
Hillary's IT guy asking Reddit how to cover up emails - nimbleDT
https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/53h8vk/evidence_of_hillarys_it_guy_paul_combetta_asking/
======
headhunter
At first I thought this was a total hoax, but the account has been deleted and
the incriminating posts are over 2 years old. Here is a pastebin I found of
online information linking all his profiles together:
[http://pastebin.com/NmXcUC1X](http://pastebin.com/NmXcUC1X)

This is pretty incriminating.

~~~
joshmn
> This is pretty incriminating.

It is, but it isn't.

One could argue that someone, let's say Bob, happened to overhear some guy
named Paul needing to do exactly this. He overheard it at a bar.

Bob then thought "oh, well if it's someone really VIP, this could make for
some good lulz with my efriends. Who does Paul work for that is _really_ VIP?
Let me Google Paul."

"Oh, here's his email address... stonetear@gmail.com. I wonder if he's on
reddit. ... Guess not. Let's make a post that's pretty obviously
incriminating."

I think that'd be the first argument made, at least. IANAL, but I do have some
courtroom experience.

An IP is also not a person, [https://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-
person-140324/](https://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-person-140324/)

~~~
burkaman
It isn't court of law incriminating, but it's more than enough for the court
of public opinion.

~~~
mikeash
Which is probably all that matters here. I can't imagine Clinton ever seeing
serious legal punishment for this stuff regardless of proof, and Mr. Combetta
has been granted immunity, but this stuff will definitely affect the election.

------
joemi
Maybe I'm completely ignorant of the situation, but it just sounds like he was
trying to keep some email addresses private, in anticipation of some kind of
potential release. Is that bad?

~~~
jordache
Yes it's pretty clear that the content of the email is not to be adjusted,
just the To/From fields.

This seems to be legitimate work before an anticipate public release of email.

~~~
threepipeproblm
If that were true, why did he specifically ask for help to "strip out or
replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails".

source: reddit via
[http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=38414](http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=38414)

~~~
dragonwriter
> > Yes it's pretty clear that the content of the email is not to be adjusted,
> just the To/From fields.

> If that were true, why did he specifically ask for help to "strip out or
> replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails".

What your quote said he asked for help to do is _exactly_ what GP suggested
was the only thing he was trying to do.

So, what you say he asked is _exactly_ what you'd expect if he was trying to
do only what GP suggested.

~~~
threepipeproblm
Oh right I had that exactly backwards... I apologize, it's been long day.

It does make me wonder why this matters, though. Ripping the to/from from an
export would be trivially easy. He wanted to strip it from the _server_ for
some reason. So that doesn't make me feel better... isn't it what you would do
to prevent emails from being discovered. I mean if they wanted to sanitize
files after export, it's just bulk search and replace, right?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Ripping the to/from from an export would be trivially easy. He wanted to
> strip it from the server for some reason.

He wanted to strip it from a file that remained otherwise in the same format
as was stored on the server; perhaps it was expected that there would be an
electronic release in that format rather than plain text, perhaps he just had
a suboptimal preparation-for-release workflow (redact the mailbox copy ->
export as text) rather than the reverse.

------
AnimalMuppet
It's on US News And World Report:
[http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-
combetta...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-
computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-
for-tips)

Seems like a decent summary...

------
Overtonwindow
As much as I hate HRC, I really don't think the email issue is ever going to
lead to anything. Not for her at least. Some poor IT guy may get it in the
end, but it's painfully obvious the same rules do not apply to elected
officials as they do to the rest of us.

~~~
skywhopper
Oh, are all your old emails regularly examined by the FBI and a hostile press,
and published across global media? When did you testify to Congress about it?

~~~
echaozh
I'm not an American, and I am not very sure if my view is correct. But is the
press really hostile to HRC?

------
swalsh
This seems like enough to demonstrate intent (the big thing they couldn't
prove previously) is there any reason this isn't enough evidence to open a
case by the justice department?

~~~
adamors
Yes, Obama endorsed HRC.

~~~
williamle8300
How does the President get to dictate how the Justice dept rules? The
executive and judicial branches are separate

~~~
MicroBerto
You clearly haven't followed this Administration's activities much. Executive
overreach is a daily activity the past 8 (actually 16) years.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
The last 8 have been worse than the 8 before, though. (And my strong suspicion
is that the next 4 or 8 are going to be worse than the last 8, no matter who
wins.)

------
haney
There's now a post in /r/exchangeserver that's making fun of this old post[1],
but is there a link to the original (or has the post been deleted?).

I'm still rather skeptical of things I read on /r/conspiracy.

1\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/exchangeserver/comments/53ick9/remo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/exchangeserver/comments/53ick9/remove_or_replace_tofrom_address_on_archived/)

~~~
nimbleDT
This actually surfaced on many different sub-reddits, but kept getting removed
due to the 'anti-doxxing' policy, which I think is generally a good policy to
have, but in this case the whole point of the story is linking a real world
person to an online alias.

Anyway, I don't have a horse in this race, just thought it was an interesting
story both politically and from a security perspective.

------
RunawayGalaxy
I believe it, but can't he just claim coincidence on the Reddit handle?

~~~
whamlastxmas
Supposedly post history/images confirm it was his.

------
alecco
Video of the guy deleting posts on reddit by /u/knowakennedy

[http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1474291545569.webm](http://i.4cdn.org/pol/1474291545569.webm)

------
cwisecarver
Assuming it's true it isn't _incriminating_ but it does kind of make him look
like an idiot. Posting to reddit anything about a VIP seems like a bad idea.
Posting it under a username you use all over the internet is even worse. I
think it adds to the list of bad decisions HRC and her subordinates have made
regarding email in specific and technology in general.

~~~
cwisecarver
I'm not one to complain about down votes but seriously? What exactly about my
comment was wrong, feel free to check the current thread about the House
investigating it.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12535872)

------
nimbleDT
Exactly why I thought HN might find this story interesting, the 'we did it
reddit!' factor is funny in light of the many times they've gotten things
horribly wrong -- the Boston marathon bombing comes to mind.

Kind of wish it hadn't been flagged and disappeared from the front page so
quickly.

~~~
threepipeproblm
Improperly marking a similar post this morning as a "dupe" didn't work --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=threepipeproblm](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=threepipeproblm)
\-- so people who don't want to hear this seem to have "flagged" it as off
topic?

Meanwhile, some recent HN topics that were _not_ flagged as off topic include:

* The '80s Public Access Films Produced by a California UFO Cult

* Affliction and Salvation: Love Was a Learned Art for Iris Murdoch

* My Motherland: Finding–and writing–the worlds where only I had been

* Plaster Perspectives on “Magical Gems”: Rethinking the Meaning of “Magic” in Cornell’s Dactyliotheca

* I quit my job, bought an army truck, and spent 19 months circumnavigating Africa

* The Real Lolita

So two points --

(a) I am not a Republican; and

(b) This seems deeply broken at best.

Can anyone convince me it isn't a form of censorship? I'm not too familiar
with HN's moderation setup.

~~~
joemi
I'm not one of the people to flag or downvote this, but all the post shows is
that he wanted to keep some email addresses private. I'm not sure why people
think this is a smoking gun? I get that people hate HRC, but how is a desire
to tokenize email addresses noteworthy?

Edit: Also, the title doesn't fit the post.

~~~
threepipeproblm
Maybe because (a) he didn't use the language of tokenization, he asked how to
"strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the
emails", and

(b)He just plead the 5th on questions involving whether or not he complied
with the investigation legally, which people normally do to avoid
incriminating themselves.

At least that's how I understand the situation.

~~~
joemi
> he didn't use the language of tokenization

If by that you mean he didn't say "tokenization" specifically, sure. But
"strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the
emails" sounds kind of like tokenization, doesn't it? Sounds to me like how I
might ask about it if I don't know the exact words for it.

All I know for certain is that I sure hope nothing important ever rests on the
exact phrasing of something I've written on reddit.

