

Here’s the e-mail trick Petraeus and Broadwell used to communicate - danso
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12/heres-the-e-mail-trick-petraeus-and-broadwell-used-to-communicate/?hpid=z2

======
patio11
So to make this a little more HN-y, there exists the possibility that two
users were just using software in a counterintuitive and unplanned for fashion
for _whatever reason makes sense to them as users_. It happens all the time.

Ask me how many shopping lists are in Bingo Card Creator ("I like it because I
can write them at school and then pull them up on my iPhone!") or about
Appointment Reminder users who use the appointment schedule as
I-can't-believe-its-not-Google-Calendar in between their actual appointments.
(Quick SQL suggests there are over sixty AR customers who have no-contact-
info-included calendar entries which don't appear to represent actual
people/appointments, like "class", "doctor", "soccer practice", etc.)

Or more broadly, have you ever seen:

\+ Wordpress drafts used as a company internal knowledgebase?

\+ TI calculator programs used as notepads?

\+ Video games used as photo sharing communities? (Long story short: it is
called Flickr.)

etc, etc, etc

~~~
orangethirty
I have a little paste bin clone running on the web for my family and friends
to use (testing it before release as OSS). It allows for file uploads, and
text/link storage. One day noticed someone was linking from one paste to
another. Strange. Why would anyone save a link they have access to? Turns out
they did not have access to Powerpoint and were using the program as an online
presentation tool. It was quite clever. They would upload a file, writhe the
caption under it in the comments box, then insert the link for the next item
in the presentation. I would have never guessed someone could use it for such
a thing. Went ahead and asked them about it, and they said the loved that
_feature_... :)

------
SoftwareMaven
You would have thought that they guy leading the freaking CIA would have a
little more insight to how stupid-easy it would be to get that information out
of Google, since they likely do it so regularly[1] in their terrorist hunts.

Further, you'd think he would be versed in better technologies (like
encryption and/or anonymous services). What makes it hard to follow up on
terrorists? Do that.

He obviously thought hiding things was important, so I can't fathom why he
didn't take the security seriously.

1\. Or maybe it shows they don't interact much with the like of Google, but I
doubt it.

~~~
daliusd
I have not followed this story but I guess he was hiding from wife not from
security services. Actually I'm not even sure how entering private life is
justified in this situation. I can imagine speculations about leaking
sensitive information and etc. but you need proof for that. I'm not saying
that his private behaviour is good and I understand that as public influential
person he basically does not have private life but that just shows that
security services has nothing better to do...

~~~
pyre
It's a security breach in that it opens him up to blackmail.

~~~
ketralnis
But by the very nature of making it public it's no longer vulnerable to
blackmail. The problem as such lasts for a very brief time, and now it's gone.
There's no more problem, and no more need to shame him (beyond the people
actually involved, that is), and no longer any security threat.

~~~
isleyaardvark
I don't think it's punishment, it's a deterrent. The point isn't whether the
government knows it. The wife didn't know it. The blackmail wouldn't be "we'll
tell the government you're having an affair", it's "we'll tell your wife".

It's only "no longer any security threat" because he got caught. The
punishment is to dissuade anyone else from having an affair, which a foreign
government could use to make their lives difficult by telling their spouse.

------
Groxx
In the bottom right of your Gmail settings:

    
    
      Last account activity: 48 minutes ago
      Details
    

Yeeeep. Real secure. One peek gives you every IP address involved. Well, you
can get around it with TOR, but that has its own problems.

~~~
Xcelerate
> Well, you can get around it with TOR, but that has its own problems.

I'm curious. What are the problems with TOR?

~~~
rmc
People who control the exit nodes could potentially see all your traffic.

Large intelligence agencies may have lots of honeypot tor nodes, you might get
one of them

~~~
garrydanger
This is largely a theoretical argument that we hackers like to bring up as a
way to dismis the tor network.

The truth that we all learned after the lulsec debacle was that the FBI will
resort to much simpler and more effective low-tech procedures to spy on their
prey.

------
mrinterweb
I guess I am unclear why their affair would warent Petraeus's resignation.
People have affairs. Was there a significant conflict of interest regarding
their affair? If not, I don't understand how this is news worthy?

~~~
aaronbrethorst

        Days after Petraeus' resignation stunned Washington,
        information continues to emerge. Among other things, a
        video has surfaced of a speech by Petraeus' paramour in
        which she suggested the Libya attack was targeting a
        secret prison at the Benghazi consulate annex, raising
        unverified concerns about possible security leaks.
    

[http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/us/petraeus-cia-
resignation/in...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/us/petraeus-cia-
resignation/index.html)

The affair by itself should've had no impact. In fact, you can find tons of
articles from today that talk about how Petraeus had every intention of
staying on the job. However, once you get into the realm of 'what classified
information did he spill in pillow talk?', then resignation seems like the
least he should have to do.

Broadwell is lawyering up[1], and I bet that Petraeus does the same in the
next days or weeks. There are going to be some serious criminal liability
issues over improperly disclosed national security information.

[1]
[http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/paula_broadwell_lawye...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/paula_broadwell_lawyers_up/)

~~~
ketralnis
> However, once you get into the realm of 'what classified information did he
> spill in pillow talk?', then resignation seems like the least he should have
> to do

Then should we keep intelligence folk from ever dating or marrying anyone
ever? I don't see how this is any different

~~~
rdl
Date/marry within the "family", which is apparently NSA's solution (it's not
really official policy, but tends to happen).

------
imrehg
[tangential] I don't know, this whole story just keeps reminding me of the
ending of Burn After Reading... Keep imagining the CIA director as J.K.
Simmons... <http://youtu.be/46h7oP9eiBk> "So what did we learn?"

~~~
sneak
It's even more funny to re-watch Burn After Reading after having played Portal
2, as J.K. Simmons voiced the character Cave Johnson.

------
aneth4
Seems like it would have be safer and harder to detect if they used a private
pastebin or some similar obscure scratchpad service.

That is essentially what they are doing, except in something that is somewhat
easier to link to their identity.

Perhaps:

[http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Anonymous-PasteBin-AnonPaste-
Peo...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Anonymous-PasteBin-AnonPaste-Peoples-
Liberation-Front-hactivist,news-14867.html)

Though that might raise some eyebrows.

------
darklajid
I don't quite see the point of this article.

So, someone had an affair and used GMail drafts for sexting / communicating
with his lover?

How on earth can you insert the word 'terrorist' into that already borderline
'And the prince of ... has an new girlfriend' level article? [1] Really,
what's the connection? Terrorists might use that as well? They eat bread as
well, I guess. And maybe ride a bike from time to time.

1: I agree that it might be (?) interesting if the head of the CIA is
potentially making himself vulnerable to blackmail, or if he's sharing secret
stuff with his lover-at-that-time. But the article is low on anything of
value?

------
holri
Security through obscurity never worked.

Baffling that an CIA man does not know this.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Security through obscurity never worked.

It works all the time for people having affairs. You're typically hiding from
your spouse, not the CIA/FBI.

~~~
FireBeyond
It works a lot less for the head of an intelligence agency, a political
appointee, during an election season.

~~~
ceejayoz
Even then, the set of circumstances it took for this to be revealed was quite
the bizarre one. A socialite who's flirting with another general, a jealous
reporter who's sleeping with the subject of her book, an FBI agent who wants
to sleep with the socialite...

------
ForFreedom
So whats the big deal?

