Trump, June 2017: From [Covfefe] with Love

Does NED RAGGETT smoke weed? xp

He's so MAD at Sessions for RECUSING himself. Because that's what SAD LOSERS do. WINNERS do as much as possible to throw themselves under the BUS. Like dumb FUCKS.

This is interesting and also kinda disheartening: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/6/15740118/new-jersey-governor

Especially this part: The best opportunities for Democrats to win general elections come in states like New Jersey that are traditionally left-leaning. And yet it’s exactly these same blue states where the party’s establishment is also strongest, and therefore where they’re most capable of putting down the insurgents trying to fundamentally reshape the kinds of candidates the Democratic Party puts forward.

Take heart -- interesting things quietly happening in Nevada

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/6/15731622/nevada-medicaid-for-all

Four top law firms turned down requests to represent Trump

“The concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’”

CA statewide single-payer bill also just passed the state Senate and is now in the Assembly.

Kamala Harris has also endorsed single-payer on the national level

Here's the clip of Costa talking about Trump livetweeting Comey

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/trump-will-live-tweet-during-testimony-of-former-fbi-director-james-comey-report/

Twitter Chris Christie is a great tool when used the right way."

The greatest tool, bigly, etc.

a yes, being your own lawyer. real smart guys always act as their own lawyer. =|

“I was just talking to some White House officials this morning and their view is that the president himself wants to be the messenger, his own warrior, his own lawyer, his own spokesman,” Costa explained. “Some outside people, some surrogates will be available.”

CA statewide single-payer bill also just passed the state Senate and is now in the Assembly.

what are the chances this will become law?

re the Intercept-Reality story that Shakey and the rest of our journalism/security pundits weighed in on...

i don't buy the idea that the "crease" in the leaked doc was an important clue--they would have checked print records no matter what

— Max Read (@max_read) June 5, 2017

she printed the doc and emailed from work, more than enough for the feds to have identified. playing up the crease is dirty tricks

— Max Read (@max_read) June 5, 2017

took some arm-twisting in the Senate, and the Assembly has to actually find the money for it - which will be tricky (a committee review suggested a 15% payroll tax to cover the estimate $400 billion cost) so I dunno, hard to say. Dems have 2/3rds majorities in each chamber, and I don't see Brown vetoing it if the money is there, so it's possible. There's some question of whether federal funds could be used as well.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/01/california-senate-passes-single-payer-health-care-plan/

xp

was there a reason why she couldn't take screenshots of the documents and print those instead of the documents themselves

this thread from an infosec linux kernel dev is fair imo

It's about 10PM, my partner's in Tokyo, I've been to Ikea and hung a pair of curtains on my own. Of course I have thoughts on The Intercept.

— Matthew Garrett (@mjg59) June 6, 2017

in particular

Now yes *we* know that there are many other things to worry about, but when a user follows the documentation and loses anyway that's *bad*

— Matthew Garrett (@mjg59) June 6, 2017

If you have a page that encourages people to break the law, you owe it to them to provide enough information to help them assess the risks

— Matthew Garrett (@mjg59) June 6, 2017

so yes this is on the intercept

xposts i've been meaning to ask about that - what did the intercept do that revealed the source? as max mentioned, they didn't erase the crease, which would tip off investigators that it was printed somewhere and folded before it was provided to the intercept. ooook. was there anything else? i haven't seen anything else mentioned to demonstrate that the intercept fucked up. but then again i'm just fucking around drinking coffee here so maybe i missed something.

also can we just keep posting max tweets in here so we can pretend he still posts here regularly? miss having him here.

screenshots would have been traceable by document access records. apparently only 5 people accessed the docs.

thanks shakey re: CA healthcare. moving there this weekend, mah wife on the obamacare.

i don't know if "If you have a page that encourages people to break the law, you owe it to them to provide enough information to help them assess the risks" is damning enough for me.

screenshots would have been traceable by document access records. apparently only 5 people accessed the docs.

fair point; I was thinking that the accounting was for who printed the documents rather than accessed them (I've only skim-read the accounts of this so far)

i was reading the equivalent page at the NYT earlier. it's no better.

xpost caek beat me to it, but:

NYT tips on tips: https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/news-tips/
Intercept tips on tips: https://theintercept.com/leak/

anyways i think it's fair to put some blame on the intercept but i think the kneejerk reaction last night assigning 100% blame to them was way off

it sucks to blame the victim but it seems like she proceeded in a pretty stupid way

KM: NSA’s Latest Leak Debacle Explained

According to the FBI affidavit, she emailed The Intercept from her NSA unclassified computer system—notwithstanding that such systems are clearly marked with a sticker cautioning users that they consent to employer monitoring by logging on.

On May 9, Winner searched NSA’s internal computer network, which contains highly classified intelligence, and found the just-issued report about GRU cyber shenanigans, printed it off, snuck it out of her office, and mailed it to The Intercept. She thereby left an easily found audit trail, since NSA tracks all printing off classified systems, plus Winner was one of only six people in the whole agency who printed that particular report.

Her downfall came on May 30, when representatives of The Intercept approached NSA, seeking comment on their hot scoop based on a stolen NSA report. The agency, true to form, declined to comment, but by showing NSA the purloined assessment, the inept muckrakers sealed Winner’s fate.

This is because the agency can easily determine exactly where and when a document was printed inside any NSA office worldwide. Quick analysis revealed a very short list of suspects, and Winner was high on it.

ah, only 6 printers. none of the tradecraft would have been necessary in that situation. i don't agree with max's point that that alluding to potential scary tradecraft that probably wasn't actually used (folds, pink dots, steganography) is chilling dirty tricks though. it's important for potential leakers to know about the ways they can be identified (and for intercept to better document them).

fwiw the pink dot laser print thing is apparently well known, although i'd never heard of it

the random whitespace may also be identifying steganography

There's also a few character-space breadcrumbs in the document. Wow. This leaker wasn't careful at all. pic.twitter.com/9usYecqEKk

— PSU (@DisarmPSU) June 6, 2017

xp caek: I'm sure a lot more than 5 accessed the file (if any 90 day contract linguist had access). But only six printed it out.

the reason there are so few whistleblowers is cuz it's personally perilous. esp if you don't know all that stuff, apparently.

i think the kneejerk reaction last night assigning 100% blame to them was way off

but fuckin' BERNIEBROS amirite

A hard read

https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/kids-are-quoting-trump-to-bully-their-classmates

Basically, deal with a reputable news outlet with an experienced national security desk, don't send hard copy. Reading the contents to a NYT/WaPo/etc. transcriber via a out of state pay phone / cash purchased burner phone is the minimum I'd do.

Reality Winner and Intercept both bungled it, never meant to imply otherwise. "Amateur hour" is what I said, and I think that covers it.

xp

Sanpaku otm

When you're documenting a process that could land someone in jail for the rest of their life (or worse), your documentation should be *good*

— Matthew Garrett (@mjg59) June 6, 2017

this plus their experts seem to have done a terrible job of debriefing the leaker to figure out how to minimize risk to them.

not obvious the NYT would have done any better.

Ah, it was the print audit that was her downfall, not the access audit. I'm going back to my original question.

thanks sanpaku

i suppose it is clear that someone at the intercept should have asked reality a few more questions about how she went about obtaining the document, esp before approaching the nsa

xp what do you take the screenshot with? how do you get it out of the building? there are good answers but it's not obviously more secure then printing to a non infosec specialist.

anyway how about those russians

What's interesting here is that I've seen reports that they went to not the NSA, but another source within the NSA, which would mean the IC is putting out "sources" to journalists at even lesser known outlets to collect CI on internal leaks.

I'd assume the contractors are required to deposit their phones at entry. There are USB/keychain spy cameras with enough resolution that one could quickly take a couple shots of each screen, then transcribe on one's own computer during off-time, print, delete and zero out all unallocated disk space with wipe tools.

Sanpaku is at the point that the meandering post I just wrote eventually got to, so I'll delete mine and just say "^^^ yeah, that"

Its odd this is giving me a desire to own spy gadgets that would have zero utility in my life.

haha same

spymall has some good shit

It just so happens that in this case, an act of due diligence appears to have turned into a lead for a leak investigation. The Intercept also passed along a copy of the document to the government as part of its reporting process — and that apparently contained some clues as well. “The U.S. Government Agency examined the document shared by the News Outlet and determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased, suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space,” says one of the court documents.

Yet the mistakes of the leaker before the Intercept even received the document would likely have sealed her fate, regardless of any clumsiness by the reporter in verifying the scoop. It’s apparent that the document came straight out of the blue, with little or no instructions as to sensitivity and handling. The Intercept’s story itself indicates that the document was supplied “anonymously” to the Intercept. “The Intercept has no knowledge of the identity of the source,” says the website in a statement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/06/06/did-the-intercept-bungle-nsa-leak/

Waiting to see when Corker finally gives up.

Just informed Senate Foreign Relations Chair Corker of what Trump tweeted about Qatar and was met with about 8 seconds of stunned silence

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) June 6, 2017

Corker said he hadn't seen the tweets and needs to go read them before saying more. Says managing diffs bt Arab allies is important policy https://t.co/TpSZxtjl48

— Todd Zwillich (@toddzwillich) June 6, 2017

He's really going to go the whole day without commemorating D-Day, isn't he...

Meanwhile...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says it's possible the Senate will opt for a short-term plan to stabilize Obamacare markets.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 6, 2017

Yeah, have fun with that.

Corker will never give up

xp

He's really going to go the whole day without commemorating D-Day, isn't he...

Given that his Vietnam was avoiding crabs, I hesitate to think what his D-Day is.

Corker will never give up

His hand could be forced. And Trump's happily doing the forcing.