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Payback? Russia Gets Hacked, Revealing Putin Aide's Secrets (nbcnews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the crime-in-Crimea dept.

Ukrainian activists have compromised 2,337 messages in the Microsoft Outlook accounts of two assistants to a top aide of Vladimir Putin. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes NBC News: A Ukrainian group calling itself Cyber Hunta has released more than a gigabyte of emails and other material from the office of one of Vladimir Putin's top aides, Vladislav Surkov, that show Russia's fingerprints all over the separatist movement in Ukraine. While the Kremlin has denied the relationship between Moscow and the separatists, the emails show in great detail how Russia controlled virtually every detail of the separatist effort in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, which has torn the country apart and led to a Russian takeover of Crimea...

"This is a serious hack," said Maks Czuperski, head of the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, which has searched through the email dump and placed selected emails online. "We have seen so much happen to the United States, other countries at the hands of Russia," said Czuperski. "Not so much to Russia. It was only a question of time that some of the anonymous guys like Cyber Hunta would come to strike them back."
A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that the U.S. "had no role" in the breach -- but when asked if the material was authentic, replied there was "nothing to indicate otherwise."

7 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. Good! by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I approve of governments hacking each other and sharing each other's dirty little secrets with the public. Adversarial systems work well in the service of justice and honesty.

    I hope someone hacks Merkel's and May's E-mails too and publishes them. Unfortunately, the Germans are likely too careful to let that happen.

    1. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Typical leftist M.O. Cloak their evil acts in a facade of humanitarianism, and if anyone disagrees with the policy, scream that they're a racist, xenophobe, bigot, *ist, *ophobe, or literally hitler.

    2. Re:Good! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I approve of governments hacking each other and sharing each other's dirty little secrets with the public.

      Indeed. For an example of what happens when we don't do this, look at Europe exactly 100 years ago. WW1 was caused by secret agreements, and massive misunderstanding of other countries intentions. For instance, the Germans were shocked when Britain entered the war against them. They shouldn't have been. There were even misunderstandings between allies. The Austrians expected the Germans to defend their eastern border while they invaded Serbia. Instead, Germany sent 90% of its army against France, leaving the Austrians to face the full force of the Russian offensive into Galicia. If the spies had done their jobs, perhaps the war could have been avoided.

      It would be best if countries would volunteer to be transparent, but that is not realistic. So leaks, hacking, and spying are the only way to prevent excessive secrecy, and the corruption and misjudgement that goes with it.

    3. Re:Good! by RandomSurfer314 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You write that because you have a preconceived dogmatic political agenda and are unable to step out of it even for a moment. I've met many people on the right and on the left who have this problem (lack of understanding other political positions), especially those at the extremes of the spectrum. Okay, you think she doesn't have any Christian and humanist ideals. So what, maybe you're right, but that's not what I'm talking about. Still she has managed to get through some policies against the will of most in her own party, against most of the opposition and against many in the population, knowing very well that step would ruin her career. That alone deserves some credits, because most other German politicians are way more opportunistic.

    4. Re:Good! by johanw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Trump really doesn't care about abortion but he has to take a stand against it to get the votes of the huge number of christian fundamentalists in the US.

    5. Re:Good! by ooloorie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Russia is using its hacks to run a smear campaign against one candidate

      (1) That is Hillary's claim, not fact.

      (2) What has come to light isn't a "smear campaign", it is actual facts about Hillary and her lies and deceptions, facts that US voters are entitled to.

      (3) The simplest explanation why there is nothing like this being released on Trump is that (a) Trump has not engaged in Hillary's level of corruption and deception, and/or (b) Trump's staff isn't terminally incompetent when dealing with E-mail, like Hillary and the DNC.

      to interfere with the Democratic election in another country

      And if that "interference" consists of exposing fraud, corruption, and deception by one of the candidates, I think it's a good thing.

      Furthermore, foreign governments have a legitimate interest in not having to deal with a lying, crooked war-monger like Hillary. I would see no reason to fault them for that even if Hillary's beliefs about who is doing this are true.

  2. THIS IS WAR! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And CNN has one big hard on! Wolf is said to be walking around like Ron Burgundy.