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

reuters.com

351–360 of 747 posts

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

#351

What an absolute mess. Whatever political spectrum you might be on, having people roaming around the halls of a sensitive government institution is not in the interest of any US citizen. Security of our institutions, elections and democracy should be a non-partisan issue.

Why would it be of the interest of any US citizen for elected officials to have any "secret" ? Full transparency should be paramount.

That's the theoretical argument Assange pushes.

Wikileaks does, however, keeps tons of information about its internal operations secret...

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

#352
post #260
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a real testament to the effectiveness of the BLM protests that the police took a good hard look at themselves and decided to use a light touch from here on out.

The police shot and killed an unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55581206

She had clear instructions to proceed no further, then climbed through a broken window towards Secret Service members who had guns drawn.

She was partway through the window to the hallway that leads directly to the congressional chambers and was attempting to get past the Secret Service members.

You don't mess with the Secret Service -- they have a very uncompromising view on protecting elected officials and will absolutely draw lines in the sand and firmly enforce them.

Edit: Secret Service were present, but the officer who shot was not a member. He was, however, protecting the immediate vicinity to where congresspeople were sheltering in place.

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

#353
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1347244300527013889 : "Resecuring the Capitol's IT infrastructure should probably involve shredding every device, cable and thumb-drive, tearing open every light-socket and power-outlet, and even then, it will be hard to fully trust the building and its systems."

If this is done, does everyone lose all of their unbacked up work or is there some way to recover it safely? There are for sure internal notes, draft bills and changes, etc. on these computers that is not backed up.

Heh, congress doesn't write any legislation any more, that all happens on K-street now by lobbyists.

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To prevent unauthorized entry, Capitol Police would have had to put up a fight. Seems they were unwilling to do so. If America continues down this path Russia (and others) are just gonna have a field day.

Firing on a mob is risky as hell and not morally clear. I can't blame Capitol Police--at least for the actions after it already got out of hand. If federal security at Court House shoots BLM protestors who are entering a federal court house, those security people would probably get charged with murder. It's unreasonable to expect Capitol Police to make that sort of moral choice in the moment. And if you give cops the…

> If federal security at Court House shoots BLM protestors who are entering a federal court house, those security people would probably get charged with murder.

Probably? Says who? In fact, multiple people have been shot (fatally or otherwise) during BLM protests, and actions against those officers have been very much the exception.

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

#355
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think any of your rogue nation club have any interest hacking US politicians , except for, probably, blackmail? US is an open society, and most US politicians speak what they think, or at least you can guess, or even ask them yourself! Those people are like open books. Unlike of your usual cabal totalitarians, who either don't speak at all, or purposefully try to hide their real aims by engaging in double…

Seems safe to assume that the Speaker of the House and her aides would have access to classified national intelligence that might not be open to the world, and would be valuable in it's own right. Things like progress and updates with Covid vaccines, their deployment plans, and lack of security around them would make information like it ripe for the black market and adversary governments in these times.

What would enemy spies get out of that.

Even prima fascie top military secrets like battle plans (those must be updated and shuffled regularly to prevent a situation exactly like that) have very little immediate usefulness.

It's 21st century, it's beyond anybody's ability to hide things like size, dislocation, and basic capabilities of your force

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

#356

Myself, I would be more worried about any keyloggers, or wifi/cell interception, "man-in-the-middle" devices being left behind...

did you see the photos of the rioters? Do you really believe they are that tech-savy?

The idea here is some foreign actor agent (that could be a U.S. citizen by the way) could have participated in storming/ breaking and entering the capitol.

Looks can be deceiving.

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

#357

What's the protocol to secure all devices/network after incident like this week? Should all hardware left behind considered possibly compromised?

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1347244300527013889 : "Resecuring the Capitol's IT infrastructure should probably involve shredding every device, cable and thumb-drive, tearing open every light-socket and power-outlet, and even then, it will be hard to fully trust the building and its systems."

https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/1347226499930230785 is a good thread. Starts with:

"So far, hearing that cyber risks of the Capitol attack were low.

* Congress isn't one big network * Vulnerable machines held unclassified files * Hill leaks so much already that truly sensitive stuff is walled off * Rioters weren't there long enough for thorough, careful access" [...] For those wondering about the SCIFs, used for classified files and conversations, their doors were built to withstand embassy sieges, and they’re swept for bugs before every use.

We haven’t seen any indication that they were even targeted, much less seriously attacked. Could one of the terrorists have seen a sensitive but unclassified email somewhere? Yes.

Could there have been Russian spies in the terrorist mob? Yes."

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

#358
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or everything from everybody. We just don't know.

presentation-2-Rewrite.pdf.bak.PPT presentation-BROKEN.PPT anotherpresentation.doc cantopen_presentaion-dontdelete,PPT MOMs_COOKIE_RECIPE.doc caterpillar french fry funny.bmp and so on...

> caterpillar french fry funny.bmp

Literally laughed out loud, as my grandma had actually sent me that comic just a month ago. It's the quintessential Forward From Grandma.

Pretty sure that one's been floating around the Internet since the 90s at least, and likely existed way before then.

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

#359
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These folks don't trust one another with information, so it seems unlikely that they'd pass around a laptop loaded with one anothers presentations.

These folks are also among the most tech-unsavvy people on Earth...

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