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Threats to the director of the Milwaukee Board of Elections led to federal intervention.
Claire Woodall-Wogg, director of the Milwaukee City Election Commission, was subjected to a flood of abusive messages and threats after her correspondence with election consultant Ryan Chew was published on the Gateway Pundit and Wisconsin Spotlight websites in mid-2021.
From jokingly innocuous messages, apparently voluntarily published by one of the parties to the correspondence, some readers of the aforementioned sites concluded that Woodall-Vogg allegedly falsified the results of the presidential election in favor of Joe Biden.
According to previously unreported reports, the FBI launched a threat investigation and obtained a search warrant against an anonymous ProtonMail encrypted email user, who in his letter to Woodall-Vogg made very unflattering statements about her and promised that all her actions would entail consequences.
Although the FBI was able to obtain only metadata from Proton Technologies, the owner of ProtonMail, and not the contents of the correspondence, even this meager information helped to reach out to other online accounts of the suspect, collect evidence and find the man .
The suspect has not yet been charged. According to the FBI, he had no intentions or capabilities to actually abuse Woodall-Vogg.
A ProtonMail representative said that the company opposes illegal activities and blocks violators, but the contents of users ' mail are encrypted and inaccessible even to the company itself. Meanwhile, the number of requests from the US authorities to ProtonMail to get at least some data is growing every year.
The threatening incident at Woodall Wogg raised concerns that such harassment campaigns could undermine confidence in the election process and intimidate election commissions. Experts call on the authorities and IT companies to stop misinformation and calls to violence published on the Internet.
Woodall-Vogg herself said that such attacks are an attempt to " make people feel guilty for doing their job." She hopes that her story will serve as a warning to other election officials about what the publication of internal correspondence can lead to.
According to statistics, two-thirds of election commission employees in the United States have been harassed. At the same time, women account for 77% of such incidents. The problem is quite real, so experts call for tougher measures to protect such specialists.
However, this story of threats and exposure of an anonymous attacker once again raises an important question about data security and personal privacy in the digital age.
Despite the claims of various encrypted platforms about the complete impenetrability of their systems, the situation with ProtonMail shows that no method of protection is 100% reliable. And in this case, the service management was forced to provide user metadata at the request of law enforcement agencies.
Regardless of what level of protection a particular system or platform claims, always be aware of the possible risks, and also be careful in your statements and actions on the Internet.
Claire Woodall-Wogg, director of the Milwaukee City Election Commission, was subjected to a flood of abusive messages and threats after her correspondence with election consultant Ryan Chew was published on the Gateway Pundit and Wisconsin Spotlight websites in mid-2021.
From jokingly innocuous messages, apparently voluntarily published by one of the parties to the correspondence, some readers of the aforementioned sites concluded that Woodall-Vogg allegedly falsified the results of the presidential election in favor of Joe Biden.
According to previously unreported reports, the FBI launched a threat investigation and obtained a search warrant against an anonymous ProtonMail encrypted email user, who in his letter to Woodall-Vogg made very unflattering statements about her and promised that all her actions would entail consequences.
Although the FBI was able to obtain only metadata from Proton Technologies, the owner of ProtonMail, and not the contents of the correspondence, even this meager information helped to reach out to other online accounts of the suspect, collect evidence and find the man .
The suspect has not yet been charged. According to the FBI, he had no intentions or capabilities to actually abuse Woodall-Vogg.
A ProtonMail representative said that the company opposes illegal activities and blocks violators, but the contents of users ' mail are encrypted and inaccessible even to the company itself. Meanwhile, the number of requests from the US authorities to ProtonMail to get at least some data is growing every year.
The threatening incident at Woodall Wogg raised concerns that such harassment campaigns could undermine confidence in the election process and intimidate election commissions. Experts call on the authorities and IT companies to stop misinformation and calls to violence published on the Internet.
Woodall-Vogg herself said that such attacks are an attempt to " make people feel guilty for doing their job." She hopes that her story will serve as a warning to other election officials about what the publication of internal correspondence can lead to.
According to statistics, two-thirds of election commission employees in the United States have been harassed. At the same time, women account for 77% of such incidents. The problem is quite real, so experts call for tougher measures to protect such specialists.
However, this story of threats and exposure of an anonymous attacker once again raises an important question about data security and personal privacy in the digital age.
Despite the claims of various encrypted platforms about the complete impenetrability of their systems, the situation with ProtonMail shows that no method of protection is 100% reliable. And in this case, the service management was forced to provide user metadata at the request of law enforcement agencies.
Regardless of what level of protection a particular system or platform claims, always be aware of the possible risks, and also be careful in your statements and actions on the Internet.
