Remember Trump's crime spree by the theft of information as tall as the Washington Memorial
By annieli on December 16, 2020
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There will be plenty of memorials to the Trump reign, but the most significant one will be the betrayal of democracy. It raises the matter of Washington Monument sized piles of information stolen from the US government. But maybe he’ll be remembered for promising some of his advisors that “he will refuse to leave White House”.
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Russian state media mourns the loss of “our candidate Trump,” “our friend Donald.” But celebrates his reign as their “Mission Accomplished”—acknowledging “Trump’s mission was to destroy the political system of the United States, and he successfully did,” writes @JuliaDavisNewshttps://t.co/1Cntmz4lSa
The latest entry for the Trump presidential* Library is a websitethat is nothing if but comprehensive including the memorial to the now 305,000 dead. It too will eventually be a grift.
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Donald J. Trump Presidential Library – Presidential Library for the 45th President of the United States https://t.co/TMYUxZLUTk
In SolarWind investors sold off close to a collective $280 million dollars in stock before the news of its role in a far-reaching federal cyberattack became public#SolarWinds#cybersecurityhttps://t.co/N4vyx5B7bg
Top investors in SolarWinds, the Texas-based company whose software was breached in a major Russian cyberattack, sold millions of dollars in stock in the days before the intrusion was revealed.https://t.co/IQ0KrGZtdc
THE DISCLOSURE from software vendor SolarWinds that “fewer than 18,000 customers” werecompromisedby aRussian hackannounced this week was apparently meant to be reassuring — a sign of just how big and just how bad this attack is. Responsible officials must explain how it happened, as well as how they plan to prevent such a thing from happening again.
Several federal agenciesare alreadyconfirmed victimsof the digital spying campaign carried out by Vladimir Putin’s government, which denies the incursion. That includes the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Treasury and Commerce, as well as the National Institutes of Health. This is only the worst we are aware of so far: SolarWinds services 300,000 clients, and the state hackers known as APT29 or Cozy Bear, who wormed their way in by disguising the incursion in otherwise legitimate software updates, may have unfettered access to as many of their systems as it wishes.
Damage control to contain the attack and to rebuild networks now that they’re infiltrated is essential. Yet it’s also essential to hold accountable those who were supposed to protect those networks, and who failed. The Stanford Internet Observatory’sAlex Stamosrecommended in a Post opinion column the creation of an investigative board that tracks attacks, learns lessons and issues public recommendations. It’s a good idea that could improve how third-party vendors are vetted nationwide, especially by federal agencies who have done apoor jobmanaging their supply chains. But the questions for the government here are also bigger.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is definitely not Citizen Kane’s Xanadu or even Hearst’s San Simeon. But Trump will be synonymous with Russian crimes.
A US investigation determined the height of the documents stolen – if printed out and piled up – would be three times the height of the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital.
In this case “several Washington Monument piles of documents that they took from different government agencies is probably a realistic estimate”,
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Deep US institutional secrets may have been exposed in hack blamed on Russia https://t.co/wuUEmbGpq6
Some of America’s most deeply held institutional secrets may have been stolen in a largehacking operationbeing blamed on elite Russian government operatives.
Intrigue surrounds what may have been exposed, from nuclear secrets to Covid-19 vaccine data to next-generation weapons systems.
On Sunday, the Texas company SolarWinds alerted thousands of customers that an “outside nation state” had found a back door into software tool utilized by some of the biggest government agencies and companies in the United States.
It will take weeks or even years for digital sleuths. These hackers are consummate professionals at covering their tracks, experts said. Some theft may never be detected.
But the campaign – which cybersecurity experts said exhibits the tactics and techniques of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency – will rank among the most prolific in the annals of cyber espionage.
US government agencies, including the treasury and commerce departments, were among dozens of high-value public and private sector targets known to have been infiltrated as far back as March through a commercial software update distributed to thousands of SolarWinds clients worldwide.
A point in favor of “delusional” comes viaCNN, which reports that Trump not only insists he actually won the 2020 election but has maintained at times that he will not vacate the premises on January 20, when his term ends. “In his moments of deepest denial,” it reports, “Trump has told some advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day, only to be walked down from that ledge.”
To be perfectly clear about this, Trump 100 percent will leave the White House on Inauguration Day, if not well before. Eventhe scholars who expressed the deepest fears of Trump’s intentions to undermine the systemdid not put credence in the possibility he could defy the outcome by simply refusing to leave. Squatting is not one of the tools in his authoritarian tool kit.
And yet the fact that he has apparently convinced himself thathis struggle to overturn the electionis not only legitimate but viable enough that he can potentially stay in office is a sign that he is engaged in more than a scheme to grift his supporters and maintain his financial and political band, but drinking his own poisoned Kool-Aid.
Read fine print. It's a concession Trump has to be out of the @WhiteHouse by January 20. If not, IMO, he's subject to arrest for trespassing. Then we release all the evidence of @Trump & @SenateGOP connections to ISIS & Iran via Turkey. Mar-a-Lago event becomes an act of treason. https://t.co/X6a60KWC9Z
It purported to be a press release by Bill Stepien that Trump won't leave before Jan 20 and will take action against anyone who tries to force him to. It was nutty.
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