I’m kind of leaning towards the idea that the US government should offer secure IT services to campaigns, because this is a problem for the country, not just the people involved.
Like, a campaign alone probably cannot counter nation-state intelligence agencies acting against them.
And the problem is larger than just “a country might try to undermine someone’s campaign”.
Having damning material to blackmail a President would be a problem, even if the material comes from activity prior to time as a President. We do not want that.
EDIT: l’d also add that this isn’t just a problem for the US. Leaders in general, but particularly leaders of democracies, where popularity determines who holds power, face that as a risk factor.
It’s not an entirely new problem in the Internet era, but I think that the problems are tremendously exacerbated by having a lot of sensitive information living on very complicated machines connected to a globally-accessible network.
This is not about the need for government support, this case is solely a case of gross incompetence in IT.
If one gets hacked, one makes dead sure that the hole where the attacker entered and all the holes the attacker created afterwards are thoroughly taken care of.
The government buys IT services from the same companies that everyone else does: Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They all offer special government offerings with stricter security.
I guarantee Trump is getting hacked because he and his team refuse to listen to IT and won’t let them turn on basic security features because they’re a slight inconvenience.
to be fair, though politicians are usually rich, we dont want a system wherein they have to be rich, or where compromising information on a high level politician gets to a hostile power just because while said politician was running they were a cheapskate about who they hired for security
US government should offer secure IT services to campaigns
They already do. Part of the problem is that the candidates themselves don’t want to comply, for fear of someone in the secret service leaking.
This goes back to Clinton sneaking around behind the back of his detail to get head and Cheney maintaining a secret vault of physical files to skirt rules on disclosure.
Having damning material to blackmail a President would be a problem
J. Edger Hoover would consider it extremely useful, particularly if he needed to tighten the leash.
Depending on who you believe, your bosses having Compromat on you is practically a prerequisite for climbing the ladder.
Having damning material to blackmail a President would be a problem, even if the material comes from activity prior to time as a President. We do not want that.
The only problem with the damning material prior or not, is that it happened in the first place.
If a future president has something so damning they could use it for blackmail, we should all know and be thankful it was bought to public light.
Setting aside the general problems with being able to split the interests of a leader away from that of the country he leads, blackmail doesn’t entail simply releasing information, but rather agreeing to refrain from doing so in exchange for some action that would not otherwise have been taken. Say a President agrees to do something against the interests of the public in exchange for the non-disclosure of information.
I’m kind of leaning towards the idea that the US government should offer secure IT services to campaigns, because this is a problem for the country, not just the people involved.
Like, a campaign alone probably cannot counter nation-state intelligence agencies acting against them.
And the problem is larger than just “a country might try to undermine someone’s campaign”.
Having damning material to blackmail a President would be a problem, even if the material comes from activity prior to time as a President. We do not want that.
EDIT: l’d also add that this isn’t just a problem for the US. Leaders in general, but particularly leaders of democracies, where popularity determines who holds power, face that as a risk factor.
It’s not an entirely new problem in the Internet era, but I think that the problems are tremendously exacerbated by having a lot of sensitive information living on very complicated machines connected to a globally-accessible network.
This is not about the need for government support, this case is solely a case of gross incompetence in IT.
If one gets hacked, one makes dead sure that the hole where the attacker entered and all the holes the attacker created afterwards are thoroughly taken care of.
The government buys IT services from the same companies that everyone else does: Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They all offer special government offerings with stricter security.
I guarantee Trump is getting hacked because he and his team refuse to listen to IT and won’t let them turn on basic security features because they’re a slight inconvenience.
I’m of the opinion that the alleged billionaire with his own cryptocurrency and publicly traded tech company should be able to afford a security guy.
Why not just hire cyber ninjas?
to be fair, though politicians are usually rich, we dont want a system wherein they have to be rich, or where compromising information on a high level politician gets to a hostile power just because while said politician was running they were a cheapskate about who they hired for security
Because they require payment upfront lmao
They already do. Part of the problem is that the candidates themselves don’t want to comply, for fear of someone in the secret service leaking.
This goes back to Clinton sneaking around behind the back of his detail to get head and Cheney maintaining a secret vault of physical files to skirt rules on disclosure.
J. Edger Hoover would consider it extremely useful, particularly if he needed to tighten the leash.
Depending on who you believe, your bosses having Compromat on you is practically a prerequisite for climbing the ladder.
The only problem with the damning material prior or not, is that it happened in the first place.
If a future president has something so damning they could use it for blackmail, we should all know and be thankful it was bought to public light.
Setting aside the general problems with being able to split the interests of a leader away from that of the country he leads, blackmail doesn’t entail simply releasing information, but rather agreeing to refrain from doing so in exchange for some action that would not otherwise have been taken. Say a President agrees to do something against the interests of the public in exchange for the non-disclosure of information.
More reason to push to disclose as much information as possible, not give state protection to hide it.
Might be able to do that by extending the responsibilities of the secret service for such things. Or having the NSA on top of that shit.