September 14, 2016

Latest Email Hack Too Dull to Get Outraged About

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Another email hack from Guccifer 2.0! [See update below.] So what did we learn?

Let’s see. Colin Powell thinks that Donald Trump is a racist idiot who has no shame. That seems fair. Also, Powell thinks that Hillary Clinton could have handled her email affair better. Hard to argue with that. And Powell really, really didn’t want her email woes to be connected to him. That may or may not be fair, but it’s certainly understandable.

In addition, there’s apparently some unremarkable stuff about “tech initiatives from Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine’s time as governor of Virginia, and some years-old missives on redistricting efforts and DNC donor outreach strategy.” Exciting! Plus a bunch of spreadsheets listing DNC donors. That’s a bummer for the DNC, but otherwise pretty dull.

I don’t know who Guccifer is, or whether he’s a front for the Russian government, but he needs to step up his game. If there’s any more like this, he’s going to give email hacking a bad name.

UPDATE: The stuff about Tim Kaine and the DNC came from a Guccifer 2.0 dump. However, Powell’s emails came from a different source. Here’s the Intercept:

Powell’s private messages were leaked by DCLeaks.com, an anonymously managed website that shares hacked emails from U.S. military and political figures. DCLeaks has a relationship with Guccifer 2.0, a hacker that many allege to have ties with Russian intelligence.

I took this to imply that DCLeaks got the emails from Guccifer 2.0, but the authors of the story say that wasn’t their intent. For now, anyway, it appears that the source of those emails is unknown.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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