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State-sponsored Hackers Targeting Prominent Journalists, Google Warns (politico.com)
State-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal email passwords of a number of prominent journalists, Google has warned. The hackers are suspected to be Russians, reports POLITICO. Some of the journalists who have received such warnings from Google as recent as two-to-three weeks ago include Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, Julia Ioffe, who recently started at The Atlantic, Ezra Klein of Vox, and CNN's Brian Stelter. From the report: "The fact that all this started right after the election suggests to me that journalists are the next wave to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers in the way that Democrats were during it," said one journalist who got the warning. "I worry that the outcome is going to be the same: Someone, somewhere, is going to get hacked, and then the contents of their Gmail will be weaponized against them -- and by extension all media."
Just amazing the reach of Russian hackers. First, they managed to get the DNC & Hillary Clinton to write thousands of self-incriminating (and on Hillary's side, remarkably foul-mouthed - or is it foul-keyboarded?) emails. Then they suborned the DNC to steal the nomination from Sanders and give it to Clinton, to give Trump an easier opponent. Next they induced a DNC staffer named Seth Rich to steal the compromising emails and give them to Wikileaks, which dutifully publishes them, showing the DNC to be corrupt and Hillary to be venal. Then they managed to get Rich to set himself up for a mugging in which he is shot twice in the head but nothing is stolen. Then they manipulated the Director of the FBI to announce just before the election that many, many thousands of emails potentially involving Hillary have been found and need to be examined. And finally, they finessed the US intelligence community into believing he hacked those DNC computers to influence the election, thereby concealing - and taking off the discussion table - any examination of the DNC's & Hillary's wrongdoing.
I heard that they found the cell-phone-smashing sledge hammer in Putin's basement!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Nonsense. This is just more fake news from a bunch of snowflake libertards seeking to illegitimize our great president, The Honorable William J. Le Petomane.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I just have a really hard time believing the Russian hacker narrative. Can't explain why. Maybe it seems too convenient for the DNC.
... and there's nothing unprofessional in them, the more embarrassing some personal stuff may be the more sympathy you'll get from the public and against the hackers.
On the other hand if the emails reveal unethical behavior, collusion with one party or one particular candidate of the party that goes against the journalistic integrity, then what I can tell you. Be a better professional.
... Gmail.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Wow, I wish I had Russian genetics. They seem to be able to do all the really big scary computer stuff that us non-russians are not capable of doing. I am not trying to denegrate Russians here, but the media is so incredibly naive. It is as if putting "Russian" in front of it, no matter the evidence, turns the so called hack into something mysterious, huge, and scary.
Most of the so called hacks, are simply social engineering and phishing scams. The Podesta thing could have been done by any old graphic designer that just made a nice looking "official" password reset email. I am really quite disappointed at what passes for a hack these days. In fact, if a Russian spat on someones shoe, the headline would probably be "Russians hack shoes".
Yes, Russia does have many brilliant developers. But they also are a historic safe haven for VPN services. Of course most attacks "originate" from such areas. Anybody with half a brain knows you don't do something nefarious online without redirecting your trail through territories that are not friendly to your home's prosecutors.
I think the media owes it to every self respecting programmer to start narrowing the definition of "hack". Did they use a man in the middle to fraudulently update a software package? That might be a hack... Did they cause the buffer to overflow in some C program, exposing information contained in parts of the memory? Ok, that is a hack too. I can think of lots of scenarios where hacks could take place.
But... if they simply sent an email asking someone to put in their existing password and tricked some tech-illiterate into doing something stupid, that is not a hack.
Journalistic integrity died out in the early 2000s. What we have now are journalists who misrepresent stories, such as the fake "OMG, Fukushima radiation levels are the highest ever measured" coupled with the maps of tidal waves (pitched as radiation spreading.) The journalists no nothing about anything nuclear related, and will make stuff up on the spot. Seen this with other journalists who cite "anonymous sources" for their tales. Then, look at journalists and guns. They can't even get the name of what the rounds go into correct, much less specify actual specifics. Instead it is about emotion and fear.
Every journalist wants to get hacked. That means they can wring their hands and say they were important enough that someone actually bothered to go after them, which gets them notoriety.
Days past, if a big news supplier was found to be lying past the usual yellow stuff, they would be shuttered. Now, on either side, someone can allege a conspiracy against them and keep going.
tl;dr. There is another name for US journalists in every other country. That term is "liar."
Never say anything on the internet that you would not say to your mother on a postcard.
This has been happening in Gravataí, in Brazil for a long time. There's cyber criminal with dangerous knowledgement about HP networking named Vinucius Link, who is Sponsored by a crooked banker too keep the wheel rolling for local politicians. But don't worry, the guy is from the sissy mafia, not a pscyho mafia.
As an old dinosaur, I applaud your use of "cracker" rather than "hacker", but it probably means you aren't black. I personally prefer "jacker", but I'm afraid it's too late for that terminology to catch on...
does it mean i will be able to play battlefield in peace?
turns out no, it doesnt, they can multitask!!! cyka blyat!
between Trump and the press I would also worry about our intelligence operators also. Any one who deals with sensitive information should change email passwords often and they shouldn't store old emails on any online sites or sites on a network. But some USB drives. They should archive old emails. Everyone needs to get paranoid.
"OMG, Fukushima radiation levels are the highest ever measured"
AC 'cuz I'm admittedly off-topic. I read a story on the Fukushima radiation levels yesterday - Specifically regarding a robot they sent in to assess the state of things inside and do some work. The part I found really interesting was that their method of estimating radiation levels was based on noise present in the camera images.
Who's that? Nanci Pelosi told me that Bush was still president?
If you've got nothing to hide, what are you worried about? Isn't that the common logic these days? Or wait, does that only apply if an arbitrarily determined moral police says who gets to do the hacking?
Gossip is news???? Shit article.
Some consumer brand of email gives users a colourful message and its a Russian warning?
Words like "suspect"? then "have to guess that it’s the Russians"?
If the company changes the "big bright red bar" to any another color would that feeling be altered?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Uganda!!!
I know - you figure Russia is too technically backwards to mount such an attack (despite being the first nation to put a satellite or a human in orbit). Or a nation steeped in the tradition of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky could never do such things (despite their attempt to put nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba). Or is it that our Glorious Leader has decreed that Russia's okay, so this couldn't possibly be true? Oh, wait - that's Divine leader, isn't it?
Journalists has been warned years ago to setup a separate email account for investigating and reporting on Tibet, Uighur or any problem that Chinese government doesn't want to be reported. If your main email account is contacted with information on them, you were supposed to pretend that you are too busy and cannot follow it up instead of returning email with your alternate address as this may be from a Chinese "counter-spying" organization.
Why did this news source decide to make a big deal about it "BECAUSE OF RUSSIANS!" instead of little Chinese?
So are we gonna pretend that this isn't just pushing the agenda of the left to continue to vilify the Russians for the purposes of delegitimizing Trump and the right? Russia's been doing this for years, what's with all this urgency now?
Maybe the reason why only hear about Russian hacking is because the US and its allies don't have to hack these journalists as they all resided within their borders and thanks to mass surveillance of the citizenry they have all the data they need on these prominent journalists and thanks to backroom dealings all this surveillance is shared. Since Russia isn't on the NATO team they have to do it the old fashioned techno-elbow grease.
And I'm guessing no one talks about China doing it because it's an open secret and China has its hands in the ownership of a lot information outlets that these reporters work for?
These people haven't had anything of substance to say for years.
These aren't journalists, they're hardcore leftists faking yet another incident. The alleged "targets" are just too in line with their narrative.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
These aren't journalists, they're hardcore leftists faking yet another incident. The alleged "targets" are just too in line with their narrative.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is what happens when hackers get a free pass for political interference. Now they are emboldened to go after journalists. Next up, who knows? Could be you!
The political right have done a deal with the Devil and have lost their moral compass. The Right used to be the party of justice, accountability and consequences. Now anything goes as long as it benefits Our Side, right?