Does anyone know anything about the stonetear reddit thing ?

[democrattotheend]

Yesterday this seemed like a bunch of right wing nonsense, but now the Washington Post and The Hill are posting about it and I am a little worried.

It seems like it could be fabricated...it just seems too convenient, and anyone can fabricate an archived Reddit post. Or potentially hack Reddit. Even if it is legit, all it seems to show is that they didn't want to make Hillary's private e-mail address public.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/09/20/hillary-clintons-it-guy-asked-reddit-for-help-altering-emails-a-twitter-sleuth-claims/

The Hill says the House committee is going to investigate this, but I don't put much stock in it because they are looking for anything to take Hillary down with.

Is this a potential bombshell or just right wingers grasping at straws?

[DavidDvorkin]

1. This strikes me as nothing

First, we don't know if it has anything to do with Clinton's e-mail. Second, if it does, the request has to do with preserving someone's privacy, not altering the content of e-mails.

[democrattotheend]

8. That's what I am hoping

Unfortunately, at the very least, it gives the Republican witchhunt committee something new to look into and get more media attention than deserved with.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Refighting refighting refighting refighting

Anyone know about...?

[democrattotheend]

3. I did not post this to refight the primaries

I have always thought the e-mail thing seemed overblown. When I read about this I felt panicked, because it seemed like it could be really bad. But like I said, I think it might be fabricated, and it might just be that he was trying to prevent her private e-mail address from becoming public, which is not a big deal.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Refighting refighting refighting refighting

Not credible.

[democrattotheend]

5. Go through all of my posts here

And you will see that I have no desire to refight the primaries.

I made the "Bernie has my heart, Hillary has my vote" sticker you see in my signature the day after the California primary. I also posted something last week about how I am more excited to vote for Hillary now than ever.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Well, that's not my read of things

Good luck.

[democrattotheend]

7. You're right. I guess you know my motives better than I do.

For the good of the country, I really hope this turns out to be nothing.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Sad

[Arazi]

10. It's also a big story now on US News and World Report

[democrattotheend]

15. So far not being covered by TV news

But I am a little worried about it. When it was just right wingers on twitter I didn't take it too seriously, but now that mainstream media are picking it up it's troubling. Not because I think it's the smoking gun they say it is, but because it will give them yet another angle to cover more about Hillary's stupid e-mails.

[Old Terp]

11. Would not be hard to fake

and may not be hard to disprove. I'm a grandmother, and I could fake such an email/help request (would not do because it would cause guilt trips).
















O
P

[NWCorona]

13. StoneTear posts are captured on the Wayback machine and that would be hard to fake.

[Arazi]

16. It looks pretty definite stonetear is Paul Combetta. Taking the 5th in Congress is concerning

[NWCorona]

19. It has to be him. That etsy account makes that pretty clear

The crazy thing that no one is talking about is the fact that he posted Hillary's security keys on reddit asking for help with security patches. If true that's insane!

[Lee-Lee]

22. I doubt you could fake dates on reddit posts and get them into archive sites that match the dates.

That would be one helluva trick especially faking responses to your posts.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

12. Yeah, right

Hillary's IT guy going on Reddit asking for help.

Someone distract the neckbeard who fabricated this bullshit with another turkey pot pie.

[NWCorona]

14. Some people will say it's nothing and fake but that would be hard to do.

That said I don't think this will impact Hillary at this point. This is baked in at this point.

[Arazi]

17. That's my hope, that the meat of the email thing is behind us now and this is just white noise

[NCTraveler]

18. "A Twitter Slueth Claims"

[Lee-Lee]

21. Online investigations and putting pieces like this together is part of what I do for my job

And it looks pretty clear that its legit and "stonetear" is Combetta. The Etsy account, the use of that name on his personal email, friends referring to him by the nickname in photos on Facebook all add up.

The posts add up pretty well and it is not faked. You could Photoshop screenshots but you can't get them planted into internet archiving websites or a forum like Reddit with the right datestamps. The posts clearly were made as events were happening. The fact that they were quickly deleted by whoever made them as soon as the story broke doesn't help assuage any doubts.

The more I look, the more I get the idea that the people Secretary Clinton trusted to handle things like this failed her here in many ways. I doubt she even knew any specifics of the server or how long things were archived or anything else- she just wanted email that worked for her and told her people to make that happen.They failed her by setting up things like they did and doing it with what now appears to be a pretty incompetent company. And based on the posts Combetta made it looks like he failed to keep security and it gives an appearance that someone who Secretary Clinton trusted was telling him to do some shady stuff.

Does it really change anything? I don't think so. But I do think Secretary Clinton needs to rethink who she trusts to handle matters like this for her because someone failed her here in managing this mess.

[democrattotheend]

24. I think it is Combetta too

As an expert in these online investigations, do you think this is a smoking gun like they are saying, or not a big deal? From the text of it, he might have been just trying to hide her private e-mail address, which is no big deal. If he was trying to make it look like she wasn't on the e-mail at all, it's a bigger deal.

I agree with you that she probably wasn't directly involved in this and probably doesn't really understand the technical details of her server, which is why she has given inconsistent answers. I also find it hard to believe that Cheryl Mills, a licensed attorney, would advise this guy's company to engage in illegal spoliation of evidence.

That said, I think this is part of a pattern of Hillary or the people who work for her doing stupid shit because of an aversion to disclosure. She has never been found guilty of any wrongdoing but she makes it look like she is guilty by going to such lengths to keep things private.

[Lee-Lee]

27. I don't think so but it is too soon to say for sure

A lot of how this plays out is probably going to depend if all this jives with the version of events he and others gave the FBI. If what is in those posts is not the same as what he told the FBI that opens him up to serious problems. If those problems extend past him who knows, but if this opens the door to them prosecuting him, even for being dishonest with them, it may lead to him turning on everyone else to try and save himself. But if what is in those posts is consistent with what he has told the FBI I don't see much coming from it.

I don't do IT stuff, so that is out of my wheelhouse to say if whats in the subject matter of his posts is a smoking gun. I am sure others can comment more accurately than me.

My job is doing screenings on people who are applying for jobs that will require a Federal security clearance to make sure we are only sending applicants up who will get a clearance, so I do checks on people to see if the info they put on the application is complete and accurate and, more importantly, to find out what they didn't put that application that is going to get them rejected. Rejections cost us money when we have started training the person and cause gaps in staffing and make us look bad, so my job is to stop them.

A lot of that is essentially professional cyber-stalking. If you apply with us I will be digging into all you online activities from the beginning of your time online and connecting dots and looking for your secrets. The process that the people on Reddit used to connect those dots is pretty close to how I would find one little seed, like a unique username like "stonetear", and follow that around to see what dots I can connect. That finds me the things like Adult Friend Finder accounts where people are cheating on spouses, people illegally dealing in protected animals, associations with white supremacists or neo-confederate groups, fake degrees and falsified military service claims. I once found a case of bigamy, and there are a couple cases where I have found stuff that I turned over to the relevant law enforcement groups to investigate. That background is how I can look at what they found here and see that it appears pretty certain to be him and the posts appear to be legitimate.

[Doctor Jack]

25. From the article

The posts do not appear to reference deleting emails, but rather to hiding email addresses. That could signal nothing of note.

The evidence that @GOPPollAnalyst and others have uncovered is entirely circumstantial — which is pretty typical of crowdsourced investigative efforts, even the more effective ones.

[democrattotheend]

26. The part about not deleting e-mails is comforting

Hopefully this turns out to be a big nothing. But the fact that the House Committee is seizing on it means that whether it means anything or not, they get yet another way to keep beating what is hopefully a dead horse.

[Doctor Jack]

28. She could cough and they would make a big deal out of it....oh wait, they already happened