Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

581–590 of 747 posts

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

#581

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…

This is a false dichotomy, though. There is an enormous gamut of security steps in between turning the capitol into a fortress, and locking the door to your office when you're not there.

Not trying to nitpick but they were specifically told to keep the doors unlocked, by security.

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

#582
post #82

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…

Seems like it ought to be possible to have both, to some degree. I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need to prevent stuff like this. I mean... the US spends massive amounts of money on the police and military. I think it should be kind of like a non-Newtonian fluid. Walk in slowly and peacefully and it's ok. Try and punch it, it solidifies quickly.

I think the reality is that we could have prevented it. We just chose not to murder half the crowd. Preventing it without using lethal force requires a much larger force than you want to keep on hand.

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

#583
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most days that’s fair. This week however, they should’ve had the unfriendly man with the M2. This was a predictable problem to literally everyone but the people in charge of protecting the capital.

there's more than a little suggestion that this was the intended outcome for the people protecting the capitol.

By whom?

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

#584
post #400

This is yet another aspect that makes these recent events so depressing. I don't think I've ever felt this low and ashamed as an American before. How could the government even allow such a security breach to happen?

Exactly how I felt when peasants stormed the bastille

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

#585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also notice he’s masked. That was unusual for that lot. There were definitely some folks there with mayhem in mind.

Yes it would be really interesting to find out who those guys were, were they Proud Boys, Antifa, foreign agents, undercover domestic agents, etc?

There have been several arrests already. Thus far it seems to be right wing extremists.

For example, the lady who was shot trying to enter the VP bunker has a social media profile with extensive Qanon related postings.

Another was a Republican member of the House of Representatives. He was caught because he livestreamed himself breaking the law, as all genius criminals do.

The story about Antifa being in the riots was made up out of whole cloth by the Washington Times. The company they cited put out a press release saying that they had done no such thing and the whole story was a fabrication.

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

#586

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…

As a huge democrat (lower case d) I totally agree. Locking down the Capitol is antithetical to the notion of open democracy. Lawmakers and the law making process needs to be physically accessible by the People. This was what the Founders intended. Of course there is some risk here and Jefferson himself noted this. That’s the price we pay for living in an open and transparent society. While I don’t condone or support…

Totally agree, great point! The fear mongering is only useful for states to impose more draconian rules. Its likely if there are further lockdowns, and more livelihoods are destroyed during the Biden admin, more people will be revolting. We don't want to give them the moral authority to Tiananmen square unarmed protesters, just because they fear their own people

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

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i bet it has every presentation ever done sitting in good ol' ~/Documents or the desktop.

Does anyone use /Documents? That's just a folder where Apps like Acrobat put garbage files.

I'm on Mac OSX and almost all my non-programming files are in /Downloads. Maybe some other HN-ers have a better folder management technique than mine (which basically is absent), I'm curious what that is.

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

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should beef up security. And keep it open. And not so obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that a violent riot stormed the capitol building and nearly overwhelmed local forces. Congress asked for extra help and it wasn't provided. Governors asked if they could send in the guard to help and the man whom stoked the riot gave no permission. It's a fucking miracle that January 6th wasn't one of the worst days i…

Um, the police waved them through. It was in cooperation with Capitol police. No 'overwhelming' necessary. Which is worrisome in a whole nother way. https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/134727096998817382... video

8 second videos don't tell much of a story. That is them falling back because they didn't have enough people to hold the perimeter.

Here is a longer video of them at one of the entrances of the building: https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=140

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

#589

Beyond the information security risk around the loss of this specific device, what really worries me is the physical security implications here. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but it seems to me like, in a building like the US Capitol, it should not be anywhere near this easy for unauthorized people to waltz into an office or conference room in the first place. Let alone walk away with items from within that…

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…

> 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 protest out front without worrying about that unfriendly man with his finger by the trigger to the Browning M2.

And yet your government offices abroad (embassies) are the most fortified I've ever seen.

I've been to several countries' embassies and the US one was like entering a secret nuclear bunker. There was airport-style security, and everyone I talked to was behind a massive sheet of bullet-proof glass; never mind the gates and moat around the building. This was in a small, US-friendly and highly developed country.

Then there's the excessive amount of security around any US governmental visit to a foreign country.

So I think it comes to a surprise to many outside the US that one of your main government buildings has less security than a museum even when all the most important politicians are inside.

But yes I agree, I think government buildings should be 'friendly'.

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

#590

> belonged to a conference room and was used for presentations Yikes. My first though was - oh this should be no big deal chances are there are good policies in place for laptops that go home with people. Then I realized it is a shared/central machine which means it probably has the most effed up and relaxed security in the fleet, post-it notes with passwords taped to the palm rests, and god knows what else. IT depar…

IT should be able to revoke any access the machine has, so the only compromise would be what was already on the machine; which would be the case regardless of security policy, as they could just access the harddrive directly regardless of OS security policy. In practice, it wouldn't suprise me if that computer was locally storing passwords that were not specific to that machine, which might mean needing to revoke a b…

That assumes it can talk to IT's systems, and it's done before the computer is "inspected". For a corporate laptop, that can easily be unlikely.
Post reply on HN