US Cyber Command Operation Disrupted Internet Access of Russian Troll Factory on Day of 2018 Midterms: Report (washingtonpost.com) 121
An anonymous reader shares a report: The U.S. military blocked Internet access to an infamous Russian entity seeking to sow discord among Americans during the 2018 midterms, several U.S. officials said, a warning that the group's operations against the United States are not cost-free. The strike on the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, a company underwritten by an oligarch close to President VladiÂmir Putin, was part of the first offensive cyber campaign against Russia designed to thwart attempts to interfere with a U.S. election, the officials said. "They basically took the IRA offline," according to one individual familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information. "They shut 'em down." The operation marked the first muscle-flexing by U.S. Cyber Command, with intelligence from the National Security Agency, under new authorities it was granted by President Trump and Congress last year to bolster offensive capabilities.
Good (Score:1)
Existence justified without the need to give proof. Government level tier.
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Thanks Comrade. Good to know you got the network up and running again.
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Comrade? Russia is a capitalist state for the past 25 years.
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You misspelled "kleptocracy".
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Maybe. Or maybe once exposed, it was in both sides' interests to appear tough. After all, Russia thinks sanctions are bad now...
Re: Huh? (Score:1)
You don't seem to understand how investigations work do you...
Do you really think Mueller would show all of the evidence as he gets it so Trump can destroy anything related to it?
It takes years to bring down crime syndicates and Mueller at this time is bringing down piece by piece.
He also needs to be careful to prevent mistrials and such.
The fact so many people have already been taken down in this inner circle though is good evidence this is likely to succeed
Re: Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, if you look it up, the relevant excerpt is: [The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct an investigation into..]
So, yeah, whatever conspiracies the president and his team joined with Russia against the USA, fall under Mueller's authorization. And also, any other crimes that you uncover while taking to witnesses or seizing evidence, which have turned out to be many. So the president's crimes, his family's crimes and his campaign staff crimes are all fair game. Trump failed to compartmentalize his criminal enterprises. Even John Gotti was a smarter crook than this fuckwit. Trump needs to watch Kansas City Confidential and Reservoir Dogs, not just Sicario.
As you can see now, they're only interested in all the illegal acts. It was never about "collusion," since the investigations had already moved far beyond that, even before Mueller was appointed.
Apparently Mueller is one of those Republican cops, who all think that if you shoot your rifle at someone and miss, you'll still be charged with assault or attempted murder. The Democrats have totally failed to get through to him. All the fucker seems to care about is fighting crime.
(I think what's confusing you is that you've forgotten Trump's motive. Why did he conspire against America? The answer: he did it for the money. He did it to steal from America, and also to take bribes from foreign government to influence the Us government to do things for them instead of us, in any situations where our interests conflict with other countries'. He did it to help him commit further crimes against you and me. So nobody really cares whether or not Russia's help was effective. He conspired to attack America for profitable reasons, so he's going to eventually be prosecuted for the conspiracy.)
Yes. Even us non-Democrats agree to that. See item (b)(ii) and (c) above. Since so many of Trump's staff and family have committed other crimes in the attempt to cover up the conspiracy, and since they were so easily caught, they've given Mueller a gift to use, to roll them up. (Crooks don't usually make things this easy, but Mueller was fortunate to be charged with investigating some unusually stupid crooks.) The conspiracy with the Russians against America is Mueller's end game. Whether those charges will be the final charges he files, we don't know. But it's the main act, and everyone is looking forward to it. (The problem, of course, is that the president himself is one of the criminal conspirators, and sending presidents to prison is hard.)
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Demonizing? He said Romney was a fool who sat on both sides of the fence he was using to pretend he was "hard" on foreign affairs. And Obama was right about that. Romney's spine is a windvane.
At that point Putin wasn't President, Medvedev was. It "appeared" Russia was opening up at that time, seeking business accords. Putin's machinations put the kaibosh on that, which came shortly after in Crimea, etc.
How do you Trumptard traitor apologists forget history in so few years? Do you take Trump-branded st
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So "Russian owned" Trump gives Cyber Command authority to take out Russians during mid-terms?
Cunning Russian, that Trump. Get Moose and Squirrel on the case.
Even under the most extreme theory of Trump being a Russian agent and his inner circle being in direct collaboration with Moscow he still doesn't have a lot of Pro-Russia allies in Washington.
If he didn't grant them additional capabilities a more aggressive congressional bill probably would have shown up on his desk.
And once the Cyber Command exists it's going to do it's thing. Trump couldn't appoint pro-Russia leadership even if he wanted to.
Re:Stupid facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
is in no part a "national security" or otherwise strategic resource.
A single place full of people's likes and dislikes, vacation schedules, who's in their circles of friends and famlies, what car they own, where they live.. pictures and vids of all of the above and more.... none of this is strategic?
It's very strategic, just not to the normal, well-adjusted human. But for thieves, conmen, and anyone interested in gathering intel on a target? Pricelessly strategic.
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what's the difference whether the propaganda comes from the Russians or the major parties?
It is both.
A bunch of senators in one of the major parties is on Russian payroll.
So it isn't really a difference. The Russian propaganda comes from one of the major parties.
The funny thing is how cheap it is to buy people.
You just have to pay them for some small thing once, then they are on the hook and have to keep following your bidding to make you not expose them.
Re:Stupid facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that the vast majority of Facebook is fake-as-hell information
This is an example of Sturgeon's Law [wikipedia.org]: 90% of everything is crap.
But that doesn't much diminish the value of the remaining 10%. Knowing everyone's friend graph is valuable information. Knowing everyone's interests is also valuable. Knowing who is easily influenced by the false information is very valuable.
Let me summarize (Score:1)
Bad russians congregate in a central location to allegedly "attack" the US
US get proud
Story sounds *very* fishy... Any stupid kid can coordinate such "attacks" from all over the world.
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Your manner of phrasing is very typical of Russians.
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Your manner of phrasing is very typical of Russians.
I was thinking Polandball...
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Fine, seppo three letter agencies, brag about giant bloody nothing burger, taking down a Russian click bait farm. The messages nothing but bait to get people to click and serve up the actual message, an add for some crappy product, for which they make money, meanwhile across the internet, tens of thousands of click bait farms most of them in the fbloody US continue on merrily. Next we will have claims of holistic Russian espionage agents, who with no contact to Russia, do most the, well, what ever bullshit
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Nope, can't hear a Russian accent when reading that at all. Much better.
Interbomb them back to dialup! (Score:3)
Now that the binawar is won, let's welcome home our digital warriors. Sunglasses for all!
Just remember, kids... (Score:1, Troll)
Trump doesn't believe in intelligence.
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To be fair, intelligence doesn't believe in Trump either.
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Perhaps.. (Score:1)
Republicans don't give a (Score:2, Insightful)
Republicans don't seem to care at all about this, since the russians helped their team win.
I thought they were the "our guns protect your freedom" patriots who love 'murica so much?
Small minded Republicans, ask yourselves, why would Putin want Trump to win? Is it because he loves you and loves 'Murica?
Maybe, just maybe there is a different reason. Maybe he knows something you don't.
Of course, should the democrats win in the next election, I am pretty sure the world will hear you screaming your disingenuous
Re:Republicans don't give a (Score:4, Informative)
The Democrats have never been accused of outsourcing election fraud.
Re:Republicans don't give a treasonous fake tear (Score:1)
Almost all of the cases of fraud we've heard about this cycle have been GOP fraud involving hiring consultants to "help" people fill out and cast their ballots, often without their consent or knowledge and obviously illegally so.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-tearful-drama-of-north-carolinas-election-fraud-hearings
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You may have missed a few. [investors.com]
Of course, it would seem there's hardly any reason to suspect this, [washingtontimes.com] right?
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" Thursday, October 18, 2018 " "If true there will be serious consequences,” he said. - And nothing was found. I guess you'll have to try harder to equivocate, GOP fraudster.
Last week, the North Carolina Board of Elections, confronted with evidence of widespread election fraud, ordered a new election in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district. Local officials didn’t have much of a choice: both parties agree there was a Republican operation that appears to have engaged in fraudulen
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The Democrats have never been accused of outsourcing election fraud.
No, they're quite competent at it all by themselves. (Hello Chicago!)
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'not illegal'.
So we've finally abandoned the fiction of 'the appearance of impropriety'.
Good. Multimillion dollar contributions, tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, certainly not illegal except by a strict reading of the law.
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There's nothing illegal about either contributions or speaking fees if there's no actual quid pro quo, as there was apparently not in the Uranium One deal, which involved no fewer than 12 government agency sign-offs on the merits.
That's obviously quite different than Trump now facing over 200 felonies in 48 states for his fraudulent charity operation, fraudulent University program, unpaid illegal laborer recruitment, and collusion with Russian Intel to sabotage 2016 elections.
When Trump dies in prison maybe
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What 200 felonies? Really?
Traitor apologist excuses from Republican faggots. (Score:2, Informative)
"and don't take a cell phone anywhere that might be considered shady." - And if you're going to launder money for the Russian mob for 30 years, lol don't let your "fixer" lawyer guy record your voice talking about it for 15 years. Fucking moron.
A little bit of opsec and these Alfabank betas might have gotten away with it! A LITTLE BIT! "Russia, if you're listening..." - Seriously. Roger Stone now accepting rogering, will sing for lube. The whole treason is falling apart.
And why? BECAUSE HE PICKED A FIGHT WI
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Republicans don't seem to care at all about this, since the russians helped their team win.
You'd think there would be evidence of this somewhere... after all, There's been an independent counsel running for around two years now, and so far they've found approximately bupkis (well, they found a pack of Russkies who bought $100k of Facebook ads, and a couple of idiots who got roped into pleading to unrelated process crimes... but strangely enough, no actual evidence of Russkie-Trump collusatory involvement, let alone electoral hacking of any kind...)
Guess we'll find out for certain in a week or thr
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Why? Because you are pieces of shit who don't care about the US, or the world at large. You only care that your teams wins, regardless of what it costs every other person on the planet.
A lot of them believe the planet is going to be cleansed by God with fire. Why should they give a shit if it's a little hotter and dirtier when that happens?
Yes, they seriously believe this.
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Never forget this
- people who voted for obama both times stayed at home for hillary
- hillary got less of the female vote than obama
- hillary lost WI to bernie then never visited it again
- in the close of the election hillary was pushing in red states shed never win
- in battleground states hillary had a very weak / non existent campaign
Hillary lost because they decided to do campaign different than Obama or Bill Clinton.
Hillary lost because they relied on Big Data but the data was wrong and never double chec
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The data was right. They just misinterpreted it because they were arrogant. You're right about the rest of it.
In other words... (Score:3, Funny)
They are blocking memes from spreading on social media. This gives the moderators time to smoke weed and have sex in the hallways.
Nice Attempt... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Depends - are we talking social-media influence, or are we talking about modifying actual votes/ballots? The latter could be more easily hidden on Election Day during the crush of votes cast then (and in some cases, such as Oregon which uses computer-counted mail-in paper votes, it's likely the only day you could get any such thing done...)
Doscord?? (Score:2)
The U.S. military blocked Internet access to an infamous Russian entity seeking to sow discord among Americans during the 2018 midterms
Discord?!? We can't have discord during ... democratic elections!
Thank God our crack troops protected the motherla ... I mean, baseball and apple pie, from ... {shudder} ... discord!
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In much the same way Rotten Tomatoes is protecting movies from bad reviews.
Can't have discord. Step in line, citizen, or I will call you racist again.
On the day of? (Score:2)
How timely. Sure, it's an important day, but the days leading up were also important...
"tired narritive" doesn't begin to describe it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The US considers cyber attacks an act of war (Score:1)
I would like to remind everyone that the the US would consider the same done to them as an act of war which would justify a military response, up to and including a nuclear strike.
Doesn't pass the sniff test (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit more detail would be nice. Did they shut down the Internet on Russian territory? Probably not, that'd be some hot potato if they were found. If they blocked the IP on the US-side, there are plenty of proxies both in and out of the US to work through.
Either these trolls are very stupid and don't know anything about how the Internet works or this is just another story about how someone blocked an IP address and thinks they saved the world.
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A bit more detail would be nice. Did they shut down the Internet on Russian territory? Probably not, that'd be some hot potato if they were found. If they blocked the IP on the US-side, there are plenty of proxies both in and out of the US to work through.
We've seen plenty of cases where power failures, bugs, script kiddies, or downright stupidity or apathy have brought major companies to a standstill. If any organization could undertake a successful, targeted attack on the internet and networking structure of a specific company without collateral damage, it would be the NSA.
takes time (Score:2)
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I can set up about 10 proxies in less than an hour. If I script it and with control over something these "russian hackers" also supposedly have state-side control over - massive international botnets - I could probably get a proxy deep into one or another military or government contractor network.
Seriously, look up "setting up SSH tunneling" or SOCKS proxy. You can go to any modern 'cloud' provider and spin up a few thousand instances across the globe in seconds.
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The army blocks internet for us not to discord? (Score:1)
So now its an oligarch? (Score:3)
U.S. Cyber Command went up against an oligarch and not the GRU?
Notice the magical way classified information gets to the media?
Why are we reading about classified information in real time?
If it was a real NSA mission that would stay secret for decades.
So historian would mention an accept of such a mission it in 40-50 years with approval.
No US gov/mil would tell any other nation of how it likes to do its cyber and what was done.
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"under new authorities it was granted by President Trump and Congress"
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And he's doing all this at the spry young age of 101... Uh huh. /s