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Report: Russian Hackers Phished The DNC And Clinton Campaign Using Fake Gmail Forms (buzzfeed.com)
Citing a report from SecureWorks, BuzzFeed is reporting that Russian hackers "used emails disguised to look as Gmail security updates to hack into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and members of Hillary Clinton's top campaign staff":
The emails were sent to 108 members of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign and 20 people clicked on them, at least four people clicking more than once, Secureworks' research found. The emails were sent to another 16 people from the DNC and four people clicked on them, the report said.
Researchers found the emails by tracing the malicious URLs set up by [state-sponsored hacking group] Fancy Bear using Bitly, a link shortening service... "We were monitoring bit.ly and saw the accounts being created in real time," said Phil Burdette, a senior security researcher at SecureWorks, explaining how they stumbled upon the the URLs set up by Fancy Bear.
The URL apparently resolved to accounts-google.com (rather than accounts.google.com), and Burdette says "They did a great job with capturing the look and feel of Google."
Researchers found the emails by tracing the malicious URLs set up by [state-sponsored hacking group] Fancy Bear using Bitly, a link shortening service... "We were monitoring bit.ly and saw the accounts being created in real time," said Phil Burdette, a senior security researcher at SecureWorks, explaining how they stumbled upon the the URLs set up by Fancy Bear.
The URL apparently resolved to accounts-google.com (rather than accounts.google.com), and Burdette says "They did a great job with capturing the look and feel of Google."
It had to be the Russians because she has done nothing to kill members of our intelligence community that may have taken some offense and are smart enough to know "false flag"
Using bit.ly. Oh the IRONY that the .ly TLD could somehow be involved in taking down Hillary Clinton.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
A few points on this alleged story:
1. The Clinton campaign desperately trying to distract attention away from Hillary's fundamental dishonesty.
2. Maybe the story is true, and the Clinton campaign hires people with the security acumen of a burned-out toaster.
3. Buzzfeed? Really?
4. Maybe they figure if they keep yelling "Trump is a Putin pawn!" enough we'll ignore the fact that Podesta is a registered lobbyist for Putin's bank.
There's one candidate in this race who has a proven record of taking money for favors from Russian sources, and it isn't Trump.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Frankly I'm surprised we don't see this technique used more often.
#DeleteChrome
Notice the disinformation? the misdirection from many outlets designed to have you worrying about whether the Russians did or did not hack the DNC and Clinton emails. This is so you focus on that rather than on the contents of the emails - which are extremely shocking in their levels of Machiavellian dealing, corruption, subversion of democratic processes and explicit contempt for the average American citizen and their vote.
It is time to withdraw Hillary as a candidate. The American people deserve better than her (or Trump). If Hillary is elected it is clear she'll be impeached in record time as the only people who like her are misogynistic dictators and theocrats who like people who accept naked bribes to sell out the American citizens.
The Democrats used to have some amazingly promising candidates, surely they can muster some now ?
I'm still not sure how this points to the Russians... How do we not know that it isn't some dude sitting on the beach in Tahiti and bouncing it off a server or VPN in Russia? How do we know it isn't the Chinese doing the same thing? How about a disgruntled Lithuanian? Most anybody can look like they are from anywhere. In fact, on virtually any TV show where hacking is involved, they always talk about it not being tranceable because it is "bouncing all over the world" so it isn't like the Evil Lithuanians / Chinese / Icelanders / Argentinians / etc. hackers can't figure out how to use a few VPNs or hacked machines to do their job.
The most amusing bit about the democrats response isn't the fact they aren't screaming "LIES!" It's the fact that they are pointing at Russia and yelling "Those dicks did that!"
My guess is that if the defense is true - she pissed them off with the reset button!
http://www.theblaze.com/storie...
Or not.
According to that she was in bed with Putin.
that does ignore this book
http://www.penguinrandomhouse....
Which tells where the "reset button" was swiped from.
It amazes me that people forget that hillary reset relations and simultaneously screams about hacking.Was she a complete failure back then? Or is she lying now?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
That's not "using fake emails to hack into the computers of the Democratic National Committee" That's "using hack emails to trick gullible staff members".
Without gullible staff members the computers would have been secure.
It's kind of scary that the people who want to be elected to run the branch of government that is in charge of implementing cyber security are such a bunch of damn clueless morons about it.
I mean there are high schoolers who would do better securing and safeguarding their emails than this crew...
Heh, who's the JV team?
What I get from that map is that, despite a clear majority of states voting for Trump, their model still for some reason "predicts" a Clinton win. Almost as if the election has been rigged. Somehow.
Every election is rigged by design, because of the electoral college system. If you're just now figuring out that the elections are rigged, you slept through civics and should probably refrain from contributing to political conversations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From the article:
"researchers assess with moderate confidence that the group is operating from the Russian Federation and is gathering intelligence on behalf of the Russian government"
I know it fits the playbook to simply call them "Russian Hackers" but hey, maybe...journalism instead?
-Styopa
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
From that fivethirtyeight article some months ago:
So, how do I wind up with that 2 percent estimate of Trump’s nomination chances? It’s what you get3 if you assume he has a 50 percent chance of surviving each subsequent stage of the gantlet.4 Tonight’s debate could prove to be the beginning of the end for Trump, or he could remain a factor for months to come. But he’s almost certainly doomed, sooner or later.
People have to remember that Nate Silver is using statistics based on assumptions, and those assumptions may or may not be valid.
The particular assumption in the link you quoted, is that his chances will not change in the next two weeks.
Let's see what tomorrow may bring, shall we?
It is certainly best for Clintons campaign ito fix blame on "the Russians". It would be better for Trumps campaign if he could blame China. Ergo if the Russians actually did it they would have false flagged China. That is if Russia cares.
You think Clinton's campaign is feeling desperate? Vegas is paying out 6-1 on Trump presidency, but you know better, don't you?
What will their odds be in 3 weeks?
That would be the odds of note.
The Founding Fathers created the electoral college system specifically to prevent populist perverts like Trump becoming president.
If anyone has a beef with the electoral college, take it up with the Founding Fathers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The left-leaning Buzzfeed staff needs to stick to what they do best.....making videos about Britons eating American snacks.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
What I get from that map is that, despite a clear majority of states voting for Trump, their model still for some reason "predicts" a Clinton win. Almost as if the election has been rigged. Somehow.
The astute reader will notice that 22 states on that map are colored red or pink. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Education and training is always the weakest link.
No, human trust is the weakest link.
I doubt that you can convert a single human being from "trust by default" to "distrust by default" through education. And training can only help with specific and narrow threats, and once attackers change their tactics, those who trust by default are just as vulnerable again.
It's a mindset, not knowledge. If you don't have healthy paranoia, you're always going to be prey.
Explaining virtually every spear phishing plan ever run on people for the last 20 years proves nothing. Who-is data for the domain they claim responsible is registered in France, not Russia. Registered to one "sacko.fatou17@yahoo.fr". Domain created 22FEB2012 and expires on 22FEB17. I'll paste more below just in case, but neither the name or the address of the registrant relate to Russia. Fatou is an older family name in France. You want to convince me it's Russian they need to do better than common knowledge. They make it sound like copying a Google page is hard, when in fact it's as simple as "save-as" and downloading a couple of pictures from the same source.
Domain Name: GOOGLE-ACCOUNT.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1703474033_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.register.it
Registrar URL: http://we.register.it/
Updated Date: 2016-03-26T00:00:00Z
Creation Date: 2012-02-22T00:00:00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-02-22T00:00:00Z
Registrar: REGISTER.IT S.P.A.
Registrar IANA ID: 168
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse[at]register.it
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +39.0353230310
Reseller:
Domain Status: ok
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: Google-Account
Registrant Organization: Google-Account
Registrant Street: 12 Allée des Noisetiers
Registrant City: St denis en val
Registrant State/Province: Haut-Rhin
Registrant Postal Code: 45160
Registrant Country: FR
Registrant Phone: +33.489750045
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email:
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: Google Account
Admin Organization: Google Account
Admin Street: 12 Allée des Noisetiers
Admin City: St denis en val
Admin State/Province: Haut-Rhin
Admin Postal Code: 45160
Admin Country: FR
Admin Phone: +33.489750045
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email:
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name: Technical Support
Tech Organization: AMEN.FR
Tech Street: 12-14, Rond Point des Champs Elysees
Tech City: PARIS
Tech State/Province: PARIS
Tech Postal Code: 75008
Tech Country: FR
Tech Phone: +33.811887744
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax: +33.140877689
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email:
Name Server: NS1.AMENWORLD.COM
Name Server: NS2.AMENWORLD.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
As long as they were using Gmail in the first place, enabling 2 factor authentication, with the second factor being a U2F key like an inexpensive Yubikey, would have gone a ling ways towards preventing this,
Kythe
What I get from that map is that, despite a clear majority of states voting for Trump, their model still for some reason "predicts" a Clinton win.
You're either not American or you slept through civics class in high school.
The number of states doesn't matter. The populations of those states (and thus the number of electoral votes each one has) are negligible compared to those in the Clinton column. In fact, the only populous state that's likely to go for Trump is Texas.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The Founding Fathers created the electoral college system specifically to prevent populist perverts like Trump becoming president.
The EC has disagreed with the popular vote only four times in history and one of those was a Bush presidency. Tell me again how great it is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you want to revisit the Constitution based on the fact that "technology has changed", we can do that. But beware. Some of your most hallowed Amendments might go by the wayside.
But I agree with you that the Constitution is a living document.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, but the map clearly shows the majority of the land area of the country is colored red. And everybody knows that the only fair way to conduct an election is for each square mile of the country's landmass to get exactly one vote.
I didn't say it was great. I'm just pointing out that it isn't an evil conspiracy hatched by George Soros and Saul Alinsky.
You are welcome on my lawn.
and have never had any security proble...Slashdot is decadent. Comrade, why not visit sunny Moscow and rub lucky chest of King Putin?
Anyone else have a problem with the phrase "We were monitoring bit.ly and saw the accounts being created in real time."?
Why was Accounts-google.com registered to Google inc, 1600 Ampitheatre Parkway at least as far back as 2013? http://www.domainhistory.net/a... and via MarkMonitor https://www.markmonitor.com/ which "protects the leading brands". YAN has been laughing about this all day. Didn't anyone bother to check any of this??
--hongpong.com
Can you count? By looking at the map and practicing the difficult techniques taught on Sesame Street, we can see that there are more blue states than red states. The site says "updated 3 hours ago" so I know we looked at the same map. Not that the number of states is a good metric anyway, for reasons which I will leave you to deduce since I have confidence you can use your brain if you try.
There's a big difference between "some hackers in Russia" and "Russian government hackers".
Think the press will make that distinction? LOL.
The Electoral College is the best thing in all of human history. Knowledge of it has saved me from so many disasters I have lost count. I do agree that it is confusing to people who have no understanding of history, but please know you mess with it at peril of your very soul.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
It's pronounced Zhongguo, actually.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Paranoia is never "healthy". *Awareness*, however, is always a damned good idea.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I hope all Americans realize that the rest of the world is dumbfounded that Clinton and Trump are supposedly the best candidates for the presidency of your great nation.
Surely not.
You are all lost!
Is this before or after they want preplan the crash of the criminally run financial system?
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Only trouble is... Secureworks doesn't say they spoofed using Accounts-Google.com, someone else claimed that. Secureworks say it was a man in the middle attack using a fake domain.
"Between October 2015 and May 2016, CTU researchers analyzed 8,909 Bitly links that targeted 3,907 individual Gmail accounts and corporate and organizational email accounts that use Gmail as a service. In March 2016, CTU researchers identified a spearphishing campaign using Bitly accounts to shorten malicious URLs. .....The short links in the spearphishing emails redirected victims to a TG-4127-controlled URL that spoofed a legitimate Google domain. A Base64-encoded string containing the victim's full email address is passed with this URL, prepopulating a fake Google login page displayed to the victim."
[i.e. they sent them to a page that looked like a Google page]
"The Hillary for America presidential campaign owns the hillaryclinton.com domain, which is used for the campaign website (www.hillaryclinton.com) and for email addresses used by campaign staff. An examination of the hillaryclinton.com DNS records shows that the domain's MX records, which indicate the mail server used by the domain, point to aspmx.l.google.com, the mail server used by Google Apps. Google Apps allows organizations to use Gmail as their organizational mail solution."
[i.e. the staff were using Google, so the attacker knew they would expect a Google prompt for email login]
"TG-4127 exploited the Hillary for America campaign's use of Gmail and leveraged campaign employees' expectation of the standard Gmail login page to access their email account. When presented with TG-4127's spoofed login page (see Figure 1), victims might be convinced it was the legitimate login page for their hillaryclinton.com email account."
So they logged into a screen that looked exactly like Google screen, but was a man- in-the-middle attack. In the process they handed over the password and login details for their Gmail account. Two part authentication and forced encryption everywhere is needed.
You're the one who gave himself away by specifying his favourite amendment, smart guy.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Wow, you're the first person I've seen that suggests the president should be picked by an even more skewed electoral college than we have. Taking the side that the candidate up by six points should be losing.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The electoral college favors trump..
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
They also created the 2nd amendment to put the fear of God into the political establishment so they wouldn't be so inclined to try and bilk an entire nation for all that it is worth. Is it irony that the very same establishment is trying to do away with that special little "check"? I think so.
Also read up on faithless elector laws. Any sort of attempt at using this to throw an election against Trump would lead to a civil war. The establishment knows it's on thin ice.
What will their odds be in 3 weeks?
That would be the odds of note.
While having 666-1 odds on Trump presidency may be of note, it will sure be too unsettling for most people to place such a bet.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The Founding Fathers created the electoral college system specifically to prevent populist perverts like Trump becoming president.
Except that in this case Trump doesn't get the popular vote - he's at 42.5%. Clinton has 49.3%.
Also, electoral votes being a representation of the will and the number of the people in each state - they tend to vote in accord to the popular vote.
I mean... last time popular vote winner lost the election was in 2000 - back when Gore lost to Bush by less than 1% of the electoral vote, while wining the popular vote by 0.5%.
Last time before that... you'd have to go back to the '80s. 1880s. Before women could vote and just after black men got the right to vote... at least on paper.
Other than that... there are only two more cases of a winner of the popular vote not winning the electoral vote as well. In the 1870s and in the 1820s.
Winning the popular vote but losing the election is not a normal thing. It's an exception which happens very rarely.
Like, centuries can come and go between such elections.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Hiding behind what people did 200+ years ago means that you are either unable, but more likely unwilling to solve anything.
So no, do NOT take it up with the founding fathers. Go out there and solve the shit that is going on yourselves.I live in a country that is younger than the US and has gone through more changes on a political level.
Stop blaming others for the mess you are in.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"There are at least a dozen current or former members of the domestic intelligence community who have died of "natural causes" or "accident" in the past three months."
You mean of a community made up of what is probably -- when you add together CIA, NSA, military intelligence and contractors -- tens of thousands of people, many of them old, "at least a dozen" have died in the past three months?
USA does not elect a president based on a majority of states. Rather the electoral college, which is tied to population.
So they believe that the minority of states that they predict Clinton will win is enough to win the race by a landslide. And of course we know the electoral counts for each state, so we can confirm independently that if they are right about which states she wins, then we can assume she will win in a landslide.
If you want to revisit the Constitution based on the fact that "technology has changed", we can do that. But beware. Some of your most hallowed Amendments might go by the wayside.
Rat, this is a ridiculous false equivalence and you know it.
"A living Constitution" is shorthand for the idea that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her liberal friends shouldn't be bound by the actual words in the Constitution, but by (her interpretation of) the intent of the Constitution, which coincidentally always lines up with liberal policy preferences.
"Living Constitution" advocates are making laws and rulings against the plain text of the Second Amendment NOW, with that amendment still in place.
Changing the Constitution through the amendment process is different than ignoring it when it gets in the way, which is what "Living Constitution" advocates are advocating for.
Once we're squarely in "we're talking about changing the text of the Constitution with an amendment territory," repealing the Electoral College and repealing the Second Amendment have nothing to do with each other. If one was a good idea (neither are), that wouldn't imply anything about the other.
They're mostly middle-aged realtors with low degrees of computer literacy, yet it seems they are less likely to fall for these fake google login scams than the DNC. That's sad.
Awareness only works in retrospect - you have have something defined to be aware of. Faced with new ideas, it's useless.
Healthy paranoia and skepticism is what stops what people aren't aware of.
Unfortunately, I can't claim that was the problem. Instead, I'll plead "typing on a treadmill using the hideous onscreen keyboard of a Surface Pro".
AT ANY RATE...
The point was, 2-factor auth would take care of this. I'm certainly not happy with Russian intelligence trying to mess with the U.S. election (and yes, the evidence is strong they are: see here), but regardless, since Podesta's email was STILL open as of a few days ago when a password reset sent to it was used to hack his Twitter account, it seems clear some folks desperately need some help with securing their accounts.
P.S. yes, my account is original.
Kythe
Hang on, Trump **isn't** blaming illegal alien net-rapists for this ?? (evil grin)
I appreciate how Slashdot posters have largely stayed out of the shit fest that is this campaign. Thank you.
But recently, more and more assholes like the AC at the top are spamming Slashdot with political bullshit.
I think that the majority of the Slashdot community would appreciate it if you cock suckers stayed in the designated cesspools that support your candidate and stay the fuck away from Slashdot.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why is it being reported as news now?
No they didn't. The idea was to ensure that the interests of the Federal government lined up with those of the member states. The separation of powers and rule of law is what's supposed to prevent Trump from being a problem.
When Trump and Clinton were neck and neck two or three weeks ago (gosh, has it been that long? But Arancia Mussolini's definitely definitely going to lose, right?), 538 was showing that they were also neck and neck in the electoral college.
The constitution does nothing to punish populism as long as that populism is sufficiently broad based, attractive to all of the country, not just some regions.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I didn't say it was great. I'm just pointing out that it isn't an evil conspiracy hatched by George Soros and Saul Alinsky.
Right. It's an evil conspiracy hatched by the rich white male founding fathers, who wanted to retain control of the nation. What, you thought they were fucking angels?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Either these security researchers ARE the NSA or they are full of shit.
The entire article is conjecture, trying to tie Trump into a series of actions by a "foreign" anonymous hacking collective. The problem is that this hacking collective has gone after a lot of things they see as humanitarian or democratic issues. If it was Mother Russia funding them they wouldn't go after targets so loudly, they wouldn't have gone after Syria or Iran, Russian allies and they sure as hell wouldn't have published it to Wikileaks.
If I were a director at a government hacker agency, the primary method would be stealthy, I wouldn't use American controlled URL shortening services and I would let Clinton win because it's the only controllable candidate and I have dirt on her. What does Russia have to gain with a megalomaniac in the White House? They can't control Trump, if he is the way the media portrays him, he won't care that you gave him $100M, he will drop anyone including his own running mate when it inconveniences him.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
If you want to revisit the Constitution based on the fact that "technology has changed", we can do that. But beware. Some of your most hallowed Amendments might go by the wayside.
If we rewrote the bill of rights to be congruent with laws passed since its inception, we'd just wipe our arses with it and throw it on the burn pile.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, you're saying they believed it was easier to send a human being to Washington DC than it was to send a letter that said, "The vote total was..."
So then why was an electoral college needed in states like Virginia and Maryland which are walking distance from Washington DC?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well said. The Constitution is only a "living document" when it turns left.
"Islam is incompatible with western civilization. We should ban Islam and burn the Koran."
"But that's unconstitutional!!"
"Well the Constitution is a living document that was never meant to deal with a xenocidial political system masquerading as a religion and..."
Good luck with that argument.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The constitution does nothing to punish populism as long as that populism is sufficiently broad based, attractive to all of the country, not just some regions.
This. The EC is more about ensuring that a president is elected on broad nation support more than just popular because of the issues of population densities skewing trends. It was designed to give smaller states more say in presidential elections. It really is just like the bicameral congress except it is for POTUS elections. Each congressional chamber represents the states in a different way; Popular and as a whole. The EC is a mix of these to guarantee that any president will have broad national support and broad popular support (exceptions apply albeit rare).
You don't want a president elected by the few very heavily populated cities just like you don't want a president elected on many small dispersed towns. You want a president elected by a broad support of states and people.
The Founding Fathers created the electoral college system specifically to prevent populist perverts like Trump becoming president.
If anyone has a beef with the electoral college, take it up with the Founding Fathers.
The Electoral College is also designed to help balance out the distinct advantages of the most populous states. Without the electoral college you'd have almost half the US population in the 5 most populous states. You could probably safely ignore 40 out of the 50 states and still get elected with a popular vote.
Paranoia usually refers to irrational beliefs and is usually considered a mental illness. I would shy away from that word.
I cultivate a healthy skepticism. Skepticism provides sufficient justification for rejecting unfounded statements and requests.
There is also the idea of erring on the side of caution, which people seem to ignore when it comes to computers.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
I didn't say it was great. I'm just pointing out that it isn't an evil conspiracy hatched by George Soros and Saul Alinsky.
Right. It's an evil conspiracy hatched by the rich white male founding fathers, who wanted to retain control of the nation. What, you thought they were fucking angels?
I do not believe that the United States would even exist without the electoral college. Why would Rhode Island want to participate in a popular presidential election when they have basically no say over who is elected? At least they're guaranteed 2 electoral votes through their senate seats. All of the little states could band together and have their voice heard through the electoral college. The five most populous states contain almost half the US population and would therefore dominate elections. It would lead to neglect of the smaller states and their departure from the union. Were the founding fathers saints? No. Of course not, but it sounds like they understand people a hell of a lot better than you do.
Considering how many "hacker" sites in Russia are used internationally. It merely means the servers were hosted there. For all we know it could of been Republicans who paid to have hosted servers.
This is like claiming ALL the fraud that occurs at .com sites hosted in America are American hackers working for the U.S. government.
STUPID = STUPID
That was a cute joke, but Clintons have certainly beaten Trump to it. Unless you think, Bill and Hillary Clinton receiving hundreds of thousand of dollars per speech can be explained by anything other than his past presidency and, more importantly, the "inevitability" of her future one.
Having left the White house "dead broke" by their own admission, the couple are now worth tens of millions of dollars. What exactly have they sold in 15 years, that is that valuable?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
My point is that it's time for a Constitutional Convention, because the Founders done fucked up.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because the states with the largest populations are all going to Clinton: CA, IL, PA, NY, FL, OH, GA, NC
The only big state leaning Trump is TX. Rounding out the biggest 10 states is GA on Trump's side. And TX+GA combined have fewer votes than CA.
So out of the states with the most people and electoral votes, 8/10 are leaning Clinton. No surprise she is expected to win.
It's not a conspiracy, it's basic math.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
One of the types of paranoid delusion is delusions of grandeur, including the belief that the paranoid is the object of all attention, central to a vast web of conspiracies. If you happened to have this paranoid delusion, you would probably be very careful guarding your work on the computer. But you would also be guarding against dangers that don't actually exist, believing that the CIA and the Illuminati are monitoring your thoughtwaves, that mosquitoes are injecting nanomachines into your blood to control your movements, and that devil-worshipping sorcerers are trying to collect samples of your bodily fluids in order to work black magic.
In fact, our system gives outsized influence to lightly-populated states (since each state gets two senators). If anything, this election is rigged against the Democrats, since the big western red states get more votes per capita than California, etc.
Have you read my blog lately?
URL shortening wasnt' the problem here; look-alike links was the problem.
He's not hiding behind anything. Things were setup to avoid "mob rule", "tyranny of the majority"; to get the little states to agree to a union with larger states. And, yes, if we decide to change it, we need to "take it up with the Founding Fathers", as they argued that shit out 200 years ago. We'd best be very careful changing something that has brought us to superpower status.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Democrats fire-bombed a GOP office today.
Somebody firebombed a GOP office. Whether it was "Democrats" or not is as yet unknown. I would say it was almost certainly crazy people, which america (unfortunately) has plenty of, and who come (unfortunately) in all political persuasions.
At the moment, the Democrats are raising money to re-open the office. https://www.rawstory.com/2016/...
Do you fail at reading comprehension?
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Seriously? You listed CNN, NY Times,GO, and CBS News as sources of evidence?
No. He listed CNN, NY Times,GO, and CBS News as "liberal media" that did cover the story, showing that the statement "the liberal media and Hillary are entirely ignoring the attack" is false.
They are proven to be owned and or controlled by rich and powerful friends of Clinton.
In which case, his post shows that the original post was completely and totally false, doesn't it?
Why would Rhode Island want to participate in a popular presidential election when they have basically no say over who is elected?
Because otherwise they just get annexed and made a part of some state with enough land area to justify being one.
At least they're guaranteed 2 electoral votes through their senate seats.
Yeah, that's dumb. It should be one man, one vote. If a state wants more power it should attract more residents. If it doesn't have space for them, it doesn't deserve it.
Senate vs. House is cool, multiple branches, I get that and even support it. But electoral votes to states? Shit no.
Were the founding fathers saints? No. Of course not, but it sounds like they understand people a hell of a lot better than you do.
Yes, including how to manipulate them. It's still working on you and you weren't even born yet
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The building was vandalized with the phrase "Nazi Republicans Leave Town or Else". Who else do you think would have done it?
The correct answer is: "I don't know, and you don't know either."
It's hard to believe it was the Democrats, since all the polls and all the indications show that they're winning. Why in the world would they want to change a winning game?
Throwing bombs isn't something you do if you're winning; it's what you do if you're losing.
But, with that said, I doubt it's the Trump campaign. I expect it was lunatic fanatic crazies.
Whether the lunatic fanatic crazies thought they were on Trump's side, or on Clinton's side, is yet to be seen.
If he can't count states on a map (28 for Clinton, 22 for Trump when the post was made), subtleties like state populations are going to go entirely over his head...
The Founding Fathers created the electoral college system specifically to prevent populist perverts like Trump becoming president.
The EC has disagreed with the popular vote only four times in history and one of those was a Bush presidency. Tell me again how great it is.
Who said the electoral college was "great"? I'm not a huge fan of the idea, but it is what it is, until we amend the Constitution.
Anyhow, there's a big difference between saying there's something undesirable about the electoral process vs. claiming that an election is "rigged." That implies that there's a secret behind-the-scenes variable manipulating election results. The electoral college doesn't satisfy that criterion -- I suppose it would if there were so-called "faithless electors" who could be bribed or something on a regular basis. But the last time faithless electors played a major role was in 1836. Well, there were a couple situations since then when a candidate died before the inauguration, in which case one can argue about the utility of forcing them to vote for a dead person.
In any case, the majority of states have laws prohibiting electors from being "faithless," so "rigging" by means of swaying the electoral college isn't realistic.
But you don't even seem to be talking about that. This last post seems to be claiming that even a discrepancy between popular vote vs. electoral vote is "rigging."
There are at least a couple problems with this argument:
(1) Candidates actually make significant campaign choices to try to win the electoral vote, NOT the popular vote. They show up in some states just to grab those votes, when otherwise they'd probably just spend most of their time in major cities and ignore half of the country (where population density is less). Is that good or bad? I don't know, but the point is that it's hard to call an election "rigged" when the rules are clear and candidates choose to campaign to win the electoral vote. (It also makes the "Gore should have won in 2000 because the electoral college sucks" argument a little specious -- Gore and Bush were not campaigning to win the popular vote. If they were, they might have campaigned differently, and there's no evidence that Gore would still have won if they made different choices to try to win the popular vote, since the margin was small. By the way, I'm NOT arguing in favor of a Bush presidency, just that the "Gore won the popular vote" thing is just a BS argument, since the candidates were trying to win the electoral vote.)
(2) There are plenty of situations where the "one person, one vote" argument is not what we'd consider the best. If three kids vote to have M&Ms and Cheetos for dinner, should the parents give in, since they're outnumbered? Or should the parents' votes "count more" in this circumstance?
Obviously the U.S. system is more complicated than that, but it was designed in such a way as to prioritize individual state "voices" more than popular votes. After all, it's up to individual states to determine how their electors are allocated. A couple (e.g., Nebraska) don't do "winner-take-all" but most do. Thus, the anti-populist impetus takes place on various levels of government that have little to do with the electoral college directly.
And really, if you're going to complain about problematic voter representation, are you seriously going to claim the electoral college is the worst offense? How about the entire U.S. Senate? States like Wyoming and Alaska get as much voice there as California. Is that "rigged"? If so, our entire federal government representation system is "rigged."
But again, that's not what the term usually means. Instead, we should note that the Founding Fathers prioritized state voices -- that's why they made Senate representation equal for all states (and why senators were originally appointed by state l
Check the map. Not that it matters, but Clinton has 28 states and Trump 22. It's even easier to have a majority when you have most of the big states *and* most of the states overall.
I wonder if's Hillary's site still allows phishing?
http://cybertical.com/clinton-phishing.html
The country is geographically red (Republican) and not even close.
The country is politically blue (Democrat) by a thin margin.
http://www.frihost.com/forums/...
The elitists call it flyover country for a reason, their bases are mainly on the coasts. The electoral college was created to get the politicians out of the big cities, and help provide balance between rich city folk, and poor country folk. Nothing has really changed in 225 years.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Taking the side that the candidate up by six points should be losing.
The candidate winning by six points SHOULD be losing, if ethics mattered as much as her supporters claim they do.
The candidate losing by six points SHOULD be losing, if being hypocritical mattered, like they claim it should.
The real question is, why are EITHER of them winning when both shouldn't even be close to winning? If everyone who doesn't like either candidate, and is holding their noses why swallowing the poison of their vote actually voted their conscience, NEITHER Trump nor Clinton would win.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I prefer "Trust but verify". Most people tend to be trustworthy for various degrees of trustworthiness. Kind of like double entry accounting should catch the crooks.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"Trust but verify" is just an odd way to say, "don't trust." That said, it is almost always a good idea to verify.
The idea expressed by GP poster that distrust can't be taught would seem to fly in the face of any security training, anywhere.
In training to be a military trainer, we were taught that attitudes can most definitely be taught. Then they taught us to hate liberals. JK: they taught us to hate whiners - who just happened to be liberals.
The idea expressed by GP poster that distrust can't be taught would seem to fly in the face of any security training, anywhere.
In training to be a military trainer, we were taught that attitudes can most definitely be taught.
Attitudes can be impressed, most certainly.
I believe mindsets are harder to change.
Isn't the real story that hacking is the only current flavor of journalism that reveals real information about important stuff that would otherwise not be reported by "real" journalists (who are on the payroll of {$politician or $big_corporation})? It's disturbing how many Hillary shills dismiss the content of the leaked emails as "fake" and give her a pass for what appears to be some authentic and relatively "not-fit-for-office" activity.
The elitists call it flyover country for a reason, their bases are mainly on the coasts
The real reason is that's how most of us want to treat it. That's why the population is concentrated on coastlines. They're grrrreat.
The electoral college was created to get the politicians out of the big cities, and help provide balance between rich city folk, and poor country folk.
It was created to avoid democracy, which is what you would have if you gave the vote to everyone. It was a means of ensuring that you didn't in fact give the vote to everyone.
There's lots of good stuff in the constitution, because the framers had many of the same concerns as the populace. But there's also some crap in there, because they also had rich white fuck concerns. That is to say, how do we keep running this show for as long as possible? First, we make sure that only other white men can vote, that'll help...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Paranoia usually refers to irrational beliefs and is usually considered a mental illness. I would shy away from that word.
There is not really a good word for a mindset where distrustfulness is a state of mind. I tend to call it "healthy paranoia", but suggestions for a better phrase would be welcome!
We're social beings, and trust is somewhat hardwired. That works reasonably well as long as we physically meet people, and anyone not being trusted quickly being ostracized or pulped. With the advent of the Internet, that hardwired trust became a problem. Those with a mild "paranoia" (for lack of a better term) tend to be safer netizens.
noun
1.
an attitude, disposition, or mood.
I trust your assertion that mindset and attitude are different.
The Electoral College isn't particularly helping Clinton here. If anything, it's probably going to end up helping Trump in that it skews political power *toward* less populous states. For example, Wyoming will go to Trump. While Wyoming accounts for only .6% of the electoral vote, but if it were a popular vote, it would account for less than .2% of the popular vote. (Pretty sure my math there is right, but admittedly I just googled some numbers and plugged them into a calculator)
The Electoral College was designed to prevent populous areas from exerting too much control over the federal government, and given that populous areas tend to be more liberal, it usually works in favor of the Republicans.
Saying "I trust you, but need to verify a few things before we go on" isn't the same as saying "I don't believe a word you're saying, prove it". One is a position of permission, the other one is a position to cause defensive response.
I know people who honestly thought one thing, and their balance sheet said something completely differently. The problem wasn't the honesty of the person, but rather one of ignorance, they just didn't know. Now, on the other hand, there are people who lie about their balance sheet in an effort to defraud look exactly the same way.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I agree with what you are saying but...
I don't trust motorists to stop when I enter a crosswalk. It matters not one bit whether they are malicious or incompetent. Until they stop, I'm staying on the curb (verifying?).
Most those middle states have large tracts of land - occupied by very few people.
And no... Electoral college was NOT created "to get the politicians out of the big cities and blah-blah-blah".
Number of electoral votes has fuck all to do with where the voters are located, are they rural or urban, OR are they visited by the candidates during their campaign or not.
It was created back when there was no "flyover country" - but only towns, villages and farms along the coast. THE coast.
And it was created cause they were paranoid about Congress ignoring the will of the people, getting together and electing the president on their own - while also being paranoid about big states doing the same thing.
Which is why there's that stipulation about government employees not being eligible for the position of an elector.
And why it is based on the number of people living in a state (while each state still gets two votes on top of that) and not its geography.
Including those people counted as "three fifths of all other Persons".
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
no US agency has said anything of the kind
Wrongo bongo. Here's the Joint DHS and ODNI Election Security Statement. It begins: The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.
Just as we've always been.
That would be called prejudice, motherfucker. But I bet you STILL will feel like your clever opinion is correct.
Some states have higher education levels than others, this is a fact. Just because you can't grasp that fact doesn't make it any less true.
Donald Trump has by far the lowest percentage of educated voters of any candidate in the modern era, so it follows that the strongest support would be in the least educated states.
If you had an education you would understand this, instead you get angry and call names when you hear things you don't like to hear.
As I pointed out, the number of states doesn't matter, so there's no need to count them, and so I didn't bother to.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
At least you're getting some exercise--something which I really ought to do more.
P.S. I was pretty sure you weren't some sort of impostor, I was just going for cheap laughs. Sorry.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Anyhow, there's a big difference between saying there's something undesirable about the electoral process vs. claiming that an election is "rigged." That implies that there's a secret behind-the-scenes variable manipulating election results.
No, no it does not. That's one potential meaning of rigged. But the system can be rigged in one direction or another without it being secretly rigged. For example, vegas casino odds are rigged in favor of the house, right out in the open. People play anyway on the premise that they will be in the lucky minority. The etymology has to do with sailing ships. Your ignorance of the language has led you to accuse me of ignorance. I would be shocked and appalled at this if this were not Slashdot. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
But you don't even seem to be talking about that. This last post seems to be claiming that even a discrepancy between popular vote vs. electoral vote is "rigging."
Well, yes. That's clearly what I was implying. So why did you waste time on some other argument?
There are at least a couple problems with this argument:
Oh goody, actual arguments to refute.
Candidates actually make significant campaign choices to try to win the electoral vote, NOT the popular vote.
Yeah, that's a drawback. It's to the detriment of the people. The majority want to see certain things be permitted, and a minority is able to abuse the system to prevent them.
I don't know, but the point is that it's hard to call an election "rigged" when the rules are clear
Only if you don't own a dictionary.
There are plenty of situations where the "one person, one vote" argument is not what we'd consider the best. If three kids vote to have M&Ms and Cheetos for dinner, should the parents give in, since they're outnumbered? Or should the parents' votes "count more" in this circumstance?
That is frankly a terrifyingly horrible and completely unacceptable simile, because you're implying that those who know what is best for us must rise and save us from ourselves by treating us like children. But we are not children, and if we are poorly prepared to vote it is because our government has failed us in the education department — which, by the way, has been excused by the behest of the flyover states. Their influence leads to nonsense like abstinence-only education being forced into schools, or schools being allowed to suggest that creationism is a theory on par with evolution. So this is not only a terrifying example that displays your mind set, but it also works against your prior argument. Steeeerike two! I note you didn't take a third swing at a bold-faced, central point. Good call.
Obviously the U.S. system is more complicated than that, but it was designed in such a way as to prioritize individual state "voices" more than popular votes.
Yes, and that means that the will of the people can be ignored through clever manipulation of the vote in low-information states.
But again, that's not what the term usually means.
In your mind. But rigged doesn't have to mean "secretly", and by default it doesn't imply any such thing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't think that's true, I think very easily either of them, espiacialky trump, could pull a plurality.
If everybody voted for who they wanted, I'd bet 35% trump. 30% Johnson. 25% Hillary 10% Stein.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
1) Not surprised. As soon as they started waiving the Russian "Hacking" flag around like it was something out of the Matrix I immediately postulated that the DNC were taken in by very usual and mundane means common to anyone that actually has an internet connection.
2) Considering the numbers, supposedly 20% and 25% of people fell for the scam, which really doesn't give you a lot of confidence in not only their "security acumen", but also just in their basic intelligence. You might do better with a random set of people. Cyber warfare campaign aside, there are a lot of other technology policy issues you really don't want someone who clicks on every attachment given to them to have power over.
3) That said, if the RNC were targeted I'm not sure they would have fared any better, likely worse, so it is a bit of a moot point I guess in general.
Yes, but the map clearly shows the majority of the land area of the country is colored red. And everybody knows that the only fair way to conduct an election is for each square mile of the country's landmass to get exactly one vote.
Crap. Just look what happened when a real estate mogul got hung up in politics. Now it'll go the other way with the politicians buying up land...
Russia cares. They have shills that post on Slashdot whenever an anti-Russian story shows up. No way they aren't monitoring this carefully, even if they're not involved.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why are you concerned about the influence of states in Presidential elections? Rhode Island is not its own group mind. It just contains a lot of voters, and a popular election would give each voter an equal say in the election. As it is, my vote for President is meaningless, since I don't live in a swing state. I don't think that's fair, myself.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm a pretty well-off city folk. There are poor country folk. Our votes are counted equally. The Electoral College isn't needed for that.
If a candidate wants to appeal to the rich city folk only, that works within the system. If the candidate loses by a landslide in the countryside, and can't pick up enough city votes to counter that, that's the system in action.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There's also the fact that the Founding Fathers didn't really know what they were doing when they wrote the Constitution and pushed it into acceptance. Nobody had experience with a large country without a monarch, and what they basically knew was that the Articles of Confederation weren't working at all well. I believe they did a very good job of faking it, but they didn't get everything correct.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why are you concerned about the influence of states in Presidential elections? Rhode Island is not its own group mind. It just contains a lot of voters, and a popular election would give each voter an equal say in the election. As it is, my vote for President is meaningless, since I don't live in a swing state. I don't think that's fair, myself.
Because Rhode Island needs influence in the election or presidential candidates (incumbents included) will tend to not really care about the state. If the state is ignored by everyone but its own senators then why would they want to even bother being a part of the union? The way that house seats and electoral votes was doled out was to balance the needs of low population states versus densely populated states. Just because they have a low population doesn't mean that they add no value to the nation.
Partial. The weakest link is the dumbass in your organization. We recently did a well known government agency. They had JUST completed an awareness campaign. What to look for. I.e. look for a duck. Walk like duck, talks like duck, looks like duck it's probably a duck. Report it.
Sent out a "password streangth checker" We had a lot of mis-spellings, all the stuff we told them about in the e-mail. First guy to check his password with the outside machine? It took less than 5 minutes - the head of the windows admins. A guy that completed the training just the day before. We had about a 10% hit rate with win admins. We didn't get squat with the Unix admins. They smelled us like last week's fish in the trash. All that is negated by just one dumbass windows admin because all the passwords in that environment are handled by AD.
Then there is the typical windows user. I think we all realize that's a dumbass by definition based on the Windows calling centers. Machine's not working... did you turn it on.. oh yea, it's working now. Just get that guy to click on something. Boom, you're in.
Equal Employment BS ensures there's always a few in every organization. It's like requiring roaches and mice on every ship.
Amen. Hit the target dead center. Lock the bitch up.
I asked about why Rhode Island per se had any interest in the election, and you ignored that question. Why are you talking about Rhode Island and not the residents of Rhode Island? Each resident of Rhode Island would have the same vote in a popular vote election as everyone else in California or Alaska. Under the Electoral College system, each resident of Rhode Island has more of a say than each resident of California.
And does this mean anyone cares about Rhode Island? Is it a battleground state? Nobody on the national level seems to care about how I vote, because my state's electoral votes are going to Clinton no matter what. In a popular vote, Clinton would want to keep my state happy to build up a greater margin of victory that might offset losses somewhere else. Even if Rhode Island is seen as a swing state, under how many scenarios are its three electoral votes going to swing the election? Group voting systems like this generally give disproportionate influence to some blocs over others.
House seats are supposed to reflect population. Senate seats are intended to balance states (and Senators were originally selected by the state legislatures).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I asked about why Rhode Island per se had any interest in the election, and you ignored that question. Why are you talking about Rhode Island and not the residents of Rhode Island? Each resident of Rhode Island would have the same vote in a popular vote election as everyone else in California or Alaska. Under the Electoral College system, each resident of Rhode Island has more of a say than each resident of California.
And does this mean anyone cares about Rhode Island? Is it a battleground state? Nobody on the national level seems to care about how I vote, because my state's electoral votes are going to Clinton no matter what. In a popular vote, Clinton would want to keep my state happy to build up a greater margin of victory that might offset losses somewhere else. Even if Rhode Island is seen as a swing state, under how many scenarios are its three electoral votes going to swing the election? Group voting systems like this generally give disproportionate influence to some blocs over others.
House seats are supposed to reflect population. Senate seats are intended to balance states (and Senators were originally selected by the state legislatures).
Did you not even read the first sentence I wrote? Rhode Island needs to have some measure of influence in the presidential elections. And by Rhode Island I mean both the government and its people. Why would you want to belong to a nation that gives you no influence over its national government? You wouldn't. Sure you claim that Rhode Island would benefit from a popular vote but give no real reason how it would benefit anyone to cater to the needs of Rhode Island. Like I've said several times - a federal election would depend almost entirely on the will of the 10 most populous states without the electoral college. That would account for almost 171 million out of 314 million Americans. With the electoral college those 40 states could band together to prevent their neglect. The 10 most populous states only account for 256 out of 538 electoral votes. You cannot guarantee a win in the electoral college system with just the support of 10 states. Remember that the constitution was made to prevent the US from splintering. States are granted all rights not explicitly given to the federal government by the constitution (or reserved to the people). This is the founding fathers recognizing that all regions want to feel like they have a say in what happens to the country.
And, as before, you completely fail to explain what the Rhode Island government needs to do about the elections. The people of Rhode Island deserve to have a say proportional to their numbers in the election, just like the people of every other state.
And, under the Electoral College, people in different states don't have the same say. Wyoming has a lot of electoral votes per voter, and California has a lot less per voter. Nobody's vote matters if they live in a predictable ("safe") state. If my vote matters in determining the electors from my state, said electors don't matter because the College is packed with electors voting Republican, so for practical purposes I don't get a vote..
Nor would candidates limit themselves to the larger states. Right now, candidates concentrate on states because winning individual states matters (and only rarely the margin of victory matters). If a candidate can get a bare majority in states with enough electoral votes, and loses badly in other states, that's enough to win. If the election is not state-by-state, candidates will campaign to get the popular vote, however they see fit. Normally the Democratic candidate would not care about Texas voters, since those electoral votes are almost certainly Republican, but in a popular vote situations there's value in being a fairly close second rather than an also-ran.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes