33 replies to this topic

[Gazi]

Mitt Romney’s tax returns are reportedly in the hands of a team of hackers who plan on releasing them publicly at the end of the month unless a ransom is paid.
The group allegedly obtained the files from PricewaterhouseCooper’s Tennessee office on Aug. 25
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The files are to be released to the public on Sept. 28, according to the PasteBin document.
http://mashable.com/2012/09/05/hacker-ransom-romney-tax-returns/

[Iceberg Slim]

hmmmmm.........interesting...not sure if true....but interesting....

[mmmbeans]

whelp... that's a lose-lose situation for romney.

[Gazi]

Everyone saw this coming.

[Davidson Deac II]

The odds of this claim being true are pretty low imo. If they really had copies, they would just go ahead and sell them to a news organization. And if a real group of hackers did this so that they could extort money, they wouldn't advertise it.

[mmmbeans]

The odds of this claim being true are pretty low imo. If they really had copies, they would just go ahead and sell them to a news organization.

i dunno... not that i have any idea whether this is true or not...

but often with hackers it isn't about the money... it's about the show.

[stirs]

So this means he actually filed tax returns?

[g5jamz]

This isn't just a hacking...this is a Watergate type theft.

The group allegedly obtained the files from PricewaterhouseCooper’s Tennessee office on Aug. 25, in what was described on PasteBin as a Mission Impossible-like caper:

Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.

The files are to be released to the public on Sept. 28, according to the PasteBin document.

Do they really believe their encryption can prevent the data from being pulled off?

[Darth Biscuit]

lol, they want a ransom.

In other words, the returns will be released and the hackers will go to jail for well, hacking, and blackmail.

Whoever said it is right... lose/lose for Romney.

[cookinwithgas]

Could someone tell me why his tax returns would be at Price Waterhouse Coopers in Tennesee?

[stirs]

Guess what, as the polls get tighter and especially if they continue to favor Romney, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Crazy crap will start happening all over the place. Better get your popcorn

[Davidson Deac II]

i dunno... not that i have any idea whether this is true or not...

but often with hackers it isn't about the money... it's about the show.

In my experience (and its what I do for a living) these days most real hackers are in it for the money. There are a few exceptions, but a lot of serious hackers these days work for governments or for criminal organizations. These guys don't advertise, don't make headlines like anonymous does, and don't really want to be noticed. They break into an organizations files to get credit card numbers or ssn numbers etc... Most of the more well publicised hacking groups are usually script kiddies.

And their method of getting the information sounds hokey. They specifically identified where the guy who assisted them works (third floor of the tn office), at least enough to give pwc a very good chance of finding the guy. If I were that guy, I would be very pissed right now (if all this is actually true).


Not saying its impossible that this is true, but its highly unlikely.

[mmmbeans]

This isn't just a hacking...this is a Watergate type theft.



Do they really believe their encryption can prevent the data from being pulled off?

i mean... yea. 128bit encryption is pretty much un-crackable by brute force. and if you use 448 or something like that... good f*cking luck.

[mmmbeans]

In my experience (and its what I do for a living) these days most real hackers are in it for the money. There are a few exceptions, but a lot of serious hackers these days work for governments or for criminal organizations. These guys don't advertise, don't make headlines like anonymous does, and don't really want to be noticed. They break into an organizations files to get credit card numbers or ssn numbers etc... Most of the more well publicised hacking groups are usually script kiddies. There are a few exceptions, but not many.

And their method of getting the information sounds hokey. They specifically identified where the guy who assisted them works (third floor of the tn office), at least enough to give pwc a very good chance of finding the guy. If I were that guy, I would be very pissed right now (if all this is actually true).


Not saying its impossible that this is true, but its highly unlikely.

i agree that it isn't likely... that said, not many serious hackers, motivated by money would go after such a high-profile target with such little prospective return.

this reeks of two things to me: 1. fake 2. Political (wherein they try to extract money and release the stuff regardless.) This is more akin to digital terrorism/blackmail. And as g5 pointed out "hacker" is probably the wrong term to use anyway.

just seems wonky to me... guess we'll see.

[g5jamz]

Guess what, as the polls get tighter and especially if they continue to favor Romney, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Crazy crap will start happening all over the place. Better get your popcorn

Honestly...I'm surprised Obama or his media minions haven't gotten a sympathetic judge to find some logic in order to force Romney to release his tax records. It worked against Jack Ryan.