[July 26, 2016] Maybe it’s my experience with military secret documents published in the New York Times newspaper that makes me skeptical that just about any form of communications can be read by others, like our enemies. It’s time for me to again warn everyone – especially leaders – that email, including encrypted email, can be read by those you wish otherwise. That’s just plain common sense.
Leaders who use technology like email, texting, etc., to correspond with those they chose could see those same emails copied elsewhere. My old advice given to those working for me always was to never write anything that you would not want either your grandmother to read or to see on the front page of the New York Times (see link here). Of course, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a long list of other rules that must be scrupulously followed if you use any of their systems.
When leaders use email for either legitimate or nefarious reasons, open or secret, they should expect those emails to be seen and action taken by those they would not want to see them. I attended a cyber symposium years ago and saw a demonstration where an audience member’s private email, photos, and text messages were hacked in less than 30 seconds; once they had his personal phone number they accessed it through his smart phone. The demonstration made a lasting impression on those of us in attendance. I was told by those same people that once they have the unclassified email address of a DoD employee, that it typically would take them a couple of hours to break into their emails. These were Americans, not foreign agents who, by the way, have similar capabilities. So to expect that open source emails would not be viewed by those wishing us harm is a really uninformed way of thinking.
Of course, the latest senior leader with hacked emails is Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz whose written communications were hacked, some say by the Russian government. That point of whom or how the hack was made is irrelevant since there was no denying the truth to those emails. Her emails are being touted as unethical, anti-Semitic, favoring Clinton over Sanders, and sexist. Schultz will resign her position at the end of their national convention.1
Her emails did get published in the New York Times and I would hope her grandmother got to read them too. While there is now speculation that the effort was instigated by Hillary Clinton herself, we can see a valuable lesson for leaders in the chaos and divisiveness that supposedly private emails made public. A little common sense goes a long way, especially after Clinton’s previous email scandal.
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