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Edward Snowden Kills Team Trump's Conspiracy Theory By Explaining How The FBI Can Quickly Comb Through Email (geekwire.com)
FBI director James Comey told Congress Sunday that the further investigation of emails related to Hillary Clinton didn't turn up anything that would cause the bureau to recommend charges against her. The FBI had reviewed over 650,000 emails under nine days. Upon hearing this, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his supported started to question whether the FBI could go through all those emails in such a short period of time. We will never know for sure until the FBI explains its process to us all (which is unlikely to happen), so people turned to Edward Snowden over the weekend for answers. And Mr. Snowden didn't disappoint. From a report on GeekWire: How easy would it be to cull out the duplicate emails? Outspoken journalist Jeff Jarvis posed that question to Snowden in a tweet, and got a quick response: "Drop non-responsive To:/CC:/BCC:, hash both sets, then subtract those that match. Old laptops could do it in minutes-to-hours."
... then we still don't know how plausible it is that they reviewed XXXX number of emails in 11 days, after taking months to review 80,000 emails before.
It would be very easy via automation to tag the emails which are dupes of ones already in the data set.
Which, apparently, was all of them. No shit, Sherlock.
Snowden didn't do shit. As much as we all "love" him for his previous leaks, he didn't shoot ANYTHING down. He only answered how to dedup a list to make it smaller, not answer how large the list would be after the fact or how long it would take to comb through said remaining list.
Seriously, anyone who's ever had to do de-duplication or pattern matching or anything like that could have told you how easy this is to do. It's almost like computers are good for this kind of stuff!
Rawr
I work for an organization that is heavily involved in electronic discovery processing for large corporations, law firms and the United States government.
Email threading, and duplication detection / dedupe are standard tasks that are performed on a daily basis on huge datasets. (As part of the Processing phase of the EDRM model.)
It is not at all unfeasible that the FBI could have used standard, off the shelf software to identify duplicates and generate an exception report for all 'new' emails that were not in the previously collected datasets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Guy answers high school freshman-level tech support question. We'll have details on this exciting story as they develop.
There were no "non-dups". There were no new emails. Not too hard to grasp.
In this case since there are no new emails that are pertinent they don't have to go through the same process, which expedites the timeline.
Rawr
the point is, if they can do it this quickly, why did take some many months the first time they investigated this?
Because the first time, they had tens of thousands of emails, none of which were duplicates of ones they already had, and all of which were sent to or from Hillary Clinton, and all of which were sent during her time in office as Secretary of State. Further, they had to investigate several different avenues for finding more emails.
This time, they have hundreds of thousands of emails, only a small percentage of which were sent to or from hillary clinton, only a small percentage of the remaining were sent while she was in office as secretary of state, only a small percentage of the remaining were not duplicates of existing emails that they had already reviewed. The result is that even though the original number was larger than the original cache they had to search, it's likely that they only had to look through a couple of hundred in the end this time.
I don't get why people are having such a hard time grasping this.
You know, it would be refreshing if folks could just understand all of what Trump is saying for what it is.. Politics... You may consider yourself smart because you can see how technically stupid what he's saying is, but let's not forget the other major candidate's stupidity either "Wipe it? You mean with a cloth?" when she clearly knew better. Surely there is plenty of duplicity to go around here. Trump is just saying stuff that he thinks appeals to folks who might be willing to vote for him, and you have to admit that for the FBI this was pretty fast. At this point, with the election nearly here and the obviously narrow margins by which this race will be decided, you say what you need to, and Clinton (and her campaigners) are doing this too.
Trump may not be all that clued in on technology or how a review of 650K E-mail's may have actually taken place in such a short time, but for not being a career politician he's obviously a very quick study. Just think, it was less than a month ago he was doing 3AM twitter wars about stupid stuff and now he's going to win or loose by the skin of his teeth. Not bad...Well Better than I expected anyway...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Not really. I thought Occupy was an absurd waste of time, and I thought the whole "1%er" nonsense was simply contrived. Not that I don't want to see the wealthy made more accountable, and large corporations brought more firmly under the rule of law, but to imagine a guy like Trump, whose business history has been one of screwing over investors, using every trick in the book to evade taxes, and who is, by definition, one of the Elite, was going to bring the "1%ers" to bear was so ludicrous and laughable that I just have to imagine that most of his supporters are either complete morons or were more likely hoping he'd be so fucking awful that he'd bring the system down (which is absurd, the Founding Fathers built the system to deal with even the most terrible Presidents).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because it took that long to go through 33,000 emails.
They didn't have to go through 650,000 this time. They could just analyze the data to see if any were new from the prior set.
Which is exactly what you know, the original fucking article you decided not to read says.
That you elected a lying bitch instead of a lying asshole?
As one Republican consultant said in a Politico article, "Given a choice between crooked and crazy, the American people will always vote for crooked."
and we will pity sheeple like yourself for thinking it's ok to have a corrupt felon running your country.
A felon is a person convicted of a felony
Thus, OBJECTION YOUR HONOR!! Reference to facts not in evidence anywhere!
I don't think anyone can actually understand what he's saying. His supporters pick out the good bits of his word salads and declare him a genius, his opponents pick out the bad bits (not exactly a hard job), and declare him a dangerous idiot. There never really was a serious effort to put out a message or a coherent set of policies. It was just sound bites wrapped up in some sort of bizarre alpha male charisma schtick. Trump was the product of a whole lot of peoples' imaginations. Honestly, up until the last week or so, he hasn't even acted like someone who had the vaguest hope that he'd ever be president, and to wait until the last week of an election before you decide you're going to behave with some self control and dignity indicates to me that you're either a complete idiot or you never seriously wanted the job to begin with.
Trump has wasted a vast number of the GOP's resources, probably harmed a number of downticket races, enough that it's likely the Senate will either be deadlocked or at least marginally in the Democrats' hands, not to mention the damage done to the GOP's efforts in states like Florida and Arizona to reach out to minority voters. And for what? To be a hit with a demographic that the GOP has recognized for eight years now will fade in importance?
Any Republican angry at what will transpire tomorrow shouldn't blame Clinton, they should look at the fools in their own party that put one of the most unsuitable presidential candidates in modern US history in the place he's in right now.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That still doesn't explain why the FBI boasted that they had 400+ agents working for many months for 33,000 emails and yet magically can go through 650k in just a few days. Either they were lying before, or they are lying now.
There's a third explanation. You don't understand how computers and basic problem solving works.
The 400+ agent review involved someone personally reading and evaluating every email.
The 650k email review involved extracting the small subset of email to/from Clinton, extracting the even smaller subset of emails not in their previous already-reviewed sample, and then reviewing those.
That may have been as simple as going through a few hundred personal emails that weren't part of the initial dump.
I stole this Sig
The FBI already said that Hillary mismanaged the handling of confidential documents via her illegal private server.
We already KNOW this to be fact. The FBI admitted such.
The fact is that none of it matters. The power that be decided they would not prosecute because of lack of "intent". Destroying evidence apparently is not "intent".
Hillary has been bought by Wall Street and numerous foreign entities via her foundation. Anyone that has the means to buy political influence has bought their piece of Hillary.
Hillary's supporters simply do not care about any of this. They aren't electing Hillary - they are electing an ideology. More global interventionist policies, larger and more intrusive government, and a supreme court that will rubber stamp all of it.
This is what Hillary's supporters are electing. The candidate and the associated crimes committed by that candidate are irrelevant.
Anyone that has ever used a database knows how easy this is. Sadly team Trump is all about spouting words from the mouth at random, and learning how things are done after the fact.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That you elected a lying bitch instead of a lying asshole?
That you elected someone who has no real accomplishments because the other guy has no real accomplishments?
Well. Some accomplishments. Electing someone smart enough to (apparently) get away with killing bunches of people and lots of other illegal stuff over 30 years vs. someone who managed to somehow bankrupt a casino -- even after getting loans from his father and not paying people for all the work they did. Someone smart vs. someone stupid. Someone inclusive vs. someone divisive. Hmm... :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
How would a Republican president, even Trump, be different in curtailing "More global interventionist policies, larger and more intrusive government, and a supreme court that will rubber stamp all of it."
What has Bush Jr. (the last Rep. prez) , or the republican congress done in the last, say 16 years, done to stop or slow any of these things?
We need to get off of this "false equivalence" BS. To quote Seth Meyers:
“I mean, do you pick someone who’s under federal investigation for using a private email server, or do you pick someone who called Mexicans ‘rapists,’ claimed the president was born in Kenya, proposed banning an entire religion from entering the U.S., mocked a disabled reporter, said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured, attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, bragged about committing sexual assault, was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault, said some of those women weren’t attractive enough for him to sexually assault, said more countries should get nukes, said he would force the military to commit war crimes, said a judge was ‘biased’ because his parents were Mexicans, said women should be ‘punished’ for having abortions, incited violence at his rallies, called global warming ‘a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese,’ called for his opponent to be jailed, declared bankruptcy six times, bragged about not paying income taxes, stiffed his contractors and employees, lost a billion dollars in one year, scammed customers at his fake university, bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself with money from his fake foundation, has a trial for fraud coming up in November, insulted an opponent’s looks, insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks, and bragged about grabbing women ‘by the pussy.’”
From what I can figure out, the only way an email would have been relevant is if it originated or passed through Clinton's server, because the entire investigation was to check whether Clinton's use of a private server had in some way broken the law. So no other criteria would have been relevant. That's piddlingly easy to look for. A PDP-11 running a 1970s Unix variant could tell the FBI which emails fit that criteria in less than a day.
Once that set of emails is identified, it would be extremely easy to match up what did with what's already been investigated, by looking at message IDs.
I would say I was surprised the conspiracy theory was taken seriously, but it's Trump supporters and people with Clinton Derangement Syndrome we're talking about here, so...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Snowden is lying. My son is seven. So good at cyber. Cyber so good. China beating cyber. Hashtag winning. Hashtag crooked Hilary. Cyber.
because the entire investigation was to check whether Clinton's use of a private server had in some way broken the law
No, the FBI was looking into whether SHE broke the law(s). And as Comey pointed out in July (and hasn't changed since), she demonstrably did things that would result in any other government employee facing punishment. This isn't about "the server," it's about the double standards. That she mishandled classified information is established. That she lied about it, repeatedly, is established. That she's being held to a different standard is established. Anyone else applying for a high-level, sensitive job in the government with her track record would never, ever be hired (presuming they were out of jail and able to apply in the first place).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't get why people are having such a hard time grasping this.
They're not. They're having a hard time accepting it because they don't want it to be true.
That you don't find the things Trump has done unethical is a bit disturbing. I hope, for both our sake, that whoever is elected president doesn't screw things up so much that they can't be repaired in four years when, hopefully, a more sane candidate will be on the opposing side.
Trump is way worse than a lying asshole.
1. He is a facist - populist us vs them mentality (muslims), denounces anything said about him as lies & blames others, whips up the armed/racist minority.
2. He hates the constitution. Wants to change 1A, 4A, and sure as hell the 19A.
3. He's a racist - see twitter war with Jon Stewart, see endoresments by David Duke & KKK, see his talk in MN yesterday
4. He's a power abuser - see every business dealing ever, see how he grabs women by the pussy because he can get away with it
5. He wants to take us straight to war - see his comments on why we can't 'bomb the shit out of the Middle East'.
6. He's an exploiter - uses & abuses every religious, ethnic, regional divide he can
7. He hates America - he detests freedom of speech - in others, he hates freedom of religion - in others, he tries to get people to stop Americans from voting - 'help watch out for a rigged election'
He is as bad as any other dictator in the world today. He has single handedly torn America apart to stroke his own ego.
You can hate Hillary all you want, I won't disagree with you, hell I'll probably mostly agree with you. But she is the lesser of two evils, and it's not re-fucking-motely close.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opi...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If congress stays GOP (likely), guess who will be 'holding him in check'?
The same idiots that let him take control of their party, and have a psychopath running for president.
So, why would that happen AFTER he gets into office, when it didn't happen before?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Wait. Who did she kill?
Seriously? If you believe the Republicans and those fostering conspiracy theories: Vince Foster, Seth Rich, everyone in the Benghazi consulate, etc... Just Google: who did hillary clinton kill Of course, there's *no* proof of anything - and if she *did* do all that *and* got away with it, then she's a serious bad-ass and wouldn't we actually want her as President to go up against Putin, etc... :-)
Conspiracy Theorists Won't Stop Accusing The Clintons Of Murder
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So tell me, how are there 650 dupes of 33k emails? I've yet to see proof that these are duplicates.
We've found more than just "suspicious" stuff if you read /r/wikileaks.
The secret weapon: an SQL "JOIN" clause!
Quick, patent it before somebody else does! Everything else obvious gets patented.
Table-ized A.I.
Most of the 650k emails have nothing to do with Hillary. It was Weiner's laptop. They are the communications of Weiner and his wife. Only a small portion of the 650k were between Huma and Hillary. Why would Huma use code names to communicate with Hillary? It doesn't change her email address. Seriously, did you think this through AT ALL?
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Here's a nice little summary video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Want to claim they're fake? Give me the blockchain transaction when you win this challenge for 1 BTC:
http://blog.erratasec.com/2016...
You do not, because you cannot, argue with this. You just post insults. Because that's all you can do. You will not, because you cannot, argue against any of the things found in the email. You just ignore them.
An anonymous FBI leak stated that "nearly all of the emails were duplicates of those already reviewed". So all they needed to do was remove the vast majority of dups and review the few that are left. And the moronic Republican meme that "Comey couldn't have reviewed them all" is equally stupid. Might as well say "Sergei Brin could't possibly have looked at all of those website to return that Google result in 0.2 seconds!"
Saying that a computer could hash and search 650k emails in a few minutes is just silly.
Saying that a government/FBI server farm could do it is practically OBVIOUS. While it's a separate organization that I doubt was involved, the NSA could probably have done it in seconds.
And the whole POINT is these were Anthony Weiner and his wife's emails. If they weren't sent too or from Clinton, they weren't relevant to Clinton's handling of emails. And if they were, they were most likely ALREADY on Clinton's server (duh!)