Iran-linked hackers have breached FBI director's personal emails
148 points
3 hours ago
| 16 comments
| cnn.com
| HN
fmajid
1 hour ago
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GMail, like Apple, has specific enhanced security programs available for Politically Exposed Persons:

https://landing.google.com/intl/en_in/advancedprotection/

The fact the Director of the FBI did not avail himself of this just reiterates how incompetent he is, in addition to being corrupt as heck.

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billfor
31 minutes ago
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Read the article he wasn't the director of the FBI: "The stolen emails appear to date from around 2011 to 2022"
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hughw
28 minutes ago
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He's had over a year to enable it.
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kevin_thibedeau
1 hour ago
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It's possible it was breached in 2022 and they've held on to it until now.
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ab_testing
27 minutes ago
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Was that landing page written by Google India team !
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connorgurney
25 minutes ago
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Not sure what difference the nationality of the copywriters makes…
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bedatadriven
10 minutes ago
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Uh yeah, the locale in the link is specifically an Indian locale. If you find it it disorienting you can change en_in to en_us:

https://landing.google.com/intl/en_us/advancedprotection/

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thaumasiotes
12 minutes ago
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Well, it was written to target Indian English. You can find the American version of the page at https://landing.google.com/intl/en_us/advancedprotection/ .
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Betelbuddy
1 hour ago
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It would be poetic justice to get the unredacted Epstein files via Iran...
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nullable_bool
2 hours ago
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Gone are the days of the strong silent type running the roles of high power in the government. He is a real embarrassment and I feel sorry for his mother.
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BigTTYGothGF
1 hour ago
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> Gone are the days of the strong silent type running the roles of high power in the government

What, like J.Edgar?

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snovymgodym
1 hour ago
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> I feel sorry for his mother.

In all likelihood his upbringing is what made him this way.

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acuozzo
16 minutes ago
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You think so? Peers, in my experience, have an even greater impact, especially between the ages of 10 and 25.
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TheGRS
1 hour ago
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Gone only because current leadership kicked them all to the curb and told them to get out of Washington. Only loyal talking heads are wanted there now.
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paxys
1 hour ago
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The strong silent types were all fired for being "woke". We collectively decided that incompetence should be the top qualification for all positions of power, and the results are obvious.
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paxys
1 hour ago
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I feel like sending phishing emails for penis enlargement pills would take down half the current administration.
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penguin_booze
1 hour ago
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I know someone who will be interested in bigger hands--big beautiful hands.
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Muhammad523
1 hour ago
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I must say, i'd prefer if my hands remained the same size they are now. I dont want to lose my dexterity. Slightly offtopic
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disantlor
1 hour ago
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worth a try
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mplanchard
2 hours ago
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FlamingMoe
2 hours ago
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Interesting comment: "if Iran ends up responsible for regime change in the US, i will be overjoyed as i die from irony"
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pogue
53 minutes ago
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Anybody dug through it yet?
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smrtinsert
2 hours ago
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Is it legal to download something like this?
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paxys
2 hours ago
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Legal or illegal doesn't really matter. If the regime wants to come for you they will.
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fluidcruft
1 hour ago
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You can't prove you didn't (and the fuzz will produce evidence you did).
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kaliqt
26 minutes ago
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Legality matters now least of all to either side.
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Muhammad523
1 hour ago
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I dont know. I think downloading it with Tor would make it almost impossible to find out you downloaded this stuff anyway.
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7174n6
2 hours ago
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I'm sure it will be embarrassing for him personally, but not a breach of U.S. government systems.

Kudos to CNN for publishing a balanced take on it.

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ebiester
2 hours ago
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These are a group that used outside signal chats to discuss war plans. What odds do you have that he didn't use a personal email to avoid future accountability?
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hnlmorg
49 minutes ago
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That’s depressingly common with politicians the world over because Signal supports disappearing messages.

So I wouldn’t expect someone who uses Signal to automatically be the kind of person to use personal email for work.

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SirFatty
2 hours ago
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You're assuming that he didn't use personal email for his FBI "work".
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7174n6
2 hours ago
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The leak is from 2011-2022. He wasn't in the government then!!!!
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awkwardpotato
1 hour ago
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per Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

> In some cases, Patel appears to have sent emails from his former Justice Department email address in 2014 to his Gmail account. TechCrunch found that the emails sent from Patel’s DOJ account also appeared to be authentic.

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phonon
2 hours ago
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Are you kidding? He had extremely sensitive roles as Devin Nunes' House committee aide from 2017–2019 in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, National Security Council aide and deputy director of national intelligence (2019–2020), and then Chief of staff to the secretary of defense (2020–2021).
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enoint
1 hour ago
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I wonder how much of 2021. Two FBI agents reported that he was the bag man for payments to alter Jan 6 cases.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/us/politics/house-weaponi...

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Hikikomori
1 hour ago
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Muhammad523
1 hour ago
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What a weird looking book. The cover shows Trump as the king, lol Anyways, if i were a parent, i'd certainly try to do everything to prevent my kids (under 10) from getting into politics. Let them live as normal kids should.
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athrowaway3z
54 minutes ago
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The US media has a clear understanding that their reporting on the war needs to be filtered and biased. This is not some coming-to-their-senses against sensationalism, but a nothingburger they know they can't sensationalize without great risk.

As is the case in any administration; let alone with an admin as vindictive as Trump's.

This "balanced take" warrants kudos?

We're not even pretending to lift the bar off the ground when it comes to mainstream media, are we?

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caaqil
26 minutes ago
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If you read the news with enough cynicism, you'll realize that rules like formality, password strength or cybersecurity hygiene are for the average Joes, not the morons/perverts who run the world.
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b8
2 hours ago
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Not surprising as email providers like Yahoo's security are a joke. A former CIA director got his personal emailed pwned as well.
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pixl97
2 hours ago
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>“This isn’t an FBI compromise — it’s someone’s personal junk drawer,” he said.

Eh, with how many people in the current administration seem to use out of band channels to communicate very important things who knows what else they located.

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ranyume
2 hours ago
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This isn’t a written by a human — it's a AI-accelerated piece.
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Spellinator
1 hour ago
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As if this is the first time this has ever happened.

How many former officials used personal accounts about government business?

How many corporate executives communicate business via personal accounts to avoid legal discovery?

How many individuals communicate outside their main email accounts to avoid scrutiny or attribution?

Point is, nobody should feel superior or shocked that such things like this happen. I understand some enjoy the privacy of their perceived enemies being exposed, but IMHO, nobody should be happy about invasion of anyone's privacy.

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sirbutters
2 hours ago
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Most incompetent administration in the modern era.
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helterskelter
2 hours ago
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Think about it this way, this administration is the most competent administraion we've ever had at being incompetent.
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Muhammad523
58 minutes ago
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I dont know why your comment got grayed out but it made me smile.
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griffzhowl
2 hours ago
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But just a personal account with materials reportedly from 2011-2022, not an FBI breach
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ChrisArchitect
2 hours ago
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morkalork
2 hours ago
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No worries. As long as rigorous due diligence was followed when vetting him as a candidate, there will surely be nothing embarrassing or harmful found in his personal emails.
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ck2
2 hours ago
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I'm sorry but nothing can ever be more embarrassing for that man who wrote this book to get that job

https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...

What an absolute clown

But far more seriously, imagine the danger he has put this country into by firing so many critical people, some specifically and uniquely for Iran and Middle-East defense

Let's hope we don't get another 9/11 in the next 1000 days because they are completely unprepared and won't ever see it coming, maybe even on purpose

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autoexec
2 hours ago
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> Let's hope we don't get another 9/11 in the next 1000 days because they are completely unprepared and won't ever see it coming, maybe even on purpose

Why would anyone bother to attack us now? This entire administration has done more to make The US weak and vulnerable than any outside attacker could have hoped to accomplish. They can just sit back and watch rome burn

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gverrilla
19 minutes ago
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> Why would anyone bother to attack us now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

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Oarch
2 hours ago
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How am I only finding out about this now... my sides
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BenFranklin100
1 hour ago
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I’m surprised no group has hacked the Epstein files, given the extreme interest.
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jameskilton
2 hours ago
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But ... but her emails!
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Levitz
2 hours ago
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I mean, yes? You can give whatever weight you want to the whole thing, but the core issue with Hillary Clinton and the emails was that she was storing material on a private server rather than in official infrastructure.

If Patel didn't do such thing here, the breach should only expose personal stuff, if he did, then it's much more of a problem, but either way this is a really clear example of why concern was raised back at the time.

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joe_mamba
2 hours ago
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Did they find those non-existent Epstein files?

@vrganj No, the opposite. The Trump admin with Kash Patel, was claiming early on that the Epstein files are a hoax, that he's seen the files personally and there's "nothing there".

@vrganj It makes sense if you know the context.

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vrganj
2 hours ago
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Is that the latest spin to defend the pedophile class?

I see you updated your comment, but in a way that doesn't make any sense. Of course the pedophiles in the files will say it's a hoax.

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bigyabai
1 hour ago
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The DOJ acknowledges that over 100,000 files are still withheld.
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dyauspitr
2 hours ago
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He absolutely uses his personal email for all sorts of sensitive stuff. I guarantee it. It seems to be a constant with this administration, just a slow decline into incompetence.
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akdev1l
2 hours ago
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>just a slow decline into incompetence.

Give them some credit, it’s been quite rapid.

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chrisweekly
1 hour ago
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when were they anything other than incompetent?
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Tostino
2 hours ago
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This was an extremely limited leak. Just looked through the zip. I wouldn't doubt he does use his personal email for government purposes, but it's not in here.
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knowaveragejoe
2 hours ago
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Remember when that was considered an actual issue in 2016? I remember congressional hearings over this.
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e2le
2 hours ago
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For those who decried Hillary's E-Mail server but fail to apply the same standards to the current administration, it was never a real issue to begin with. Just performative nonsense.
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add-sub-mul-div
2 hours ago
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And it's not a coincidence that they're also the ones who shout about "meritocracy" the loudest.
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