Thread: Clinton camp fears more leaks are coming

July 26, 2016, 10:50 am
Clinton camp fears more leaks are coming



PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton's campaign is bracing for the possibility of more damaging emails being leaked to the public as the presidential campaign enters its home stretch.

Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for Hillary for America, said it’s possible that more emails will be released at a time designed to inflict maximum political pain on Democrats.

“The WikiLeaks leak was obviously designed to hurt our convention,” she told reporters. “I don’t think they’re done. That’s how they operate.

“We can’t know, but it’s part of the reason that we wanted people to understand our belief that the Russians are behind this,” she said. “People need to understand — when these leaks happen — what they’re designed to do.”

Palmieri added that the Clinton campaign was not worried about its own email security.

The first day of the Democratic National Convention was upended by the WikiLeaks release over the weekend of more than 20,000 internal emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Some of those emails suggested that officials at the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral during the party’s presidential primary, worked against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and favored Clinton, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The leak led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as Sanders’s supporters made their displeasure with the party known in and outside the Wells Fargo Center, where the convention is being held.

The FBI announced it was opening an investigation into the leak Monday, and the Clinton campaign has previously suggested the email theft and timing of the leak may have been carried out by the Russian government to undermine her campaign and boost GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s.

Palmieri’s comments come as Democrats prepare to officially nominate Clinton for president, making her the first woman to be nominated for president by one of the two major political parties.

The campaign downplayed some of the intraparty strife that was on display Monday, when Sanders’s supporters broke out in chants or occasionally booed convention speakers backing Clinton’s candidacy.

“It is hard to work for someone for over a year and all of a sudden shift gears,” said Karen Finney, senior adviser for Hillary for America. “It’s a process, so our message is really that we understand that.”

Clinton’s campaign argued that Sanders’s endorsement on Monday evening was a big step toward unifying the party. But Tuesday’s roll call vote of the Democratic delegates will give Sanders supporters one final opportunity to push for their candidate, while Clinton is expected to formally receive the nomination that evening.

Finney said all 57 states and territories will cast their votes for their preferred candidates, as opposed to prior conventions when all of the delegates got behind the presumed nominee.

“We think it’s very important that everybody have a chance to vote and have their voice heard,” Finney said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...nk-theyre-done

Evidence mounts linking DNC email hacker to Russia



07/26/16 03:11 PM EDT

Emails sent by Guccifer 2.0 to The Hill show evidence that the hacker used Russian-language anonymity software — a language he has claimed he could not read or even recognize.

The news comes amid mounting reports linking Guccifer 2.0’s hack of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails to Russian intelligence.
Guccifer 2.0 communicates with journalists using different disposable web-based email accounts each time. With The Hill, he communicated using addresses from ProtonMail and Mail.com.
To further protect his anonymity, he connected to the webmail accounts using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Users send VPN servers the address of a site they would like to reach, and the VPN accesses it in their stead – masking the users' internet addresses.

Metadata of emails sent from Guccifer 2.0 to The Hill was shared with the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect. In the interest of protecting Guccifer 2.0’s identity, his account information was not included.

The Mail.com metadata includes the internet address of who is mailing outgoing messages — in Guccifer 2.0’s case, the VPN.

Vocativ reported Tuesday that ThreatConnect had discovered the hacker used a predominantly-Russian-language VPN when he corresponded with them through a French AOL account. ThreatConnect matched that same internet address from the same VPN to the Mail.com email.

VPNs often let users route their traffic through a variety of servers in a variety of countries. Guccifer 2.0 routed his traffic through a French internet address operated by the Elite VPN service.

But that French internet address was not available for public use – it was not one of the French servers Elite VPN allowed its clients to select. Instead, the French server appears to have only been used by a select, criminal clientele in the past, including text message scammers.

Elite VPN’s website is written in Russian, with links to English translations. Parts of the site, including graphics, are only written in Russian, and when ThreatConnect went through the process of signing up for an account, they found the signup process written entirely in Russian.

Guccifer 2.0 has long claimed to be Romanian. In an online chat interview with Motherboard, Guccifer 2.0 claimed not to know how to speak Russian. In it, Motherboard asked a question in Russian, and Guccifer replied "What's this? Is it russian?"

The site then asked if he understood Russian.

"R u kidding?" wrote Guccifer 2.0.

In the same interview, when forced to answered questions in Romanian, he used such clunky grammar and terminology that experts believed he was using an online translator.

The two active payment services for Elite VPN are options that are popular in Russia, including the Moscow-based Web Money. The site also includes a link to a long-defunct Costa Rican payment processor that was seized by law enforcement in 2013.

There are other anonymity services besides VPNs — including Tor — and a large international community of other VPNs both better known and better esteemed than Elite VPN. But the Edward Snowden documents and recent investigations by U.S. law enforcement show a U.S. interest in cracking through the anonymity of these so-called proxy servers.

“They might be making sure they are leveraging proxy infrastructure within their own borders,” said Rich Barger, ThreatConnect director of threat intelligence.

The fact that Guccifer 2.0’s VPN is Russian is not the first indicator that Russia was involved in the attack on the DNC. The email hack leveraged the same tools, methods and command servers seen in other attacks linked to Russian intelligence, including on the German Parliament.

“The noose is tightening around Russia,” said Barger.

Guccifer 2.0 leaked a number of documents to the press, including convention strategies, donor information and opposition research. The first few packages of files were released to the public directly; the last two were first sent to The Hill. Guccifer has also claimed responsibility for leaking emails to WikiLeaks, something WikiLeaks refuses to confirm or deny.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbyi...leak-documents

Regardless of who sent them, the content was exposed.

If they didn't do anything wrong there would be nothing to fear.

If Trump is indeed ahead in the polls----and from what I read Gary Johnson is siphoning off a lot of 'conservative' voters---this is the time to seize the momentum!!

There is unbridled irrationality going on in this country right now. The Dems are seizing upon any notion to gain support, no matter how incendiary and divisive. But are real danger is with marginal and uncommitted voters----the Johnson supporters, the Sanders supporters. This group is large enough to swing the election. It would be a crying shame if the GOP doesn't recognize this opportunity. Gary Johnson has absolutely no hope of winning. Sanders is shooting at the moon.

If Hillary cannot be beaten in this scenario we are in desperate shape indeed.

The Dems have no agenda that sells. What they're selling at the Convention is fluff. Breaking the "glass ceiling" for "little girls". Making a big deal about "tone" and the "children".

They're dead meat on policy. So Trump needs to focus on his policies and plans to fix our country. That's what got him the Republican nomination and that IS what will win him the General Election.

We just went through the First Black President. Wonderful. Well, here we are. 94 million Americans out of the work force. $20 trillion in debt. No end in sight. No plan to fix. Instead plans to exacerbate the problem with more free trade and more massive immigration.

We can't afford the First Women President. We can't afford another 4 to 8 years of someone elected because of their race or gender. We need the BEST PERSON for the times, for the problems, and that is not Hillary Clinton, that BEST PERSON is Donald J Trump. That is the message we must send far and wide, because the entire solvency and sovereignty of our country depends on it.

Hello Russia...can you expose Obama's records now, like today!!!

We have to throw him out of office!

I love Russia. We have so much in common with the Russian People. We always have. When I was in college, we studied Russian relationships with the US. Why we waste our time with these no count countries that have no influence, that have no purchasing power, that have no resources of importance, whose culture and beliefs are so different than ours, while we spit on Russia and show them no respect, constantly trying to create them as an enemy when they have always been our ally, is incomprehensible to me and has been for decades.