15 comments

  • zmmmmm 36 minutes ago

    You have to think the current administration is completely and totally owned by foreign interests at this point.

    The question is, what do you do as the new administration coming in? Presumably you assume every system and every person is compromised all the way down, like a compromised server - clean wipe and re-install.

    One would assume that, like any good hacker, the current set would be heavily focused on ensuring they can survive a reboot / wipe. The question is, what would they be doing to achieve that?

    • Danox 21 minutes ago

      Prosecute and show no mercy, the current Iran war probably will still be going on when the new administration comes in. The only hope for Mr. Kushner and some of the other people is a rapid peace treaty before the end of this mixed-up administration even that probably will not help.

      • grandpajoey 20 minutes ago

        Unless this administration is held responsible for their actions, I think it's safe to say that the incoming administration is compromised too. We had a bunch of hullabaloo from the Democrats about Russian influence and zero about Israeli influence (which is much more overt, severe and out in the open), so it sure looks like our entire government is a rooted server at this point.

        • overtone1000 31 minutes ago

          Cash out, destroy evidence, and feign innocence and ignorance.

          • mitxela 21 minutes ago

            The new administration will also be paid by the same foreign interests.

            • esafak 24 minutes ago

              They've shifted the culture and normalized their actions. It was already heading in their direction before they came to power.

              • nalekberov 21 minutes ago

                I didn't know Elif Shafak was active on HN.

                • esafak 17 minutes ago

                  She ain't, but I do get emails for her occasionally.

            • consumer451 1 hour ago

              I am pretty darn jaded these days, but I find myself staggered.

              edit after reply:

              > What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan.

              Ahh, now the arrest of the former chief of Germany's BND, related to what seemed like a random country "Azerbaijan" is making a bit more sense?

              • TFNA 59 minutes ago

                Azerbaijan isn't a random country in corruption contexts. It is a petro-state and run by a single family for their own enrichment. It's pretty expected to come up occasionally in these kind of stories.

                • tiahura 1 hour ago

                  I wouldn't read a connection between the two other than a lot of corruption flows through Azerbaijan.

                  • blipvert 1 hour ago

                    I think that you’ll find that it’s pronounced “Aber-baijan”.

                  • the corruption or that other countries are able to surface the corruption faster than we can?

                    • georgemcbay 59 minutes ago

                      > or that other countries are able to surface the corruption faster than we can?

                      A lot of the corruption just happens right out in the open here these days, doesn't even need to be surfaced.

                  • toomim 20 minutes ago
                    • cf100clunk 1 hour ago
                      • hmartin 1 hour ago

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                        • mitxela 19 minutes ago

                          If you live in Russia you should already have a circumvention method available

                          • ghm2180 44 minutes ago

                            Russian network ingress/egress?

                            • ThrowawayTestr 48 minutes ago

                              Works on my machine

                          • cdrnsf 23 minutes ago

                            Everything lately makes me want to re-watch Peter Finch's monologue from Network.

                          • Havoc 38 minutes ago

                            Why bother with hacks when it's an open secret that the US gov is compromised?

                            • mitxela 12 minutes ago

                              A lot of people still don't believe it despite increasing levels of proof. The proof is fighting against the world's most powerful media empires, which also prevent access to the proof.

                              • slowin 13 minutes ago

                                Honestly, this story reeks of being a limited hangout:

                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

                              • tyrabound 52 minutes ago

                                Not to make this political, but if the democrats gain control they better at least actually try to prosecute these criminals and not just make it yet another circle jerk asking for donations and never actually accomplishing anything. At some point the ruling class is going to mess around and everyone’s head ends up on a pile regardless. This is the time to demonstrate your head doesn’t deserve on the pile too. Time is running out. Just saying. Things happen fast when they finally cross that threshold that always comes as a surprise.

                                • losvedir 45 minutes ago

                                  Echoes of "Lock her up! Lock her up!"

                                  • cthalupa 8 minutes ago

                                    On one hand, we have an email server where most of the classified information on it was classified for her own protection - like her location.

                                    Meanwhile Trump and plenty of others have also practiced extremely poor email hygiene using non-official emails for all sorts of stuff. You don't hear about that from the Left because, well, there's all sorts of far more concerning shit happening.

                                    Then, on the other hand, there's staggeringly large and previously unprecedented levels of corruption with this administration. We've never seen anything remotely like it, unless your argument is just that the Democrats are just vastly more competent at hiding it, despite constantly having all sorts of shit leak and just generally being totally incompetent at managing the party itself.

                                    But if you don't understand the difference between the Hillary email situation and the staggering amount of blatantly illegal and massively corrupt things coming out of the Trump administration basically every single day, I don't know that there's any level of proof or any argument that could be made to change your mind.

                                    • asdfman123 20 minutes ago

                                      Yes, the MO of the Trump administration is to blame the other side of what they're actually doing.

                                      Loudly making unfounded or exaggerated claims of corruption is a pretty effective tool for muddying the waters and making it less clear where the smoke is coming from.

                                      • heylook 28 minutes ago

                                        Are you:

                                        A) a troll

                                        B) truly unable to tell the difference

                                      • ThrowawayTestr 48 minutes ago

                                        Spoiler: They won't.

                                        • markdown 34 minutes ago

                                          They'll put another limp dick like Merrick Garland in charge

                                      • Barrin92 43 minutes ago

                                        I also feel people are missing the forest for the trees in that discussion in that Jared Kushner is a private citizen and the son in law of the president who somehow is negotiating with foreign heads of states despite having no mandate from the American people to do so. Forget a hacked phone, why is a nepo baby running around negotiating on behalf of a country without holding any office

                                        • surfingdino 34 minutes ago

                                          Because the most powerful nation on Earth turned out to be powerless against a carefully planned and executed Dismantling of Democracy attack.

                                      • enjoyyourlife 1 hour ago

                                        I'm more interested to see if it revealed he is using it on Saturdays

                                      • Calavar 1 hour ago

                                        So Kushner's phone was hacked around the same time as Hunter Biden's laptop? Why has the latter captured the media so much more then the former?

                                        • consumer451 1 hour ago

                                          This question and the potential answers are honestly the most interesting thing in this thread, so far.

                                          • jazzyjackson 1 hour ago

                                            Because the latter included clips of the presidents son smoking crack and hanging out with prostitutes? lol

                                            • estearum 42 minutes ago

                                              The President’s son being a private citizen versus the President’s son in law being some pseudo-secretary of state?

                                            • Media had access to the laptop, and we only have second hand claims about the phone.

                                              • frmersdog 22 minutes ago

                                                Boy, that sounds like a job for an investigative reporter with the public interest in mind.

                                              • pxmpxm 59 minutes ago

                                                Is there an alternate reality where the dem aligned mass media didn't completely bury the ridiculously salacious laptop story (drugs, money for access aaaand onlyfans level nudity!!) to steer the election?

                                                Because i distinctly recall the head of what to that point I though was a credible journalistic organization saying she didnt want to "waste people's time" with that.

                                                • jetpks 54 minutes ago

                                                  The alternate reality is the one where "dem aligned mass media _did_ completely bury" -- because it's all I heard about for months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months.

                                                  • pxmpxm 21 minutes ago

                                                    You mean *after* the election, right? At which point it mattered f_all, other than the sheer entertainment value.

                                                • jonas21 1 hour ago

                                                  Biden's laptop was in the possession of a computer shop in the US, and the owner leaked its contents to the media.

                                                  Kushner's phone data was in the possession of Dutch intelligence who didn't want anyone to know that they had hacked the phone, and this was not public knowledge until today.

                                                  • estearum 40 minutes ago

                                                    Biden’s laptop was in the possession of “someone” who brought it to a blind computer repair person (seriously!), who then got in touch with Rudy Giuliani, who then leaked the contents to the media… and so we can’t really know who actually gained possession of it. The repair man was blind lol.

                                                  • rootsudo 1 hour ago

                                                    crowd control on 4chan?

                                                    • jimt1234 1 hour ago
                                                      • pupppet 1 hour ago

                                                        I think it's becoming clear that although the media just happily accepts the left-wing bias accusations, they are by no means left-wing. They shouted every random Biden mistake from the rooftops while this administration mostly gets a free pass.

                                                        • bayarearefugee 53 minutes ago

                                                          > Why has the latter captured the media so much more then the former?

                                                          Kushner is a boring nerd and Biden is a Chad with a huge dong.

                                                        • ck2 2 hours ago

                                                          it's going to take decades to unravel all the corruption by this administration

                                                          it is staggering

                                                          and they are destroying records in violation of law

                                                          because "pardons for everyone" on the way out

                                                          • lopsotronic 1 hour ago

                                                            "Corruption" isn't quite the right scale to use for this. Far deeper, more systemic. This is the disassembly of a state.

                                                            Much more equivalent to phenomenon surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union: liquidation of an entire state's infrastructure via foreign exchange controlled exclusively by the security state . . with plenty of братва duocracy of course.

                                                            We've already seen equivalents, even before the 2008 Econopalypse, but activities like those of the Trump-affiliated circle is the terminal end: where USD-denominated assets are exchanged for pure state power. It's just that this is a particularly pure form of it.

                                                            There will be no unravelling of this, not until the system of USD seigniorage itself unravels.

                                                          • dylan604 1 hour ago

                                                            why would you need to destroy anything if there's pardons involved. Even if they have the proof you committed wrongdoing, the pardon means you suffer no consequences.

                                                            • throw0101a 59 minutes ago

                                                              > why would you need to destroy anything if there's pardons involved.

                                                              To prosecute people guilty of state-level violations (which are not covered by Presidential federal-level pardons). To find 'collaborators' (and perhaps prosecute them, as it may difficult to pardon 'everyone'). To know what happened to perhaps help prevent it happening again in the future.

                                                              • dylan604 42 minutes ago

                                                                Well, that's why you commit your crimes in DC!

                                                              • neaden 1 hour ago

                                                                They still probably are violating plenty of state and local laws that the pardon won't do anything about.

                                                                • DASD 58 minutes ago

                                                                  That and there is an idea that the strength of pardons will be tested by the House Oversight Committee(assuming take back by Democrats).

                                                                  • estearum 39 minutes ago

                                                                    IMO the pardon power was an absolute mistake and I’m totally fine with us just burning this bridge for good.

                                                                  • dylan604 35 minutes ago

                                                                    what happens if you are convicted in federal court before receiving the pardon. does double jeopardy come into play?

                                                                • red_candle_wax 1 hour ago

                                                                  > and they are destroying records in violation of law

                                                                  Nothing new and there will be no justice. Look up the guy in charge of MKUltra. He destroyed evidence and got a nice retirement.

                                                                  • jldugger 1 hour ago

                                                                    Seems like the best case scenario is prosecution under state laws, which the presidential pardon cannot stop.

                                                                    • ceejayoz 1 hour ago

                                                                      The best case scenario is probably drone strikes as "official acts" under Presidential immunity.

                                                                    • jimt1234 1 hour ago

                                                                      My understanding is that they don't need to destroy records related to Kushner because he's not a government employee, his records aren't required to be retained. And that is, no doubt, by design.

                                                                      • dmix 1 hour ago

                                                                        This article is about a phone hacking in 2017 when he was still a federal employee. Russia hacked his iPhone X around then.

                                                                    • jongjong 53 minutes ago

                                                                      This kind of stuff gives an insight into how horrible centralized governance is. All these manipulations happening behind the scenes constantly which people are affected by but can't make sense of. It's not really surprising though, it's just part of the system. The system is designed in a way to attract certain people and make them behave a certain way. Power should be much more decentralized so that this doesn't happen.

                                                                      • estearum 44 minutes ago

                                                                        The reason that power centralizes is that decentralized powers tend to get outcompeted (in the short run) by centralized powers.

                                                                        • jongjong 20 minutes ago

                                                                          Then there should be a centralized power whose only power is to enforce the decentralization of power. Basically a bunch of agents who go around and get paid to legally remove from power anyone who gets too powerful politically or financially and that's all they do and can do. There should be a crime 'Overaccumulation of power' which carries a jail sentence and a special court made up of a large random jury who vote on each case.

                                                                          The jury is asked to vote if a person is too powerful and also there is a question "Do you recognize who this person/entity is?" and if some non-trivial percentage of people answer 'yes', then they it means this person has too much power and they get removed from all their positions immediately. Also there can be another test like this related to wealth; so if wealth is above a certain high limit (like $100 million), they are offered to either donate everything above the limit to a UBI fund or they go to jail until the amount falls below the limit.

                                                                          I think such system would out-compete centralized systems which do not have such limits.

                                                                      • partiallypro 53 minutes ago

                                                                        I am very jaded about the current administration and also the previous...few...or several? That being said, similar to the Hunter Biden laptop situation, I think you do have to be careful. Sure they -could- have the device or it -could- have been hacked, but what is the proof that the hacked or on-device information wasn't planted among real items to make it appear legitimate? That was always the big if for me with the Hunter stuff, so I will extend the same skepticism here, knowing full well it could definitely be true in either case.

                                                                        • red_candle_wax 1 hour ago

                                                                          Its just good business.

                                                                          • dead_hn_theory 23 minutes ago

                                                                            Hold on honey I want to read what HN has to say about Jared Kushner.