Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

The more I look at this election cycle the more I'm sure Ross Perot is somewhere, rocking in a chair, murmuring to himself, "24 years too early, 24 years too d*mn early ... "

Is Perot still alive? I have no idea.

Thing is, even though I started out thinking this election was Giant Dou-ch v Turd Sandwich, I don't anymore. Clinton has been impressive. If she wins I'll be OK with it.

We're coming off the most inspirational president since JFK, so anyone would be a come down. But Hillary strikes me as a pragmatic and highly competent manager. I think she may function better in a political arena than Obama, who is more suited to an intellectual meritocracy like academia. Don't get me wrong, I rate Obama's presidency as a solid A, but what he made up in idealism he gave back with naivete, at least the first few years.

Say what one will about Hillary. There is literally no person on Earth who would call her "naive."

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Her server was hacked at least once.

From the article: "According to the FBI’s forensic investigation later, on January 5, the account of a member of Bill Clinton’s staff—who all shared the server with Hillary’s email—was broken into by someone using the anonymizing software Tor. Over the course of the day, three known Tor IP addresses accessed the site and the intruder browsed through the staffer’s email folders and attachments. The FBI said it was “unable to identify the actor(s) responsible,” but that the damage, as far as it could tell, was limited to that lone staffer’s email that one day. And, by the end of the month, Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state had ended;

PS - The Blumenthal hack?
Security question: What's your daddy's first name? Answer: Hillary.

Huh. I could have swore Blumenthal was a private citizen at the time. Why would his own e-mail being hacked have anything to do with her server?

For a guy who says he's not voting for Trump... you know the rest!

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Is Perot still alive? I have no idea.

I had to look it up. His Wiki page does not list a date of death.

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Believe Ross is still with us. Gave a kick a ss commencement speech at my graduation back in the day!

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

The FBI said it was “unable to identify the actor(s) responsible,” but that the damage, as far as it could tell, was limited to that lone staffer’s email that one day.

Huh. I could have swore Blumenthal was a private citizen at the time. Why would his own e-mail being hacked have anything to do with her server?

Do you understand how an email server works? It's a machine (computer) that has software to manage multiple email accounts for one or more domain (the @whatever.org part of the address). If you hack into one "@whatever.org" email address, you've hacked into the server. How far you got beyond that account is another story, but you were on the server.

Where was Sid's email account hosted? I assumed it was on the "clintonmail" domain. I could be wrong.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Do you understand how an email server works? It's a machine (computer) that has software to manage multiple email accounts for one or more domain (the @whatever.org part of the address). If you hack into one "@whatever.org" email address, you've hacked into the server. How far you got beyond that account is another story, but you were on the server.

Where was Sid's email account hosted? I assumed it was on the "clintonmail" domain. I could be wrong.

I thought the server is software running on the physical box, and it is entirely possible to have a breach in one part but not another part, just like you can wipe one partition but not another?

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

I thought the server is software running on the physical box, and it is entirely possible to have a breach in one part but not another part, just like you can wipe one partition but not another?

Technically, if you are virtualized, yes, the server in that case would be the operating system and software instance. The physical hardware (the server) may host multiple virtualized (software) servers. However, if the accounts are in the same domain (@wherever) that's the server.

If I have hardware and have virtualized it to two servers, each separately hosting email domains (@Kepler and @Sica), if someone hacks my email are they on your "server"? The hardware, yes; the virtualized instance supporting your domain, no.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Technically, if you are virtualized, yes, the server in that case would be the operating system and software instance and the physical hardware (the server) may host multiple virtualized (software) servers.

However, if the accounts are in the same domain (@wherever) that's the server.

Hacking into one email account doesn't give you server access. It doesn't even give you access to other accounts. I've been running email for 20 years now. I know.

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Hacking into one email account doesn't give you server access.

It depends on what you find in that email account.

And, when you're in that account you can do various things to figure out how the account, and thus the server it's on, is set up. Getting into an email account on a server of interest is the camel's nose under the tent. (I used to work for a company that literally offered classes on hacking to help improve our software design and testing.)

My favorite technique still is dropping SQL queries directly into form textboxes and seeing what errors come back (and what that tells you).

All of the proceeding is done by me strictly legally in testing my or other software I am approved to challenge.

 

[GrinCDXX]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Do you understand how an email server works? It's a machine (computer) that has software to manage multiple email accounts for one or more domain (the @whatever.org part of the address). If you hack into one "@whatever.org" email address, you've hacked into the server. How far you got beyond that account is another story, but you were on the server.

Where was Sid's email account hosted? I assumed it was on the "clintonmail" domain. I could be wrong.

The article doesn't go into enough detail to know whether the server was actually compromised in any meaningful way. A hack on an individual email account could simply mean someone gained access to that account's credentials.

 

[GrinCDXX]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

My favorite technique still is dropping SQL queries directly into form textboxes and seeing what errors come back (and what that tells you).

https://xkcd.com/327/

 

[Scarlet]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Believe Ross is still with us. Gave a kick a ss commencement speech at my graduation back in the day!

That was a fun commencement address.

Topic? The "Mirrors" ad is really good, especially in light of this Miss Universe kerfuffle. With regards to the Miss Universe kerfuffle - it seems like HRC takes 10 steps ahead with something like this, then 11 steps back when more comes out about her past. She doesn't seem like the type to not have people to thoroughly vet someone like that.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Technically, if you are virtualized, yes, the server in that case would be the operating system and software instance.

The OS itself is the server? I did not know that. I thought the server was a software package running on a machine which may also have customized firmware or even hardware to optimize it for running the server software, just as a console is a physical machine that has been optimized for running game software.

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

The article doesn't go into enough detail to know whether the server was actually compromised in any meaningful way.

And there's the problem: The vast majority of people talking about the situation (Clinton, Trump, Comey, the vast-vast majority of political reporters, the public) can't spell SMTP much less explain it.

 

[GrinCDXX]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

The OS itself is the server? I did not know that. I thought the server was a software package running on a machine which may also have customized firmware or even hardware to optimize it for running the server software, just as a console is a physical machine that has been optimized for running game software.

The term isn't particularly precise--it can be used to refer to anything from the physical machine, to a particular instance of a software service running on the machine.

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

The OS itself is the server?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server

That's the OS (the server) that makes the hardware (the physical server) operate. Want to be more confused? Put this database on the server. Yup, that'd be a server running Server with SQL Server. Any wonder IT guys seem confused?

Better yet? I used to have a server that I virtualized* so that one instance was running Server and another instance was running Server with SQL Server.


*I used RedHat Linux Server as my virtualization host.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

And there's the problem: The vast majority of people talking about the situation (Clinton, Trump, Comey, the vast-vast majority of political reporters, the public) can't spell SMTP much less explain it.

I'm finding the same to be true for people discussing classification or operational security. Those are probably the only subjects where when news covers them I've actually had enough experience and knowledge to know everybody from the reporters to the pundits is totally winging it.

I strongly suspect every story is like this, and every time a news story runs there are a hundred SMEs spitting out coffee and yelling"LOLWUT?!" at their TV.

 

[GrinCDXX]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

And there's the problem: The vast majority of people talking about the situation (Clinton, Trump, Comey, the vast-vast majority of political reporters, the public) can't spell SMTP much less explain it.

Yeah, I'm pretty shocked to learn just how technically illiterate Clinton is. Our leaders should be MUCH younger.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server

That's the OS (the server) that makes the hardware (the physical server) operate. Want to be more confused? Put this database on the server. Yup, that'd be a server running Server with SQL Server. Any wonder IT guys seem confused?

Weirdly enough, that all makes perfect sense to me. I have been in this job too long.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XIX: Escape from the Planet of Debates

Excelsior. 538 Nowcast now has OH at 49.9% Clinton. One more poll outta do it.

It's nonsense to follow these poll hours to hour of course -- all of these changes are within the MOE. But it's fun when the arrows are going in your direction. (And torture when they go the other way.)