[HN Gopher] Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming o...
___________________________________________________________________
Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during storming of U.S. Capitol,
says aide
Author : spzb
Score : 385 points
Date : 2021-01-08 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| spoonjim wrote:
| If you add up all the charges on breaking into the Capitol, the
| Speaker's office, the theft, the computer security laws, etc.,
| they could probably get a 100 year sentence, and I hope they
| prosecute it fully.
| coldcode wrote:
| If they followed proper security it would be encrypted. All of
| our Macs at my employer automatically have it on.
| spzb wrote:
| Given that Pelosi's desktop was logged on and unlocked, there's
| a fair chance the laptop was too which would render full disk
| encryption useless. As long as whoever stole it didn't close it
| and send it to sleep anyway.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Was that actually her computer though?
| danans wrote:
| IIUC that wasn't her desktop, but rather one of a staffer.
| The desk the insurrectionist had his boots on in that photo
| was also not hers.
|
| It was in her office, though.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Pelosi is in her 80s and a politician, it's common for
| people in that generation to not actually use computers
| themselves but rely on their assistants to "do the computer
| stuff".
| asdff wrote:
| It's also common for important people to have secretaries
| managing their affairs.
| coldcode wrote:
| Not the brightest of bulbs, I bet they closed it to carry it
| away.
| jordache wrote:
| I'm sure they didn't send in their best IT experts in the
| first wave. Billy Bob likely won't know to keep the machine
| from going to sleep, esp in the chaotic scene.
| bbg24 wrote:
| Can you explain the Billy Bob reference for me?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Billy Bob is a name stereotypically used to refer to
| someone to imply that they are rural, ignorant and/or
| unsophisticated. Billy Bob (short for William Robert) at
| one time was a common set of first names for Americans
| that lived in country areas.
| avgDev wrote:
| So, I was surprised to hear this, among the people who
| entered the building was a CEO of a tech company from a
| town close to me.
|
| There were smart people in that group.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| 1) Don't assume CEOs are smart.
|
| 2) Don't assume tech people are smart.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| Logged on, unlocked and unattended? That shouldn't be allowed
| to happen.
| weaksauce wrote:
| to be fair, I'm sure the training on insurrection defense
| for a staffer was lacking since this hasn't happened since
| the early 1800s.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| Well training for much more mundane events should cover
| it. I wonder if they're personal laptops otherwise IT
| security would have an auto lock enabled.
| jayd16 wrote:
| They quickly evacuated. Presumably they simply forgot to
| lock it in the confusion.
| aggie wrote:
| Do we know it was Pelosi's computer and not just a staffer in
| her office? I also imagine it's a lot harder to walk out of
| the building with an open laptop in hand than a closed one in
| a bag.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Yeah this seems to be exactly what BitLocker was designed for.
| standardUser wrote:
| If they followed proper security no individual would have been
| let out of the Capitol without being detained and searched.
| boringg wrote:
| Agree with this... also though capitol police were
| overwhelmed and 3 % control (ie managed to keep politicians
| out of harms way excluding covid implications) of the
| situation.
| standardUser wrote:
| Yes, after seeing the video today of the shooting, it's
| clear that the Capitol police were very barely able to keep
| people safe. But later, when so much backup arrived, it
| appeared as if many people simply walked away and went
| home, which is baffling to me.
|
| The video: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/20
| 21/01/08/ash...
| brobinson wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack
| slg wrote:
| >Nancy Pelosi told fellow House Democrats that she had received
| reassurances about safeguards to prevent Donald Trump from
| launching a nuclear attack
|
| Maybe this is too political or HN, but this is the bigger news on
| that page. It tells me we don't have a functioning chain of
| command and our government is currently responding to a hard coup
| attempt with a soft coup which is also pretty scary. Trump should
| either be removed through the 25th amendment or he should be
| president with all its power and responsibility. Putting
| "safeguards" in place so no one really knows who is in charge can
| be dangerous. Hopefully nothing too serious happens in the next
| week and a half.
|
| EDIT: To be clear and to address the multiple replies, I am not a
| Trump fan or a supporter of nuclear weapons or anything along
| those lines. The problem here is that there needs to be a clear
| chain of command in case of an actual emergency. People being
| insubordinate to the president and taking on power that they do
| not constitutionally could be extremely dangerous in an
| emergency. The unelected bureaucrats of the government shouldn't
| be the ones making these decisions.
| _ph_ wrote:
| There are plenty of szenarios where you don't want to launch a
| nuclear attack without several people checking the attack
| order. To my knowledge, the president can't just order an
| attack, this has to be at least confirmed by one member of a
| small group of people of necessary rank. Beyond being mostly a
| political move, Nancy Pelosi reminded by this this group, that
| a possible launch order most likely is bogus and they should be
| extremely careful before confirming it.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _Putting "safeguards" in place so no one really knows who is in
| charge can be dangerous._
|
| If the personnel involved hadn't overruled their orders several
| times during "the Cold War", we would already have had several
| post-Nagasaki nuclear disasters. These weapons are ongoing
| dangers to everyone.
| 13415 wrote:
| Even the US military doesn't have the doctrine to blindly
| follow any order under any circumstances. Or at least, that's
| what I would expect from any modern military. In any case,
| there is no real danger here and Pelosi is exaggerating a bit.
|
| Fun fact: If there had been a clear chain of command and
| lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Air Defense
| Forces had followed his orders without questioning them, then
| the world would probably have been destroyed in a nuclear
| Armageddon in 1983.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
| MattGaiser wrote:
| The safeguard could be as little as a majority of the cabinet +
| Pence saying they are willing to invoke the 25th if there is a
| nuclear attempt.
| valuearb wrote:
| That would be a little late.
| 96394032 wrote:
| I would hope all entities with nuclear capabilities have de
| facto safeguards in place to prevent anyone from actually
| launching a nuclear attack. Although, I would also hope they
| wouldn't talk about them as it diminishes the deterrent effect
| that is the only potentially good thing about such weapons.
| Nuclear weapons should never be used but people who can use
| them should not say that.
| slg wrote:
| I read that comment as saying there are extra safeguards
| currently in place that go above and beyond the normal
| safeguards. If the existing safeguards for a normal president
| would be enough, Pelosi being third in line for the president
| likely wouldn't have to ask about them.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You think the full missile command chain being loyal to him
| today?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The safeguard is mostly a bunch of literal guards.
| pySSK wrote:
| Agreed. This news will probably make him want to do it more.
| xpe wrote:
| My personal views aside, this is off-topic.
| slg wrote:
| It is only off topic because of the title used by the person
| posting it. My comment was directly based off the linked
| article.
| xpe wrote:
| Ok. At the present time, the Reuters article at
| https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKBN29D2HA
| does not have mention of safeguards to prevent Donald Trump
| from launching a nuclear attack. Did something change in
| the article?
| comradecorrect wrote:
| Comrade, you are only allowed to comment on what you are
| instructed to comment on, and how you are instructed to
| comment. Do not deviate from your instructions.
| rat87 wrote:
| Personally I find the idea that there are any safeguards
| against Trump lunching nukes a comfort
|
| Nixon's aides did likewise in the days before his resignation.
|
| The fact that the president has the power to decide to punch
| nukes all by himself is terrifying and should have been fixed
| long ago
| [deleted]
| DenisM wrote:
| And what makes you think that it wasn't? If you were in
| charge of the nuke launch process you would never give the
| power to one man, would you? You would have probably done two
| things:
|
| 1. Require a broad consensus to launch (possibly with a dead-
| hand).
|
| 2. Don't tell anyone on the outside. Best keep the enemy
| guessing and the people in awe.
|
| Throughout the history people clamored for a strong leader,
| so you either give them one and suffer the risks of having a
| dictatorship, or you give them an _illusion_ of a strong
| leader. The fictitious red button works perfectly - the man
| carries the literal Armageddon in his pocket, his power must
| be divine (subject to expiration on Jan 20th).
| xpe wrote:
| > Nancy Pelosi told fellow House Democrats that she had
| received reassurances about safeguards to prevent Donald Trump
| from launching a nuclear attack
|
| As of ~5 pm eastern, the Reuters article [1] does not have this
| text. If I assume it was there at one point, what happened?
|
| [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKBN29D2HA
| slg wrote:
| The link was changed from a general here are the latest
| updates article to one more focused on the topic in the
| headline.
| davesque wrote:
| I swear the advent of Trump has precipitated an absolute _crisis_
| in critical thinking skills. Whenever I see people salivate at
| stories like this, waiting for the juicy details to get leaked,
| my heart dies a little. It 's as if no one has any empathy or
| understanding that privacy is a necessary thing for society to
| function. It's almost never fair to judge a person based on their
| private life or private conversations. If this does end up "with
| Wikileaks", as some people here have mentioned, the outcome can
| only be bad. The average person cannot be trusted to make a
| level-headed assessment of anything like this. They'll latch onto
| damning sounding comments and magnify them to irresistible
| proportions and ensure that a completely imbalanced picture of
| those involved becomes the common view.
| jakeinspace wrote:
| There needs to be a whole lot of 10+ year sentences handed out.
| Obviously anyone directly involved in the officer's death will
| have the book thrown at them and probably never see the outside
| of a cell again, but all these people need to be made an example
| of.
| veiant wrote:
| Maybe they should have started handing out 10+ year sentences
| when people were burning down parts of cities.
| lakerz16 wrote:
| starting a fire at a Target is not quite the same thing as
| raiding the US Capitol filled with congress, staffers, and
| confidential documents (in an effort to overturn a national
| election).
| gurleen_s wrote:
| And of course, the irony is that part of the frustrations
| from this summer's protests is the fact that people of
| color get 10+ year sentences for things like drug offenses
| at a much higher rate than white people.
| wincy wrote:
| The difference is one of these buildings provides an
| important service that the American people can't live
| without. The other, of course, is filled with politicians.
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| Did they release the cause of death? The article I read said he
| collapsed after everything was done with (or for the most
| part). Can really pin that on anyone.
| kahrl wrote:
| Maybe you can pin in on those who smashed his head in with a
| fire extinguisher?
|
| https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-
| michael-...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| This is the weird bit:
|
| >returned to his division office after the incident and
| collapsed
|
| Someone should have known that after a heavy blow to the
| head he needed to go straight to an ER.
| kahrl wrote:
| Sorry, but who are you to say who saw what and what
| officers MIGHT have been negligent during all that chaos?
|
| If it is determined that the people who SMASHED HIS HEAD
| IN WITH A DAMN FIRE EXTINGUISHER didn't intend to kill
| him, the 2nd degree murder charge might possibly be
| downgraded to felony murder or manslaughter.
| [deleted]
| neuronic wrote:
| Just a side note, to compare a slightly similar situation (with
| far less potential for violence).
|
| It happened in Germany several months and three officers defended
| the Reichstag building from radical anti-Corona protesters until
| reinforcements arrived.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg [cellphone source]
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1AxyHaHYIY [actual news]
|
| The key difference is that the German protesters didn't bring
| automatic weapons, molotov cocktails and pipe bombs. I sincerely
| hope federal authorities will get every single domestic terrorist
| involved in the Capitol storming.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I feel sorry for whoever gets caught with it. They won't be
| charged with theft - they'll probably try to hit them with the
| worst cybersecurity charges they can dig up.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I assume the downvotes means my intended sarcasm didn't come
| through. To be clear, I hope everyone involved in the
| terroristic insurrection is prosecuted fully.
|
| We know that the government typically uses cybersecurity
| charges to attack cyber-libertarians, threatening decades of
| prison time (think Aaron Swartz) - I hope they show the same
| vigor here.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yes, I think you're sarcasm was missed.
|
| Also, cyber-libertarians shouldn't get a pass.
| tt433 wrote:
| Why do you feel sorry for them exactly?
| bdcravens wrote:
| I meant it as a figure of speech. If it's amongst the
| insurrectionists, they deserve all they have coming to them.
| If it ends up in somebody else's hands who wasn't involved,
| they may still be an example of.
| pcan77 wrote:
| Good, they deserve it.
| larrywright wrote:
| There was a great thread on Twitter about the infosec
| implications of this breach of the capitol. In short, you have to
| assume foreign state actors were among the people inside, and
| every piece of technology should be replaced.
|
| https://twitter.com/jacobian/status/1347001812889452545?s=20
| cobookman wrote:
| I'm surprised congressional office's laptops do not embed
| remotely detonated explosives/destruction devices triggered with
| sat or cellular comms.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| There is nothing remotely that important on the laptops in a
| typical Congressional office.
| emiliobumachar wrote:
| If you mean able to damage the holder, you'd need to triple-
| check they can't be unintentionally activated or activated by
| untrusted parties. Even if just a self-destruct, you'd need to
| double-check. Bricking the entirety of Congress' laptops have a
| lot of fun and profit potential.
| Jonnax wrote:
| You're surprised that politicians don't attach remotely
| detonated bombs to the laptops?
| cobookman wrote:
| In particular remotely denoted "Kill" devices. Which destroy
| the entirety of the laptops contents.
|
| Encryption by itself is likely not enough to secure the
| contents from a nation state actor.
| djsumdog wrote:
| Considering the competence of most politicians, I think it
| would easily solve a lot of problems if they did.
| hikerclimber wrote:
| good. hopefully we have more riots.
| neolog wrote:
| What is a good strategy for most convenience while securing
| private data on a laptop that could be stolen?
|
| Full disk encryption is good for when the machine is powered off.
|
| What about for the scenario when it gets swiped during the work
| day when I'm in the bathroom?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Have a shit battery + full disk encryption + linux with broken
| hibernate support
|
| :D
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Did Linux ever fix the hibernate stuff? I remember 5 years
| ago, it was a MUST to disable it, because the system would go
| to hibernate and never wake up again without a hard restart.
| gnulinux wrote:
| It works on my thinkpad, and has always worked on my
| laptops. Linux firmware is hit&miss.
| cat199 wrote:
| if you are talking about 'suspend' generally, this really
| depends on the model (read: drivers), not sure on hibernate
| itself (since i just sleep)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Hibernate works well on my Macbook with Ubuntu installed.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Sleep and hibernate is not really a linux problem, it's
| more of a _OEM closed-source firmware implementation which
| is only tested to work on Windows problem_ so the linux
| devs have to eyeball it and pray that it works which makes
| it a constant game of whack-a-mole. So until there is an
| open standard for firmware used by all OEMs it will never
| be truly fixed. Hell, sleep doesn 't even work half the
| time on my XPS15 with Windows so Dell can't even get that
| right.
|
| That's why the likes of System76 develop their own
| firmware.
| neolog wrote:
| On most of my linux computers it always works. On one of
| them it works 90% of the time, which sounds high but is
| really annoying. (Probably an interaction with AMDGPU.)
| 13415 wrote:
| Full disk encryption and a strict policy of always closing the
| laptop / lock the screen when leaving. In some scenarios USB
| ports also need to be physically disabled.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Speaking of lock screens (and Speakers), did you see Pelosi's
| screen? Wasn't she on the floor of the House at that time?
| Why wasn't her screen locked? I can think of half a dozen
| scenarios of carelessness or time pressure. The first one
| comes to mind is that she was using it, suddenly evacuated
| and didn't flip the lock on, and the mob reached her desk
| before the lock timer expired. But I do wonder if the was
| even a screen lock.
| neolog wrote:
| Locking the screen doesn't enable FDE though, does it?
| 13415 wrote:
| What attacks are you thinking of? A cold boot attack while
| you're on the toilet? Or that the laptop is stolen?
|
| First and foremost you need to ensure physical security
| anyway. Otherwise a dedicated attacker can also just
| install a bug.
| gpm wrote:
| Laptop is stolen by a foreign intelligence agency who can
| do things like "pour liquid nitrogen on the ram and swap
| it to another computer to recover encryption keys" or
| whatever (I've been told that's a real attack... but it
| always seemed like an intelligence agency ought to just
| make a device to read the ram without pulling it at
| all... just hijack the wires communicating to the ram or
| something...)
| maccard wrote:
| If that's your threat, the device doesn't leave your
| sight or possession, ever. I work at a significantly
| lower threat level than that and we're regularly told
| that when off site devices don't leave your possession,
| and on-site, deviecs should be tethered and locked when
| not in use.
| neolog wrote:
| Laptop is stolen.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Even when powered on, full disk encryption still changes the
| scenario from "reboot from a live CD" to "perform some advanced
| attack involving special hardware".
|
| Unless someone specifically targets you for your data, FDE will
| keep your data safe from thieves who may sell the laptop
| (unwiped) or take a look otherwise.
| korijn wrote:
| You could use it without the battery pack plugged in at office
| situations, so that it would be forced to go powerless in your
| scenario.
| panic_on_oops wrote:
| Cloud native OS?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > What about for the scenario when it gets swiped during the
| work day when I'm in the bathroom?
|
| Can you help me understand what attacks you think can be done
| with a locked screen, powered on laptop ? (given Full disk
| encryption is on)
| yabones wrote:
| Another commenter mentioned DMA, so I'll expand on that.
|
| If the device has only USB, network, and display outputs, not
| a lot. Modern systems are pretty hardened with this config.
|
| However, if it has Thunderbolt, ExpressCard, PCMCIA, or even
| FireWire, it's hosed.
|
| This kind of attack has been highly researched by
| intelligence, for example the 'Sonic Screwdriver' attack
| revealed in 2017 [1] targeted Macs by tampering with boot
| parameters, and was installed over thunderbolt.
|
| There have also been some PoC exploits for extracting
| BitLocker encryption keys out of memory using FireWire [2],
| though I'm not sure those have ever been widespread attack
| vectors.
|
| Basically, the old adage still holds up - physical access is
| full access. The only thing you can really do is fill up any
| ports that could be used for DMA sidechannel attacks with
| epoxy, then hope nobody attacks your TCP stack or USB
| controller...
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2017/03/new-w...
|
| [2] https://support.microsoft.com/en-
| ca/help/2516445/blocking-th...
| qmarchi wrote:
| There's some lienience to be given with the newer versions
| of Thunderbolt. On many Windows machines, and given that
| it's configured correctly, a TB device has to be explicitly
| allowed to access anything other than USB and Display
| modes.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| DMA attacks - once you get access to a bus that allows direct
| memory access, you can unlock the machine.
|
| Not something a thief that wants the laptop would do, but
| definitely something a targeted attacker who specifically
| steals a laptop to get your data would do.
| laurent92 wrote:
| In theory, you can keep the RAM powered and read the
| decryption key from it.
|
| I believe a system like Apple's Secure Enclave (everything
| contained in one chip) is better in that regard, although I'm
| not an expert.
| neolog wrote:
| Does linux have a screen locker that is reasonably secure?
| delroth wrote:
| Against what threat model? The general answer is "yes, most
| of them, including all the ones being used as defaults in
| major distros" -- they will not allow a user that isn't in
| possession of the password to log back into the session.
|
| They don't necessarily prevent against other threat models,
| like "the attacker dumps the laptop's RAM" (which you could
| technically protect against if you froze all session
| processes and encrypted their working set with a key held
| in a secure element).
| jedimastert wrote:
| Take it with you to the bathroom or turn it off.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Any word if Windows or MacOS?
|
| Does Windows have a "Find My Mac" equivalent?
| verdverm wrote:
| What sensational news over at the guardian. Look at how they
| stuffed the URL with keywords
| aaomidi wrote:
| It's because when you scroll down it has other news stories in
| it.
| wtfiswiththis wrote:
| FYI one of the people in her office attended the Unite the Right
| Nazi rally.
|
| The same people Trump called special here he called "very fine"
| years ago after they rallied and murdered a girl.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| @dang: I think this could be merged with
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25688418
| aborsy wrote:
| Hence the importance of the full disk encryption!
| java-man wrote:
| And multi-factor authentication!
| bovermyer wrote:
| And remote self-destruct!
| ISL wrote:
| Better than that might be an internet-free LoJack. Finding
| a laptop thief might be at least as valuable as retaining
| the encrypted information that's on disk.
|
| Edit: Also, stealing a laptop that belongs to the office of
| the US Speaker of the House will essentially never end
| well. There are endless examples to suggest that
| yesterday's fracas wasn't thought-through by the
| participants. This is one of them.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| There's also plenty of evidence that it was planned, like
| people openly planning doing exactly this on forums. They
| had merch printed up. It was Trump who either wasn't in
| on the planning or got cold feet when the time for the
| actual coup came.
| thehappypm wrote:
| And my axe!
| nodesocket wrote:
| I don't understand why Windows 10 doesn't take an encryption
| first approach. When you install Windows 10, it should default
| to having disk encryption checked.
| muricula wrote:
| Not certain this is the reason why, but there is a real perf
| hit for full disk encryption which not everyone needs to
| take, especially for devices without hardware accelerated
| crypto. Lower end devices can slow to a crawl.
| outworlder wrote:
| Can you specify what are those devices which do not have
| hardware encryption support? Processors have had hardware
| support for ages. On the Intel side, at least from 2006,
| with the Core2Duo.
|
| Any modern system(even on the low end) that you could
| conceivably want to trust important data to can handle
| encryption requirements with ease.
|
| One problem if we are talking about Bitlocker specifically
| is that if the drive reports that it supports encryption,
| then Bitlocker offloads the responsibility to the drive.
| And the drive encryption might be badly implemented.
| Grazester wrote:
| Came here to say I hope it was encrypted. Being a laptop I hope
| the IT person saw it fit to have it encrypted just because it
| is more easily prone to theft.
| laurent92 wrote:
| I mean, why are we paying the NSA, if Congress has
| unencrypted laptops. Literally their role to recommend
| security methods for encryption of companies and US
| interests. That is what I wonder every time I'm required to
| throw away my bottle of water and remove clothes to board a
| plane.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Fooled me. I thought their role was to spy on American
| citizens and create vulnerabilities by strong arming
| backdoors into everything.
| ianhawes wrote:
| I believe this activity now falls under the purview of
| CISA.
|
| I read yesterday that all computers issued for
| Congressional staffers after 2017 have full disk encryption
| enabled by default.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| So all laptops they were issued before 2017 didn't have
| full disk encryption.
|
| Do you hear that? That's the sound of me face-palming.
| seanosaur wrote:
| > So all laptops they were issued before 2017 didn't have
| full disk encryption.
|
| That's an illogical assumption to make. Not encrypted at
| time of issue != not encrypted ever. Who says all
| previously-issued laptops weren't encrypted at a later
| time?
| viraptor wrote:
| No, it doesn't mean that. It's a possibility, but it's
| not what the comment above says. From this date X is
| enforced doesn't mean that X didn't happen before.
|
| It could also mean a change in policy which makes
| official what was already happening.
| cratermoon wrote:
| For staffers, sure. But it's a better-than-even-odds bet
| that if senators and representatives raise a stink about
| how secure laptops are hard to use, they get special
| treatment.
|
| Did you see the picture of Pelosi's desktop monitor?
| Pelosi was on the House floor at the time, wasn't she?
| Why wasn't there even a screen lock?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Recommend doesn't mean enforce.
| nostromo wrote:
| Albeit ill-gotten gains, if this lands in Wikileaks' hands it'll
| be fascinating.
| cabaalis wrote:
| You'd never see any of it. Depending upon who it damages, it
| either (a) wouldn't be published, or (b) it would be suppressed
| by media outlets for violating some obscure policy.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| I think both of those are invalid if we're talking about
| WikiLeaks, no?
| [deleted]
| krisdol wrote:
| a: no, b: yes.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You don't think WikiLeaks is selective about what it leaks?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I bet it won't be, cause it's congress.
|
| I'm no small stater, but we need to find a way to put the
| interesting stuff back in democratic control...like a
| parliamentary system that recognizes executive vs legislative
| division is a bad idea.
| nostromo wrote:
| It's not just Congress, it's Nancy Pelosi.
|
| Mitch McConnell's documents would be similarly interesting.
|
| I'd love to see how these two speak to their donors and each
| other vs how they speak to the public, for example.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| I am kind of curious about that. Are they allowed to use
| the same computer for official business and campaign work?
| I know a fuss was made in the past about someone using the
| wrong phone in the White House. In theory donor
| interactions should be done on non-publicly funded devices.
| Though I doubt that actually stops them. I am curious what
| policy actually states.
| hanniabu wrote:
| > I'd love to see how these two speak to their donors and
| each other vs how they speak to the public, for example.
|
| All you need to do is look at the stimulus bill. It's full
| of "I'll give you this if you give me that" items.
| vmchale wrote:
| I feel like someone is gonna get in big trouble for this.
|
| The dude who stole her mail wasn't even wearing a mask.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I personally hope pictures will come out with Pelosi and Trump
| being secret lovers.
| duxup wrote:
| There's no playing a little footsie with anti-democratic ideas
| and rhetoric and just getting 'a little' anti-democratic.
|
| That stuff will get out of hand and will come back to even bite
| the folks who thought they were part of it.
|
| Lindsey Graham was apparently accosted by a crowd at the airport
| so much security escorted him away.
| danans wrote:
| If it is a laptop of consequence (even if not classified),
| hopefully it had security and tracking capabilities that can be
| activated.
|
| That info would probably be helpful for law enforcement and
| prosecutors.
|
| This all assumes that congress, the DNC, or whoever owns the
| laptop has upped their personal computer op-sec significantly
| since the DNC hacks of 2016.
| abnry wrote:
| 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?
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Don't feel low. A mob of angry citizens storming the capital,
| happens all over the world and has lead to democratic reform in
| many a nation.
| munificent wrote:
| _> How could the government even allow such a security breach
| to happen?_
|
| Because some of them wanted the coup to succeed.
| pram wrote:
| Exactly how I felt when peasants stormed the bastille
| mumblemumble wrote:
| 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 room.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's just how the Capitol (and most US state houses) is. My
| wife has on multiple occasions waltzed down to the (non-public)
| underground subway that connects the Capitol to the Senate and
| House office buildings to chat with members of Congress. The
| Capitol Police usually say "well you're not supposed to be
| here, but I guess it's okay."
| tandr wrote:
| This is not the information for a public forum, sorry.
| switch007 wrote:
| The correct fix seems to be electing presidents that don't
| invite terrorists to do what they did.
| gibrown wrote:
| And who actually protect the capitol building when it is
| under attack.
| ProAm wrote:
| Ha! These people are in their 70's and 80's, getting any
| legitimate security is near impossible. Try telling your
| grandparents not to play flash games on their computer. The
| best security should have been by the entrances of the
| building.
|
| Edit: Pelosi is 80 years old.
| ben_w wrote:
| Age isn't the problem, lack of digital security literacy
| might well be.
|
| My dad was born in '39, he did a degree in electrical
| engineering, and it took until something like his _second_
| job after graduation for his employer to send him on a two-
| day training course for the new-fangled [0] invention of
| something called "software". He then worked in software from
| that course until retirement.
|
| However, he _never_ understood RSA despite working on UK
| military IFF systems.
|
| [0] "new-fangled" was his description; the closest he came to
| acknowledging Ada Lovelace before I learned of her was to
| complain about the language Ada.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| 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.
| djsumdog wrote:
| The Capitol Police were either incompetent or complicit.
| There are literally no other options. They knew there would
| be a big protests, numbers put it around 200k~300k (a tiny
| percentage of which actually went into the capitol building
| mind you).
|
| If they weren't prepared for this: incompetence. But there
| are videos of people getting selfies with guards, and staying
| within the velvet ropes when coming in. Something isn't right
| here and no one is talking about it.
| amyjess wrote:
| They took selfies with the insurrectionists. They were
| complicit.
| djsumdog wrote:
| > insurrectionists
|
| Peaceful protestors.
|
| Were the BLM people who stormed city hall in Seattle
| insurrectionists? Where the Black Panthers who took the
| California State Capitol in the 1970s insurrectionists?
|
| Stop with the bullshit name games. These were not
| rioters. They didn't set anything on fire. They should
| not have stolen or broken anything. That's wrong and bad
| and should be condemned. Those people should get federal
| time
|
| But man...you have to admit...there is something
| beautiful about the peasants entering the royal court,
| and the town idiot putting his feet up on the table that
| belongs to the Hand of the King.
|
| The villagers entered the royal court and the senators
| clutched their pearls.
|
| America has had a long history of occupying federal
| buildings. This is certainly not unprecedented.
|
| These people were not a coup or insurrection. They had no
| plan. There was no person with a new founding document
| they were going to read. They didn't bring in an armed
| force and take and occupy the capital.
|
| The overreaction to what happened is fucking insane,
| especially compared to what actual Rioters where allowed
| to get away with for the past year. In May, DC was
| literally on fire from the BLM riots, and we didn't see
| this type of DoubleSpeak.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Were the BLM people who stormed city hall in Seattle
| insurrectionists? Where the Black Panthers who took the
| California State Capitol in the 1970s insurrectionists?
|
| No, because their goal wasn't to overturn a legally held
| election.
|
| > They had no plan.
|
| You got that part right.
| zaroth wrote:
| > _No, because their goal wasn 't to overturn a legally
| held election._
|
| When BLM stormed and occupied the city hall in Seattle,
| their primary demand was to remove the mayor.
|
| https://youtu.be/aA1GHvHzy8M
|
| "Hey hey. Ho ho. Jenny Durkan's got to go!"
| dvirsky wrote:
| People planted pipe bombs in the capitol building. Wow,
| such peaceful, much protest.
| g8oz wrote:
| Some were armed and an IED was found. I recommend
| avoiding identity protective cognition when analyzing
| these events.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Black Panthers were literally insurrectionists and wore
| that badge with pride.
| optical wrote:
| > The overreaction to what happened is fucking insane,
| especially compared to what actual Rioters where allowed
| to get away with for the past year. In May, DC was
| literally on fire from the BLM riots, and we didn't see
| this type of DoubleSpeak.
|
| Not really when you consider that the protests in may
| were for the correct side with the media and elites fully
| on board. They were for all intents and purposes
| sanctioned events. The 6th mob was absolutely terrifying
| for the media and elite since they had zero control over
| it. What looks like just another mob riot to a common
| peasant appears to be an actual threat to those which
| never see threats.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > The overreaction ... In May, DC was literally on fire
| from the BLM riots
|
| Speaking of overreactions ...
|
| > They didn't set anything on fire. They should not have
| stolen or broken anything. That's wrong and bad and
| should be condemned.
|
| Okay, so to be clear, there's a difference between
| breaking things with your hands and setting it on fire.
| One is "bad", and one is "rioting". Huh, interesting.
| jquery wrote:
| > But man...you have to admit...there is something
| beautiful about the peasants entering the royal court,
| and the town idiot putting his feet up on the table that
| belongs to the Hand of the King. >The villagers entered
| the royal court and the senators clutched their pearls.
|
| I agree. Although I'm definitely anti-Trump and condemn
| his garbage about the election being stolen, and while I
| don't condone the behavior of the protestors, I don't
| really see how this so much worse than business owners
| who had their livelihoods destroyed during the BLM riots
| over the summer. I don't remember CNN or Democrats
| tripping over themselves to see who could use the
| harshest language for what had happened.
|
| Again I'm not condoning this, but honestly, given what
| happened, the only real tragedy was a woman was shot
| because a jumpy police officer shot blindly into a crowd.
| Our pride was embarrassed but that's ok. Let's learn from
| this and make sure it doesn't happen again.
|
| The real problem with what happened is Trump incited it.
| But that's another story.
| rubycon22 wrote:
| Haha yeah, there wasn't this much outrage before because
| it was the peasant's businesses being destroyed.
| Protesting is now bad because it actually affected the
| rich, political class.
|
| Look at how different the MSM response was. Destroyed
| businesses and disruption to innocent people's lives was
| a necessary sacrifice for BLM riots. And best of all,
| covid is only dangerous depending on what you're
| protesting for. But some people going into a building?!
| No! Stop that!
| vsssk wrote:
| I don't understand how people can confidently draw such
| equivalencies. Just looking at the frequency of the two
| types of events.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the
| _Un...
|
| How many is that? I can't even count. More than 50, less
| than 100? Versus 10, possibly way less, depending on what
| kind of comparisons one wants to draw? [1]
|
| Doesn't this point exactly to the significance of what
| happened on the 6th? Race riots have been happening in
| the United States for a hundred some years. They are
| obviously not significant in achieving the goals of the
| rioters. Meanwhile the storming of seats of power by an
| ousted leaders' supporters has the potential to change
| history. The former is a passing event, the latter is a
| rare event with some potential to change global history.
|
| [1] https://www.livescience.com/political-violence-us-
| capital.ht...
| amyjess wrote:
| Storming the capitol to stop the certification of an
| election whose result t hey didn't like is the very
| definition of an attempted coup d'etat.
|
| They had zip ties meant for the purpose of taking
| hostages:
| https://twitter.com/Adiscen/status/1347189171362918400
|
| IEDs were found at the DNC and RNC:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/politics/pipe-bomb-
| rnc... https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-news-
| exclusive-photo-sus...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| They were let in. The guy with the zip ties is likely an
| undercover agent.
| [deleted]
| kelchqvjpnfasjl wrote:
| I could pull up pictures of police kneeling with BLM this
| summer.
| amyjess wrote:
| Inviting insurrectionists into the capitol to stop the
| certification of an election they didn't like by force is
| different from... giving their support to people who are
| against unarmed black people being murdered on sight.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Yeah, they kneeled for the photo op, then deployed tear
| gas an hour later.
| kelchqvjpnfasjl wrote:
| Deploying tear gas like they did in the Capitol here:
|
| https://twitter.com/aletweetsnews/status/1346948665013751
| 809
|
| https://twitter.com/RichieMcGinniss/status/13469488668689
| 776...
|
| https://twitter.com/KathrynDiss/status/134694761789326542
| 1
|
| I saw a video yesterday of tear gas being used inside the
| capitol building but today I was only able to find videos
| of when it was used outside.
| Reedx wrote:
| The Capitol Police seem to be a facade and don't stop
| crowds. Here's a different example from 2 years ago:
|
| _" @womensmarch just took the Capitol. Women, survivors,
| and allies walked straight past the police, climbed over
| barricades, and sat down on the Capitol steps."_
|
| https://twitter.com/EgSophie/status/1048634940169048064
| zaroth wrote:
| This Twitter thread is a gold mine for anyone looking for
| perspective on what happens when the "right" group versus
| the "wrong" group storms past baracades and into the
| Capital, while describing it as "taking the Capital".
| cperciva wrote:
| They were understaffed, and it was clear that they could
| not protect both the building and the people. They
| correctly prioritized evacuating the people.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| This can be correct, but so can GPs point: two possible
| findings are that the capitol police were deliberately
| left understaffed because
|
| * higher level leadership judged the threat of the
| protestors to be insignificant (incompetence)
|
| * higher level leadership wanted the potential for a mob
| to enter the building (complicity)
|
| However they found themselves in the position, they did,
| and once there I think they had an unenviable task. And
| the fact that the occupants of the building were safely
| sheltered until a larger force came to clear the building
| shows that they made a good decision.
| djsumdog wrote:
| Except for that part where they murdered an unarmed Air
| Force veteran.
| deathgrips wrote:
| It's not murder if it's legal. If you don't want to get
| shot, don't invade the seat of government during a
| constitutionally prescribed transition of power, break
| through a barricade, ignore a cop's orders and approach a
| cop pointing his gun at you. Hard, I know.
| djsumdog wrote:
| And you assume that's everything that happened? Did she
| break through a barrier? People were walking right in.You
| don't know which group she cam in with. In the various
| videos, she was trying to get out. They all were.
|
| The dude who fired the shot, are you really defending
| him? A man with no real reasonable threat to his life?
| None of the people in that shot were shown to be armed.
|
| Honest question, what are your views on Jacob Blake? Do
| you defend him? Because he sexually assaulted a women who
| had a restraining order against him, ignored police
| orders to stop, got up after being tazed twice and
| reached into a car with children. The DA found the police
| were completely justified in shooting him 7 times in the
| back.
|
| This is the double standard. If you say she had no excuse
| for getting shot, than neither did Jacob Blake, or
| Breyanna Taylor.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > And you assume that's everything that happened?
|
| There's multiple camera angles which captured the minutes
| leading up to her death, posted on major news sites like
| The Washington Post, so no assumption needed.
|
| I still don't feel the shoot to kill was justified
| (especially as a shot in an area that would immobilize a
| person, like the chest or the gut, would've been safer of
| collateral damage vs a shot to the head, similar to the
| one taken, which unequivocally is a shot intended to
| kill), but trying to argue she was not completely and
| totally in the wrong is just absurd to me.
| deathgrips wrote:
| You betray your ignorance about firearms. You cannot
| shoot to immobilize. Every shot taken is practically and
| legally a shot intending to kill. Real life is not a
| hollywood movie.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > You betray your ignorance about firearms. You cannot
| shoot to immobilize. Every shot taken is practically and
| legally a shot intending to kill. Real life is not a
| hollywood movie.
|
| Someone knowledgeable of the subject, which you imply I
| am not, would know that shooting someone in the middle of
| their body is the standard operating procedure (and is
| potentially less fatal, but yes legally still intended to
| kill) rather than taking an (essentially) headshot as
| this officer did.
|
| Also notice I did not say what the officer did was
| "against policy" or illegal, I simply said I didn't feel
| it was justified (especially with where the shot hit).
| It's for the department and the courts to decide if the
| officer violated his duty.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Could have (likely was) aiming for center of mass but
| ended up a little high. Real life is not a shooting range
| with a target that is perfectly still.
|
| Shooting a center of mass is not at all about being "less
| fatal" it is about it being the biggest target with the
| biggest chance of stopping your adversary.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Shooting a center of mass is not at all about being
| "less fatal"
|
| Did I say it was? I believe I used the word "potentially"
| in the reply you are commenting to. The officer was
| shooting from ~6ft away and had a firm grip and was well
| composed, if they can't hit the chest of a target that
| was mostly still at the moment of the shot then they need
| to be spending a lot more time in the gun range (at the
| absolute minimum).
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| > they need to be spending more time in the gun range.
|
| Not at all unlikely.
| deathgrips wrote:
| It doesn't matter if she's mother Theresa and came here
| with the cure for cancer. You cannot interrupt the
| transition of power. We have laws that must be followed.
| If you try to overthrow the government you will be
| stopped. I watched a video of her getting shot. She was
| breaking through a barricaded door and making her way
| towards officers with guns drawn.
| alach11 wrote:
| She was climbing through a broken window past a barricade
| that was the last line of defense to where members of
| Congress were taking shelter. The guard was pointing his
| gun at her and other people were warning about the
| danger. I don't think she should have been shot, but the
| guard who shot her acted reasonably. It was a failure of
| the police present, who should have prevented the
| situation.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| This is almost exactly the same argument that police
| defenders make when the police shoot an unarmed minority
| individual in any random city.
| bunana wrote:
| I'd agree that police defenders often use the rhetoric of
| "approaching a cop with his gun drawn" or "being
| somewhere you shouldn't," but surely we can make a
| distinction between those killed in public areas versus
| this woman who was trespassing in a very important
| federal facility, specifically to impede a very important
| government procedure.
| callmeal wrote:
| >They were understaffed, and it was clear that they could
| not protect both the building and the people. They
| correctly prioritized evacuating the people.
|
| I think it's pretty clear at this point that they would
| have been overstaffed if the protestors had a different
| skin color.
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| I don't think that's clear at all. I've seen it often
| repeated by the media, but there is absolutely no
| evidence to support it. Repeating this is only driving
| the two sides further apart.
| tclancy wrote:
| Username checks out -- if you can't see this to be
| obvious based on this summer, one of us is struggling
| with reality.
| djsumdog wrote:
| > different skin color.
|
| In the 1970s, armed Black Panther members took the
| California State Capitol and no one died.
|
| At least one officer is dead (this changes daily so who
| knows) and one protestor (she was unarmed, that's a
| protestor, trespasser at best) was shot by sorry excuse
| of a Capitol Officer who shot wildly into a crowd (almost
| hitting the other Federal Officer behind her!)
|
| Please stop making this about race.
| deathgrips wrote:
| You're not a protester if you are breaking into congress,
| breaking past a barricade, being told to stop, and
| walking towards an officer pointing his gun at you.
| You're suicidal.
| djsumdog wrote:
| But, they let these people in:
|
| https://twitter.com/i/status/1347615998610911234
| deathgrips wrote:
| Should've shot them too if they refused to back down
| giantrobot wrote:
| The lady that was shot was attempting to enter a hallway
| through a window while people in the hallway were
| pointing guns at her. Just because she didn't have a
| visible weapon doesn't mean she wasn't a threat. Climbing
| through a broken window into a hallway protected by a
| makeshift barricade is itself a threatening action. No
| one at the head of a mob climbing over a barricade ever
| did so for innocent and non-threatening reasons.
| Suggesting otherwise is ludicrously stupid.
|
| Having seen multiple videos of the event it's clear the
| shooter was _not_ firing wildly into the crowd. They were
| aiming specifically at the person trying to break into
| the area. She 's dead because of her own actions.
| djsumdog wrote:
| Let's step back to before this happened. Why did the
| Capitol Police let people in:
|
| https://twitter.com/i/status/1347615998610911234
| wrycoder wrote:
| Note that she was wearing a good sized backpack. The
| shooter was wearing plainclothes- possibly Secret
| Service. It appears he was protecting something or
| someone important. Pence?
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Pence would not have been in the House Lobby area, he
| would've been taken directly from the Senate to a secure
| area.
| justin66 wrote:
| > They were understaffed, and it was clear that they
| could not protect both the building and the people. They
| correctly prioritized evacuating the people.
|
| This is all true but might be crediting the Capitol
| Police leadership with a little more coordination and
| planning than they truly exhibited. There were clearly
| some law enforcement officers who did not simply step
| aside and let the rioters have their way once lawmakers
| had been evacuated.
|
| Based on some of the comments here I get the feeling it's
| not common knowledge yet that at least one involved law
| enforcement officer has died [1] and a couple of dozen
| were injured. Possibly they could have done better for
| themselves if they'd all been as easygoing about things
| as the officers photographed in the rotunda.
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-
| safety/brian-sic...
| sangnoir wrote:
| They _turned down_ an offer from the Pentagon to
| supplement manpower, days before the protest. Why?
|
| A police department with an intelligence unit couldn't
| guess that things might get a little out of hand when 3
| weeks before, the President publicly used Twitter to ask
| his followers[1] to attend a "wild" protest on January
| 6th? Not that an intelligence unit was required as the
| plans were in the open. I have great difficulty in
| putting this down to incompetence, all things considered.
|
| 1. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13401857732
| 205158...
| cperciva wrote:
| _They turned down an offer from the Pentagon to
| supplement manpower_
|
| Hmm, why turn down an offer of assistance from a military
| whose commander-in-chief wants to overturn the election?
| I can think of a few reasons...
| sangnoir wrote:
| I'm curious - what are those reasons, and how would the
| lack of an invitation thwart them?
| cperciva wrote:
| Most obviously, if you invite the military in and ask
| them to secure a portion of the building, you're exposed
| to the risk that the commander-in-chief will order them
| out (or order them to stand aside); it's unlikely that
| forces could be redeployed fast enough to respond to such
| a defection. (And no, you can't avoid this danger by
| having all the forces working together everywhere; far
| too many command-and-control issues arise.) If you don't
| invite the military to assist in the first place... well,
| then you're not relying on them to guard your back.
|
| There's also a fundamental democratic issue at stake:
| It's not by coincidence that the United States Capitol
| Police answers to the _legislature_ and not to the
| _executive_ -- indeed, this is seen around the world
| (e.g. Canada 's Parliamentary Protective Service answers
| to the Speakers of the House and Senate) and arguably the
| principle that military forces should not be brought to
| the seat of legislative power dates back to the Roman
| Republic... which swiftly became the Roman Empire after
| Caesar crossed the Rubicon with an army at his back.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Those are all valid points. Though I will argue that the
| assumption that the Capitol Police answers to the
| legislature is shaky, at best (in practice). If I had to
| guess who is more likely to refuse an unlawful order, I'd
| say a member of the military, rather than the police,
| based on my limited knowledge of their respective
| cultures. Combined with the idea of police officers who
| believe they are part of a semi-secret, ad-hoc, patriot's
| army, things can go wrong indeed.
|
| Let's do a thought experiment: _let 's say_ there are a
| few elements in the police who are active QAnon
| believers, sprinkled in at various levels. Let's also
| assume some more force members are not believers, _per
| se_ , but sympathize with the cause, and are willing to
| look aside since they may dislike some legislators who
| they see as enabling BLM, Antifa and other un-American
| actors (in their eyes) and believe that something "weird"
| happened with the elections and/or the whole
| establishment is dirty. Would these individuals not
| listen to the orders of the commander in chief, even when
| not delivered via the official chain of command?
| smcl wrote:
| For this specific decision I think we can put it down to
| incompetence over malice - it'd presumably be easy for
| whoever was co-ordinating it dismiss all the riot talks
| as bluster and figure it'd just be yet another protest
| with a lot of shouting. I imagine we'll hear more about
| it, but I would be surprised if it was a co-ordinated
| effort in concert with the rioters (I don't know what to
| call them).
|
| The footage of police opening barriers and stuff, and
| taking selfies is however a bit more worrying. I think
| it's pretty well known that individuals within the police
| could identify or sympathise with Q or the far right - so
| if it turns out that this footage was exactly what it's
| seems to be (and we know how easily things can be
| misrepresented and shown out of context) then I imagine
| some cops are gonna be in big trouble.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| I'm not so certain; with the possibility of installed
| loyalists and/or 'regulatory capture' we may have
| intentional malfeasance to make a troubling situation
| worse.
| c22 wrote:
| I agree with this take. It's possible that after a year
| of particularly intense criticism of police department's
| actions vs protesters across the country they didn't want
| to appear to be over-reacting (which could fan all kinds
| of flames) and didn't expect the crowds to be quite so
| wild.
|
| I don't know what kinds of contingency planning may have
| taken place, but ultimately this event seems to have been
| ended and cleaned up pretty quickly compared to some
| other demonstrations we've seen recently.
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah we're definitely in speculation territory here so
| I'm wary of going too far. But I would imagine it was not
| a _conscious_ attempt clean up their act and do their job
| with a less heavy hand. The idea that they 'd suddenly
| decide to have a change of heart and that the first
| people who encountered this new, soft-touch policing
| happened to be right wingers - I don't buy it.
| sangnoir wrote:
| If it is reasonable to assume that some individual
| members of the police force are sympathetic to the
| Q/Boogaloo cause, who is to say the person responsible
| for coordinating with the Pentagon wasn't a fellow
| traveler? Police forces, on the whole aren't exactly
| politically neutral: during primary season, I recall a
| republican politician getting a picture taken with a
| policeman who had a "Q" patch _on his uniform._
|
| There is not enough information to come to either
| conclusion, but I would like to think the DC police
| leadership didn't/doesn't plumb those depths of
| incompetence. The public (and congress) deserves answers
| on what happened and why.
| astura wrote:
| >I recall a republican politician getting a picture taken
| with a policeman who had a "Q" patch on his uniform.
|
| This picture?
|
| https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pence_posing_wi
| th_...
| sangnoir wrote:
| Yes - that's the one, thank you.
| smcl wrote:
| They definitely deserve answers, you are right. But
| jumping to "This was an op and the DC police as a unit
| were in on it" is approaching wheelhouse of the crazies
| who instigated this whole debacle. That runaway cascade
| of believing lots of little things that _could_ be
| possible is what led to millions believing in dumb stuff
| like Mole Children being kept as slaves by Hillary
| Clinton and friends.
|
| Unless something more sinister emerges the simplest
| explanation is probably the best - there some cops who
| are far-right sympathisers and there are incompetently
| managed and organized Police forces. Both of those things
| are already _demonstrably_ true and explain how the
| response quite well without introducing a grand
| conspiracy.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I was careful to say _individuals_ - my point was that
| there is no reason to doubt the possibility of those
| sympathetic individual(s) being decision-makers in the
| force. I was careful to _not_ suggest it was a group
| decision.
|
| However, it is no secret that the FBI has long-reported
| (2006!) on white-supremecist infiltration of police
| forces[1] - _this_ is not crazy talk. If someone joined
| the police as a rookie in 2006 to enforce their personal
| agenda, how far up the leadership hierarchy would they be
| now?
|
| 1. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-
| supremacists-i...
| aleksandrm wrote:
| Incorrect. Capitol police is a 2300 officer department
| with a huge annual budget. The puppets in place were
| complicit in letting this happen.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| To what end? Certainly the Capitol police leadership
| wasn't part of some conspiracy to overthrow the
| government- letting a few hundred protestors in wouldn't
| accomplish much.
|
| So you are saying that the Capitol police succeeded in
| creating a honeypot that was meant to embarrass Trump?
| labster wrote:
| Being understaffed on a day when protesters have warned
| you they may take direct action is incompetence or
| complicity. They have agreements with nearby law
| enforcement who are often deputized in DC, yet didn't
| activate those agreements until the perimeter had been
| fully breached.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I wonder if, since so many on HN feel that they are
| enlightened people, it is possible for us to give the
| benefit of the doubt to people who's jobs we don't do and
| probably know nothing about?
|
| Just because we work in tech does not mean we know
| everything, and not having been there means we don't know
| the circumstances anyway. It is disgustingly arrogant of
| any of us to proclaim that these people must be incompetent
| or complicit like some armchair quarterback.
|
| Christ, I mean, this is roughly the same mentality as the
| people who think the election was stolen based on some
| anecdotes and bullshit despite what election officials,
| courts, and other experts are saying.
| bnralt wrote:
| Indeed, the hyperbole and conspiracy theories on all
| sides have lead me to detach myself from politics. There
| were a few hundred/thousand people who rioted at the
| Capitol, law enforcement in riot gear fought them with
| clubs and pepper spray, got overwhelmed, fell back,
| regrouped, and responded with a lot of force a couple
| hours later. One of the rioters was shot, dozens were
| arrested. Not a good scenario, but I've seen a lot of
| people who I had thought were more measured yelling about
| how police were assisting with an attempted coup attempt
| (even supposedly respected news stations were going off
| the deep end). It feels like the 24/7 news cycle has
| fried a lot of people's minds and turned everything into
| a final battle between good and evil.
| trophycase wrote:
| Something isn't right? Perhaps that nearly half of the
| elected officials present were either complicit or actively
| encouraging what happened?
| smnth wrote:
| 200 - 300k is hilarious, 20 - 30k is much closer to a
| reasonable guess.
| elihu wrote:
| It's also possible they were competent but don't have the
| required staff to handle a large protest. Under normal
| circumstances, they might request help from other groups
| (DC police, national guard, whatever) but due to
| jurisdictional restrictions help can't come unless it's
| approved at high levels and no approvals were given.
|
| In other words, they may have been set up to fail.
|
| (There's still the issue of that video of protesters being
| let in, which would imply that capital police do have some
| explaining to do.)
| rayiner wrote:
| The Capitol Police generally don't (and aren't equipped to)
| repel a mob entering the building. That wasn't just for
| this event. It's always like this.
|
| Trump's "show of force" during the BLM protests (where he
| brought in the national guard) was an aberration for that
| reason.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This isn't the first mass protest in DC. Why is this the
| first time they were able to get into the Capitol while
| in session?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Wasn't a protest, it was an attempt at a coup. And the
| president set the game to easy level.
| djsumdog wrote:
| > attempt at a coup
|
| You have a very very low bar for what you think an
| attempted coup was.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Who knows what Trump was attempting. He should definitely
| be investigated.
|
| But the riot was a riot. There was no organization and no
| attempt to take the government and rule it. It was
| vandalism.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Typically they don't try to. But people have gotten into
| the capitol to interrupt things before.
|
| Five Congressmen were shot by Puerto Rican nationalists
| on the floor of the house in the 50s.
|
| Protestors interrupt things fairly often. Happened during
| the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and again during the
| vote.
|
| This is probably the most overwhelmed the Capitol has
| been since the British captured it.
| staplers wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but it's been proven police helped
| the rioters and even took selfies with them.
| mimikatz wrote:
| It has not been proven. This is false. Please stop
| spreading it. Multiple people were killed in clashes with
| the police. They did not help the rioters. This is the type
| of misinformation that caused all these problems.
| danaris wrote:
| Without any specific knowledge on this case one way or
| the other, both of these things _can_ be simultaneously
| true: Some Capitol police stuck to their duty and tried
| to keep the insurrectionists out, while others agreed
| with them, let them in, and took selfies with them.
|
| "The Capitol Police" is not a single, monolithic entity;
| it's made up of individual people, with their own
| political views.
| spear wrote:
| > Multiple people were killed in clashes with the police.
|
| "Multiple"? Do you have proof of this? There was one
| woman who was shot by police.
|
| As far as I know, it is not yet clear how the others
| (excluding the Capitol officer) died. I've seen reports
| that one man got a heart attack after tasing himself and
| another fell off some scaffolding.
| akersten wrote:
| Police taking selfie with terrorist:
| https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1346920198461419520
|
| Police letting terrorists in: https://twitter.com/joshuap
| otash/status/1346931235176783873
| smcl wrote:
| Re the second one - I also saw some footage where a
| couple of police were, I dunno, ushering them or
| encouraging them through barriers towards the building.
| Like "come on, come on!" - that kind of gesture.
|
| I have to stress though that I agree with "danaris" one
| level up from from this comment - it seems perfectly
| believable that individual police sympathised and aided
| these people. However it's not "The Police" as an entity
| as some others are suggesting, that's venturing into Q
| territory and is a bit Conspiracy Theory for me.
| waterside81 wrote:
| Here's another video of cops letting people in.
|
| https://twitter.com/christina_bobb/status/134759627858319
| 769...
| odonnellryan wrote:
| This is the video that really got me thinking about this:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/kt2u9v/c
| onf...
|
| Not sure what happened, I hope we find out, but this
| video is especially damning.
| mimikatz wrote:
| try this video https://nypost.com/2021/01/08/video-shows-
| capitol-police-cop...
| pkaye wrote:
| This is the YouTube channel that came from. Lots of other
| videos there like talking to the MAGA crowd after the
| riot.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1216&v=cJOgGsC0G9U
| kelchqvjpnfasjl wrote:
| Here are videos from 2 locations where protestors fought
| the police and pushed past them. That is the opposite of
| letting them in. IMO I think the instances where they
| were "letting people in" were because the barriers had
| already been breached on other sides so there was no
| point holding lines where there would already be people
| in behind them.
|
| https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1347077988756676608
|
| https://twitter.com/KySportsRadio/status/1347031398176223
| 233
| mimikatz wrote:
| The video (letting them in) doesn't show what you think
| it does. Capital Police leadership planned poorly and
| their leadership is at fault. They had to fall back to
| more secure chokepoints because they were outnumbered and
| overwhelmed. The cops didn't let anyone in. They killed
| someone and one of them was killed in the fighting.
| Please don't stir up trouble with fake conjecture over a
| 30 second clip that doesn't show what really happened. It
| is what caused a lot of these problems. You are making it
| worse.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| No... if those officers had fallen back, sure, all good.
| I don't see an issue there. But literally you have an
| officer (and yes, I get it, individual versus collective)
| who moves gates, and starts waving protestors through.
|
| If you're falling back because you're overwhelmed by a
| surge, the last thing you do is _remove obstacles between
| you and the surge_!
| itronitron wrote:
| Regarding the second video, there were already protesters
| behind the barrier so those police may have been ordered
| to move back to another area.
|
| The bigger concern for me is the understaffing and
| declining of offers of assistance made by other police
| departments.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| You're being naive if you believe that Russia and others
| didn't already have a field day at the Capitol yesterday. I
| wouldn't worry as much about what these guys took from
| offices and server rooms as I would worry about what little
| digital gifts these guys may have left behind in the offices
| and server rooms.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Given the solarwind hack aren't they already in?
| derg wrote:
| Yep. The entire building needs to be completely scrubbed
| down and all tech needs to be taken and destroyed. A
| complete fresh start. Move operations to a new building
| while this is happening.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| It honestly boggles the mind that capitol police
| announced the all-clear as soon as they did. I mean they
| found pipe bombs in the RNC and DNC headquarters. No way
| did the conduct the kind of thorough search that would
| ensure that nobody left a pipe bomb in an air vent or in
| a random filing cabinet.
|
| And that goes double for mysterious flash drives randomly
| stuck in people's computers, or bugs hidden in planters
| etc. Just an absolute travesty.
| rhino369 wrote:
| 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
| greenlight to shoot people to protect property, there will be
| a lot of unnecessarily death going forward.
|
| That said, they may (probably?) screwed up containing the
| crowd contained in the first place. Though to play devils
| advocate, the President had just told a mob to go "wild." Not
| sure if Capitol Police could successfully manage that.
| thelean12 wrote:
| > Firing on a mob is risky as hell and not morally clear.
|
| Why do people jump to the most extreme side of things in
| discussions now a days?
|
| There are many many many ways to disperse of a crowd that
| doesn't involve firing live rounds at a crowd. In fact:
| they were able to do it later!
|
| Tear gas, flash bangs, barricades, rubber bullets. None of
| these were used until well after they made it inside.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Because the security shown on all the videos don't appear
| to have those ready. That sort of gear isn't typically
| equipped.
|
| So its sort of irrelevant to what police who were
| suddenly asked to hold a door from a violent mob.
|
| With hindsight they should have had teargas ready. But
| they probably didn't expect the President to direct a mob
| to capture the Capitol.
| ghaff wrote:
| >That said, they may (probably?) screwed up containing the
| crowd contained in the first place.
|
| Certainly with the benefit of hindsight, there should have
| been a much stronger show of force/barricades/etc. Should
| that have been obvious even without hindsight? Don't know.
|
| That said, once the Capitol Police were outnumbered and
| things were getting out of hand, I'm pretty sure the _best_
| outcome if they had used deadly force to stop a rush would
| have been headlines like "Dozens of Trump supporters dead
| after police open fire on crowd." Worse scenarios include
| the police getting overwhelmed anyway and many of them
| killed also leading to a firefight within the capitol.
| kweinber wrote:
| Hindsight? You have the same kind of folks who showed up
| at Charlottesville and other altercations and you can't
| predict they will cause trouble?
|
| The very idea that no-one could see this coming is
| ridiculous.
| rayiner wrote:
| There have been several pro-Trump rallies since the
| election. The city got locked down hard, but nothing
| happened. They were much more peaceful than the rallies
| this summer. (I drove by all of these because my wife's
| office is a couple of blocks from the White House).
| rhino369 wrote:
| And the real damage was to our rule of law. That was
| already accomplished when the supposed President directed
| a mob against congress.
|
| The actual level of violence done by the mob is
| relatively tame. Shooting a bunch of people in the halls
| of Congress isn't going to stop the damage to the rule of
| law. And it would have what? Prevented a few laptops from
| being stolen, a couple doors from being broken down, etc.
| It's not like they torched the place.
|
| I personally don't think violence by a mob is acceptable.
| But it seems most people do--as long as they are
| sympathetic to the cause.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| There's photographs of one of the "peaceful" protestors
| in bdus and a helmet with zip ties, and there was
| multiple videos of the mob yelling to grab the
| politicians. It was relatively peaceful because congress
| was able to evacuate before they could be kidnapped and
| held hostage, with them safely away the pipe bombs
| wouldn't have had much point.
| [deleted]
| tayo42 wrote:
| I think it was a happy accident that possibly being
| complicit meant this didn't go as bad as it could have. We
| have a great example of de-escalation working.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > 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.
| rhino369 wrote:
| I'm not aware of police using live bullets against
| unarmed people to prevent them from entering a government
| facility. Though I could be ignorant of clear examples.
|
| At least in Minnesota and Portland they let looters
| burn/occupy the buildings without contest.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I guess? I would have expected the doors to put up a fight,
| too. But it doesn't sound like there was much forced entry
| going on beyond getting into the building itself.
|
| At my own workplace, all the areas that are not intended for
| public use - office blocks and most meeting rooms, for
| example - are locked at all times and have keycard access.
| Defense in depth, y'know? And we're not even a juicy target
| like the US Capitol, we're just some company.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Congress isn't really one office, though. It's hundreds of
| individually run ones, each intended to serve the public
| fairly frequently. You can (generally) pop in and see your
| congressperson and/or their staff if you want.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| You can pop in and see me, too. You just need to check in
| at the front desk, and can't wander around sensitive
| areas un-escorted.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| My office is likely set up the same as yours, or at least
| close enough to yours. You could absolutely pop in to
| visit me.
|
| But you could also grab enough of your friends to obtain
| a decisive numerical advantage - let's say, you and
| twenty of your closest friends, that probably gets close
| to what we saw yesterday. Be sure one or two of them are
| visibly armed.
|
| Once you have your buddies, you can go break through the
| glass door leading to the receptionist's desk. We saw
| that yesterday too.
|
| Once you're in, game over: I don't expect Nancy to tackle
| you at the door, or my friend Brian to kick you when you
| try to come into the conference room. I expect when
| you're inside you'll get a guest badge - or an employees
| - and proceed to go about doing whatever you were
| interested in doing.
|
| My office's threat model - and yours - is not based on
| defending against a mob of people storming the building.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| > My office's threat model - and yours - is not based on
| defending against a mob of people storming the building.
|
| That's sort of exactly the point I'm making. My office's
| threat model isn't even in the same league, and yet it
| still seems to have more thought put into physical
| security than the Capitol building. It would appear that,
| unlike in the hypothetical you're constructing, in the
| real event, people didn't even need keycards in order to
| freely move about the building after getting past the
| exterior doors.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Your office is intended to keep _most_ people in the
| world out _most_ of the time.
|
| The Capitol is intended to allow most people most of the
| time.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| So Nancy Pelosi's office is generally open to the public,
| and it's fine for people to go on in whenever they want,
| even when she's not there?
|
| I've honestly never tried to visit a congressperson in
| DC, so I suppose I wouldn't know, but it sounds unlikely.
| My _public library_ is even more intended for public use
| than the US Capitol, but I still need a key to go back
| into the offices.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| 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 protest out front without
| worrying about that unfriendly man with his finger by the
| trigger to the Browning M2.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| Not trying to nitpick but they were specifically told to
| keep the doors unlocked, by security.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| 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.
| hctaw wrote:
| there's more than a little suggestion that this was the
| intended outcome for the people protecting the capitol.
| pc86 wrote:
| By whom?
| mistermann wrote:
| This makes it sound like the people in charge of protecting
| the capital did not know that this was a legitimate threat.
| From the articles I've read, they did in fact help that it
| was a legitimate threat, which raises the question: why did
| they do nothing about it?
| 121789 wrote:
| The only reasonable conclusion I can think of is that the
| security team had no worry that politicians would be in
| any danger (e.g. easy, isolated, fast escape routes) and
| that it would be hard to rationalize to bring out the
| troops/big security forces with a threat of violence for
| a group of people that was supported by the current
| president and a significant fraction of congress and the
| senate. The whole situation feels very strange and it
| feels like I'm missing some key facts.
| mistermann wrote:
| I think there are many plausible (but not necessarily
| "reasonable") alternative explanations.
|
| As far as I can tell, this event seems to have had an
| extremely persuasive effect on the psyche and opinions of
| the average person. Who might benefit from this change in
| the mental state of the population, and in what ways?
|
| Most people seem to find the very idea of thinking such
| thoughts to be extremely unpleasant, if not downright
| inappropriate. But to me, this is simple risk management.
| The lack of this sort of thinking in society seems
| downright dangerous to me.
|
| I sometimes wonder what the origin of such norms is - is
| it organic (a common characteristic derived from
| evolution), or might it be synthetic?
| tshaddox wrote:
| According to some reports, the problem was in fact
| predicted, and that's _why_ the National Guard chose not to
| prepare for forceful confrontation. Not wanting photos of
| armed uniformed soldiers in state buildings or some such.
| mistermann wrote:
| The same was true for BLM protests. So, why the different
| treatment? Racism is a popular explanation, but is it a
| true explanation?
| ashleshbiradar wrote:
| Yep, in India they directly detain all protesters anywhere
| near the parliament area and the immediate surroundings
| grey-area wrote:
| The Indian parliament was attacked by heavily armed gunmen
| in 2001, so that's not so surprising.
| davidw wrote:
| 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.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need
| to prevent stuff like this.
|
| And they would have, had the Trump Administration not
| denied the D.C Mayor's request the day before for the D.C.
| National Guard to be deployed.
|
| The Administration also delayed approval of requests by
| Virginia and Maryland to send Guard units to the Capitol in
| response to urgent calls for aid from Congressional leaders
| when it became clear the MPD and Capitol Police were
| overwhelmed.
|
| Of course, it's a problem when the person inciting the
| insurrection has authority over important components of the
| security against it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| They (the people inciting it) were literally dancing and
| having a party and watching the start of the chaos on
| livestream while it went down:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQDgBSSYjI
| tomp wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? I read that it was
| actually the other way around:
|
| _> A new report Thursday revealed that Sund turned down
| an offer from the FBI and the National Guard to help cops
| in the event of unrest._
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-chief-
| steven-su...
| qchris wrote:
| I actually really like this analogy. I'm curious if there's
| there's a term for that kind of playbook for folks who are
| more familiar with building security.
| joeyrideout wrote:
| The only analogue that comes to mind is in financial
| fraud detection: moving money slowly or in a predictable
| pattern (monthly rent payments etc.) triggers no alarms,
| but large or unexpected transfers raise alarms.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I remember when I left my last job that my manager
| cautioned me against making any large file transfers
| since it would trigger IT alarms about employees trying
| to steal the company's IP.
|
| Clearly, he didn't think I was a threat, or if I was,
| that I would have been smart enough to do it long ago,
| and slowly :-)
| tshaddox wrote:
| There are, for instance, buildings with large areas that
| are open to the public and other areas which hold large
| amounts of money that are very important to protect.
| mrits wrote:
| 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.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| American history[1] shows this probably _isn 't_ a
| requirement - beyond a foreign military attacking, which is
| clearly out of scope of policing, the other attacks were
| acts carried out by isolated people. "Storming the gates"
| hasn't happened before now.
|
| I suspect the main reason that this hasn't happened before
| is that very large protests/gatherings are often met with a
| large show of police force to ensure the protestors know
| this isn't an option. Why that didn't happen today will be
| interesting to investigate. We all probably have a theory,
| but what comes out of the inevitable hearings on this will
| be interesting to see.
|
| [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-
| histor...
| rayiner wrote:
| 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.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| 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.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The Bonus Army protests weren't entirely without
| conflict.
| deevolution wrote:
| If the people really want to overthrow the government, some
| jacked up defenses around capitol buildings won't stop
| anything imho, it just means the resistance will bring
| heavier weapons to match.
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| Occupying buildings is, honestly, pretty silly if your
| goal is to overthrow the government.
|
| A few years(?) ago, Mitch McConnell's dinner at a
| restaurant was interrupted by protestors yelling at him.
| And that was after what happened to Gabby Giffords.
|
| Targets with higher ROI are available to people willing
| to take, ahem, kinetic actions.
| diveanon wrote:
| Unfortunately we don't live in that world anymore.
|
| There is a major opposition movement growing, and it pains me
| to say it but Trump was right in his last speech.
|
| 'This is just the beginning'
| JamesSwift wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, it is understandable that security works that way in a
| building occupied by people whose job it is to keep
| secrets... but that is not the way security should work at
| a building of democratic representatives where their job is
| to be publicly accountable.
| _ph_ wrote:
| You don't need to fence the whole area off. Just a few
| reinforced doors at strategic places would have stopped
| anyone without heavy equipment. Also they would have been a
| place for the police to stand their ground.
|
| Just all stairs going upwards should be easy to defend if the
| police stands their ground. Add a few police dogs and the
| officers wouldn't even have to engage themselves.
|
| There was a smaller crowd trying to enter the German
| parliament just a few weeks ago, politically pretty close to
| the rioters of Washington. A whole three policemen were able
| to stop them by just consequently standing their ground, not
| armend beyond batons:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree. One of my favorite aspects of visiting DC is the
| remarkable extent to which ordinary citizens have access to
| the workings of government. Sure, there's some security, but
| mostly to keep things orderly, not secret.
| pySSK wrote:
| I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office
| have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Even
| Starbucks toilets have better security.
|
| From the pictures I saw, she was still logged in and had the
| evacuation message onscreen. I'm guessing she didn't have
| 'require login after screensaver' option enabled. If the
| account is still logged in, this is a massive breach!
| kube-system wrote:
| > I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her
| office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door?
|
| Congressional offices are frequent meeting spaces with
| people who do not work there. Their job, after all, is to
| represent the public. Locking the public out of their
| offices is kind of antithetical to the job description.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| it was somebody else's account. Also, see @foone's thread
| here:
|
| https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1346924327996772354
|
| tl;dr: the government has appropriate computer security in
| place to prevent this sort of thing, and it's not clear
| what the deal was with that particular computer.
| pnutjam wrote:
| how hard is <window key> + L to lock your screen?
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| When you hear the mob screaming outside, glass breaking,
| and are likely being told to evacuate by messages on your
| computer and security outside? I wouldn't bet that I'd
| remember. Not locking your screen is as expected as it is
| forgivable under the circumstances.
| ant6n wrote:
| Yeah it's definitiv a different desk than the ohne in the
| picture with the guy who broke into pelosis office.
| petre wrote:
| US embassies just about everywhere are like that. The one in
| Budapest has two inch thick metal bar gates and guards armed
| with machine guns. Lesson learned from the embassy hostage
| crisis in Iran.
|
| Anyway, an angry mob of wacko rioters shouldn't violently
| force their way into the legislative's building. They should
| respect the outcome of the democratic vote and vote again in
| four years. Maybe if this was Iran I would say okay, people
| are fed up with the ayatollah and the revolutionary guards,
| but this is the US and the poor buggers are being
| manipulated, shot tear gas at and four of them got killed.
| For what? Absolutely nothing. The unfortunate officer died
| doing his job. This is very sad and scary, it looks like
| civil war brewing. A really bad thing to happen to a nation
| armed with nukes. Please do not let it happen, it is within
| your power to distance yourselves from these people and just
| say no to violence and vandalism.
| dbeley wrote:
| So just a couple hundreds of people can protest in front of
| the building, enter elected official offices and steal
| laptops most likely containing very sensitive data (hopefully
| encrypted though)?
|
| I agree with you but I think there ought to be a little more
| protection of that.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| 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 what happened this
| week, the building belongs to the People and not the
| government and the People have every right to enter the
| building and demand accountability.
|
| The way the US Capitol is right now feels very police-state
| to me compared to how it used to be. I have memories of
| running around the Capitol building with my Cub Scout pack
| including ending up in private areas. There were no assault
| weapons and we weren't met with police. We were politely
| shooed away.
|
| Today you cannot walk up the steps of the Capitol building.
| It's fenced off and manned by armed guard. Last time I was
| there I stepped aside to let some people pass in a crowded
| area and crossed some arbitrary unmarked do not cross line
| but about 12 inches. I was physically grabbed by Police.
|
| To quote Donald Rumsfeld "freedom is untidy."
| mbg721 wrote:
| Compare a similar issue with schools; in the 80s, teenagers
| left their guns in their cars while they went to class.
| Now, schools are basically a rights-free zone.
| spoonjim wrote:
| > the People have every right to enter the building and
| demand accountability.
|
| the "People" can't just do whatever they want just because
| they feel like it. Can they go and bang hammers on nuclear
| warheads because the warheads "belong to the People"? Storm
| the doors of JPL and play horsey on the Mars Rovers?
|
| When some subset of the "People" attempt to overthrow the
| duly elected government of the other 99% of the People,
| they are traitors, and should be erased from society.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| I think that's nonsense. Access to a lawmaker or
| representative in a village may work like that. When you
| represent a state of 20 million, access means making an
| appointment and going through security clearance. There is
| a voting mechanism, a free press and various other
| mechanisms to back me up if I am consistently deterred from
| speaking to my public representative. But I'm in no way
| expecting to just walk in there, unannounced, without
| security clearance, at any time of the day, to demand
| attention.
|
| Might as well argue that you should be able to just walk
| into the white house and speak to the top public
| representative.
| kube-system wrote:
| I also walked into my congressperson's office when I was
| on a field trip as kid. The security was similar to going
| to the airport.
|
| > Might as well argue that you should be able to just
| walk into the white house and speak to the top public
| representative.
|
| Entirely different situation. The reason that people need
| to talk with the legislature is because those are the
| people's representatives.
| vharuck wrote:
| The security risk is also less of a problem in a mostly
| rational society, which is what we have had for a long
| time. You'll get lone wolves, but finding a group of people
| so angry with a politician they're willing to conspire to
| kill them? Very, very rare. Violence is a last resort for
| people who feel totally powerless. So, in a dark way, easy
| access keeps politicians from pissing off their
| constituents too much.
|
| Which is why the stream of "fraudulent election" lies is so
| dangerous. A person in a position that confers trust is
| telling people the government is openly defying them. For
| people who believe that, violence is the only logical way
| to affect politics.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| 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
| koyote wrote:
| > 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'.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| 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 in the history of the US.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| 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/bumber
| a_steven/status/134727096998817382... <edit> video
| dxdm wrote:
| Look at the videos, no waving through going on, quite the
| opposite. One woman was shot by police and died.
| pc86 wrote:
| You've seen different footage than I have, then.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| 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
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My mistake. It was a chaotic, violent situation. I
| shouldn't make snap judgements from cherry-picked shots.
| Sorry.
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| They should have appropriate security when large events are
| going on outside. But I sure hope we do not see barricades
| between representatives and their constituents on a normal
| day. Democracies rely on trust in both directions.
| wtfiswiththis wrote:
| The president massed rioters down the road and had them attack
| the building shortly after 1pm when the tally started in the
| Capitol building.
|
| He watched the riots unfold live, and refused federal backup
| for local forces.
|
| Giuliani is Trump's lawyer, he called for "trial by combat"
| during the rally and after the riot started he was calling
| Republicans to press them into going along with the coup
| attempt.
|
| This was a coup attempt, with a violent and legislative side to
| it. They were both organized and timed by the same parties.
| Both failed fortunately.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The US Embassy in Amsterdam is better protected than the
| Capitol.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I'm pretty sure, almost every US Embassy, not just in
| Amsterdam, is better protected.
| tpmx wrote:
| I think you should read up on how western countries typically
| prefer to have very light visible security in front of
| buildings like these. It sends a message of non-
| approachability if you have heavily-armed forces out front,
| which politicans don't like.
|
| I'm assuming a similar security plan is in place in e.g.
| European countries' parliaments; extracting the high value
| targets is P1. The building is just a building; if it's
| damaged it can be repaired. And killing a bunch of people
| defending a building is a political no-go.
|
| None of this applies to an embassy.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Isn't that the right way around? Embassies in foreign
| countries need more protection than buildings in your own
| home country?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Apparently there was a joke going around latin america
| twitter that the coup failed because there is no US embassy
| in DC to support it.
| hsnewman wrote:
| Looks to me like they stood down, being complicit with the
| insurrection. This often is how 3rd world nations are
| overthrown by dictators with the militarys help.
| [deleted]
| ashtonkem wrote:
| All that money, all those guns, all that harassing of random
| citizens, and this happened. One has to ask "what are we
| actually paying for?"
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Right, the annual Capitol Police budget alone is $550
| million.
| kelchqvjpnfasjl wrote:
| A police force of 2200, just for one building. Compare that
| to the Atlanta Police Department which has 1800 officers
| for a city of 500,000+ people and a size of 136 sq miles.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| In the Netherlands there are a few entry ways and they look a
| bit like this:
|
| https://www.dormakaba.com/resource/blob/128222/7d74af646dce4...
|
| They're configured one-way only, can be fully opened for high
| through-put or emergencies, but are otherwise single-person
| only. They can detect multiple people in various ways. The
| default for sensitive areas would be biometric (e.g. weight,
| some parlement members coming back from vacation a little
| overweight have had to get a manual override in the past). Of
| course bulletproof, and can be controlled at a distance by an
| operator.
|
| It makes sense that not everything requires something like
| this, but the office of the speaker of the house of course
| should be in any situation. If she wishes to meet people in
| less-secure rooms it's entirely possible to create meeting
| rooms with fewer or even no significant entry or security
| controls if you wish, but your personal office, places where
| you store sensitive data etc... can't just have em behind a few
| wooden doors.
|
| Of course some countries opted for the benefit of a modern
| building. The capitol is more than two centuries old, you can
| only retrofit it so much.
| brudgers wrote:
| The US Capitol belongs to the people. There are risks from
| that which fall on the people who serve there. In counties
| with monarchs there are different traditions expressed by the
| architecture of public institutions and the seats of power.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Dutch Parliament has a visitors entrance and is (in non-
| covid times) easily accessible to the public. But for
| obvious security reasons their private offices are behind
| these kinds of locked doors. Since a few years I think you
| have to go through a metal detector to be allowed into the
| public areas.
|
| It makes no sense at all that the US Capitol doesn't have
| stronger barriers between the public areas and the private
| offices. Every bank or other large company has such a setup
| for information security reasons.
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| Just because something belongs to the people does not mean
| that 1,000 of them need to be able to rush into it.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| Without referencing any source I'll just assume you made
| that up. As far as I know there's no difference between say
| the French or German republic or the Dutch (symbolic)
| monarchy in this regard.
|
| Dutch representatives are accessible by the people. They
| have a walk-in hour, you can call them, email them, write
| them, you can join hearings and meetings where they're
| present, they go out into the country to talk to citizens.
| But what you can't do is waltz into their office. This has
| obvious reasons in a post 9/11 world, and it has nothing to
| do with the fact the Netherlands has a king who has a
| purely symbolic function and does not participate in
| politics, no different from say France which is a republic,
| or Germany which saw a mob storm the Reichstag a few months
| ago and was easily held off by the police, which is also a
| republic.
| telaelit wrote:
| They should consider ANY hardware in the Capitol Building during
| the insurrection to be compromised.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Cool, hopefully it is loaded with damaging emails. She needs to
| go. I bet if it is there's loads of discussion denigrating the
| American people and planning to sacrifice their lives and their
| finances pointlessly during the pandemic. Obviously, the coupists
| believe even worse things, but what do I care if my political
| opponents destroy each other?
| charonn0 wrote:
| Even if such e-mails existed, by stealing the laptop they've
| tainted it as evidence except against themselves.
|
| i.e., You and the thief are similarly short sighted.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Also, as you may be aware, stolen emails have been able to be
| verified in the past. For one, you can ask the people
| implicated if they are real and look for contradictions
| between their stories or confirmations. You can check
| physical evidence if any exists. There are many things you
| can do.
|
| EDIT: My previous response, I misread your meaning at first.
|
| I don't care if they get prosecuted. They should be, they
| attempted a coup against the democracy. However, as I said,
| what do I care if they destroy each other? Pelosi is a
| villain that promotes the desires of the rich over the lives
| of the people numbering in the hundreds of thousands at this
| point. Being attacked by someone worse doesn't make her into
| someone that needs defending.
| charonn0 wrote:
| > They should be, they attempted a coup against the
| democracy. However, as I said, what do I care if they
| destroy each other?
|
| Political violence, once normalized, will inevitably be
| turned against its practitioners and supporters.
| Indifference in the face of this violence is nothing less
| than tacit approval of it, and invites reprisal.
| davesque wrote:
| Wait, aren't we all privacy advocates here? Who here doesn't
| say certain things in private that they wouldn't say in public?
| Any time I see anything like a leaked e-mail story, I remind
| myself of this simple law of human nature. If private
| communications do end up coming out of this, we need to all
| remember this.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The government is the one depriving us of privacy at a scale
| unknown in human history. Turn-about is fair play.
| tw04 wrote:
| On its face I would say: well between cleaners and the public
| going in and out there's no way they'd have anything confidential
| on something like that.
|
| Then I remember the countless times I've been on a flight from
| SFO and seen executives with NDA documents pulled up on their
| laptops with no privacy screen and remember that it's entirely
| plausible this thing had something confidential. I just hope
| their default image included full disk encryption.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| 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.
| golergka wrote:
| > having people roaming around the halls of a sensitive
| government institution
|
| Depends on your views on right to rebel.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| _Right_ to rebel?
|
| I'm not aware of that one.
| golergka wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I see, it is a philosophical right.
|
| Whether you agree with them or not, it seems the U.S.
| founders tried to give us all these other rights we might
| need to avoid the violent one.
| alacombe wrote:
| Why would it be of the interest of any US citizen for elected
| officials to have any "secret" ?
|
| Full transparency should be paramount.
| bregma wrote:
| > Full transparency should be paramount.
|
| Full transparency _is_ paramount. It 's just not practice.
| mcchew wrote:
| Congress constantly gets briefed on things that are behind
| closed doors. Not to mention our president is also leader of
| the armed forces.
| scarmig wrote:
| That's the theoretical argument Assange pushes.
|
| Wikileaks does, however, keeps tons of information about its
| internal operations secret...
| alacombe wrote:
| > Wikileaks does, however, keeps tons of information about
| its internal operations secret...
|
| It shouldn't... as long as its action, as whistleblowers,
| shouldn't be prosecutable either.
|
| ps: I do think that both Manning AND Snowden (as US
| citizens) should be pardoned, and charges on Assange (as a
| non-US citizen) dropped.
| davesque wrote:
| I suppose then that you'd be happy to make any and all
| conversations you've had in private during recent years
| public for all to see.
| pessimizer wrote:
| That observation makes as much sense in context as when
| people compare the national debt to household debt. If the
| problem is that we might get to know what porn Pelosi likes
| or whether she has hemorrhoids, the theft of this laptop is
| trivial.
| alacombe wrote:
| I've not been sworn to serve The People.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Secrets need to be kept in the intelligence world. It's naive
| to think we can be fully transparent on issues of methods and
| means. Congress needs to know things about our security
| apparatus but shouldn't be made public for obvious reasons.
|
| The entire idea of a representative democracy is we elect
| people to act for us. That includes knowing information that
| shouldn't be public and making the correct decision for the
| country.
| alacombe wrote:
| > The entire idea of a representative democracy is we elect
| people to act for us.
|
| How do you keep elected representatives accountable then ?
| Their words alone is not worth the storage space it's being
| recorded on...
| charonn0 wrote:
| Because other countries exist.
| handelaar wrote:
| I'm less concerned about the kit that was removed from the
| Capitol and _very much more_ concerned about all the kit that
| wasn 't.
|
| There is no laptop, no camera, no wall socket, no light switch
| even, that should not now be destroyed
| Balgair wrote:
| Very much so. Imagine "The Thing" but with ~75 years more
| advancement.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%...
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Every conservative narrative will now be about some evidence
| found on this laptop that will never be materialized in court.
| Just like the hunter Biden laptop that tucker Carlson supposedly
| lost in the mail.
| ehsankia wrote:
| If I recall UPS put a statement saying they searched and found
| the package. But then later Carlson magically backed off
|
| > But after all of his commotion, Carlson suddenly backed off
| the story by Thursday night. "There are a lot of documents
| about Hunter Biden's personal life that we haven't brought to
| you and we're not going to, and we should tell you why," he
| said, adding that "Hunter Biden is a fallen man at this point."
| And while he believes the Biden son is not "a bad person," he
| does have "demons" and "lost control of those demons, and the
| world knows that now. He's now humiliated and alone. It's
| probably too strong to say we feel sorry for Hunter Biden, but
| the point is, pounding on a man, jumping on, piling on when
| he's already down is something that we don't want to be
| involved in."
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I'm here to save my country but I'll settle for a free laptop...
| astura wrote:
| The link appears to be some sort of live news feed and right now
| unrelated stuff about covid, articles of impeachment, and Trump's
| power to launch nukes is dominating the page, you really have to
| scroll to get to the laptop story
|
| I think this is the direct link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/live/2021/jan/08/donald-...
|
| The "story" is also really just a link to this tweet:
| https://twitter.com/Drew_Hammill/status/1347598063620206592?...
| spzb wrote:
| Thanks. I did post the direct link but it seems to have been
| truncated
| stonesweep wrote:
| Here is the actual source of information which should be the
| link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-
| cyber/laptop...
|
| edit: it's confusing as to what the actual, documented source
| other than "he said she said" is after looking at all three
|
| edit edit: a previous HN submission which didn't gain comment
| traction pointed at Reuters:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25688418
| boringg wrote:
| Wow. Not the last thing that we are going to find out that was
| stolen I'm sure. This whole thing is straight up crazy.
| ehsankia wrote:
| There are tons of pictures of ransacked offices with papers
| everywhere. I'm sure a ton of personal belonging was either
| stolen or broken.
| iask wrote:
| Sounds like there were operatives embedded in the crowd and knew
| where and what to go after. The damage is done.
| ukyrgf wrote:
| Or they just saw the giant sign that says it's the Speaker of
| the House's office and they grabbed a laptop?
| suifbwish wrote:
| Holy shit. When I had my laptop stolen last year I assumed it
| was the druggies down the street, but you're right! Stolen
| laptop? Must be operatives
| Bubbadoo wrote:
| More great news showing the competence level of our elected
| leadership.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Wait, there were armed people storming the building and police
| supporting them. You think their first priority was, "Better
| secure this workstation attached to a projector!" and not,
| "Dear god I hope I don't get murdered today!"
| _jcrossley wrote:
| So, is it fair to call this the worst US terrorist attack since
| 9/11?
| d33lio wrote:
| Until evidence is substantiated, we should assume the parties
| that be will try to continue to blow this out of proportion. It
| shouldn't be surprising that one of Pelosi's aides is going to
| try to make the breach of the capital sound like something bigger
| than it really was - you know... to come up with more excuses to
| expand the surveillance of innocent citizens. As a Biden voter
| who also went to BLM protests (can't believe I have to lead with
| this on HN nowadays...) I can honestly say that many of those
| events were more violent and destructive than what happened
| Wednesday. Yes - I believe the people who stormed the capital
| were morons and will all likely end up in federal "pound me in
| the ass" prison [0].
|
| The pictures of staffers "cleaning up after the destruction" that
| show them just putting plastic cups into trash bags are
| hilarious. If only we could get both sides who disagree with the
| govt to cooperate and compromise - without a need to rely on gov
| to facilitate compromise maybe we could start to see light at the
| end of the tunnel? It's now clearer than ever that the government
| and even trump don't support what the people want. There's more
| than enough common ground to stop sending huge sums of money to
| other countries, to support small business (minority or
| otherwise) and be reasonable, the only thing standing in the way
| is division. Calling the other side inhuman or unworthy is
| walking into the same trap that gave us trump...
|
| 0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBzvMLW0ii4
| whalesalad wrote:
| > 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 departments are notorious for over-granting
| privileges to these shared machines due to the mixed use they
| typically recieve. After X help desk complaints you get fed up
| and check all the boxes in the permissions manager.
|
| Hopefully, though, it is locked up and the data is inaccessible.
| m463 wrote:
| Maybe stealing it also removed a bunch of foreign operative
| bugs and keyloggers :)
|
| "How can we remove this compromised system from the building
| without letting on that _we know_ "
|
| "just have a 'theft' remove it!"
| [deleted]
| megablast wrote:
| That would be the machine to keylog.
|
| Space. Space. Space. Backspace. Space.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| OTOH, if it is set up such that presenters need to log in
| with their official credentials to access their shared
| documents, it would actually be _the_ machine to keylog.
| jscheel wrote:
| Didn't one of the insurrectionists arrested require a Russian
| translator at his booking?
| Forbo wrote:
| For those downvoting this comment, here's a source:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-
| si...
| eloff wrote:
| Hilarious, but definitely not a spy. The Russians aren't
| so amateur as to send an undercover agent to the US who
| can't speak English.
|
| If they missed the opportunity at the Capitol the other
| day to plant listening devices though, they must be
| kicking themselves now.
| colde wrote:
| You say that, but they have had spies being exposed for a
| lot of stupid reasons. Like having their address on
| driving licenses be the FSB headquarters to avoid getting
| traffic tickets.
|
| Also, it seems entirely possible to me that they would do
| that not for the purposes of spying, but to sow chaos.
| Technically wrote:
| Putin is, indeed, a huge fan of non-linear warfare. One
| side effect that it's extremely difficult to _predict_
| and can only be, possibly, recognized, and intent (the
| "true" end) is virtually impossible to discern. If you
| push a ton of buttons at once, you create opportunities
| for yourself that you might not even have predicted, and
| people can ascribe all sorts of intent that never
| existed.
|
| It's part of why I roll my eyes at election interference
| --not that it's somehow "fake", but the amount of
| hysteria generated has got to be a better return than
| anyone could have guessed throwing a couple million
| dollars at an online propaganda campaign.
| folli wrote:
| I'd say Russia definitely has at least a subset of very
| amateurish spies. An example coming to mind is the
| Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, UK.
| meowster wrote:
| I think it would just be easier if someone "accidently"
| spilled coffee on it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 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 speak, triple, quadruple speak.
| snoshy wrote:
| 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.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Access to classified intelligence means that they are
| allowed to enter a secure room/facility and view the
| material. They still should not be taking said material
| out into an unclassified environment.
| rurp wrote:
| There are different levels of classification that carry
| different restrictions. Also, govt infosec being what it
| is, there are likely plenty of lapses.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Even the lowest level of classification (confidential)
| means that the data should not be stored on an
| unclassified system, and has additional physical storage
| requirements that Pelosi's main office doesn't meet.
|
| At worst, the laptop had FOUO/CUI (for official use
| only/controlled unclassified information) data. Not great
| for that to get leaked; but not that scary from a
| national security perspective (we're pretty aggressive
| about classifying stuff).
|
| If anything damaging comes out of this, I would expect it
| to be of a political nature; where something that Pelosi
| and friends would prefer to keep secret gets leaked, but
| doesn't have much influence on national security.
| adamc wrote:
| Sure. Unless their security policies are completely
| broken, any laptops they are using should also have disk-
| level encryption.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 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
| suifbwish wrote:
| Oh you think the generals readily involve old Pelosi with
| the battle plans? I sort of doubt they would trust her
| with anything digital that's supposed to be a secret.
| valuearb wrote:
| Pelosi just had a confidential conversation with the
| general in charge of US nuclear codes.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I think the same, and I very much doubt US general staff
| being inept to a point of holding war plans on a
| computer.
|
| Intel reports? Again, most real deal intel sources would
| be either kept real deal secret, or really not being
| such.
| CompuHacker wrote:
| Just wondering, small thing; did you mean to type
| "disposition" instead of "dislocation"?
| baybal2 wrote:
| No, I mean dislocation, as in military dislocation.
|
| https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/SR-1998-CPMW-
| Tactic...
| IncRnd wrote:
| I can't imagine you really believe that. The US may have an
| open society, but the US doesn't have an open government.
| Look at just the tiniest amount of publicly known items
| from Snowden and Wikileaks. Those alone indicate a greater
| iceberg of secrets.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Very good argument, but I cannot believe that anything of
| Wikileaks leaks would be really new, or of much value to
| Russians, or Chinese.
|
| US diplomatic talks with sketchy regimes? I bet China,
| and Russia would've not needed any spies there really.
|
| US sales of weapons? US sells them everywhere, and they
| don't need spies to know the bottom price, when most of
| weapon buyers would just tell them that themselves. You
| don't have too much alternatives in a duopoly market.
|
| US spies on Russian, or Chinese soil? You don't need to
| tell regimes like that of them being penetrated. Xi, and
| Pu realize perfectly well that they are surrounded by
| thousands of sketchy, and unreliable officers.
| geofft wrote:
| 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.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I would absolutely hope that it behaves like a dumb terminal
| but honestly you never know.
| tutfbhuf wrote:
| Well I guess gov knows.
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| How can you lock up Windows like that?
| dahdum wrote:
| Thin clients are the easiest way to handle it, all they can
| do is connect to a terminal server, no local storage.
| Avery3R wrote:
| I don't know what the best practice for doing this would be
| but I would change the default shell from explorer to mstsc
| (the terminal services/remote desktop client) and disable
| task manager and internet explorer. I don't think that
| would perfectly lock it down, but it would do the job for
| ~90% of use cases.
| bregma wrote:
| If you can separate children from their parents and lock
| them in cages you are probably ready to go one step further
| and lock up Windows too.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't break the site guidelines like this,
| regardless of how right you are or feel you are. The idea
| is to not have every thread turn into the same flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Pokepokalypse wrote:
| roaming profiles is one common way.
|
| I've seen it done badly a number of times, and I've seen it
| done correctly, and work really well.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I worked on a barely do-not-distribute. Someone's spouse took a
| project member's laptop as hostage for alimony. Within 45
| minutes of discovery and a phone call to the army equivalent of
| the FBI, agents were at the spouse's work and home searching
| for the laptop.
|
| Lucky for the spouse they thought it was the personal laptop
| (it was not marked) so they weren't prosecuted.
|
| This laptop could be much worse, or just fine.
| ptd wrote:
| What is a "barely do-not-distribute?"
| ucha wrote:
| It's usually the second lowest security level, just above
| "Public" and below "Secret".
| rootusrootus wrote:
| We used to just call that "confidential".
| VistaBrokeMyPC wrote:
| Third lowest; NOFORN is above public
| hchz wrote:
| NOFORN is not a level but an orthogonal restriction.
|
| Information could be Secret and NOFORN or Secret and
| Five-Eyes, for instance.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Do you all say NOFORN the way I think you say NOFORN? (No
| forn)
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Never heard it called that. What I have heard is
| something along the lines of "confidential but
| unclassified" which seems more descriptive to me.
| hchz wrote:
| This would never be used by USG. Confidential ->
| Classified
|
| The classification scheme is broadly cut up into
| Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, and Codeword. There are
| many modifiers to that such as Five-Eyes, Cosmic (NATO),
| and Restricted-Data (Nuclear Weapon Design).
|
| There are a menagerie of controls that don't rise to
| classification, like NOFORN, Law Enforcement Sensitive,
| For official use only, etc.
| 5555624 wrote:
| CUI -- Controlled, Unclassified Information (formerly
| FOUO - For Official Use Only)
|
| As others have pointed out, Confidential is classified,
| the lowest classification level.
| notretarded wrote:
| Metaphorically speaking. I.e. not quite DnD, but likely
| would want to be contained
| ucha wrote:
| Those were the terms we used at an investment bank but I
| imagine different institutions use different
| classifications.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| security policy for documents
| garfieldnate wrote:
| Reminds me of this old "Professor Pwnage" video.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4gVkprDej0
| lqet wrote:
| Do you have any information on how this ended?
| gizmo686 wrote:
| 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 bunch of
| passwords
| kenniskrag wrote:
| > as they could just access the harddrive directly regardless
| of OS security policy.
|
| I think that's wrong if you consider disk encryption.
| fphhotchips wrote:
| From what I've read, full disk encryption was optional in
| the House until very recently. If this was a shared machine
| it's almost certainly not encrypted.
| kenniskrag wrote:
| full disk encryption is also possible with a shared
| computer. TPM and PBA are some keywords
| fragmede wrote:
| 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.
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| 1st time that laptop reaches out to the internet should be
| the last time, if security is worth it's own salt.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| 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.
| debt wrote:
| "no big deal"
|
| A stolen laptop is usually not considered "no big deal"
| basically everywhere I worked.
| jerkstate wrote:
| Really? Every place I have worked with more than about 50
| employees has used full drive encryption, so a laptop being
| stolen is not an infosec risk at all.
| plif wrote:
| Yeah, me too. If they don't have this in 2021 their IT
| staff should be fired.
| vengefulduck wrote:
| Full disk encryption is only as good as the TPM and I'd
| imagine that nation states have plenty of exploits they
| could use to bypass them.
|
| Not to mention cold boot attacks if the laptop was still
| running.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And this is the one situation where the 'nationstate
| adversary' is pretty much the expected thing and not the
| exception.
| jandrese wrote:
| FDE only works if the machine is powered off. If a machine
| is stolen while it is still running there's a risk the user
| account could be compromised. Depending how sophisticated
| your adversary is they could potentially completely
| compromise the machine and extract all of the data. When
| you have physical access and no time pressure the options
| are vast.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> Depending how sophisticated your adversary is_
|
| The videos I saw don't inspire much dread, there, but
| they may give the laptop to someone that can do digital
| forensics. Lots of LEOs in that lot. They would be smart
| enough to stay out of the building, but might have been
| waiting for someone to come out with something like that.
|
| But, as someone pointed out, a lot of the folks wouldn't
| bother trying to read anything. They'd probably try to
| plant their own fantasies onto it, and send it to Rudy
| The Hair Dye Man.
| knorker wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| Most of the rioters seem like herpa-derpers, but some
| came there on a mission, like this guy:
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13690389/us-capitol-
| rioters-zi...
|
| (those are not regular zipties, but the "taking hostages"
| kind)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I also notice he's masked. That was unusual for that lot.
|
| There were definitely some folks there with mayhem in
| mind.
| throwaway201103 wrote:
| Yes it would be really interesting to find out who those
| guys were, were they Proud Boys, Antifa, foreign agents,
| undercover domestic agents, etc?
| jandrese wrote:
| 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.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| On another note, the same publication (a redtop, so the
| language is rather "pithy") has this story[0], in which
| the "Fine People on All Sides" smeared feces around the
| place.
|
| They have a photo of a guy on his hands and knees,
| cleaning the place. He's a congressman.[1]
|
| [0] https://www.the-sun.com/news/2105149/trump-
| supporters-smeare...
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/us/congressman-
| capitol-trash-...
| asdff wrote:
| Who is to say that a few opportunistic spies weren't in
| that push looking for anything of interest? Historically,
| this has been the case during these sorts of events. When
| the Stasi HQ was overwhelmed by protestors, Western
| intelligence agents were the first in the building
| securing lots of information.
| jandrese wrote:
| They'll probably give it to that computer repair guy in
| Deleware so he can pull off all of the emails from March
| of 2021 and somehow lose them in the mail when he tries
| to send them to Fox News.
| jerzyt wrote:
| 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.
| polka_haunts_us wrote:
| 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.
| chasd00 wrote:
| 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.
| dfsegoat wrote:
| If it was a shared machine in a conference room, wouldn't it
| already physically be accessible to e.g. cleaning and other
| staff?
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Cleaning and other staff for secure locations still get
| background checks, training, etc. extremely different
| situation than people off the street.
| simonh wrote:
| If it's a shared machine for projecting notes, chances are it
| has nothing stored locally.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Except cookies for a whole bunch of websites. Maybe even
| saved passwords in the browser, etc.
| the-dude wrote:
| Or everything from everybody.
|
| We just don't know.
| jspash wrote:
| 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...
| [deleted]
| edgyquant wrote:
| deep-state-war-plans.doc
| dylan604 wrote:
| opening this doc opens a video of a guy singing about
| never giving up
| [deleted]
| salawat wrote:
| That's why you jave to open deep-state-war-
| plans.doc:ze_real_plans
|
| Damn alternative data streams.
|
| Speaking of which, I always wondered why windows didn't
| make better use of those. Seems like it would cut down on
| the FS bloat.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > 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.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| If I had to bet:
|
| -- someone accidentally stored something
|
| -- that thing is no big deal, perhaps technically a secret
|
| -- people who get ahold of it and read it will make up
| conspiracy theories about it
| baldfat wrote:
| People who make up their truths that can't be disproven
| already have all that they need. a missing laptop.
| Joeri wrote:
| Honestly, those people didn't even need that. They need
| nothing founded in reality to make up their conspiracy
| theories, which is why no argument from reality can
| weaken them.
| romwell wrote:
| Behold the EVIDENCE of GREAT CONSPIRACY!
|
| Breaking! This below was found on Pelosi's laptop!
|
| -----====POWER POINT PRESENTATION====----
|
| ALL GOVERNMENT ARE PEDOPHILES EXCEPT TRUMP
|
| PROOF: CIA REPORT
| johnnyballgame wrote:
| Optimistic thinking. Chances are it has many PDF and
| PowerPoint files scattered on it. And probably a shared user
| account where the files fill up a Windows desktop.
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| That is so...
|
| ... realistic
| chasd00 wrote:
| yeah, i bet it has every presentation ever done sitting in
| good ol' ~/Documents or the desktop.
| Pokepokalypse wrote:
| almost certainly on a server hosting roaming profiles.
|
| And if not, then they should hire me and I'll set it up
| for them. :D
| cptskippy wrote:
| Does anyone use /Documents? That's just a folder where
| Apps like Acrobat put garbage files.
| chasd00 wrote:
| on my laptop that's the default when i do save-as. I see
| someone plugging in a jump drive, opening the
| presentation, and then doing a save-as to Documents so
| "it runs faster"
| paganel wrote:
| 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.
| jefft255 wrote:
| Well back in Win 98 I used "My documents" a lot ahah. Now
| on Windows 10 Documents/ is often automatically backed-up
| in Onedrive (it is for me) so I started using it for
| saving some documents that I want to back up in the
| cloud.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| Pelosi is old enough for typewriters being new technology,
| I don't trust in her having the hand over it personally.
|
| But after the number of big hacks in the last few years I'd
| hope the guys in charge of general security laid down some
| ground rules.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if Pelosi doesn't really use a
| computer much (at work), and to the extent that she does
| it is completely managed by her aides.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| Same chances are it has every presentation done in the last 5
| years copied to the desktop, in order to give presenters
| their USB sticks back.
| analog31 wrote:
| 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.
| rscho wrote:
| These folks are also among the most tech-unsavvy people on
| Earth...
| aggie wrote:
| This laptop is probably used by staffers in their 20s and
| 30s. It's not like Nancy Pelosi is administrating IT
| security.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| I don't think it's too much of a conspiracy theory to
| think that some foreign intelligence operative might have
| sensed a opportunity on Wednesday.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| 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 ...
| 83 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| traeregan wrote:
| Assuming this laptop is old enough to have been accessed as a
| part of the SolarWinds breach, it may have been pwned twice now.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I would assume they can wipe it remotely though no?
|
| I guess that would assume they connected to the internet though.
| nickik wrote:
| Trillion doller defense budget and then unarmed morrons simply
| walk into the office of the most powerful individuals in the
| country and take stuff and walk out.
|
| The level of stupidity and incompetence for this to happen is
| breath taking.
| DevX101 wrote:
| What's the protocol to secure all devices/network after incident
| like this week? Should all hardware left behind considered
| possibly compromised?
| TheCapn wrote:
| I was thinking even just merely about physical security while
| this was going on. One bad actor going from room to room
| planting listening devices would take a short bit to weed out
| no?
| yabones wrote:
| Once untrusted, never trusted.
|
| Everthing in that building that plugs into the wall should be
| discarded and with a known good device. That includes network
| infrastructure and even cabling.
|
| Between this and the recent SUNBURST fiasco, there are going to
| be some long discussions about security policy.
| CivBase wrote:
| I think that would be a good start. Then again, I also don't
| think it should have been so trivial for infiltrators to
| access content on congressional computing devices in the
| first place, even with physical access.
|
| I'm not sure about other devices in the building, but there's
| plenty of stuff going around about Pelosi's laptop in her
| office. Was it just left unlocked and unattended? Did it even
| have an OS password? If it did, was that password written
| down somewhere such that infiltrators could easily access it?
|
| Replacing all of the compromised tech is a good start, but
| clearly we need to hold our politicians to a higher standard
| when it comes to securing their devices.
| amenghra wrote:
| 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."
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| That actually sounds like a good idea anyway. There should be
| a full cleaning, de-bugging, and wipe every device on a
| regular basis.
| dhagz wrote:
| Every administration change, at a minimum.
| amenghra wrote:
| 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."
| tyre wrote:
| 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.
| saul_goodman wrote:
| Heh, congress doesn't write any legislation any more, that
| all happens on K-street now by lobbyists.
| [deleted]
| leke wrote:
| I hope they have some kind of tracking software on it that pings
| the location when it's on.
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| I can't wait to see what information was liberated by this orange
| revolution come home to roost.
|
| Not that it will slow down the corporate takeover, but it will be
| of historical interest.
| print_r wrote:
| The infosec aspect of this whole event has been fascinating to
| me. That tweet from that guy in Pelosi's office with the computer
| with her email open was pretty shocking. Every company I have
| ever worked for enforced the pc auto locking after 10 min or so
| of inactivity. Its unbelievable that the Capitol doesn't enforce
| this.
| [deleted]
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| This is nothing short of a national security incident.
| ljf wrote:
| How was every person leaving the building not searched by police
| as a condition of exit?
|
| The kettling and taking of details of (even peaceful) protesters
| in the UK is pretty standard now (I don't like it, but it is what
| seems to happen) - so why did they just let these people leave
| unchecked?
| hwillis wrote:
| Presumably the same reason police moved barricades, waved them
| in, and took selfies with them.
| californical wrote:
| 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 people getting hurt,
| and protected the politicians. Which is pretty good
| considering how few police there were.
|
| The main issue is why were there so few police there to begin
| with, so this could've been prevented in the first place.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| So pictures were taken in selfiedefence?
| function_seven wrote:
| A "tactical retreat" has always been a thing, but 2021
| brought us the new concept of a "tactical selfie".
|
| God help us all.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| They had no problem tear gassing protesters this summer
| even though they were outnumbered.
| californical wrote:
| 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.
| rco8786 wrote:
| The uh, selfie thing though..
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| Absolutely. Moreover, why are the Capitol Police Chiefs
| singled out? Could they have asked for, say, the National
| Guard? Were they supposed to go to the leaders of Congress
| the days before the certification to make it happen? I was
| always of the idea that federal authorities would be tasked
| with such planning, enrolling (among others) the Capitol
| Police.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Capitol Police got 2 200 officers.
| caminocorner wrote:
| > Could they have asked for, say, the National Guard?
|
| They declined the help, and that of the FBI
|
| https://apnews.com/article/capitol-police-reject-federal-
| hel...
| always_left wrote:
| With all the context the police got and repeatedly
| turning down help, at this point I think the extra
| support should be mandatory. He ordered guards for other
| protests but not this? We can't let the system protecting
| our government rely on one person's decision like that.
| It's so abhorrent it makes me paranoid thinking he was a
| part of it
| ezequiel-garzon wrote:
| Oh, that's... puzzling, then. Thanks for the source.
| raman325 wrote:
| Reportedly the Capitol Police turned down offers for help
| both before and during the event. Best source I could
| find: https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-nixed-
| fbi-natio...
|
| EDIT: The other comment has a better source
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| 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.
| whytaka wrote:
| I don't recall the Tiananmen Square student protestors
| storming the National People's Congress.
|
| Also, these insurrectionists were armed with bombs and
| had planned on taking hostages as pictures show.
| californical wrote:
| Lol no of course not. They tried to use force to
| terrorize the US government, so they could get their way.
| But they should be stopped with the minimum necessary
| force to prevent harm to others.
|
| So I think the individual police officers (mostly) acted
| appropriately for the situation. The police
| organization's planning was beyond negligent though.
|
| You make a good point about some people's response -- the
| insanity caused by polarization clearly goes both ways,
| if there's people saying everyone should've been shot.
| I'm kind of surprised more people weren't shot though
| tbh. I always thought there were snipers and armed guards
| ready 24/7 around that whole area
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| "if they are terrorists"
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| It was also pretty standard for the Black Lives Matter protests
| in DC earlier this year.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Realistically, it was a chaotic situation. I can only imagine
| it would be easy to slip into the crowd during the pandemonium.
| snoshy wrote:
| Clearly the police were outnumbered to a degree that they
| couldn't prevent them from getting inside in the first place,
| so why would they have sufficient forces to search these
| individuals on exit?
| [deleted]
| hilbertseries wrote:
| Because hundreds of additional police officers and members of
| the national guard arrived in order to secure the building?
| dylan604 wrote:
| They were clearly outnumbered, so we're supposed to believe
| they were not "afraid for their safety" from an angry mob,
| but yet they can use that defense when a single indvidual
| that happens to be not-white confronts them? Please
| tt433 wrote:
| Didn't fit the perp profile police expect (race)
| calmbeluga54 wrote:
| Are you suggesting that the profile for hackers isn't "white
| male"? Or are you just trying to ham-fist "cops are racist"
| into the convo?
| wonnage wrote:
| you missed the part where the cops let them in and took
| selfies
| kube-system wrote:
| > How was every person leaving the building not searched by
| police as a condition of exit?
|
| The same reason they weren't searched on the way in. It was a
| security failure.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| They'd have needed two perimeters: inner, keeping the mob out
| of buildings, plus outer, to enforce search.
|
| Way beyond their organizational readiness at the time.
| hikerclimber wrote:
| good. I hope it had classified materials.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Storming? Let's not get ahead ourselves here. The capitol police
| literally opened the door and let them inside:
|
| https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1347615270504955904...
|
| Which explains this hilarious picture of a 70-year old grandma
| "coup plotter" posing with coffee mug.
|
| https://twitter.com/TheRealEWILLZ/status/1346999976899932161...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| doomslice wrote:
| Maybe this will change your mind:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20m04s&v=cJOgGsC0G9U
| nomel wrote:
| It appears that one long squirt of pepper spray broke up that
| situation.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I admire the restraint on display here, but if even one of
| those guys had been black, the cops would have iced every one
| of them. Imagine someone grabbing a cop's gas mask at a BLM
| march and not being dead 2 seconds later.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| There is video of DC police putting a bit of stick about
| later after the curfew
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Strongly disagree I firmly believe the reason the police
| held back so much was the number of guns in the crowd. They
| want to make it home at the end of the day too.
| rlt wrote:
| Are you aware an unarmed white woman was shot and killed by
| police at the capitol that day?
|
| Yes, on average black folks are treated more unfairly than
| white folks by police, but exaggerated claims like "the
| cops would have iced every one of them" help no one.
| rtkwe wrote:
| She was climbing through a barricaded door through a
| broken window with a person with a drawn gun on the other
| side protecting who knows who, armed or not the outcome
| was kind of a given when she decided that was a good
| idea. Not the best comparison to put up against the
| treatment of BLM protestors throughout the year.
| LargeWu wrote:
| There was at least one person near her in the video of
| that women getting shot who was clearly armed with an
| assault rifle. She may have been unarmed but was storming
| the chamber with other armed people. The security on the
| other side had good reason to believe she was a dangerous
| threat.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The guy with a carbine in the video is a police tactical
| officer. The main question about this scene is not why
| the secret service officer shot the woman who defied a
| lawful order by entering the chambers through a broken
| window and over the top of a barricade. The question is
| why she hadn't been shot long before.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| There is no such thing as an 'assault rifle'. It is a
| made up term.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If you're going to operate at the intersection of gun
| nuttery and prescriptive English usage, it would help you
| to be right. The US Army "Small Arms Identification
| Guide" defined the term at least 50 years ago.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190904213732/http://031d26d
| .na...
| CyanBird wrote:
| Sad to see moderators not delete these kind of useless
| uninformed messages as they used to do just couple years
| ago
| rlt wrote:
| > treatment of BLM protestors
|
| How many BLM protestors were shot and killed by police?
|
| I'm genuinely curious, as I'm not aware of any.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I'm going to assume your question is in good faith, and
| try to provide a factual set of people who died (that I'm
| aware of).
|
| * Sarah Grossman was pepper-sprayed at a demonstration
| and later died in the hospital from acute respiratory
| issues.
|
| * David McAtee was fatally shot by police at a protest :
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/louisville-protests-
| man-sh...
|
| * Sean Monterossa was killed while kneeling with hands
| raised when shot to death by police because they mistook
| a hammer in his pocket for a gun.
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Attorney-
| identifie...
|
| * Aubreana Inda was sent into cardiac arrest, 'dying'
| three times, after being shot in the chest.
| https://www.kuow.org/stories/this-26-year-old-died-three-
| tim...
|
| There are countless incident reports of 'less lethal'
| ammunition being aimed at faces. Less lethal is still
| lethal. This woman was placed into a medically induced
| coma:
| https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2020/06/02/family-of-
| woman...
|
| And several incidents of police using their vehicles or
| horses to ram, trample, or assault people (e.g. by
| opening a car door to hit protestors as they drove by).
| Those could easily have been lethal, though they weren't
| in this case.
|
| Edit: I know this is all super polarizing stuff, but I'm
| trying to provide a specific and direct answer to the
| question above.
| jeffbee wrote:
| LAPD shot a man named CJ Montano in the head with a 40mm
| foam round. He was standing with his hands up in the
| middle of the road when they shot him.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Yeah, I tried to not list too many events that 'only'
| resulted in maiming, loss of sight, or permanent injury,
| because the parent poster specifically called out deaths.
| But yes, there were many incidents like you described
| where the police _clearly_ used force in potentially
| lethal ways.
| stagger87 wrote:
| Hyperbole, this kind of stuff happened all the time at BLM
| protests. There is literally hundreds of videos of this
| stuff. No one was getting 'iced'.
| TT3351 wrote:
| Were they enforcing arbitrary curfews and trying to
| incite their own police riots or defending VIPs? Police
| seem to choose to escalate only when faced with certain
| groups.
| [deleted]
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| No, it's not hyperbole. I was at the Portland protests
| this summer, and nothing even close to this happened.
| They'd have gone to mass use of tear gas and less lethal
| munitions long before that point, and if by some
| improbable chance a context like the above video push
| into a building arose, there's no question in my mind the
| CBP and related agency unmarked officers would have just
| straight up opened fire.
|
| There _are_ two standards at work in how protests are
| treated. This is a factual matter, not an opinion. It
| doesn 't mean every protester on the left is a blameless,
| as obviously that's a straw man position on its face. But
| the disparity in how violence is used, and in particular
| how early its used is very clear. You can't just handwave
| that away. Likewise you can't handwave away that showing
| up with military style gear and loaded firearms is a
| defining feature of right wing protests that is not
| duplicated on the left.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Kindly produce a link to a video where someone at a BLM
| protest grabs and removes a police officer's gas mask.
| stagger87 wrote:
| Sure, I'll do you one better, a video of someone throwing
| an explosive at a group police without anyone getting
| shot. We can agree that is more serious than pulling down
| a mask on a riot line?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/i
| yzf...
|
| I'll be honest, I only linked this because it was the
| first of dozens of videos of assaults on police during
| recent protests that came up in a 3 second Google search
| (that don't end any one getting 'iced'). I don't feel
| like watching hours of footage to find the specific
| action you called out. I doubt you will either because
| that wouldn't support your rhetoric.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending any political side
| here, I'm simply dismissing your baseless claim.
| guilhas wrote:
| It does not. Only shows the security had everything under
| control and only let them in specific areas
|
| Also the protesters look pretty tame. Looks more like the
| crowd at a festival pushing each other.
| vernie wrote:
| 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.
| swebs wrote:
| The police shot and killed an unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55581206
| Pfhreak wrote:
| 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.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| FiveThirtyEight recently covered a study that does indicate
| police _have always been issuing a lighter touch to alt-
| right /conservative movements_.
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-
| respo...
| TT3351 wrote:
| Armed terrorists in MI invaded the state Capitol in May,
| before the murder of George Floyd. Police there took a
| similar hands off strategy. Are you being facetious?
| vernie wrote:
| Yes, of course I am.
| compscistd wrote:
| Because someone on the inside opened the door and let them in,
| it's not "storming"? Those Twitter comments are all suggesting
| this was a setup, but the more likely scenario is that most of
| those that should be serving as police either were sympathetic
| to today's right wing rhetoric or weren't prepared for a mess
| of people. What were they supposed to do at the point of this
| video? Pull out their guns and escalate the situation?
|
| People died anyway.
| kolbe wrote:
| When they let you walk in quietly, yeah. You can stretch
| language all you want until it has no meaning, but "storming"
| has a definition, and it isn't "people I don't like went
| somewhere I didn't want them to go." u/doomslice did post an
| example of something that would be considered "storming."
|
| https://www.thefreedictionary.com/storming
|
| 5. A violent disturbance or upheaval, as in political,
| social, or domestic affairs: a storm of protest.
|
| 6. A violent, sudden attack on a fortified place.
| evan_ wrote:
| Why not post the verb definitions directly below the noun
| definitions you posted? 1. To assault or
| capture suddenly: The troops stormed the fortress. See
| Synonyms at attack. 2. To travel around (a place)
| vigorously in an attempt to gain support: The candidates
| stormed the country. 3. To shout angrily: "Never!"
| she stormed.
|
| Even if you're pretending that there was no violence in the
| event that left 5 people dead and many more hospitalized,
| those all apply.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| > People died anyway.
|
| Same happened at CHAZ, a couple black kids got killed by some
| nutjob police LARPers.
|
| I don't recall a big hubbub blaming left wing rhetoric or
| arguing for the immediate destruction and disbanding of the
| autonomous zones. I remember an absolute heartbreaking
| interview with the kid's father.
|
| There was no interest for the BLM crowd to hold their own
| accountable.
| hilbertseries wrote:
| Are we really sitting here comparing storming the capitol
| building and interrupting the certification of the
| electoral vote, to CHAZ? Pipe bombs were placed in capital
| buildings, the insurrectionists were armed and had zip
| ties. Five people died as a result of these actions. The
| idea that this is at all comparable to CHAZ, is ridiculous.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| > Five people died as a result of these actions.
|
| I can guarantee more died as a direct result of BLM
| "protests" in 2020.
|
| Nevermind billions of dollars of damage that fell on the
| shoulders of minority and lower class communities.
|
| I have a hard time imagining that someone concerned about
| insurrection would unabashedly gloss over CHAZ/CHOP as
| though it's not a cut-and-dry act of secession.
|
| I guess you support secession.
| hilbertseries wrote:
| I don't support CHAZ and I never said I did. Claiming to
| secede for a couple of blocks in a neighborhood in
| Seattle, is incredibly stupid and dangerous.
|
| My point here is the scope of things, armed
| insurrectionists stormed the capitol building. Three pipe
| bombs were recovered and disarmed. What do you think
| would have happened if the person who laid the pipe bombs
| had gotten to Nancy Pelosi? Further the President of the
| united states was pleased by these actions and told them
| he loved them. He refused to call the national guard and
| the department of defense initially refused several
| requests. Somehow, the VP who doesn't have the authority
| to, called in the national guard. CHAZ was not supported
| or incited by Joe Biden. And CHAZ did not threaten our
| democracy or interrupt the democratic process.
| gnusty_gnurc wrote:
| > My point here is the scope of things
|
| My point is the scope of things too.
|
| There was complete chaos across the country last year.
|
| With many reminiscent if not _worse_ scenes of complete
| disregard for public spaces and institutions.
|
| The media was practically giddy about justifications of
| why we shouldn't be opposing the destruction of statues
| of the founding fathers. Freaking abolitionist statues
| were targeted.
|
| There is unquestionably more total damage, building
| burned to the ground, etc from what happened last year.
|
| I'm not saying what occurred at the Capitol is to be
| dismissed - quite the contrary. What I'm saying is that
| it's like one half of the country just woke up to the
| idea that mass political violence and bedlam should be
| denounced.
| foobarbaz989812 wrote:
| How are you conscionably comparing the treatment of
| public spaces vs the attempted physical violence against
| democratically elected representatives carrying out their
| statutory duty? Are you just a total idiot or a neo-nazi?
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| Just to be clear, there are longer videos of the event that
| show people banging doors down. I watched a live stream from
| one of the people upfront - some cops gave up after
| overwhelmed, and some even fraternized with people, but it was
| a confrontation to be clear. I encourage you to look up full
| livestreams of it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Just evidence that some police officers should go to prison for
| this.
| briankelly wrote:
| A Capitol police officer died from injuries during attempts to
| control the mob.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Myself, I would be more worried about any keyloggers, or
| wifi/cell interception, "man-in-the-middle" devices being left
| behind...
| Bedon292 wrote:
| While not congress, so I can't say for sure, I have been around
| government and other enterprise systems. Some measures they had
| in place:
|
| - Disabled USB Ports (except whitelisted peripherals)
|
| - User accounts don't have permission to install anything at
| all
|
| - If you plug a deceive with a different mac address than
| expected into an ethernet port the port locks down until a
| sysadmin verifies it and manually unlocks it
|
| - Remote imaging of systems, including remote system
| verification
|
| - No wifi on actual network
|
| While its all a pain in the ass to deal with. Hopefully at
| least some of that is in place and reduces the likelihood of
| many of those issues.
| dmurray wrote:
| > If you plug a deceive with a different mac address than
| expected into an ethernet port the port locks down until a
| sysadmin verifies it and manually unlocks it
|
| Reckon they'd immediately block this laptop's MAC address
| after it gets reported stolen? If not, that's reason enough
| to steal it - clone the MAC address and plug in your own
| device which is now whitelisted. Of course this isn't enough
| on its own and you likely need some compromised credentials
| too.
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Probably would remove it as soon as its reported yes. Even
| if they didn't you would still have to take the device back
| in the building to that same exact port to connect.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Probably (let's hope - but, if I have seen anything in the
| last 4-years, it has been a constant, non-stop erosion of
| competency in the US government) - and, most likely the
| insurgents just didn't plan anything "long-term" or tricky.
|
| Question though... Don't hardware-based keyloggers present as
| a "keyboard", and isn't that a generic device which would
| probably be whitelisted?
| Bedon292 wrote:
| Definitely possible, nothing is perfect. Just Lots of
| things that make it harder, but not impossible, to do bad
| stuff. Some places still use PS/2 devices for those
| peripherals as well, though that's much less common these
| days.
|
| Was curious, looks like there are a lot of pass through USB
| keyloggers that probably show up like the original
| whitelisted device. So definitely a risk there. I know I
| would want every single device there manually looked over,
| but I don't know how long that would take with a likely
| pretty limited staff.
| pkrznaric wrote:
| At my old job, even if you plugged a generic keyboard that
| you'd already been using with the computer into the wrong
| USB port it wouldn't work. I believe you can set this stuff
| all up to be looking for very specific pieces of hardware
| on specific USB ports.
| emayljames wrote:
| I know someone who had their government laptop taken from them
| (then they came back with it), when going through customs of
| another country. The first thing their bosses told them was _do
| not turn it on_. The laptop had very sophisticated encryption
| and I would assume they just straight out destroyed it. They
| got an exact replacement.
| csense wrote:
| If this is how Uncle Sam reacts to one of his laptops being
| "borrowed" at foreign customs, why does he expect civilians
| to simply accept the situation when their laptops are
| "borrowed" at US customs?
| Yajirobe wrote:
| did you see the photos of the rioters? Do you really believe
| they are that tech-savy?
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Probably not, they planned all of this on open
| sites/forums/social-media platforms, so they are not the
| smartest people...
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| One or two hiding in the crowd could be enough. I wouldn't be
| surprised if there was at least one spy from some adversarial
| nation.
|
| From a security perspective, I think they will need to assume
| everything is potentially compromised and go from there.
| Remote wipe, scan for microphones and cameras, etc.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Do you often judge people by their appearances ?
| eftychis wrote:
| 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.
| impartial-word wrote:
| It happened in Russia, when KGB agents got access to the US
| embassy as firemen during an actual fire
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-
| xpm-1991-05-01-mn-1029-s...
| asdff wrote:
| It happened in east germany when western intellegence
| agents were the some of the first to enter the Stasi hq
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I saw highly compensated business owners, lawyers, and IT
| professionals in the mob.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| It was apparently stolen from a conference room and used only for
| presentations. Still a bad look for Capitol Police and physical
| security operations.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Snowden's leaks were largely NSA presentation materials. Not
| implying that Pelosi had TSCI/noforn materials but just saying,
| being used as presentation doesn't mean much. Especially if
| it's connected to internal networks.
| nikolaj wrote:
| I can't even count the number of times I have seen privileged
| information dropped onto a "presentation" laptop during a
| meeting. I hope they are better at controlling that than most.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Let's hope the drive is encrypted and that it has a half
| decent boot password on it.
| jmt_ wrote:
| Yep, plus the configuration of the laptop could possibly be
| of value. Depending on how it's setup, you could see the AD
| domain name, naming pattern of usernames and domain
| computers, setup and names of network drives, group policy
| settings, etc. Nothing too crazy on its own but could help
| facilitate a larger breach. Having a portable computer that's
| already configured to connect to the network you want to
| breach is possibly pretty useful.
| ascales wrote:
| Clearly a big deal and congressional IT staff are going to have a
| crazy few weeks ahead of them. However, my understanding is that
| any classified information would have to be in a SCIF. I assume
| that would be the case with congresspeople as well. I've also
| heard that the congressional paging system locks devices when an
| emergency is announced, but haven't seen that corroborated
| anywhere. Anyone know if that's true?
| Balgair wrote:
| The other issues is what "Thing" was _left behind_ in the
| Capitol.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%...
|
| Imagine something like 'The Thing' but with ~75 years of
| technological advancement.
|
| The Capitol is going to need to be cleaned for such devices and
| equipment for a _long_ time before it can be considered secure
| again.
|
| On the flip side, any devices that may be found are likely to
| be close to the latest models, and like with project SATYR, the
| US may have a potential goldmine of new tech in the coming
| years.
|
| EDIT: Combined with the recent hacking of the US, the synergy
| of having _physical_ access creates a load of headaches and
| nightmares. If I were in the federal information security space
| I would be _very_ interested in visa and flight logs in and out
| of the US right now.
| yuliyp wrote:
| There are lots of different levels of classification. Not all
| interaction with all classified information needs to happen in
| a SCIF.
| Pils wrote:
| Plus, classification is reserved for government documents,
| right? If someone's goal was to specifically expose "DNC
| secrets," a la Watergate, the most damaging information would
| likely not be "classified" in the formal sense of the word.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| What is a "SCIF"?
| eunos wrote:
| Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Inform...
| jw887c wrote:
| Special room for classified stuff. Even once you're inside
| the classified room (usually windowless and behind a locked
| keypad) a lot of stuff is also behind locked filing cabinets.
| tsomctl wrote:
| Counter evidence: the protesters were saying that they saw
| computers unlocked with email still open.
| shakezula wrote:
| Uhh yeah, probably because the congresspeople were evacuated
| in a hurry because there was an angry mob storming their
| building?
| jldugger wrote:
| At least where I work, we're required to configure
| computers to lock after 10 minutes of inactivity.
| boringg wrote:
| Sadly 10 minutes probably not enough time in this case if
| they had that security feature on.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| It takes less than one second to press Windows+L. Certainly
| they could have accomplished that as they got up from their
| seats.
| Pryde wrote:
| I mean, sure, they had time. But clarity of mind during
| an evacuation is something I imagine is _hard_ for most
| people. Definitely would be for me.
| tsomctl wrote:
| I was providing counter evidence to:
|
| > I've also heard that the congressional paging system
| locks devices when an emergency is announced
|
| If computers locked automatically when an emergency is
| announced, it doesn't matter if the staffers evacuated
| quickly.
| jnwatson wrote:
| Only DoD Top Secret data must be stored in a SCIF.
| natas wrote:
| I hope it didn't run solarwinds!
| OnlyRepliesToBS wrote:
| we need sweeping legislation without time to think about it
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Those computers are supposed to have disk encryption and MFA. If
| not someone is in hot water.
| OpuRahman wrote:
| Everything is now becomes as conspiracy theory but the reality is
| different.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| Truly a nightmare situation. I really hope they have a solid
| means to recover the stolen assets. Does anyone have insight into
| what types of tracking high level government laptops would have?
| dboreham wrote:
| Not really a nightmare when any janitor or cleaner could have
| stolen the same laptop.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| Not just the laptop. Access to offices and assets, potential
| for network security issues, the whole things is a nightmare.
|
| Edit: Do you people not understand physical security of
| network assets?
| wxnx wrote:
| That may or may not be true, but I feel it's worth mentioning
| that often those individuals need some level of security
| clearance. See listings on job boards for janitorial
| staff/etc. that require security clearance (often at private
| corporations, like defence contractors, but I see no reason
| why it wouldn't extend to public employment i.e. at the
| Capitol).
| joana035 wrote:
| I know thinkpads has "computrace" in the BIOS, but alongside
| with intel ME, perhaps the device can be, at least, erased.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| If the thieves are competent then the laptop already has the
| wifi antenna removed and the drive taken out.
| bargl wrote:
| No shit something got stolen.
|
| You can't have that kind of insanity inside of a workplace and
| expect to secure every device. There are multiple layers of
| security for the congress people, and many of them were
| exploited. They don't practice putting on masks and running their
| asses out of a building. I'm sure every staffer was thinking,
| "Did I get everything that needs to be secured?". No they were
| thinking, "I'm getting the hell out of here." Especially if they
| weren't part of the tribe storming the castle, (aka a Democrat).
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