Emmanuel Macron campaign hacked on eve of French election
En Marche! movement says posting of massive email leak on document-sharing site ‘clearly amounts to democratic destabilisation as was seen in the US’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... h-election
AUTHOR: ANDY GREENBERG. ANDY GREENBERG SECURITY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.05.17.
05.05.17
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:32 PM.
7:32 PM
HACKERS HIT MACRON WITH HUGE EMAIL LEAK AHEAD OF FRENCH ELECTION
Emmanuel Macron, candidate for the 2017 French presidential elections.ED ALCOCK/REDUX
ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, another massive data dump seemingly intended to sabotage a center-left candidate. But in the case of France’s impending runoff, slated for Sunday, the latest leak of emails appears far more slap-dash than the Russian hacks and leaks that plagued Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And in this case, they’re timed to prevent the target of those leaks from even having a chance to respond.
On Friday, a collection of links to torrent files appeared on the anonymous publishing site PasteBin. The 9GB trove purports to be an archive of leaked emails from the party of Emmanuel Macron, the left-leaning candidate currently favored to win France’s impending runoff election against far-right opponent Marine Le Pen.
The latest data dump comes less than 48 hours before France’s election, possibly too late to shift its outcome—at least to the degree that the hacks of the DNC and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta did in the months leading up to the US election. Its timing so close to the runoff could still prove strategic, as French law forbids candidates from speaking publicly for two days ahead of an election. That timing could prevent Macron himself from responding to any scandal that surfaces in the data dump, real or fabricated.
A Well-Timed Hack
In a statement, Macron’s political party confirmed that hackers had compromised it. “The En Marche! party has been the victim of a massive, coordinated act of hacking, in which diverse internal information (mails, documents, accounting, contracts) have been broadcast this evening on social networks,” reads a public statement in French from the Macron campaign. “The files which are circulating were obtained a few weeks ago thanks to the hacking of the professional and personal email accounts of several members of the campaign.”
En Marche’s acknowledgement of the hack doesn’t mean all of the leaked emails themselves are genuine; the party’s statement also warned that among the authentic documents in the leak were “numerous false documents intended to sow doubt and disinformation.”
At a glance, the hacked email haul appears to not be entirely fabricated, says Rob Graham, a security consultant for Errata Security who has downloaded portions of the collection. “It has the structure of real email archives,” Graham says. But he cautions that even if some part of the leak turns out to be genuine, it could easily contain specific forgeries designed to spark scandal.
“Presumably, someone will start pointing out any salacious emails,” Graham adds. “You can bet that someone like WikiLeaks will pick these emails apart and post them individually.”
A Familiar Pattern
Late last month, the security firm Trend Micro noted in a report that the Macron campaign appeared to be a target of the Russian-government-linked hacker group Fancy Bear, also known as Pawn Storm or APT 28. The firm’s researchers found a phishing domain created by the hacker group in March, designed to target the campaign by impersonating the site that En March uses for cloud data storage. At the time, the Macron campaign claimed that that hacking attempts had failed. On Friday morning, users of the anonymous forum 4Chan had also purported to have published evidence of Macron’s tax evasion, though those claims were also unverified, and it’s not clear if they’re connected to the current leak.
In the wake of Russian hackers’ attempt to sway the US election, which remains the subject of two Congressional investigations, the cybersecurity community has warned that the Kremlin may attempt similar tricks to swing elections towards its favored candidates in the French and upcoming German elections, too.
Former British intelligence staffer Matt Tait warned that regardless of what it contains, the simple fact of the data dump achieves certain objectives. “By all means, look through them,” he wrote on Twitter. “But do[so] with your eyes open and knowing that you’re being played for free negative coverage/headlines.”
The Macron campaign compared the hacking directly to the hacker targeting of Clinton campaign. “Intervening in the last hour of an official campaign, this operation clearly seeks to destabilize democracy, as already seen in the United States’ last president campaign,” the statement reads. “We cannot tolerate that the vital interests of democracy are thus endangered.”
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/macron-em ... -election/
DFR LabVerified account
@DFRLab
#BREAKING: MacronLeaks hashtag started in US, apparently launched by Alt-Right figure Jack Posobiec. #FrenchElection https://medium.com/@DFRLab/hashtag-camp ... 3fb870c4e8 …
Fake News And The "Alt-Right" Are Pushing Forged Documents To Aid Marine Le Pen In France's Election
Blog ››› 8 hours 19 sec ago ››› ALEX KAPLAN
Forged documents originating on 4chan alleging that French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was evading taxes spread online thanks to an ecosystem that includes social media, “alt-right” outlets, and fake news purveyors. The campaign was seemingly aided by Russian-linked entities, and it subsequently reached Macron’s opponent, who aired the claim in a public debate.
Macron is competing in a May 7 runoff against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. On May 3, hours before a scheduled debate between Macron and Le Pen, an anonymous user on 4chan posted documents purporting to show that Macron used a shell company to dodge taxes. Users on the forum responded that the documents should be sent to “independent journalists” and “the alternative media” like “Cernovic (sic), Breitbart, and so on,” and encouraged each other to “spam” the documents “on social media” such as Twitter to get “it trending.” They also said to “send it to Le Pen.” The documents soon spread on Twitter, with many of the Twitter accounts promoting them appearing to have connections to Russia, according to a Belgian researcher. The claim was promoted by “alt-right” media figures such as Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec.
That these figures would attempt to smear Le Pen’s opponent is not surprising given that Le Pen is widely admired by much of the “alt-right” and closely tied with Russia.
Along with Twitter, 4chan’s campaign was picked up by forums on 8chan and Reddit; “alt-right” fringe outlets The Gateway Pundit, Got News, Zero Hedge, and Daily Stormer; and fake news purveyor Before It’s News.
The 4chan-based documents eventually reached Le Pen herself. During her debate with Macron, she said, “I hope that we will not find out that you have an offshore account in the Bahamas.” Le Pen later backed down on her claim, and Macron filed a legal complaint against her for the statement. Multiple outlets have reported that the documents were fake, with The Telegraph noting that they were “widely denounced as crude forgeries.” Additionally, following Le Pen's accusation, the French prosecutor's office has opened an investigation regarding “suspicions of fake news being spread to influence Sunday's presidential vote.”
The case is yet another example of the way the misinformation ecosystem involving the “alt-right” and fake news purveyors amplifies fringe falsities and lies (and even Kremlin-connected conspiracy theories). The network has often succeeded in pushing those false claims into more traditional conservative and mainstream outlets and, thus, the public realm.
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/ ... ion/216305
Jack Posobiec
Re: What's Happening? It? (TRIGGERS UPON TRIGGERS)
Postby guruilla » Fri Dec 09, 2016 3:04 pm
Long piece, not exactly balanced but not a complete smear-up job either; a few interesting points. I post it because reportage about Pizzagate is relevant to the cultural phenomenon/public perception that is "Pizzagate," not because I necessarily agree with anything in it.
..........
On Nov. 16, Jack Posobiec, a former Navy Reserve intelligence officer who had spent much of the previous year as a leader of a pro-Trump grassroots organization, decided he’d had enough of just reading tweets and blog posts about the pizza place in his city.
Posobiec, 31, had never eaten at Comet; he had never even heard of the place until he started reading about it on conservative, anti-government media sites.
Now, with Trump elected, he read the posts more closely. Any story that accused Clinton, John Podesta and Brock of nefarious deeds deserved some investigation, he thought. He believed the Clinton campaign was “full of secrecy and deception.”
It seemed reasonable to Posobiec that Podesta might have organized a sex ring in cahoots with Brock. But the only part of the scenario that was real was that Podesta had been known to eat pizza at Comet. This part is false: pictures purporting to show that symbols, such as butterflies and spirals, in signs at Comet and other shops were statements about pedophilia.
Posobiec said he was curious and confused. He and a friend decided to go have some pizza. They walked into Comet eight days after the election, sat down and ordered. Posobiec got the garlic knots. His friend got a beer. But they were not just hanging out. Posobiec was using his phone to broadcast his evening at Comet on Periscope, an app that allows users to stream video live.
Posobiec said he never made any disturbance inside Comet, but the restaurant’s managers saw him take his camera into a back room where a child’s birthday party was underway. It did not seem appropriate for a child’s party to be broadcast on a stranger’s Periscope feed. The manager asked two D.C. police officers who happened to be across the street to assist.
Posobiec and his friend “were gently refused service and asked to leave,” said a person familiar with the restaurant’s decision.
That evening, after Posobiec was ushered out of Comet, Pettibone tweeted: “You’re my hero for doing this, Jack. Never let go.”
On Twitter, the hashtag #pizzagate peaked in the hours after Posobiec’s video appeared.
On the phone and online, threats poured in, with as many as 150 calls a day.
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viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40135&p=622485&hilit=Jack+Posobiec.#p622485
Re: Hillary Clinton is Seriously Dangerous
Postby Rory » Thu Nov 03, 2016 1:54 pm
http://www.inquisitr.com/3672706/hillar ... -and-more/
The Hillary Clinton email investigation has rocked this year’s election with its timing, but it’s about to be rocked even more, that is if a report by online news source True Pundit is legitimate.
The right-wing publication claim the new emails have exposed the Clintons for being involved in such atrocities as child sex crimes, child exploitation, sexual slavery, money laundering, perjury and obstruction of justice to name a few.
FBI: We are moving towards a Hillary Indictment pic.twitter.com/Cn67Ixph1T
— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) November 3, 2016
The laptop that authorities needed to officially begin the renewed Hillary Clinton email investigation was recently confiscated from Anthony Weiner through a search warrant. This was just a couple of days ago, and already the device has revealed hundreds of thousands of potentially incriminating emails, and according to a New York Police Department whistleblower who spoke with True Pundit, the content of some of those emails is enough “to put Hillary and her crew away for life.”
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39666&p=616882&hilit=Jack+Posobiec.#p616882
Re: Video surfaces of Milo Yiannopoulos defending pedophilia
Postby American Dream » Wed Feb 22, 2017 12:00 pm
.........
The theory that this is a deep-state psy-op has taken hold in many of the circles of the alt-right. Jack Posobiec, another prominent alt-right social media figure, tweeted that a source told him $250,000 was spent on opposition research on Yiannopoulos, where “they” hired PIs and video editors—former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin is somehow involved as well. Lauren Southern, a 21-year-old Canadian media personality for the northern equivalent of Breitbart, also tweeted out that it was a hit job but later deleted her tweets.
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viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40378&p=631856&hilit=Jack+Posobiec.#p631856
