Hillary Clinton, Totally Addicted to Her Personal Email
Published in Rue89
(France) on 3 March 2015
by Andréa Fradin (link to original)
(France) on 3 March 2015
by Andréa Fradin (link to original)
Translated from
by Kathryn Manz.
Edited by Bora Mici.
This Tuesday, The New York Times is repeating a former practice of the American government that is truly embarrassing. Then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, now on track for the presidential election, used a private email address to discuss diplomatic issues, based on evidence from sources coming from the department itself .
Strangely, the American newspaper is paying less attention to the huge security breach that this practice represents than to the infringement it constitutes in relationship to American law, which insists that official correspondence be preserved, so that congressional commissions, journalists or historians can consult them — aside from exceptions, classified confidential.
The use of a nonprofessional address, in such a sensitive situation, is risky: The contents of the emails are backed up by a third-party service — for example, Google or Yahoo — which doesn't follow the security protocols put in place by certain countries like France.
The New York Times barely mentions it: “It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton’s private email account included encryption or other security measures, given the sensitivity of her diplomatic activity.”
“The Style of Gucci and the Light of Lucifer”
But what we already know, and what the American website forgets to explain, is that the same private address had already been exposed — owing to the schemes of a hacker answering to the name "Guccifer" (for “the style of Gucci and the light of Lucifer” as he said in a November 2014 article in The New York Times), which seems to confirm that the use of a nonprofessional email address with the government definitely constitutes a security breach.
Guccifer became known in 2013: He had succeeded in breaking into the AOL or Facebook accounts of public figures, like former Secretary of State Colin Powell or Dorothy Bush Koch, the sister of former American President George W. Bush.
In the bundle of victims, you can also find a certain Sidney Blumenthal. This former journalist is also a former adviser to Bill Clinton, who continued, in March 2013, to send emails to Hillary.
Guccifer made these emails public by taking the care to copy and paste the contents into a document with a pink background and in Comic Sans font. RT News published several glimpses of them.
ClintonEmail.com
We see there that the former journalist sent sensitive information to Hillary Clinton, in 2012 and 2013, on the Egyptian presidential election; the attack of the American embassy in Benghazi in Libya; the taking of hostages at In Amenas in Algeria, which ended in the death of 37 hostages, three of whom were Americans.
According to Gawker, at that time, these messages were sent to an address associated with the domain ClintonEmail.com, a domain reserved right before Obama’s arrival in the White House, Jan. 13, 2009, clarifies The Washington Post for its part.
Despite these many documents sent from Guccifer to the media, there is no mention of a response from Hillary Clinton. However, we have confirmation that her private inbox was receiving quite clearly sensitive information. And that the risk of such a practice doesn't fall under the heading of fantasy.
A Guy Who Was Patient Rather than Brilliant
It’s especially true that Guccifer, to commit his misdeeds, didn't need the skills of the real geniuses that you see in films, who are capable of controlling any machine.
This hacker, a 40-something Romanian answering to the name Marcel Lehel Lazar, is today incarcerated in a high-security prison. Convicted in Romania, prosecuted in the United States for these deeds, he is serving barely seven years.
In a portrait in The New York Times, the prosecutor who was in charge of his case says of him: “He was not really a hacker but just a smart guy who was very patient and persistent.”
In order to seize these targets’ accounts, it was enough to collect lots of pieces of information on the Internet, and put them together until it worked. It's crazy, when you think that it let him expose real moments of privacy.
Remember President Bush's Paintings?
In this way, the Bushes’ lives have been brought to light — telephone numbers, addresses, security gate codes — until this email about the health of the elder Bush, sent to his children by his former chief of staff:
“Your dad’s funeral team is having an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. just to go through the details which falls under the broadening category of things NOT TO TELL YOUR MOTHER.”
Colin Powell also publicly denied any relationship with Corina Crete, a Romanian diplomat with whom he corresponded regularly and in a very intimate manner — without forgetting, of course, the revelation of the incredible painting talent of George W. Bush.
Said that way, of course, you might smile, but this story, stacked end-to-end with the recent "celebgate" — the spread of very private photos of celebrities on the Internet — and the thick file of spying cases between allied countries — don't forget Angela Merkel's cell phone, possibly tapped by the United States — remind us that the communications of the world’s powerful remain top-choice targets.
Strangely, the American newspaper is paying less attention to the huge security breach that this practice represents than to the infringement it constitutes in relationship to American law, which insists that official correspondence be preserved, so that congressional commissions, journalists or historians can consult them — aside from exceptions, classified confidential.
The use of a nonprofessional address, in such a sensitive situation, is risky: The contents of the emails are backed up by a third-party service — for example, Google or Yahoo — which doesn't follow the security protocols put in place by certain countries like France.
The New York Times barely mentions it: “It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton’s private email account included encryption or other security measures, given the sensitivity of her diplomatic activity.”
“The Style of Gucci and the Light of Lucifer”
But what we already know, and what the American website forgets to explain, is that the same private address had already been exposed — owing to the schemes of a hacker answering to the name "Guccifer" (for “the style of Gucci and the light of Lucifer” as he said in a November 2014 article in The New York Times), which seems to confirm that the use of a nonprofessional email address with the government definitely constitutes a security breach.
Guccifer became known in 2013: He had succeeded in breaking into the AOL or Facebook accounts of public figures, like former Secretary of State Colin Powell or Dorothy Bush Koch, the sister of former American President George W. Bush.
In the bundle of victims, you can also find a certain Sidney Blumenthal. This former journalist is also a former adviser to Bill Clinton, who continued, in March 2013, to send emails to Hillary.
Guccifer made these emails public by taking the care to copy and paste the contents into a document with a pink background and in Comic Sans font. RT News published several glimpses of them.
ClintonEmail.com
We see there that the former journalist sent sensitive information to Hillary Clinton, in 2012 and 2013, on the Egyptian presidential election; the attack of the American embassy in Benghazi in Libya; the taking of hostages at In Amenas in Algeria, which ended in the death of 37 hostages, three of whom were Americans.
According to Gawker, at that time, these messages were sent to an address associated with the domain ClintonEmail.com, a domain reserved right before Obama’s arrival in the White House, Jan. 13, 2009, clarifies The Washington Post for its part.
Despite these many documents sent from Guccifer to the media, there is no mention of a response from Hillary Clinton. However, we have confirmation that her private inbox was receiving quite clearly sensitive information. And that the risk of such a practice doesn't fall under the heading of fantasy.
A Guy Who Was Patient Rather than Brilliant
It’s especially true that Guccifer, to commit his misdeeds, didn't need the skills of the real geniuses that you see in films, who are capable of controlling any machine.
This hacker, a 40-something Romanian answering to the name Marcel Lehel Lazar, is today incarcerated in a high-security prison. Convicted in Romania, prosecuted in the United States for these deeds, he is serving barely seven years.
In a portrait in The New York Times, the prosecutor who was in charge of his case says of him: “He was not really a hacker but just a smart guy who was very patient and persistent.”
In order to seize these targets’ accounts, it was enough to collect lots of pieces of information on the Internet, and put them together until it worked. It's crazy, when you think that it let him expose real moments of privacy.
Remember President Bush's Paintings?
In this way, the Bushes’ lives have been brought to light — telephone numbers, addresses, security gate codes — until this email about the health of the elder Bush, sent to his children by his former chief of staff:
“Your dad’s funeral team is having an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. just to go through the details which falls under the broadening category of things NOT TO TELL YOUR MOTHER.”
Colin Powell also publicly denied any relationship with Corina Crete, a Romanian diplomat with whom he corresponded regularly and in a very intimate manner — without forgetting, of course, the revelation of the incredible painting talent of George W. Bush.
Said that way, of course, you might smile, but this story, stacked end-to-end with the recent "celebgate" — the spread of very private photos of celebrities on the Internet — and the thick file of spying cases between allied countries — don't forget Angela Merkel's cell phone, possibly tapped by the United States — remind us that the communications of the world’s powerful remain top-choice targets.
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