US House Rep on cyber committees tweets Gmail password, PIN in Capitol riot lawsuit outrage
- Reference: 1623098322
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/07/brooks_gmail_password/
- Source link:
Brooks, who sits on the House's Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems subcommittee, and the Science, Space, and Technology committee, tweeted a photo from an iPad of his Windows computer, attached to which was a piece of paper with login credentials written on it.
Why was a congressman photographing his PC for social media over the weekend? Based on the number of capitalized words in the tweet, Brooks was rather peeved that he had been served legal papers by House Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who has [1]sued Brooks, Donald Trump Jr, and Rudy Giuliani for allegedly helping to instigate the [2]January storming of the Capitol.
[3]
Rep Brooks deleted the tweet featuring the credentials, and posted a second attempt – with the sensitive info cropped out – as seen below. The password was visible from Brooks' Twitter profile for the better part of a day. It appears that though Giuliani and Trump Jr accepted the paperwork, Brooks has tried to avoid being served, resulting in a private investigator serving him at their home, seemingly involving his wife, all of which he objected to.
. [4]@EricSwalwell Well, Swalwell FINALLY did his job, served complaint (on my WIFE).
HORRIBLE Swalwell’s team committed a CRIME by unlawfully sneaking INTO MY HOUSE & accosting my wife!
Alabama Code 13A-7-2: 1st degree criminal trespass. Year in jail. $6000 fine.
More to come! [5]pic.twitter.com/d7ikQFdM10 — Mo Brooks - Endorsed By President Trump 🇺🇸 (@MoBrooks) [6]June 6, 2021
"Mo Brooks has no one but himself to blame for the fact that it came to this," Swalwell's lawyer Philip Andonian [7]told CNN. "We asked him to waive service, we offered to meet him at a place of his choosing. Instead of working things out like a civilized person, he engaged in a juvenile game of Twitter trolling over the past few days and continued to evade service.
"He demanded that we serve him. We did just that."
[8]Cryptic US Strategic Command tweet reveals dangers of working from home with kids in the way
[9]Dutch officials say Donald Trump really did protect his Twitter account with MAGA2020! password
[10]Twitter mass hacking: Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Biden, Obama, more hijacked to peddle Bitcoin scam
[11]Legendary hacker and L0pht member Peiter Zatko joins Twitter as security chief
Now, this was a Gmail account, and US government rules about mixing business and personal accounts are absolutely adhered to by all. OK, maybe not by now-former CIA boss John Brennan, who used an [12]AOL account ; [13]former chairman of the US National Intelligence Council Christopher Kojm; and, of course, [14]her emails .
As for the PIN, who knows? You can guarantee people have been trying to find out since the picture was up for hours and widely copied. The Register asked Representative Brook's office for comment, and confirmation that the credentials are now useless. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59707490/1/swalwell-v-trump/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/06/us_congress_trump_stormed/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YL6XOmroeJOqvT2h@INmOgAAAEA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://twitter.com/ericswalwell?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[5] https://t.co/d7ikQFdM10
[6] https://twitter.com/MoBrooks/status/1401627329164623873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[7] https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/06/politics/mo-brooks-eric-swalwell-lawsuit-capitol-insurrection/index.html
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/strategic_command_tweet/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/17/trump_twitter_hacking/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/15/mass_twitter_account_hacking_bitcoin/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/17/peiter_zatko_twitter_security_chief/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/01/guccifers_travels_include_52_months_in_prison/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2013/05/29/national_intelligence_council_boss_hacked/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2016/05/26/inspector_general_clinton_broke_law_private_email_server/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Jeebus Cribes, that tweet
For Republicans, yes. They took their glorious tweeter in chief as their literary style guide and have never looked back. Just ignore them as so much verbose verbal vitriolic vomit. The rest of us are trying to live a much saner existence now that the OHSG is no longer in charge...
Re: Jeebus Cribes, that tweet
While your not especially wrong, you missed the chance to call out the fact that we have been handing congressional oversight of science and technology committees to people who are barely literate and technically incompetent before 45 showed up.
So while you are right that the current idiot technophobe should be removed from oversight of something they are incapable of understanding, we also need to queue up the rest of of them.
The only real question is Heap or Stack?
Re: Jeebus Cribes, that tweet
>Is writing like a particularly articulate five-year-old having a tantrum the standard for political discourse in the US now?
More of a aspiration
Criminal Trespass
I'm intrigued at how an officer of a court serving legal papers at someone's home address can be guilty of "criminal" trespass. Does this mean that if the post person delivers mail someone doesn't like by actually visiting their home, the post person is guilty of trespass?
Could el Reg's Legal Beagles please advise?
Re: Criminal Trespass
Sure, here stateside a process server is not always an officer of the court or member of law enforcement. Some people will make a lifestyle choice out of ducking them to try to stave of court proceedings. That said, while the protections aren't a ridiculous as for bail bondsmen (who in the USA can literally kill you) a process server has some more leeway in service of process, and is unlikely to arrested themselves for simply serving paper on someone.
It's kinda nasty work though as it's pretty common for people to flip out and attack you. Money isn't bad if you can clear cases, but you need to be on point for following the rules to a T and documenting everything, as the people who duck process servers will do anything to trip you up, and probably try to lie about being served. So much like reading Miranda rights, most people stick to a script when serving papers on someone.
Post is a little different, as they only deliver to a designated mail drop point. So if the postman/woman were wandering around in your back yard the would probably get canned, and could get hit for tresspass.In the case of registered mail, they require a signature, but if the person it's addressed to hides or refused to sign the post will return it to the sender.
IT Security
"...tweeted a photo from an iPad of his Windows computer, attached to which was a piece of paper with login credentials written on it."
Stupid is as stupid does. (F Gump, esq)
Indeed.
"...and confirmation that the credentials are now useless."
Much like Representative Brooks then.
Idiot.
Re: Indeed.
nematode: "Much like Representative Brooks then.
Idiot."
But his twitter account says he's been "endorsed by President Trump".
Ohh, I see what you did there, subtle, very subtle.
Jeebus Cribes, that tweet
Is writing like a particularly articulate five-year-old having a tantrum the standard for political discourse in the US now?