crawling in my skin

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Royal
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crawling in my skin

Post by Royal » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:53 am

Bennington and his wife were harassed by a cyberstalker named Devon Townsend for almost a year. Townsend was found guilty of tampering with the couple's email, as well as sending threatening messages, and was later sentenced to two years in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Bennington

A former national laboratory worker has admitted that she used government computers to access the e-mail account of Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington and hacked into a cell phone company's Web site to obtain his phone number.

...

Townsend, who worked in Sandia National Laboratories' technology and manufacturing group, used lab computers to access private information about Bennington and his wife, Talinda, from January 2006 to November 2006.

According to a plea agreement filed Friday, Townsend said she was able to access family photos, information about a new home bought by the Benningtons, the couple's travel plans, and correspondence between Warner Bros. Records and Linkin Park's business attorney — including a copy of a check made to Bennington from the record company and a copy of the band's recording contract.

ownsend also accessed the couple's cell phone accounts online and was able to download digital phone pictures and monitor voice messages.

"On at least one occasion, knowing that Chester Bennington was in Arizona, I traveled to Arizona solely for the purpose of trying to see him," Townsend said in the plea agreement. "While I was there, I monitored Chester Bennington's voice mails as a means of trying to locate where he might be eating dinner or lunch."

Investigators said Townsend also hacked into the e-mail of Bennington's wife and at one point called the former Playboy model and threatened her.

Court documents also said investigators searched Townsend's home in Albuquerque and found Linkin Park posters, autographed band memorabilia, pictures of Townsend with Chester Bennington, bootlegged Linkin Park music, and copies of messages and photographs intercepted from the Bennington family's e-mail accounts.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/07/02 ... ngton.html

Our unique mission responsibilities in the nuclear weapons (NW) program create a foundation from which we leverage capabilities, enabling us to solve complex national security problems.

As a multidisciplinary national laboratory and federally funded research and development center (FFRDC), Sandia accomplishes tasks that are integral to the mission and operation of our sponsoring agencies by

[*]anticipating and resolving emerging national security challenges
[*]innovating and discovering new technologies to strengthen the nation’s technological superiority
[*]creating value through products and services that solve important national security challenges
[*]informing the national debate where technology policy is critical to preserving security and freedom throughout our world

As an FFRDC for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), we have a long-term relationship with our sponsor. This creates an environment that supports our fields of expertise, enables us to maintain our objectivity and independence, and allows us to be familiar with our sponsor’s mission. We bring the FFRDC culture to all our federal sponsors to provide long-term support, solutions to existing problems and emerging threats, and quick-response capabilities. As an objective, independent, and trusted advisor, we draw from our deep science and engineering experience to anticipate, innovate, create, and inform the policy debate for decision makers.

http://www.sandia.gov/about/mission/index.html

It was September 11, 2006, a fateful anniversary but just another Monday for Konstantinos "Gus" Dimitrelos. A solid 5'5" Joe Pesci look-alike, Dimitrelos, 40, was sitting in his office behind a Belk's department store in Spanish Fort, Alabama, when Talinda Bennington called. Dimitrelos is a former Secret Service agent with a black belt in judo and a knack for computer forensics. As a special agent in the Secret Service's Technical Security Division, Dimitrelos would secure locations for visits by presidents Clinton and Bush — sweeping it for hazards like bugs and chemical weapons, as well as setting up evacuation measures in case of disaster or attack.

The mission of the Secret Service also covers fraud, identity theft, and assisting local law enforcement with forensics. As a result, Dimitrelos had chased down counterfeiters in Colombia and software pirates in Miami. He was particularly adept at interrogations. "I pride myself on getting a confession," he says. "I'm a midget compared to the guy in the street, but I'll break him. I'll throw a chair through a wall, flip over a table."

In 2003, Dimitrelos blew out a knee during a confrontation, which relegated him to a desk job. When he retired a couple of years later, he could have gone into the private sector — he had lucrative offers to do cybersecurity work for Home Depot and Bank of America — but that wasn't his speed. "Corporate America just does not appeal to me; I like the idea of putting people away." At about this time, the state of Alabama needed someone to set up a computer-forensics department and asked Dimitrelos to organize and run it. There was a two-year backlog of state cases seeking to use the FBI forensic labs, and state law-enforcement officers needed to be trained on the seizure of digital evidence. He wasn't crazy about moving to the sticks. But he took the contract gig and ended up digging the beaches and the barbecues in this small town of 5,600 people.

(continued)

Last edited by Royal on Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Royal
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Re: crawling in my skin

Post by Royal » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:54 am

...

"Whatever you're doing, you've got a good case," Fauver told Dimitrelos in a phone call. Fauver discovered that though the stalker was using a proxy server at Sandia, they weren't accessing it from outside the facility but from another computer terminal inside the lab. And now a supervisor at Sandia wanted to know why a DOD official was so interested in this case. "Because," Fauver replied, "the person is working where there's sensitive information and technology. And clearly that has relevance to the Department of Defense."

...

This case is unbelievable," Dimitrelos thought. Townsend had Q-level security clearance, which allows nonmilitary personnel to access atomic or nuclear materials. It was equivalent to the clearance level that Dimitrelos himself had when he was protecting presidents. And yet she was spending seven hours a day at Sandia logging in and out of strangers' email accounts.

Dimitrelos wondered how Townsend pulled this off. He assumed the Feds monitored the computer activity of people in nuclear research labs. But, as he learned after reading up on Sandia, the lab had recently experienced another security scandal.

In 2004, Shawn Carpenter, a network-intrusion-detection analyst at Sandia, discovered an attack on the lab's computers (later linked in news reports to a Chinese hacking group called Titan Rain) and began back- hacking to uncover the problem. Carpenter informed the Army Research Lab and worked with them to help ID the hackers, for which he claims Sandia fired him. He sued for wrongful discharge. According to court documents, he claims he was told by Sandia's head of counter intelligence, a retired CIA officer, "If you worked for me, I would decapitate you!" (On February 13 of this year, a New Mexico jury awarded $4.3 million to Carpenter. A Sandia spokesperson announced that they were "disappointed" by the verdict and planned to appeal it.)
...
Why did you do all this? Dimitrelos asked. In flat tones, Townsend told him that she was bored. Her job at Sandia took about half an hour a day, and she was looking to pass the time.
Dimitrelos pressed for more from Townsend, trying to get a sense of her feelings about her victims. Townsend told him she loved Linkin Park, particularly Chester. She said she wanted to be "part of what he is." In some of her emails, Townsend had told the Benningtons that she was trying to shield them from any bad information or emails that may be coming their way. It was classic stalker behavior — introducing duress, then pretending to relieve it in an attempt to appear useful. She finally told Dimitrelos that she knew what she was doing was wrong, but she couldn't stop.
Levy and Dimitrelos drew up a confession. Townsend signed it, and they witnessed it. They made her promise not to have further contact with the Benningtons. Then she was free to go. Fauver filed a complaint on November 20 that relied on information from the interview, and Townsend was jailed that day. She was released the next, but soon afterward Sandia placed her on leave, and eventually she was fired.
As Dimitrelos and Levy were interviewing Townsend, Fauver and a dozen officials from the DOE, the Secret Service, and the US Defense Criminal Investigative Service (a division of the DOD) arrived at Townsend's house with a warrant from a federal judge for the district of New Mexico. Inside, they found a shrine to Linkin Park: posters, a montage of photos, a paper plate signed by Chester, and a Linkin Park poster over her son's crib.
...

Meanwhile, Chester Bennington is grappling with the headaches that increased security brings. His passwords are now long strings of random letters and numbers that he changes frequently. "I keep a list for every different thing, and it drives me out of my fucking mind," he says. "I want to go back." Back to Charlie.

https://www.wired.com/2007/05/ff-linkinpark-2/


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Royal
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Re: crawling in my skin

Post by Royal » Wed Aug 02, 2017 7:56 am

D :

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Pigeon
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Re: crawling in my skin

Post by Pigeon » Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:44 pm

Abuse of her position maybe. Misuse of those systems should be a problem, if that is what happen. Not to mention illegal access of other systems.

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Royal
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Re: crawling in my skin

Post by Royal » Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:48 pm





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Royal
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Re: crawling in my skin

Post by Royal » Fri Sep 07, 2018 11:36 am

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