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..."

Comments

So I was right... how about an apology?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:So I was right... how about an apology?

[ilguido]

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?

You should read carefully the article. It makes two very important points:
1) "It is common for senior advisers of a newly elected president to be in contact with foreign leaders and officials."
2) "Obama administration officials say members of the Trump transition team never approached them about arranging a secure communications channel with their Russian contacts, possibly because of concerns about leaks."
In fact it is understandable the mistrust with American intelligence agencies right now, because, as Bloomberg put it, "the U.S. intelligence ship is too leaky to sail". Besides that, this Kushner-Flynn affair has ostensibly nothing to do with the alleged (and very unlikely IMO) Russian hack of the Democratic party, but it is related to the Syrian war, where American intelligence agencies have been playing dirty since the start and not in the interest of the American people (unless arming al-Qaeda is in the interest of the American people).

Re:So I was right... how about an apology?

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:So I was right... how about an apology?

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re: So I was right... how about an apology?

[ShanghaiBill]

They are sworn to defend the US from all enemies.

Illegal leaks to the press are not a "duty" of the CIA.

Re:So I was right... how about an apology?

[ChatHuant]

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.

Only complete idiots are surprised by this

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Only complete idiots are surprised by this

[phantomfive]

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).

Is Russia the right focus?

[Soft]

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.

Putinbots abound

[benjfowler]

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.

Re:Putinbots abound

[anyaristow]

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