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Video Raises Doubts About Attkisson's Claims of Malicious Hacking
Was former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's computer hacked? Earlier claims that it was are being scoffed at by some security experts, after looking at cellphone video she has released intended to demonstrate that an intruder was deleting files. The video, say various commentators, may instead just indicate a stuck or faulty backspace key. It could be that both things are true (a stuck backspace key, as well as malicious intrusion targeting Attkisson for her political reporting), but it would be helpful to know more of the details on which CBS's (unnamed) hired experts concluded that her machine was breached.
The real kicker is after she selects a huge block of text which is then, of course, deleted, she goes to quit Word and saves over the previous revision. The only one deleting actual data in the video is her, herself.
As noted here: http://crooksandliars.com/2014... If you watch the video you'll see Valerie Harper in "Dancing with the Stars" playing in the background. That happened on or after September 16, 2013. "According to Attkisson's own timeline her computer was 'hacked' in October 2012, she came forward with this allegation in May 2013, but then waited until September 2013 to take video 'evidence.'" "We are supposed to believe that Sharyl Attkisson was hacked by the government and just said, "Oops, I'm hacked!" while she went merrily along with no additional examination, security and a nine-month lag between when she originally believed she was hacked and when she shot the video?" This is buffoonery at it's best!
She got played by bad sources pedaling BS stories about Benghazi. This for a report that made it on the air. Yet she insists that CBS suppressed other stories of hers. Were they suppressed because they were bad reporting, or for political reasons? Since leaving CBS, she has gotten wilder about her claims. She really needs to have been hacked, to give herself credibility. If the government hacked her computer, it would validate everything she has said. If the government is not out to get her, she's indistinguishable from any other terrible journalist. What's funny is how breathlessly the conservative press is running with this video. They obviously have no knowledge about what an actual computer hack looks like. Pathetic.
lots of victims wait until the time is right.
Right. Then they fake a video as "evidence" that it happened.
Not to mention that they continue to use a laptop for their work for at least 9 months, despite believing it to be completely controlled by "the man". They don't even bother to start using another computer to store their supposedly incredibly important evidence.
I think a technical debunking of her claims of being hacked is ideal Slashdot material.
We don't have enough information yet. to properly analyse those claims. What I've seen written so far has been sensationalised and technically incoherent. That's reason enough to dismiss it, but not reason enough to consider it proven false.
I do not know how stupid you have to be, but I do know there are a lot of these people out there.
I used to get infected computers all the time, ask them what kind of anti virus they run and get told they don't need them because they don't have a virus. I don't know how many people say they turned it off because it kept quarantining some file they downloaded to help them get movies or music or programs. They all swear the guy in the chat room knows what he was talking about. I even had one moron attempt to sue me in small claims court because a program I installed kept deleting his files. Of course it was an antivirus and the files were ones he downloaded from some p2p network. I replaced several components and a case on a computer that took a flight from a second story window because it kept freezing and locking up. After the owner picked it up and took it home, he called angrily complaining that he just paid me $500 and it does the same damn thing. I stopped over and found the problem to be a bad cord on his mouse- $20 dollars later, his old system would have been just fine still.
I don't think you would believe how many of those people exist out there.
Per the CBS article:
"This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion."
So if the 'hacker' was so sophisticated as to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity then how can they possibly conclude there was ANY 'unauthorized' activity? They would have to find some evidence of it (and they say the did not) to state otherwise.
So I can only conclude the 'forensic analysis team' was spouting pure unadulterated speculation with no basis in fact. Their analysis should really be 'we found nothing to substantiate any hacking occurred' rather than 'the hacking was so sophisticated it left no traces that the system was hacked.