This week, we're shaking our heads at gross incompetence in back to back global IT Meltdowns.
Every week I'll be here to reveal and review some of my favorite moments from the internet. Whether it be binging television shows, streaming sports or simply getting lost in a YouTube rabbit hole, I'm here to give you my top picks every Friday, as well as the perfect pairing to get into an optimal headspace for them. This week, we're saying a prayer for the now sure to be deceased North Korean IT Manager and ridiculing Stonetear, the alleged Reddit poster asking advice for removing Hillary's name from emails.
North Korea
Recommended Pairing:More than enough apples and plenty of delicious fruit for everyone to eat.
Earlier this week I delighted in the initial story of a "hacker" breaching the typically ironclad walls of the North Korean internet. We learned that there are only 28 websites attributed to the .KP domain, and besides the one with recipes, most are just hysterical propaganda.
What an incredibly hilarious mishap, right!?
Well, no.
Not when you consider Kim Yong-Jin — the former vice-premier overseeing education affairs in North Korea — was executed by anti-aircraft guns for falling asleep in a meeting recently. I mean, here's what a gun like that looks like:
Holy shit, right!?
I don't even want to think about what sick demented torture the Supreme Leader has planned for whoever was responsible for this simple mistake or lapse in judgement by the IT Guy.
From what I've read, basically, there are bots that call on DNS servers throughout the day just to check and see if there's ever a time when access is available.
The TL;DR Project, in this case, pinged Pyongyang and was surprisingly granted access to the treasure trove of poorly designed websites dedicated to glorifying their "President" and vilifying South Korea and the United States.
Just two weeks ago, there was another nuclear warhead test in North Korea raising tensions and renewing fears that we're on the cusp of an attack. For the first time in my life, I'm unable to find anything funny about the situation above the 38th Parallel.
This is a family of dictators fueled by petty retaliation who savagely rule their country by convincing the citizens that their rule is inevitable simply by continuously lying until the truth becomes a distant fantasy.
Speaking of...
The Clinton Campaign
Recommended Pairing:Some Schnapps and an updated resume.
As a writer, I've participated in dozens of fun Reddit threads about the process of writing, structure and story. I've honestly learned a lot from really smart and helpful internet strangers. And for that, I am very thankful.
The internet truly is a miraculous tool for gaining knowledge and problem solving. The only downside is that when you interact with the internet, you're not as anonymous as you might think, or need to be.
Case in point, "Stonetear":
A couple of years ago, "stonetear," asked a pretty mundane question to an exchange server subreddit about some trouble he was having with an email server he was managing:
Notice the mention of a "VERY VIP" person whose name he was trying to remove from archived emails. Who could that be?
Well, obviously this is all based on assumptions but it's not a huge leap to think that "stonetear" — the guy from the picture at the top of this — is Paul Combetta, one of the computer specialists working with Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State.
The resemblance is uncanny.
When I first noticed this story, it was nothing more than a Twitter user connecting the dots after a simple search through various social media channels. I thought, it could be a coincidence. There's been plenty of times where I went to sign up for something online and found that one of my common usernames was already taken.
The pictures had me willing to believe, but then the Washington Post dug a little deeper and found some pretty substantial connections.
On Etsy, stonetear's profile shows the name Paul Combetta
A website for Betrayal at Kondor (a ’90s role-playing game) thanks Paul Combetta for hosting files and lists stonetear@gmail.com as his email address.
The most damning thing I've seen, however, is this gem they found:
"The timing of two of Stonetear’s Reddit posts coincides with events in the Clinton email saga. One post, dated July 24, 2014, came one day after the House Select Committee on Benghazi and the State Department reached an agreement on producing records. The second, which is dated Dec, 10, 2014, and describes a 60-day email retention policy, came the same month that a longtime Clinton aide requested that their email retention policy be shortened to 60 days."
That's enough for me. I'm like:
Yes. It appears dat dude just did dat. And then, of course, he pleaded the fifth.
