D.B. Hebbard reports:
If WikiLeaks wanted to cause itself irreparable damage, it could not have done worse than to publish a huge dump of emails, some of which contain personal information such as passport or social security numbers, or credit card information.
The organization, which usually gets support from the tech and liberal media, is getting hammered for its poor judgement. Also, the source of the emails is also controversial as the hack may involve a Russian hacker.
The 19,252 emails come from the in-boxes of seven DNC employees, including Communications Director Luis Miranda and National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan, but a search of several known names deeper inside the organization turned up nothing (which show you just how easy it is to run up the number of emails coming and going through an organization).
Read more on PoliMedia. As Mike Wehner succinctly describes on the Daily Dot:
Most of the donor notifications includes the name, address, phone number, email address, occupation, payment type, and partial account numbers of the donor. The emails even include the IP address that the donation was sent from, along with the type of computer and browser that was being used at the time.
The source being a Russian hacker wouldn’t concern me, but the dumping of data without screening to redact some PII does, and this is not the first time WikiLeaks has done this. We saw it with Sony hack email dump, and we’ve seen it with other data dumps.
I understand that there are those who want to get stolen or hacked data of political import out there. But perhaps they might consider using a more responsible organization and system such as REVEAL (formerly known as the Center for Investigative Reporting).
More for me, it’s ANOTHER hack, leak in our country’s political system. One has to question or wonder why Russian hacker is (if their government is involved). One has to question why several Democrat representatives were shut down by a hacker. One can even argue about Clintons email being hacked too, since it was also done by the same who hacked Bush and Cheney. (But that one is eh. Guccifer is an interesting case study)
Too many hacks into political system so close to one of the craziest Presidential elections in history. One makes you wonder if it is all related. I don’t be surprised if we are a laughing stock across the world.
A “Russian hacker” is not necessarily a state actor, as you seem to realize. And yeah, there are a lot of politically motivated hacks – but all over, if you think of the recent hack of Erdogan’s emails, the Polish Ministry of Defense hack, and hacks of other countries’ governments, too.
Would the Daily Dot call it a “misstep” if it didn’t involve Democrats?
“Misstep” wasn’t from the Daily Dot’s headline. That was in PoliMedia’s headline. The Daily Dot’s headline was:
“Wikileaks DNC dump includes hundreds of credit card, Social Security numbers from donors.”
What those countries all have in common, people who want to expose something that is not servicing their people at all, corruption, money, stacking the odds against one Candidate.
And who really knows who is actually responsible for the DNC leak, lone wolf or government. I wouldn’t put it past their government though.
I tried looking to see if my information is up there. Did they block it out? Can’t find anything
I do not get it. I mean, the data has been stolen, was maybe sold in the underground for months or available on some .onion site. So now if Wikileaks would have redacted all the information, that means it would be okay, no reason to worry? Nobody needs to change something or request a new credit card?
You have two high value targets in the campaign who are worth billions of dollars. They have failed to plan properly for this ruin (or run) to the presidency. If they had “smart planners” they could have looked forward – even if it was for a day, to see the possibilities out there that might hurt their chances at a win. Data leaks and hacks are now for more fun than profit.
The candidates should have protected themselves a lot more by standing up their network security and security awareness. All the network security incidents could have been thwarted by hiring a consulting team to do some penetration testing on the networks. Spending a lump of cash in advance could have saved them hundreds of thousands of voters and ten times that in revenue.
When a higher government official tells the FBI to sign Non disclosure agreements so they have to be tight lipped on the clinton email subject, I am sure there are hackers who want to know exactly what went on. That clinton server was probably wide open for all to view, and the current democratic “covertment” does not america to know how bad she violated the law. She SHOULD be prosecuted. “Spies” and “normal” people went to prison for less. But since she is “special” she is acting above the law. Call her Pompous, untouchable, a president’s pet or other wise, its a freaking shame that the DNC has nothing better to offer.
This “breach /data leak /hack” is against clinton and what is left to her reputation. Its showing that the DNC does not care about security in general, and they are always willing to take the cash and do as they please. It’s a freaking shame, but that is business as usual.
More data was leaked by Wiki Leaks yesterday by Assange who now released audio recordings with actual phone numbers in the content. I wish someone can stop Assange and get him on not redacting PII.
In response to anonymous, I dont think the DNC does not care about security. I think it is more in hindsight, it really needed to be this way to protect our database server. If anything, they really should have learned their lesson back in December when their server had a glitch, when Sanders campaign employees looked at the Clinton database information. That should have been their first clue to fix the problems with their server.
Is it okay if I use this link and your related posts for a blog post I am working on? Too many people I know are writing this off, so what big deal. Its just a bunch of emails. I am working on something on my end here. Thanks
You are always free to link. No permission is ever required.
was just double clarifying, just in case. Thanks. I need to make a strong case.