Not only did Podesta stupidly click on the phishing email, he also
Lost an unsecured smart phone
Set his password to (ROTFLMAO) “p@ssw0rd”
Sent his name and password to others in email in clear text
Used the same password (p@ssw0rd) on his twitter account and didn’t change it after the google account was compromised, thus opening it to a further “hacking”.
Podesta’s email was not “hacked”. Hacking requires some skill and sophistication. Podesta’s email was compromised because he is a moron.
I see, the consvative definition of hacking is now closing in on the conservative definition of sexual assault: it isn’t all that wrong if she was asking for it.
And if they claimed they were altered, they would have no way to prove it, either.
Neither side will believe that the other side did not alter the emails.
However, if Wikileaks released Podesta’s password, they did it to do damage as there was no newsworthy reason to release it.
That means they were taking sides. Specifically the side of the candidate endorsed by the Russians.
Wikileaks is no longer a neutral source of information they think shouldn’t remain hidden. (Which is a problem in itself) They’ve shown they can either be bought or bullied/forced/coerced.
No. Conservatives realize that there are peoole out there trying to steal data and that doing things like setting your password to P@ssw0rd or setting up your own insecure email server make it much, much simpler to steal that data.Liberals, of course, have no understanding of security becuse they were out singing ‘We are the world’ instead of going to security training.
Wow, this whole making up stupid generalizations thing is fun!
WikiLeaks - The Podesta Emails - the emails that Wikileaks has released were cryptograpically verified to be authentic. As in “This email has also been verified by Google DKIM 2048-bit RSA key”.
I’m not clear what you’re disputing, because folks often hear that it is a dangerous world and if a young woman drinks at a party, well, what did you expect to happen?
I didn’t miss it. That’s why I called it " significant evidence that that’s the case" and not something like “absolute certainty” (which is practically never available in reality). If there’s a particular email you’d like to call into question, we can discuss specifically if it can be authenticated or not. Most of them can, perhaps a few of them cannot.
As far as “unnamed sources”, I never said that I don’t accept them. I treat them with the skepticism they deserve. In this case, there happens to be a technical way to independently authenticate (most of) the emails, so there’s no need to trust the source. I can verify it myself, and so can you.
This is a tough one. Gates does have a point – Obama’s management of the political/military apparatus could be seen as indecisive, and thus ‘weak’. However, as much as I respect Gates and his assessment - and I do - I’d point out 2 things:
Bush was equally confounded by Putin’s maneuvers in South Ossetia and his increasingly belligerent diplomacy. It can also be argued that Bush’s foreign policy, in which Gates played no small part, actually escalated tensions with Russia from about 2002 onward.
Obama campaigned as a domestic president. He also campaigned on redefining America’s image and role in the world from being that of a global cop to being more of a strategic leader / partner. There’s certainly room for fair debate and criticism but Obama’s policies were, to a large degree, endorsed by an electorate that largely viewed his predecessor’s policies as a failure.
As I’ve said before, there are probably a lot of people in both administrations who can be blamed.
Yeah, but I’d have to agree with the critics on this one. Obama didn’t manage the Russia situation well. Even with the ‘reset’, it’s clear that he demonstrated the same lack of understanding in dealing with one of America’s most enduring and complex nemeses. I’ve not seen a lot of evidence to convince me that his heir apparent would have figured it out either, and she might have made it much, much worse given her track record in North Africa.