They absolutely advertised it when it was released and every journalist knows about it.
Kashmir Patel went out of his way to bypass security protocols for onboarding his political hires (for the US’s premiere domestic intelligence service!). If he wanted to be secure, all he had to do was not get in the way of the FBI’s natural processes.
Also, this wouldn’t have happened if POTUS had hired someone with relevant FBI experience instead of a political hack.
You are high on the first peak of Dunning Krueger right now.
The Director of the FBI is an immensely powerful position, unlike the average secretory/assistant in some FBI field office. Even the FBI Special Agents are taught OpsSec in depth at FBI cadet school and it is reinforced at every additional relevant training.
The reason Patel wasn’t is because he’s unqualified to be in the department and was a political hire who almost certainly bypassed the normal security protocols when he was hired. The FBI has an entire detail, not unlike that of Secret Service, who both secures the physical person / transport of the Director, but who also maintains intelligence about threats and OpsSec, which should cover this specifically scenario. In other words, Patel didn’t need to know about this security precaution himself — he just needed to not stifle his team from protecting him.
What are you talking about? There's literally a Cyber Crimes[0] division of the FBI, and they run the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF). They probably know a thing or two about cyber security for high-ranked governmental officials.
dude at least you should have brought an internal recommendation memo targeted all fbi people, not "but fbi has this and this division..."
lets say your college have astrophysics and other big departments. Are you really expert on those areas? Can you expect all highly-regarded professors to know most things from other departments? Do all 'competent' art professors know about astrophysics?
I would, yes. Maybe a director in the Small Business Administration is lower on the target list of gov officials that would need to be concerned, but certainly anyone in the Departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, State, Transportation, Treasury, and probably Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for sure.
> BECAUSE NSA IS part of the government ?
I don't know why multiple times in this comment section you allude to the NSA as being the only Federal agency tasked with any sort of cyber security responsibility, that is just plain wrong.
>you should have brought an internal recommendation memo targeted all fbi people
Yes, because I have access to any and all internal memos provided by the FBI to their employees. Internal memos are by their very nature are internal, so are generally not available for public consumption.
Also, your higher ed example is terrible, because as someone with a work history at a flagship state university's IT department, I can assure you that we provide all sorts of "memos", trainings, and tools to combat cybercrime, including special onboarding sessions to ensure new hires are protecting themselves and the university. We don't depend on the Art and Physics departments to make sure they keep their faculty 'in-line' following best practices in cyber security.
If only the Director of the FBI had access to some sort of investigative team, maybe more than one, maybe even enough that they use a collective term for it, something like, I don't know: bureau?
no but I've been interested in cryptography/anonimity stuff, so I see a lot of suggestions/advertisements related to those: signal, telegram, proton-mail, etc
I disagree. Even though I think the Iranian regime has been extremely incompetent overall their war strategy has been surprisingly lucid. They aren't actually risking much more by attacking neighboring countries that are already cooperating with the US. How much is Qatar's military involvement going to move the needle when you're already facing a full-on war with the US and Israel?
Raising the overall costs to the US and its allies is a pretty coherent theory of victory for Iran. Obviously they aren't going to win a conventional fight, but they might be able to inflict enough havoc on energy and commodity markets to the point that it really hurts the US and its allies economically; perhaps enough that they bail out of the war in order to stabilize the global economy.
Trump clearly wanted a quick easy win here and does not want to see massive inflation at home. Sure he personally doesn't give a shit about Americans but the rest of the politicians who enable him do and he's at risk of absolutely torching his own party for years if the war drags on and costs really get out of hand.
All the Iranian regime has to do to win is not lose for enough weeks. If the regime holds out Trump will have to either give up and try to pretend this disaster was a Great Victory, or he'll launch a ground invasion that will almost certainly turn into a quagmire. Bombing civilians makes a popular uprising much less likely, so the US is doing them quite a favor on that front.
well... I actually think even when trump is impeached, the democrats will continue -- even more so, to call mr trump "a weak president"
I mean, can US and its allies exactly stop at status quo?
Iran just learnt it can missile nearby neighbors and demand $2M toll fee on the strait users...
even if US just backs down from "epic wut", will iran become "the good guy" and never missile neighbors and stop demanding that $2M toll?
nope: rather, that would mean US and allies will lose its deterrence against Iran completely
iran'll start bullying more on those neighbors, and the toll fee will go up: $2M to $5M to $10M to... even $100M -- I mean, what's stopping iran from doing so?
anyway, I'm just surprised everyone in this forum is trying their best only to say "trump is such an idiot to start the war (well duh?)", and not to look at what choices each nations had/have after trump's dickhead move
Stop projecting on Iran what USA would do in their place (bullying everybody).
Iran was NOT bombing its neighbours and demanding Hormuz toll before the war.
Not even after it was bombed last June.
If they had not responded strongly, USA/Israel would keep periodically 'mowing the lawn', not acceptable to any country, especially not for a big and proud nation like Iran.
Btw, the US military bases in Gulf countries are legitimate military targets, and have born the brunt of Iran's attacks. It is just that in our western media the focus is on any civilian damages, and almost all damages to military is hushed up.
Iran has no good way to prevent future attacks (nobody sane would believe any agreement signed by USA), their only way is to make sure beyond any doubt that attacking them again will hurt VERY, VERY much. As a side note, getting rid of USA military bases in the Gulf would be beneficial to them in making any future attacks on them more difficult. Hence the (very true!) messaging 'the USA military bases are not there to protect you, but to help them project power over us (and you!), and are only making you a target, reducing your security, not increasing it'.
>Iran was NOT bombing its neighbours and demanding Hormuz toll before the war. Not even after it was bombed last June.
They were funding and arming proxies that were bombing and destabilizing neighborhoods. Nobody in the region likes Iran, that is precisely why the Gulf States want US bases and a Israeli military pact.
And this is not a reactive policy as it is an explicit proactive policy of exporting the Islamic Revolution and gaining regional hegemony. Which no one wants.
> Iran was NOT bombing its neighbours and demanding Hormuz toll before the war. Not even after it was bombed last June.
Iran has a history of launching rockets into Israel, both through it's proxies an directly. It has also invaded the US embassy holding 52 staff hostage, conducted unprovoked attacks against allied interests, attacks merchant ships in international waters and massacred tens of thousands of it's own people for the crime of speaking out against the government.
If using proxies invites invasion, then proportionally the USA should be nuked multiple tims over from the face of the earth given the mass scale of terrorism their proxies have conducted. So this proxy argument is nonsense.
Under a sane president there would be a pretty clear off ramp available in the form of a negotiated settlement. Iran stops attacking neighbors and the strait in exchange for a US promise to not start another unprovoked war, along with another JCPOA type agreement lifting sanctions and limiting their nuclear development. The problem here is that absolutely nobody trusts trump to actually stick to a deal, especially after he was the one who broke the previous deal and then attacked them twice in the middle of negotiations. Trump's stupidity compounds the mess in ways that no other president would.
Without a negotiating partner Iran basically has to settle the issue with force. They are going to try to do as much economic damage as possible in order to deter current and future attacks, or die trying. Without a ground invasion the attacks on both sides will wind down at some point but it's hard to see how we get to a clean cease fire, it's likely to be a messy uneven one that could flare back up at any point.
The Gulf states are not any more willing than the USA at invading Iran with ground troops. The only thing that changes by making them angry is that slightly more missiles fly into Iran. Which is already accounted for and won't magically reopen the strait.
Did that involve boot on the grounds or just shelling via cruise missiles or from air? Also, Yemen is poorer, but has more or less the same population as Saudi Arabia.
Their military is a paper tiger like Saddam’s was during the Iraq invasion. Modern gear but without the doctrine or officer corps to effectively use it.
My experience while working there years ago was that their armed forces were a weird mix of coup proofing and a nepotistic dumping ground for family members who couldn’t be trusted to help run the family business.
> Iran should have just shot israel with all its missiles (select and focus)
Iran has deliberately escalated the war horizontally to create a bigger mess and to make the military adventure more expensive for America and the world.
Iran is saying, "If you attack us, these are the costs."
As an invading military, you're either willing to pay those costs or you're not.
That's what will happen due to iran's dickhead move...
Being bombed does not mean it can target non-combatant countries without consequences...
Nor does it mean it can start tolling ships $2M per voyages...
Now that current iran regime has learnt it can do those things...
what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have?
Form a coalition against iran, and send troops to change the regime...
even if US backs away, the others will finish the job
Remind me again, which country started this whole mess?
> what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have?
They can go "yeah, you know, the US has been less than reliable as an ally recently, what with absurd tariffs, saber rattling around greenland, belitteling NATO, etc., and they seem unwilling to change, so we're just gonna pay the piper, and get oil, and make arrangements with the Chinese (aka. the worlds most powerful industry), and if they US doesn't like it, that sounds like a them-problem..."
What's very likely not gonna happen, is other countries fighting the US's war for them. NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers.
And anyone who wants to actually invade Iran...well, let's put it this way: Iran is 3-4 times the size of Afghanistan, with even more difficult terrain, and has a standing army of 600,000 men, with over 300,000 in reserve. They have an air force, are proficient in the manufacture of drones, have a working intelligence network. And they've had 4 decades to dig into defensive positions.
what has already started, is already started -- I agree on Trump being dick, but does that make iran's "making new enemies" a wise move?
> NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers.
of course it said no BEFORE IRAN started the $2M toll (and other countries don't like trump due to tariff-for-everyone)
if the current iran regime was strategically wise, iran should have fired everything it got to Israel, and make the missile interception rate down to 40%. That would have actually showed it's power.
now, with even UAE's missile interception rate of 96%, iran actually showed its missiles are nuisances, not some existential threat.
600,000 men and 300,000 in reserve -- well that would have mattered a lot in medieval wars...
"they have an airforce" -- well do they actually have planes?
"have a working intelligence network" -- hmm...
no you're way way way over-estimating iran
the only strategic move for iran was selecting one specific target (israel) and focusing all its might, not becoming a rambo
Their win condition isn't destroying Israel, its outlasting the American will for the war until a leadership change happens. They aren't the attackers in this war. They need to just defend until America and Israel give up because it is too costly at home.
> its outlasting the American will for the war until a leadership change happens
well even in the best-case scenario (trump impeachment), I highly doubt any democrat president can actually stop at status quo -- rather, the next president has exactly zero choice but to wipe out iran MORE than trump (and call trump a weakling)
just leave Iran be and get out? well he/she could, GIVEN that Iran didn't show its potential to be bully on the gulf states and didn't even think about that $2M toll...
now? well even if a pirate has a sad back story, doesn't mean the navy can leave them be.
by missiling everyone nearby, iran just became too dangerous to nearby neighbors...
by even talking about $2M toll, iran just became too financially dangerous even to strait users... I mean, even if it's "just $2M", what will stop iran from asking $5M, $10M, or even $100M ?
> what has already started, is already started -- I agree on Trump being dick, but does that make iran's "making new enemies" a wise move?
There is no downside on making the Gulf states enemies. Quite to the contrary: they might lobby the USA to end this madness. It's a serious damage to the importance of the USA in the region if it can't or doesn't want to open the strait again, either by force or by making a deal.
Iran is not flattening Emirati hospitals, like Israel would be doing in their shoes.
Iran is targeting direct US/Israeli interests, which includes military facilities, military personnel, and energy facilities with substantial US/Israeli partnerships. That latter part is particularly key here, and what pro-Israeli propaganda is anxious to suppress.
> plus, if you showed your cards ("decades-old deterrence threats"), you're out of options
Yes, it is a desperation move after undeterred US-Israeli terrorism and brazen violations of international law. But it's also working.
idk this move, along with firing missiles even to non-combatant countries, is going to fuk-up iran...
I mean, even before the $2M toll, if you're kuwait/UAE/saudi/etc, what choice do you have? form a coalition against iran
now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships...
so what choice do all those strait-using countries have? pay $2M or more, even after US leaves?
nope...
they'll form a coalition against iran
it's highly unfortunate that trump started the war, but iran's way of things are just making more enemies -- it'll pay with regime change within few months
> now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships...
But the strait has two sides and Iran only controls one side. The UAE/Oman on the other side could equally threaten to attack Iranian ships unless Iran pays them a toll.
According to this map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Strait_of_hormuz_full.jpg shipping lines are in Oman's territorial waters. Iran controls the whole area by creating a risk that a ship can be attacked. And if Oman would try to impose payments it would break the UN convention on the Law of the Sea.
I think what we should have learned from this is that it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders... the gulf states are much more exposed to this than the US is, and much less powerful.
They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket, and are discovering that their payments haven't bought much.
> it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders
it's not just gulf states -- look at who are the customers of those gulf states are. the whole asia, europe, and america -- the whole world is their customer.
Even if it's "extremely hard", those countries have no choice but "make a lesson out of" iran -- just like what we did with pirates
why would those "customers of gulf" just leave iran? after US leaves, will iran regime suddenly become nice and stop forcing that $2M-per-voyage bill?
no, and even if iran regime promises "I'll never bill those ships", how could you trust on that promise?
the only way to ensure free-ship-passing would be obliterating Iran as an example, even if US backs away.
> They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket
hmm so were they "helping" US bomb iran? "being neutral" means it didn't participate on attacking iran, not whether it paid or not.
If Canada and Mexico started letting Iran launch bombing sorties against US cities from within their borders, would the US consider them neutral?
2 Million a ship seems like a pretty cheap price to pay for the damage the us and Israel have inflicted on Iran - they cannot be made to pay it though, so I suppose the rest of us will have to (through marginally higher oil prices in the long term - much less than the spectacularly high oil prices the US war will cause in the short term)
Since 1985, Hezbollah has killed approximately 600 Israelis (if you count IDF soldiers during the occupation of Beirut). Israel has killed 5x that number of civilians in the last two weeks, if you count Lebanon as well as Iran. If you count soldiers...
The value of the oil / natural gas production in the Gulf states is not infinite. Nobody except the US has the force projection capacity to fight a major war against Iran. If they are not interested in fighting that war, the rest of the world will find that the cheapest and least disruptive option is to cut consumption. To assume that nobody is shipping oil and natural gas from the Gulf, until a new status quo emerges in the region.
Most nations who are affected don't have a blue-water navy or similar means to pose a serious threat to Iran. They have to either back the USA or deal with the toll and the uncertainty that comes with it.
> That functionally cedes Emirati and Saudi sovereignty to Iran. Today it's $2mm. Tomorrow it's anything else Tehran requires.
the point is besides full scale invasion which Saudi and UAE won't do, there is no reliable way to remove threat of Iran striking oil infra, they just don't have way to deal with the problem.
> full scale invasion which Saudi and UAE won't do
Don't need a full-scale invasion. Just a land grab on the coasts. They can't do it alone. But they can provide troops (and mercenaries) as well as staying power where the U.S. cannot.
> there is no reliable way to remove threat of Iran striking oil infra
Barring invasion: mutualize the damage. Pot Iranian tankers. Seed their ports with mines. Israel locking up the Caspian and the UAE and Saudi Arabia locking up Hormuz to Iran changes the calculus of the war in Tehran and makes suing for peace–not with America and Israel, but with the Gulf–tenable.
> this just makes the soldiers on the coast the targets of the drones and missiles
Correct. That also reveals the locations of launchers, artillery pieces, et cetera. A winnable game if you have cheap bodies.
> it is a very large coastline to secure
To secure the Strait? Absolutely. To converge firepower onto a few beachheads? Not necessarily. And a Gulf land grab wouldn't be comprehensive. Just the islands (e.g. Larak, Hengam and East Qeshm) and maybe the land directly across from the Musandam Peninsula. (Probably not to hold. Just draw fire and trade back to Tehran. Hell, gift it to Trump.)
Kuwait and Iraq remain screwed. But if you're a Gulf exporter, that isn't necessarily a bad thing...
> There was a semi-stable equilibrium and the US ruined it. Now Iran controls the straight and it will be very very costly to go back
Sure. The point is how those costs will be borne. I don't think the emerging status quo is tenable for the Gulf.
Without the US, Saudi Arabia et al would be significantly outnumbered in a war with Iran. It's very unlikely that they have the capacity to invade Iran, even without considering drones. Factoring in drones, they will simply run out of soldiers before Iran runs out of drones, and the Iranian army can conduct mop-up operations at their leisure.
> Don't need a full-scale invasion. Just a land grab on the coasts. They can't do it alone. But they can provide troops (and mercenaries) as well as staying power where the U.S. cannot.
they couldn't win this against much closer, smaller and weaker Yemen. They just don't have functional military.
> mutualize the damage. Pot Iranian tankers. Seed their ports with mines.
I don't believe they will do this because they love oil money too much, unlike Iranian regime, which is idiologically/religiously driven, and endured for many years of various attacks and sanctions.
> couldn't win this against much closer, smaller and weaker Yemen. They just don't have functional military
KSA went it alone in Yemen. And from that–as well as various proxy wars in Africa–both it and the UAE have learned.
> don't believe they will do this because they love oil money too much
Loving oil money means wanting to export your oil. That said, I think the monarchies are more politically vulnerable. So it's harder for them to commit to this path. (It would also involve pissing off Trump.) But that doesn't mean it's strategically off the table, particularly for Saudi Arabia, which is less dependent on the Strait than the UAE.
But the issue is that KSA just didn't perform on the ground, well equipped troups were overrun by Houthies with AK consistently. Not clear if they changed anything.
> Loving oil money means wanting to export your oil.
right, if Iran will take reasonable cuts, gulf states won't escalate.
> if Iran will take reasonable cuts, gulf states won't escalate
Unlikely. Again, a reasonable cut today can turn into any ask tomorrow. It's worth tremendous costs to the Gulf to ensure the Strait returns to at least neutrality.
If there is a good time for unreasonable ask its today, Iran has strong incentive to say: you withdraw US troupes/bases or no tankers through the strait. If they don't do it today, they won't do it in next few decades.
Also, I don't think controlling shoreline will give anything: tankers are easily strikeable via drones/missiles from inner-Iran.
The only solution: is deep invasion supported with internal uprising with full defeat of current regime.
people here don't understand how large USA is -- connecting every corner with copper/fiber, with all the intermediary networking devices means tax money...
A better option would be to eliminate corporate income tax entirely, and raise taxes on the highest income employees and investors to make the change revenue neutral. Corporations waste a lot of resources on financial engineering to minimize tax liability, and that's a pure deadweight loss for the economy as a whole.
The NGOs find ways to route the received money back to the politicians in the form of campaign donations, or having a politician's friend/relative being an executive at the NGO.
The NGOs also subcontract to other NGOs, who take their cut, and eventually just a trickle winds up going to the purpose of giving money to the NGO.
The first part sounds like it's US-specific; campaign donations are less of a thing, and more strongly controlled, in Europe. The second could happen here too, though, and probably does.
The two aren't really separate, because the grifters who are on the receiving end also often end up being ones "donating" to the corrupt politicians who select their organizations to receive money.
"I'd like 32G but I can't afford 2x16G right now so I'll buy a single stick and keep a slot open for later when prices are better or I get more available money". Seems pretty easy to understand.
I mean, if I can send troops, I would bet on sending troops, wont I?
those gamblers who aren't Trump or any 'event initiators themselves' must be idiots of extraordinary quality