They're Russian. They're apparently quite a bit more tech-savvy than anyone in our own government. And they've been helping themselves to peeks at Barack Obama's e-mails.
They haven't hacked his actual account, mind you, but remember that everyone who receives an e-mail from the president also represents a potential entryway for hackers to find out what the president is saying - not to mention what they might be telling him.
The White House insists that none of what the hackers have seen has been classified, which I suppose is something on the order of good news, but what is the real significance of it? Does the White House have one super-effective security protocol for Obama's classified e-mails and a completely worthless one they deploy for everything else? That's little comfort in a situation when it appears the hackers are perpetually one step ahead of our government:
Officials did not disclose the number of Mr. Obama’s emails that were harvested by hackers, nor the sensitivity of their content. The president’s email account itself does not appear to have been hacked. Aides say that most of Mr. Obama’s classified briefings — such as the morning Presidential Daily Brief — are delivered orally or on paper (sometimes supplemented by an iPad system connected to classified networks) and that they are usually confined to the Oval Office or the Situation Room.
Still, the fact that Mr. Obama’s communications were among those hit by the hackers — who are presumed to be linked to the Russian government, if not working for it — has been one of the most closely held findings of the inquiry. Senior White House officials have known for months about the depth of the intrusion.
“This has been one of the most sophisticated actors we’ve seen,” said one senior American official briefed on the investigation.
Others confirmed that the White House intrusion was viewed as so serious that officials met on a nearly daily basis for several weeks after it was discovered. “It’s the Russian angle to this that’s particularly worrisome,” another senior official said.
While Chinese hacking groups are known for sweeping up vast amounts of commercial and design information, the best Russian hackers tend to hide their tracks better and focus on specific, often political targets. And the hacking happened at a moment of renewed tension with Russia — over its annexation of Crimea, the presence of its forces in Ukraine and its renewed military patrols in Europe, reminiscent of the Cold War.
I'm guessing that even most conservatives tend to assume the government has the best security protocols, whether we're talking about the protection of people or of data. But are we sure about that? Digital security protocols need to be constantly updated because technology changes and hacker techniques change too. If you're still doing the same thing you were doing two years ago, you're probably vulnerable to attack.
Is it really so hard to believe the U.S. government - the same government that can't stop a fence-jumper from getting into the White House, and the same government that can't keep DEA agents from going to orgies paid for by drug cartels - would fail to keep up on its digital security updates?
I have no doubt this could have happened in a Republican administration, although that's strictly hypothetical. My point here is not so much to hang this on the Democrats as another governing failure under their watch as it is to point out that government - the entity they trust to do just about everything - doesn't actually do much of anything very well. And that includes the few things at which you might assume they excel. Nope. Ask a Russian hacker about that. The U.S. government, up to and including the White House, appears to be a pretty darn easy target.
Maybe that alone represents a pretty good reason not to empower the government to solve more problems people could and should solve for themselves.
