The DNC/Clinton Hacks and Russia: 1.
Was it Russia that hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC?
Reading headlines and watching news reports, you’d think that’s the case. But there hasn’t been any actual evidence of such a hack provided by authorities. Instead, the information comes out from anonymous sources who vaguely assert that Russian hackers are behind the increasingly disastrous leaks of Democratic Party information.
I’m working on something about this lack of evidence and the media, but in the meantime I’ve cut part of a prior article I wrote on the topic for your reading pleasure.
What follows is a slightly condensed and edited version of a part of my article Clinton Hack Likely Massive Breach of VoteBuilder Data from early August.
It concerns the porous nature of the DNC’s databases and the ease with which almost anyone could access the data with one or two days of volunteering for data entry.
A former Sanders staffer and current New Jersey Democratic State Committee worker who spoke to me under the name “Tyler” told me that it’s easy to hack the DNC.
“Someone that’s volunteered twice could access like 80% of DNC databases,” Tyler explained. “The campaigns are desperate for people to do data entry and no paid staffers want to spend their time doing it- so we get volunteers to do it.”
The fact that this information is readily accessible to almost anyone working on the campaign entering data is disturbing for its carelessness. But surely the DNC has some safety checks in place, right? Right?
“You log-in under an office number,” Tyler said. “There are no password interlocks within the system, so once you log in, you can select from a list of our staffers. Since it has their positions next to their name, you can tell how much data you could potentially have access to that way.”
Someone with the know-how, in other words, could potentially log into the system under a basic username, then select a high level staffer to route into the system with. Once you’re inside the program the access and ability to edit is as great as the level of the staffer whose name you choose.
But at least you can only log in inside the office. Right?
“You can also take that log-in back to your house and use it on your own laptop,” Tyler said. “I could tap it right now if I wanted to.”
Tyler explained that volunteers are usually given logins within a few days of signing up, allowing anyone with less than noble goals to find a relatively unimpeded route into the system.
The Clintons weren’t hacked- they let the hackers in and then the hackers took the information they wanted.
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