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Ex-US State Dept. Worker Pleads Guilty To Extensive Sextortion Case (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: The former U.S. Department of State man accused of hacking into hundreds of victims' e-mail and social media accounts, stealing thousands of sexually explicit photographs, and threatening at least 75 victims that he would post those photos and other personal information unless they agreed to his demands has entered a guilty plea to the nefarious attacks. Michael C. Ford, 36, of Atlanta, was indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Aug. 18, 2015, with nine counts of cyberstalking, seven counts of computer hacking to extort and one count of wire fraud.
... did he do all of this from a server in his house?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A very tame example of why we shouldn't be allowing warrantless bulk data collection - the obvious better examples are those of journalists assassinated - such as Michael Hastings.
The shear number of government employed criminals is indeed a good reason to not let them have the data.
Pictures, or it isn't true!
Come on, everyone knows to be a govt. employee you have to have sworn never to do illegal drugs, and to instead medicate bad feelings with pills that make you unable to have feelings. Potheads and hippies are the real plague.
Venus is a whore. She doesn't care. Mars, however, will without a doubt invade Japan for pulling that stunt.
*sheer
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Vulcan wouldn't care, but Mars might...
Then again, she really got around.
http://www.ancient.eu/venus/
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
"The majority of Ford’s phishing, hacking and cyberstalking activities were conducted from his computer at the U.S. Embassy in London." For all we know the next Aldridge Ames is working in the London embassy. It's not like state department security is going to catch him.
I don't see the news here - The NSA, GCHQ, CSEC etc. do most of that every day. They might not sell or post the data but it certainly feels threatening knowing they have it.
A very tame example of why we shouldn't be allowing warrantless bulk data collection - the obvious better examples are those of journalists assassinated - such as Michael Hastings.
I'm not defending this guy in any way, but if you read the article, it doesn't appear he used data from any government bulk data collection program. In fact, I don't think he used any special access he might have had working in the State Department. He just happened to be employed there. That doesn't make what he did okay, and it doesn't make government warrantless data collection okay, but one doesn't really follow from the other in this case at all.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
administration. They were an embarrassment.
One of the constants in human history is that people can and will abuse any power they get - and government employees who have the power of government behind them will abuse the power over the citizens with even more vigor. This is why placing too much power in the hands of government is ALWAYS bad.
How's all that government spying on the citizens working out? The government has clearly been vacuuming-up data on all the people "to keep us safe", but it did not stop the Boston Bombing nor the shootout at the Pamela Gellar meeting in Texas (both of which SHOULD have rung every alarm bell @ DHS) nor San Bernadino, etc. Do we REALLY know how and for what all that data is being used?
Now with government access to all the electronic health records thanks to the ACA, are we really sure NO government employees are or will use any of that data for any nefarious purpose?
Remember the VA scandal: Government workers intentionally lost, deleted, returned, or otherwise deliberately mishandled veteran healthcare data to make it appear that they vets were getting the healthcare they were entitled to - while actually letting over 70 of them die.
Remember the IRS/TEA Party scandal: Government workers decided to delay action on various people based on their perceived political positions AND apparently transferred data on these people to other agencies to trigger harrassment via those other agencies.
Nearly every major airport in the US has had incidents of TSA employees abusing their ability to rifle through checked bags in order to steal valuables from the flying public.
There are countless examples of police misconduct, not only things like the current Chicago shooting where a mayor apparently decided to get through an election cycle where he needed both the police union and the black vote and therefore kept the shooting video suppressed, and the police appear to have filed fraudulent incident reports to hide an unjustified shooting. There have been many cases like the California CHP office Craig Peyer who used his patrol car to pull women over at remote locations and raped and murdered one (that we KNOW of).
The list of abuses of power by government employees is truly endless. There is simply some percent of the human race that cannot be trusted with power over other people, and there is no way known to man to keep them out of government employment.
The shear number of government employed criminals is indeed a good reason to not let them have the data.
Shout this from the fucking rooftops. There will always be someone that will abuse our (forced) trust. Sensitive data collection should be shut down in all of its forms. Even as payment for online services.
Just think what thousands of "master key" wielding government stooges will be capable of.
"such as Michael Hastings."
Interesting to read this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Al-jazeera-fbi-michael-hastings-release.pdf
It seems the FBI *had* opened a file on Hastings Rolling Stones articles, after all. Also note the army censored part of this FOIA request, and the date it was censored is after his death 31st July 2013 which was the day the video of the crash became available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zakBULPETo
Troubling, but it still looks like car crash+fire to me.
Most email (cloud web mail) and social media are bulk data collection. The only difference between that and the NSA is you pay the NSA to force it on you secretly where users ask the cloud providers to do it for free.
I'm not defending this guy in any way, but if you read the article, it doesn't appear he used data from any government bulk data collection program. In fact, I don't think he used any special access he might have had working in the State Department. He just happened to be employed there. That doesn't make what he did okay, and it doesn't make government warrantless data collection okay, but one doesn't really follow from the other in this case at all.
Taking all your claims as true, then imagine what somebody with access to government bulk data collection programs could do
Very painful new word - "sextorsion" sounds like someone getting their knickers in a twist.
What has happened to Slashdot? Do I really have to be the first one to say it, this far into the discussion?
PICS or it didn't happen!
#DeleteChrome
What a plausible explanation.
Thanks for the correction.
My knee-jerk assumption is just as good as your "facts".
You're welcomed.
If this were a conservative administration, they would be blaming the POTUS.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of those blackmailed Liberal vs Conservative.
the current administration does have a track record of looking the other way when conservatives are singled out.
Is this you? Are you a cow or an apping app apper?
Troubling, but it still looks like car crash+fire to me.
Why do your employers try? I'd rather have the cow guy. At least he's occasionally good for a laugh.
oh wow. LOL.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
rotflol
A very tame example of why we shouldn't be allowing warrantless bulk data collection - the obvious better examples are those of journalists assassinated - such as Michael Hastings.
There is no discussion of bulk data collection and based on what he was doing I think the more likely case is that one or more of the girls called the police who brought in the FBI and stung him. No bulk data collection required.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Pics or it didn't happen.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Stuff that matters, maybe. But news for nerds? It this TMZ now?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If he did it on hardware in his home he should have deleted it all, it worked for Clinton.
And why would ANYBODY be so stupid to admit to any crime? Folks, a vast majority of cases they depend on an admission of guilt in order to get a conviction. If they offer a plea bargan, it's usually because they don't have a very good case. And at that age, your life will be over by the time you get out of prison, and you will find life difficult when you do get out.
I suggest you fight hard like you are fighting for your life because you are. REQUIRE a Jury, NEVER waive ANY of your rights. And finally, remember the following...
https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/spg/show_picture.pl?l=english&rais=1&oiu=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Gj3H-GUxQBA%2FTk6zg3aRPuI%2FAAAAAAAAAso%2Fj3rEzOt5GgQ%2Fs1600%2Fnever-give-up-frog.jpg&sp=acc9dd8e7ea184ab70f46448d8d3a2ad
I would agree to the extreme IRS scrutiny IF it was applied equally to the left and the right, but it was NOT.
Liberal/Progressive groups got their processing done in days or weeks. There are TEA Party groups that were stalled through two full election cycles and some are STILL pending over FIVE YEARS later... a move so blatantly political even Richard Nixon never tried to do it to his opponents. There were TEA Party groups who were ordered by the IRS to submit the full texts of all the books they read, and the content of any prayers that had been said at their meetings. No equivalent demands were made of the liberal/progressive groups.
Democrats filed an article of impeachment against Richard Nixon for TALKING on a tape about his desire to use the IRS to investigate a political enemy, even though he never followed-through on his rantings. The Obama administration has actually DONE what Nixon only talked about wanting to do.
Let's find out
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Usually I'd agree with you, but this time I make an exception.
The narrative of the government these days is "just allow us to abuse your privacy rights and the constitution. It's OK because we are the government and we need this to keep you safe from the terrorists." And unfortunately, lots of people seem quite willing to do that, in spite of there being no evidence that mass surveillance of innocent citizens has ever caught a single terrorist.
Yet we know multiple cases in history of highly ranked government employees who abused their position and the information they held. This would be a case of a government employee who acted criminally (whether or not they used government property or information is really a sideshow and not important here).
This is why government overreach is bad. This and numerous other reasons, but this would be a signal example.
This was NOT for churches. Various TEA Party groups received all sorts of bizarre demands from the IRS, with each demand of course causing another delay in their approval. TEA Party groups had to submit lists of all the people who had publicly spoke at meetings and what they said. They had to list all the books their members read. They had to provide transcripts of any prayers uttered. One of the groups had to send the IRS a copy of the Constitution in response to a demand - I guess the IRS had never seen THAT document. Just all sorts of insane demands the IRS has never previously made of any 501c-3 applicants. No liberal/progressive group was similarly hassled as the Inspector General has admitted.
What was worse was that some of the leaders of TEA Party groups are small business people who discovered that after being involved in applications for 501c-2 status for their personal political activities (which had NOTHING to do with their day-to-day businesses/jobs) their businesses were slammed with an avalanche of attention from other federal agencies: EPA inspections, FBI visits, ATF visits, etc. Small companies that statistically never get such visits were suddenly getting lots of them. Progressives would be outraged if Bush had done this to them.
I will never understand why so many people seem to have email accounts that are full of naked pictures of themselves.