Tag Archives: FBI Director James Comey

Government Accountability, Technology

U.S. Government Investigating Alleged Data Leak of Justice Department, DHS Employees

Leave a comment

Internet hackers, who appeared to be activists in support of Palestine, claimed to have publicly released the personal data of 20,000 Justice Department employees including some within the FBI on Monday after gaining entry to the Justice Department’s database.

The hackers reportedly claimed via Twitter that the leak was in support of Palestine, and was a direct message to the U.S. government to pressure them into ceasing ties with Israel and to also bring awareness to the occupation of Gaza and attacks by Israel.

Before releasing the data of the 20,000 DOJ employees, the group began the leak on Sunday evening by releasing a list containing over 9,000 Department of Homeland Security employees’ names, emails, current country location, employment titles and phone numbers, with a warning stating that there was more to come.

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 3.44.21 PMScreen Shot 2016-02-10 at 3.27.50 PMScreen Shot 2016-02-10 at 3.27.21 PM
Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 3.44.33 PMScreen Shot 2016-02-10 at 3.28.43 PM

An individual who contacted Motherboard and identified himself as one of the hackers claimed that he was able to access the employee information after he “compromised” a DOJ employee’s email address. After an unsuccessful attempt to access the DOJ web portal with that email address, he reportedly pretended to be an employee who needed assistance. He said he called the web department to obtain an access code needed to obtain the files. “They asked if I had a token code, I said no, they said that’s fine—just use our one,” the hacker told Motherboard.

After the web department gave him the information he needed, he gained admittance into the portal. According to the Telegraph, the hacker claimed that the group also currently has credit card numbers as well as military emails in their possession from the hack. The Telegraph noted that the “list appears to be real.”

The Department of Justice issued this statement in response to the leak: “This unauthorized access is still under investigation; however, there is no indication at this time that there is any breach of sensitive personally identifiable information,” DOJ spokesperson Peter Carr said in a statement.

While the Justice Department’s statement claimed that there doesn’t appear to be a “breach of sensitive personally identifiable information,” Motherboard noted that the FBI is taking steps to prevent the data from spreading.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, CryptoBin, the site that was reportedly hosting the leaked data, has become more difficult to access. “A Department of Justice spokesman, who previously confirmed that the agency was investigating a possible breach of its systems, declined to comment when asked if the agency had anything to do with the takedown,” reported the Chronicle.

Police State, Politics

FBI Director: Government-Proof Encryption Threatens National Security

5 Comments

On Monday, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey penned an op-ed in the national security blog Lawfare which claimed that data encryption techniques that are effective enough to challenge the government’s ability to crack them are a threat to national security.

“The logic of encryption will bring us, in the not-to-distant future, to a place where devices and data in motion are protected by universal strong encryption. That is, our conversations and our ‘papers and effects’ will be locked in such a way that permits access only by participants to a conversation or the owner of the device holding the data,” said Comey. After paying brief lip service to the benefits of strong encryption, Comey began to lay out why he thinks future advancements in encryption technology will “inexorably affect my ability to do [my] job.”

“When the government’s ability—with appropriate predication and court oversight—to see an individual’s stuff goes away, it will affect public safety,” asserted Comey. He continued, evoking terrorism, “That tension is vividly illustrated by the current ISIL threat, which involves ISIL operators in Syria recruiting and tasking dozens of troubled Americans to kill people, a process that increasingly takes part through mobile messaging apps that are end-to-end encrypted, communications that may not be intercepted, despite judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment. But the tension could as well be illustrated in criminal investigations all over the country. There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption.”

According to National Journal, Comey will testify on Wednesday before the US Senate’s Intelligence and Judiciary committees on the challenges law enforcement agencies face in keeping up with encryption techniques.

Earlier this year, President Obama took a position similar to Comey’s on the issue and said, “If we get into a situation which the technologies do not allow us at all to track somebody we’re confident is a terrorist… that’s a problem.”

National Journal’s Dustin Volz wrote, “Many believe there is no such thing as a ‘golden key’ for encryption that could allow law-enforcement or national security professionals access into an encrypted device without also creating a vulnerability that malicious hackers could exploit.“