U.S. counter ‘intelligence’ on backdoor encryption

Teen hacker is at it again.  If you recall, back in October, the email account of indignant CIA director John Brennan was infiltrated.  The culprit claimed to be a high school student (or several), and, merely posing as a Verizon technician, he was able to gain access to Brennan’s personal information, and take control of his AOL account.  Revealed therein were several classified government documents containing the names and Social Security numbers of certain U.S. intelligence agents.  Brennan expressed outrage over the incident, condemnatory of anyone who would expose such highly sensitive information.  For his part, the hacker attributed his actions to an opposition to U.S policy on Palestine and Israel.

Now, reports Motherboard, the same individual has gone and hacked James Clapper, director of national intelligence, leaking some of his personal online accounts.  The director’s office has stated that they were already aware of the hack and had reported it to the proper authorities (who is the proper authority for the director of national intelligence?), but has declined on providing further details.

If true, then wow, this kid really goes after the big targets.  Even at this point, it’s remarkable to think how easily breached are the accounts of such high-level government officials.  Well, these instances haven’t done much to quell the administration’s push for backdoors in encrypted devices that only they, in theory, can access.  During the October incident, Brennan said it was evidence of how everyone was vulnerable to having their online data compromised.  That’s right, Mr. Brennan, everyone is.  Including agencies that use backdoors to gather mass amounts of data on people.

By: Jonathan Weicher on January 18, 2016
Originally published at: www.netlib.com
Copyright: NetLib