# Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians, according to US officials **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799 "2017-03-23T00:28:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/61 "2017-03-27T17:37:24Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > No. What he was saying (and even that was in jest) was if the Russians already have the 30,000 “deleted” emails, then they would be richly rewarded by the press if they gave it to them. > > That’s not an invitation to hack (as if hackers need invitations, anyway). It’s an invitation to interfere with the election process, which is a serious problem, and still can qualify as collusion. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/62 "2017-03-27T17:38:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Granted on the physical possession thing. There’s no question that forensics isn’t really possible otherwise, and this would require subpoenaing the drive(s) in question. Unless, of course, the emails were on public servers, which would be the case as I understand it with some of Podesta’s but not Hillary’s. > > Short of physical destruction of the drive, your first point is incorrect. The more the data is overwritten the more difficult it _can_ be to recover data, but it’s still by no means impossible. FBI’s experts are incompetent then. 'Cuz they couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/63 "2017-03-27T17:43:57Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > FBI’s experts are incompetent then. 'Cuz they couldn’t. And they couldn’t crack Apple’s iPhones without the company’s aid (or, as it worked out, an independent hacker with a workable solution to the problem). Not being the greatest hackers in the community doesn’t necessarily imply incompetence, though. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/64 "2017-03-27T17:56:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > The more the data is overwritten the more difficult it _can_ be to recover data, but it’s still by no means impossible. Can you provide a citation to any company who offers the service of retrieving overwritten data? Or do you just have a vague notion that this task is theoretically possible? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/65 "2017-03-27T20:36:39Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Great. I look forward to the top FBI forensic IT guys getting hold of the 30,000 emails if it is so easy. > > [https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/09/its-the-30000-wiped-clean-clinton-e-mails/#765e6c599a67](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/09/its-the-30000-wiped-clean-clinton-e-mails/#765e6c599a67) > > _“According to the official statement of FBI director, James Comey, agency experts were unable to recover information from Clinton’s wiped-clean server, and Clinton’s legal team claims there are no backups. Thus the contents of the 30,000 deleted “private” emails are not known unless they are in the hands of foreign intelligence hackers, who could deploy them to influence the 2016 election, blackmail a President Clinton once in office, or to embarrass her and the United States.”_ Or nothing much at all. You left that out. If Team Clinton was so diligent and thorough in destroying all of _that_ evidence, why didn’t they destroy _all_ of it? Why would there even be enough left for Comey to criticize? We don’t know, and we are not likely to, seeing as how it has gone to the place the candle flame goes when you blow it out. So, what you have got is no more than your suspicions, which you are eager to inflate to a scandal, like pumping up a Japanese condom into a dirigible. Have you got more now than you had…what? three, four years ago? ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/66 "2017-03-27T20:57:44Z")
> [@PatriotX](#): > > Can you provide a citation to any company who offers the service of retrieving overwritten data? > > Or do you just have a vague notion that this task is theoretically possible? Many people have speculated that you could recover data from magnetic media after it’s been overwritten, sort of like seeing erased answers on a ScanTron sheet. This idea traces back to a misunderstanding of a research paper written in 1996 by a guy named Peter Gutmann. Gutmann theorized that, under certain conditions and with certain kinds of media, you might be able to retrieve data from storage media after data had been wiped with a single overwrite. After his research was frequently mischaracterized, Gutmann tried to set the record straight, but the misconception has taken hold. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology released a paper ([PDF](http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-88r1.pdf)) in 2014 that gives guidelines for wiping many different kinds of media. For a typical spinning platters type of hard drive, NIST says: > [@NIST](#): > > For storage devices containing magnetic media, a single overwrite pass with a fixed pattern such as binary zeros typically hinders recovery of data even if state of the art laboratory techniques are applied to attempt to retrieve the data In a few cases, like some USB drives and SD cards, NIST recommends two passes with alternating patterns (eg., overwrite with all zeroes, then all ones). But the in the majority of cases, one pass is enough. To my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated a practical method of recovering data from magnetic drives or SSDs after the data has been overwritten with a single pass of all zeros or all ones. Maybe the NSA has some quantum black magic super duper machine that can do it, but if so, I guess they didn’t let Edward Snowden see it. Note: This is all if you do a full wipe of a drive. If you use a file wiping utility, it may do a decent job of deleting the “normal” file, but often you can find lots of traces and fragments of the file (e.g., former versions, temporary files, printer spool files, links to hte file, references in MRU lists, etc.) that the file deletion utility didn’t know about. But if you use a tool like DBAN and overwrite a disk from start to finish with all zeroes, that disk is what we call “forensically sterile”. You ain’t getting the data back. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/67 "2017-03-27T22:30:45Z")
> [@](#): > > …typically hinders recovery of data… Well, yes. One can only hope. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/68 "2017-03-27T22:44:03Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > … Thank you. This is one of the most informative posts I’ve read here in a while. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/69 "2017-03-28T00:25:50Z")
[Apropos of nothing, Jared Kushner deleted all of his tweets today.](https://twitter.com/jaredkushner?s=09) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/70 "2017-03-28T00:37:45Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Thank you. This is one of the most informative posts I’ve read here in a while. And I suspect to do this overwrite, you would need and operating system on another drive to do it. I would think that an overwrite of ones/zeros and then random bits would make it even harder, if it was not already impossible to recover. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/71 "2017-03-28T03:13:21Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > And I suspect to do this overwrite, you would need and operating system on another drive to do it. Yeah, you can take the drive out of the original machine and attach it to one running the tool you want to use (good old Linux dd will do it, or if you’re lazy like me and want a GUI, there are a bunch of tools). Or you can boot the machine to removable media, like a DBAN disk, and use one of the options it gives you. Interestingly, DBAN gives you multiple wiping options, including 3, 7, and (IIRC) 35 passes. When I have my students wipe a drive, I tell them to just do it once. The other options, especially the 35 (!!) passes are fairly silly. But if you’re running a data destruction service, you’ll probably just do 7 passes, which seems to be the magic number, instead of bothering to try to convince your customers that passes 2 through 7 are useless and all your competitors who offer the full 7 pass service are not doing any better at destroying the data. It doesn’t cost much to let the machine sit there and grind longer. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/72 "2017-03-28T03:14:27Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Thank you. This is one of the most informative posts I’ve read here in a while. Thanks! I love pontificating about security and forensics. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/73 "2017-03-28T05:57:44Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > [Apropos of nothing, Jared Kushner deleted all of his tweets today.](https://twitter.com/jaredkushner?s=09) No surprise given the latest. Lemme see if I got this right. Kushner, as a member of the transition, met (repeatedly?) with the head of the Russian bank that was simultaneously: - under sanctions for its involvement in the Crimea annexation - under criminal financial investigation by a now-fired US Attorney - being used as cover for Russian spies Is hard to keep track with all this smoke. I was reading that the investigation into this bank that inadvertently caught ogre\* Trump associates coordinating with Russians. Or was it a different criminal investigation into a different Russian entity? I’m off to read [this Mother Jones timeline](http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/exhaustive-history-donald-trump-russia-scandal-timeline) of the whole debacle. \*: this was supposed to be “other” not “ogre” but I’m leaving it. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/74 "2017-03-28T10:24:23Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Thanks! I love pontificating about security and forensics. Are you familiar with the programs Cyberscrub and CC Cleaner? If so, do you have an opinion of their usefulness? I ask because I have used both, and Cyberscrub is expensive and slow, and CC Cleaner is faster and free. Is my free program doing the same thing as my expensive program? ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/75 "2017-03-28T12:21:01Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > No surprise given the latest. Lemme see if I got this right. > Kushner, as a member of the transition, met (repeatedly?) with the head of the Russian bank that was simultaneously: > > - under sanctions for its involvement in the Crimea annexation > - under criminal financial investigation by a now-fired US Attorney > - being used as cover for Russian spies > > Is hard to keep track with all this smoke. > I was reading that the investigation into this bank that inadvertently caught ogre\* Trump associates coordinating with Russians. Or was it a different criminal investigation into a different Russian entity? > > I’m off to read [this Mother Jones timeline](http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/exhaustive-history-donald-trump-russia-scandal-timeline) of the whole debacle. > > \*: this was supposed to be “other” not “ogre” but I’m leaving it. Rumor is there’s a FISA warrant since last year investigating SVB and Alfa Bank for Russian money laundering. All the Russians involved – like Kislyak and Gorkov – were under surveillance, which just so happened to ensnare Trump and his idiot brethren since they kept meeting and talking with them, with Jared going so far as to sneak Kislyak into Trump Tower for a secret meeting. This rumor then postulates that Nunes little freak out last week was because he learned Jared was on tape talking to the Russians as part of this FISA investigation, so he ran to the White House to warn him. Now Jared just so happens to be cooperating with the investigation, volunteering to answer questions for the Senate intelligence committee. While deleting all his tweets. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/76 "2017-03-28T13:45:57Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > And Trump associates have been proven to have had contact with Russians during the campaign. So what. > > And Trump sold a property to one of the biggest players in Russia to use as a hedge against his wife taking his assets. For a 100% profit after owning the property for two years, without any improvements whatsoever. So what. > > And the Trump campaign modified a Republican party plank so that it wouldn’t be so unacceptable to the Russians and Putin. So what. > > And a number of intelligence agencies noted that the Russians very likely did interfere in the election, including various pieces of evidence that they were in charge of hacking the DNC and Clinton servers. So what. > > And at least two Trump campaign associates have resigned over Russia ties. So what. > > Yeah, uh, not nearly quite so extenuating as you appear to believe. First - interesting discussion on “hack”. I admit, I’m an old lady and I used the word hack with the same lack of precision shown by Trump when he used “wiretap”. So I apologize and if that’s not good enough you can sue me. But of course Putin prefers Trump to Clinton. Putin hates Clinton. There is an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance going on re: Putin and Western leadership -Clinton/Obama and most of the western world KNOW that Russia is more criminal enterprise that legitimate country - but they have to keep up the charade because the criminal enterprise is the worlds largest oil producer and it has nukes. So they sit down with each other and talk and Clinton knows that every word that comes out of Putin’s mouth is a lie, and Putin knows that she knows and Clinton knows that Putin knows that she knows and on and on and on like an infinity mirror or Russian doll. Then you get someone as easily manipulated as Trump and throw in the Trump Alt-rights disgusting love affair with Putin. Trump used to spout off about how Putin was a “better leader” than Obama. The alt-right loves him because he’s a nationalistic authoritarian that knows how to keep the liberals in check, what’s not to love!!! Plus the country has a lot of income inequality - Putin’s friends own EVERYTHING!! The liberal hate that so we must LOVE it. I’m of the (apparently minority opinion) that the truth of the collusion allegations doesn’t matter - because its Trump and Putin. Trump is a complete and total liar but he’s Honest Able Lincoln compared to Putin. If Trump makes noises like he might do something that will displease Putin, all Vlad has to do is make some noise like he’s ready to release the smoking gun. He owns Trump. But I do think the property sale in Florida is significant because that’s how things are done in Putin’s Russia. If Putin wants beach house, he tells one of his oligarchs to build a beach house for Putin’s exclusive use. If Putin wants to bribe someone, he tells one of his oligarchs to make a deal that yields someone 50 million of free money. Now, Trump is such an egoist that he wouldn’t question the terms of this deal, he just thinks it validates his opinion of himself as a great negotiator. So when Putin reminds him that Trump owes him to the tune of 50M, Trump may be suprised ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/77 "2017-03-28T14:42:40Z")
> [@ZebraShaSha](#): > > …While deleting all his tweets. Was it 30,000 tweets? Please tell me it was 30,000. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/78 "2017-03-28T14:51:05Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > In a few cases, like some USB drives and SD cards, NIST recommends two passes with alternating patterns (eg., overwrite with all zeroes, then all ones). But the in the majority of cases, one pass is enough. > > To my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated a practical method of recovering data from magnetic drives or SSDs after the data has been overwritten with a single pass of all zeros or all ones. [It’s not that simple with flash memory](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2623513/flash-storage/flash-based-solid-state-drives-nearly-impossible-to-erase.html) (as opposed to magnetic memory) devices. Because flash memory wears out after too many writes (on the order of tens/hundreds of thousands), flash memory devices are designed with “wear leveling”, so that the specific blocks of memory used for an operation are assigned at a level below the operating system. Thus, the usual “overwrite” operation doesn’t necessarily overwrite the addresses where the data to be deleted is stored. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/79 "2017-03-28T15:21:13Z")
Yup. [This is how innocent people act.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-sought-to-block-sally-yates-from-testifying-to-congress-on-russia/2017/03/28/82b73e18-13b4-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html?utm_term=.1597720fdf8e) The administration has been blocking former AG Yates from testifying. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799/80 "2017-03-28T15:28:45Z")
> [@ZebraShaSha](#): > > While deleting all his tweets. Does that break some law? It seems that Trump may have broke a law when he deleted tweets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-associates-may-have-coordinated-with-russians-according-to-us-officials/782799.md?page=5)