Sunday, May 07, 2017

The French Hacking Attack and the Rebel Connection



With only 24 hours to go before the French presidential election, and Emmanuel Macron leading Marine Le Pen in the polls, this was hardly surprising. 

The campaign of the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was hit on Friday by a large dump of leaked emails and other documents on a file-sharing website.

Le Pen's neo-nazis are about to get thumped, and they are bitter and desperate.

But what is surprising and shocking is the Canadian connection.



Or the role played by Jack Posobiec, The Rebel's Washington "bureau chief" in helping to spread the hacked material.

Jack Posobiec, a journalist with the far-right news outlet The Rebel, was the first to use the hashtag with a link to the hacked documents online, which was then shared more widely by WikiLeaks.

Posobiec tried to deny that he had played a big role, but his digital footprints seemed to argue otherwise...



Mr. Posobiec remains the second-most mentioned individual on Twitter in connection with the hashtag behind WikiLeaks, according to a review of the past 100,000 Twitter posts published since late Friday.

His activities and his background are well known.

Through a machine analysis, DFRLab tracked the onset of the campaign to the Twitter account of Jack Posobiec, the Washington DC Bureau Chief of an obscure, alt-right website, theRebelMedia. Posobiec’s bio on theRebel.media reveals that “in 2016, Jack was the Special Projects Director for Citizens for Trump, the largest Trump grassroots organization in the US,” and he is “a proud member of #SlavRight,” a nationalist Slavic movement.

And what I also found interesting was that while the Rebel did run a short piece on the hacking attack, alleging that Macron was trying to turn France into an Islamic country. 

Which couldn't be more fake news, or more absurd.

Ezra Levant has apparently purged his hate mongering site of any videos from his Washington "bureau chief."

Like this one...



Where Posobiec spews out more baseless allegations.

But then who can blame Levant?

The French cybersecurity agency is going after the hackers and their accomplices.  

France’s government cybersecurity agency will investigate the attack, according to a government official who said it appeared to be a “very serious” breach.

ANSSI can only be called in for cases where the cyberattack is “massive and sophisticated” – and the Macron hack appears to fit the bill, the official said.

And in my experience when the French intelligence services go after the enemies of the Republic, bad things can happen.

If Anonymous or Interpol doesn't get them first...



Yup, Levant has been sticking his bigot snout into a very dark and dangerous place.

He's out of his depth, he's running scared.

And with a little bit of luck, he might finally end up in the place where he belongs...



17 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:27 AM

    One hopes. Also, what is a 'Slavic Nationalist' doing 'operating' under a Canadian/American banner?

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    1. hi liberalandlovingit....well at the very least it should give Levant pause. The last thing he needs is another court case. And as for Posobiec, he's a weird bird, and has trouble written all over him....

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  2. Fortunately that stuff is probably too little too late, after Le Pen's disastrous, aggressive performance in the final debate.

    Many friends here and in France holding their noses and voting for Macron (notorious for his plans to weaken labour legislation and social support) against the She-Wolf of the FN. The queues here in Montréal were huge. Fortunately the weather wasn't too horrible yesterday.

    Funny, Macron gets accused of wanting to impose an "Islamic State" (why on earth would he want to do that?) after FN insinuations about Rothschild and the International Jewish Conspiracy.

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    Replies
    1. hi lagatta....yes, you're right, Le Pen did herself enormous damage during the last debate. The part where she started moving her arms about and trying to caricature Macron must have cost her quite a few votes. And while Macron doesn't have the best background, he's young, his political career is still a blank slate, so he has a chance to re-invent himself, and take his country in a progressive direction....

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  3. Anonymous9:19 AM

    I've been saying for months now that democracy's (and humanity's) only saving grace in all of this is that the alt-reich is not very intelligence. They are also incredibly arrogant and vain.
    Levant is a traitor to his country. Like most of the alt-reich in Canada, they hate all that we love and stand for, and would like nothing better to turn Canada into an impoverished and nationalistic country like Russia. They wrap themselves in our flag while shitting on our beautiful Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Fuck him, fuck them all, rot in jail ya fuckfaces.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:12 PM

      The bitterness is strong and funny in this one.

      Delete
    2. hi anon 9:19 am... I see you feel strongly about the situation ;) But I don't blame you, and you're right. The New Nazis aren't too bright, and Levant's Trumpism couldn't be more bizarre....

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  4. Anonymous9:48 AM

    Simon, check out John Schindler, @20Committee on twitter he is exposing Ezra. Ezra also doxxed Sandy Garossino, posted an email exchange that included her phone and email.

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    1. hi anon...thanks for the tip. I never thought that keeping tabs on the far-right in North America would mean keeping up to date with Kremlin News, but that's where we are, and it really is beyond belief....

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  5. Anonymous12:52 PM

    "Le Pen's neo-nazis are about to get thumped, and they are bitter and desperate."

    I highly doubt Le Pen's average supporter is a neo-nazi...

    -MC

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    1. hi MC...I'm not saying that all of Le Pen's supporters are neo-nazis and fascists, they are not. But there are enough of them in high places to make them dangerous. And if the National Front ever came to power, I can only imagine how they might behave....

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  6. Anonymous1:00 PM

    Ezra is so out of his league on this. he needs to stick to winding up his racist scumbag supporters as it's the only "talent" he has.
    Let's hope he faces extradition to France as I'm sure JT would personally sign that order.
    Vive la France, vive Ezra au prison.
    JD

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    Replies
    1. hi JD....yes, I don't think there's any doubt that Levant is out of his depth. And his decision to pull Posobiec's material instead of promoting it, tells me he is panicking. So much for the fearless Rebel and their Great Leader....

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  7. Anonymous10:54 PM

    Seems that Posobiec had no idea that launching an election hacking attack from outside the target country would leave such a large digital footprint. Hopefully there will be legal consequences but if not at least there is increased awareness of how coordinated information technology can mess with peoples perception of reality. How to preserve free speech while shutting down coordinated elector tailored bot attacks is a challenge. Ironically their most successful coup to date "The Donald" has become an international symbol of what people don't want even if the other options are less than ideal. The longer the freak show continues the better the options look, even those tied to unproductive debt fueled kumbaya experiments. Its easy to stand tall in comparison when the base of the yard stick is in the swamp.
    RT

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    1. hi RT....there's a picture of Posobiec at the so-called Deploraball, and it tells me all I need to know. He's not very bright, and is more of a wannabe than anything else. He left a digital trail the size of a four lane highway, and is now claiming he's a victim etc etc. If I didn't see this freak show with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it...

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  8. e. a. f.11:23 PM

    OMG they are truly out of their league. this will not end well for the hackers and chatters. viva la france as they would say do keep us posted this could be fun. hey we in b.c. are facing an election on 9 may and we don't know the out come so we do need a few laughs out here especially if the photo op queen is re elected.

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    1. hi e.a.f....what this hacking episode shows is that no democracy is safe from those cyber criminals. However, I think that the Posobiec types are overestimating the impact they can have. It may have worked during the American election, but now people are more aware of what these alt-rightists are trying to do, they'll look more and more like criminals, and hopefully start paying for what they are doing....

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