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Officials Say Russian Hackers Read Obama's Unclassified Emails

An anonymous reader points out that Russian hackers reportedly obtained some of President Obama’s emails when the White House’s unclassified computer system was hacked last year. Some of President Obama's email correspondence was swept up by Russian hackers last year in a breach of the White House's unclassified computer system that was far more intrusive and worrisome than has been publicly acknowledged, according to senior American officials briefed on the investigation. The hackers, who also got deeply into the State Department's unclassified system, do not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from Mr. Obama's BlackBerry, which he or an aide carries constantly. But they obtained access to the email archives of people inside the White House, and perhaps some outside, with whom Mr. Obama regularly communicated. From those accounts, they reached emails that the president had sent and received, according to officials briefed on the investigation.

18 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. One email found by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Putin, I know you are snooping here. Give back the Superbowl ring and Crimea, you thief. And wave Hello to Mrs. Palin for me."

    1. Re:One email found by florin · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Oh and good luck getting Hillary's email because no one here has it either."

  2. Snowden is a hero by kwoff · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh no, these Russians didn't have a warrant? It's okay that Americans working at government agencies can unconstitutionally access my stuff, but now I should be concerned? Who the propaganda cares?

    1. Re:Snowden is a hero by approachingZero+ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Good point. What's good for the goose is good for the goose stepping.

      --
      'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
    2. Re:Snowden is a hero by lucm · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't you find it interesting that this incident occurred while Snowden was in Russia? Maybe he gave them the White House wifi password in exchange for his 1-year visa.

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      lucm, indeed.
    3. Re:Snowden is a hero by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

      the White House wifi password

      'admin'.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:Snowden is a hero by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      Rather pointless for the Russians to hack the Whitehouse, the puppet house, nothing there but implied instructions from their corporate campaign donors. Want to know what the actual American government is doing, Russia needs to hack the boardrooms and homes of the US's dominate corporate leaders to find out what is actually going on and to be able to get actionable data. This to bring them down or to force better behaviour, lots of dirt there and of course even more in the tax havens positive gold mine of US and western government corruption.

      Want to know what is going on don't watch the puppet show, just mock it's subservience and incompetence (good people are more likely to be loyal to their fellow citizens then corrupt corporations), pay attention to the psychopaths pulling the campaign strings. Shine a light in those shadows and watch the cockroaches scatter no matter how rich they are and how much power they 'think' they have.

      The new cold war is US Corporations VS the People of The World.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  3. Unclassified security by bug1 · · Score: 2

    I heard one of Obama's unclassified speeches, it was on TV, does that make me a hax0r ?

  4. Re:Windows 10 Will Free Your Desktop by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was with you until the "high quality development tools" part.

    Last I heard, Microsoft's IDE was still broadly considered to be one of the best in the business, if not the best. Granted, their revision control system is one of the worst, so they're not all winners.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. A Blackberry? by VAXcat · · Score: 2

    What is this, the 20th century?

    --
    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
  6. Goose/Gander by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the words of the great James Baldwin:

    The world has never lacked for horrifying examples; but I do not believe that these examples are meant to be used as justification for our own crimes.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. The irony... remember when he took office... by Karmashock · · Score: 2

    ... and his team laughed at the existing tech infrastructure? Maybe the previous administration got hacked as well or maybe the Russians weren't trying as hard then... but I find it ironic that these people that came in saying they were superior at everything keep proving themselves to be incompetent.

    Fuck the politics. Just remember back to when they were dissing the old email server/old it department and look at how much better the new people ran things... aka worse apparently. That's just funny.

    On purely nerd principles you have to have a bit of a laugh at the administration's expense. So much hubris.

    how many of the tech people obama brought along do you think knew how to defend against state sponsored hacking? I'm guessing zero.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  8. Transparency by edibobb · · Score: 2

    In Obama's transparent government, much touted 8 years ago, shouldn't unclassified email be public in the first place? Surely they didn't change the rules, did they?

  9. Attribution by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    How can they know the attackers are Russian? I understand it would be nice for US government because it could help justifying the policy against Russia, but that will not make a proof.

    1. Re:Attribution by manu0601 · · Score: 2

      Not Russia's fault, but Putin's fault. It is always better to blame a leader than a nation, as you can gab markets in the later once you manager to throw away the former.

  10. Re:My question by rickb928 · · Score: 2

    Ya think?

    As if Hillary's server was any more secure than the White House UNclassified system?

    If you think Hillary's server wasn't compromised by any government, corporation, or force that cared to, you are naive. It was surely pwned over and over. It was also probably so pwned that it was a good place to study the various attacks.

    --
    deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
  11. Good thing... by ai4px · · Score: 2

    Good thing Hillary's email wasn't in the State Department's servers and safety sequestered away on her home server.

  12. No problem! by penguinoid · · Score: 2

    If he's got nothing to hide, he's got nothing to fear.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways