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Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Saturday, October 3, 2015
As Dumb As She Is You Know She Was Hacked! Spam Sent to Hillary Clinton Server Prompts
Spam Sent to Hillary Clinton Server Prompts Look at Suspected Russian Hacking
WASHINGTON
— It turns out that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email account,
like seemingly everyone else’s in America, was hit by spam sent to try
to lure her into clicking on a malicious link — one that could have
compromised the security of her communications when she was secretary of
state.
But did that put her more at risk than if she had relied solely on the
State Department’s internal systems? Almost certainly not. After all,
in 2014 the unclassified email systems at the State Department and the
White House were shut down, often for days at a time, as government
security experts tried to erase the damage done by the hackers,
suspected to be Russians, probably linked to the government. It seems
virtually certain, investigators say, that the offenders in that case
siphoned vast numbers of emails out of both systems.
Hillary Rodham Clinton before giving a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington this month.
3 Hillary Clinton Emails Deemed ‘Secret’ in State Dept. Review of 6,300 PagesSEPT. 30, 2015
Huma Abedin, left, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York in 2011.
First Draft: Emails Show Hillary Clinton Adviser Sidestepping Potential ConflictSEPT. 28, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday.
String of Emails Raises Questions About When Hillary Clinton Began Using Personal AccountSEPT. 25, 2015
The F.B.I. is investigating whether an aide improperly sent email on the unrest in Libya to Hillary Rodham Clinton in April 2011.
Hillary Clinton Email Inquiry Weighs if Aides Erred at ‘Send’SEPT. 24, 2015
Still, the evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s personal account had been on the receiving end of a “spear phishing” attempt, revealed in a batch of her emails released by the State Department on Wednesday, raises the same question the F.B.I. is trying to answer as it combs through the forensic evidence from the server that was once in Mrs. Clinton’s basement.
And that is whether the attackers who successfully got into the unclassified systems at the State Department and the White House also got into Mrs. Clinton’s. She would have been a natural target for a state-sponsored cyberattack by adversaries who have made clear their determination to learn as much as they can about the inner workings of the United States government. And the possible vulnerability of her home-based system remains a central mystery in the investigations.
“It would stand to reason,” one person involved in the investigation said recently, “that anyone who had planted malware in the State Department system would have seen a very high-level official talking to other high-level officials, and followed the trail.” But, the person added, “we don’t know that happened.”
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to not be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said there was no evidence that the system had ever been breached. “All these emails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam,” he said.
There is also no evidence that the spammers who targeted her knew that it was the secretary of state at the other end of the attack. The fact that it was sent four times to her account over a period of hours suggests it was sent by an automated system.
Some experts disagree. Justin Harvey, the chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, said in an interview that “the chances are still quite high that it was humanly targeted.” In such an attack, the spam probably would have been sent first to her aides, in hopes of getting to her account.
But if Mrs. Clinton’s system was successfully pierced — perhaps in some other attack — Mrs. Clinton might well not have known it, either. Other email accounts, including one for her husband, Bill, the former president, resided on the same server in their basement of their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. No one has yet explained what kind of monitoring systems were on that server, if any.
Continue reading the main story
First Draft Newsletter
Eric H. Holder Jr., the previous attorney general, often said, “There are two kinds of companies in America: those who know they have been the subject of cyberattacks, and those who don’t know they have been the subject of cyberattacks.” That dictum seems to apply to the State Department as well.
It took officials there weeks or months to catch on to the attack, officials said this year. That is a pretty good record compared with the Office of Personnel Management, who did not know for more than a year that security dossiers on roughly 22 million Americans, and millions of fingerprints, had been secretly transmitted to servers in China.
If Mrs. Clinton felt safer on her own system than on the State Department’s, she was hardly alone. One of Mrs. Clinton’s top policy aides, Anne-Marie Slaughter, noted in another email released Wednesday that “State’s technology is so antiquated that NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop, and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively.”
What was true in 2011 remains true today. The State Department on Thursday confirmed a report in The Boston Globe that Secretary of State John Kerry had occasionally received work related emails on a personal account.
“This is an acknowledgment of the reality that Secretary Kerry has decades-old friendships, and those friends have emailed him on a personal account for years,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the State Department. Mr. Kerry has taken several steps to ensure that he complied with federal record-keeping rules, the State Department said, adding that it has a process in place to review Mr. Kerry’s personal emails to make sure they are forwarded to his work account and backed up on a federal record-keeping system.
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said Thursday that he was certain the bureau would be able to complete the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account in a timely manner and that he would make sure politics did not interfere with it.
“I am following this very closely, and I get briefed on it regularly,” Mr. Comey told reporters at F.B.I. headquarters.
The F.B.I. opened its investigation into how classified materials were handled in connection with Mrs. Clinton’s account in response to a referral from the inspector general for the intelligence community after sensitive national security information was found on the account. It is illegal to have classified information on an unsecured network.
Mr. Comey declined to discuss the specifics of the inquiry, but said that one of the reasons he has a 10-year term as director was “to make sure this organization stays outside of politics.”
Correction: October 3, 2015
A headline on Friday with an article about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email server overstated what is known about an investigation into the server’s security. As the article correctly noted, Mrs. Clinton received spam email that was intended to place malware on her computer network; the investigation has not yet determined that the malware effort was successful.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Chinese Military Personnel, "Aerial Assets" Allegedly En Route To Syria
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On Wednesday evening, we suggested that Vladimir Putin’s explicit promise to go ahead with airstrikes against terrorist targets in Syria with or without the help of the US effectively marks the end of Washington’s years-old effort to destabilize and ultimately remove the Assad regime.
The Kremlin's pronouncement came just a day after the mainstream media began reporting that Moscow and Tehran are coordinating their efforts on the ground (something which should come as no surprise to anyone) meaning any Sunni extremists and/or CIA-trained “freedom fighters” intent on seizing control of the country will now need to go through Russia and Iran, with the latter now seemingly willing to make the badly kept secret of its military support for Assad no secret at all.
Of course the thing about irreparably bad situations is that although they cannot, by definition, get better, they can always get worse and for the US in Syria, that would mean China showing up. Beijing has made a concerted effort this year to project the growing power and influence of the PLA navy. That effort has so far involved an unprecedented land reclamation effort in the Spratlys, a “rescue” operation in the Yemeni port of Aden, and a surprise appearance off the coast of Alaska.
(a Chinese soldier in Yemen on March 29)
Given that, and given what we know about Beijing’s support for Moscow and Tehran, the following from pro-Assad Al-Masdar news shouldn’t come as a complete surprise:
For now, this is still in the realm of speculation as the story cited above certainly falls short of providing anything in the way of conclusive evidence for a claim that the Chinese military is set to intervene directly. That said, the last several weeks have proven that the situation in Syria is remarkably fluid and what seems far-fetched one day has the potential to become reality the next, which is why we contend that Xi Jinping very well may decide that Raqqa is as good a place as any to test out some of the equipment that was on full display in Beijing earlier this month. Visit our Daily Newsletter to keep up with what the world says!
SOURCE
On Wednesday evening, we suggested that Vladimir Putin’s explicit promise to go ahead with airstrikes against terrorist targets in Syria with or without the help of the US effectively marks the end of Washington’s years-old effort to destabilize and ultimately remove the Assad regime.
The Kremlin's pronouncement came just a day after the mainstream media began reporting that Moscow and Tehran are coordinating their efforts on the ground (something which should come as no surprise to anyone) meaning any Sunni extremists and/or CIA-trained “freedom fighters” intent on seizing control of the country will now need to go through Russia and Iran, with the latter now seemingly willing to make the badly kept secret of its military support for Assad no secret at all.
Of course the thing about irreparably bad situations is that although they cannot, by definition, get better, they can always get worse and for the US in Syria, that would mean China showing up. Beijing has made a concerted effort this year to project the growing power and influence of the PLA navy. That effort has so far involved an unprecedented land reclamation effort in the Spratlys, a “rescue” operation in the Yemeni port of Aden, and a surprise appearance off the coast of Alaska.
(a Chinese soldier in Yemen on March 29)
Given that, and given what we know about Beijing’s support for Moscow and Tehran, the following from pro-Assad Al-Masdar news shouldn’t come as a complete surprise:
This comes two years after China warned that turmoil in Syria could have negative implications for the global economy and 18 months after Beijing, along with Moscow, used their security council vetoes to undercut a UN resolution calling for the crisis in Syria to be referred to the Hague. Here's what China had to say at the May 22, 2014 meeting:The recent arrival of the Russian Marines and Air Force to the Syrian port-city of Tartous has generated a significant amount of interest around the world, as the possibility of Russia’s direct military intervention becomes the focal point of the war on ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham).
Should the Russians begin military operations in Syria, what role with the U.S. led “Anti-ISIS Coalition” play in combatting the terrorist group? Will they coordinate with one another? Will they avoid one another?
Russia seems poised to take a similar approach to the U.S. led Coalition; however, they are not seeking the assistance of the neighboring Arab countries to combat the terrorist group.
Instead, the Russians appear to have a contingency that involves another world power that was absent from the U.S. led Anti-ISIS Coalition: China.
On Tuesday morning, a Chinese naval vessel reportedly traveled through Egypt’s Suez Canal to enter the Mediterranean Sea; its destination was not confirmed.
However, according to a senior officer in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) that is stationed inside the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, Chinese military personnel and aerial assets are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks (6 weeks) to the port-city of Tartous – he could not provide anymore detail.
Yes, "regrettably China's approach has not been taken on board" and so, more than a year later that approach might have just shifted to a strategy that involves direct military intervention on behalf of Assad.Mr. Wang Min (China) (spoke in Chinese): For over three years, the escalation of the conflict in Syria has inflicted deep suffering on the Syrian people and posed a serious challenge to the countries of the region and the international community. China has always maintained that all parties in Syria should respect human rights and international humanitarian law and prevent innocent people from being harmed during the conflict. China is firmly opposed to all violations of international humanitarian law or serious violations of human rights committed by all parties to the conflict in Syria. However, with regard to draft resolution S/2014/348, on which the Council voted earlier, China has some serious reservations. First, China believes that any action to seek recourse to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute the perpetrators of serious violations should be conducted on the basis of respect for State judicial sovereignty and the principle of complementarity. China is not a State party to the Rome Statute. China always has reservations concerning the referral by the Security Council of particular country situations to the ICC. This is our principled position.
Secondly, efforts to seek a political settlement to the question of Syria are encountering difficulties. The international community must shore up its confidence, remain patient and be steadfastly committed to the overall direction of the political settlement. What is most urgently needed now is to urge the Government of Syria and the opposition to immediately implement a ceasefire and put an end to the violence in order to start a third round of negotiations in Geneva so as to advance the political process and embark on a political transition. In the current circumstances, to forcibly refer the situation in Syria to the ICC is not conducive either to building trust among all parties in Syria or to an early resumption of the negotiations in Geneva. It will only jeopardize the efforts made by the international community to push for a political settlement.
Thirdly, for some time now, the Security Council has maintained unity and coordination on the question of Syria, thanks to efforts by Council members, including China, to accommodate the major concerns of all parties. At a time when seriously diverging views exist among the parties concerning the draft resolution, we believe that the Council should continue holding consultations, rather than forcing a vote on the draft resolution, in order to avoid undermining Council unity or obstructing coordination and cooperation on questions such as Syria and other major serious issues. Regrettably, China’s approach has not been taken on board; China therefore voted against the draft resolution.
For now, this is still in the realm of speculation as the story cited above certainly falls short of providing anything in the way of conclusive evidence for a claim that the Chinese military is set to intervene directly. That said, the last several weeks have proven that the situation in Syria is remarkably fluid and what seems far-fetched one day has the potential to become reality the next, which is why we contend that Xi Jinping very well may decide that Raqqa is as good a place as any to test out some of the equipment that was on full display in Beijing earlier this month. Visit our Daily Newsletter to keep up with what the world says!
SOURCE
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