Love the nickname 'pollingsoon', especially as it relates to the 'election hacking' jpeg the Post Gazette posted.
The story doesn't say if he was ever believed to be in the area, but if he was, facial recognition software would easily pick him up on the hundreds of surveillance cameras that are jammed into our city infrastructure, and all over the county, on the parkways and so many of our main road intersections at traffic lights.
That's assuming he doesn't have protection from the "loyal" opposition party. How did he get into the country, anyway? The story doesn't mention, but it would be interesting to see how he gained entry, and who gave him his visa.
Speaking of PNC and the russians, at the end of Rendell's admin, into Corbett's, management of PA's non-direct deposit unemployment fund payments was by contract turned over to a private bank, PNC. When I was getting unemployment, (at periods in '10, '11, '12,) I would go to my local PNC branch, ~ 1/2 mile from the golden triangle as the crow flies. I would take the entire 2 week payment out right after it was made, to avoid paying fees on getting my own money, and deposit all the cash in my wife's account at a different bank a block away (we use to pay household bills.) So I got to know the 3 women who had worked there for years.
They weren't exactly friendly, because their bank wasn't really making money on my unemployment, except the interest it made for carrying the balance of everyone's unemployment funds on its books. But I scrupulously avoided PNC getting fees from me, so it was like I was a non-paying customer, and their attitude showed it. But a couple of years into PNC's management of all direct deposit unemployment accounts, the 3 American women were joined by a Russian woman, a new employee behind the counter, in mid to late '11.
She was a real sharpy. One time she tried to fast count my money, with the aim of shorting me $100. She was obviously a quick change artist, like a card mechanic. She set up a cadence in counting verbally and differed that cadence in thumbing through the bills. I corrected her, and she tried to do it a second time, either toughing it out to still try and get away with it, or just not wanting to get caught. I told her no, again, caught her just as her verbal count mis-matched her quick hand count. The long-time American employees' attitude towards the new Russian hire was studied non-observance, for the most part. I looked at them while this was going on, and they looked away, wouldn't meet my eyes. They had never tried to pull a scam in any of my dealings with them.
The new Russian employee apologized after getting caught, and I said, "oh, I know it was a mistake, and you would have had trouble if your drawer came up unbalanced, it's just that I'm depositing the whole amount up the street, and I don't want trouble with them if I come up short."
2 or 3 visits (4 to 6 weeks) later, I got waited on by her again, and she tried to give me too much money. I said "well at least it's in my favor this time", which made the Americans laugh. She thanked me for being so honest, and I pointed out I had nothing to gain by trying to keep the extra money, since I came in there regularly, all the time. (I wouldn't have kept it, anyway.)
Within a year, that Russian lady quickly got promoted to assistant manager, instead of one of the 3 ladies who had been there for years. Maybe they didn't want the extra responsibility, I don't know. I wonder what kind of juice she had to get hired and promoted, anyway.
Work was good for me from late 2012 all the way until the beginning of 2016. During that time period, PNC lost the state contract, to Chase I think. I kept the PNC account (dormant) so if I got laid off, my unemployment money wouldn't get held up or disappear into a bureaucratic void. When I went back to PNC after getting laid off in '16, the entire branch's personnel had changed. All the long-term American women were gone, and so was the Russian.
If I was D.A. Hickton or the Feds, and was looking for a weak point in PNC's security system that allowed this russian hacker from the o.p. to get PNC data, I'd look at the hiring practices in the Shiloh Street / Virginia Ave. branch, 15211, in '11 and '12. It isn't definite that the short change artist gave the hacker access, but the way the short change artist got hired and promoted may point to the weak point in the PNC management structure. You don't need to be especially "bold, imaginative, and relentless" to pursue that lead.
That's assuming, of course, that our career civil service law enforcement people are working for the US, instead of the repugs, like Comey, Kallstrom, and their NY field office buddies.
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