There’s been lots of claims that “Russian Hackers” were at work in the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. While I can’t verify this one way or the other, I do know this – Google sends you an email alert if Gmail has been logged into from a different location and or device than what was normally being used. The process is described here (bold mine):
Google Sends Email Notifications for New Sign-ins
Google now sends email notification when you sign in to a Google account from a new device. Here’s an excerpt from Google’s notification:
“Your Google Account was just used to sign in from Chrome on Mac. Why are we sending this? We take security very seriously and we want to keep you in the loop on important actions in your account. We were unable to determine whether you have used this browser or device with your account before. This can happen when you sign in for the first time on a new computer, phone or browser, when you use your browser’s incognito or private browsing mode or clear your cookies, or when somebody else is accessing your account.”
So when hackers gained access to Podesta’s Gmail account, there should have been an email immediately generated that looked like this (my rendition based on an example Google sign-in alert):
That Google alert would include the IP address of where it was logged in from, which may or may not have been useful, as hackers likely would have been using an obfuscated IP on a proxy server or something similar to hide their identity. For those who don’t know, the IP address in the example above is the standard LAN base IP, so there’s no rabbit hole to go down there.
Even though Google allows you to turn off such alerts, at least one would have been generated before hackers could turn it off, unless of course Podesta had disabled alerts himself, which would have been an incredibly stupid move given his high-profile. Searching the Podesta emails at Wikileaks reveals no such email in the tranche (so far) that I can find, but hackers likely would have deleted it or not included it in their bulk download. Since it is known that Podesta gets emails on his cellphone, surely he would have seen it? We may never know, he may be too embarrassed to admit it if he did see it.
In an article published earlier today, Motherboard claims to have traced it all back to the Ukraine:
On March 19 of this year, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta received an alarming email that appeared to come from Google.
The email, however, didn’t come from the internet giant. It was actually an attempt to hack into his personal account. In fact, the message came from a group of hackers that security researchers, as well as the US government, believe are spies working for the Russian government. At the time, however, Podesta didn’t know any of this, and he clicked on the malicious link contained in the email, giving hackers access to his account.
Months later, on October 9, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of Podesta’s hacked emails. Almost everyone immediately pointed the finger at Russia, who is suspected of being behind a long and sophisticated hacking campaign that has the apparent goal of influencing the upcoming US elections. But there was no public evidence proving the same group that targeted the Democratic National Committeewas behind the hack on Podesta—until now.
The data linking a group of Russian hackers—known as Fancy Bear, APT28, or Sofacy—to the hack on Podesta is also yet another piece in a growing heap of evidence pointing toward the Kremlin.
But then they have this disclaimer near the end of the story:
None of this new data constitutes a smoking gun that can clearly frame Russia as the culprit behind the almost unprecedented hacking campaign that has hit the DNC and several other targets somewhat connected to the US presidential election.
No smoking gun? Hmmpf.
Wikileaks mentioned today that Hillary Clinton’s claim from the third debate about this Russian connection claim being “verified by 17 intelligence agencies” is a load of bollocks:
Source: [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/789173501458456576]
One has to wonder who is telling the bigger lie these days. Lately, truth seems to have become one with entropy while on a 24/7 spin cycle.
Meanwhile, some read the emails and weep, others read the emails and rejoice, some just get hopping mad.
We live in interesting times.
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So if hackers could log into his account, they could also DELETE the login notification because they knew it was coming!
Lol!! It was gmail that got hacked? Well doesn’t that make them stupid for using them in the first place. Seriously didn’t they learn anything from the witch hunt they tried on Palin? That was WELL before Clinton became SoS.
Oh and it does not take a russian to hack gmail. Half the time they lose the user names and passwords themselves.
I found Hillary Clinton’s comments about the hacking surprising.
I do not know whether Russia is behind the hack or not, but I am surprised that Clinton raised this since it confirms how reckless and wrongful it was for her to have official/government emails on her own private equipment/servers.
A person’s individual equipment is obviously far less secure than the government servers. It is far easier for Russia (or anyone else for that matter) to hack personal computers/servers.
Her action with her personal email account therefore placed American security at extreme risk from hacking and this cavalier attitude to state security alone suggests that Hillary Clinton is not a fit and proper person for public office.
Here we go again.
There must be a lot of new posters or us older ones have a short memory.
When the FBI, NSA, CIA, DHS, announce the name of our famous ‘FOIA’ I’ll believe they know who ‘Hacked’ the DNC.
It has only been nine years come November, and it seems no one has a clue.
I reckon it was an inside job and the emails walked out the door on a thumb drive.
Sorry, 7 years.
Totally pointless article. If you go to bed at 10pm and check your email account at 6.30am the next morning, then it is a little bit too late, now is it?
Anybody with an ounce of sense should know that anything that is put on the net, is open. I even worry about financial information. It’s all subject to being hacked. There for awhile terroists were watching the same live feeds in real time from drone strikes. There’s a database on all of us, sorted and complied. There is a K chip in all the switches allows all the information to be read. And who knows how many back doors exist. Somebody has to have overall admin. Any real work I do is still done with pen and paper, and computers that never see the net. No cameras, WiFi or mics.
Absolutely.. Having “online” and “offline” computers protects your “special” data…
It does, my windows 95 machine loads and excuses faster than my 64 bit quad processor machine. Which is soon going offline and a new hard drive with software that supports a 64 bit machine. And the windows 95 doesn’t sit and spin. I don’t turn it on and go for coffee.
“excuses faster” – is that a Freudian slip? 🙂
Probably a word correct slip… a new problem, can’t understand why the computer didn’t know what I meant 😊
I bet it can’t make up excuses faster than my ex could.
Not so special as priopertary. Who still programs in Fortran or Assembler? Not that I ever had a position in programming.
Whats with the clintons legs? Watching her climb some stairs on TV the most obvious thing was the size of her legs, even as she is a midget her legs would do” justice” to King Kong
It’s far more likely that the hack was internal and due to a worker who discovered that they still had a conscience. Blaming the Russians is just a way for a corrupt group of parasites to avoid being accountable for what the emails reveal. It is what slimeballs do when they can’t answer tough questions.
+1000
Climategate !!
Hillary said that of Trump, ” always blaming someone else for his failures ” .. What!!?
There is another possibility. That Podesta’s computer itself was compromised (or his android or whatever). Then there would be no error generated since they would be pulling the emails straight off of his computer.
And another possibility is that the email was generated, but they deleted it to prevent Podesta from knowing about the breach. While Google does send alerts, if you do not put in an alternate email address, it sends it to your account. So they immediately deleted it.
But then there is also door #3 which is that Podesta turned it off. There are only 2 people who know what really happened (well 1, plus a clueless idiot), and I doubt either are going to tell the story.
With proffessional hackers, if you don’t catch them in the act, it is pretty close to impossible to track the hack back to it’s source.
If they are claiming that 6 months after the fact, they were able to trace the hack then one of two things is likely.
1) The hackers weren’t professionals. IE, it wasn’t the Russians.
2) They are lying.
I’m opting for choice number 2
No one believes DNC anyway…
https://audioboom.com/posts/5180372-tales-of-the-new-cold-war-biden-threatens-to-cyber-attack-putin-stephen-f-cohen-nyu-princeton-university-eastwestaccord-com-thenation-com
A conscientious democrat logged into Podesta’s emails and downloaded them. Just like someone conscientious released the CRU emails.
Well, considering that Hillary was the one operating the unsecured server, what is the likelihood that it was from her accounts that they accessed all the others?
Umm, if someone logged into his email from an unusual device/location, and an email was generated, couldn’t the logged in culprit simply delete the email as soon as it was generated? Am I missing something?
Absolutely salivating at the thought of a Hillary presidency. Can’t wait for the senate to turn blue and possibly the house too. You CD’s couldn’t arrange a shag in a brothel.
If the hacks were from NSA, there will be fireworks if HRC wins eh?
If the hacks came from NSA ,there will be fireworks if HRC is elected eh?
How dare the Russians try to affect our elections, that’s the job of CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, BBC, TIME MAGAZINE, WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORK TIMES and most of rest of our media.
Oh, that???
No the FBI already gave us a good clue back in September.
By (as of September 27) having failed to contact the server’s operator for logs.
Common knowledge that the one who compromised the Russian server-for-hire used it as a springboard. But from where? The server’s owner claims to have if not the answer, at least the 2nd traceback address.
Now this could mean that the FBI, upon seeing a Russian ip address, was instructed NOT to pursue the matter any further. Because someone highly placed in the US government wanted to pin it on the Russians, and they think IT people are stupid.
Or perhaps, the FBI is stupid.
Lose-lose for them.
Unless they used Remote Desktop then there would be no warning.
I still believe it is far more likely to have been and inside job (i.e. Seth Rich, as Assange suggests) than unknown ‘Russian hackers’, but that would imply that the DNC had dissention in the ranks, which their egos would never admit. It is characteristic of political idealists that they cannot seem to admit their own fallibility.
Has this $3 million anti-Murdoch plot from Clinton campaign chairman Podesta’s hacked emails been mentioned?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/25/hacked-emails-reveal-plan-to-counter-rupert-murdochs-climate-denial