The New Plumbers

I'm inclined to agree with Josh Marshall that this Boston Globe story deserves some more attention:

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

Republican spokesfolks are claiming that it's the Dems fault for leaving the data where anyone (who knew about this "glitch") could see it.

Comments

[drew robinson]

And there's a good chance some of this is covered in the Patriot act..

Maybe the Repub's should have been cheering its expiration too...

[Grumpy Bob]

I've always suspected that most of today's Senate GOPers are of the Nixonian stripe.

[late for the boom]

This IS interesting.... by all accounts that I have read so far, the staffers broke key provisions in the DMCA, Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

They can claim whatever they want, the DMCA specificly protects data that was meant to be protected, regardless of how easily thwarted the protections are. Just ask the student who was just sentenced to 10 years in prision for accessing a wireless network that was wide open. His defense was exactly what these staffers are claiming, there was no protection that indicated that the network was private...

Ashcroft wont convict... good to know exactly whos side that asshat is on.

[TM]

do you have a link for that story?

[Dan]

Ashcroft wont convict... good to know exactly whos side that asshat is on.

Unless you're a DMCA supporter, what's the basis for calling Ashcroft an "asshat" for NOT pushing for yet another absurdly unjustified DMCA prosecution?

This reminded me of the supposedly "pro-legalization" folks who bitch that Rush Limbaugh hasn't done any jail time yet. Make up your minds, guys.

[GoonFood]

Yeah, make up your minds. It's either punish everyone under the totally idiotic and over-reaching DMCA, or continue the status quo and only prosecute teenage hackers and those not affilliated with high-level politicians.

Because I'll tell you this, there is no 3rd option of scrapping the DMCA and no longer punishing ANYBODY under it's draconian laws.

[Brian Carnell]

The bizarre thing here is that apparently in the Senate, responsibility for IT services was completely partisan -- after the Republicans took back control of the Senate, they took over the servers but not the IT staff -- they went out and hired new IT staff who weren't necessarily familiar with the system.

Leave it to Congress to invent the worst of all possible IT support systems.

[Jean Bart]

The plumbers is a Nixon reference, correct?

[Aaron]

Maybe he's an asshat for his selective enforcement, or maybe he's an asshat for putting clothes on a statue and coercing his staff to witness his morning prayers. Maybe he's an asshat for holding a position of great responsibility in spite of the fact that the citizens who know him best chose a dead guy over him for another big job.

Maybe he's an asshat for saying

?The Clinton administration?s paranoid and prurient interest in (monitoring) international e-mail is a wholly unhealthy precedent especially given this administration?s track record on FBI files and IRS snooping. Every medium by which people communicate can be subject to exploitation by those with illegal or immoral intentions. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records or translate our international communications.? (1997)
cite:

then pushing the Patriot Act when it's his buddies that want to do the snooping.

[HH]

Little Billy, ever hear the story of the partisans who cried "Watergate?"

[Gawdamman]

"Snooze you lose".......if the idiot democrats can't even protect their private files I wonder how they expect to protect this nation?

[Tom Clancy]

The intelligence each party has on the other is far superior to the intelligence that is needed to protect this country! Was the computer technician hired by Leahy really a former CIA agent now working for the Republican national party? Damn, with all this material and drama, I will never stop writing as long as we have the 2 party system!

[Dan]

[sarcasm deleted]
Because I'll tell you this, there is no 3rd option of scrapping the DMCA and no longer punishing ANYBODY under it's draconian laws.

People who sincerely want the DMCA scrapped don't chortle at the thought of someone being prosecuted under it or bitch that it's not being used enough. The sort of person who does that doesn't really have a problem with draconian legislation; they just have a problem with draconian legislation aimed against people they like. Neither do sensible people, faced with stories of government misuse of a bad law, insist that the government should adopt the most deranged application of the law as their new standard policy, and vigorously implement it against all possible targets.

From the looks of things, the Democrats forgot to password protect any of the files they had on a shared server, so other people read the files. This is obviously unethical, but it pretty obviously isn't worth prosecuting someone for. And no, I don't think Ashcroft would be arresting Democratic staffers if the shoe was on the other foot -- if only because the press would (correctly) spin it as a vindictive, partisan witch-hunt.

[Hick American]

Anyone who uses the term asshat = asshat

[ed]

Finders keepers.

[TM Lutas]

Dan - Actually, what happened was worse. Republican staffers were listed under groups that had rights to the Democrats' directories. Even the most cursory of security reviews would have caught this. Also, politically sensitive installations ought to have logging turned up to max, something that appears to also have been neglected.

The fundamental problem is that the Senate IT department runs on a 19th century style spoils system. If you're happy with Democrats firing competent people and hiring incompetents as long as Republicans don't take advantage of it, you've got a bad set of priorities.

I'm shocked that the whole setup hasn't been seized by government oversight and handed over to the CIA to see if there were any other penetrations besides the partisan ones.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"Leave it to Congress to invent the worst of all possible IT support systems."

From what I've read lately, the IRS is still the champ in that department.

[jon b.]

Hey Dan, if you didn't want me stealing your TV why did you put that fragile glass in all your windows?

Didn't your mother teach you that taking something that isn't yours is wrong? Aren't the Republicans supposed to be the party of Jesus?

[Dan]

Dan, it's perfectly sensible for people to delight in bombastic puds being hoisted by their own petard

That would be a valid point if Fritz Hollings got caught reading somebody's files. But the folks who did this are just a bunch of Congressional staffers -- they're not "bombastic puds", or even politicians at all.

I view it from a corporate perspective. If, say, Microsoft and Sun (for some weird reason) shared a file server, and Microsoft left a bunch of public files on it full of Microsoft's Evil Master Plans (tm), and a bunch of engineers at Sun took a peek? I'd disapprove, but completely understand -- and in any event, I'd have little pity for Microsoft.

But if Steve "Microsoft Stole My Technology" Jobs got caught snooping? I confess that I might feel a certain amount of warm fuzzies.

All this is is, a bunch of Republican staff flunkies were browsing the network one day, and one of them said something like "check it out, I can read Ted Kennedy's itinerary -- hookers and Jack Daniels, 9:15am? You go, Ted!". And it all snowballed from there. 🙂

[Mike Force]

New plumbers my ass! You cats indulge in the most absurd fantasies. Yeah, sure, this is another Watergate. It's about the only way you're gonna take young Bush down. Of course, no one here would read their bosses and coworkers email if given the opportunity. Petard this!

[Dan]

Hey Dan, if you didn't want me stealing your TV why did you put that fragile glass in all your windows?

An accurate parallel would be: if I don't want people watching my TV through the windows, why don't I close the blinds? The Republicans stole nothing, broke nothing, and harmed nothing. What they did was a violation of the Democrats' privacy, but it's hard to have pity on people who "guard" their privacy by leaving all their doors and windows open.

as they were in 1972. you don't expect bill frist or trent lott to be caught doing this himself, do you? plausable deniability must be maintained.

Yeah, I hear Nixon killed Kennedy too. Got any other baseless paranoid conspiracy theories you'd like to share? The Democrats left their files lying around unprotected. This isn't Watergate; this is the-Democrats-were-computer-illiterate-dipshits-Gate.

said staffers are breaking some of the laws their bosses so insistently passed.

Uh huh... which bosses are those? The DMCA was sponsored by a Democrat and signed into law by Bill Clinton. Besides, demanding that innocent people be sent to jail because you think somebody *else* did something wrong is pretty contemptable.

[kevrob]

So, sometimes your system is compromised by a Black Hat, other times by a White Hat, but when the AG's GOP pals do it. we use the label "Asshat?"

Kevin

[dragoon]

So, have the Democrats ever been caught stealing their opponent's information? The only thing that comes to mind was the packet mailed to Al Gore's campaign during the 2000 fun, and that was given to the authorities, as far as I remember.

So are the Democrats more honest about this, or simply good enough to not get caught?

[Gadfly]

Nice guy. I'll remind myself to lock the doors and draw the shades when you're around.

[Keith]

Isn't this story old? I remember reading an Op-Ed in the WSJ about it, though i can't remember the date. I believe this is how the Rebuplicans found the memos lobbying against some of Bush's judicial appointees.

[Gadfly]

I suppose the apologists for Republicans walking through an unlocked door to help themselves to the oppositions private files also blame the home owner for leaving his door unlocked. Careless? Maybe. But the onus remains on the burglar.

[Xmas]

Tori

Asshat - Some who is wearing their Ass as a Hat. Or, to put it rudely, someone with their head up their ass.

Personally, while I dislike the DMCA, I believe that whomever did the snooping needs to be prosecuted. These senators passed the law, they should be subject to the law if only to demonstrate the stupidity of the law they passed.

[Dan]

Nice guy. I'll remind myself to lock the doors and draw the shades when you're around.

What, you normally leave your doors unlocked and your shades open? You're a more trusting soul than I am.

[mak_nas]

But the folks who did this are just a bunch of Congressional staffers

as they were in 1972. you don't expect bill frist or trent lott to be caught doing this himself, do you? plausable deniability must be maintained.

watergate or not, it seems that said staffers are breaking some of the laws their bosses so insistently passed. good for the goose, good for the gander -- hang 'em high. perhaps that will drive home to them the insanity of the law they advocated.

not that arrogance would allow such an admission.

[joe]

Dan, those staffers then passed the information to Senators, who became accessories in the endevour, and the right wing press, such as National Review, who printed stories based on the purloined info.

dragoon, Democrats as wily stealth agents? Doesn't pass the laugh test. There are Republican scandals, and Democratic scandals, and scary snoopy stuff like is is clearly the domain of the GOP. Now, if the story was about internet porn, THAT would be a Democratic scandal.

[rst]

So, sometimes your system is compromised by a Black Hat, other times by a White Hat, but when the AG's GOP pals do it. we use the label "Asshat?"

Most hacking is done as "asshat", because the majority of computer users are so damned stupid that to gain access to another's computer rarely requires hacking or "hacking tools." Given that there has never been any evidence that the Congress is smarter than your average dumbass computer user, this was somewhat inevitable.

Also, the files were located on a server, not a desktop in a locked or even unlocked office. If you put up a publicly available server and toss some files on it, don't bitch when those files turn up in the wrong hands. Learn some best practices or have a nice warm glass of shut the fuck up.

[Conor]

I hate to rain on everyone's Rupublican-bashing parade, but this DOES seem like the Democrats' fault. If you're on a shared computer system and you leave your files unsecured, well, tough. That's not "circumventing copy protection" -- for there to be copy protection, there, um, has to be some protection. Just saying "I MEANT to protect that" doesn't cut it. (And anyway, this isn't a commercial product we're talking about so the DMCA doesn't apply).

I say the Republicans would have been stupid not to take advantage of this.

[Mike Force]

Hey Gadfly, if you share the room you're not a burglar, you're a scoundrel!

[B.P.]

Dan, it's perfectly sensible for people to delight in bombastic puds being hoisted by their own petard (or whatever fancy phrase it is I'm grasping for). I'm for pot legalization, but if a grand champion of prohibition such as Bill Bennett were to be caught toking behind the casino, I'd want him to be subject to the same draconian laws to which he subjected the rest of us little people. Such thinking may be a tier below your zen-like level of enlightenment, but it's good enough for me. I kinda like spite, too.

[R. C. Dean]

Could someone give a non-foam-flecked account of whether this is a crime or not?

[Gadfly]

Hard to say, R.C. The Sergeant at Arms of the Senate "seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives."

Sounds like these may be Government computers, subject to whatever rules or laws that apply to them. Just guessing, but trolling other people's files on a government computer is probably a no-no.

[tori]

can someone explain "asshat"?

[AJMB]

Somewhere, Tricky Dick is smiling. G. Gordon too.

[jon b.]

Sorry dan but you are just out to lunch on this one. If your front door is unlocked it is not a tacit invitation for anyone to come in. No thief can defend himself by saying the victim didn?t do enough to protect himself (imagine a rape defense of ?she didn?t stop me?). And I noticed that you didn?t address whether your mother had taught you what stealing was. The question isn?t were the files protected enough, the question is whether they took something that didn?t belong to them. And don?t be fooled by whether the information was ?just looked at? because if file sharing is a crime then this is. That whole atoms vs. bits debate is so 20th century.

The whole thing seems to boil down to the wonderfully malleable ?values? of the right wing. It?s stealing only if somebody else does it, it?s lying only if somebody else does it, etc. I?m sick of the BS and if you don?t know right from wrong you have a lot of company in the administration.

And don?t be looking in my windows. Minding your own business is another ?value? that seems to be lost.

[DanInAlabama]

As a network administrator I could look at anything anyone puts on my Servers. I could look at pay the rates of other employees, or documents to our Government oversight staff. This information might give me an insight as to, say, how much of a raise to ask for, or whether or not our project is going to be funded for another year. In other words information that might benefit me in some way. But I would never look at, or even hunt for, that kind of information because to do so would be unethical, period. Just having the ability to look at information that you have no right to see does not make OK. You may have access to, and want to read your Wife?s diary, but you know it is wrong and if she catches you buddy, you are going to be in big trouble. What these guys were doing is called cheating. I know in this day of situational ethics some people think that is OK to lie, steal, or cheat if it furthers their agenda, or benefits them in some way, but I find these particular ?Staffers? sadly lacking in basic moral values. And the fact that their Bosses went along with them, and even disseminated the purloined information to others, makes them guilty, too. And no, I am not naive, I know how the world works, and I know ?both sides" do this kind of crap. But that doesn't mean people who engage in this type of activity shouldn't be punished.

[Voyager]

As a political half-breed (Libertarian/Republican) and a retired computer hacker, my only question now is "How much will the GOP pay me as a technical consultant?" 😉

Voyager
Webmaster: http://www.hackfaq.org

[Anonymous]

I am amazed at how anti-GOP the bias is on this supposedly libertarian site. The fact is that dems put their stuff in public access folders.

The other thing that surprises me is that one technical report stated the problem was not even an IT one, that it was a dem staffer one. They had folders where they could put stuff that they intended to share (you know, all that bipartisanship stuff), and they had folders where they could put stuff they did not intend to share. They put everything in the share folder.

The Republicans did not have the same problem...not because of partisan IT, but because they paid attention to what they were doing and what they put where.

DaninAlabama says that 'he would never look' with the implication that he would not use his administrative access to go places he didn't belong, But DIA, what if you happened to notice something interesting in public folders with universal access...no abuse of your admin passwords?

The 'stealing' analogies are pointless, the dems weren't denied the rights to or use of their information. A better analogy would be to peeping toms. And the dems are complaining about peeping toms while naked on their front lawn.

[Donover Sandra Corsover]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 203.162.3.147
URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/20/2004 10:32:42
A coward mistakes oppression for peace.