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Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

reuters.com

631–640 of 747 posts

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#631
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would require them to be in the front line early. I think it's more likely that somebody was randomly there and saw the opportunity. If you look at the videos most seem to be surprised to be in some of low manner. If you have some operative in there you increase chaos by creating some small fire or something ...

Would they have had to be there early? Russian embassy isn't that far away and I think rioters were in there plenty long (wasn't it a couple hours?) for someone to walk over, pay 20 dollars for a trump flag, and walk in unnoticed. I wouldn't be surprised if our embassies and CIA outposts have people ready to take advantage of such situations in other countries.

You have to get through the crowd, and you have to be there before somebody else stole it and in time before police manages to lock down critical offices. Quite some effort.

Compare it to a random person suddenly standing in front of an unprotected laptop from those "bad politicians" ...

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#632

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They’re often not met with a show of police force. Here’s a picture of the Million Man March in the 1990s: https://images.app.goo.gl/WSvMYDK4asyav5HX7 There are hundreds of thousands of people behind the camera, going all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. You can see some security milling around, but no large show of police force.

The Million Man March's attendance didn't include people with an established history of bringing weapons and wearing body armor at ostensibly peaceful demonstrations.

That couldn't be further from the truth. A large group of Black Panthers armed with assault weapons stormed the CA capitol in 1967 as part of a protest.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.h...

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had no problem tear gassing protesters this summer even though they were outnumbered.

I agree, that was an insane thing to do for those protests. It still bothers me. But I think we should all be in favor of the police response being more restrained and minimizing force, like we saw this week. We should be advocating for more of this in general.

I am in favor for the police having a more intelligent response and careful use of force. But I think it is significantly more important that they are consistent; playing favorites seriously undermines their credibility and by extension the safety of all of us.

I am also in favor of protecting our legislative process with absurd levels of security when there is a known risk and tensions are so high. The police really screwed this up royally. I would like to know why. And not conspiracy theories, but actual root cause.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#634
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? When I worked at one of the Big Four a stolen/lost laptop was DefCon 4, despite all of the security precautions. We were actually required to notify a partner in the firm before contacting law enforcement.

me too, i have a special "corporate 911" card that i've been informed during onboarding is the "real" 911. No matter the emergency, lost/stolen passports, lost/stolen corp computer, place crash, car crash, anywhere in the world the company does business, i've been told to call it first before doing anythign else.

Of all the cyberpunk trappings, a Trauma Team card was not what I expected to exist in real life.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third lowest; NOFORN is above public

Do you all say NOFORN the way I think you say NOFORN? (No forn)

"No foreign nationals"

And yes, "no-forn"

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

full disk encryption is also possible with a shared computer. TPM and PBA are some keywords

Possible? Very. Likelihood of the computer's login password and thus hard drive decryption key attached to the computer's screen with a post-it note thus obviating the protection gained from full disk encryption? On a shared computer, high.

For a computer most will use the back of the keyboard :)

reminds me of this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#637
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? When I worked at one of the Big Four a stolen/lost laptop was DefCon 4, despite all of the security precautions. We were actually required to notify a partner in the firm before contacting law enforcement.

Not to detract from the point you're trying to make with meaningless pedantry, but minimum DEFCON is 5, current is 4, we spend most of our time swapping between the two. I assume what you mean is 2.

Thanks for the correction. I just used the DefCon as a catchphrase.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but if you’re a couple of police officers in a room full of literal terrorists, of course you’re going to try to be as restrained and friendly as possible. You’re horribly outnumbered. They would be murdered if they tried to take on the crowd. They needed to wait for reinforcements to arrive, and meanwhile do their best to keep the crowd from going fully insane. They managed the situation with very few peop…

If they are terrorists, would you support police opening live fire on them. Just curious. Seems like all the SJW are now advocating for a Tiananmen square massacre of unarmed protesters, just because the TV told them who to hate.

As soon as they crossed the outer barricades, I support the use of tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, just like the police would use on leftist protesters. Inside the building, when they are about to breach the chambers of congress -and- there are legislators inside, I support the use of deadly force. When they attack democracy, they are attacking all of us. And I don't care what their ideology is.

If the building is empty, then I think deadly force is unwarranted.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've traveled to countries before whose offices of government are behind very large fences, protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine guns in armored vehicles – and the guide books are very clear that you are not to take photos of them. I much prefer the approach taken in the USA, where our offices of government are accessible to the people that the government serves. It's very good that I can…

For national security buildings (e.g. the NSA) it is the exact same as your foreign country experience. The guards around the perimeter are very quick to engage and ask what you are doing if you meander around the outside.

The NASA HQ administration building off 4th and E just south of the Mall has no armed guards posted outside, and there's even a NASA public credit union in the building, which does not require passing through the metal detectors or security post just a couple doors away in the same open lobby.

It is visited by plenty of non-NASA, non-government ordinary customers who could easily blend in with official foot traffic on a busy day and make just a dozen paces to the main elevator banks or stairwells looking for an opportunity.

Re: Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol, says aide

#640
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presentation machines at my workplace (in addition to being desktops in a locked cabinet, because why would they leave the room?) just allow you to remote desktop back to your real workstation or to a VM. They have nothing locally. I think that's a good solution to avoiding over-granting privileges.

How can you lock up Windows like that?

there are a few ways to do it:

- (W10) Assigned Access - microsoft's solution to kiosk computers. You can make the app run on top of the lock screen, so users can use their one app without actually needing privileges on the computer.

- Software Restriction Policies - You can whitelist select applications or publishers and every other executable will fail to launch. requires enterprise licensing.

- Mandatory Profile - You log in to a temporary profile. All changes are lost when you log out.

- Deep Freeze - 3rd party variant of Mandatory Profile. Can be made to roll back the whole operating system to a given snapshot.

- Non-persistent VDI - You actually log in to a Virtual Machine. When you log out, that VM is deleted and recreated automatically.

Additionally, many antivirus solutions have some capability.

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