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Hack of Democrats' Accounts Was Wider Than Believed, Officials Say (nymag.com)
A Russian cyberattack that targeted Democratic politicians was bigger than it first appeared and breached private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups (could be paywalled; alternate source), reports The New York Times, citing officials with knowledge of the case. From the report: The widening scope of the attack has prompted the F.B.I. to broaden its investigation, and agents have begun notifying a long list of Democratic officials that the Russians may have breached their personal accounts. The main targets appear to have been the personal email accounts of Hillary Clinton's campaign officials and party operatives, along with a number of party organizations. Officials have acknowledged that the Russian hackers gained access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is the fund-raising arm for House Democrats, and to the Democratic National Committee, including a D.N.C. voter analytics program used by Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign.
Huh? Because VPN IP address? Again, TrustConnect's analysis was good, it traced back to a Russian VPN service provider. The rest of their analysis was best wild guessing.
The NYT article (which IMHO has become a water carrier for the Clinton's) references it's own story, which again incorrectly assumes that Russia is involved because of the TrustConnect's best guess. But TrustConnect even acknowledges that the originating network is obfuscated behind the VPN provider.
I hate this tactic of the main stream media outlets. They take questionable information, then report on it as if it was fact, then pile onto that by continuing further reporting all based off of the original questionable information by citing earlier articles they've produced.
The idea, that Russians are behind this is a red herring. Put out by anonymous sources it serves only to change the topic — from the contents of the e-mails and the negligence of the Democratic officials (including their Presidential nominee).
According to Assange, for example, Wikileaks got their data from DNC-sources including the misteriously murdered Seth Conrad Rich.
Maybe, Russians were involved too, maybe not. But the facts remain: DNC officials (including Hillary Clinton herself) are incompetent in computer security and dishonest.
Why is my real account disabled?
Odd, because if anything, I see the exact opposite. From my experience, the (big/mainstream) media seems very keen on trying to achieve false balance, even to the point of ridiculousness, by giving "both sides" the opportunity to say whatever their position is, even if one of those is grossly factually incorrect. They get lambasted by both sides for it, albeit usually at different times.
And if anything, the push to replace fact-based media with opinion-based hasn't come from journalism schools, it's come from the rise of explicitly partisan media, first on the right, and then followed by the left. The cry of "biased mainstream media" has been a largely self-serving one, both from politicians whose interest it was to push back on evidence-based yet unfavorable stories, never-mind from the purveyors of alternate media who have it in their direct interest to attack their competition. And it's not going away, either - the internet enables everyone to access any number of sources, right or wrong, evidence or opinion based.
Ultimately, it's not possible anymore to simply rely on someone else to do your critical thinking for you. You, the reader, have to assess things like the bias of the source, their past record, the evidence presented, et cetera. Don't trust it just because website X or news commentator Y said so. This goes for everyone, not just right or left or center.