By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--October 13, 2015
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Remind me again of the rationale for a Hillary Clinton presidency, assuming there is anyone who seriously thinks one exists.
Supposedly, it's that she's tested, she knows her way around Washington, she's familiar with foreign affairs, etc. In other words, her resume establishes her as a person with the background and the knowledge to know what she's doing - plus the notion that she's supposedly sharp and talented, right? Isn't that basically it? That a Hillary presidency would be characterized by competence and know-how, from someone who's been around the block and can be counted on if nothing else to at least get the basic things right and understand the big picture?Clinton's server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn't intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet. One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities, known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites. The new details provide the first clues about how Clinton's computer, running Microsoft's server software, was set up and protected when she used it exclusively over four years as secretary of state for all work messages. Clinton's privately paid technology adviser, Bryan Pagliano, has declined to answer questions about his work from congressional investigators, citing the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Some emails on Clinton's server were later deemed top secret, and scores of others included confidential or sensitive information. Clinton has said that her server featured "numerous safeguards," but she has yet to explain how well her system was secured and whether, or how frequently, security updates were applied.She has yet to explain it for one of two reasons. Either a) she has no idea; or b) if she does, then she recognizes she would only further reveal her horrendous judgment offering the explanation. Maybe they should track down a certain Serbian hacker who appeared to understand Hillary's system much better than she did:
The AP exclusively reviewed numerous records from an Internet "census" by an anonymous hacker-researcher, who three years ago used unsecured devices to scan hundreds of millions of Internet Protocol addresses for accessible doors, called "ports." Using a computer in Serbia, the hacker scanned Clinton's basement server in Chappaqua at least twice, in August and December 2012. It was unclear whether the hacker was aware the server belonged to Clinton, although it identified itself as providing email services for clintonemail.com. The results are widely available online. Remote-access software allows users to control another computer from afar. The programs are usually operated through an encrypted connection -- called a virtual private network, or VPN. But Clinton's system appeared to accept commands directly from the Internet without such protections. "That's total amateur hour," said Marc Maiffret, who has founded two cyber security companies. He said permitting remote-access connections directly over the Internet would be the result of someone choosing convenience over security or failing to understand the risks. "Real enterprise-class security, with teams dedicated to these things, would not do this," he said.Now Hillary's protestations to the contrary, it's clear that she a) was in violation of policy by doing this; and b) was dealing heavily in classified and/or top secret information on this bungled mess of a server. But even if that were not shown to be the case, Hillary's judgment in setting it up in the first place should be enough to disqualify her from the presidency. The question remains, and has really never been answered in a serious way: Why do this? The federal government has an e-mail server. All you have to do is let the IT people set up your account on your computer and you're good to go. It's official. It's secure. It won't cost you a dime. But no: Hillary had to pay someone on the outside to set up this jury-rigged jalopy of a system, and then use it exclusively for all her work e-mails. No one believes her claim that she did it for "convenience," and she has yet to offer a different one. Now of course, we all know the real answer: Hillary didn't want her e-mails subject to congressional subpoeanas or Freedom of Information Act requests, and she hoped that by operating everything out of her home, she'd be able to hide and/or wipe everything away before anyone could come looking for it. Here too, she showed her utter incompetence: She didn't even realize that stuff like this gets backed up to the cloud, so now she's not only been caught engineering a security fiasco but she didn't even achieve the self-serving goal she set out to achieve in the first place. So again: What's the rationale for this woman to be president? That she's really smart and really competent and really knows what she's doing? Oh yeah? Based on what?
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