Want to Rent an Internet Address at the White House? (krebsonsecurity.com) 55
Longtime Slashdot reader bbsguru shares a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today. One of the proxy services is a Russian company whose founder's web hosting business was ground zero for cyberattacks against election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. The security firm Layer3 Intel said it detected multiple residential proxy nodes beaconing out from the internet address network reserved for the Executive Office of the President (AS2650). Layer3 said the proxy activity was relatively persistent between October 5 to November 3, and that a review of the proxies available from AS2650 showed they exited from the White House network 236 times during that period.
The proxy tracking company Synthient said on Twitter/X that the activity it saw coming from AS2650 was related to multiple Windows 11 installations of a service called Infatica, a proxy program that is often integrated into "free" mobile and desktop applications. Infatica's founder Vladimir Fomenko is a Russian man whose hosting firm King Servers was home to six of the eight internet addresses used by Russia's state security services to compromise databases for election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. [...] Layer3 Intel said the proxy exit nodes at the White House came from six internet addresses, on 26 of the 30 days, and that most of the activity happens in the evening, between 5 p.m. and midnight. Incredibly, Infatica was not the only proxy service that reportedly has been reselling access to White House internet addresses: Layer3 Intel said it found 28 separate residential proxy services were able to exit through this network. "This is public access," the Layer3 Intel team wrote. "Anybody can obtain it by signing up to a public residential proxy service, paying a few dollars and sending requests through it. We did not selectively target this network or try to make our probes exit from it. We caught this by chance, simply by requesting global rotating access through these services."
The proxy tracking company Synthient said on Twitter/X that the activity it saw coming from AS2650 was related to multiple Windows 11 installations of a service called Infatica, a proxy program that is often integrated into "free" mobile and desktop applications. Infatica's founder Vladimir Fomenko is a Russian man whose hosting firm King Servers was home to six of the eight internet addresses used by Russia's state security services to compromise databases for election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. [...] Layer3 Intel said the proxy exit nodes at the White House came from six internet addresses, on 26 of the 30 days, and that most of the activity happens in the evening, between 5 p.m. and midnight. Incredibly, Infatica was not the only proxy service that reportedly has been reselling access to White House internet addresses: Layer3 Intel said it found 28 separate residential proxy services were able to exit through this network. "This is public access," the Layer3 Intel team wrote. "Anybody can obtain it by signing up to a public residential proxy service, paying a few dollars and sending requests through it. We did not selectively target this network or try to make our probes exit from it. We caught this by chance, simply by requesting global rotating access through these services."
FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are a staffer using Russian proxy software, I'd argue you're an operative that needs to be thoroughly investigated by federal agencies (FBI at least). And potentially prosecuted for failing to disclose your relationship with an adversarial nation.
Re:FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me, have you been alive for the last 2 years? Why would you expect the FBI to investigate anything associated with the White House. The Justice Dept is run by el Bunko bootlickers, so they cannot even force the FBI to investigate squat and the head of the FBI is another el Bunko bootlicker.
The rest of the fed. agencies are also run by el Bunko bootlickers. And most do not have independent investigatory powers nor are they able to bring cases, especially against their own government.
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The last 2 years is over, and there's gonna be big changes. This is the month that the new Grand Theft Auto comes out.
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Future tense [Re:FARA Foreign Agents Registrat...] (Score:2)
The last 2 years is over, /p>
No, the last two years will be over. But not until January 3.
And... that won't change the FBI or the justice department, which are executive agencies, not legislative.
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Wait what? GTA6 has been delayed AGAIN?
(Seriously though, yes, you are correct, the current arangement with the two houses is in place for another month)
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See: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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Why would you expect [this] FBI to investigate anything associated with [this] White House.
FTFY
(Normally, or traditionally, the DOJ and FBI are *suppose* to act independently from the President / White House.)
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What would WH staff need a Russian VPN for? That automatically raises red flags, and needs to be investigated, and they need to be put under the bright light with a little 'truth serum'.
And, the FBI and DoJ don't just do the BIC's bidding... they investigate stuff thoroughly. The issue is it takes time for those investigations, typically longer than you might expect.
And, just because the current BIC (butt in chair) is in charge, that doesn't mean every single investigation of every single thing should jus
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And, the FBI and DoJ don't just do the BIC's bidding
This is how it's typically supposed to work but this current admin is anything but typical. Trump has appointed his own personal attorneys to DoJ violating advise and consent rules and appointments rules and Pam Bondy all but admitted that whatever AG is in office takes direct orders on who to prosecute from the WH, violating centuries of norms.
I have absolutely zero reason to think Kash Patel has any independent thoughts knocking around in his beady eyes little skull either (same for MW Mullin), this is a
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Learn how to sort results by date. Some more recent links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/1... [nytimes.com]
https://www.wbez.org/crime/202... [wbez.org]
Basically, the US attorney lied to the grand jury and the court. There is evidence that Donald Trump personally directed that they prosecute a congressional candidate.
But hey, that case may be too complicated for you. Let's try something simpler: go look up the David Hearn case.
That's the one where Trump repeatedly demanded that someone be prosecuted for the so-called vandalism to the
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Ahh... and, there we go with the accusations that "I'm too simple" to understand crap... I somehow doubt if I was too simple, I wouldn't have been allowed to play with a 2MW Tesla Coil or a thing that shrunk a quarter to a dime... but, whatever, right?
The podcasts thing would only apply if I listened to any podcasts at all, wouldn't it? I'm sure you'll claim I'm brainwashed by (what are you claiming these days) right-wing or left-wing crap.
In case you're wondering... my daily news feed is like 5-7 sites, a
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Some more links:
https://abcnews.com/US/judge-d... [abcnews.com]
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a false statements case against two former senior FBI agents accused of lying to Congress about past investigations of Hunter Biden.
"What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization," the judge said in tossing the case.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
FBI employees involved in Trump classified documents ca
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If you are a staffer using Russian proxy software
There is no indication this is being done intentionally.
I'd argue you're an operative that needs to be thoroughly investigated by federal agencies (FBI at least).
Right before Trump announced his war on Iran, there was a massive spike in oil future trading. An investigation was automatically started and squashed by Trump political appointees. It is very clear this administration is not going to investigate itself no matter how much corruption shows up.
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There is no indication this is being done intentionally.
Manchurian candidate defense? ;-)
Staffers were warned back in March [fbi.gov] not to run this shit.
IT and cyber security are way too lax in the government these days, especially in political positions. I have far less freedom than a WH staffer to install unapproved software on my work laptop at a private company. If the government took security only half as seriously as a typical Fortune 500, we wouldn't be on the brink of a major cyberattack marching us towards WW3.
Re: FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act (Score:2)
If the government took security seriously they wouldn't use Windows, but it's literally everywhere.
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I know, all the security holes in *Nix that've been pointed out make for a good secure OS.
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I know, all the security holes in *Nix that've been pointed out make for a good secure OS.
There's holes in everything, but Microsoft goes above and beyond to fuck up. I think it's fair to say that everyone is going to have to take security a lot more seriously going forwards, but that goes triple for them.
Re: FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act (Score:2)
Remember back in 2016-2017 Pakistani agents were running IT security for the Democrats?
https://nypost.com/2017/08/19/... [nypost.com]
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There is no indication this is being done intentionally.
So they did it unintentionally? Does that really improve the situation?
Nothing here to see (Score:5, Funny)
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Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good to know that the quality of IT management at the White House is in step with the quality of the rest of the administration. Nothing says "hell in a handbasket" like letting anyone install whatever on the White House computer network.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not like sharing war plans over Signal
Re: Cool! (Score:2)
Remember when one of those people went looking for email deletion software on a public forum, and we discussed it here on slashdot?
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell you what, once Trump for once in his fat fucking worthless life sits for hours upon hours upon hours of under oath public and private depositions like Hillary did then we can all remember the email server but not until then.
So, no, I don't remember anything about Hillary's email server. Nothing happened there.
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What if two things can be bad?
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Two things can be "bad" but at the same level? Not necessarily.
I'm not prepared to equate running a private e-mail server with exposing the White House network and its associated devices to foreign access and manipulation.
Re: Cool! (Score:2)
They are definitely not on the same level.
They are both bad, and the email server was not just a security risk, it was employed specifically for the purpose of avoiding discovery. That's why there are rules against it.
Email was definitely deleted from the server before it was examined. Evidence was destroyed. Period.
But YES, you are correct, it's very tiny potatoes compared to the Trump world.
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BATMAN WITH a BONER!!! I never thought of that!
Don't make me tap the sign (Score:5, Informative)
Kakistocracy [wikipedia.org]
Sounds like even more subpoenas are needed.
Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't realize Rudy Giuliani was still handling internet security for Trump...
Krasnov at it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone surprised the Russian asset has his people using proxies or software from Russia during an election? Do I need to spell it out what they were trying to do?
Re:Krasnov at it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Jon Ossoff basically laid some things out in a speech from a couple weeks ago. [youtube.com]
Y'all remember Jared Kushner? The president's son-in-law, the so-called special envoy responsible for diplomacy with Russia and in the Middle East.
Do you remember the other special envoy Steve Witkoff who co-founded the president's crooked crypto business World Liberty? Okay, so follow me through on this.
What Jared and Steve are doing right now is negotiating with Putin to sell billions in Russian oil fields and refineries and gas stations to the president's friends.
You've got Sheikh Tahnoon, the Emirati spy chief who paid half a billion to the Trump Witkoff crypto business.
Then you've got the Al Qayat brothers, two Syrians who are financing Jared and Ivanka's multi-billion dollar Albanian resort project. And then the third partner, a billionaire mega donor to Trump's campaign. Oh, and the US government would take a 15% stake by the way. Are you getting the picture?
Amidst a global energy crisis the president's son-in-law and the president's business partner are brokering the sale of Russian oil fields to the first family's friends. The same friends who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump family businesses. And then there's Marco Rubio committing 1.6 billion of your money to back the Trump boys mining interests in Kazakhstan.
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Tweedledum and Tweedledumber also proposed to purchase the Nordstream pipelines. This is all pie-in-the-sky stuff, Putin is far too much of a nationalist to let some of the most valuable assets the country has be taken over by the nation most intent on Russia's destruction. He's smart enough to string the idiot twins along for years though, dangling that carrot just out of reach.
Sure (Score:2)
But only if they add the porn content back to the site [wikipedia.org].
Is this a staff-use network or a guest network? (Score:1)
For all we know this could be the guest WiFi network intended for visitors to use.
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For all we know this could be the guest WiFi network intended for visitors to use.
Right there in TFS, the first sentence:
Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today.
Staffers' devices are involved. What does it matter what network they're using?
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Not to mention this, in the first paragraph of TFS:
The security firm Layer3 Intel said it detected multiple residential proxy nodes beaconing out from the internet address network reserved for the Executive Office of the President (AS2650).
That doesn't sound like a "guest" WiFi access-point.
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I know of some offices where the staff-only network is for corporate-owned machines, staff are only allowed to connect their personal devices to the guest network.
Those personal devices, which won't have any government info on them, may be to blame.
Until someone says that this isn't the case here, we can't rule it out.
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Even if this is the case, it's still a problem that government employees are allowing personal devices to be infected. It could potentially leave them open to geographic and other types of
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If you truly believe that, seek a mental health professional.
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Right so a staffer that has a freeware game on his phone that monetizes with one of those proxy companies. I would be more surprised if there wasn't one of those.
5th of November (Score:3)
Capitalism at its best. (Score:2)
Everything is for sale. Russian involvement is just a bonus and a distraction.
And how do we know that the people involved even knew about these proxies, including the Russian company?