Slashdot Mirror
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.
If anything, that she was arrested lends credibility to the document being real.
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.
Well, as people get older they do get more conservative...
More seriously - it's been true, for a lot of years, that whenever Slashdot has run a story which casts a bad light on Putin... an awful lot of anonymous pro-Putin posts appear. We saw it when he had his country invade the Ukraine; we saw it when he rigged the 2012 Russian election; and we see it now. It would be interesting to examine Slashdot's web logs.
#DeleteChrome
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.
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.
There are plenty of putinbots out there, but also plenty of alt-right types who pretty much openly admire autocrats like Putin
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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?