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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.
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.
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.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
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.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!