Computer reportedly seized from Frist's office

[Beam Me Up]

Democrats say their computers were infiltrated by GOP staffers

By RICHARD POWELSON, [e-mail]
January 24, 2004

WASHINGTON - Federal investigators reportedly have seized a staff computer in Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office in a probe to find Republican aides who improperly accessed Democrats' memos on opposing judicial nominees.

Nick Smith, a spokesman for Frist, R-Tenn., would not confirm or deny Friday if an office computer or hard drive was taken by investigators representing the office of the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms.

"We're not commenting on the issue while it's under investigation," Smith said.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0%2C1406%2CKNS_348_2600932%2C00.html

[Jack_Dawson]

1. Now wouldn't THAT be something?

We wish. The media will kill the story in 2 minutes.

[0007]

2. It would be sweet!

What makes me think that it may be too late!!

[kysrsoze]

20. Anybody mailed this to Yahoo?

Only Yahoo seems to accept anything from the outside. This is pretty BIG.

[arwalden]

3. They Are All Crooks

[ramapo]

4. Why'd it take so long?

This has been under investigation for some time. I hope evidence hasn't been lost.

[Democat]

5. He should resign, or at least have to think about it

There is no way this was done just be "aides". The head Republicans were the ones using the info, not some "aides".

That's like saying that mafia bosses never do anything wrong, because they don't pull the trigger.

Frist needs to step down now to save America the shame of finding out the head of the Senate is a criminal.

At least one safe district Democrat should call for him to step down. We need to make this into a major news story and keep it in the news.

[iamjoy]

14. Aides or Leaders

OK - I'm really a Democrat, but I have to say this. It COULD have been just aides, just like it was Edward's campaign workers and not the nominee himself passing out the dirty plays book.

The real test is, will Republican leaders stand up and condemn these actions and reprimand those responsible? Or, will they try to dodge the issue and shift responsibility?

[LiberalFighter]

18. Who did the aides pass off the info?

They would had to have known or didn't ask so that they wouldn't known officially. Either way the leaders knew and condoned the action if they did not ordered it.

In addition, this was happening for a year on a regular basis. If this had been discovered anywhere from overnite to a few days then it would had been different.

[Grins]

25. "Will they try to dodge the issue?" Will?

They've already begun. From the lips of Manuel C. Miranda, a now former Sen. Hatch staffer considered to be the most likely suspect:

"Those documents that I did read were, in my view, not obtained in any way that was improper, unlawful or unethical," he said. He described them as "inadvertent disclosures that came to me as a result of some negligence on the part of the Democrats' technology staff."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/politics/23JUDG.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1074837666-3rD1KjYCRfbXJ2AoXBOAtA>

Kinda like, "Well, it was the bank guard that failed to stop the robbery, so it's his fault. I only drove the get-away car."

[Democat]

21. If an "aide" kept stealing secret files for months and passing them on

The "aides" were obviously passing secret information on to the top Republicans, probably including Frist. Even if he wasn't directly involved, do Republicans believe "the buck stops here" or not?

Frist is the person responsible for Republicans stealing and using private and secret information. He needs to step down or at least be investigated by someone other than his good friend John Ashcroft.

If a Democrat would call for him to resign, it would turn this into a bigger news story, which is what we need right now. Without media attention, the Justice Department will declare it dead and once again Republicans will get away with their crimes.

Democrats need to get in the news with this and make it a big issue. If we can't even make something of this, we are bound to lose every time.

[BuckeFushe]

33. Doesn't anyone remember that Hannity 'broke' the conspiracy documents

That proved we were 'traitors' and wouldn't name his source? He was so proud that he had obtined the nugget. Now he doesn't say a word. Wonder if he's being investigated too?

[amber dog democrat]

6. Republicans have cheated

for the most part ever since Nixon. This is right out of their playbook.
For them the key thing is not getting caught.

[Thor_MN]

7. Hmmmm

"Thank you for visiting my web site. Protecting the personal privacy of individuals who use the Internet is a priority for me " First words of the Bill Frist, MD Senate web page privacy policy.




http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm

Contact Form

Due to upgrades to our correspondance system occuring between January 5 and January 25, Senator Frist's email contact form will be temporarily disabled. We apologize for the inconvenience, however, the new system will allow us to communicate with with you faster and better. If you need to contact us, you may do so via phone, fax or mail. Click here for our Tennessee and DC office contact information. Again, we apologize for the inconvenince!

[arcane1]

9. these guys are going to break my irony meter

if they keep this shit up!

[Dover]

11. Sounds like the whole office is without computers.....

Interesting. So a new one will be up by Jan. 25th.

[Toots]

29. Very clever deduction

I think you are on to something. All of their computers have been impounded and it will take a couple of weeks to get the new ones up and running. Is this a crime or just a breach of ethics?

[Dr Fate]

8. Candidates should raise a stink about this...

...and demand that Bush renounce Frist for these "Watergate-like" tactics...

[rustydog]

10. If, by Republican logic that any Al Qaeda caught in Iraq is proof

(Smoking gun proof) of an Al Qaeda/Saddam link, then a computerassigned to Frist's office and used to spy on Democrat strategy and leak to press is proof he is complicit. Hell, it is proof he ok'd the tactic!

[truthisfreedom]

12. rethugs are anti-American, unpatriotic mafiosos. they have NO

character.

[CookieD]

13. If the data was ever there, chances are ...

they will find it. Virtually everything can be retrieved these days from a computer hard drive. If, however, some data is obliterated, they should be able to discover that as well.

[TacticalPeek]

15. Hmmmm. "Both on and off the committee"?

Leahy criticized the "cyber theft" of confidential Democratic memoranda.

"This invasion was perpetrated by Republican employees both on and off the committee," he said without naming names. "Members of the Republican staff took things that did not belong to them and passed them around and on to people outside of the Senate. This is no small mistake. It is a serious breach of trust, morals, and possibly the rules and regulations governing the U.S. Senate."

---

Wonder what legal boundaries 'off the committee' is beyond?

A conspiracy on its face, with Frist, Lott and Hatch never questioning from where the secrets came.

[Desperadoe]

16. The first rule of computing

Never, never have anything on your hard drive that you do not want to share with the fibbers. You can never, ever get it off. It's worse than that stain on Monica's blue dress.

[Fovea]

27. FDISK

Format C:\

These generally work.

[Desperadoe]

28. The only reliable way to clean a hard drive

Is with a very big hammer and a very deep hole or a very hot fire. Format C:\ just makes the fibbers laugh......

[Desperadoe]

31. Format C:\

<snip> Hammer option

"There is a common misconception that formatting a disk means it is empty," said Phil Bowles, Forensic Analyst at DataSec.

"It may appear that it is empty and the machine won't even start up again but the data can be recovered within minutes," he said.

To be confident information is gone, users need to get their hands on wiping software, readily and cheaply available on the internet said Mr Bowles.

"Or alternatively they could hit it with a mallet. That should do it," he added.

The research by the MIT students is published in the January/February issue of US-based IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Security and Privacy magazine.<snip>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2676461.stm

From DOD Spec 7(sorry no link)


Published NSA security specifications do *not* address the issue.


The DOD spec is for handling devices that contained "classified" data,
*only*. 'Secret', or above, and the device -never- leaves the secure
area. When it is 'beyond use', the drive is disassembled, the media
is sandblasted off the platters, the platters are then subjected to
'excessive' heat (I forget the actual temperature, but it is such that
magnetic media would 'lose' its orientation, if it were still
present), then, after cooling, the platters are chopped into sub-1/4"
square sections, stirred, 'folded in' to a much larger mass of similar
metal from other sources, and the entire mass is melted into large
'slugs', and goes off for recycling. The sandblasted-off media
powder goes throug several analogous steps, before being shipped out.

The more 'generations' back you go, the harder it is to recover _all_
the content. For intelligence/espionage purposes (whether it be
'national' or 'commercial'), being able to recover even relatively
small, disjoint, chunks of data can have immense value.

In the mid 90's, _commercial_ grade technology could go back 5
generations, with near 100% "user" data recovery (after use of
embedded ECC information, that is). It's safe to assume that
'national' resources could do considerably better, and that *both*
commercial and 'national' capabilities have improved =considerably= in
the intervening time.

[Occulus]

30. Untrue.

It most certainly is possible to remove data from a hard disk, and there are several secure ways of doing so. While it is true that simply hitting the delete key or emptying the recycle bin doesn't completely remove the data (only its entries in the allocation table), because of exactly that it's quite possible to completely remove data.

All you need to do is 1) format your hard disk, 2) write a batch file that creates a tiny text file with anything at all in it, and 3) write the batch file so that text file is created again, and again, and again, until the hard drive completely fills with the text files. This can take days, depending on the size of the hard drive.;

Then reformat the hard disk. Any data recovery from that point, if the disk is left empty, will only be able to recover the text files, because that data has replaced the data you were trying to hide.

This is only one sinle method; there is software out there that deletes files and then replaces the hard drive space they took up with garbage, and then deletes teh garbage. The key is replacing the data on the sectors of the drive that you want to hide, not simply deleting it.

It's ok, it's a common mistake. Generally speaking, you're correct, unless you wish to go the extra mile and make sure the offending data is really gone.

Or you could just cover your hard disk with thermite and light it up. :)

[sendero]

34. the truth is....

.... not even that method will actually obliterate old data.

Because the disk platter itself is a magnetic, analog device, it can be read with sensitive equipment that can read up to 7 generations of writes.

That means, you can write over that sector 6 times and it can still be read.

There are programs on the net that you can use to *really* clean a hard drive, but you cannot just format and write, that won't cut it.

Truthfully, if I ever did something that left a computer trail on my hard drive that I wanted to securely get rid of, I'd use the physical destruction method, it is the only one that is really guaranteed.

[loudnclear]

17. Haven't heard this on FOX, have you?

It this were the other way aroung it would be "Breaking News" 24/7!

[Moderator]

19. Kick!

:dem:

[DiverDave]

22. We need

another Woodward and Bernstein.
The press is a vapor of the one that investigated the Watergate break-in.
This is exactly the same thing.
I will bet $50 that this will not see the light of day.
We MUST force the media to do their job.

[MaineDem]

23. Does this remind anyone else of CREEP?

The Committee to Re-Elect the President, meaning Nixon.

Sounds to me like a modern day Watergate break-in.

[molly]

24. History repeating itself for sure!

[Cooley Hurd]

26. Just replace "plumbers" with "hackers"

...and, yes, this sounds similar to a C.R.E.E.P. op.

[JNelson6563]

32. Just another 3rd rate burglary

nothing to see here folks, move along. ;-)

[sendero]

35. I've heard...

... the perpetrators of this crime claiming that they did nothing wrong because the computers were easily accessed.

That is pure horsepuckey. Accessing a computer which does not belong to you is a crime, just as walking into an unlocked house and stealing is a crime.

The Dems affected should be raising hell about this in the media but I hear nary a peep. I just don't get it - is it just the media refusing to report?

Well, when they start confiscating computers/hard drives - some folks better get worried. Someone is going to be in a lot of trouble if there is still a hint of justice here.

[Democat]

36. This is Watergate - where are the Democrats screaming? Forget the election

This should be the biggest news in the country right now.

Forget Mars, forget the primaries, this should be the biggest news in the United State today and for the next few months.

People should be arrested and politicians should be forced to resign.

The Democrats are totally dropping the ball on a huge issue that the American people would care about if it was presented in the right way.

This is a mystery, a scandal, and a story that the American people would love to follow - just like Michael Jacksong and Lacy Peterson.

Where are the Democrats screaming about this?

[frank frankly]

37. they are terrified

I guess

or 100% corrupt

or both

[chookie]

38. Not only that, but...

...Just wait till they reveal that Bill Frist has downloaded thousands of images of dead cats to his hard drive.