Russian Cyber Hacks On US Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known (bloomberg.com) 520
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg article: Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said. The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day "red phone." In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia's role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.
Obama's Response: I Told Putin to ‘Cut It Ou (Score:2)
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And this is only half of it (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is only half of the story. Read this [time.com], this [nytimes.com], and this [cnn.com]...and you might begin to understand the breadth and the scope of what Russia is doing online. The Kremlin has built an entire industry manned by thousands, whose sole purpose is to get online and sew chaos, confusion, and doubt. They are why, when you discuss any issue that reflects poorly on Russia on any major website, you get marginalized and bombarded with talking points.
There are conservatives who mirror the Kremlin's message, but these buildings filled with thousands of paid trolls are the originals and the instigators. This is not a game, read the Times story above and you will see the real world consequences; Russia can create fake hysteria in America, made up disasters, and form political causes out of the ether which sway American policy in the direction they like. Russia, right this very second, and since 2014, and into the future--is at war with you, with me, with every Conservative and every Democrat and every Independent--and they don't care at all what you want. They care what 1 man wants, and what he wants is to say fuck you and your country.
Summary (Score:4, Funny)
The Kremlin has built an entire industry manned by thousands, whose sole purpose is to get online and sew chaos, confusion, and doubt.
So what you are saying is Russia has built a Shadow 4-Chan.
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Russia can create fake hysteria in America, made up disasters, and form political causes out of the ether which sway American policy in the direction they like.
So..... you're saying that you're Russian?
Also, why does it always have to be Russians? Anyone can do that. And they do. Hell, some comedy sites like nationalreport.net are taken serious by some folks.
What it seems you're arguing for is some sort of system where we don't have to worry about lowly people having influence on their leaders, and rather one where the leader's just choose the leaders, since they are above influence. Sounds like a country I've heard of...
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There are conservatives who mirror the Kremlin's message, but these buildings filled with thousands of paid trolls are the originals and the instigators. This is not a game, read the Times story above and you will see the real world consequences; Russia can create fake hysteria in America, made up disasters, and form political causes out of the ether which sway American policy in the direction they like.
Some sources are saying that the whole current hubbub about Qatar is based on a false story that came from these groups. For whatever reason Trump certainly seems convinced that Qatar is ground zero for terrorist funding and I'm just not sure that's really true. I do know that Russia likes to sow discord among US allies and having Qatar end up so angry that they close down the US base there would certainly be an endgame Russia would like to see. Russia is also a master at creating problems and then inser
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It's amazing that this recognition of the widespread malignant threat posed by Russia only seems to have become evident in the last 8 months? I guess we should thank Trump's administration for highlighting this problem to which the previous administration seemed entirely oblivious at all levels?
http://thefederalist.com/2016/... [thefederalist.com]
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I notice that you didn't check the date on the NYTimes story.
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you get marginalized and bombarded with talking points.
Excellent post especially all the trolls that responded to you.
Re:And this is only half of it (Score:5, Informative)
The Times article literally describes a real world hoax fabricated by Russia that you can look up [wikipedia.org] and verify yourself on Wikipedia, in local news stories, wherever you'd like. It also has a sit down interview with a troll who worked in one of these buildings, outside of the building itself--followed by an interview with one of the 'editors' of the Kremlin's fake news outlets that employ these trolls. So let me say this, whether you're a troll yourself or a skeptic who's been duped, it doesn't matter--the truth is the truth.
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make friends not war (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like it's time for better security in the computerized part of the voting system. Even if the Russian government, as opposed to just individual hackers who might even be spoofing a Russian government IP address for reasons, really is behind this so what? It's not any kind of real attack. If you are advocating that we try to hack their own insecure internet-facing computer systems go for it. Would love to see someone other than Putin or a Putin clone get elected next time. I'm not even convinced this sort of thing should be a crime at all. More like relatively harmless play. Or we could move toward nuclear war with Russia if you want. Up to you.
I personally kind of like the Russkies. I have no problem with them. I think we should stick with staying on friendly and good diplomatic terms with them. I lived through the 80s and I find being friends with them a lot better than Duck and Cover drills. OTOH we all know how cool nuclear war would be. It would truly be 'interesting times'. Plus a lot of Beautiful People would die or at least suffer a reduced quality of life. So I'm cool with either option, but for most people I think the first option would be preferable.
I guess we do live in interesting times in a way. Democrats have become so much like Republicans now that they have become war mongers as long as it suits their agenda in other ways. Although I must admit I don't see how getting on a more cold war like footing with Russia again is going to hurt their arch-enemy Trump. Because Democratic presidents were known for chewing gum and kicking ass but running out of gum? I'm not seeing it. I'm just glad Trump himself is not taking the bait and transforming into Dr. Strangelove.
I can remember back in the 80s when most Democrats were supporters of the ACLU and even human rights. It used to be that Republicans wanted financial freedom (even for poor people in many cases) but government control of our personal lives and Democrats wanted personal freedoms (pro ACLU, pro drug etc) put wanted more government control of the economy (Robin Hood economics). Now both parties want government control of everything just in somewhat different ways, but this pro war stance on the part of the Democrats is something new.
But saber rattling over this is just dumb. You want to investigate Trump for being overly friendly with the Russians (not really a crime imo but whatever) fine, but escalating this into any sort of real conflict just because you want to demonize the Russians because Trump gets along with Putin is harmful to world peace and not really going to accomplish anything you want anyway.
Trump is president. I don't like it either but it doesn't really matter that much who is president. It's mostly business as usual no matter who is living in that big white building. So calm the fuck down people and wipe that drool and spittle from your rabid mouths. This could even be something positive if it helps to make our electronic voting systems more secure or if it starts to get people thinking about how stupid and antiquated our electoral college system is. Democracy is mostly about a wolf and some sheep deciding what's for dinner anyway. It's really individual/human rights that distinguishes us from totalitarian dictatorships. Or really the rights that the government doesn't have. Voting is mostly bread and circus to keep the common people believing they can make a difference.
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Sounds like it's time for better security in the computerized part of the voting system.
Or maybe just a return to non-computerized systems. Yes, computers make finding out who won much faster and make counting easier. They also make miscounting easier.
Do you know what happens if we don't know who won an election for a week or two, instead of by 8:05PM election eve? Absolutely nothing.
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So tell me: did *anyone* read the articles? (Score:3)
What the presumably Russian crackers were after was altering things like voting roles, resulting in voter suppression.
You know, *exactly* like the GOP has been doing with gerrymandering, and having people at the polls challenging voters' registration, and the mass dropping of folks from the voting roles.
One that sticks in my mind was a guy not allowed to vote because he was registered in another state. Note, he was whatisname, jr, and it was his *father* who was registered in another state.
And there is *no* national system to move registrations when you relocate. Who here has ever relocated, and written to their old state or commonwealth to let them know to remove them from the old voter roles?
What about the primaries and caucuses? (Score:3)
Re: 'russians' (Score:2)
Only 39 states? With thousands of attacks per minute on your garden-variety server? That's a weirdly specific number.
Re: 'russians' (Score:4, Insightful)
Every server gets constantly "attacked."
Make the data public and let us examine it.
As of right now it's like Dan Rather saying he has evidence that George Bush's basically did a poor job in the National Guard and it comes out that the evidence was manufactured. (Memos, that were supposed to be from the 1970s, were written in Microsoft Word. OOOPS)
We would never had known that Rather and his crew were lying if they hadn't released the memos.
Now they've smarted up. They save that we have "evidence" but they don't release it. This is something that can be dropped into Github and we would have tens of thousands of people combing through the data.
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Ah the glory of "Anonymous sources say".
Personally, I don't pay much attention to any story accusation that involves a source that is not known.. The press is going to need to come up with *something* beyond that or I'm going to pretty much ignore their conclusions.
See Jan 24th Arrests (Score:2, Informative)
It's worth remembering that the US has (or rather had) spies in the Russian FSB and wider Russia:
http://www.newsweek.com/has-putin-just-arrested-two-american-spies-548528
"News broke on January 24 that two Russians—Sergei Mikhailov, the second-highest-ranking officer in the cyber-intelligence unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB), and Ruslan Stoyanov, a private cybersecurity analyst specializing in antivirus programs [side note, he's EX FSB]—were arrested on charges of treason."
And that two
Re: And? (Score:2, Insightful)
How can you tell either way without an investigation?
Re: And? (Score:5, Insightful)
How can you tell either way without an investigation?
You do realize that the biggest net gain for the Russians is the PR here right? They may not have changed even one vote cast, but all this consternation about how they "hacked" the election undermines the electorate's confidence in the process.
Putin is sitting back chuckling about how a little bit of hacking has placed his name and image in front of the world and inflated his image which increases his ability to stay in office.... Then, the gift that keeps on giving, pits Americans vrs Americans which only makes the USA weaker. Apart from achieving some military victory of the USA there is nothing better for him...
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You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
Re: And? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
...and media corporations, and special interest groups, and political parties, and talk radio jocks, and co-workers, and advertisers (to an extent), and even private corporations (again, to an extent), and...
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You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
No.
Politicians lie.
The Russians leaked the truth.
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also you are crazy if you dont think we dont try and use propaganda to influence voters of other countries and vice versa.
Re: And? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The voting machines are not internetworked. The attacks described here were not against voting equipment but against voter registration databases which have web interfaces.
I am an election official in Virginia. Every one of these scenarios I've looked at about how easy it is to modify voting equipment have thoroughly improbable -- and in some cases, physically impossible -- scenarios. America is physically a very big place. Virginia has thousands of individual voting precincts. To modify the source code, yo
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You know, we DO know about digital signing. And defense in depth. And chain of custody. And to top it all off, you can't just attack some of the machines, they are spread out in thousands of locations across each state. You have to win a majority of ALL the precincts.
So no, your scenario of just popping a USB drive into a couple of voting machines is not going to work. It's a lot, lot harder than you think.
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And people keep berating me when I tell them that it doesn't matter which branch of The Party wins.
Seriously, the whole shit in the US smells more and more like the democracy theater they had in the Soviet states. Some countries there allowed you to actually vote for different candidates. Yes, really. They even had some parties to offer a puppet show of democracy (quite literally so). But in the end, they all stood for exactly the same. Maybe you could hear some sort of nuance on this or that topic, but in
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Totally agree. The only difference here is that Trump isn't a normal politician and may have some racist or at least anti-Muslim views and some more extreme ideas than usual. So far nothing has come of it and the rest of the system (house, senate, judicial) is all regular politicians. So it may end up like Obama wanting to close Gitmo but not being able to (assuming you believe he wanted to). Luckily a president is not quite a dictator. Not yet at least.
Note how the travel ban went nowhere and so far I have
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The only difference here is that Trump isn't a normal politician and may have some racist or at least anti-Muslim views
According to this CNN link [cnn.com], the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US). These countries are 10% of the world Muslim population. They are also some of the most dangerous and active conflict zones in the world today,
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So I'm just curious if you also consider Hillary Clinton to be a racist anti-Muslim? Or is it just Trump?
Those aren't very compelling examples. Neither was at all directly related to religion. Hillary is probably as islamophobic as most Americans are, but not as much as Trump. Trump advocated blocking all Muslims from entering the US during his campaign. I guess it could be worse. He could have advocated putting the ones already in the US into camps or deporting them, but it's a pretty extreme measure that is presumably based on some pretty extreme view along the lines of Muslim = Terrorist.
the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US).
Blocking entire cou
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I'm not going to berate you, but I think you're wrong.
Or actually, let me start with this: I think it's unfortunate that we have a two-party system. I think we should consider rethinking our elections in order to allow more parties to have more of a voice. I'd also agree that we should do something about campaign finance to restrict the undue influence held by the rich. So maybe we'd agree on that much.
However, we've certainly seen that there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. If you l
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We're at the point where the government is so involved in everything that elections are nearly pointless. A lot of us will never find a candidate that truly represents us, or even comes close. There are huge divides within the existing two parties for that reason. Bringing more parties in the fold just makes it more challenging to find the least repugnant choice. We need to decrease the amount of federal government and return to the union of states that we're supposed to have. Government works best when
Re: But, her emails! (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing can forgive the horror she inflicted on the american people by running her own personal email server!!!
should be content with his great leadership. (Score:5, Insightful)
Russian actions weren't able to modify votes cast.
You seem awfully confident of that. If there is one thing we know, its that e-voting machines are ridiculously insecure. [scientificamerican.com] And we've know it for over a decade. [zdnet.com]
What risk/reward ratio were they looking at?
Putin's singular goal is the elevation of the Russian state with him as its head. Because he's an autocrat that makes western liberalism an existential threat. Anything he can do to discredit western liberalism helps him - if he can convince enough people that american elections are rigged then he can say to his own citizens that real democracy doesn't exist, that the grass is not greener on the other side and so they should be content with his great leadership.
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And because we don't have any idea who you are, or what your aims are, we should simply accept at face value your claim to know exactly what Mr Putin thinks and feels.
The Anonymous Coward is correct, but not because the Anonymous Coward has some secret backchannel access to Putin's brain. The Anonymous Coward is quoting Putin's own words in interviews with Western media, where he publicly and personally floated this theory to see how people would react. It's not guesswork. Putin said these things. It was widely covered in that same Western Media. I bet even Russia Today covered it, because they always repeat what Putin says.
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Actually, since the post described Putin's role as an autocrat, it was focused on the definition of his role, and so describing a reasonable, rational set of goals that could be expected pursuant to those goals.
Not, as seems so popular, ignoring long-standing, historical experience, and pleading his motives to be something else, more to the apologist's liking.
Re: But, her emails! (Score:4)
Re: But, her emails! (Score:4, Interesting)
The people who died in Bengazi are not laughing.
But the people who killed them are. And they are ISIS - the terrorist crew whom Colonel Qadafi's column was on the way to deal with when the West decided to blow them away and send Libya back to the Stone Age.
Now they are busy killing, torturing and destroying in Syria.
Yay Yay USA! We came, we saw, millions died.
Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, Clinton did have an unsecured Exchange server hanging on the public Internet, and her lieutenant John Podesta fell for the world's dumbest phishing scam... I mean, c'mon.
(note: I voted Libertarian and live in the People's Republic of Oregon, so I have no dog in this fight and could not have possibly affected the results. That said...)
As for the dreaded hax0rz TFA details, how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine? Further more, he never warned the alleged affected state election officials [dailycaller.com]. I mean seriously, one would think that if he were concerned about it at the time, he (or rather, his administration) would have at least informed the IT folks over the affected systems so that they could at least try and remediate and harden things?
I'm not saying that the Russians never tried (though nobody is saying if they succeeded or not), but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
If she had won, would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
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Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting systems are constitutionally defined as being under the control of the states who then submit their representatives for voting for legislation and for the electing the President.
Homeland Security wanted to regulate state election systems under the guise of "critical infrastructure." That's a power grab and it starts with them just mandating certain security requirements. Then they need to "inspect" the systems and "check" the records to make sure they're secure. Then you end up with a standardized election system and, of course, Homeland Security can peek at the results at any time they want.
There was a similar call after the 2000 elections as well - part of how we ended up with all these "electronic voting systems" that Diebold made and were all easily hackable. The feds were well on their way to enforcing a standardized election system at the time too until the states balked.
Re:But, her emails! (Score:4, Insightful)
Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue) and B) it would have given another excuse for the con artist to claim the election was being rigged (though you'll note he never said which way it was being rigged).
but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
No it's not. It was a concern since they called Moscow directly to let them know we knew what they were doing. Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
Yes, we would have, because since Hillary would have been president, the same Republican-led House and Senate which are running interference for the con artist over the current Russia investigations, would have spared no expense to get to the bottom of what happened. They would have used it to claim her presidency wasn't legitimate or it was tainted, neither of which they are doing now. They would be digging as deep as possible to find every scrap of information regarding Russia's interference, the exact opposite of what they are doing now where many members are saying it's no big deal and the investigations should be dropped.
Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Insightful)
How very partisan of you... Do a bit of critical thinking about this whole mess and you will realize that Obama is the one who gets the blame for this, it happened on HIS watch. As I recall, the Clinton Campaign and the Obama administration were acting all huffy about Trump refusing to accept the election results in advance (remember that?). Remember all the assurances that it would be a fair election then? Oh sure, Clinton was a shoe in right? All this was going on right up to the last debate... About the same time as the "Access Hollywood" tapes that should have done in Trump's campaign... He was going to lose, and lose badly, and everybody knew it so the election was going to be FAIR and the Russians where NOT an issue.
What changed?
Do some critical thinking and think about the history of this, don't just fall for the sound bite news coverage of all this... I know it's hard to ignore the shrill voices on both sides of this at times, but do try..
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Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue) and B) it would have given another excuse for the con artist to claim the election was being rigged (though you'll note he never said which way it was being rigged).
First up, seriously, ditch the name-calling. I get that you hate the guy (thanks to that), but let's keep it objective.
Trump did say that the election may be rigged, yes... but Obama's response was to totally refute it. I understand the argument of not wanting to cause panic or uncertainty, but Obama's administration specifically said nothing to the state election commissions - that part is the most troubling. Did he think it would be rigged in Clinton's favor and so didn't bother, or (Occam's argument) did
Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't think "con artist" is name calling; it is just shorthand to describe his business habits to date.
That's an accurate description of virtually all American politicians. Trump, the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama... go back as far as you like. (Lincoln may have been honest).
Re:But, her emails! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's an accurate description of virtually all American politicians. Trump, the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama... go back as far as you like. (Lincoln may have been honest).
False equivalency fallacy. Trump is of a different breed altogether than prior politicians - just look at politifact (or any fact-checking organization you choose) and you'll see that he is far and away less honest than any other modern politician, regardless of party.
Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Interesting)
how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine? Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue)
It's worth pointing out that when the election is very close, it's far more important for democracy that people have confidence in the accuracy of the election result than that it actually be accurate. That may seem like a bizarre thing to say, but think about it. If the election is very close, it's because the electorate does not have a clear preference. This isn't to say that individual voters don't have clear preferences, but the electorate as a whole, under the system we use for determining the will of the people, doesn't have a clear preference.
Since the people don't have a clear will the election can go either way without going against the will of the people. In fact, in very close elections the result can go either way based on various random factors which in an ideal world shouldn't have any effect. Stuff like the weather. This means that the actual result of a close election cannot undermine the legitimacy of the democracy.
What can, and does, undermine democracy is when people say "Not my president", and in a very close race it takes very little to create enough doubt to enable people to say that. Of course, even in a landslide victory it's always possible for the supporters of the loser to take this tack, but in doing so they're demonstrating contempt for the very notion of democratic process. When it's very close, though, it's easy for people to make the argument that their guy/gal lost only because of X, Y or Z inaccuracies in the electoral process, and so the elected officeholder is illegitimate, not because democracy isn't the proper way to choose government.
To be clear, I despise Donald Trump with a purple passion, but he is my president and I will absolutely continue to honor the office and respect his legal and proper actions within that office (while retaining the right to criticize vociferously any I disagree with, and to encourage investigation, impeachment and possibly prosecution in the event of any illegal and/or improper actions). This attitude with regard to the office (and every other elected office) is, IMNSHO, exactly what all Americans need to hold if we're to avoid undermining our nation.
So, IMO, Obama did exactly the right thing in trying to fight Russian interference on the one hand, and keeping it quiet on the other, because fear about the legitimacy of the electoral process would have severely undermined the legitimacy of whoever won... and in a close election legitimacy is distinct from and more important than accuracy. That said, we absolutely do need to investigate any identified weaknesses in the electoral processes, and fix them lest we find ourselves in a situation where the electorate does have a clear preference and the processes deliver a contrary result.
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I think the problem is they're not eating their own dog food. When Clinton was thought to be winning, Obama's administration was even saying we should accept the election results. Then when the DNC lost, turns out they only meant that if they won.
I don't see any calls by the Democratic party, or Obama, or Clinton, or anyone else, to set aside the election results. There is concern that maybe Trump's campaign illegally colluded with the Russians. If that's the case, the lawbreakers should be identified and prosecuted, but I don't think anyone serious would actually call for setting aside the election results. There's nothing in the constitution that allows that or says what to do about it if it's done. In the event that evidence were found to prove t
Re:But, her emails! (Score:4, Insightful)
Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
So, how does that jive with your alternate reality where Trump is a Russian puppet? I mean, wouldn't Russian puppet Trump already know about the rigging and all that since it's rigged in his favor?
Watching you people devolve into the basic equivalent of 9/11 troofers has been fascinating.
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Washington elites were so sure, Hillary would win, they didn't want to publicize the hacking attempts for fear of delegitimizing her.
Now that she lost, they are sabotaging the actual winner with this unending allusions and unstated allegations and innuendo [bloomberg.com]
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Seriously how blind is your love for a big serving of Trump that you can even pretend to believe such nonsense. The outside world looks in with complete disbelief at how deluded many Americans were during that whole campaign...
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The actual winner spends a far portion of each and every day sabotaging himself. No one needs to help Trump, and it's all the Republicans can do just to keep up with him and try to cover for him.
Re:But, her emails! (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you type this with a straight face?
Trump is sabotaging himself. Also, maybe he should have been a bit more careful with his birther talk and crooked Hillary talk.
The biggest issue with Trump not getting his way is that in reality, not that many voting age Americans actually cast their vote for him. He clearly lost the popular vote (I know it doesn't matter and I'm not complaining about it) but he only received 26% of the registered voter votes. That means nearly 75% of registered voters did not vote for him.
So let's not pretend the guy swept into the Oval Office on a wave of public support and is only flailing around because Democrats are repeatedly bringing up Russia.. it has about as much impact as the birther movement during Obama's entire 8 year tenure. Please remember Republican's only goal was to oppose everything from Obama.. and they said it publicly.
We basically have a bunch of spoiled, entitled brats in Washington.. and most will get reelected.
Podesta didn't fall for the phishing scam (Score:2)
To be fair, Clinton did have an unsecured Exchange server hanging on the public Internet, and her lieutenant John Podesta fell for the world's dumbest phishing scam... I mean, c'mon.
To be fair, Podesta didn't fall for the phishing scam. He thought the email was suspicious so he asked a millennial on his staff who was supposedly his email expert about it. The young guy went into an immediate panic and insisted that the email was completely legit and Podesta needed to click on the link immediately. So he did. Nobody will name the staffer or say what happened to him. The guy who fell for the phishing scam was Podesta's trusted staffer who was supposed to know how to detect this ki
Re:Podesta didn't fall for the phishing scam (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody will name the staffer or say what happened to him.
Nobody will name him? So the thousands of articles that have the name "Charles Delevan" don't exist? This interview [slate.com] with the guy doesn't exist? The front page article [nytimes.com] in the New York Times (complete with a screenshot of the actual email) doesn't exist? Don't confuse your own ignorance with a conspiracy to keep information from you.
Re:Podesta didn't fall for the phishing scam (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the interesting features of most conspiracy features. "How come nobody is talking about XXXXX." The answers are normally, "They are, you just choose to ignore it" or "They aren't talking about it because it represents a worldview held by so few people, that nobody would even understand what they are talking about."
I don't bitch when the local news doesn't cover the installation of a new pipe organ in Polynesia with a rare type of reed stop. My wife doesn't complain when ABC doesn't do an expose on her phone's sudden failure to send emails. On the other hand, my son wants to know why nobody's talking about the fact that some kid traded him fake Pokemon cards. Is it because they are trying to hide something? Maybe they knew that kid had fake cards!
I guess conspiracy theorists just never grew up. A kid thinks, "People are not talking about what I think is important, therefore they must be against me personally." A well-rounded adult thinks, "People are not talking about this thing I think is important. They must have better things to do with their time. Maybe I can talk to some people and get their opinion about what's important to them." A typical American conspiracy theorist proclaims loudly, "The media isn't giving my flat-earth theory the air time it deserves, therefore Obama is a secret Muslim who is going to make me gay marry an illegal immigrant atheist."
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Well, Podesta didn't fail to click the phishing scam. If officials at his level are that clueless, it doesn't matter how good the hired help is. Those kinds of officials will still lead their organizations into cul-de-sacs of stupidity.
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I don't necessarily agree with Obama's response (though, to be clear, it wasn't a non-response--he expelled 39 Russian diplomats and closed their compound, which he accused them of using as a base of operations for espionage), but the Obama administration has said publicly that their reasoning was, if they made statements about an ongoing attack which they were still trying to figure out, it would have been seen as an attempt to sway the outcome of the election. And they aren't wrong, it would have.
Since yo
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As for the dreaded hax0rz TFA details, how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine?
I don't think that's true. I remember there being talk, even before the election, that the Russians were attempting to hack the election, and that it was very troubling. It was reported at the time that Obama had contacted Putin and had told him to "cut it out". It was so well known to be an issue that Clinton accused Trump, in one of the national debates, of being a Russian puppet. This was no secret.
What the Obama administration had said is that they didn't have evidence that votes were actually chan
Re:But, her emails! (Score:5, Insightful)
And then, it turns out, Trump isn't accepting the validity of the election EVEN THOUGH he won !
He just cannot accept the idea that 3 million more people voted for his opponent, so he keeps trying to claim that their votes were the results of massive and unprecedented fraud !
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I'm tired of the exaggerated propaganda that summaries like the one here uses to categorize Podesta's email breach as Russia's hacking the "electoral system".
Podesta's emails do not comprise the electoral system. It's perhaps a half-truth if given if a much broader, vague definition of "electoral system", but half-truths are often more devious than outright lies.
I'd love to see a solid reliable poll of how many people in the street are actually under the impression that election servers and machines were ha
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The plot thickens...
Not really... This was on Obama's watch.. What was HE doing about this? (hint.. He told the Russians to "stop it!") Was this effective? About as effective as the "red line" in Syria..
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
You should read up on classical conditioning, specifically learned helplessness [wikipedia.org]. There's already enough 'bad' when it comes to voting. Electronic voting doesn't work. Hand counting is inaccurate. There's a disillusion about whether or not a person's vote really matters since elections are based on this screwed up electoral college system - where a chosen few (compared to the general public) can decide who leads.
There have been activists and those speaking up, sure... but until our elected officials actually listen and do something about it, we're just going to keep going on this downward sloping status quo. The anarchist in me thinks "good, get rid of these career politicians that only want to pad their own wallets and retire into C-level golden parachute jobs". Then I see things like the uprising in Egypt and worry that the U.S. could go to that extreme.
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We are talking about a nation that had the choice between a buffoon and a slimy eel that made Nixon look like a honest person, decided for the buffoon who is now pretty much telling the whole world and everyone who wants to listen anything and everything he does outside of what time he sits on the can, the country is fighting wars it cannot win (and probably there also isn't anyone left who really wants to), you're on the brink of a civil war (and if you keep pushing more and more people into poverty, it's
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Take this shit seriously, you twats. Things like this can topple nations.
Most of the time it doesn't matter who gets elected. If I thought the election of one parties candidate over the other would somehow overthrow the government I'd definitely be in favor of that though. That would be awesome. Some chance at real change finally.
It's not the Russians you should worry about anyway. It's Libertarians like me. I don't give a fuck about democracy, but I do care about human rights a lot. If I could hack into the voting system and get a (sane/moderate) Libertarian elected would I do
Re:Double Down (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize it's possible to simultaneously think that Clinton lost for unrelated reasons, and that Russian information operations and interference is an extremely serious thing, right? It's also possible to consider that maybe the Russians weren't trying to sway the election for Trump, so much as to cause chaos and sow doubt, with a goal of undermining the USA while strengthening internal divisions?
Or that maybe we should start thinking of this not as some f*cking partisan thing, but about how maybe we should look to protect our elections from outside interference just because outside interference is bad, and that maybe, just maybe, we ought to be able to feel like our elections are secure just because having secure elections is a good thing by itself?
Re: Double Down (Score:2)
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So you think we should just ignore all of the massive amount of evidence from a dizzying array of sources
Seriously? What evidence? They haven't shown us any yet. They are just making claims and they don't have a lot of credibility. We're supposed to take them, of all people, on faith? Known liars?
But even if they do have absolute proof that they are willing to show us that the Russian government really did hack our election computers so what? It's not an act of war. No one was hurt by it. It's not a big deal. It just means we have to improve the security of our electronic voting system or fix whatever they sho
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Secure elections? Obama's administration did everything possible to stop states from requiring an ID to vote. Let's fix the simple things first and worry about these mythical Russian influences some other day.
Re: What Evidence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comey and Rogers both told the Congressional Committee that there was Russian interference in the elections.
The Republicans on the committee didn't argue.
You won't accept anonymous or 'biased' sources. What evidence would you accept?
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One would think that this would result in a push from both sides for open-sourcing the voting machines so that they can be properly audited, evaluated, and strengthened against attacks, but I don't see either party proposing that. Instead it's just an opportunity for political mud-slinging and grandstandin
Re: Double Down (Score:2)
Governments are pretty distinct from the agents of a given religion in that they can, and do, act in concert on a wide variety of subjects based on decisions from their senior leaders.
There is no head of Judaism, and lots of Catholics would tell the Pope to mind his own business if he said all good Catholics should tamper with votes. On the other hand, we've all seen news about despots and tyrants, and know how they coordinate the actions of their underlings.
Re: Double Down (Score:2)
"agents" should read "adherents". Gboard gets worse by the day.
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Keep it up, and the Democrats will never get back in power. Which is fine by me. The Republicans too are proving just as inept. Which is fine by me. Perhaps we'll actually get a viable third party that doesn't whine like a bitch when they aren't in power, and actually is constructive when they are. -- Archangel Michael [slashdot.org]
So who has to win to make you stop whining like a bitch? ;)
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If you think it's just people on the left then you are blind to what is really happening.
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It's called the shy Tory effect.
When you are ostracized because you have a different opinion, it colors your responses to polls.
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And Romney was supposed to win easily over McCain. This stuff happens, especially if you rely on phone polling. Only certain types of people will even bother answering those calls. It's going to heavily bias the results.
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foreign government tried to infiltrate and influence the election process regardless of who they were attempting to influence
You mean like Obama did in French, German and Israeli elections?
It isn't like this is a secret, it is just ignored because it is inconvenient to the narrative that left is trying to portray about how they care about free and fair elections
We know they don't care, because, they were caught, not only internationally, but in our own National Elections conspiring to rig elections and debates, which is .. part of the reason Hillary lost (IMHO).
We do have way more actual evidence of the DNC, Obama, and Hillary ac
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Does it really matter whether the wig or the plastic doll did it? Turd sandwich or giant douche (and you may even choose who is who), does it matter?
Be honest.
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No.
It is however clear that the Plastic Doll didn't order Russia to hack herself. Not so clear about the Orange Wig. After all, the wig did state he would welcome criminal acts like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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as the Orange Clown didn't order it, it's all FINE right?
Not in the least, of course it matters.. However... WHY have we been accusing Trump of organizing this for literally MONTHS? He didn't have anything to do with this if you take what Comey says to be true. Seriously, why all the sputtering and spitting about collusion we've been hearing since before Trump took office?
However, I'd like to point out that we still haven't seen any evidence that "The Russians" managed to change the count of votes cast, only that they where trying to disrupt what they could.
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Why? Because Hillary couldn't handle losing to Trump.
Its one of the largest temper tantrums in history, from a woman who should any longer be respected by anyone at all....
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If there's something we need to know, publish it and stand behind it (with your names and titles) already.
Former FBI Director James Comey came out and testified in public under oath. [politico.com]
The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It's not a close call. That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that.
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If you repeat it enough, it will become truth.
LOL.. The sum total of the efforts from the left since November 9, 2016... Keep repeating it... Keep the investigations going.. Because it's not the "nature of the evidence, but the seriousness of the charges" that matters when you play the political game well.
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Translation: I've stuck my finger in my ear, refused to even understand what is alleged to have happened, and want anyone who challenges Trump to be sent to prison.
If members of Trump's team were coordinating with the Russians for timed releases of information against Clinton, then that's treason. Whether Trump was directly involved or not may not be known, but may not even be that important.
So how about you first eliminate that strawman you've created of the allegations to start with, because it just makes
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Comey sat right in a Congressional committee meeting and said out loud "The Russians interfered with the election".
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My state has paper ballots that are machine scanned, but we retain the paper ballots in case of funny business. Any states not doing the same should reconsider their methods.