Two weeks ago this coming Saturday, a Tweet from the Colorado Republican Party’s official Twitter account sent aggrieved local supporters of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump into an outraged tizzie:
Colorado GOP chairman Steve House.
Eli Stokols, local political correspondent now writing for Politico, was quick to report the party’s denial of any responsibility for the Tweet, but the moment it appeared the damage was done:
Even though it only existed in the ether of cyberspace for a few minutes, the optics of such a tweet coming from the neutral arbiter of Saturday’s delegate selection process amidst a hard-fought trench war between Cruz and Donald Trump to secure the Republican presidential nomination rankled a number of Colorado Republicans.
In the immediate aftermath, the party claimed to have insight into the Tweet’s origin, as 7NEWS reported at the time:
House wouldn’t say how many people on staff have access to the account, but said they “had a process going on to find out who actually knew the password to the account.” House added “it’s only a matter of time,” before they find out who sent that tweet, as they knew the IP address the tweet went out from. [Pols emphasis]
But as the Colorado Statesman’s Ernest Luning reported yesterday (paywalled), that’s not true.
Saying that the state GOP “has been engaged in dialogue with Twitter in an attempt to identify the source of the Tweet,” Colorado Republican Party Chairman Steve House wrote in an email sent Tuesday evening that it appears Twitter will require state Republicans to “initiate a lawsuit and issue a subpoena” before the social media company will reveal more information about where the #NeverTrump tweet originated…
“Because of the seriousness of this matter, the party intends to pursue such legal process to compel Twitter to produce the IP address from which the tweet originated,” the email reads. [Pols emphasis] “The Colorado GOP is confident that once it has the IP address it will be able to identify the individual or company that issued the tweet. It will then seek recovery from the individual and/or company that issued the tweet for the cost associated with its investigation, legal efforts and the harassment of its officials and staff.”
So…they were lying when they said they had the IP address the first time? These statements can’t both be true. But wait, there’s more!
According to the email — sent to individuals and companies who “have had access to the @ColoGOP Twitter account” — the state GOP has turned up “evidence this tweet was sent via Twitter for iPhone” [Pols emphasis] but is unable to determine more without filing a lawsuit and obtaining a subpoena.
Now, where do you suppose they obtained “evidence” the Tweet was sent via an iPhone?
Oh, wait, never mind. It’s in the Tweet.
In short, the Colorado Republican Party has learned absolutely nothing about the origin of the #NeverTrump Tweet, and lied when they claimed to have the IP address. We’re not sure what the grounds would be for a legal action for compel Twitter to produce that information, but it should be noted that the IP address of the sending device may not help identify the sender at all–more likely simply identifying what cellular carrier was used, or if they’re lucky, maybe the IP address to a hard-line internet service provider. Presumably, another legal action would be necessary to compel that company to produce its logs.
The fact that the party demonstrably lied about what it knew regarding this Tweet, with this admission that they don’t have the IP address, is just another blow to the Colorado GOP’s credibility with Trump supporters who already deeply suspect foul play. It’s possible that the party’s legal action (if any) will at some point bear fruit, and belatedly reveal the identity of the person with access to the party’s official GOP account who committed this “unauthorized” action.
If and when that ever happens, there’s a good chance nobody will care. Because they’ve seen enough.
Steve House must resign. I don't support Trump, but this is ridiculous.
The least of your problems.
For sure, but let him flail at whatever.
Drumpf really knows how to keep Moddy's base fired up…
I love my 'run-outta-fucks-to-give’ POTUS…
Let him flail in the stall next to Caitlyn?
Donald Trump Says Caitlyn Jenner – and All Transgender People – Should Be Able to Use Whatever Bathroom They Want
Mike "I drink a different kind of Jesus Juice" Huckabee had this to say..
NY Times had front page story today about Drumpf being most pro-LGBT candidate GOP has run in history.
Let's be frank, Frank. I'd be more frightened over Moddy's ilk occupying a bathroom stall next to me than I would Caitlyn.
Absolutely true….the history of wide stance conservative family values Republican pols preying on folks responding to nature's call is legendary.
Moddy, care to defend your fellow GOPers?
He's on
the battlefieldin his grandmother’s basement with the #NeverForeverDrumpf war effort this fine morning. Shall we just call it a draw, Moddy?Frank, this may be the best thing on the intertubes today. It won't let me embed the video so here's the link.
I like that guy. yep,yep..
Ahh, the Knights of the Wide Stance are charging to protect the sanctity of our outhouses. Back when I was still a Republican, I caught hell for a piece defending Larry Craig.
I stand by every word of it. He may have seemed hypocritical, but he's not the first poor bastard caught between the way God made him and the way he was taught all his life that God wanted him to live. Hell, I've fallen into that trap myself. And I'm as straight as a pretzel.
But Michael, the whole point is for her not to be in the same restroom as you.
That is a pretty low bar, but the fact is that one of the few decent things trump has said may prove his undoing with the Pottie Police.
The two things that infuriate me about the whole "potty panic" epidemic rampaging through statehouses is that the people who are truly at risk, are the transwomen themselves. A transwoman forced by these laws into a men's' room risks physical and sexual assault by the "real men" who are threatened or enraged by her presence. The other thing these genius lawmakers are overlooking is that by forcing bearded, muscled transmen into women's' rooms (because that's what's on the birth certificate) they give cover to natal men to enter women's' rooms with evil intent.
These idiots haven't fully thought through the consequences of their hysteria. Much like their commitment to criminalizing abortion but not wanting to talk about prosecuting the woman who terminates the pregnancy.
The Liberal Redneck summed it up best…
About that tweet; "deadnaming” (using the name given at birth) transpeople is a low tactic used by people who have nothing more clever to say.
A completely random friend of mine in another state just sent me this post with OMG OMG! I said "yeah, I'm on that blog all the time."
Nice work, somebody's reading. 🙂
There's a ton of people reading something, look at the user online number. I wonder if this is it?
No, they were not lying. Twitter provides the IP address of the last hop before it reaches the Twitter server. In this case, the IP address pointed to a host account, not a device. To obtain the device IP which will lead to the individual, discovery will be required.
What's rediculous is the vitriol by those who know nothing about the process and the irresponsible media coverage, including this garbage, on our Caucus and Assembly process from the start.
I do believe you are talking out of your ass.
The last hop before it reaches the Twitter server is likely also Twitter, maybe the one before that, too. Before that there are multiple hops inside the network of the upstream provider for Twitter. Before that, if the user has a different provider (likely), hops inside their upstream provider, too. Maybe even their upstream provider's upstream provider, if they're small enough. Before even that, there is the user's equipment, if they were on wifi (Assuming they weren't at Starbucks). The hop before Twitter, and several hops before that are useless.
Even if they get the IP address the tweet came from, it’s likely to be useless anyway. They’ll have to subpoena Verizon or Comcast or whoever for which device was associated with the IP address at that time. Even then they may not know if it came from inside some business’ wireless network from some momentary attachment by the cell phone. Maybe the better question is why the party isn’t more careful with its assets.
Here's what just one quick trip to twitter.com looks like:
1 ip-10-0-0-14.ec2.internal (10.0.0.14) 0.906 ms 0.934 ms 0.917 ms
2 216.182.224.230 (216.182.224.230) 2.611 ms 2.607 ms 2.674 ms
3 100.64.13.207 (100.64.13.207) 3.132 ms 100.64.13.199 (100.64.13.199) 1.927 ms 100.64.13.211 (100.64.13.211) 1.944 ms
4 100.64.1.172 (100.64.1.172) 1.971 ms 100.64.9.100 (100.64.9.100) 2.103 ms 100.64.3.204 (100.64.3.204) 1.913 ms
5 100.65.0.128 (100.65.0.128) 24.950 ms 100.65.1.128 (100.65.1.128) 16.690 ms 100.65.1.160 (100.65.1.160) 16.667 ms
6 100.66.0.172 (100.66.0.172) 22.022 ms 100.66.0.124 (100.66.0.124) 12.437 ms 100.66.0.70 (100.66.0.70) 24.825 ms
7 100.66.2.162 (100.66.2.162) 23.060 ms 100.66.3.138 (100.66.3.138) 21.441 ms 100.66.2.102 (100.66.2.102) 21.025 ms
8 100.66.7.45 (100.66.7.45) 21.446 ms 100.66.6.1 (100.66.6.1) 18.015 ms 100.66.7.165 (100.66.7.165) 17.743 ms
9 100.66.4.33 (100.66.4.33) 14.184 ms 100.66.4.17 (100.66.4.17) 14.311 ms 100.66.4.27 (100.66.4.27) 14.241 ms
10 100.65.8.161 (100.65.8.161) 1.244 ms 100.65.9.129 (100.65.9.129) 1.929 ms 100.65.8.97 (100.65.8.97) 1.289 ms
11 205.251.244.196 (205.251.244.196) 2.040 ms 205.251.245.235 (205.251.245.235) 3.005 ms 205.251.245.241 (205.251.245.241) 2.076 ms
12 54.239.111.20 (54.239.111.20) 18.562 ms 54.239.111.26 (54.239.111.26) 23.052 ms 54.239.108.96 (54.239.108.96) 25.100 ms
13 54.239.108.77 (54.239.108.77) 2.169 ms 54.239.108.43 (54.239.108.43) 2.035 ms 54.239.108.237 (54.239.108.237) 2.599 ms
14 ae74.iad1-cr1.twttr.com (199.16.159.181) 1.891 ms 72.21.221.83 (72.21.221.83) 1.925 ms 1.939 ms
15 ae53.atl1-er1.net.twttr.net (199.16.159.75) 17.786 ms ae52.atl1-er2.net.twttr.net (199.16.159.69) 15.912 ms ae62.er1.atl1.twttr.com (192.133.76.55) 16.874 ms
16 199.16.156.198 (199.16.156.198) 16.514 ms 17.739 ms 17.741 ms