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The worst news here is that the director of the most powerful information gathering agency on the planet uses AOL.

by ryandvm 11y ago

coldcode 11y ago
Even more so that he actually thought it was secure enough to apply for the job at the CIA with an AOL email and that they actually hired him.
ceejayoz 11y ago
What does this article have to do with Google and Facebook's CEOs? edit: No, seriously. I can't see how the CIA is the most powerful information gathering agency on the planet. Even restricting to government organizations, the NSA likely has far more access to information. Allowing for private organizations, Google/Facebook likely know far more about individual people than any government agency does given Google Analytics, Facebook Like buttons, etc. strewn around virtually every public internet page.
- 0942v8653 11y ago
  Google, Facebook, and the NSA may have more data, but the CIA can actually do something with it.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Is it worse than any other free email provider? None of them have two factor login by default and they all have sketchy password reset policies/mechanisms. Brennan is 60 years old. He's probably been using AOL since the 90's. He felt no need for change. A lot of our top leadership are boomers and will have boomer habits. If you read that article you'll see this is more of a social engineering hack on Verizon than AOL. Verizon gave up all sorts of information about him which made answering AOL's password reset questions easy for them. Its scary how much you can do to a person if you know the last four digits of their credit card. This is yet another example where things like S/MIME would have helped, but apparently we're all content with completely unencrypted emails. I suspect guys like Brennan prefer email unencrypted anyway, except when things like this happen to him personally.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  > Is it worse than any other free email provider? Not really, but they are definitely on the bottom of the trusted list. That being said, the WTFs in this story would be the same if it was yahoo, gmail, etc. The problem is that the emails were forwarded out from his work network.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    Who is trusted? Federal law applies equally too all American companies. Google can't say no to a warrant the same way AOL can't.
ttctciyf 11y ago
I know what you mean, but in a way I find it strangely reassuring that the head of the CIA is (in some respects at least) plain old old-skool dumb. It tends to confirm me in my suspicions that the media-projected image of ruthlessly efficient and mindbogglingly smart intel apparatchiks is a fantasy, and that the reality might be more like Burn After Reading[1] 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHpOLiobmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHpOLiobmA

The worst news here is that the director of the most powerful information gathering agency on the planet uses AOL.

by ryandvm 11y ago

The worst news here is that the director of the most powerful information gathering agency on the planet uses AOL.

Even more so that he actually thought it was secure enough to apply for the job at the CIA with an AOL email and that they actually hired him.

ceejayoz 11y ago

What does this article have to do with Google and Facebook's CEOs? edit: No, seriously. I can't see how the CIA is the most powerful information gathering agency on the planet. Even restricting to government organizations, the NSA likely has far more access to information. Allowing for private organizations, Google/Facebook likely know far more about individual people than any government agency does given Google Analytics, Facebook Like buttons, etc. strewn around virtually every public internet page.

0942v8653 11y ago
Google, Facebook, and the NSA may have more data, but the CIA can actually do something with it.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Is it worse than any other free email provider? None of them have two factor login by default and they all have sketchy password reset policies/mechanisms. Brennan is 60 years old. He's probably been using AOL since the 90's. He felt no need for change. A lot of our top leadership are boomers and will have boomer habits. If you read that article you'll see this is more of a social engineering hack on Verizon than AOL. Verizon gave up all sorts of information about him which made answering AOL's password reset questions easy for them. Its scary how much you can do to a person if you know the last four digits of their credit card. This is yet another example where things like S/MIME would have helped, but apparently we're all content with completely unencrypted emails. I suspect guys like Brennan prefer email unencrypted anyway, except when things like this happen to him personally.

CaptSpify 11y ago
> Is it worse than any other free email provider? Not really, but they are definitely on the bottom of the trusted list. That being said, the WTFs in this story would be the same if it was yahoo, gmail, etc. The problem is that the emails were forwarded out from his work network.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Who is trusted? Federal law applies equally too all American companies. Google can't say no to a warrant the same way AOL can't.

ttctciyf 11y ago

I know what you mean, but in a way I find it strangely reassuring that the head of the CIA is (in some respects at least) plain old old-skool dumb. It tends to confirm me in my suspicions that the media-projected image of ruthlessly efficient and mindbogglingly smart intel apparatchiks is a fantasy, and that the reality might be more like Burn After Reading[1] 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHpOLiobmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FHpOLiobmA