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Hackers Came, But the French Were Prepared (nytimes.com)
Adam Nossiter, David E. Sanger, and Nicole Perlroth, reporting for the New York Times: Everyone saw the hackers coming. The National Security Agency in Washington picked up the signs. So did Emmanuel Macron's bare-bones technology team. And mindful of what happened in the American presidential campaign, the team created dozens of false email accounts, complete with phony documents, to confuse the attackers (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). The Russians, for their part, were rushed and a bit sloppy, leaving a trail of evidence that was not enough to prove for certain they were working for the government of President Vladimir V. Putin but which strongly suggested they were part of his broader "information warfare" campaign. The story told by American officials, cyberexperts and Mr. Macron's own campaign aides of how a hacking attack intended to disrupt the most consequential election in France in decades ended up a dud was a useful reminder that as effective as cyberattacks can be in disabling Iranian nuclear plants, or Ukrainian power grids, they are no silver bullet. The kind of information warfare favored by Russia can be defeated by early warning and rapid exposure.
Show some real proof. Can't blame everything on Russia forever.
Yes, you conspiracy theorists finally struck gold! Meanwhile the CIA/MI6/Mossad can work in broad daylight now. The trick worked!
So you think that a court would consider documents of such dubious heritage at all?
The lengths the Trump army are going to try to deny that Russia wants to fuck with the Western Alliance is stunning. And for what? It's not like Congress is likely to impeach him and remove him any time soon, although if he keeps pulling stunts like Comey, he may hasten his own end.
At any rate, the French and US elections are not the only elections the Russians have been implicated in trying to bugger up, and do you blame them? NATO so thoroughly outstraps them militarily and economically (for chrissake, Italy has a larger GDP than Russia) that cyberwarfare is the one area where they have a relatively level playing field, so of course they're going to use it.
The big problem was the Macron dump seems to have been ludicrously rushed. You have alleged emails claiming plans for the Islamification of France. I mean, seriously, do you think the Macron campaign was actually making that kind of plan? Or maybe you do, the gullibility of the Alt-Right never ceases to astound me.
At any rate, Le Pen lost, and lost massively.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's great that between two traditional corrupted shits (not to mention Lepen), the French elected a "3rd party" centrist president.
That's what we need in the US but failed to accomplish when having to choose between Clinton and Trump. I guess the alternative parties were pretty crappy, though. That's where we need to work, building a centrist party especially since the democrats have vacated this position in favor of identity politics.
The problem with hacking is that a lot of companies have the "security has no ROI" attitude. Last year, when I interviewed at one place (and definitely didn't take the offer), the CxO gave me the song and dance about "only person that profits from a lock is the lock maker", and when I asked what they would do in case of a breach, the response was, "we will call Accenture and let their world class professionals fix it."
With an attitude like that, it is surprising breaches don't happen more often in the private sector. The problem is that until there is an actual reason, and something that makes top brass actually value security, it won't happen. The -only- thing that has worked is PCI-DSS, because ignoring that hits businesses squarely in the pocketbook.
What does it say that the IT team had enough resources to generate honeypots but couldn't actually... SECURE the emails and just assumed they were going to get hacked anyway?
I guess it shows competence. Lately the question is not “if you get hacked?”, but “what do you do when hacked?”. The risk of any compromising leak is that it could contain fabrications that seem kind of legit. This problem is exacerbated when the leak happens just days before the election, since that is enough time to find dirt and write sensational articles, but not enough time to verify the truthfulness.
The security team correctly identified the threats and used effective countermeasures.
Which explains the varied outcomes of the two most recent elections.
No the argument is correct - your hyperbolic understanding (which is probably the only way you see it) is wrong.
White people without a racist bone in their body were being called racist if they even thought about voting for Trump BY the Hillary campaign.
That's not an endearing argument for those on the fence.
What was the point of the argument? Were TEH LIBERALS NOT going to vote for Trump because Hillary said they were TEH RACIST?! No, the argument was to try to pick up the white vote through intimidation.
Meanwhile they attacked Trump for being a horn dog while ignoring that Hillary's husband was impeached for the exact same thing but when a Clinton does it it's ok.
The "conspiracy theorist" label is usually applied to people who have no evidence for their beliefs.
In this case, the cyber defense arm of the US government warned the French of Russian attacks based on the information they had.
You are a moron who is slinging around insults without regard for the truth. Regardless of where you live, you are part of the reason your city, state, and country have problems.
Wow, straight of the playbook of 20th century European fascists.
Yeah, the argument is getting old. Would you guys on the left stop the name calling?
No, I'm not racist because I didn't agree with Obama. No, I'm not a Nazi because I don't think Trump is literally Hitler. No, I'm not a misogynist because I feel that sometimes white guys get a raw deal with being blamed for everything.
Since America and France have never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, it is outrageous that they are interfering in ours.
Congratulations!!! You have won the whataboutism prize! You can now buy stuff made by slave kids, since the USA had slavery!
No they won't. They never were. That's an absolute 100% lie. Clinton didn't even call All Trump supporters racists, despite the fact she would have been 100% within her rights given Trump was running a blatantly racist campaign, and people who were supporting him were supporting that.
The claim people keep making is that they voted for Trump because they were told Trump supporters were racist by Democrats. That logic doesn't, and never will, hold up because it's stupid: if you weren't already a Trump supporter, you wouldn't have been insulted by that comment. If you were, you were going to vote for Trump anyway.
Bill Clinton was impeached for "lying under oath", a dubious charge, because he referred to a consensual sexual act as not sex because he believed it legally didn't count as sex. He was not impeached for groping women, he was not impeached for entering the changing rooms of 14 year old models, he wasn't impeached for talking about how sexually attracted he was to his daughter, or any other of the specific and backed up allegations made against Trump.
And the most important part: Bill is not Hillary. Bill Clinton could run "Clinton University" and rip off thousands of poor people, he could have bankrupted numerous suppliers by just not paying them, he could have used Mob labor to build his buildings, he could have a fake charity he stole money from, he could have avoided paying any taxes while living a lavish lifestyle, and he could have, yes, groped and ogled and all the other things Trump is accused of, and it still wouldn't have meant anything negative about Hillary Clinton.
All you can do, six months after that election, is continue making up the most absurd drivel about Clinton and Democrats, rather than address the fact you elected a monster. Think about that, then change course.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
They didn't need to change their vote to Trump, just not vote. That alone does serious damage to the democratic camp. I know I will never vote for someone who plays this game because they are every bit as toxic as Trump is.
Just follow Occam's razor - rather than try to justify a convoluted conspiracy, the reality is that you are a state-sponsored (as in paid) Russian troll.
There's been an increase of purvey men in womens restrooms you say? Let's see some data on that because I'm willing to bet you just pulled that out of your backside
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
A bigger part is actually voter apathy. There's nothing worse than being the candidate in the lead - that immediately turns off a big chunk of voters who would vote for you. Simply because they think you're going to win anyways, they simply turn off and don't vote - you're going to win, what's their vote going to do?
Hell, some politicians have real grace - one who lost by a narrow margin (of around 200 votes) met with a bunch of voters after the election who told her "I thought you were going to win, that's why I didn't vote". I say grace because it takes real self-control to be told that and not smack the person in the head.
And face it, Hillary was always in the lead - no one would believe Trump would actually be president. So if Hillary's going to win, why should I bother to vote, because ooh shiny new thing! is more important. Trump had long odds that probably made everyone who would've voted democrat be complacent. And everyone's got better things to do on voting day than to actually vote.
Forcing people to get off their ass is about the only thing I support about mandatory voting. But personally, I don't believe in it, and I believe society is worse off if we're forced to vote than have the option of voting.