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FBI and Homeland Security Detail Russian Hacking Campaign In New Report (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI have released an analysis of the allegedly Russian government-sponsored hacking groups blamed for breaching several different parts of the Democratic party during the 2016 elections. The 13-page document, released on Thursday and meant for information technology professionals, came as Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2016 elections. The report was criticized by security experts, who said it lacked depth and came too late. "The activity by [Russian intelligence services] is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens," wrote the authors of the government report. "This [joint analysis report] provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. government." The government report follows several from the private sector, notably a lengthy section in a Microsoft report from 2015 on a hacking team referred to as "advanced persistent threat 28" (APT 28), which the company's internal nomenclature calls Strontium and others have called Fancy Bear. Also mentioned in the government document is another group called APT 29 or Cozy Bear. The Microsoft report contains a history of the groups' operation; a report by security analysts ThreatConnect describes the team's modus operandi; and competing firm CrowdStrike detailed the attack on the Democratic National Committee shortly before subsequent breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were discovered.
Not so fast, comrades! We'll teach you to inform our electorate!
meanwhile, the DNC is name-calling because that's all that's left to do.
"What... Trump says the election is rigged? Calm down folks, it's not like anyone could HACK us or anything, sheesh"
-after election-
"the russians!"
* too busy LMAO *
summary : pure bullshit
they do mention a yara signature linked to some group but thats about it,
is that, when you really need folks to believe you, it just doesn't happen.
Maybe if the US Government understood this fact, we might actually care what they have to say.
Faker than Alexa's tits at the strip joint down the street.
How convenient that a Democrat administration is trying to make it appear like foreign influence caused a Democrat candidate to lose. This is obviously a politically motivated report to discredit the incoming President and administration by making it appear that they are being backed by a somewhat hostile foreign power. The report cannot be trusted as factual, any more than the claims that voting machines were hacked in states like Michigan that don't even use electronic voting machines. It also appears to be an attempt to distract from the real foreign influence, which is the massive donations by foreign powers to the Clinton Foundation. However, Slashdot, being a highly biased crowd that has fully embraced the Democrat propaganda, will be all over criticizing Trump based on these unfounded allegations.
The US intelligence hacking center is documented enough. I understand what it is and I'm not part of that community.
Let me state the publicly unknown... the equivalent of deep blue can diagnose the location of hackers. Yes is is 1% error prone.
Actually it's more proficient that deep blue and it can program it's own viruses in real time. But... just like people it can be wrong.
What people/companies need is meta alerts.. with details!!! for reanalysis.
Difficult when the conclusion is a hunch from a recursive intelligent neural net.
Please look at what they provided. There is literally no evidence given in the document, not even an attempt. They make up some names, put them in a diagram and say that is proof. They didn't even try.
This document is one of those DNC talking points that isn't valid. Now the DNC supporters will be screaming that the FBI released proof of the attack, but not one of them will even look at it to see that the document doesn't contain anything even attempting to prove it. Its just a placeholder to give DNC supporters talking points to use. Watch over the next week how many of them cite this document is unquestionable proof and will refuse to hear anyone question it.
"The FBI and DHS have shown proof that the Russians did it."
"Are you questioning the integrity of the FBI by saying the document is lying?"
Mark my words, you will hear the above non-stop now.
It's obvious that Obama is trying to incite trouble with Russia, then leaving the problem for the incoming President and his administration. Then, if Russia retaliates and causes more trouble, the Democrats will blame Trump and try to discredit him. The whole thing is a nasty politically motivated game being played by the Democrats. I predict that the Democrats and Europeans will respond to me with ad hominem attacks rather than addressing the real issues
Crap article. Doesn't seem to have any links to the actual report itself. Can anyone throw me a bone here?
that we, the united states, have worked to skew elections and overthrow governments for nearly fifty years as though it were nothing more than another element of common foreign policy. However, whenever a foreign nation tries to influence our elections, its somehow a capital offence the world must take seriously.
If sanctions didnt work for Ukrane, they wont work here. Although they do an amazing job of allowing you to avoid the fact of the matter which is that Hillary Clinton was a turd of a candidate who rigged the parties primary, and enjoyed limited popularity outside major metropolitan areas. She never set foot in places like Wisconsin, took a gamble that LA was somehow bigger than all the midwest, and lost.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Did you borrow your foreign policy from the 80's?
DNC hacks - perks for the rich, perks for the poor, make the working class pay for it all.
This is why you lost the election.
Don't forget that Hillary! lost, BeauHD. Get over it. She's a crook and the only crime anyone is guilty of (besides Hillary! of course) is guilty of is *showing voters what a scummy bunch of crooks the Democrat party really is*. And nobody, not even the Democrats, dispute it. They're just angry that people know about it. Let that sink in.
And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly.
- Bill Ivey, on behalf of Democrats everywhere
I bet the rest of the World can pause and find this amusing, since we Americans probably sought to influence more elections the last century than any nation... looking at you Central & South America.
I'm as bewildered as the next fellow as to how we ended up our newest Commander-in-Chief, but I also believe it's time he and the former administration started working together like big boys.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
An article talking about Russia trying to influence American politics, but not mentioning George Soros or foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation...
That is propaganda.
This report was ripped to shreds yesterday.
It's mostly OWASP copypasta with recommended mitigations and a few interesting tidbits.
I'm also not clear on why this submission linked to a copy of the report. Best compare it with the original report in case there are any differences..
I agree about sanctions. Now that winter is here, it's obvious that it's the best time to invade Russia. We all know that a winter land war in Russia is guaranteed to win!
The DNC is not the US Government. Voting machines weren't hacked. While hacking the DNC might be against the law, influencing elections is not. I just want some one to tell me how the Russians releasing emails is not unlike the Koch brothers buying advertising? At least the emails were truthful. As long as business can set up their super-PACs to influence elections can we really object to a foreign government doing the same?
Pages 1-3: overview of recent activities of some hacking groups
Page 4: list of these groups
Pages 5-12: suggested security measures (copied from "Cybersecurity for dummies"?)
Page 13: contacts
Again, no evidence of Russian involvement. Or anything that can be called a detailed analysis.
Well glad to see 'yall earning your living, regurgitating state media.
https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/status/814564127230271489
Yeah, that's an official Russian twitter account.Take note of it's composition and tone. Look and sound familiar? Meme magic my friend.
Anyway, looking forward to more posts from 6 digit UID Slashdot accounts suddenly back from the grave.
HRC for internet security czar 2017!
Do note the same Guardian had to retract earlier statements.
Oh, they had to edit the ODNI statement too.
Best keep watching for more revisionist history.
Full Stop. This was not "Trump Winning" or "Russia Hacking" it was the DNC being so completely out of touch with parts of the country they knew they would win than they still don't accept that they lost there. Michael Moore nailed it in 5 Reasons Trump Will Win.
The whole election loss can come down to a few swing states. A few extra thousand voters one way or another in a state that is solid Red or Blue isn't what got Trump elected. (Just like Clinton getting massive numbers in California didn't win her the election, that's not how the rules were set before the game)
I'll just point out the 2 states I'm most familiar with, Wisconsin and Michigan. Not coincidentally both of those states they had completely wrong in the Primary as well. Both states were "Sure" Clinton states and Sanders proved them wrong. Clinton didn't visit Wisconsin once for the general election. She sent a bunch of proxies. She did hit Michigan late but more or less completely ignored it prior to their number crunchers going "eh maybe we're wrong". The Russians didn't tell her not to go to Wisconsin. The Russians didn't push Sanders over the top in the Primaries. The Russians didn't collude to keep Sanders out of the nomination. [And even IF they did, I don't think 'Those guys did something illegal to illustrate something I was doing illegal" is a justifiable defense in court]
Stein and Johnson ran in both 2012 and 2016 so you can use them as a 'control' between the candidates. Personally Michigan's Green bump in 2012 and the corresponding Democrat drop should have been an indication 4 years ago that something was up.
Wisconsin's numbers:
Republican Presidential votes:
Democratic Presidential votes:
Libertarian Presidential votes:
Green Presidential votes:
Michigan's numbers look similar.
Republican Presidential votes:
Democratic Presidential votes:
Libertarian Presidential votes:
Green Presidential votes:
"This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic LightProtocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp"
If the degree of "russian hacking" can be so easily foiled, it doesn't sound much like they were using master criminals or IT experts - just script-kiddie stuff that follows people around the internet every day. One would hope that if they have solid evidence that this originated ONLY from the russian intelligence services that they are a lot more certain of it than they appear to make out here. If that was the case, it seems like the fix is easy and well known.
One also assumes that the US intelligence services are doing exactly the same to the "bad guys" and are getting similar sorts of results.
Of course the more interesting question would be: If this is what they discovered what about all the advanced hacking that they haven't uncovered - both in techniques and targets? If an election can be hacked so easily, what are the REAL experts influencing and stealing?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
On Jan 19th, Obama says... Because we wuz hacked, the election results cannot be allowed to stand. And since Russia has shown that it can hack our elections, we can't trust any future American elections. Therefore I am suspending the electoral process, and proclaiming myself president-for-life
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
No response. Showing how corrupt the DNC is. Now that's war!
If it was the RNC, every democratic operative and journalist, but I repeat myself, would be cheering and calling it patriotic duty.
What happened that we truly know of:
1. In the summer of 2015, someone (evidence points to Russian) spear-phished passwords from unsavvy staffers on the DNC email server
2. Almost a year later, Wikileaks publishes a dump of DNC emails. It is assumed by many to have come from the previous infiltration, though there are other ways Wikileaks could have obtained the data, and no definitive link connecting the two events have so far been presented.
3. Through the email dump, the American public is able to see the DNC's inner workings, including:
- party officials colluding to hinder Bernie Sanders
- party insider helping the Clinton campaign to cheat during debate
- astroturf campaign to create illusion of spontaneous public protest against opponent
- journalists coordinating with party officials to ensure party messaging is on track
4. Some voters may have reconsidered their voting decisions, or even the decision to participate in this cycle, due to the above information.
5. Critical states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania which were assumed to be safe states for Clinton (and who as a result did not campaign aggressively there), instead fall to Trump during the general election, ensuring a GOP win.
What the press & defeated party instead want you to think:
1. Russia hacked America
2. Trump is now the President
3. "... we're not saying Trump administration is a creation of the Russian state... *wink wink nudge nudge* but the Trump administration is obviously a creation and stupid dumb puppet of the Russian state... for realz tho... also, don't listen to fake news"
There is an immense effort right now to make us take mental shortcuts, to skip certain events in our memories, to forget that certain misdeeds were done not by Russians but by Americans.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Lets see...
No evidence of a break in, WikiLeaks says it was an insider instead. FBI "proof" doesn't show any.
No evidence of collaboration, just a joke Trump made in the debate publically.
No evidence of a coverup from anyone.
So in the fact it is NOTHING like Watergate, it is exactly like Watergate.
Since you like Watergate so much, I'll give you a bonus. Article 2 of the Impeachment documents for Nixon described how he had asked about using the IRS to go after political opponents, he didn't do it and no one said he did, he just asked. Obama on the other hand actually DID use the IRS on political opponents, and still is to this day over 4 years later.
So if you want to impeach someone based on what happened in Watergate, you will have to go after Obama for doing FAR WORSE than Nixon did in getting Article 2 in his impeachment documents.
I'm betting you didn't expect a response like this and are upset and confused.
> and came too late
For the most part, I blame McConnell for this, as he threatened to make hacking investigations a partisan issue earlier this year (September or October). Of course, now that it's fashionable -- and the election is over, so there's no need for the GOP to continue to put party before country -- he's released a statement supporting investigation.
Interestingly, protecting the act of voting was deferred to state's authority in a bi-partisan statement late September (http://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000157-7606-d0b2-a35f-7e1f2aac0001 ). IMO, this will continue to be a non-issue until subtly (and not so subtly) influencing public opinion becomes more effort than actual vote hacking.
that is all
...that Obama is unpatriotic for removing them. The hypocrisy all around is stunning.
No matter what Obama does, the Right considers it wrong - even if his actions coincides with their values and goals.
I wonder why that is.
Everyone I don't like is a paid Russian shill
Exactly. Oh, I think there's a list of TOR exit nodes in there, too.
Why do our mighty Russian hackers rely on pathetic phishing scams instead of putting in hardware backdoors by intercepting new hardware in the mail? Why can't they park a TEMPEST van a few miles away and read the passwords from the keyboard? They have Snowden, who revealed the NSA's TAO programs and things like how we're tapping Merkel's phone in Germany.
Are we seriously to believe that these Russian boogeymen are on the same level as your average 419 scammer and the poor, hapless DNC couldn't defend themselves?
I also note that a lot of places talk about "election hacking." That's not at all the same thing as someone in the DNC losing their email to a common scam, there's no evidence of vote tampering and even 538 pointed out how silly that was.
is that people cast votes, and our elections are won or lost, on whether or not a candidate comes to their state and tells them what they want to hear.
It boggles my mind that it still works. We live in an age where information - real, massaged, and fabricated - is available 24/7. Yet politics is still just politics, where you don't have to be a good candidate to win. You just have to be a better shyster.
We should have a "neither" option, and if neither wins, we go back and start over.
I know why that won't work, because the entire system has been built by those who gain the most from it. And it is not the American people. It just makes me sad that as "the greatest nation" we still can't get the basics right.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Just go back to paper ballots. Problem solved forever.
Twinstiq, game news
Did you hope we would read it? Because it's clear Trump is a traitor to America. Put in by Putin . You Trump supporters, are you surprised Trumps green lighting Russian election hacks? Can you imagine any US President defending Russia hacking a US election? He's a fucking traitor.
An alternate reading of this news produces the following news:
* Government agencies and political parties have continued the discussion without a modicum of doubt on document authenticity.
* Agencies have successfully dominated news cycles on this topic and zero discussion has been made regarding DNC primaries tampering.
* No mass media has mentioned, let alone considered why, Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Communications Director Luis Miranda, Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall and Chief Executive Amy Dacey all resigned from DNC.
That is the real news in my opinion.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
More people rejected Trump. He lost. That's how democracy works. Putin voted for him and Trump defends Putin hacks but that just confirms Trumps anti US stance . GOP needs you fix their problem and save us from Russian control.
Hacking the Democrats to expose how they planned to breach election ethics, lie to the American people, and steal the election via illegal means, is not the same thing as "Hacking the Election."
They did not hack the election in any way. There is zero evidence of vote tampering of any kind by the Russians. There is only evidence that Democrats planned to enlist illegals to vote (a crime), enlist dead people to vote (a crime), and commit other criminal acts in order to truly exert illegal influence on the election.
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> Please tell me again why Russia has fallen back to kiddie level phishing scams?
Because it works. We know that Podesta got phished, phishing worked on him EVEN THOUGH HE DOUBLED CHECKED WITH HELPDESK. Someone might have been trying Tempest too, but phishing actually worked. I work for a security company, we're all security professionals. Corporate security regularly sends out test "phishing" emails to employees and lets them know if they fell for it - we fall for it all too often.
I would expect Russian intelligence to use techniques that work, and phishing worked. Tempest is fun to talk about, it's clever and technically interesting, but phishing actually got his emails.
That said, I haven't seen any evidence that the Russian government was responsible for this phishing, or that they were *not* responsible. Of course I haven't looked that hard.
If I had to guess, my guess would be that it was done be hackers who are Russian, and who are friendly with some of the Russian politicians. I would also guess that they tried a lot of approaches, including sending reasonably well-written phish emails to a lot of people in Washington. Due to an unfortunate typo by Charles Delavan saying the email was "legitimate" instead of "illegitimate", they got into Podesta's email. They didn't NEED Podesta's email, there are a dozen other targets they'd have preferred (such as HRC), but by chance Podesta is the one who fell for it. As I said, that's my guess based on 20 years in the field seeing how this stuff normally works, I don't know for sure about this instance.
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Don't worry, I covered Saudi Arabia & Qatar's influence in a comment up here with links to some of the relevant emails.
If anyone wants bonus points, start reading the bylines of all these stories and compare them to the reporters who were working for the DNC, coordinating messaging with them, having their articles reviewed and approved, etc. and feel free to tag the relevant authors as #fakenews on Twitter with a link back to Wikileaks.
I suggest starting with Glenn "I have become a hack" Thrush.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/29/details-still-lacking-on-russian-hack/
And somehow, they managed to not mention Wikileaks once in that report!
The point is that you wouldn't normally even try something like that first because it's big and obvious and noisy. It tips them off to the fact that you're in their network. The real spies are using sophisticated tools that give them long-lived access that are custom tailored to specific targets, not email blasts reminiscent of a 419 scammer.
But of course you believe that these unsophisticated, low level attacks are a sign of a nation state because a big scary enemy gives you someone to rally against, lest people instead look at the corrupt DNC establishment that sabotaged themselves by sending all the state-level campaign money to Hillary, spending twice as much as Trump, and causing all Democrats to lose one of the most important elections for them in decades.
The party would scatter if they didn't have a Russian boogeyman to rail against, after being shown to have such massive incompetence on a political level and not just a technological one.
Not one shred of credible evidence.
There is still not one shred of proof the Russian government had anything to do with these typical and script-kiddie tier phishing attacks
There is still not one shred of proof the Russian government had anything to do with these typical and script-kiddie tier phishing attacks
Maybe, maybe not. But you can't deny the fact that Trump downplays the Putin connection at every opportunity, most of his appointees have some kind of relationship with Putin, and the Republican Party will conveniently look the other way to stay in power.
Has anyone though that all of this is a total fabrication by Obama loving liberals ? Why did this only come to light after Clinton the Wildebeest "Hildebeast Clinton lost election, its far more likely likely all Crap!
So I'm a little confused. There is no evidence showing any cyber compromise of a government system, or the elections. We do know that unsavory information from the Democratic National Committee was compromised. The Democratic National Committee is a US Political entity, but is not controlled or sponsored by the US Government. If this was not an attack on the US Government or People, is Obama retaliating in the best interests of the United States, or the best interests of his Political Party, which happens to be the organization that was affected?
If it was another political organization that was compromised, such as NRA, AARP (two very large lobbyist groups), or the RNC, do you think Obama would have reacted with the same measures?
Trump has had some connection with several major world leaders, you're just fixated on Putin.
Reminder the USA is the one war mongering and destabilizing countries, and that included the Ukraine
Trump has had some connection with several major world leaders, you're just fixated on Putin.
I grew up during the Cold War. That's a good reason to be fixated on the Russians in general and Putin in particular.
Reminder the USA is the one war mongering and destabilizing countries, and that included the Ukraine
If you say so, comrade.
> But of course you believe that these unsophisticated, low level attacks are a sign of a nation state
Pretty sure I just said the exact fucking opposite. I said I've seen no evidence that the Russian government was responsible, and my guess is that most likely it was a non-government group who is friendly with some politicians.
> It tips them off to the fact that you're in their network.
Really? When you receive a phishing email saying "click here to reset your Gmail password", your first thought is "OMG the Russians are in my network!"? Really? What the hell does "tips them off to the fact that you're in their network" even mean in this case - he gave them his GMAIL password.
> corrupt DNC ... campaign money to Hillary, spending twice as much as Trump, ... all Democrats ... The party would scatter if they didn't have a Russian boogeyman
Oh I see, you're an uber fan rooting against the other team. You're not interested in paying any attention whatsoever to what's going on, you're just cheerleading. Carry on, then.
Look at all these fucking Russian Anonymous Cowards posting their propaganda all over the /. As soon as the report is publish, their FUD campaign is on it, full force.
- Anonymous Coward.
Well it didn't take slashdot long to take down my comment on this being total rubbish
but not in so many others? Is it because they do not want you seeing behind the curtain about what REALLY goes on?
The DNC all claimed that Hilary's use of a private email server to carry out classified government work (which is illegal in several different laws) was nothing and of no importance, so why does the US Government care about a private server, which was accessed using phishing of data, of a private organization, that contained no US Government data?
While at the same time the US Government acknowledges Ms Clinton's illegal use of the private server, but says no charges are due?
It seems hypocritical to me.
clearly he doesn't want Putin to come shoot him in the back of the head.
(Putin's first job with the Russian government)
People are stupid. They're not recognizing that free speech is more important than whatever Russia throws out there. The problem is not with Russia. The problem is with shitty news and stupid people believing it. It comes from all fronts, not just Russia. Russia might have interjected propaganda into the election cycle that was "fake", but every other actual news site did it too. They all twist fact, ignore facts, and just plain make shit up. Competent reporting is hard.
Your premise in denouncing the report is that the methodology employed is not as sophisticated as you expect Russia to be capable of. You should consider and acknowledge a couple of espionage realities:
The spearphishing employed against Podesta worked and was trackable. The report is not going to talk about the hacking attempts that did not work and were not trackable. As in the case of the Tempest vans you reference. Because the report does not mention Tempest vans does not mean they are not driving around.
Intelligence agencies will only release info that does not compromise their capabilities of collecting intelligence. If they were to release a transcript of a private office conversation between Putin and Paul Manafort containing details of the hacking, then Putin would realize there is a bug in his office and clear it out. The confidence of these US intelligence agencies that Russia was meddling in the recent election is buttressed by information collected that can't be released without divulging the source mechanism for its collection. What you see in the report is safe information to release.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
No it isn't. It's good reason to hate communists, no matter where they are, including the White House and the DNC. The cold war was never about Big Bad Russians. It was about the communist stranglehold on the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union communists were repudiated and folded their tent, it became stupid to act like nothing changed.
Wake the hell up. The political poles shifted. The enemy is now within, and Russia is not now a force for evil.
A -1 Vote is not a "comment being taken down". It's still there. Everyone can still read and comment on it.
> Really? When you receive a phishing email saying "click here to reset your Gmail password", your first thought is "OMG the Russians are in my network!"? Really? What the hell does "tips them off to the fact that you're in their network" even mean in this case - he gave them his GMAIL password.
You're confusing leaks, which is just sad because I wrote a guide to help people keep the three different leaks clear. This report is related to the DNC leaks which alleged the presence of RATs, etc. being found after an investigation caused by the emails being leaked to Wikileaks. Podesta was phished in a completely separate incident.
Those are two completely separate items, and there were reports of phishing leading to a malware download in some of the reports on the DNC leak, which is the incident I was talking about. I can see why you conflated that with the more famous phishing in the Podesta dump. It's really easy to conflate all this information (by design).
Ironically, even if we go to just the Podesta dump, the actual phishing email specifically claimed that Podesta should worry about Ukrainian hackers from 134.249.139.239. Quoting from the thread in relevant part:
(emphasis added)
You're also confused here:
> Due to an unfortunate typo by Charles Delavan
It's more than just a "typo" and we covered that on Slashdot when it came up (including yours truly). He also told him to do a password reset--something completely unnecessary for a fake attack. This also ignores the words of Sara Latham in that thread saying: "The gmail one is REAL" This was discussed extensively in the Slashdot story's comments.
Hackers don't normally want a target to realize they're hacked at all. And they were surely tipped off by these sloppy, noisy attacks. Podesta also had other passwords in his email that got used, including someone from 4chan messing with his Twitter account. They're probably sloppy enough to reuse passwords if they fall for this, too. Usually once they own your email they do password resets and leverage the access against other systems.
> Oh I see, you're an uber fan rooting against the other team.
I'm independent. Go check my Slashdot history for me supporting Obama back in 2008 if you like. I'm more than happy to give Colin Powell (and other Republicans, including that member of Trump's staff) their share of blame for bad OPSEC, too, as can be seen from my Slashdot history. I discussed that back here along with the entire email where Hillary & Colin discuss how to break every rule of operational security and worm their ways around the Presidential Records Act in ways that would make Nixon jealous.
Inasmuch as I am partisan, it's because I hate lying.
I hated it when Bush lied. I hate when Hillary & co. lie. Watching Obama trying to sabotage Israel and keep us from working with Russia to crush Isis murderers in Syria is perhaps the most disappointed I've been with him in his entire tenure. When Islamic militants are murdering Russian diplomats, not to mention this other murder by Isis, you have to quest
Look, we all know that getting proof of who did what is close to impossible. To demand absolute proof is close to impossible with clued up actors. What all Americans should agree on is that if their security services agree that a foreign country has been attempting to influence their election by illegal means, they should be outraged, no matter what their political persuasion.
Wake the hell up. The political poles shifted. The enemy is now within, and Russia is not now a force for evil.
You wake the hell up. The Russian gangsters that ran the Soviet Union didn't leave after the Communists fell. They're still in power and Trump is their useful idiot.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3738302/Is-Trump-Russian-agent-Kremlinologist-presents-tantalising-disturbing-dossier-presidential-hopeful-closer-links-Kremlin-appear.html
For the sake of argument, say the Russians hacked the DNC for retaliation to the CIA's and Hillary's meddling in the Ukraine. All they did was expose emails written by the DNC, Podesta and the Hill gang. Do we really want to be appalled at the Russians for exposing Hillary's dirty, sh*t stained laundry?
PHP and teenagers. What a farce.
Many Americans support torture as a means of extracting information that could save lives. A common (flawed) scenario posed by advocates of torture is: If you capture one conspirator in a plot to detonate a bomb before the bomb is deployed, wouldn't you support any means to extract information from that person to prevent the successful deployment of the bomb?
On a much less contentious point, I think that even more Americans believe that their government should be infiltrating and gathering intelligence on North Korea, China, Russia, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Cuba, Thailand, and others. I think it is viewed by most people as a duty of the government to be informed about the machinations of other countries. If you expect your government to be monitoring everyone else, and you think it perfectly acceptable for them to do so, then you must reasonably expect all other countries to attempt the same and that it is acceptable for them to do so.
So, if by whatever means--a phone tap, a bug, an informant, whatever--your government's intelligence apparatus has learned that the governor of New South Turkstein is planning a military coupe against the leader of the country, should you release that information to the public? If you did release that information, would that be meddling?
What if you learned that the governor of New South Turkstein had organized a team to subvert the coming election to guarantee a 7th term as the "elected" leader of the province? What if you had obtained the source code of the election machines, complete with the fraudulent algorithms to throw the election? Should you expose its existence to the world?
What if you had access to a trove of emails that proved a coordinated and unethical campaign to systematically subvert the democratic process of an election in a country that lionizes themselves as the leader of the democratic world? If you exposed that trove, would that be wrong?
Where are the lines here? What actions are wrong? Spying? Hacking? Monitoring? Sharing?
It is telling that millions of dollars will be spent in countless investigations to determine if, how and why the Russians obtained information about the U.S. election campaign. Meanwhile, not one eye blinks about the corruption exposed by that information. No investigation, no sanctions, no nothing.
The DNC is a private club, not a government organization. They are about as official as your local PTA. They got hacked. So what? The local county fair servers got hacked, too. They now have Chinese web pages. Nobody investigated this. They just wiped the server and started over. No FBI. No CIA. No Congressional action, nothing. They are a private organization that was extremely careless in their IT practices. Just like the DNC.
If the Russians had hacked the U.S. nuclear command and control, it would be seen as a huge mess up by the U.S. and they would be investigating themselves to figure out what went wrong. It would all be done quietly and people in the U.S. would be fired, reprimanded, etc. When a private, non-government club is hacked, the U.S. investigates Russia?
I happen to think that Putin is a scary, dangerous person. But I must say that his response to U.S. sanctions was extremely well played. Obama conducts a purge of Russians; Putin invites Americans to dinner. Russia has completely upstaged the U.S. all the way around on this one.
it's a trap for Donald Trump. It was only done to force him to repeal the sanctions (and thus reinforce his status as a pro-Soviet operator). It's a political move. The kind the Republicans have been doing successfully for decades. If the American Left want to get anything done this is the sort of thing we need to do. As the saying goes, this is how the sausage is made. Or put another way, Dems have been bringing a knife to a gun fight. Obama finally got his gun. Sad it took 'em 8 years.
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and meddling. Meddling is spreading misinformation and breaking into computer systems to use leaks to spread fear and confusion. That's what the Soviets did.
Not that we're blameless, but a) two wrongs don't make a right and b) our meddling in foreign affairs has largely been at the behest of large corporations to protect their interests. Especially in regards to crushing Socialism wherever it took root. The phrase "Banana Republic" comes from us screwing over their working class to keep Banana's cheap for Dole. It always comes down to money and being able to pay people like shit. The Trump presidency will be the same way. He'll give away billions to the top and protect their interests. Everyone else'll be left holding the bag.
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They were full of platitudes and bull shit. Hilary took their money and gave them a shit sandwich in return. Meanwhile you're guy is about to hand the Crimera over to Russia without a peep.
Maybe the world is a little more complex than you want it to be? Maybe your anti-Clinton straw men are full of shit instead of straw?
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not anyone that anyone really cared about except a few right wingers who already hated Clinton more than Satan. The point was to create an air of distrust around Clinton so her supporters would stay home. It was part of a 20 year long multi-billion dollar smear campaign that begun when it became Clear that a) Hilary was a progressive and b) she was gonna run for president. And we Americans fell for it. Hook. Line. Sinker.
That's the trouble with right wingers like yourself. You want simple answers to complex problems. Destroying a woman as talented and intelligent as Hilary was a complex, difficult and expensive process. There's no one answer. I know you don't like to hear that. You and 60 million other Americans who just drove us over a cliff...
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13 pages... more like 3 pages followed by nonsense and boiler plate security "advice".
The pages offer only assertions unsupported by any provided evidence and describe techniques that are widely used by everyone. They don't even bother to explain linkages between APT xx and the Russian government.
I don't trust TLA's. They have a long history of being weasels and publically selling lies to support themselves and their masters political agendas. My view the government should either provide actual evidence to support its assertions or STFU.
The issue is not WHO hacked evil documents from the DNC
The issue is not HOW they hacked evil documents from the DNC
The issue IS that the DNC was doing evil stuff
Hollywood notions? I've been talking about tailored access program of the NSA here and things like TEMPEST that are well known, actual spying tools. Here's the kind of actual Russian spying we discovered back in the 50s. Can you tell me where Hollywood plays into any of this?
The burden of proof to say "it's Russia" is on you. Pray tell what special knowledge do you have, when you're apparently not even familiar with this stuff? Go on, please tell me about your deep knowledge of nation state hacking. It's sad when I have more classified info than you guys (linked above) and your side is claiming we can rely on assurances they won't prove. Oh, don't get me wrong--they will come out with some document next month, but I expect more BS based on their poor track record so far.
Looking at actual nation state hacks, actual nation states try for durable compromise of their targets,. The statue lasted 7 years. We can also see that because the TAO hardware with backdoors that survive being wiped and the stealthy exfiltration mechanisms. Getting 2 days worth of access to something (as with Podesta's Gmail) is not worth much to a nation state. They'd rather compromise an insider at Google or something and get access to Gmail in its entirety (the NSA likely has that access, incidentally). Hacks are most often caught inserting or exfiltrating the data, which is why they try to minimize the time they have to spend doing that.
Frankly only a complete moron would think that Russia has to stoop to 419-style phishing to hack a target (see elsewhere in this story for abundant evidence of this). Nation states target things like ISPs and large providers so they don't have to do silly one-off hacks most of the time. Inasmuch as you can convince us the DNC is completely incompetent for falling for this (perhaps the only thing I can agree on), I'm glad they're not running the country.
With the facts so badly against you, I can only wonder why you refuse to reconsider your biases here.
Why would the Russians attempt to defeat Hillary when it has been so well established that she can simply be bought off?
After all, it didn't take much $$ to get her to sell them our uranium.
I don't have any actual reply, but I just wanted to let you know I read your post.
Big deal, I'm older than you, youngster.
You are so ill-informed you think the Cold War is still on and that the CIA didn't work destabilize Ukraine government?
Maybe you think the USA is leading the fight against ISIS too?
You think the USA didn't destabilize the middle east and cause the creation of ISIS with its ham-fisted pointless invasion of Iraq and its aftermath?
You think the USA didn't destabilize the middle east and cause the creation of ISIS with its ham-fisted pointless invasion of Iraq and its aftermath?
George W. left office eight years ago. It's time to move on.
Obama has done a great job of carrying on the Bush/Cheney agenda
The whole hacking hullabaloo is Fake News and no-one else in the whole wide world gives a damn about it.
Obama has done a great job of carrying on the Bush/Cheney agenda
As a moderate conservative, I absolutely agree.
Lots of russian dick suckers here. Funny, seeing what russia does to gays.
But then there are the putin being gay rumors...
Meanwhile you're guy is about to hand the Crimera over to Russia without a peep.
Krushchev handed it to Ukraine in 1954...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and Putin took it back.
The USA can fight this from the moral high ground after it hands back territory it grabbed from around its own borders.
USB, USB, USB!
The Obama admin has the NSA spying on internet traffic, theoretically watching data packets passing to/from important places, etc. This administration also claims to have world-class cyber security and cyber warfare capacity - remember Biden bragging months ago about our capacity to strike back? This administration demands that all Americans allow themselves to spied upon as a trade-off for the wonderful cyber protection we theoretically get in exchange. Apparently we have all surrendered our privacy for protection so weak it cannot even stop a simple phishing expedition of something the president would clearly think is more vital than the stuff average people worry about.
So, WHY should we believe the Obama admin failed to see all this supposed hacking of the Democrat's vital infrastructure and failed to defend against the hacks, failed to block/stop them, and failed to mitigate the effects through an entire year-long election cycle?
Also, Occam's Razor applies: Trump e-mails were not leaked for the simplest of reasons - Trump does not use e-mail (there was no conspiracy with Putin to protect Trump). The RNC was not hacked-and-dumped for a simple reason: GOP Chairman Reince Prebus invited the FBI into the RNC to get their help and advice in protecting the RNC systems beginning over a year ago and the FBI says there is no evidence the RNC was hacked. The simple explanation here involved no foil hats... one party was serious about cyber security and the other party was arrogant and believed it was so tech-savvy and superior that it paid little attention to the security it clearly needed if it wanted to keep all its dishonesty and dirty little secrets.... SECRET.
She wasn't paid for a speech. What is Hillary Clinton going to say for twenty minutes that is going to be worth $225K plus expenses to a room full of bank employees?
The money is a donation. The speech makes it employment and not corruption.
After the horses all left the barn almost two months ago....
I read the report. It's extremely vague; mostly quotes a Microsoft document on generally securing your shit. It doesn't actually put forth ANY hard evidence of ANY hack, Russian or otherwise -- closest it comes is citing a snippet of source code of unverified origin.
I hate to cite McAfee since he's such a nutjob, but I think he's completely correct here:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/...
====
"Any hacker capable of breaking into something is extraordinarily capable of hiding their tracks. If I were the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it I would use Russian language within the code. I would use Russian techniques of breaking into organisations so there is simply no way to assign a source for any attack -- this is a fallacy." He argued the report was part of a ploy to "manipulate our opinions".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Has anyone else noted a strange thing with Windows Defender updates lately?
It seems that there are a rash of individual updates from MS for Defender lately.
Would this be actual beneficial updates to the detection abilities?
Or, state-sponsored (i.e. government OR corporate) tweaks to spy on us subjects?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
That post was interesting, thanks. One of the co-founders of the company I work for is a Russian-speaking gentleman who came to the US from Ukraine, I think. We had offices in Ukraine until recently. It would be interesting to hear what Misha thinks of all this.
My take on this is that 99% of the posters are paid Russian trolls. Well, maybe not 99%, but who else would have time to obsess over this for so long...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
If Russian state actors did not in fact do this, they now have a very strong incentive to reveal who did or to present evidence showing otherwise, and they certainly have the means. My guess is that will be the next move. Place your bets.