Woman may have tried to sell Pelosi computer device to Russians, FBI says
reuters.com
reuters.com
Anyone know why? Was it deleted? Suspended? Region locked (I'm in Canada).
Try refreshing the page when you see that message.
Open the web inspector, switch to the Application tab, click "Service Workers" in the left sidebar, and unregister everything that shows up.
My understanding is that this behavior is caused by an old version of their service worker which they've had a hard time getting rid of.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-campaign-used-security-ke...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/capitol-rioter-guy-reffitt-thr...
People that are unhinged in their view of reality enough to think that they're going to just
- Take a week off work
- Book a hotel room
- Board a plane
- Take down the government
- Fly home
- Go back to work
People who think that can be integrated into "just another day" are likely unhinged enough that they'd become violent when "challenged" at home on much smaller issues
I don't know how this relates to domestic abuse, but it certainly points to few people there using their brains to full capacity.
Given the degree to which research suggests that a similar current exists in right-wing extremism in the US[1], it's not a reach.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/what-motivates-the-m...
Like, what's more likely that this woman became radicalized by watching propaganda all day every day and in a misguided attempt to be a patriot committed a crime? Or that there is some massive web that at every turn explains why it's never the alt right's fault? Remember the 75 year old that was pushed down by the police in Buffalo, NY and cracked his skull on the pavement? Well if you believe some, he was wearing a blood sac in his mouth and there was a little tube you can kinda see in the video that allowed him to squirt the blood out and make it look like he was hurt. Someone legitimately tried to argue this with me, in an in-person discussion. And let's break it down:
1. Police officers that pushed him were either in on it, I guess with some ulterior motive to make themselves look bad, or were comically bad at showing any evidence or giving testimony that there was a blood sac.
2. The first responders that came didn't notice the lack of wound or the fake blood, or were also all in on it.
3. The bystanders did the same as above.
4. The probably at least a dozen hospital staff that interacted with the man in the multiple days that followed when he stayed in the hospital all ignored the fact that we wasn't actually hurt.
5. The hospital had him stay there for multiple days for no reason because, you know, our hospitals here are really awesome about letting people just stay if they aren't sick/hurt.
6. The multiple reporting crews that came to see him all failed to notice that he wasn't hurt.
7. The entire video is a deep fake or filmed in a controlled environment and none of it was real.
How hard do you have to squint to believe that any of the above is possible? And that's one story of thousands, each of which has an explanation as simple as "crisis actors" or "antifa staged it" or "false flag".
And back to the original assertion, what about the woman whose daughter tipped off the FBI? What about the siblings? Does everyone have a conflict of interest and we should dismiss all these cases because of them despite the photo and video evidence we have?
Sort yourself out.
Edit: video of the 75 year old man in Buffalo. Warning, this is graphic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFeewU0HhNE
That said: there's no particular reason to think this laptop wasn't encrypted.
People unfortunately have been coddled by consumerism, or are coddled by job titles like "director" and "officer", and expect to be able to get passwords reset and access recovered by someone if they forget.
The correct way to do disk encryption is to not store the password anywhere, and define total loss of data as acceptable if the password is unknown. This puts vendors and subordinate-to-revenue-generation IT departments in a bad situation if a customer forgets their password and suddenly loses years' worth of family photos, small-business tax documents, etc.
> Our phones storage is uniformly encrypted by default now and have been for several years.
Only because phone storage is basically unimportant - most people sync everything (either of their own volition or via OS provider or via apps) from their phone to multiple cloud services and then the benefits of encryption-at-rest are honestly only their to protect and enforce the local app store and payment apps.
If your company is large enough to have an IT Department, even if it's just one person with a sufficient amount of clue, they should know how to set up FDE with a recovery key manually stored in a secure location (even printed on a piece of paper locked in a safe of the CEO, or something).
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/informatio...
Then a month later HQ relented because too many branches couldn't figure it out. These were financial advisors offices, in the days when client data was stored locally. Brokers being too lazy to enter the passphrase trumped information security I guess.
[0] which is rare bordering on "never happens", but since contemporary desktop OSs are all derived from multi-user server OSs that's what we got.
There are a variety of threat models, and whether or not this is acceptable depends on the worry that you have. If you are concerned that the IT department is going to decrypt executives' laptops and leak confidential information, then this isn't a good model. But if you're merely concerned that someone leaves their laptop in an airport, it's fine -- whoever picks that laptop up and resells it won't hack your directory system and be able to decrypt it.
A long memorized passphrase that only one person knows is the best possible way to prevent unauthorized access, but that isn't necessarily the problem that you're trying to solve with disk encryption.
They don't get it from AD so much as Group Policy can be configured to have the device store the key in AD, but otherwise yes that's how it works.
I think it works like that with Apple. When I turned on encryption it says do you want the key stored in the icloud thing and presumably in a locked out situation I get on to Apple to get it. Seems quite a good solution.
We need to see a lot of failures (both failing open and closed) and do postmortems before one strategy is recognized as winner, that's what I believe.
Of course, this doesn't help you if the police or the government is after you, but that's irrelevant for 99,99+% of people.
> The tipster said Williams “intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service,” the affidavit stated.
> According to the tipster, “the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and Williams still has the computer device or destroyed it,” the affidavit stated. The investigation remains open.
That sounds like very concrete evidence...
What value would a laptop of Nancy Pelosi provide to a foreign government, if it doesn’t include incriminating content?
I‘m not suggesting that this story is bogus, but rather that Riley June Williams hopes were and she vastly overestimated the laptop’s value to anyone.
The house decides the budget for the entire federal government (so black budgets, NSA, etc.) and most of their work is public, but at least some of it is classified and other parts are politically sensitive.
I don't understand why they say "to Russians" or "to the Russians" instead of "to Russian intelligence". It's like being Russian is the crime itself. They wouldn't write "tried to sell the computer to Jews".
No, because they'd say "tried to sell the computer to Israelis." Jews are a race and Russians/Israelis are citizens of a country.
In mainstream American discourse being Russian is a crime.
Taking it that you aren't trolling (which I'm not certain you aren't) ignorance is an excuse. It is not a good excuse when knowledge is common but it is a great excuse when knowledge is uncommon (as is the case here, at least to Americans). Unless you expect everyone to be omniscient then this is exceedingly disingenuous and will just lead to people thinking you're being a jerk.
The other part I need to add is that this is also how we typically talk. "The British...", "The Irish...", "Americans...", etc. I'll admit that we could have more nuance and better communication by being more specific but what is stated here follows the Cooperative Principle[0][1]. It is implied in all these examples that what is meant is the government of the country and not the people of the country. Typically we'd say interpreting it as the latter would be in bad faith. Not that people don't do this (and that this isn't becoming more common) but that this is how people typically use language.
But if you're trying to just get people to yell at one another and feel angry (i.e. trolling) I'd ask that you please take your comments elsewhere because that's not the environment we are trying to create at Hacker News.
Your example doesn't apply, because "Jews" is an ethnicity and "Russians" is a nationality.
Also, we are simply always up to no good. I've been influencing the US presidential elections for a few years, with mixed results.
From the article - “intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service" Maybe that friend weren't ethnically russian, no one cares, the point is that it sounds more villainous.
[confusion]
The people who broke into the Capitol and stole things are not the smartest or most well-connected people.
More details are available in some of the court docs that are floating around the internet. The entire situation is stunningly disconnected from reality.
The frightening bit is that in their "reality", the deep state with the help of Communist Party of China (or are they lizard people?) stole the election, the judges are part of the theft, MSM is just lying to the brainwashed masses, etc, etc. And that they're the patriots trying to save the country.
The funny bit is how they're crying that it's China (oops, I mean, Chinese government) who's controlling Biden. Why couldn't it be Putin? Is it because the Russians (oops, I mean, Putin) are their friends now? Or that they subconsciously know that Trump was Putin's poorly-trained lapdog?
Imagine you stole Putin's personal laptop, the secret special one with no password that he hides under his pillow. If you email info@state.gov and offer to sell it to them, it auto-replies with a warrant. They'll definitely take it, but they will not pay for it.
Better to sell it to some random American who thinks they won the lottery.
Edited to add: I guess a Russian warrant wouldn't mean much in the article's case. She basically paid a premium to not deal with a government.
Edited to add: best to not steal it in the first place, obviously. Obviously don't steal state secrets, don't loot your capitol, and just be cool.
I'm trying to get into her headspace so I can understand her. I think what she did was bad.
But I agree with you. I make an effort to criticize the “PRC” and the “CCP” and not “China” for the same reason.
America donated fidget spinners to Syra
vs
The American government donated fidget spinners to the Syrian government
(but not 'The Americans donated fidget spinners to the Syrians')
Washington donated fidget spinners, Damascus invited experts from Moscow to inspect the latest advances in ball bearing technology.
You can also truly donate to Syria and help build apartments, schools, and hospitals in areas outside Assad’s control:
https://molhamteam.com/en/campaigns/204
https://molhamteam.com/en/campaigns/239
(The last link is to an organization registered in the US, and tax-deductible).
Not American, but as the only Russians i met were "security detail" from Crimea and as my mother used to help Georgians exiles between 2005 and 2015, i would put asterisk everywhere in your sentence except at "who fight bears".
I’m sure the Russians are fed the very same sorts of propaganda tho.
Canberra people are in general, awesome. Little art/fashion culture compared to other cities, but per capita are the most educated people. That doesn’t fix the nightlife situation though :P
Most people behave differently too, once you really get to know them.
I think life sentences have been handed out for smaller forms of treason...
How to turn a theft crime into treason.
Someone give her a darwin award of true.
That says it all.
Any time there is a headline with a very serious and inflammatory claim, like the one above, you would do well to scroll down past the hyperbole and look for the evidence offered (if any) for such a serious charge. The only evidence cited by this article in this accusation of a series of treasonous felonies is purportedly an accusation by an ex-lover. Unfortunately the level of mania is so frenzied in the country right now that rational thought is out the window. Especially concerning to see on Hacker News, where presumably necessary skepticism and critical thinking would be in higher supply.
Luckily that's not what she'll be judged by, but instead by whether or not she intended to sell the computer to the Russians.
I mean, this guy's tip that she had the laptop turned out to be correct! But you're saying trusting him about her intent to sell it to Russia demonstrates a lack of "skepticism and critical thinking"?
The only assertion we are relying on from the ex for is the fact that after committing multiple felonies on camera she was planning to commit one more.
Furthermore although she is entitled to assumption of innocence in a court of law we are required to provide nothing of the sort.
If he was merely trying to get back at her why not just turn her in for all the crimes we saw on camera. The simplest explanation is that he is telling the truth.
Must disagree with this statement in the strongest possible terms. Twitter mob justice is just as undesirable as any previous form of mob justice.
We are able and ought to use our functioning brains to arrive at merely the most likely conclusion.