Days Before Election: Macron Campaign Says It Is the Victim of Massive, Coordinated Hacking Campaign (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: A large trove of emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday, a little more than a day before voters go to the polls to choose the country's next president in a run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen. Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or whether the emails were genuine. In a statement, Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked. "The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said. In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said that the documents released online only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation." "The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk," it added.

Comments

Putin at it again?

[Rick Schumann]

So far as I can see, it's no big secret that Putin would like to destabilize the EU, especially NATO countries, because a weak EU/NATO means it's easier for him to implement his long-term agenda.

Re:Putin at it again?

[parallel_prankster]

They funny thing is Le Penn has also filed a complaint about hacking by the "extreme left"! So whether that is supposed to attack the credibility of Macron's accusations or add to them, we dont know.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well duh.

If anything bad happens then it absolutely must have been Russia and Putin, maybe NK & Kim Ching chong, or ISIS "Terriorists" **gasp**

There simply isn't and single other plausible explanation.

Re: Putin at it again?

[MightyMartian]

So you don't think Russia has something to gain by a pack of Euroskeptics taking over major European countries? And this is hardly the first accusation laid against Russia in this regard.

Just how many of these hacks are going to have to happen before we all finally admit that Moscow is still the enemy of the West, that where it has no hope in hell of over economically or militarily dominating the Western alliance, it can try destabilize Western countries and the alliance itself.

Re:Putin at it again?

[mjwx]

They funny thing is Le Penn has also filed a complaint about hacking by the "extreme left"! So whether that is supposed to attack the credibility of Macron's accusations or add to them, we dont know.

The thing is, the extreme left... or the left in general don't have a candidate in this election. Marcon is centre right (he's a banker), Le Pen is extreme right.

France is centre right leaning in general though, so I expect this to be a victory for Marcon, sadly not enough of a victory to put Front National out of its misery.

I wouldn't trust anything coming out of Le Pen to be accurate or grounded in reality. She's basically following Trumps strategy of attacking her opponent instead of announcing policy but in a far less competent manner (yes, I didn't think it was possible either).

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But heavily state controlled outlets like RT and Sputnik said...."

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

This Putin guy sounds like a jerk!

Re:Putin at it again?

[ichthus]

Anyone who's against the forced resettlement of Muslim rape gangs in their county is also against the EU and globalization.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not go Russian to conclusions.

Captcha: Vilifies

Re:Putin at it again?

[Applehu Akbar]

"She's basically following Trumps strategy of attacking her opponent..."

Thereby becoming the first political candidate in history to do so.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Obama said that no serious person believes an election can be hacked. He went on record as saying you people aren't serious, and he is the best leader in the history of mankind. He said you people lie. You people lie constantly and make thinking people want to die.

Re: Putin at it again?

[MightyMartian]

Russia has a lot of useful idiots in the West. Some, I think, just don't want to admit the candidate or political movement they favor is either the unwitting beneficiary of Russian hacking "largess", or, potentially much more sinister, is actively courting it. I view these people as just a more brainless breed of partisan. But I do think there are some who are actually rather sympathetic to Russia, who admire the more autocratic leanings of the current Russian government. The latter, when they gain positions of influence, while they may not be out and out agents or moles, are still fairly dangerous.

Le Pen's political movement, in particular, has historically pro-Fascist leanings, and most certainly views Russia in a fairly friendly light.

Re: Putin at it again?

[misexistentialist]

how many times has the USA been caught hacking? NSA no doubt had a copy of those emails, maybe before the spellcheck could execute. Of course the USA just hacks for computer science, never uses the information to influence anything.

Re:Putin at it again?

[rtb61]

As far as I can see, telling the bloody truth about what is going on in political party caimpagns, should be compulsary under law and attempting to keep it secret should be considered a criminal act punishable by an extended custodial sentence.

Those fuckers have no problem prying into our lives after they are elected and we have every single fucking right to pry into the tiniest detail of their election campaign and that should be mandated by law.

What an absurd notion, people running for election for public office have the right to keep secrete what is really going on in their political campaign, how fucking insane is that. No more secrets, no more dual campaigns one private and one public, no more right to allow basically corrupt political campaigns, no one has a right to private political campaigns when running for public office. By law all political campaign communications should be public and live, no more back room deals, no mare tax haven junkets where the deals are made and the bribes paid. Every single political campaign communication should be public, every email, every call, every meeting, not more election secrets.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Obama is smart, and he confirmed that Russia couldn't hack elections in other countries. People that are racist disagree and thing Russia is doing this. That is so damn racist that it makes me want to die.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it's the international (Russian and other) billionaires, buying services from the organized crime in their efforts to break and isolate parts of the EU and other economical groups in order to destabilize their less protected currencies for profit. The political aspects are just a convenient smoke screen, the opium of the non-thinking and former generals, dreaming of power. Or liberal amounts of libertine gay sex in the liberated city of Libertania, while singing the songs of freedom and liberty during messianic threesomes.

This comment should make any Lavrov a happy Lavrov. Lavrov.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin's actions are self defeating. Instead of getting a friendly US executive he now has to deal with one that cannot and will not do anything that puts Russia in a friendly light. Russia gets no sanction relief. The US slaps Syria up side the head and all Russia can only stand there and watch it happen. The last thing Putin needs is for the US to take a more offensive posture in Syria and unmask just how ineffectual Russia's military support of Syria really is. He has already been embarrassed by Turkey potting one of their jets.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Obama said no serious person believes that.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Obama said that no serious person believes an election can be hacked.

He did say that, but no thinking person believed him.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. He said that but no thinking person believes that.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Obama knew that the Russians didn't interfere with our election.

Re:Putin at it again?

[AmiMoJo]

Politicians that try to emulate Trump tend to fail because they can't bring themselves to go all in. They just can't let go and say that stupid shit that puts them firmly in the post-truth realm. Can't bring themselves to mock the disabled or the other candidates' spouses, proving they will say anything with no filtration.

Basically they can't let go of their dignity and throw themselves 100% into the role. Trump can only do it because it's not a role for him, it's just him.

Re: Putin at it again?

[scatbomb]

Wow, gullible.

So you don't think Russia has something to gain by a pack of Euroskeptics taking over major European countries? And this is hardly the first accusation laid against Russia in this regard.

And you don't think anyone has something to gain by implicating Russia in hacking elections?

Just how many of these hacks are going to have to happen before we all finally admit that Moscow is still the enemy of the West, that where it has no hope in hell of over economically or militarily dominating the Western alliance, it can try destabilize Western countries and the alliance itself.

Well it took 1 for you apparently. What kind of "hacker" doesn't know about VPNs and woudn't buy a new keyboard? The fact that a Russian ISP was involved and a cyrillic keyboard screams "fake." Nonetheless, I'm sure the "Russian hackers" will continue until everyone in the West is screaming for Putin's head and witch hunts are commonplace. Convenient.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're leaving out the end of the quote. Coincidentally the only part which doesn't have a cool quip answer nor is a question that ever gets answered by members of the right and far-right.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Kabukiwookie]

So, nobody else has any benefit from the EU being in economic trouble, like dealing with refugee streams coming through Libya and from Syria?

Right, it's Russia again. It's not like the EU is the largest competitor to the US, next to China... right?

So who was it again, that bombed Libya back to the stone-age, and who was supporting the head-chopping moderate rebels in Syria? That was Russia! O wait, no it wasn't.

Re:Putin at it again?

[penandpaper]

Is this like when Trend Micro said that Russia was hacking the French election and oh by the way they "had no proof of a Russian role".

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Re:Putin at it again?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Kind of like how the North Koreans have announced their discovery of a plot to assassinate Kim using a biochemical weapon, you mean?

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is a politician to run on this platform.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Carewolf]

Russia has a lot of useful idiots in the West. Some, I think, just don't want to admit the candidate or political movement they favor is either the unwitting beneficiary of Russian hacking "largess", or, potentially much more sinister, is actively courting it. I view these people as just a more brainless breed of partisan. But I do think there are some who are actually rather sympathetic to Russia, who admire the more autocratic leanings of the current Russian government. The latter, when they gain positions of influence, while they may not be out and out agents or moles, are still fairly dangerous.

Le Pen's political movement, in particular, has historically pro-Fascist leanings, and most certainly views Russia in a fairly friendly light.

Front National and Le Pen is officially endorsed and financially supported by Putin. and officially endorse Putin back.The favourable light is official

Re: Putin at it again?

[guacamole]

I think the problem with all the people, politicians, and governments accusing the Russian state of hacking for the most part think that to charge Kremlin with such a crime it is sufficient only to make a case that Kremlin would benefit from it, and then pretty much stopping there.

Take for example the break-ins into the DNC server in the summer of 2016. Politicians (mostly the democrats or pro-war wing of republicans) and highly politically motivated executives fed us the lie that "17 intelligence agencies agree that Russians interfered in the US presidential elections". And yet it turns out that none of those agencies studied the DNC computers because DNC would not let FBI touch them, so the forensics were outsourced to Crowdstrike, which was paid by DNC, an interested party.

CrowdStrike's argument that Russian state was behind the hack lingered on a couple of veery lose assumptions, at least one of which was already debunked.

But to prove the interference in the election, it is not sufficient to prove that Russian state broke into someone's server (heck, many many states are hacking into each others systems as I type this), but to prove the _interference_ in the election, one also needs to show the evidence that it was Russians who leaked the email archive, and as far as I recall, we haven't heard of any evidence implicating the Russians in that. In fact, there have been already been parties, other than Russians, claiming that they leaked the emails to wikileaks, Julian Assange also denied it was Russians.

Anyways. all this talk that "Russia hacked the USA elections" is simply an insult to the intelligence of the American citizens so far.

Re: Putin at it again?

[guacamole]

Let's just call everyone who doesn't agree with the mainstream media a useful idiot, or wait, a Kremlin bot. Wait, it has already been done:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the devil is in the details.
Russia is pushing money into pretty much every alt-right party in Europe.
It isn't just random local politics. It is a very specific strategy with a clear agenda.
Le Pen racist agenda is just there to get cheap votes, but then you get bullshit like Marine Le Pen backs Vladimir Putin and denies invasion of Crimea
There is no reason for a traditional alt-right party to do statements like that. It is pretty clear who is pulling the strings.

You will see similar statements from other alt-right parties in Europe, not just that they think that Russia invading Ukraine is a non-issue but also where they vote against defending their own borders, wants to leave NATO and disband EU.
Russia don't want to have to deal with them all at once. It's much easier to pick off countries one at a time while promising to not go further. (Until they have secured the area they are currently invading.)

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

"For all American readers, both candidates are extremely liberal"

For all American fascists, both candidates are extremely liberal.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a heads up, comrade, it's only Krembots who talk about "head-chopping moderate rebels in Syria".

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The second duh - She's FOLLOWING Trump!

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you hadn't noticed Trump is doing a pretty decent job so far.

Despite 91% of all media coverage being negative.

Marcon is a politician, he walks like one, talks like one, and lies like one. I can see that all the way from America.

Re:Putin at it again?

[reboot246]

His middle name must be "Ras".
Vladimir Ras Putin . . . . Vladimir Rasputin!

Re: Putin at it again?

[smallfries]

But we have always been at war with Russia. Oceania have always been our sworn ally.

If the security level around Macron's campaign was of a high level then it would lend some evidence to a "state backed super hacker". Then, sure, why not the keyboard is probably a plant. Or, like in the real world, Macron's campaign might have had the shittest security available (like the dude from the DNC) and the "hack" could have been some spotty teenager for shits and giggles.

Sometimes the simplest answer works... (probably worth pointing out that this doesn't weaken your argument against the shrill sounding GP).

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you honestly think anyone cares what the fuck you have to say about anything? You and your anti-human ilk are just scared shitless that common sense takes back over before you can fully dismantle the foundations free societies were built on and enslave humanity for all time through communism, destruction of culture, and sexual abuse.

You're on the losing team, and you motherfucking know it, don't you?

Re:Putin at it again?

[Highdude702]

because polling has always been 100% accurate.. lol

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not 100% accurate, don't use it at all?

Re: Putin at it again?

[dnaumov]

Why do you have to lie so much? Both are leftists. You have to take quite a lot of drugs to imagine Le Pen as right, let alone far-right.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

marcon is a banker, which means he is a jew, so he OBVIOUSLY isnt right or left

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

so let me see if i understand correctly, Hillary and obama go to the middle east, destroy every country that was functioning perfectly fine, creates and funds isis, then those terrorists move into europe making it tens of times more dangerous for me (and hundreds if i were a woman), and I, as a european, must fear uncle vlad and consider the american foreign policy to be healthy and good for me???

are you out of your MIND????

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

A leftist building on a legacy of her holocaust denying father, running under the banner uniting the Nazis worldwide, who wants to eliminate personal freedoms and goes against everything the left believes. Sounds left to me.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is, as an European, there IS a lot of growing pro-Russia sentiment, a lot of it built on the back of pro-Russian "news" sites (think Alex Jones, but online, and even more blatantly lying in some cases). Yes, some people are useful idiots buying into confirmation bias. I'm not talki g about everyone who questions the big media (especially since some were shown to be manipulated too), but they exist.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Highdude702]

yea i remember the "security" companies saying that the russians definitely hacked the election, and then about 2 lines from the end of the article it says they found no proof/items they could trace or track in the hacks. i wish i could remember what company that was. it was ran here on slashdot if you guys want to find it. but anybody that actually read it could tell it was an assumption by people that hated trump and wanted hillary to win(most of the tech industry from what i see lol).

Re: Putin at it again?

[Gr8Apes]

Wow, gullible.

...

Well it took 1 for you apparently. What kind of "hacker" doesn't know about VPNs and woudn't buy a new keyboard? The fact that a Russian ISP was involved and a cyrillic keyboard screams "fake." Nonetheless, I'm sure the "Russian hackers" will continue until everyone in the West is screaming for Putin's head and witch hunts are commonplace. Convenient.

And that proves what, exactly? You can't look at this incident in a vacuum. Look at what's been going on in the past decade, or do you believe all the Putin adversaries disappearing and dying and Russian soldiers and weaponry in the Ukraine are mere "coincidence"? Russia is on an offensive, now figure out exactly what the end goals are. Propping up the EU or destabilizing it? You can do it, I know you can.

Re: Putin at it again?

[guruevi]

One man's offense is the others defense. We know the NSA and CIA have been trying to get rid of Putin and both the official US and EU channels have called for 'fair elections' and oversight in Russia which both of those have long histories of removing and installing their own friendly governments, including dictators through influencing or outright rigging elections.

Even if Russia did it (again, no evidence), shouldn't we be the example of democracy? Then why are we afraid of having a little oversight on corrupt politicians in our elections?

Re:Putin at it again?

[Mashiki]

No shit. He's up by 30 points in the latest polls. He will win in a landslide.

You mean that poll that has no polling data, no information on who was selected, no methodology and so on? In other news, Hillary Clinton has a 98% chance of winning. I saw it on CNN, so it has to be true!

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you reconcile the cognitive dissonance caused by the videos of Trump asking russia to hack the DNC?

Re: Putin at it again?

[runnymedecourt]

You have excellent eyesight sir.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

eh?

In France's political spectrum (and in Europe generally), Le Pen pulls very heavily right.

The Front National is very much a right wing organisation.

Le Pen is, like her father, a right-wing nationalist.

Re: Putin at it again?

[scatbomb]

Who's looking at this in a vacuum? You didn't go back far enough. The U.S. and Russia have had an adversarial relationship going back to the Bolshevik revolution, but the U.S. has always been the aggressor. We bombed Japan with nukes even after their Navy was obliterated and couldn't go on the offensive. Why? To show Russia our new toy. Then after WWII we formed NATO, which sits on Russia's doorstep. We made allies with Germany, the war with whom cost Russia 14 million lives. We kept subs and planes flying around Russia nonstop during much of the cold war. Gorbachev offered to give up their nuclear arsenal in exchange for limits on our missile defense, but Reagan refused because it would end his "star wars" program. It goes on like this. The U.S. is the architect of our poor relationship with Russia. You'd put it past the deep state to implicate them in electioneering? This is just another game for us to play. What does Russia have to gain by partaking in activities obvious to even you that would destabilize NATO? They're already panicking and pointing the finger as anyone could have guessed would happen, clearly Russia has not benefitted. But it's not according to Russia's plan, it's the U.S. deep state who wants two things: 1. Le Pen to lose and 2. more evidence that Russia is rigging elections.

Re: Putin at it again?

[scatbomb]

But we have always been at war with Russia.

Yeah, except for that time when Russia lost 14 million lives in the fight against the Nazis and saved Europe. If the Nazis had taken Russia we'd all be speaking German.

Oceania have always been our sworn ally. If the security level around Macron's campaign was of a high level then it would lend some evidence to a "state backed super hacker".

Completely different from the MO in the interference with the U.S. election, which was apparently some trojan contained in a fake "software update" that the DNC admin fell for.

Then, sure, why not the keyboard is probably a plant. Or, like in the real world, Macron's campaign might have had the shittest security available (like the dude from the DNC) and the "hack" could have been some spotty teenager for shits and giggles.

Yep

Sometimes the simplest answer works... (probably worth pointing out that this doesn't weaken your argument against the shrill sounding GP).

The simplest sounding answer works sometimes, sure. But evaluating "what is the simplest solution" is no way to investigate. You have to look at MO, patterns, evidence...

Re: Putin at it again?

[scatbomb]

In fact, there might have been no hack at all. It could be a "false flag" to distract from Macron's recent financial revelations.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

But we have always been at war with Russia.

Yeah, except for that time when Russia lost 14 million lives in the fight against the Nazis and saved Europe. If the Nazis had taken Russia we'd all be speaking German.

I'm going to call B.S. here. Go ask the Poles how they felt about the Russians "saving Europe from the Nazis." Stalin was quite happy to cut deals with Hitler right up until Hitler turned on him (and caught him totally off-guard). This included things like splitting Poland between them, Hitler agreeing to let Stalin gobble up a bunch of territory like the Baltic States and Bessarabia, and then turning a blind eye towards Stalin invading Finland. The western allies at the time certainly didn't think Russia was on their side, either - while they never declared war, many viewed Stalin as an Axis ally in 1940, on par with Italy (who didn't join the war until mid-1940) or Japan (who joined the war in December 1941).

Had Germany not attacked Russia, Russia probably would have eventually gone to war with Germany, but it certainly wouldn't have been for altruistic reasons - it would be to take advantage of a weakened Germany, and seize territory in Eastern Europe (sort of like ehttps://politics.slashdot.org/story/17/05/05/2342205/days-before-election-macron-campaign-says-it-is-the-victim-of-massive-coordinated-hacking-campaign#xactly how they did at the end of the war).

Now, I think Russians individually and as a people/culture in general are pretty awesome, but their rulers have a strong tendency to not be our friends, nor should we ever delude ourselves into thinking that they're being altruistic, now or then.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you describe Le Pen and FN? Far-right is not a recent term, it simply refers to a spectrum of political views from right to left. Claiming bias when someone describes a party/candidate on the rightest of right side of the spectrum as far-right is like claiming bias when someone describes a poodle as a dog.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

You and OP have no clue what you're talking about. You have not looked thoroughly through the security analysis. The very same groups that are brazenly attacking western democracy are the very same that have been attacking Russia's enemies since 2007 going right back to Estonia using the same tools and tactics. In fact the US government even knows most of the who's and pretty much all of the how's of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear. The Russians aren't even going to great lengths to hide their tracks, you'd have to be an idiot not to see through this if you actually looked at the publicly available details and had any understanding of information security. Security companies have testified to congress on this, they've put their reputations on the line over this, are you willing to do the same?

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

US enemies and victims of US hacking efforts have the right to be pissed about being attacked just like we have the right to be pissed when Russia tries to hack western democracies. If you are with the freedom loving western democracies that have done so much to advance humankind on this planet than you should care when the enemy is at your door and threatens the very way of life you are so quick to throw under the bus.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

nice string of strawmen and factual inaccuracies you've presented there. Why are you all for transparency in elections through clearly illegal means?

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is you never hear any country complaining about a US intelligence agency hacking their servers. The US certainly didn't need to bother with hacking any European systems because the European countries gave the US access to all the data they had amassed in their own domestic surveillance operations. Complaints about China and Russia occur on a weekly basis. Some accusations are legitimate and some are not.

So the question is why don't you hear any reciprocal accusations levied against the US. Does it mean the US is just not trying to infiltrate the systems in countries such as China and Russia? Does it mean the US is trying but never succeeds so therefore there are is nothing for China or Russia to complain about. Does it mean the US is so deep into the Russia and China systems that China or Russia don't even realize how powned they really are? However, in the end, the US, China, and Russia are all novices when compared to Israel. It would not be a big surprise if Israel already has the nuclear launch codes for the 3 super powers.

And going forward. If a political party or candidate is not capable of securing their data they should be automatically disqualified from running. Even minimal precautions could have prevented the majority of these infiltration attempts.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

To suggest that Stalin and the Soviet Union were innocent victims of the escalations that lead to and perpetuated the Cold War stretches reality so far as to question your motivations for writing such nonsense. And that doesn't even get into the cognitive dissonance turning into incoherent ramblings that your post ends with.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Gr8Apes]

Who's looking at this in a vacuum? You didn't go back far enough. The U.S. and Russia have had an adversarial relationship going back to the Bolshevik revolution, but the U.S. has always been the aggressor. We bombed Japan with nukes even after their Navy was obliterated and couldn't go on the offensive. Why? To show Russia our new toy.

Revisionist much? We had a non-recognition policy until 1933, nothing more. Certainly not adversarial. In fact, it was even semi-friendly from 1933-1947. As for bombing Japan, that was done to prevent a recurrence of the relatively heavy losses the US had experienced in fighting the Japanese island to island. The US had no need to demonstrate the bomb, as the tests themselves were certainly evidence of the capability.

Then after WWII we formed NATO, which sits on Russia's doorstep. We made allies with Germany, the war with whom cost Russia 14 million lives.

First, Russia lost over 20M lives in WWII. Second, we conquered Germany with Russia's help and split the country between the victors for rebuilding. NATO wasn't on the doorstep of Russia. If you recall, there were a whole slew of countries between Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands and the official Russian border besides just Germany and Austria. Russia, however, took the countries that it was responsible for post WWII and effectively absorbed them into it's own empire as states rather than shepherding them back to self rule.

What does Russia have to gain by partaking in activities obvious to even you that would destabilize NATO? ...

Um, let's see - complete the invasion and reclamation of Ukraine, for starters. At this point, Crimea is likely never going to be returned to the Ukraine, but, given the history of that particular piece of territory, I'm not sure anyone can make enough claims to start a real war over it. The Ukraine, however, is a different beast. Then there's Iran/Syria and the rest of the Middle East, as well as a few other countries floating about that Putin would more than likely love to own.

But it's not according to Russia's plan, it's the U.S. deep state who wants two things: 1. Le Pen to lose and 2. more evidence that Russia is rigging elections.

I'm not sure Trump wants Le Pen to lose. Everyone that's not an Alt-right sock puppet does, however, and not just in the US. As for Russia influencing elections, that appears to be a cost Putin is willing to pay to fray the alliances that stand in his empire's way.

Note that while the US may have been the only country that dropped a nuclear bomb on another country, it is also the only country that effectively given control of countries back to their people after taking military control of the previous ruling parties. Russia has never done that willingly. In fact, Russia has only done it once, when it collapsed.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Gr8Apes]

One man's offense is the others defense. We know the NSA and CIA have been trying to get rid of Putin and both the official US and EU channels have called for 'fair elections' and oversight in Russia

There's a difference between revealing one's misdeeds and fabricating them. Also, Russia has no non-partisan monitoring of their elections. Trump is evidence that the US has fair elections. That the Russians meddled and Comey swung it doesn't detract from the fact that the elections themselves were fair.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you honestly think anyone cares what the fuck you have to say about anything?"

Just as you were saying

Re:Putin at it again?

[mrclevesque]

"In case you hadn't noticed Trump is doing a pretty decent job so far."

Well, he hasn't dropped his pants yet.

Re:Putin at it again?

[mrclevesque]

That was uncalled for, I'm sorry, and I apologize for implying he was a womanizer.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Kabukiwookie]

Just in case you do come back to check your handy work.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-backed-syrian-rebels-behead-8451881

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-president-elect-donald-trump-support-assad-putin-syria-remove-rebel-backing-a7413346.html

Sure. It's all fake news. I must be an evil Russian sitting behind my keyboard in the Kremlin... this never happened.

You're a fucking moron.

Re: Putin at it again?

[guruevi]

Why are you against transparency at any cost?

Re: Putin at it again?

[guruevi]

If it's fabricated, there should be no need for concern, every party involved has its propaganda, people will choose who they choose regardless of opponent propaganda.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump put out policy, what you suggest as history is untrue:

1. Secure border, deport criminal aliens and build wall
2. Renegotiate bad trade deals, bring companies, capital and jobs back to US
3. Lower taxes and get rid of regulations that impact job creation
4. Undo The ACA (Obamacare)
5. Put justices on Supreme Court from list he published during election
6. Reduce EPA and other agency regulatory powers
7. Remove taxpayer money from funding Planned Parenthood.
8. Support Gun Rights.
9. Support Military.
10. Turn away from globalist agenda and work for national objectives. America First.

I voted for him because of 1-6 and 8-10. I think he's doing a decent job considering the machine he is up against.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Rick Schumann]

Exactly. Look at all the crap Putin took for Ukraine. If Western Europe was in disarray and NATO was weak, maybe nobody would have even noticed.
Personally I think Putin would like to bring back a version of the Soviet Union. NATO and a strong West are the line in the sand. Erase those, and he can build his empire. That's what I think he's thinking. Sabotaging U.S. and other elections is part of the process of dismantling the organization that stands in his way. Either willingly or unwittingly I believe Trump was 'chosen' to be POTUS by Russian hacking influences because he's a destabilizing force. We'll (unfortunately) have to wait and see if Trump is a willing partner in this or if he's really just the buffoon he appears to be.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Rick Schumann]

Or State-backed Russian hackers are operating openly while Moscow claims "..oh, those are criminal organizations, we have nothing to do with them". Who's naive now?

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, grow up.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Cederic]

Wait, that was ever in doubt?

Re: Putin at it again?

[Cederic]

How the fuck is Le Pen representing an 'alt right' party?

Shit, I hate political labelling and even I'd describe them as 'far right'. There's nothing fucking alt about it.

You'd have a lot more credibility if you didn't pick on the label du jour and weave it into your narrative. Try letting basic facts and objective interpretation do their thing, you'd be fucking amazed how effective it is.

Shit, Macron is probably going to win today because the French do understand Le Pen's politics and don't want them. There's a protest vote, and there's social suicide.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Cederic]

Sorry but anybody that views the formation of NATO as an aggressive act against Russia has no fucking credibility at all.

You'll be telling me next that Russia invaded Ukraine because of the Americans, not because Putin's an insecure twat that wants a nice holiday home on the Black Sea.

The US does misbehave but Russia is culturally exceedingly insecure - shit, look at the public horror of homosexuality; there's a blatant sign of people lacking confidence in themselves.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Cederic]

Which videos? I don't recall that request ever being made.

I do recall him responding to an allegation of Russian hacking by suggesting that they may have more success finding missing emails than the incompetence malicious corrupt fucks that "lost" them, but that wasn't a request to 'hack the DNC'.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can play Fallout if you want a simulation of your paradise.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if she had 98% chance? Are you trying to prove the opposite with an example? Weak logic.

Re: Putin at it again?

[smallfries]

The simplest sounding answer works sometimes, sure. But evaluating "what is the simplest solution" is no way to investigate. You have to look at MO, patterns, evidence...

But there is a single really key concept; only one thing that absolutely must be understood: arguing on slashdot is not, in fact, a form of "investigation" at all. It is just another layer of bullshit.

You have to look at MO, patterns, evidence...

None of which are accessible as secondary sources on the internet to armchair "investigators".

Re:Putin at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU and NATO are already weak. Putin simply annexed the Crimea knowing they wouldn't do anything about it.

Re:Putin at it again?

[Uberbah]

So far as I can see, it's no big secret that Putin would like to destabilize the EU

Destabilize Russia's biggest customer, because reasons.

especially NATO countries, because a weak EU/NATO means it's easier for him to implement his long-term agenda

....of not continuing to be encircled by an alliance of hypocritical warmongers who continue to blame, threaten and sanction Russia because....the United States overthrew the government of Ukraine.

Re: Putin at it again?

[Gr8Apes]

If it's fabricated, there should be no need for concern, every party involved has its propaganda, people will choose who they choose regardless of opponent propaganda.

And this is the crux of the matter, because research has shown that a significant subset of people are easily influenced by something as minor as name order on a ballot, skewing to the first name. Propaganda is much more influential, and has been shown to mislead entire populations. Look at North Korea for an extreme example. Its citizens literally believe that all other countries outside of NK are out to murder all NK citizens.

Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't it?

[quax]

Now who could possibly want to damage Macron, other than the Le Pen campaign?

Well it can't be the Russsians

[Hognoxious]

It's not the Russians. They don't have a horse i this fight.

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[mi]

Of course, they do — financed by Russia Le Pen wants to lift sanctions against Kremlin and endorsed Crimea "occupendum" as a legitimate transfer of Ukraine's land to Russia.

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[Rei]

I was about to make a joke about your mixed metaphor "horse in this fight", only to discover that horse fighting is apparently a real thing.

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[thegarbz]

They don't have a horse i this fight.

Le Pen wins, the entire EU will likely collapse. The Russians don't have a horse in this fight. They have the whole barn and every living create in it in this fight.

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[Anonymous Coward]

Joking, right? Just in case I'm wrong: Putin wins if the EU gets weakened. A Le Pen can potentially seriously weaken the EU. Hence a Le Pen win is in Putin's interests. Just like a Trump win served Putin's interests by weakening the US. Just like Brexit was in Putin's interests because it weakens the EU.

Seeing the pattern yet?

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[thegarbz]

The word "create" instead of "creature" brought to you by 2:44am

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[guruevi]

The entire EU has been on the brink of collapse since it began. Now the people are sick of the defacto German occupation of their countries destabilizing their sovereignty through forced trade and immigration.

Unlike the US individual states have a strong form of nationalism towards their states and the European Union has tried hard to erase that culture even going as far as ruling that local laws are trumped even when they don't cross the border.

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[thegarbz]

The entire EU has been on the brink of collapse since it began.

Please don't post while smoking weed. The EU has been on a steady growth with only local some old locals in countries bitching about it. There has always been talk of discontent but never anything material.

Now the people are sick of the defacto German occupation of their countries destabilizing their sovereignty through forced trade and immigration.

People are sick of muslim migration, that's about it. Forced trade? Yeah damn those Germans sharing wealth through creating a large free trade bloc.

the European Union has tried hard to erase that culture even going as far as ruling that local laws are trumped even when they don't cross the border.

Again no such thing. Culture is very much preserved. The only laws trumping local laws are nationalistic laws that seek to purposefully impede other countries. Kind of like what you get whenever any country decides to negotiate a trade agreement with any other country.

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[guruevi]

So how about those strong net neutrality laws in the Netherlands then? Or the 'home copy' rights in Belgium and Netherlands? Or the tax on profits realized by religious "non-profits" in France?

They were removed by the EU because they had different laws and corporations spoke up. Same goes for immigration, various law enforcement and copyright laws.

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[thegarbz]

The same thing that happens with any trade deal between countries. We have international trade courts, and trade deals which trump local laws as well. I didn't say it doesn't happen only that those laws that do get overturned are the ones that aren't compatible with the rest of the bloc and result in advantages one way or another which is in breach of the trade requirements. Blaming this on the EU, or even thinking that non-EU countries don't do the same thing is incredibly ignorant.

You'd realise this if you actually looked into any of the topics you listed, e.g. the net neutrality laws passed in the NL, which were fine by themselves, except that now the EU introduced it's own version they were found to be incompatible. Now go and introduce a law that specifically goes against something that is written in a trade agreement in your country and let me know how long before you get hauled in front of courts.

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[Cederic]

There has always been talk of discontent but never anything material.

No, Brexit isn't material and wasn't remotely influenced by two decades of campaigning, public awareness and politics by independence parties.

damn those Germans sharing wealth

Yeah, ask the southern European members of the Eurozone how much wealth is being shared.

The only laws trumping local laws are nationalistic laws that seek to purposefully impede other countries.

I'm not sure that sentence says what you intended it to say. But why the fuck should the EU be allowed to prevent the UK from having 0% VAT (sales tax) on tampons? I really don't understand how this benefits trans-European trade.

Culture is very much preserved.

That's a very subjective perspective. I'm not sure the ladies of Cologne would agree that their culture was preserved. I don't think the British culture of independence and self-determination was even acknowledged, let alone preserved. The European ideals of democracy were entirely fucking ignored.

As a trading bloc the EU has a lot going for it. Unfortunately that's never been enough for the political elite running it, and that's why it's going to die.

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[thegarbz]

Yeah, ask the southern European members of the Eurozone how much wealth is being shared.

Look if you can't follow a conversation, please stay out of it.

Feyenoord just lost a football match. It thought I'd mention that since it was just as relevant as your reply to the topic of what people think of Germany.

The European ideals of democracy were entirely fucking ignored

By a democratically appointed parliament made of members of the nation states?
*golf clap*.

Re:Well it can't be the Russsians

[Hognoxious]

I don't know which is funniest.

• The picture - especially the girl with the long dark hair who appears to be totally oblivious to what's in front of her.
• You having the temerity to lecture me on my native language - and almost totally missing the point.
• That cretinous fucktard mi being at +5 for playing Captain Obvious.

Shouldn't you be be busy defrauding pensioners and schools?

Re: Well it can't be the Russsians

[Cederic]

as relevant as your reply to the topic of what people think of Germany

http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/...
http://greece.greekreporter.co...

Oh look. I'm entirely on fucking topic regarding the sharing of wealth. So sorry for breaking your shitty false narrative.

By a democratically appointed parliament made of members of the nation states?

Sure. Remind me, who democratically elected Juncker?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Shit, if you want to list good things the EU has achieved then by all means do that. But at least try including some basic checkable fucking facts.

VBANDAR Agen Remi9 Judi Sakong Bandar Poker Online

[shine.catherine]

VBANDAR Agen Remi9 Judi Sakong Bandar Poker Online Indonesia

How is "Democracy at risk"?

[mi]

"The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk"

How is Democracy at risk over this? Does not "information want to be free"? Is not it good that voters know more about the candidate, than less?

Suppose, somebody hacked Trump's tax-returns — would that also be denounced as a threat to Democracy, or cheered?

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Gravis Zero]

How is Democracy at risk over this? Does not "information want to be free"? Is not it good that voters know more about the candidate, than less?

It's good if the information is accurate. The problem here is that misinformation has been mixed in with the information. When people are misinformed, they make poor choices.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite easy: by controlling what is leaked and when.

What: make sure to only leak truths that hurt a certain candidate more than the other, preferably the one that you support.
When: make sure to do so a few days before general election, especially if the polls are showing the candidate that you don't support to have a considerable advantage.

What you're talking about is utopia: if people had access to all information at all times, yes, in that case I'd agree with you. But that's not what we have here, here we have controlled leaks of certain information damaging a certain candidate right before the election. If that's not an attempt to influence elections (and thus a threat to that democracy) I don't know what it is.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[mi]

It's good if the information is accurate.

Accuracy is always good, but a lot of it is subjective. And, besides, when Hillary's e-mails were posted, no one protested the content. People were outraged over "Putin" meddling in the US elections, but I don't recall anyone calling any particular e-mail a fake...

Besides, politicians — and their fans — lie and exaggerate all the time, it is par of the course. Why should the requirements and the expectations be higher for leaked info?

The problem here is that misinformation has been mixed in with the information

Has it been? Citations?

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[mjwx]

How is Democracy at risk over this? Does not "information want to be free"? Is not it good that voters know more about the candidate, than less?

It's good if the information is accurate. The problem here is that misinformation has been mixed in with the information. When people are misinformed, they make poor choices.

And me without mod points.

The problem with recent elections is not the availability of information, but the availability of misinformation. Often the quality of accurate information is so bad, the less well informed cant tell the difference between information and misinformation. The result is, as you said, poor choices.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Rei]

That's not the only problem. When you hack only one candidate's campaign but not the other, and then search through reems of data in the one hacked candidate to pick out the "juicy bits" (particularly if you slowly drip them out in out in order to dominate the news cycle every day, but even if you just dump them all at once), you're going to inherently bias the results. Because among the hundreds of thousands of emails generated by a campaign, there's always going to be some "gotchas!" (you could dig through anyone's email history and find things to attack them with, let alone an entire national campaign generating a huge amount of email traffic). If you only release them for one side, you're highly skewing the contest. And you're doing so via committing a crime. And it's all the worse if it's a foreign power, doing so, via a crime, in order to achieve their geopolitical objectives (but it's still bad even if it's domestic).

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fake email mix will turn out to be a lie. This is a tactic to hide the horrors of actual liberal conversations.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Gravis Zero]

It's good if the information is accurate.

Accuracy is always good, but a lot of it is subjective.

No, it's either a genuine stolen document or it's a false document designed to mislead. There is no middle ground.

And, besides, when Hillary's e-mails were posted, no one protested the content. People were outraged over "Putin" meddling in the US elections, but I don't recall anyone calling any particular e-mail a fake...

The truth was damming enough.

Besides, politicians — and their fans — lie and exaggerate all the time, it is par of the course. Why should the requirements and the expectations be higher for leaked info?

Exaggerations are just another form of lying. Either information is true or it is false. Everyone should be held to this standard.

The problem here is that misinformation has been mixed in with the information

Has it been? Citations?

The burden of proof comes on the original claim that they are genuine.

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what you're saying is that you oppose all news media companies?

Because, that is exactly what they do - dig through available info, pick out only the juicy bits, present them without explanation or context...
It's their business model - anything for click! - and they'll never stop.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[misexistentialist]

"Democracy" means voting for whomever is chosen by the establishment, no questions asked. Trump was not authorized to run so his election is not democratic, but rather "populist" or "fascist" and it's democratic to stop him from using his elected position. But hacking some cuckservative like McCain would indeed undermine the current democratic system, since people won't obey and work as slaves to cancer.

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth was damming enough.

Which is to say, not at all, as witnessed by the lack of prosecutions (Trump knows this, despite his proclaiming otherwise), and the popular vote win for Hillary.

It was a whole lot of Sturm and Drang, drumbeating, but nothing more.

If the argument is that they influenced people with their non-consequential content, then that is a strike against it, as it less revelatory than deceitful.

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macron is a centre-right banker, not a "liberal".

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

We already saw with Hillary Clinton how this will go. Le Pen's camp will use the information to create lies that are supposedly supported by evidence in the email dump. They will be very hard to disprove because almost nobody reads the whole dump, and because even if they do they don't have the full context of email exchanges (which happen in the context of non-email communications and a more general understanding of matters that the public doesn't know about).

There were some damaging things in the Clinton-related dumps, true. But the really shocking "revelations" in the emails, supposed proof of all kinds of crimes, were not true. (Really, I saw these stories on Facebook, a lot of people bought them.)

Granted, people spent decades constructing elaborate lies about Clinton, so a smear campaign against Macron will not be as effective.

As for the Trump tax returns, revealing information of a type that everyone else has already revealed is not really in the same league as revealing a type of information that nobody else ever reveals.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The misinformation was mainly in the "news" coverage.

In case you've already forgotten, stories about Clinton's "emails" were a prime form of "fake news" that people got worked up about last year.

Many, many people believed that the DNC emails contained all kinds of damning things that were just completely made-up.

Granted, the stories could've been published with no leaks at all, but the existence of the leaks gave them an air of truthiness that they would have otherwise lacked.

Of course, part of the Russian pro-Trump campaign was promoting these fake stories.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Le Pen's camp is not allowed to say anything more about the election until it's over and nor is the other camp.
It's the law in France. No campaigning, no opinion polls are allowed in the last two days.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the Clinton supporter.

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Highdude702]

WHY the fuck is this modded down? seriously guys? seriously?

Re: How is "Democracy at risk"?

[guruevi]

And how many damning stories haven't you read about LePen? If one camp plays the holier than thou card for weeks on end they should make sure that their picks are outstanding citizens that have no dirt whatsoever. It seems to me they tried hard with Trump, releasing 20 year old footage 'strategically' even going as far as using NSA collected data and they couldn't find anything but what we already knew, that he's a ruthless, abrasive business person. We peek at a single mailbox of associates of these 'better candidates' and it's like opening the entrance to a sewage system. The same with LePen, the worst they can find is that her dad was a Nazi sympathizer which she summarily dismissed from the party.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[mi]

The burden of proof comes on the original claim that they are genuine.

I made no claim the dump is genuine. You, on the other hand, did claim, there are fakes in there:

misinformation has been mixed in with the information

It is now on you to cite an example of such misinformation...

Either information is true or it is false.

Well, let's see... Is the sky blue? If Hillary Clinton said so last year, "Fact Checkers" would've agreed, that it is a "Mostly True" statement. If Donald Trump made such a claim, the same "Fact Checkers" would've pointed out, that the sky is black at night and red at dusk and dawn — and rated the claim "Mostly False".

Everyone should be held to this standard.

Which omni-scient and benevolent deity would be doing the holding?

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Gravis Zero]

I made no claim the dump is genuine.

It need not be you that made the claim but the claim was made that these documents were taken from Emmanuel Macron's campaign. If no claim is made then they are considered to be original pieces of work meaning they are not from Emmanuel Macron's campaign. The former requires a burden of proof while the latter is assumed.

Well, let's see... Is the sky blue?

I was specifically referring to document authenticity. They are either authentic or they are not. Why do you keep bring up Hillary Clinton?

Everyone should be held to this standard.

Which omni-scient and benevolent deity would be doing the holding?

Accountability need no single overlord. It should be part of our culture.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he claimed there are fakes, just like Brazille did.
So far no fakes were found.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The burden of proof comes on the original claim that they are genuine.

If A claims that the leak is fake, and B claims that the leak is real, the burden of proof lies on B. B may point to the volume of text, email headers, etc., that would be a large effort to replicate with a plausible forgery, which reduces, but does not eliminate, the possibility that the leak is fake.

The volume of material in this case is very large - 9 GB - which would be difficult to forge, even for a state actor. (You'd basically need as many people writing fake emails as the institution whose emails you were claiming to leak.) If I were to check a random sampling of this material - which I can't, because the news article doesn't link to the $!%* leak - I would rapidly convince myself that it was either probably genuine or probably fake.

However, if B claims that the leak is real, and C claims that the leak is real except for a few segments, the burden of proof lies on C. C may point to inconsistencies between those segments and the rest of the leaked material. Again, however, we don't have any information from the article that would allow us to validate or even find specifics about such claims.

In theory, of course, CNBC should have done the research for us to test whether A's, B's or C's position is correct. However, they don't appear to have done so - and, honestly, I wouldn't trust them if they claimed they had, unless (possibly) if they gave me the links to test it myself.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[HanzoSpam]

That may be true, but at this point it's clear nearly every country on earth tries to fiddle every other country's elections. On top of that you have independent factions in many countries trying to fiddle them too, and sometimes the factions are working at cross purposes. They've been doing it for decades, and it's unlikely to stop any time soon.

It may not be an optimal situation, but at least it's a known quantity. Which is why I find outrage over the situation to be rather selective. Everybody plays, so I'm not really too impressed when the losing team cries "foul!" over it.

Re:How is "Democracy at risk"?

[Cederic]

If I were to check a random sampling of this material - which I can't, because the news article doesn't link to the $!%* leak

Oh ffs. Take your pick of references:
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_...

Could I also suggest http://www.livinginternet.com/...

"Putin"

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes not-so-long to discover that /pol/ is going hard after this weirdo. I mean, c'mon, that whole "romancing your teacher at 15" thing isn't normal. I wouldn't trust someone without children to govern in a way which secures a future for the French.

Reasons to not use Windows:

[Gravis Zero]

#3: You gonna get hacked!

Why do I assume it was a Windows machine that was compromised? Because it's always* a Windows machine that gets compromised.

* excludes all instances of morons running internet-facing PHP sites *cough*wordpress*cough*

Re:Reasons to not use Windows:

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this marked "informative"?

Re:Reasons to not use Windows:

[thegarbz]

Windows hasn't been the most popular target for years. Applications have. Browsers have. Flash, Acrobat, SQL, SSL, *PEOPLE* have. Actually the biggest risk to any of your data is you yourself you incompetent phishable person susceptible to social attacks.

Out of all the major breaches in the past few years, few of them had anything to do with Windows. I personally think we should get rid of users. Users are a huge security risk. Maybe we should change all their passwords on them for their own protection.

Re:Reasons to not use Windows:

[mrclevesque]

Yes, someone probably simply guessed someone's weak password.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, fucking kneejerk clueless idiots are fucking kneejerk clueless idiots. Like yourself, for example.

What a tremendous success!

[DonaId Trump]

Julian, if you're listening, the check is in the mail. It's a bigly check, believe me. You're a great guy, many people are saying you're the greatest person to witness the Civil War. We're going to make the best prison pen pals, believe me.

Not immediately clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very clear who is responsible. Is your memory span so short?

Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[Anonymous Coward]

The title uses 'coordinated' but the description uses 'co-ordinated', which just seems silly. I really wish we could standardise co- words.

Personally, I think we should standardise on the hyphenated versions, since they leave far less room for misinterpretation. When I see 'coworker' I always read it 'cow orker', and when I see the double 'o' in words like coordinated and cooperate I always read it as in food. The co- clarifies the pronunciation.

I call for a meeting of world leaders to resolve this matter once and for all. If the meetings breaks down the co- side should declare war on the coo side, because we're clearly right!

Re:Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[Hognoxious]

I agree. When I see cooperate I think it's a barrel-maker's wages.

After the break: for no apparent reason, when I see misled my first instinct is to rhyme it with sizzled.

Re: Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also possible that you are coo-coo.

Re:Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[WalksOnDirt]

I prefer putting two dots over the second o, but Slashdot won't display it. (The two dots symbol over the o is known as a dieresis.)

Re:Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[Zontar The Mindless]

You mean, as "coördinated"?

I happen to have an ö key, but entity references also work.

Re:Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[WalksOnDirt]

You mean, as "coÃrdinated"?

Yes, but according to preview that doesn't work! (as you can see)

Re:Coordinated vs Co-ordinated

[Zontar The Mindless]

Works fine for me in preview as well. Check your charset settings.

No impact

[manu0601]

This is not likely to have an impact, IMO, as majority of french voters are already convinced that both candidates are highly toxic.

Many will vote Macron while they hate him, because they consider Le Pen to be more dangerous. Hence a smear campaign against Macron is unlikely to change their votes.

Re:No impact

[Anonymous Coward]

More dangerous in a time of regular terrorist attacks?

Re:No impact

[MightyMartian]

Macron is still the favorite, so yes, this may come too late to influence the election, but in the longer term I think Western nations are going to have get used to, and find ways to deal with this tactic. This new form of propaganda cyberwarfare has allowed Russia to punch considerably above its weight, and time and time again we're seeing the goal here is to disrupt the Western alliance. It's certainly not a guaranteed win, as it now seems that Russia's alleged interference in the US election is likely backfiring, and forcing Trump to take a harder line, not to mention that despite Fox News and the Republicans best attempts to bury the news, the investigation into Russian ties to Trump's campaign are ongoing.

Re:No impact

[manu0601]

More dangerous in a time of regular terrorist attacks?

Many voters seriously tell France 2017 is like Germany 1933. For them, voting Macron is like preventing Hitler from grabbing the power. I do not back that reasoning, but that explains why they will vote for Macron while they dislike him.

Re:No impact

[Tailhook]

It's not bad enough yet. The French indulge their delusions more thoroughly than you may appreciate. They're not going to shift gears until some mufti is mounting the heads of infidels on the Arc De Triomphe.

Le Pen had the best line of the campaign so far; France will be led by a woman — either me or Merkel.

Re:No impact

[Anonymous Coward]

elect Bruening to avoid Hitler, can't stop history

Re:No impact

[GameboyRMH]

I'm not French but I'd back it. Le Pen is already a nasty xenophobe, the daughter of a quasi-nazi, and she denies occupied France's involvement in the holocaust. Her stance of extreme Russian appeasement should raise more than a few eyebrows too.

Re:No impact

[GameboyRMH]

Le Pen had the best line of the campaign so far; France will be led by a woman — either me or Merkel.

What the hell does that mean? Is she suggesting that Germany is going to invade France again?

Have fun with your delusional Islamophobia though. ISIS will thank you for helping to keep their prisoners from escaping.

Re:No impact

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Trump doesn't have the balls to bomb every russian soldier "on leave" in eastern Ukraine. That's a nice non nuclear exchange. No reason to nuke if we don't go in to their traditional borders, and we can With Russia cozying up to NK, even the Chinese will start to annex Russia's stolen borders back if they get weakened by the US over Ukraine.

Re:No impact

[manu0601]

That is true, but five more years of Macron's economic program (that is, EU mandated austerity) will certainly raise Le Pen vote even higher.

As an AC said above, this is "elect Bruening to avoid Hitler". This election is a problem without a good solution, only bad and worse.

Re:No impact

[rholtzjr]

I believe this is in reference to those who think Trump is the bully of the US, then Merkel is the bully of the EU.

Re:No impact

[Carewolf]

This is not likely to have an impact, IMO, as majority of french voters are already convinced that both candidates are highly toxic.

Many will vote Macron while they hate him, because they consider Le Pen to be more dangerous. Hence a smear campaign against Macron is unlikely to change their votes.

The same was the case in the US, but there the last minute FUD worked. Though Macrons lead is not in single digits, so I doubt the Russians and deep state fascists can duplicate the feat.

Re: No impact

[Anonymous Coward]

So exactly the same as Clinton/trump..

Re: No impact

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from an older civilization, French people are not as naive and gullible.

Re:No impact

[Godwin O'Hitler]

They dislike anyone they didn't already like. It would have been no different with Fillon or Melenchon.

Re:No impact

[gweihir]

Indeed. It is a choice between "bad" and "far, far worse". Democracy is f***** a the ones that essentially did it are the utterly demented voters that understand nothing. Same everywhere, to different degrees (for now).

Re:No impact

[Mashiki]

What the hell does that mean? Is she suggesting that Germany is going to invade France again?

No, she's suggesting that Germany will use the EU as a proxy to threaten other countries if they refuse to fall in line. Similar to what Germany has been doing to other countries in the EU. Especially against countries in the western part of the EU economic bloc.

Have fun with your delusional Islamophobia though. ISIS will thank you for helping to keep their prisoners from escaping.

A phobia is an irrational fear. There's plenty to fear from crazy religious muslims that use religion as their scapegoat. Whether it's to claim that said religion allows them to treat women as less then human, rape them because they're worth less then men, or keep them as chattel because they're the property of a man. That's doubly true, considering the extremism coming from mosques in Europe. You think that Rotherham happened because it was "a fear of asians" or something? No it was a fear of the police, council and so on as being labeled racist for trying to stop roving gangs of muslims from raping and selling teen and pre-teen girls for sex, and keeping some of them as sex slaves.

Re:No impact

[manu0601]

Indeed, the culprit is the election system that retains only the two first candidates, even if they do not even sum to 50% of the votes

Re:No impact

[manu0601]

The problem is that the worst is different depending of who you speak to. For instance, Emmanuel Macron is the worst for many working poors that have already being victims of his laws during Francois Hollande presidency. For slightly wealthier people, Marine Le Pen is the worst because she is a fascist.

You are a bit quick at pointing fingers to voters. The french presidential election is very badly designed. Here the two finalists gathered 45% of votes, and if you count citizen that did not vote, it falls to 34%.

Re:No impact

[gweihir]

As Le Pen will not and cannot deliver on her promises (just look at what Trump does), she is the worst worst for the working poor as well, they just do not have what it takes to understand that. She is using that mental limitation on their part mercilessly because like all populists, she will tell any lie that she thinks will give her more votes.

I am not quick to point at voters at all and it is not only France were this happens. It also has been going on for a few years now.

Re:No impact

[manu0601]

As Le Pen will not and cannot deliver on her promises (just look at what Trump does), she is the worst worst for the working poor as wel

Well, that may even sound for some voters as a point favorable to Le Pen: Many would prefer a president that does nothing rather than Emmanuel Macron doing what he promised.

Liberal Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

it strikes again. It's probably the CIA looking to make a victim out of the "innocent" Globalist, Macron

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[Rei]

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[Anonymous Coward]

I want real cheap fake Rolex watch lead paint China baby poison.

Hackers, and/or Russian

[fustakrakich]

Now the most common excuse used by losers.

Thanks Hillary!

Re:Hackers, and/or Russian

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a lot of losers on this thread. Hoorah for propaganda and groupthink.

Re:Hackers, and/or Russian

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a lot of losers on this thread.

Some of them being moderators it appears. *Backfire Effect* in action. Tell them the truth, and they only dig in their heels. Democrats and republicans, so exactly alike...

Who is this hacker 4-chan?

[Xenographic]

> Has it been? Citations?

This is one of those non-denial denials. They use the statement to sow doubt about all of the documents, while leaving themselves an out when any docs are later verified. The last time someone claimed that, it was Donna Brazille. My past comments go into great detail, down to posting the DKIM keys and how to obtain them, as to why her statement could be proven mathematically false with a key from Hillary's own DNS server. Given that this confirms there are real documents out there, the onus should be put on the deniers to identify which items are fake.

It's fascinating how the media is only now catching up to this. It's also fascinating that nobody has bothered to show people where they might be obtained: http://archive.is/eQtrm

Wowowow hang on a sec

[scatbomb]

What do you mean "at it again?" If you're talking about the U.S. election, the only "hacking" (it wasn't hacking) against Hillary was someone who guessed Podesta's password, which was "password" and stole their emails. The stolen emails are probably related to the sudden murder of former disgruntled DNC staffer Seth Rich, which was ruled a robbery despite the fact that he was shot in the back of the head while in his car and no items were apparently stolen from the crime scene.

Re:Wowowow hang on a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad that you believe this story and were too lazy to learn more.

Re:Wowowow hang on a sec

[scatbomb]

What story do you believe?

Re:Wowowow hang on a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you get your information? Podesta's password garbage is untrue, password is not a valid password on Gmail, if you doubt me try it. Rich's family and girlfriend don't believe your story and aren't happy with his death being used as a political weapon. Do you have no class sir trampling all over the wishes of a grieving family while being used as a pawn? You're either horribly misguided, uninformed and callous or an agent of pure evil.

Re: Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

The Joker. He just wants to see the world burn.

No, Putin, Trump, or Kim is the Joker. Try harder!

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Applehu Akbar]

Now who could possibly want to damage Macron, other than the Le Pen campaign?

His MILF's relatives?

Oh boy..

[rholtzjr]

Why is there a strange feeling of deja vu? Anybody else have a feeling this is a scene out of The Matrix and you see a black cat cross your path yet again?

Muh russia

[Anonymous Coward]

First post is muh russia. Give me a fucking break. Maybe these people are just crooks.

Re:Muh russia

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
Marine Le Pen insists Russian annexation of Crimea is totally legitimate

There is absolutely NO reason for you regular crooks to take that stance.
It is also not part of the nationalist agenda.

There is only one possible explanation for a stance like that and that is that Le Pen is taking Russian money.
The alt-right doesn't care about Ukraine and they aren't bright enough to realize how much giving up eastern Europe to Russia will harm France in the long run.

None of Hillary's E-mails were fake

[Okian Warrior]

It's good if the information is accurate.

Accuracy is always good, but a lot of it is subjective. And, besides, when Hillary's e-mails were posted, no one protested the content. People were outraged over "Putin" meddling in the US elections, but I don't recall anyone calling any particular e-mail a fake...

Hillary's E-mails were verified by their DKIM headers. As far as I'm aware, none of those E-mails have been shown as fake, and it would be pretty hard to fake the DKIM signature or claim that an E-mail was fake if it had a correct DKIM signature.

I don't know if a similar mechanism is available here, we'll probably find out in the next day or so.

Overall, I'm completely in favor of any correct (verified, impossible to fake) data dump on political candidates, including Trump and other GOP leaders if there were any.

We've always said "if you don't want people to know what you're doing, don't put it on the internet". What's good for the people is good for the leaders. We need to show them what it's like to have shit for privacy, like us.

This sort of thing will only make cheating and corruption harder for future candidates. Knowing that any aide or sysadmin could make their innermost decisions public lowers the "iiquidity" of such actions quite a bit. Even cell phone conversations cannot be considered private any more.

Data dumps are currently spotty and one-sided, but I expect future big elections will show both sides in stark.

And that's a good thing.

Re:None of Hillary's E-mails were fake

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of thing will only make cheating and corruption harder for future candidates. Knowing that any aide or sysadmin could make their innermost decisions public lowers the "iiquidity" of such actions quite a bit. Even cell phone conversations cannot be considered private any more.

I'm afraid this is sadly naive.

What it will do is punish the mildly corrupt and leave the serious criminals alone. People who know they are doing bad shit are not so careless about their communications.

Gradually, all politicians will get clued into this and wise up with their communications. We will enter a new dark age of communication where nothing is stored and nothing can be proven.

What will emphatically not happen is anything good.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[quax]

lol

Oh the documents are real, except

[Anonymous Coward]

Great cover story, oh no that one that incriminates me is a fake everything else is real though.

Hillary supporter

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you tell me what Hillary ran on then?

Let me help... She ran on attacking Trump, absolutely nothing else. While Trump was talking about a wall, bringing jobs back, enforcing the law, she was non-stop attacking him. I don't remember her doing ANYTHING else, yet here you are attacking Trump for doing what Hillary did. Yet, you don't mention Hillary, you mention her target.

You leftist have lost your minds. This is like Christmas every day I wake up and watch the news.

Re:Hillary supporter

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the MSM did not bother to report on her platform does not mean she did not have one.

Re:Hillary supporter

[Dutchy Wutchy]

"go to my website", lol

Re:Hillary supporter

[Highdude702]

You mean the platform that she was 1. A woman and 2. A Clinton therefor she was ENTITLED to the "throne". the only people that think Hillary was a good candidate were entitled little brats and selfish adults.

Re: Hillary supporter

[runnymedecourt]

I rhought she ran on pills and booze.

Re:Hillary supporter

[mean pun]

She was a good candidate because she would have been a sane and experienced captain of the US Uncle Sam that at least would make a decent attempt to steer that ship into safe and prosperous waters. Just like No Drama Obama. Unfortunately that is not what the US electorate wants. They want entertainment and thrills. They sure got their wish with the current resident.

Re:Hillary supporter

[Highdude702]

Are we talking about the same "cant we just drone them?" sane hillary?*

Re:Hillary supporter

[mean pun]

If you want to start a reasoned discussion about the pros and cons of the use of force of the previous administration you are welcome, but you will have to do more than just spout some immature insults. And you'll also have to be prepared for comparisons with the words and actions of the current administration on this subject.

Re:Those Evil Hackers

[Harold Halloway]

Whilst I agree that 'troll' is not synonymous with 'I disagree', your comment is sufficiently fact-free that were it possible, I'd mark it 'troll.'

Re:Those Evil Hackers

[Tranzistors]

How dare they release proof of my illegal and immoral activity to the people I was about to con into electing me to the highest position in the land.

This is not a court decision or even a breaking story by a reputable news agency. This a leek. And more importantly — shortly before the election. As with any breaking story, at first there is a ton of confusion and disinformation and it takes time to figure out what is true and what is just a fantasy. You can't just do that in a day. If you think this leek is a "proof", I am glad you were raised in such an honest and trusting community.

Re:False flag.

[divide overflow]

This has the smell of something the Macron campaign released to blame on LePen. Someone wanting to help LePen would have released it earlier and given people a chance to examine the documents.

You have an *exceptionally bad* sense of "smell" and clearly no idea how a smear campaign is done. The document release was deliberately done *one hour* before a French law that imposes a media blackout on election discussions, preventing Macron from refuting the legitimacy of the documents in the document dump. Macron was way ahead in the polls--it makes ZERO sense for Macron to poison his own lead. The document dump has all the hallmarks of Russian election tampering that has happened both in the US and in multiple European elections.

Re:Those Evil Hackers

[Zontar The Mindless]

Just so you know... a leek is that big-daddy green-oniony looking thing that goes really great in soup.

Links

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted at https://pastebin.com/LrFAayFz Friday 5th of May 2017 04:58:21 PM CDT

Torrent Files

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Two smaller files with no ZIP/RAR

Re: how many attacks, until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well,

I work in cyber security. If I could see the raw evidence of these attacks I would be able to make up my own mind.

Until then its strictly "so they say".

culpable?

[anonieuweling]

More info at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Of course the culpable stuff will be 'fake'.
But I say: where there's smoke, there's fire.
Macron is a Rothschild puppet.

Re: culpable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you've never seen a smoke machine?

Assanger's SOP

[Martin S.]

- Target Progressives
- Leak at last minute to prevent effective rebuttal
- Seed with fake items in mass of mundane rubbish

There should be no doubt that Assanger is FSB asset.

Assanger recently meet the Farrage.

Expect a similar fake leak just before the upcoming UK General Election.

Troll Factory out in force today

[Martin S.]

This need to be exposed for what it is, 21st Century Propaganda from from Russia. The pattern is the same every time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Macron is a centre-right banker.

yes,but.

[Anonymous Coward]

An awful lot of people guessing/opinionateing on here, all trying to blame this or that for trying to do this or that..
I notice not one person has mentioned the UK referendum vote for brexit..
No-one seems to consider the idea that the electorate/public in very many countries has a percentage of people who have had enough of the status quo of the last few decades,especially in Europe with the power grab by the un-elected e.u commission etc and have decided that because the situation is already dire,they are willing to take the risk of trying to get elected people/parties that have no or fewer ties to the "traditional" politics which many see as being there solely to benefit a tiny powerful,rich elite..
Many people in the e.u do not agree with the idea of an even more centralised e.u withnevem more control over every detail of their daily lives and are begining to think that they have little more to lose if they elect someone with the idea of returning power to the public/electorate of the individual states,the sheer arrogance andbrefusal to consider any idea/plan by those at the top of the e.u is inebof the major driving forces behind the rise of parties wanting to either leave/change the e.u ..
But of course that doesn't ride well with lots of folk who have their own agenda/ideas/opinions,how dare the public get up.on its hind legs and vote for something different, we can't have something like a fair,open show of a kind of democracy at work !!
Many VOTERS don't care if Russia etc is doing something or not,they just want change,all the faffing about and mud slinging makes no difference, they want tobyry something different,if it doesn't work,well they gave it a go..
If anyone has a lot to gain in fake news or propaganda as it used to be called or hacking etc etc it's those that want the status quo, the .01% ers who have done very well from the old systems .
How dare the public vote for a system that might benefit the public as a whole rather than the old political parties and a tiny elite group...
Discuss...

Re: yes,but.

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is that a significant section of the dear dumb old public are so readily swayed by the last thing they saw on Facebook or the Daily Murdoch that they're more likely to elect a rich idiot or a Muslim-hating fascist who spouts easy answers as they are anyone who's likely to fix their problems. Leaving the EU won't help anyone except Europe's enemies. As in the US, the Brexit vote was so close it's not impossible that the Putinbots swayed it.

At least the mails were obfuscated...

[Briareos]

...since they were in French...

Re:Those Evil Hackers

[Tranzistors]

Just so you know... a leek is that big-daddy green-oniony looking thing that goes really great in soup.

Frankly, those 9GB might as well be :)

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I don't think Macron needs to worry about losing and probably he doesn't either.

Dependency on a single member?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the EU collapses because of election results in one of its members, then it doesn't deserve any better.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Highdude702]

Hillary didnt need to worry about losing either.. and she was far ahead in the "polls" heh.

Re: Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[guruevi]

Anyone that has a beef with Macron which after the revelations of offshore accounts to accept bribes and evade taxes should be: every French voter benefits.

Not really a 'Putin' thing per se

[fustakrakich]

Russia and France do share a bit of history.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[GuB-42]

This election is a strange one.
First turn, there were 4 major parties sharing about a quarter of the votes each, plus outsiders. This is unusual. Normally there are two major parties, like in many countries. Out of two traditional parties, the right wing candidate arrived 3rd and didn't pass and the left wing candidate ended up as one of the outsiders.
The result is that we now have two candidates that most of the population doesn't want. Meaning that many people will vote Macron to prevent Le Pen from passing and others will vote Le Pen just to go against Macron. Many people want to damage Macron, not just Le Pen campaigners.

Anyways, for the presidential elections, the game is pretty much set : Macron will win. The polls give him about 60%, Le Pen is just too unpopular for anyone but her supporters.
However, the presidential election will be followed by the parlement elections, and this is where the real game is being played now.

Re:False flag.

[Highdude702]

The document dump has all the hallmarks of Russian election tampering that has happened both in the US and in multiple European elections.

please show me this hallmark. nobody has been able to provide proof of it. but everybody keeps talking about this proof. where is it i want to see it. ive only been asking for months now.

RUSSIAN MIND RAYS

[mattwarden]

Obviously the work of the Russians, based on... well, I said so. And the US hack had all the markings of a Russian hack, which we know all about in detail, and I'm sure every other major govt does as well, but nobody could have left that trail themselves.

And we know about the major hacking operation of sending a phishing email to John Podesta asking him to enter his password into a form on a random website, and Russian mind rays made him actually do it.

Re: Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[quax]

So have you stopped beating your wife yet?

On standards of proof

[mi]

The former requires a burden of proof while the latter is assumed.

They may or may not be entirely genuine — but you did claim, there was misinformation mixed in. This was a claim — made by you — that remains unsubstantiated by any citations...

They are either authentic or they are not.

What? Why? For all we know, there may be a 1000 genuine copies of real documents and 1 slightly altered — to remain believable, but appear more damning somehow. This — adding a little bit of lies into loads of truth is one of the dishonest propaganda methods (there can be honest propaganda). But to assert, as you did, that such mixing really did happen, you need to cite an example. At least one...

Why do you keep bring up Hillary Clinton?

Because her life offers so many good examples of how lies and truth are "fluid" and a "social construct".

Accountability need no single overlord. It should be part of our culture.

It should be. It may even already be. But humans aren't perfect — and certainly not omniscient Recall, if you will, the standards like "based on preponderance of evidence" vs. "beyond reasonable doubt" vs. "beyond any doubt". A statement may hold up to the first one, but not to the third — perhaps not even the second. Is the statement true?

You may be sick of Ms. Clinton as an example, so consider O.J. Simpson — the statement: "he killed his wife and her lover" is false according to the "reasonable doubt" standard (used by criminal courts), but true on the preponderance of evidence (used in the civil suits)... So much for the "truth is absolute"...

Re:On standards of proof

[Gravis Zero]

"The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said. In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said that the documents released online only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation."

Feel free to demand proof from The En Marche! Movement.

For all we know, there may be a 1000 genuine copies of real documents and 1 slightly altered

That would mean there are 1000 genuine documents and one false document. Anything taken from the this dump should be assumed to be that one false document until proven genuine.

It should be. It may even already be. But humans aren't perfect

I don't seek perfection, I only seek better than the present condition.

the statement: "he killed his wife and her lover" is false according to the "reasonable doubt" standard (used by criminal courts), but true on the preponderance of evidence (used in the civil suits)... So much for the "truth is absolute"..

Incorrect. Either he killed his wife and her lover or he did not. What is decided by a court does not change that reality.

Re:On standards of proof

[mi]

Feel free to demand proof from The En Marche! Movement.

Thank you for the kind permission, but they aren't party to this discussion. You made the claim, you have to substantiate it. And you, obviously, can not.

But your comment, where the unsupported claim was made, is now highly-rated, which means, a number of people will accept the claim on faith. Congratulations on providing a good example of misleading.

Either he killed his wife and her lover or he did not.

Indeed! But which was it remains unknowable for the rest of us — which is why I mentioned an omniscient deity earlier...

What is decided by a court does not change that reality.

The courts' decisions are the best approximation of truth the humans are capable of. Sad but true... There is also scientific method, which is usually more reliable, but it often requires multiple repetitions and thus is not suitable in all situations.

Re:On standards of proof

[Gravis Zero]

Thank you for the kind permission, but they aren't party to this discussion. You made the claim, you have to substantiate it. And you, obviously, can not.

My claim is equally as valid as the the claim that the documents are legitimate because neither has been proven. However, if you feel compelled to "win" this debate then mission accomplished because neither side can prove their authenticity or lack thereof.

The rest of your drivel is irrelevant. Congratulations on winning.

Re:On standards of proof

[mi]

as valid as the the claim that the documents are legitimate

No such claims were made in this conversation.

neither side can prove their authenticity or lack thereof.

This is true about (nearly) everything said in or around politics. For example, the authenticity of Wikileaks' publications — so embarrassing to the US — has never been proven either.

And yet, it was this particular document-dump, that you claimed to have untruth mixed into it. Without citing anything — much less proving the citation is valid.

The rest of your drivel is irrelevant. Congratulations on winning.

You ought to learn to lose more gracefully. Feeling charitable, I'll allow that you simply aren't losing often enough to become good at it...

Exclusivity of our times

[mi]

The problem with recent elections is not the availability of information, but the availability of misinformation.

How is this problem unique to the recent elections? Mark Twain wrote his Running for Governor in the 1870 — you really ought to read it to get rid of these silly beliefs, that our contemporary politicians are somehow uniquely bad and good.

Maybe Macron should have used a hosts file

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe APK will show up and tell everyone that Macron should have used his hosts file. Because magic and stuff.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentlemen, the screwballs have spoken.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Cederic]

The other interesting thing will be the reaction in France over the next few days over how this leak has been handled.

Their electoral commission banning mention of anything within the leak - whether leaked or not - sounds like an attempt to influence the election; I'd expect a reaction and response to that.

Re:Seems we have a bit of a pattern here, doesn't

[Highdude702]

so the fact that im speaking truth makes me a screwball?