Nila speck, broken sebelanga milk. Thus the fate of David Petraeus. General reputation of American pride was decomposed in a heartbeat. He is no longer seen as a successful military commander. Services lead, and managed to repatriate hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, suddenly disappeared.Since the last week, the general ridden disgrace. Affair with a woman uncovered. And unfortunately, the scandal occurred when he became boss of America's top intelligence agency, the CIA director.
Petraeus, 60-year-old general, had to retreat with his head down. Though he has served as Director of the CIA a year after retiring from military service. He also claimed to have an affair with another woman.
"After being married for over 37 years, I have demonstrated a very bad thing to be involved in relationships outside the bonds of marriage," Petraeus said in a message to the staff members of the CIA on 9 November 2012. The message eventually disseminated to the public.
A day earlier, Petraeus has expressed resignation to President Barack Obama, who had just won the Election of 2012. But then, Obama did not immediately make a decision. The president, as revealed by Reuters, a new volunteer Petraeus resignation the next day.
Petraeus conscious affair scandal would be open from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began investigating the case. Reveal the scandal stems from an FBI agent who "accidentally" received a report of a woman, that he received a threatening email to the anonymous account in public Gmail page. After investigation, it was threatening the women involved romantically with Petraeus scandal.
Petraeus himself has prepared this scandal will be discovered, after he was questioned by FBI investigators on October 28. He and his mistress finally confessed, and law enforcement will not take the matter to court. The recognition that the United States would make the public shocked.
For the United States, General Petraeus is a mainstay. He believed the two presidents to lead soldiers in the two war. George W. Bush appointed him to lead U.S. troops in Iraq during 2004-2008. So, Barack Obama is relying on Petraeus to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, from 2010 to 2011. After that, Obama asked him to sit down as CIA director.
He has experience on the battlefield, and had injuries due to military operations. He received numerous medals. Petraeus is not only a brilliant general. He also holds a doctorate, and he became an assistant professor of international relations to science.
President Obama admired. "Judging from the size of anything, through devotion, David Patreaus has made our country safer and stronger," Obama said. Unfortunately, he said that when removing the resignation of CIA Petraeus.
Then the woman who became mistresses Petraeus? She is Paula Broadwell. He wrote a biography of the general entitled "All In: The Education of General David Patreaus."
Prepared with a newspaper editor of The Washington Post, the book contains inspiring stories of the general with a brilliant military career. Married to a doctor and had two children, Broadwell itself also an ideal woman - smart, pretty, and have a good career. (See Acts Women of Charlotte).
Discovery of email
The scandal stems from mutual send email (email) between Petraeus with Broadwell. According to BBC news station, based on the FBI investigation, they routinely send messages via email. In the virtual world, they have a relationship with a personal account on the pages of Google's popular e-mail services, namely Gmail.
The messages had been the key to an FBI investigation to uncover the scandal. Not clear how the FBI dismantle private messages in Gmail Petraeus Broadwell, whether in collaboration with Google, or deploying specialists hackers (hackers).
Initially, FBI investigators had no idea the impact their search in cyberspace that. The investigation began when a woman activist in the city of Tampa, Florida, Jill Kelley, complained to a friend in the FBI that he often received an unpleasant email from a sender.
The message contains a threat that no longer interfere Kelley a senior U.S. military. Is later revealed that military leaders was General Petraeus. Kelley and her husband, coincidentally close family friend Petraeus.
As a friend, FBI agent finally agreed Kelley requests to trace who sent the e-mail, such as revealed by NBC news station. The FBI had just assumed it was just a case of unpleasant actions in cyberspace (cyber).
Once traced, FBI investigators curious. They probe further. Because a number of e-mail threats to Kelley mentioned the important generals in the U.S. Army Central Command and South.
Investigation was almost blind. Email account from which the message originated did not reveal the real identity. However, the FBI was able to trace the internet protocol address (IP address) of the computer sending the email.
This is actually not a complicated matter. A computer security expert from Webroot, Jacques Erasmus, said trace an IP address is an important starting point in digital forensic investigations. "It certainly must be done first," Erasmus said, as quoted by the BBC.
Advanced Erasmus, the IP address is important in opening the Internet, and is required in order to send data. "So have the IP address, we can operate the internet to get information," said Erasmus.
In addition to IP addresses, another important component of the digital forensic investigations related to the disclosure of infidelity scandal Petraeus is a "tool" domain (domain tools). This feature reveals who owns the IP address.
Almost all IP addresses are acquired companies, government agencies, and service providers (ISP). This feature helps narrow the tracking network that gives rise to a certain e-mail messages.
Another important feature, says Erasmus, is MaxMind. This is useful to track the physical location of a specific IP address. "It's pretty accurate though will not disclose the name of the street and house number," he added.
Capitalize the source of the information to the messages sent, the FBI is believed to make up a list. It contained a number of names thought to be in the location, when certain messages sent from IP addresses that have been identified.
The name often appears in the list is Paula Broadwell. It became clear, when a particular email sent from some who once populated Broadwell during the promotional tour book he wrote about the biography of General Petraeus.
As soon as the suspect knew Broadwell powerful email sending threats to Kelley, the FBI received written permission from the authorities to be able to access from an anonymous Gmail account. Eventually this leads to revealing evidence of infidelity and deception were used Petraeus Broadwell in the cover-up of their relationship.
For Erasmus, quoted by the BBC, the intelligence and cyber criminals regard it as an effort to deter deception reconnaissance. The trick, two people know the login and password are the same in a web-based email account.
CIA Director Petraeus are smart enough "outsmart" kenungkinan tracked. The trick is very simple. Rather than sending email messages from another, they both wrote messages is still categorized as a draft (draft) which was never sent to another email address. Those messages remain on the server email service Gmail, which can be seen by one of them when you open an account anywhere.
Since there is no traffic messages in the account, this trick could complicate the investigation investigators. But success or failure depends on the expertise deception of others through access to the account in question.
According to Erasmus, many people think secretly texting can easily be done by sharing an account is open to the public pages such as Gmail. They think it is a safe way to not be tracked by law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. However, this trick can be uncovered as well.
Secret annex
For the security and intelligence community, infidelity scandal was not just making a disgrace. Status Petraeus as CIA officers make state secrets could be leaked to unauthorized people know, like Broadwell.
Not surprisingly, the politicians in Congress plans to call the leadership of the FBI, which launched an investigation over the scandal Petraeus Broadwell, how far it could threaten U.S. security interests.
But rather chaotic schedule in Congress. Actually, this week they schedule meetings with Petraeus about the controversy mob to attack the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, some time ago. But Petraeus has stepped down as Director of the CIA, the meeting was canceled. Chances are he will still be called to Congress to testify even though no longer served.
Some observers have noted there is still no evidence that U.S. security interests threatened by the scandal. However, there is speculation in the U.S. media that the Broadwell could have received confidential information is not inadvertently thrown due to Petraeus during their relationship.
Moreover Broadwell allegedly routinely get "Unexpected Access" from Petraeus during their relationship. According to the news station CNN, speculation began crowded since Monday, November 12, 2012 after video footage emerged of a Broadwell while lecturing at the University of Denver last October.
In the video tape controversy Broadwell offensive attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012. Starting from the Libyan public outcry over the appearance of anti-Islamic movies video footage made U.S. citizens Egyptian descent YouTube pages, finally appeared bloody attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens and three U.S. citizens at the Consulate.
In his talk, the Broadwell provide information that has not been widely known. According to him, the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi have a CIA-run secret prisons, so that's the motive for the attack.
"I do not know if you guys already know this, but the pavilion CIA [in Benghazi consulate] when it was detained two members of a militia in Libya. They judge the consulate attack is an attempt to remove the prisoners," said Broadwell.
A senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN denied the claim. "Claims about the detention was not at all true. Nobody held in the pavilion, both before, during, and after the attack," said the official who declined to be named.
It is not clear where Broadwell obtain sensitive information. Also there is no evidence that the information was coming from Petraeus. During this time, the U.S. officials said the incident was a terrorist attack on Benghazi.
The New York Times also reported the FBI investigators found a number of documents categorized as confidential in Broadwell's laptop computer. However, according to investigators, Petraeus himself has denied leaking information to the affair.
Colleagues Petraeus did not believe the speculation, although other possibilities can happen. "The possibility is almost zero percent chance that national security has been breached or at risk of leaking," said retired Gen. James Marks, who knows Broadwell and Petraeus.
A senior U.S. intelligence official also revealed that the affair involving CIA officials did not directly considered a security breach. However, "It depends on the situation," the official told CNN.
Anonymous officials revealed Broadwell had no access whatsoever to the CIA. However, another source said, Broadwell had partial access, but limited and not related to sensitive information. (Np)