Issues Under Fire: Attack of the Russian Black Hats

Issues Under Fire: Attack of the Russian Black Hats

If only one tenth of what’s being reported about Russia’s involvement in hacking America is true, U.S. politicians and public officials should be shitting bricks these days. When former secretary of state and four-star Army general Colin Powell’s hacked e-mails revealed Bill Clinton is still “dicking bimbos” at home (according to NYPD), it became painfully obvious the cyber intruders targeting the United States are far more skilled than those charged with keeping them at bay.

Apparently, Black Hat crews have been hacking into “secured” computer systems, private emails and databases seemingly with relative ease, as they’re now releasing volumes of sensitive, embarrassing and damaging information to the public. Whether it’s the Russians or any number of hacking crews with a grudge, nobody is safe or secure. And the list of public officials that have had their privacy compromised is astounding.

Hackers have gained access to and exposed the private emails of CIA Director John Brennan and James R. Clapper Jr., Director of National Intelligence. They’ve also hacked into the accounts of Mark Giuliano, a former FBI deputy director; Amy Hess, the FBI executive assistant director for science and technology; Gregory Mecher, who is married to White House communications director Jen Psaki; and Harold Rosenbaum, chief executive of CIA contractor Centra Technology. Now, if anybody should be able to protect themselves and their secrets, it’s these people. At this point, anybody that doen’t have the ability to communicate telepathically is at risk.

Just two days ago, NBC news reported Admiral Mike Rogers, Chief of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command big-shot, was concerned that the potential for Russia’s Black Hats to influence the U.S. electoral process in the upcoming general election is a real concern. Reportedly, Russian Black Hats were involved with recent hacking efforts into two state voter registration databases. Cybersecurity officials reported the theft of information from 200,000 Illinois voting records, as well as attempts to use malware for the purpose of breeching voting records in Arizona.

So, our question is this: If the Russians are really doing all of this stuff (and that’s a big “if” considering little, if any, evidence has been provided to back up the allegations), how come Admiral Rogers still has a job? Who chews his ass out whenever the latest security breech is forced to be announced? Maybe this gig is over his head. Maybe we need to recruit smarter people to handle these threats. Let’s face it, some of the most powerful people in the world are being exposed on a daily basis and the only response we’ve heard to date is: The Russians did it! The Russians did it!

Still, despite the uproar, there is an upside to all this hacking and sharing. At least “We the People” now know what Colin Powell really thinks of Bill and Hillary Clinton. The fact that he blames HRC for losing him a speaking “gig” at a university because “she so overcharged them”, the university took so much heat they couldn’t afford to pay him. “I should send her a bill”, he wrote. Now, that’s newsworthy. That fact that Powell wrote “everything HRC touches, she kind of screws up” and that Bill is still getting his knob polished on the regular is some juicy shit. How else could we really get to know who these bastards really are and what they really think?

Bottom line: Considering the upcoming 2016 general election has already been exposed as a sham and a shame, why not take comfort in having our worse conspiracies validated? We say hail to the hackers and long live the Black Hats, whomever you are. Podcast below.