1. Secret Service, FBI invesigating claim that Mitt Romney's tax returns were... http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/print.html?entry=/2012/09/secret...
Secret Service, FBI invesigating claim that Mitt Romney's tax returns
were stolen
Published: Friday, September 07, 2012, 7:30 AM
The Associated Press
By
WASHINGTON — Assuming it's not a hoax, the
purported theft of Republican presidential nominee
Mitt Romney's tax returns has all the trappings of a
high-tech whodunit: a politically themed burglary,
a $1 million demand in hard-to-trace Internet
currency, password-protected data and a threat to
reveal everything in three more weeks. But can it
be believed?
The Secret Service and FBI were investigating the
case Thursday after someone claimed to have
burglarized a PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting
John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger
office in Franklin, Tenn., and stole two decades' Mitt Romney, worth an estimated $250 million, could be facing a theft
situation as the FBI and Secret Service investigate a claim.
worth of Romney's tax returns.
The claimed theft, made in an anonymous letter sent to the accounting firm and political offices in Tennessee, has
surfaced a critical moment during the 2012 presidential campaign amid the Republican and Democratic conventions.
The ransom target in the case — Romney's tax returns — was carefully selected: Romney, worth an estimated $250
million, has steadfastly declined to make public more than one year's tax returns so far, and Democrats have
sought to portray him as so wealthy he is out of touch with middle class voters.
Authorities are studying computer thumb drives that were delivered with an unusual demand: a $1 million payment
in "Bitcoin" Internet currency. The letter said the tax returns delivered on the thumb drives were encrypted, and
more copies would be sent to "all major news media outlets." It promised to reveal the password to unlock the tax
returns on Sept. 28 if payment is not made.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has said there was no evidence that anything was stolen.
The alleged culprit suggested an insider helped in the burglary and theft from the firm's network file servers,
knowingly or unwittingly: "We are sure that once you figure out where the security breach was, some people will
probably get fired, but that is not our concern," the letter said.
The plot in this mystery has enough holes that it could be an elaborate hoax. But it comes at a critical moment during
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2. Secret Service, FBI invesigating claim that Mitt Romney's tax returns were... http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/print.html?entry=/2012/09/secret...
the 2012 presidential campaign. In its broadest outlines, the case might be compared to Watergate, the 1972 political
break-in that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. But unlike Watergate, which started with the arrest of
bungling burglars traced to Republicans, the Tennessee case is a baffling mystery so far, without any clear suspects.
There is no evidence Democrats were involved.
STAY CONNECTED "I looked at the letter and thought, 'Who on earth thinks we're
24/7 Download our free gullible enough to fall for this?'" said Peter Burr, chairman of the
NJ.com mobile and tablet
apps to keep up with the Williamson County Democratic Party, which received one of the
latest New Jersey news, thumb drives and a copy of the extortion letter last week. He
sports and entertainment.
kept the letter and data device, growing curious about them as
days passed. He rightly feared the thumb drive might be infected
with a computer virus.
"I had reached the point of seriously considering putting it in an old computer we have here in the office where we
weren't worried if the hard drive got trashed or not," Burr said. "But by then we had received recommendations from
our attorneys and word from the Secret Service. So we didn't look at it."
It was unclear even among experts whether the purported theft might be a hoax. The alleged culprit so far has
provided no evidence that Romney's tax returns actually were stolen, such as a scan of a partial page from one of the
documents. But for seasoned and committed hackers such a theft was described as entirely plausible, especially for
someone who could gain physical access to a company's keyboards.
"So far, there's just zero proof. It's like every bad Hollywood plot, which makes me think this is fishy," said Marc
Maiffret, chief technology officer for BeyondTrust Software Inc. of Carlsbad, Calif. "But any competent hacker, any
good penetration-tester, if they wanted to get Mitt Romney's tax returns, it wouldn't be that hard to do. These
breaches are absolutely possible. If you can sit at the computer it would take two minutes to bypass the log-in
information."
"The only time you're going to hold something over someone's head is if they're trying to keep stuff secret," Maiffret
said.
A former FBI cyber-crime expert, Michael J. Gibbons, said the unusual ransom demand sounded similar to popular
email fraud scams.
"This sounds more like a Nigerian letter scam than an organized hacking attempt," said Gibbons, former chief of FBI
computer crimes investigations and now a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal in Washington. "It doesn't pass the
smell test."
There was no sign a thumb drive had been delivered to the Associated Press. A spokeswoman for the New York
Times, Eileen Murphy, said the newspaper had not received one, either. The Wall Street Journal declined to
comment.
Politicians previously have found themselves targets in burglaries, thefts and hacking. Candidates and political parties
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3. Secret Service, FBI invesigating claim that Mitt Romney's tax returns were... http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/print.html?entry=/2012/09/secret...
have reported dozens of break-ins across the U.S. In 2007, for example, Barack Obama's Iowa field office reported a
burglary that netted two laptop computers and campaign literature. The next year, a University of Tennessee student
was arrested for hacking into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal email account. He was
later convicted of obstruction of justice and unauthorized access to a computer. He served an 11-month prison
sentence.
The demand in the latest case for $1 million in Bitcoin currency would complicate efforts to trace any payments over
the Internet, but U.S. authorities have successfully uncovered such trails in other cases.
"It's definitely harder than normal to uncover someone's financial identity," Maiffret said. "But our government, we
find a lot of bad guys in the world in cyber-crime and terrorism cases by following the money trails."
Gibbons agreed: "It's an ineffective cloak of anonymity," he said.
Even if the latest case were a hoax, hackers have been alerted to intense public interest in Romney's personal
finances.
"You've got every hacker in the world thinking, 'Wouldn't that be awesome to do?'" Maiffret said. "I have a feeling
this is going to be a hoax, but you're going to have copycats who are going to try to do this."
While the extortionist's demand for $1 million appears to preclude political motivations, a prosecutor in the original
Watergate burglary said motives aren't always apparent.
"In the Watergate case, it wasn't clear at the outset what the motivation was," said Earl J. Silbert, a former U.S
attorney in the case. "Even today there are differences of opinion over what was behind it."
Related coverage:
• Mitt Romney accepts Republican nomination with a declaration: America 'needs jobs, lots of jobs'
• Mitt Romney says he's paid adequate taxes but won't release records
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4. http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/politics/romney-tax-threat/index.html
Group claiming to have Romney tax records threatens to leak them - CNN.com
By Josh Levs , CNN
updated 4:45 PM EDT, Thu September 6, 2012 CNN.com
What did voters think of Romney at RNC?
(CNN) -- An anonymous group says it stole copies of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax records and
will release them unless the company it stole them from pays $1 million.
The Secret Service said it is investigating, and the company said there is no immediate sign that any such theft
took place.
"Using your office" in Franklin, Tennessee, the group tells PricewaterhouseCoopers in an online posting, "we were
able to gain access to your network file servers and copy over the tax documents for one Willard M Romney and
Ann D Romney."
It threatens to send encrypted copies to "all major news outlets" and warns, "If the parties interested do not want
the encrypted key released to the public to unlock these documents on September 28 of this year then payment will
be necessary."
If the money is not
received, "the
entire world will be
allowed to view the
documents with a
publicly released
key to unlock
Romney and GOP under attack at DNC Worker: Romney won't create jobs
everything," the
group warns.
The group demands $1 million worth of the online currency Bitcoins. It also says that people who want the
documents released can send money as well, and whichever side sends $1 million first will win.
Bitcoin is a digital currency not overseen by any government or bank. Various merchants accept the currency for
goods and services.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, which offers tax services as well as auditing and more, tweeted that it is "working with
the Secret Service. At this time, there is no evidence of unauthorized access to our data."
The anonymous postings say that flash drive copies of the stolen material have been sent to the company, as well
as to the county Democratic and Republican offices, and that a scanned image of Romney's signature from the
forms was included.
Jean Barwick with the Williamson County, Tennessee, Republican Party told CNN that her office found the
package -- a padded envelope -- on Friday outside the door to the party offices. The package "didn't seem
credible," partly because it said "for learders" instead of "leaders," she said. Inside were a letter -- one that has
been posted online -- and a flash drive.
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5. http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/politics/romney-tax-threat/index.html
"I didn't put that in any of our computers," and no one has looked at the contents, she said. "I put it in the drawer."
She called state party officials, who were in Tampa, Florida, at the Republican National Convention at the time,
she said.
Her office later reported the package to local police, and the Secret Service picked it up Wednesday, she said.
County Democratic Party Chairman Peter Burr also told CNN the package arrived last week, and the Secret
Service came Wednesday to collect it.
"We did not view it," Burr said. He added that he considered looking at it, and the party attorney "advised us not
to."
"We wouldn't have been interested to use it even if it was" real, he said.
The package was dropped through the mail slot to the party office, Burr said. It had been hand-addressed with a
blue highlighter.
The state party advised the office to turn it over to the Secret Service, Burr said.
He said he thinks it was a scam.
In an online posting, the group said the alleged theft took place on August 25.
The Franklin Police Department did not respond to any calls at the building containing the
PricewaterhouseCoopers office in August and did not take a report from any tenants of the building during the
month either, a police spokesman said Thursday.
On Wednesday, it responded to the Republican Party office, and "due to the nature of the call, we contacted the
Secret Service who met with our officers at the scene and assumed responsibility for the investigation," Lt. Charles
Warner said.
Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg directed questions to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Chris Atkins, a spokesman for the firm, said the company does not share information on how long it has done
taxes for any client.
Atkins added that he has no idea why the Franklin office would be named in the claims. The company has more
than 80 offices around the country and there's nothing unique about the one in Franklin, he said.
While the postings, on the website pastebin.com, refer to "a team" involved in the alleged break-in, one ends with
a line stating that certain "considerations did not deter me from the path of duty" and a reference to "the will of my
Heavenly Father."
The postings go into detail about how the alleged theft was carried out.
The group says it obtained "all available 1040 tax forms for Romney," including some from before 2010, but it
does not say which years.
Romney has released his 2010 and 2011 tax returns, and has said he will not release others. The issue has been a
source of controversy on the campaign trail.
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6. http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/politics/romney-tax-threat/index.html
Pastebin allows users to paste text anonymously for a period of time. The company explains on its website that it
was created to help programmers, and anything not related to that "which results in unusually high traffic will be
flagged for investigation. Your paste may be deleted and your IP blocked. In particular, please do not paste email
lists, password lists or personal information."
The company did not immediately respond to an e-mail from CNN asking whether it plans to remove the posts.
The site logs files of users' Internet protocol addresses and service providers, along with some other information,
the website explains. But the data is "not linked to any information that is personally identifiable."
Many hackers take numerous steps to protect anonymity, making it difficult to track them down.
Jeff Garzik, listed on the Bitcoin website as part of its development team, told CNN the "consensus among the
Bitcoin chattering class appears to be that this is a hoax." He cited an online forum in which many users express
that view.
The currency is traceable, even if users go by pseudonyms, Garzik said. Every transaction is stored in a "block
chain," which he compares to "a public ledger."
"It seems unlikely that thieves would make so public a heist, with law enforcement so likely to watch the block
chain and associated Bitcoin exchanges," he said.
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