Clinton Also Used Her Own Email Server

AP digs into Internet records
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 4, 2015 7:57 AM CST
Clinton Also Used Her Own Email Server
In this Nov. 21, 2014, file photo, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seen in New York.   (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

Yesterday brought the news that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a personal email account—hdr22@clintonemail.com—during her time as secretary of state. Today comes a new wrinkle: the revelation that the computer server that handled her emails traces to an Internet service registered to her family's home in Chappaqua, NY. The AP uncovered what it terms the "unusual practice" in a review of Internet records, and frames what the find means from a tech perspective: The majority of Internet users use an outside company (think Google, Yahoo, their employer) to deal with the "behind-the-scenes complexities of managing" email. The AP sees those individuals who do operate their own email servers as "technical experts or users so concerned about issues of privacy and surveillance they take matters into their own hands."

As for who set up or maintained the server, the AP has a bit of a mystery on its hands. The server was reportedly registered to "Eric Hoteham," but the AP couldn't surface that name in public records databases, campaign contribution records, or Internet background searches. The same name is also apparently associated with a separate email server, presidentclinton.com. Though it's not immediately clear if the server was in Clinton's home, the AP observes that since the Secret Service was guarding the residence, a server would have had protection from theft or a physical hacking. But it wouldn't have been entirely safe: Homemade email servers are generally not as reliable, secure from hackers, or protected from fires or floods as those in commercial data centers. (More Hillary Clinton stories.)

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