However, the LHM also stated that the FBI identified one successful compromise of an account belonging to one of former President Clinton’s staffers on a different domain within the same server former Secretary Clinton used during her tenure. The FBI was unable to identify the individual responsible for the compromise, but confirmed that the individual had logged in to the former staffer’s account and “browsed email folders and attachments.”
That's a server compromised, not just traffic monitoring. It's almost a certainty that the "traffic" was "compromised". That's pretty basic whether the server is in a hosting center or on cable at someone's house. The traffic can pretty much be sniffed. More importantly routers anywhere in the world can sniiff traffic to their heart's content and it is a certainty that foreign intel agents would monitor their network traffic especiallly from a high profile visitor.
So the question is what was the link and was the link encrypted. If they used HTTPS which seems most likely, then it is unlikely that any email was revealed that way (via traffic). For the first two months they didn't have link encryption so there was no protection from traffic monitoring whatsoever.
But there are other possibilities like using IMAP and SMTP with some email clients, and those may or may not have been protected with SSL. For the first two months (Jan-Mar 2009) they definitely were not.
Note that a "traffic compromise" could also be done by an HTTPS compromise (man-in-the-middle attack). I've read that was possible, due to a self-signed cert, until they started using a Network Solutions cert. It's not known if that was done. I have not found a definite source on whether or how long they used a self-signed cert. It might be in the original FBI report.
I just went back and listened to the podcast, and basically he said, in the IG report, they stated for fact and on record that Hillary Clinton’s private email “system” had been compromised and stolen by foreign actors. Dan Bongino has sources that say the server was hacked, but the report says “email stream” or something like that. Not as specific as I had thought.
But that is indeed on par with your post! Thank you for the explanation.
You are on the target, breaking in to a server is a far cry from monitoring traffic, especially that on a channel or stored in a repository that is in violation of the law.
Man in the middle is more likely, or tap an save if unencrypted etc. Once someone slips up then an opening occurs for evidentiary exploration. The use of servers outside of established and mandated one is a violation of the law and that opens the door for a whole different perspective on how things can and were done
Great post!
Bttt