Hunter Biden's Laptop

[fskimospy]

Is this true? Can we source that? I have not seen this before.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined/

"The experts found the data had been repeatedly accessed and copied by people other than Hunter Biden over nearly three years"

But do we have examples of something that was added?

Yes, that article says they have examples of new data written to the drive, some of it long after Biden turned it in.

 

[Pens1566]

Yes, that article says they have examples of new data written to the drive, some of it long after Biden turned it in.

Was specifically emails IIRC. Something like replies to previous salacious emails that were well after the supposed turn in date.

 

[hal2kilo]

My personal opinion is he probably does work with classified information regularly. His issue is he’s so insanely partisan he’s tried to use that to trick other people into thinking he knows what he’s talking about.

Assuming what he is saying is true, he works with a very specific set of classified information where that information is subject to stringent controls. What he doesn’t seem to understand is lots of classified documents aren’t like that. He’s banking on nobody else actually knowing how classified information works.

Really though he’s probably some guy who watches a lot of Fox News and that’s given him brain worms.

Also, people don't realize that SCIF's are a relatively new thing. I googled, but all I can find is a 2020 order. I don't know if is was after 9/11, but security really got stepped up. I suspect, that all of the different commands and organizations had different policies as they interpreted the classified regulations. All I know is that as a contractor on a military base supporting a technical shop, I just had to be on the tech library list of cleared people to be able to check out Secret and above, and it was logged. Unfortunately, when the SCIF facility was installed down the hall several years back they solved the problem by making it extremely difficult to even get the damn info. Especially, stuff that came off of the Strategic Projects (SP) network. Things like APL quick look reports which used to be sent to me in an unclassified version in paper. That information was basically, cut off to me anymore, making my job more difficult.

 

[Pens1566]

Also, people don't realize that SCIF's are a relatively new thing. I googled, but all I can find is a 2020 order. I don't know if is was after 9/11, but security really got stepped up. I suspect, that all of the different commands and organizations had different policies as they interpreted the classified regulations. All I know is that as a contractor on a military base supporting a technical shop, I just had to be on the tech library list of cleared people to be able to check out Secret and above, and it was logged. Unfortunately, when the SCIF facility was installed down the hall several years back they solved the problem by making it extremely difficult to even get the damn info. Especially, stuff that came off of the Strategic Projects (SP) network. Things like APL quick look reports which used to be sent to me in an unclassified version in paper. That information was basically, cut off to me anymore, making my job more difficult.

SCIFs aren't new.

 

[VRAMdemon]

What, you guys don’t believe the totally plausible story that Hunter Biden dropped off a laptop full of damning sensitive files at some random repair shop and then never got around to picking it up afterwards?

If I recall Russian intelligence hacked Burisma back in January 2020. So they had plenty of time to torture that data to make it say whatever they want.

I don't really pay attention to this hunter laptop nonsense. It has all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign to influence our elections. And of course, the right wing media has turned this into what it is today. Over 50 senior intelligence penned a letter warning of this at the time. I'll go with the experts

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000

 

[HomerJS]

What, you guys don’t believe the totally plausible story that Hunter Biden dropped off a laptop full of damning sensitive files at some random repair shop and then never got around to picking it up afterwards?

If I recall Russian intelligence hacked Burisma back in January 2020. So they had plenty of time to torture that data to make it say whatever they want.

I don't really pay attention to this hunter laptop nonsense. It has all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign to influence our elections. And of course, the right wing media has turned this into what it is today. Over 50 senior intelligence penned a letter warning of this at the time. I'll go with the experts

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000

The golden ticket righties have been claiming is Hunter was running scams to benefit himself and Joe Biden.

I've asked every Hunter laptop fanatic, "at one time Rudy Guliani had the laptop/contents. If the data was so damning, why didn't he just release it to the media?"

If he had done that the story would have been off the table by now. However, righties don't want the facts, they want the story. They will live off it through the 2024 elections.

 

[fskimospy]

The golden ticket righties have been claiming is Hunter was running scams to benefit himself and Joe Biden.

I've asked every Hunter laptop fanatic, "at one time Rudy Guliani had the laptop/contents. If the data was so damning, why didn't he just release it to the media?"

If he had done that the story would have been off the table by now. However, righties don't want the facts, they want the story. They will live off it through the 2024 elections.

Amusingly enough Giuliani is on the record saying he did not give the laptop to other news organizations out of fears they would attempt to verify its contents.

 

[HomerJS]

Amusingly enough Giuliani is on the record saying he did not give the laptop to other news organizations out of fears they would attempt to verify its contents.

To date nobody has given me an answer to that question. Why didn't Rudy release it?

 

[Pohemi]

To date nobody has given me an answer to that question. Why didn't Rudy release it?

Because it was proof they were all lying, of course. Couldn't release it and let the cat out of that bag. Have to keep the bag closed up so they can kick it down the road for years. Who cares if the cat inside is okay.

 

[fskimospy]

To date nobody has given me an answer to that question. Why didn't Rudy release it?

I think he was very clear as to why he didn't release it - he was afraid its contents were not genuine and didn't want anyone to find that out.

 

[Jaskalas]

I don't really pay attention to this hunter laptop nonsense. It has all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign to influence our elections.

That was the original media story for the 2020 election.
They have since changed their tune on its validity.

If you want to know what information they claim it had... why not just ask them? By ask, I mean actually go to your opponents and look at their publishing.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/2022-year-the-hunter-biden-laptop-finally-verified-media
2022: The year the Hunter Biden laptop was finally verified by the media
NYT, WaPo, NBC, CNN, CBS took turns reporting on the laptop after rejecting the Biden scandal in 2020


Fox demonstrating multiple other media channels now verify the laptop is real. It is not fake.
But all the stories surrounding it? Many of those probably are fake, or exaggerated, or half truths with misleading information to sell a story.
Just because it is real, does not mean everything they SAY about it is real.

 

[fskimospy]

That was the original media story for the 2020 election.
They have since changed their tune on its validity.

If you want to know what information they claim it had... why not just ask them? By ask, I mean actually go to your opponents and look at their publishing.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/2022-year-the-hunter-biden-laptop-finally-verified-media
2022: The year the Hunter Biden laptop was finally verified by the media
NYT, WaPo, NBC, CNN, CBS took turns reporting on the laptop after rejecting the Biden scandal in 2020


Fox demonstrating multiple other media channels now verify the laptop is real. It is not fake.
But all the stories surrounding it? Many of those probably are fake, or exaggerated, or half truths with misleading information to sell a story.
Just because it is real, does not mean everything they SAY about it is real.

This is not accurate - the reason why so many media outlets passed on it was because it was not possible to verify the contents. This was first and foremost because the person who possessed the laptop (Giuliani) explicitly stated that he would not turn it over to be verified because he was concerned they would find out things on it were not genuine. When a source says that they lose any credibility. This is also why no writer at the post would put their name on the article - they felt it would undermine their journalistic reputation because publishing it was so unprofessional.

What the washington post later did was attempt to verify the contents and found they could verify SOME, but there were very large swaths that could not be verified and they found evidence of tampering. If you wanted to mount an intelligence operation though this is exactly how you would do it. You sprinkle your fake documents in with real ones.

I can see an argument for how instead of ignoring it the news should have reported on how poor the credibility of it was, but the Post editor who green lit the story should have been fired immediately.

 

[Jaskalas]

This is not accurate - the reason why so many media outlets passed on it was because it was not possible to verify the contents.
...
What the washington post later did was attempt to verify the contents and found they could verify SOME, but there were very large swaths that could not be verified and they found evidence of tampering.

That does complicate the matter.
Calling the thing fake or real seems to miss the nuance of tampering.
So it was certainly Hunter's laptop, but because it was in the possession of others... the contents they deliver are sus. But it has lead to verifying SOME contents and Fox mislabeled that to some degree....

 

[fskimospy]

That does complicate the matter.
Calling the thing fake or real seems to miss the nuance of tampering.
So it was certainly Hunter's laptop, but because it was in the possession of others... the contents they deliver are sus. But it has lead to verifying SOME contents and Fox mislabeled that to some degree....

It is certainly a laptop with significant amounts of Hunter Biden's real data on it. (I don't think ownership of the laptop has been established) Yes, SOME of the data on it is verified as genuine.

From a news perspective though if you know the target of the story is someone with an active intelligence operation against them by a hostile foreign power then you have to be skeptical from the start. If THEN the source of this information says they refuse to let you verify it that's VERY suspicious. It could turn out that everything on the laptop is 100% genuine but I think it would have been irresponsible to publish a story based on such a suspicious source without any ability to verify if it were true.

 

[Lanyap]

nm

 

[hal2kilo]

SCIFs aren't new.

They were new as of about 10 years ago at the facility I worked at.

 

[Pens1566]

They were new as of about 10 years ago at the facility I worked at.

From personal experience, they've been around since at least the mid '90s. And I didn't get the vibe that they were new then either.

 

[VRAMdemon]

That was the original media story for the 2020 election.
They have since changed their tune on its validity.

If you want to know what information they claim it had... why not just ask them? By ask, I mean actually go to your opponents and look at their publishing.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/2022-year-the-hunter-biden-laptop-finally-verified-media
2022: The year the Hunter Biden laptop was finally verified by the media
NYT, WaPo, NBC, CNN, CBS took turns reporting on the laptop after rejecting the Biden scandal in 2020


Fox demonstrating multiple other media channels now verify the laptop is real. It is not fake.
But all the stories surrounding it? Many of those probably are fake, or exaggerated, or half truths with misleading information to sell a story.
Just because it is real, does not mean everything they SAY about it is real.

My "opponents"? They are America's "opponents" and should be your "opponents". The truth and tit for tat journalism is not some sporting event.

I never said in my post you responded to that a laptop doesn't exist. You didn't read what I wrote.

 

[IronWing]

Republicans claim a laptop exists. I'll concede that laptops are a thing that exists. Did the laptop the Republicans claim to have belonged to Hunter Biden ever belong to Hunter Biden? No evidence of that has been provided. Until evidence is forthcoming, it is reasonable to assume that the Republicans are lying, again.

 

[uclaLabrat]

They probably hacked his shit, imaged what they could, and put it all on a different laptop while planting what they wanted.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Yes, that article says they have examples of new data written to the drive, some of it long after Biden turned it in.

Late reply, but are they stating that the relevant data had more recent timestamps? Or that simply data had been written? If the thing was turned on at any point, new files get updated just from Windows being Windows. If the relevant data had more recent timestamps that'd imply tampering and should basically bin the entire investigation.

 

[Pens1566]

Late reply, but are they stating that the relevant data had more recent timestamps? Or that simply data had been written? If the thing was turned on at any point, new files get updated just from Windows being Windows. If the relevant data had more recent timestamps that'd imply tampering and should basically bin the entire investigation.

It was new data in the email files. And it was a mac.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It was new data in the email files. And it was a mac.

Wait, as in old emails had been edited somehow? Or new emails?

Mac, windows, both are identical from this conversation's perspective. I should have said 'as part of an OS doing its thing'.

 

[Pens1566]

Wait, as in old emails had been edited somehow? Or new emails?

Mac, windows, both are identical from this conversation's perspective. I should have said 'as part of an OS doing its thing'.

I believe it was kinda both. There were new replies to old emails (ones that RWNJs were point to for some reason), and the metadata on old emails showed changes from after the laptop was supposedly dropped off at the blind man's repair shop.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I believe it was kinda both. There were new replies to old emails (ones that RWNJs were point to for some reason), and the metadata on old emails showed changes from after the laptop was supposedly dropped off at the blind man's repair shop.

Interesting, the replies at least could be explained if they were stupid enough to put the thing on the wire and the program just retrieved new emails, but edited metadata that wasn't associated with some normal OS process I'd immediately wave the bullshit flag on.