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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..."
"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..."
I've read an interesting opinion piece by a Russian opponent: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/03/06/trump-russia-conspiracy-trap/.
Basically, the messages are: first, yes, Russia has meddled in, and there are links between them and Trump. But it's nothing new, Russia's always tried to destabilize Western democracies and undermine their credibility, including by supporting political crackpots there. This time the crackpots won the election.
Second, the media frenzy about this is being played up because it's seemingly the only scandal that riles people enough that the Republican majority in Congress might have to take notice, instead of looking the other way as they did with all the other documented lies. So Trump opponents are playing this specific card.
But, third, there's probably nothing concrete enough there to warrant a successful impeachment. And this is beginning to border on speculation and conspiracy-theory thinking, in other words using some of Trump's foul tactics against him in the unlikely hope of getting rid of him. Bad precedent.
So, fourth, not only it won't work, it's drowning out more urgent and serious issues: dismantling healthcare, crippling budget cuts everywhere but in the military, hurting government agencies. If more attention was focused on them instead, sure, it would be even less likely to cause Trump's demise, but it would mitigate the damage, as it did for the Muslim travel ban.
The laughter was because he was stating the incredibly obvious not because he was wrong.
Nah, in this case, they really were mocking him for being wrong (or more accurately, because they were partisans looking to mock). There are many examples still around. Here is one example. The NYT editorial page wrote, "His comments display either a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics." That's a clear statement that they thought he was wrong (or maybe their article is just craven politics).
What other choice was there?
The NYT article gave examples of the "real" threats: "Al Qaeda and its imitators, Iran, North Korea, economic stresses."
I'll go on record saying I don't think Russia is a threat, and they could become a strong ally if we had a president with any diplomacy skill (Bush Sr did well in that regard. Clinton was decent).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The following anonymous coward putinbot posts are mine. I don't normally bother signing in to slashdot because it isn't worth the trouble:
WaPo, CIA conflict of interest rag
Guccifer 2.0 is a fraud
TL;DR
I'm a Democrat, not a Republican or a Trump fan or a putin bot. I resist propaganda because propaganda is more dangerous than Trump. I resist propaganda because it is a symptom of a system that is so stacked against ordinary citizens that it may be too late to ever wrest control of our government back from the oligarchs, deep state and military industrial complex.
But since you mention bots, I'll mention paid trolls (not claiming you are one): Correct the Record, ShareBlue. Paid trolls working for Hillary, according to sources I think you'll agree aren't Putin-friendly:
How a super PAC plans to coordinate directly with Hillary Clinton’s campaign
David Brock's Army of "Nerd Virgins" Has Hillary's Back
Clinton SuperPac Admits to Paying Internet Trolls
The making of a Hillary Clinton echo chamber