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TuxRaiderPen2
Make America Great Again
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Linux "Terrorism" on congresscritter PC

quote:
»www.nbcnewyork.com/news/ ··· _HQ.html

Congressman's S.I. Campaign Office Vandalized
Republican Rep. Michael Grimm, who is the target of a federal investigation involving campaign fundraising, is running for reelection against Democrat Matt Murphy

Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm is calling vandalism and the erasure of computer drives at his Republican campaign headquarters over the weekend a "politically motivated" crime.

"Whoever did this, the people responsible are very ignorant, and they don't understand that this is not just an attack against me or my campaign," Grimm, a freshman, told the Staten Island Advance. "This is an attack against a federal campaign office, which is an attack on our democracy as a whole. It's an attack against what we stand for, for free elections."

Grimm, who is the target of a federal investigation involving campaign fundraising, is running for reelection against Democrat Matt Murphy. A Murphy spokesman condemned the break-in.

Grimm said he believes the break-in is part of a pattern, which he tied to the thefts of lawn signs and a recent mysterious computer shutdown in the middle of the night.

"In fact, one officer said to me today they see this as a crime against the government, because I am a sitting United States congressman and they take it very seriously. You know, especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords, we're not in the world today where we can shrug things off," Grimm said. "Violence is violence. Throwing large stones and concrete through the window is an act of violence, and we've got to take it seriously."

Linux, an open-source operating system, was installed on Grimm's computers, erasing the hard drive contents, which included polling and voter identification data. But staff had backed up the hard drive contents hours beforehand. Grimm and his staffers said the vandalism -- cement blocks were thrown through the office's windows -- is a cover-up for the attacks on the computers.

Police sources told the New York Daily News there was no sign of forced entry at Grimm's headquarters, and said the case is being investigated as an act of criminal mischief, not a burglary.


MrFixit1
join:1999-11-26
Madison, WI

MrFixit1

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Turns out that it might be a case of if I scream loud enough I can get what I want .
»blogs.villagevoice.com/r ··· ri_1.php
Politics as usual

rexbinary
MOD King
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join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX

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They got a free upgrade, what's the issue?

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
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The Linux part of that story is explained here:

»www.nydailynews.com/new- ··· .1168006
quote:
But a law enforcement source said it appears that a campaign staffer wiped the hard drives accidentally after mistakenly inserting a Linux system disc into a Windows machine.

The deleted information was backed up, the source said, but the campaign’s IT worker may not have realized that, and may have told Grimm that the information was gone.
So: nothing to see here folks, other than more idiotic people in IT.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

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said by koitsu:

So: nothing to see here folks, other than more idiotic people in IT.

Yeah, that was pretty bad.

KodiacZiller
Premium Member
join:2008-09-04
73368

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said by koitsu:

The Linux part of that story is explained here:

»www.nydailynews.com/new- ··· .1168006

quote:
But a law enforcement source said it appears that a campaign staffer wiped the hard drives accidentally after mistakenly inserting a Linux system disc into a Windows machine.

The deleted information was backed up, the source said, but the campaign’s IT worker may not have realized that, and may have told Grimm that the information was gone.
So: nothing to see here folks, other than more idiotic people in IT.

That story doesn't sound right. How can inserting a Linux LiveCD into a drive "accidentally" wipe the drive out? In order to do that you would need to go through with the install process which takes more work than merely "accidentally" inserting the disk.

In any case, it appears this Congressman had some idiotic IT people on his staff. Where do they find these people? Seriously? And to think this IT guy was probably getting paid a pretty nice salary to be such a moron.

Santa Fe
BUT.....I Digress!

join:2000-08-22
Freight Yard

Santa Fe

said by KodiacZiller:

Where do they find these people? Seriously? And to think this IT guy was probably getting paid a pretty nice salary to be such a moron.

Is he still hiring? I could work from home and he'd never know it!

sempergoofy
Premium Member
join:2001-07-06
Smyrna, GA

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Maybe it was a DBAN bootable CDROM for security wiping drives that was inserted.

Bill_MI
Bill In Michigan
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said by KodiacZiller:

That story doesn't sound right. How can inserting a Linux LiveCD into a drive "accidentally" wipe the drive out? In order to do that you would need to go through with the install process which takes more work than merely "accidentally" inserting the disk.

When you have non-techy people reporting things, ANYTHING could have happened. Including the Linux disk simply left in the drive with no harddisk change at all. "It booted Linux! Someone installed Linux!"

Plausible, but that wouldn't get headlines when it was discovered. Politics!

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

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If he is under investigation for campaign fundraising, I wonder if his team used the window smashing incident to purposely wipe the computers. Maybe he thought if he hollered loud enough it would become truth and people would believe the ploy?

FF4m3
@bhn.net

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From the NY Daily News - September 26, 2012:

A second teen has been charged with hurling chunks of concrete through the window of Rep. Michael Grimm’s Staten Island campaign office.

Avery Gerena, 16, was booked for criminal mischief in the Saturday night incident, which police said was a random act of vandalism, not a politically motivated break-in, as Grimm first claimed.

A second suspect, a 14-year-old, was arrested Tuesday after he told a school guidance counselor that he and his pal busted the windows for no particular reason.

Gerena said he thought they were targeting a car dealership. “I took a big rock and threw it through the window,” he said, court papers state. “We went back and saw the banner that said it was Michael Grimm’s campaign office.”

Grimm initially said such an incident must not be taken lightly, “especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords,” the former Arizona congresswoman shot and badly wounded by a gun-toting lunatic. Staten Island Democratic Chairman John Gulino said Wednesday that Grimm should apologize for the Giffords comparison.

Michael Grimm Open To Offering Internships To Office Vandals - 09/26/2012:

Rep. Michael Grimm seems to want to do right by the two teenagers who vandalized his campaign office on Staten Island, saying he is open to offering internships or volunteer opportunities to them to give a firsthand view of public work. For their part, the teenagers apparently threw rocks through his window just for the heck of it.