Slashdot Mirror


Hackers Have Targeted Both the Trump Organization And Democrat Election Data (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Two recent news stories give new prominence to politically-motivated data breaches. Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that last year Guccifer 2.0 sent 2.5 gigabytes of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee election data to a Republican operative in Florida, including their critical voter turnout projections. At the same time ABC News is reporting that the FBI is investigating "an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization," adding that such an attack would make his network a high priority for government monitoring.

"In the course of its investigation," they add, "the FBI could get access to the Trump Organization's computer network, meaning FBI agents could possibly find records connected to other investigations." A senior FBI official (now retired) concedes to ABC that "There could be stuff in there that they [the Trump organization] do not want to become part of a separate criminal investigation."

It seems like everyone's talking about the privacy of their communications. Tonight the Washington Post writes that Trump's son-in-law/senior advisor Jared Kushner "discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports." And Friday Hillary Clinton was even quoted as saying, "I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by Comey and the Russians..."

10 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. So I was right... how about an apology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So I was right that Donald Trump, Jared Kushners, and others are traitors who colluded with Russia's hack of our presidential campaign.

    Will any of you dumbfucks apologize, or are you just going to keep pretending you don't notice the obvious treason taking place in front of your eyes?

    I accept your apology, morons.

    1. Re:So I was right... how about an apology? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This. Standard procedure when clicking any cnn/wapo/nyt "BREAKING NEWS BOMBSHELL TRUMP'S A TRAITOR ZOMG IMPEACH!!!" story is to immediately scroll to the very end of the article, find the inevitable "Everything that we just spent 50 paragraphs violently implying is high treason (because hate and paranoia get us way more clicks than straight news) is actually completely normal and legal and there's still zero evidence Trump's a Soviet sleeper agent" caveat, and then close the tab.

    2. Re:So I was right... how about an apology? by gtall · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, but it is not common for senior advisors to be paid by Russia nor become an agent of Turkey. And why would they need a secret backdoor to Russia? One could argue their conspiracy theorist bullshit got the better of them. I would argue they would do anything to win and selling America out to Russia was okay, just as long as they won.

    3. Re:So I was right... how about an apology? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) "It is common for senior advisers of a newly elected president to be in contact with foreign leaders and officials."

      Is it common for senior advisers to go to the Russian embassy to use their equipment to contact those foreign leaders in secret?

      Remember, the "secret" part is that they were trying to keep it secret from Americans.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:So I was right... how about an apology? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And why would they need a secret backdoor to Russia?

      Because Trump doesn't trust the official channels. The CIA has leaked damaging information about him, and it is clear that there are people in the "deep state" that don't like Trump and want to see him fail.

      I want to see him fail too. But engineering presidential failure is not the job of the CIA. Our intelligence agencies should not be partisan organizations.

    5. Re:So I was right... how about an apology? by ChatHuant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You means besides demonstrating they still have decency, character, and a backbone?

      Republican voters don't care about any of that. They care about "not giving in to the enemy". The thing to understand though, is that in the Republican worldview "the enemy" is not Russia. It is "the liberal agenda", in its various aspects: gay marriage, global warming, pollution, regulation. This was pumped into their brains by years and years of exposure to Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys and others ejusdem farinae. Selling America to Russia or Saudi Arabia is not betrayal, since Putin is seen as a natural ally against the "liberal agenda". Impeaching Trump however, would be betrayal of the Republican ideals.

  2. Only complete idiots are surprised by this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Russia is no friend to Trump and his administration. They only care about exploiting the Trump administration to achieve their goals. Governor Romney was right in 2012 when he said Russia was the biggest geopolitical threat to the United States. The left was wrong to laugh at him, but the right is even dumber to ignore Romney's warning now that evidence shows he was right.

    The problem is that the right seems to have taken a favorable view of Russia now. Perhaps it's because the right wing "Christians" love that Putin has cracked down on homosexuality in Russia. I kid you not, I've heard Christians praise Putin for this. Russia was all too happy to look the other way as gays were rounded up and tortured in Chechnya. All too many Christians objected to Trump during the primaries and were all too happy to fall in line and vote for him once he got the nomination, all because the Republican party platform claims to be pro-life. Never mind, of course, all the other evils that Trump supports, and the fact that the Republicans will never ban abortion because it would take away the one reason people vote for them. If there is a God, a lot of Christians will be burning in hell for what they've supported in the name of Jesus.

    Putin cannot be trusted. He is no friend to democracy and free society, nor will he ever be. Putin is an evil man, but the right wingers seem to have developed a love for him. They're too stupid to realize that, despite helping to get Trump elected, that love is not mutual and Putin is only interested in exploiting far right political leaders for his own benefit.

  3. Re: God bless Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What is the point of releasing her personal tax returns when her foundation has all of the sketchy stuff?

  4. Re:Old discredited news by gtall · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Pro-American? So, he goes to Saudi Arabia and bends over for them. This is the same Saudi Arabia which funds the most virulent forms of militant Islam aimed at taking down the West. Then that twat goes to Europe and offends NATO claiming that the treaty saying the U.S. would defend NATO countries didn't mean what it says it means.

    Pro-American means taking from the poor and giving to the rich through yet more tax giveaways. It means fucking the U.S. raw environmentally. It means ceding the Pacific basin to China. It means cutting the State Dept. so that it cannot wield U.S. soft power. It means giving the Christian nutjobs their very own political political party. It means taking the concept of America to the rest of the world and dragging it into the mud where that asshole feels comfortable.

    Some pro-American leader.

  5. Putinbots abound by benjfowler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Everyone -- note that this article is being spammed hard by "Anonymous Cowards" sprouting pro-Putin and pro-Trump talking points.

    Adjust your skepticism accordingly. They're rattled -- there's been a strong uptick in Putinbot activity in the last few days, which makes me wonder if pro-Western forces are getting closer to the truth on Kremlingate.

    In the absence of Slashdot waking up to themselves and getting rid of "Anonymous Coward", you'll have to wade through a lot of Putinbot spam in the meantime.