linux was installed on one of his computers, erasing data in the process. Is this a new attack on democracy by the open source radicals, or it is just a random occurrence?"
From the article: "'In fact, one officer said to me today they see this as a crime against the government, because I am a sitting United States congressman and they take it very seriously. You know, especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords, we're not in the world today where we can shrug things off,' Grimm said. ... [GNU/]Linux, an open-source operating system, was installed on Grimm's computers, erasing the hard drive contents, which included polling and voter identification data. But staff had backed up the hard drive contents hours beforehand. Grimm and his staffers said the vandalism — cement blocks were thrown through the office's windows — is a cover-up for the attacks on the computers."
I see this as a radical open source movement. Some people hated to see that government was using Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X on their computers and decided to take the matter in to their own hands. Linux was forcibly installed on the computers and the suspect was caught seen masturbating in a dark corner as the progress meter went further and further.
Elsewhere it was revealed that it was a young kid who threw the rocks, and a staffer "accidentally" wiped the computers with a Linux disk.
I say accidentally because he was being investigated for illegal use of campaign funds, and some of the data that may have been of interest to the investigation was lost. And it's not exactly trivial to accidentally wipe your disks with a Linux disk. I can see someone doing it, but you do have to go through enough steps that you have to have been trying to do *something* with that disk even if it wasn't wiping the system.
They should have used a Puppy Linux live CD to examine the contents of the computer without leaving much evidence.
It was an inside job by Government's agents. They are trying to get Linux install media on the list of illicit substances. ("Citizen, you have a Debian media set in your handbag! That was used in the most recent attack on a Congressman's privacy! You're under arrest!")
Ezekiel 23:20
The "terrorism" stories have been getting wierder & wierder thelast few weeks.. I figured that the chinese fishing boat armada setting off for the "disputed islands" had jumped the shark, but this is either a joke, or totally surreal.
What kind of stupid reporting is this, to make a suggestion that this is (1) open source is a movement, which (2) commits acts of terrorism and (3) will occur more often? The suggestion sounds awfully rhetorical, and will probably be picked up by some retarded right wing news agency.
First of all, the guy had everything backed up. No damage done, just some inconvenience.
Secondly, America is not a democracy - they just claim to be one, just like Iran. So attacking a US politician is certainly not an attack on democracy itself.
Probably some idiot trying to use a live boot USB to get at the files and clicked the wrong button
<del>Moslems</del> open sourcers to condemn this wanton act of (non?)violence.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
because I am a sitting United States congressman
Does anyone else get an air of elitism when people say things like this? "I work for the government, I'm better than you, and these things should only happen to you plebs." I feel that as long as our politicians think like this, we're doomed as a democracy.
Likely improved their security 100% :)
to get to the data. It has as much relevance to the story as the concrete block used to get through the window.
It was the same Pirate Party activists from Greenland who opened up the IEEE servers.
In light of a the attempted assassination of a congresswoman, throwing a lump of concrete through a window and flattening a computer definitely should be the highest priority for the police.
I had to check the ol' calendar to ensure that I didn't sleep till April 1.
What kind of hooey is this?
Who would want to break and enter to install linux? Really?
Let me put it to you this way Mr Congressman: They did you a freaking favor, thank them and move on.
OMFGWHAT?
I'm sure getting his computer attacked was just as bad as getting shot in the freaking head.
If you want to steal data, it's best to cover your tracks. Boot up a five year old live CD, sudo apt-get update and LOL as the computer overwrites its disk a few thousand times.
Was he satisfied with his new Linux desktop? And did they install KDE or Gnome?
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
Tin Hat Linux by the looks of it.
Sounds like some kind of warped attempt to discredit FOSS to me. It just doesn't sound like the sort of thing that "the community" would do. It's rather counter-productive if someone thinks it will make people start to take FOSS more seriously. I can't help thinking that this is only part of the story.
Gabby Gifford was shot in the head. That hardly makes a good comparison. Members of congress that equate a PC reformat with an act of terrorism are bent. Clearly they do not know what terrorism is.
It's not terrorizing to have a computer wiped, but the bills they are introducing, which allow and encourage infringement on our constitutional rights, IS terrorism.
I wonder what the political terrorist are planning to do against the people now. WAIT, I KNOW. It's propaganda to help promote Obama's own Cyber Security Executive Order.
...does that mean that you can install Linux in the time it takes for a cement block to go through a Windows(tm) ? Guerrilla advertisement is getting worse and worse.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
After reading all the links.... Can we get a bit more sensationalist?
Slashdot - The Fox news of the tech world... no wonder Taco left.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'd say this was consensual install. Had it been legitimate non-consensual install, the computer has a way to prevent itself being impregnated with an open source operating system if the install was not consensual.
If anyone accesses your PC without permission and destroys your data, that is a problem.
If they do it by installing some other OS, that is just the same problem. You weren't going to keep your compromised OS, were you?
If the other OS is Linux, that is no different to putting (say) MacOSX or BSD or MS-DOS even on the PC.
Heck, doing a clean install of an older version of WIndows would be just as bad.
Your data is gone. That is the news.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Terrorism by installing Linux? The act of erasing data was the destruction but being there was a backup nothing was lost, still calling out Linux being installed as terrorism is just insane. Besides everyone knows that Osama hated Ubuntu.
It's only terrorism if it's Ubuntu.
Linux isn't ready for the congressional desktop
just wait for the clueless Congress to ban linux and with that take down a big part of the web running linux servers.
I like how he egregiously throws Gabrielle Giffords into the conversation, as if terroristic acts of violence against authority/government figures weren't part of the frikkin' job. (If I was a clever /. poster I'd do the neat thing where each word of "part of the frikkin' job" would be a link to a separate story of political assassination from Abraham Lincoln, to Sissi of Austria, to President McKinley, to Archduke Ferdinand...)
I'm not saying what happened to her wasn't tragic; I'm saying it's PART of the position when one takes a seat of authority that ultimately, someone may object (crazy, right?).
And since William Tell, the ability of one of the governed to "reach out and touch" their government members has been ever-increasing (or is our society so incredibly safe and comfortable that we've forgotten this basic fact?).
For him to draw a line connecting some office vandalism to attempted murder is anyway pretty specious.
-Styopa
"But staff had backed up the hard drive contents hours beforehand"
It seems they were expecting the computer to be targeted. I mean only the guilty claim to have backed up the data on their computer mere hours before their office is vandalised. I suspect the congressman is trying to cover his own tracks or planning to shift the blame to the very "terrorists" his campaign manager hired to get rid of the evidence. Those damn penguins are notorious criminal underworld characters led by none other than a hippie named Stallman and a Finnish computer hacker named Torvalds. Someone please release the penguins from the New York City zoo and I bet they'll return to the scene of the crime. LOL
The way things work anymore I wouldn't be surprised. OWS is infiltrated by corporate shills that cause violence to make the organization look bad enough that it is okay to call in the cops. If someone wanted to take down Linux, this would be a great move. Make Open Source sound like something evil, then you can go in and ban it.
It seems to me, that that the vandals, were probably just using Boot and Nuke as a quick and easy way to clear out a drive, to an unrecoverable state.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sources report that terrorists left a box of organic, whole-wheat donuts at FBI headquarters last night...
"Whoever did this, the people responsible are very ignorant, and they don't understand that this is not just an attack against me or my campaign," Grimm, a freshman, told the Staten Island Advance. "This is an attack against a federal campaign office, which is an attack on our democracy as a whole. It's an attack against what we stand for, for free elections."
When they start throwing shit like this around without even investigating the perpetrator's motives it's a scary sight. In seats of power there is a big difference between the seat and the person in the seat. With logic like this, at least failing to investigate motive, one could say "Obama is a moron" and have it taken as a verbal attack against the president even though the comment was clearly aimed at the person and not the seat.
...but should be able to.
Make it so!
Why hasn't the NSA, CIA and or the Army been brought to bear on the nations 2nd largest terrorist organization?
Sneaky, I like it! Call in the wolves to deal with the foxes in the henhouse; they will not be expecting that! ;)
He did not just compare getting shot in the head to having his computer loaded with Linux did he?
This congressman is currently under investigation for misappropriation of funds. Here's a much more convincing story:
...
1. Congressman misappropriates campaign funds
2. Congressman comes under investigation
3. Congressman slips IT guy $50 to ransack the office at night and make some key financial data "disappear"
4. Congressman acts shocked and appalled, decries this act of "terrorism" and labels himself as a helpless victim.
5. Media gobbles it up because it contains the word "terrorism"
6.
7. Profit! (from misappropriating campaign funds)
The way it is laid out like other posters have pointed out bringing up the above the people attitude, and equating a harmed human to harmed objects. It is all a part of the system of control and superiority these type of empathy-disordered people use to control and manipulate the masses with or they them selves are manipulated and controlled by someone else above them in the pathocracy to regurgitate some completely contrived problem. Welcome to the world run by the psychopathic personalities.
http://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2012/03/biological-evil-introduction/
http://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2012/09/anarchism-and-psychopathy-thoughts/
source radicals
Complete and utter FUD.
Grimm and his staffers said the vandalism — cement blocks were thrown through the office's windows — is a cover-up for the attacks on the computers.
Or you know, a way in ;-)
I knew open source was evil!! Incoming raids at Torvalds house
so... someone broke into his office just to install Linux on one of the laptops. And they've connected this to "thefts of lawn signs" and "recent mysterious computer shutdown in the middle of the night." ..Riiiiight... I can't figure out what they are trying to cover up here, but this has got to be one of the most outlandish excuses I've ever heard.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Did anyone think to take the Knoppix disk out of the drive?
It wasn't considered terrorism until they saw the Unity desktop (rimshot)
obvious redundancy is obvious
Or, at least, an offer to come back with the source code at any point in the next three years?
Oh, wait...
They left distinctive footprints walking across the yard in front of the office:
Actual Forensic Photo From Evidence File
Don't see shoes like that every day in New York
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
Your link doesn't mention anything about illegal funds, I was going to call you out for trying to mislead but then I Google'd it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/michael-grimm_n_1853232.html
Wow, pretty murkey Eric Cantor (Republican head of the House!) in there too receiving the monies, so you can bet this one will be buried quick.
Where your data wiper and your web browser can apparently be launched with the same icon.
Let's just assume that the government teaches all it's employees good practices for taking and archiving their backups,
Solution:
1. Get IT dept. to reinstall the OS, and software
2. Download all your files that you backed up from an on-line cloud
3. Get back to work
And no, this is not an "attack on democracy", this is an attack against 1 person.
Democracy allows me to use a plethora of different back-up solutions, to lock my office door, to tell my BIOS not to boot from CD/DVD/USB, and to use a BIOS password.
Only terrorism if...they installed Slackware!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I seem to recall at least one distro that would automatically install via a booted CD.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Elsewhere it was revealed that it was a young kid who threw the rocks, and a staffer "accidentally" wiped the computers with a Linux disk.
I say accidentally because he was being investigated for illegal use of campaign funds, and some of the data that may have been of interest to the investigation was lost. And it's not exactly trivial to accidentally wipe your disks with a Linux disk. I can see someone doing it, but you do have to go through enough steps that you have to have been trying to do *something* with that disk even if it wasn't wiping the system.
Yep, New York Daily New has the story here. Apparently like the data wasn't deleted and whoever they had to do their IT didn't know enough about Linux and partitions to realise.
The young kid is still a terrorist. Good thing the police are treating it as "a crime against the government", since we're not in a world where a kid throwing rocks can be "shrugged off". No, indeed, we cannot ever ignore such violent acts of treason. And Linux? LINUX??? The white-text-on-black-screen OS of any true terrorist? I mean anyone who ever dumps out of the window system needs to be investigated thoroughly, let alone someone who does it to A GOVERNMENT COMPUTER?!
The IT guy was obviously working with the little kid to help Al-Qaida. "Grimm and his staffers said the vandalism — cement blocks were thrown through the office's windows — is a cover-up for the attacks on the computers." This happened Monday? Never forget 9/24. We must now enter a new era, a new world, a world of safety, plexiglass, and ubiquitous Windows 8 on machines with encrypted bootloaders. We'll enforce it all in an act called the Gabby Giffords windows and Windows Protection Act of 2012. Seriously. Never forget 9/24.
Terrorism by installing Linux?
All crimes are terrorism now. Just like all restaurants are Taco Bell.
And all cops are a combo of both Judge Dredd and Demolition Man.
An eighth grader admitted on Tuesday to throwing chunks of cement through the windows of the Staten Island campaign office of Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), the Associated Press reports.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne told the AP that the teenage vandal came forward to a school counselor, admitting that he and a friend had caused the damage at the building over the weekend.
Grimm had earlier characterized the attack as a "politically motivated crime" and "an assault on democracy and the political process," linking the incident to other acts of mischief regarding his campaign material. He also claimed that someone had tampered with hard drives in the office, installing Linux software and wiping sensitive polling and voter data.
The New York Times reported Monday night, however, that police investigators had taken a look at the campaign’s computer systems and determined that they hadn't been cleared. There wasn't even any evidence that an intruder had ever entered the office.
[HUffPost]
Threw an object threw the window of a candidates campaign headquarters?
I predict the following:
* that the vandal(s) will not be found, even with security cameras working.
* this candidate is losing in the polls.
* that the people that “forcefully” put Linux on a computer never heard the word, “no” uttered by the computer, thus imping it was “consensual.”
A computer has no will, and thus cannot 'forcibly' have anything done to it, except in the sense that *everything* is done by force, as a computer has no self volition to do anything.
I don't see that word in the article. Has this headline been editorialized?
Sounds like a great movie.
Then I read the summary.
Eh, still would be a great movie.
If I was a plumber, I'd use a bootable live Linux distro, myself. Although, Hiren's mini7 mode is a perfectly acceptable alternative. Not sure I would advertise the operation. Could be an irate victim of campaign telemarketers, though.
Likely a backup was made, they just took it with them.
Free Pussy Riot
Dban in the tray.
The cleaning lady was a geek. And he came weekly to the congressman's house, ostensibly to spruce up the place. But he never missed his online courses, the ones he could not get without an expensive fibre connection. The next topic was how to install Linux on a computer...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I thought she got shot, not her computer OS overwritten.
At first I read fermion as femanon and was like this article is obviously bullshit, everybody knows there's no girls on the internet.
There was an occasion a while ago where a university security guard saw a student doing something on his notebook that didn't look like Windows. Always on the alert the guard reported the student for having some sort of subversive software on his computer. Turned out the neophyte terrorist had configured his notebook to dual book Windows and Linux. Terrible stuff, this open source software. It will destroy us all, Destroy Us All, DESTROY US ALL, (just keep shouting that as loud as you can for the next few days and you'll get the picture).
Hmmm.... Guilty conscience much?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not an act of terrorism, it's all part of the movement of "We Know Best"... banning soda's, banning bad Software... use what we know is best for you. Saving you from yourself.
When Linux is outlawed, only outlaws will have Linux.
Do you want a politician who merely thinks... or REACTS? Like a cat in an anvil factory!
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
A witness says they spotted a rather large and unkempt man with a parrot on his shoulder fleeing the scene, he stopped to pick at his feet followed by what appeared to be a quick snack before disappearing out of sight..
The distribution being used was called DBAN
Sound like a legitimate installation of linux to me... frankly I'm surprised the PC didn't detect what was happening and employ countermeasures to abort the installation before it completed.
all our cellphones are compromised with this Finnish virus!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
You know, especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords, we're not in the world today where we can shrug things off,' Grimm said. ... [GNU/]Linux, an open-source operating system, was installed on Grimm's computers,
Seriously. Those two things are not even remotely comparable.
Though, it often *feels* like I've been shot in the head after installing Windows...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Sounds like the vandals decided to sweep the virtual floor and take out the virtual trash. How kind of them.
Still, I don't want someone coming into my home or office to clean up after me without my or my employer's express consent.
To me, this is no worse than - and no more deserving of press - than if the vandals had just erased the drive in addition to all of the non-computer vandalism they did.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Which grows into a debt.
> Linux... was installed on Grimm's computers,
... [as] a cover-up
> erasing the hard drive contents, which included
> polling and voter identification data...
Ah, significant clue:
There were significant non-public data on the computers.
> cement blocks were thrown
> for the attacks on the computers.
Actually, I'm betting that's a decoy. They were *supposed* to see the broken windows as the cover up, so that they'd see overwriting the drive's contents as the main attack, thus coming to the conclusion, since they had recent backups, that they had successfully survived the main attack with relatively little damage.
A properly paranoid computer security professional would conclude that overwriting the hard drive's contents was itself cover-up, a way of obscuring the main crime. In other words, the perpetrators probably stole copies of some or all of the non-public data that were on the computer(s). That was likely the main objective.
What they're going to _do_ with those stolen data is the next logical question. I don't know enough about the nature of the data to answer that one, but I bet the answer would be considerably more interesting than the "they used Linux to vandalize a Windows computer" angle.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
... cd/dvd drive for a live copy of linux?
Someone doing a false flag operation to discredit linux.
Now we won't be able to take Linux with us onto planes.
We're doomed as a republic.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You can cover up Linux being installed on your computer.
Think we can install it on all of them.
Considering that most of the major tech companies use Linux servers, I suspect that such a bill would not go very far. Then again, if it did succeed, expect to see a mass exodus of most major tech companies from this country. I imagine our economy wouldn't fare so well if that happened.
Then again, I've never failed to be surprised at how stupid people can be...
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
...I bet it was terrorizing to him.
Is it possible a staff member got bored and installed it on their own PC to try it out? I've never heard of a take-over-PC-and-install-a-real-OS attack.
No, really why do this?
I can see booting off USB/CD to copy sensitive data somewhere else ( no i wont call it stealing..:) ) ... i can understand nuking the data to be a pita and piss them off, but why go thru the time and trouble to do this?
Perhaps they just swapped drives and that is what was on the one they left behind?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If there's anything to it the mainstream media will be all over it. They only cover for Obama and the FAR left. Republicans and any Dems who are not far left are fair game.
Hasn't Microsoft been performing this same "act of terrorism" on millions of PCs for the last couple of decades? Windows has given me more cold sweats over senseless and irrecoverable data loss than Linux has.
Words, words, words
... frame the Penguins by the Evil Dr. Blowhole!
THINK! It's patriotic
Vandalism is not Terrorism. Maybe someone needs to take this asshole to the woods and show him real terror. You know the kind the US puts on others.
You know, especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords, we're not in the world today where we can shrug things off,'
Yea and who was that exactly that did in Gabby Giffords? Our own government. Maybe what he is saying is some CIA spooks broke in and did this. They're right the US can't shrug that off but here they are trying to. OH my see what happened to Gabby. Oops that was us!
Is this a new attack on democracy?
No its an attack on tha facisist trying to take over our government.
"Grimm, who is the target of a federal investigation involving campaign fundraising"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78751.html
"Linux, an open-source operating system, was installed on Grimm's computers, erasing the hard drive contents, which included polling and voter identification data."
As said earilier it was probably an attempt to cover up data theft, particularly in relation to above, just in time for election season.
You should have gotten FUNNY points for this.
>>Nope -- a "police source" tells the New York Daily News that it "appears that a campaign staffer wiped the hard drives accidentally after mistakenly inserting a Linux system disc into a Windows machine." And accidentally clicking the install button, and accidentally choosing a partition to format, and accidentally clicking the "format" button, and accidentally answering "yes" when asked "are you sure?"
So this is terrorism? Last time i checked it's governments(oligarchy) who terrorize people not the other way around. so how about when government snoops on your personal data(email, saving on cloud), phone conversations, or how about when they are telling you that you should buy health insurance or face a fine because this is the new law. What about the NDAA law. How about when swat teams comes in the wrong house and tells you to get down or they will blow your freaking brains out, isn't that terrorism. What about police officers abusing and harassing people. The only terrorist in this country is our government.