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Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election (theintercept.com)
Russian hacking groups played a larger role in the 2016 election than anyone realized, according to a highly-classified NSA document published today in The Intercept. The document reveals that a Russian intelligence operation sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials days before the election, which ran through a hack of a U.S. voting software supplier. The Russian cyber espionage operation was functional for months before the 2016 U.S. election. From the report: It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document: "Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors ... executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. ... The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to ... launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations." This NSA summary judgment is sharply at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin's denial last week that Russia had interfered in foreign elections: "We never engaged in that on a state level, and have no intention of doing so." Putin, who had previously issued blanket denials that any such Russian meddling occurred, for the first time floated the possibility that freelance Russian hackers with "patriotic leanings" may have been responsible. The NSA report, on the contrary, displays no doubt that the cyber assault was carried out by the GRU.
And if there were, what difference would that make, now?
I'm betting zilch.
So, let's do nothing? Are you that worried it might delegitimize your guy? Is this where we're at, that we're so partisan we can't repel a foreign invader? That's straight out of the colonial playbook. Divide and conquer.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
So we go from "they hacked us" to "they tried to hack us"? Not quite the same accusation. Next it will go from "It was the Russian government" to "it was someone using an IP from Russia"...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The attempted/failed wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee's office in the Watergate Hotel during the 1972 Presidential Campaign didn't change the outcome of that election either.
I guess we should have ignored all that stuff back then.
And if there were, what difference would that make, now?
I'm betting zilch.
They use terms like 'played a larger role' to imply it without having to actually back it up.
Reality Winner? Seriously? The parents who named this poor kid are the ones who should be arrested.
Well I knew that slashdot jumped the shark awhile back, but when most of the comments are defending the Russians, it's reached an all new low.
Yea, when I read that I said "Well that explains it".
If anything, that she was arrested lends credibility to the document being real.
what's funny here is the NSA is complaining about Russian spying... when the NSA has been violating the privacy of billions around the world for decades.
I guess it depends how long it takes for Trump to get impeached or otherwise unpresidented through a failed re-election. There is a reason the Trump administration is leaking like an open pipe (a sieve is not leaky enough for this metaphor). The distrust for this man goes beyond mere partisanship, and countless people are risking prison time to try to undo arguably the worst mistake in recent American history.
She probably should never work in a government position again. She has proven herself untrustworthy. Government secrets are important enough where even well-intentioned leakers need to be punished. We can't have every leaker be protected by their good intentions, or else there would be no secrets anymore.
That said, uncontrollable leaking is one of the failsafes of our democracy, and this is what it looks like when the immune system of democracy is rejecting it's new idiot commander.
How about understand exactly what happened, lock things down and educate people so it is at least harder to pull off next time? Or is that too common sense?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm sure the Russians are the only ones trying to hack elections.
We've moved from secretly hacking elections to directly stumping for candidates we like:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
I don't think Obama is a French citizen - why should he impose his opinion on the French people if for no other reason than to influence the outcome of that election?
So you would do what? Bomb Russia?
Oh, I don't know. How about not roll back the sanctions you placed on them for doing exactly this?
How about getting the President to listen to his own National Security Advisor, and Secretaries of State and Defence, and vocally support Article 5 of the NATO treaty?
How about the administration not try to hide communications with them from their own government?
How about quit fucking lying about having no contact with them? If they're no threat, and if it's no big deal, then why lie? That's a real question—why so much deception? It makes no sense.
How about quit treating the whole situation as utterly innocuous, and without indulging in dated anti-Soviet rhetoric or blowing it off as it's perfectly normal, come to grips with the fact that Russia is a strategic competitor, and is opposed to many American interests?
How about admitting that the Putin administration has a stake in deligitimising democratic norms and processes, because doing so helps him maintain a increasingly tight grip on the Russian population, and maybe, you know, not fucking help with that?
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Doesn't really seem like it's going anyone's way. I mean, Trump might end up doing something good but he's been fairly paralyzed so far.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
This continued media frenzy became tiresome some time ago. Can we move on to something new to be outraged about?
You seem to be conflating "important" and "entertaining".
Important stuff is often quite boring, at least at the outset before you understand what's going on.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Partisan politics-as-usual bullshit
Focusing on Clinton instead of the BIGGER PICTURE
Listen buddy: IDGAF about Hillary; I didn't vote for the old bat and I didn't vote for Cheeto-head either, but I do give a good god-fucking-damnit about whether some Russian military assholes, on the orders of the head Russian asshole, HACKED OUR GODS-BE-DAMNED ELECTION PROCESS AND GOT AWAY WITH IT! Is that so fucking hard for you and EVERYONE LIKE YOU to understand!?
Meanwhile your boy Cheeto-head, the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief, is FUCKING OVER THE COUNTRY with his ham-fisted attempts at being President. You still happy with your choice for POTUS, boy?
The problem is that results like 2016 don't have any single cause. There are many things that had they been different could have changed the outcome.
Blame isn't like a hot potato: there's plenty for everyone. Clinton has her share of the blame. Her weak and passive messaging, and her over-reliance on dubious analytics in the face of clear field intelligence were both mistakes. Absent either of them and she would have won -- it was only a matter of swinging 100,000 strategically placed votes, about 1/100th of 1% of the votes cast.
This doesn't mean other things didn't cause her loss too, but the bottom line was that she was facing Donald Trump, a boorish reality TV clown and easily the stupidest and most ignorant man ever to win the presidency. She should have blown the doors of the election far beyond the reach of a few unlucky breaks or marginal meddling to matter.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Intent != crime.
Generally speaking breaking into someone else's system and sending a spear phishing email would get you well into illegal.
Quoting form the NPR's article at: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/05/...
VR Systems, a Florida-based election systems provider referenced in the material, said in a statement:
"When a customer alerted us to an obviously fraudulent email purporting to come from VR Systems, we immediately notified all our customers and advised them not to click on the attachment. We are only aware of a handful of our customers who actually received the fraudulent email and of those, we have no indication that any of them clicked on the attachment or were compromised as a result."
Now we can argue on if it impacted the results of the election. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question, but it now appears the question of if there was an attempt by someone to infiltrate the electoral system is pretty solidly answered.
Attribution is a trickier problem, but I'll buy that the NSA has pretty good resources at its fingers for that, and they seem pretty conclusive in the documents provided by the Intercept.
It'll be interesting to see how this comes out, but I'm now convinced that a crime occurred, since VR Systems has confirmed such and any vested interest they have in the matter would be to deny rather then confirm, as it'll undoubtedly damage them commercially going forward.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
They raised her to become a person who'd, though only 9 or 10 when 9.11. happened, pick up Pashto, Farsi and Dari languages and join US Air Force as a linguist, where she served for 6 years.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06...
Not to mention the whole thing where they raised her to speak out about issues of public interest.
Such as evidence of attacks on the USA by a foreign government, while said attacks are denied by both the said foreign government - and the current USA administration which has landed the job in part thanks to said attacks.
At the expense of own liberty, job, future...
Some people really take that oath thing about "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic" seriously.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens