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Russian Cyber Hacks On US Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg article: Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said. The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day "red phone." In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russia's role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.
Bingo. Give the man a f**king cigar.
Every server gets constantly "attacked."
Make the data public and let us examine it.
As of right now it's like Dan Rather saying he has evidence that George Bush's basically did a poor job in the National Guard and it comes out that the evidence was manufactured. (Memos, that were supposed to be from the 1970s, were written in Microsoft Word. OOOPS)
We would never had known that Rather and his crew were lying if they hadn't released the memos.
Now they've smarted up. They save that we have "evidence" but they don't release it. This is something that can be dropped into Github and we would have tens of thousands of people combing through the data.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
And this is only half of the story. Read this, this, and this...and you might begin to understand the breadth and the scope of what Russia is doing online. The Kremlin has built an entire industry manned by thousands, whose sole purpose is to get online and sew chaos, confusion, and doubt. They are why, when you discuss any issue that reflects poorly on Russia on any major website, you get marginalized and bombarded with talking points.
There are conservatives who mirror the Kremlin's message, but these buildings filled with thousands of paid trolls are the originals and the instigators. This is not a game, read the Times story above and you will see the real world consequences; Russia can create fake hysteria in America, made up disasters, and form political causes out of the ether which sway American policy in the direction they like. Russia, right this very second, and since 2014, and into the future--is at war with you, with me, with every Conservative and every Democrat and every Independent--and they don't care at all what you want. They care what 1 man wants, and what he wants is to say fuck you and your country.
To be fair, Clinton did have an unsecured Exchange server hanging on the public Internet, and her lieutenant John Podesta fell for the world's dumbest phishing scam... I mean, c'mon.
(note: I voted Libertarian and live in the People's Republic of Oregon, so I have no dog in this fight and could not have possibly affected the results. That said...)
As for the dreaded hax0rz TFA details, how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine? Further more, he never warned the alleged affected state election officials. I mean seriously, one would think that if he were concerned about it at the time, he (or rather, his administration) would have at least informed the IT folks over the affected systems so that they could at least try and remediate and harden things?
I'm not saying that the Russians never tried (though nobody is saying if they succeeded or not), but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
If she had won, would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You don't hack the ballot, you use propaganda to influence voters.
You mean just like politicians do?
...and media corporations, and special interest groups, and political parties, and talk radio jocks, and co-workers, and advertisers (to an extent), and even private corporations (again, to an extent), and...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
So you think we should just ignore all of the massive amount of evidence from a dizzying array of sources, many of them independent and professional with no stake in the political world, just because you think it's all a gigantic sour grapes excuse argument? Because Hillary Clinton is just that powerful that all of these people and organizations are busy trying to invent a giant excuse just to, what, make her feel less crappy about herself? Really?
You do realize it's possible to simultaneously think that Clinton lost for unrelated reasons, and that Russian information operations and interference is an extremely serious thing, right? It's also possible to consider that maybe the Russians weren't trying to sway the election for Trump, so much as to cause chaos and sow doubt, with a goal of undermining the USA while strengthening internal divisions?
Or that maybe we should start thinking of this not as some f*cking partisan thing, but about how maybe we should look to protect our elections from outside interference just because outside interference is bad, and that maybe, just maybe, we ought to be able to feel like our elections are secure just because having secure elections is a good thing by itself?
how come during the election season Obama said, flat-out and public, that there was no interference going on and that everything was fine?
Two reasons. A) it would have created confusion and panic in our voting system as to whether votes were being correctly recorded (with electronic voting we don't know, but that's another issue) and B) it would have given another excuse for the con artist to claim the election was being rigged (though you'll note he never said which way it was being rigged).
but it's damned odd that it only became a concern for the Obama administration after Clinton ended up the loser.
No it's not. It was a concern since they called Moscow directly to let them know we knew what they were doing. Similar to above, had Obama said anything about Russia interfering with the election it would have been seen as an excuse and would have given more fire to the con artist's delusions about the election being rigged.
would we even be hearing about any of this, or would the response from the MSM be a demand that the complainers remove their tinfoil chapeaus?
Yes, we would have, because since Hillary would have been president, the same Republican-led House and Senate which are running interference for the con artist over the current Russia investigations, would have spared no expense to get to the bottom of what happened. They would have used it to claim her presidency wasn't legitimate or it was tainted, neither of which they are doing now. They would be digging as deep as possible to find every scrap of information regarding Russia's interference, the exact opposite of what they are doing now where many members are saying it's no big deal and the investigations should be dropped.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Russian actions weren't able to modify votes cast.
You seem awfully confident of that. If there is one thing we know, its that e-voting machines are ridiculously insecure. And we've know it for over a decade.
What risk/reward ratio were they looking at?
Putin's singular goal is the elevation of the Russian state with him as its head. Because he's an autocrat that makes western liberalism an existential threat. Anything he can do to discredit western liberalism helps him - if he can convince enough people that american elections are rigged then he can say to his own citizens that real democracy doesn't exist, that the grass is not greener on the other side and so they should be content with his great leadership.
How very partisan of you... Do a bit of critical thinking about this whole mess and you will realize that Obama is the one who gets the blame for this, it happened on HIS watch. As I recall, the Clinton Campaign and the Obama administration were acting all huffy about Trump refusing to accept the election results in advance (remember that?). Remember all the assurances that it would be a fair election then? Oh sure, Clinton was a shoe in right? All this was going on right up to the last debate... About the same time as the "Access Hollywood" tapes that should have done in Trump's campaign... He was going to lose, and lose badly, and everybody knew it so the election was going to be FAIR and the Russians where NOT an issue.
What changed?
Do some critical thinking and think about the history of this, don't just fall for the sound bite news coverage of all this... I know it's hard to ignore the shrill voices on both sides of this at times, but do try..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And then, it turns out, Trump isn't accepting the validity of the election EVEN THOUGH he won !
He just cannot accept the idea that 3 million more people voted for his opponent, so he keeps trying to claim that their votes were the results of massive and unprecedented fraud !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
How can you tell either way without an investigation?
You do realize that the biggest net gain for the Russians is the PR here right? They may not have changed even one vote cast, but all this consternation about how they "hacked" the election undermines the electorate's confidence in the process.
Putin is sitting back chuckling about how a little bit of hacking has placed his name and image in front of the world and inflated his image which increases his ability to stay in office.... Then, the gift that keeps on giving, pits Americans vrs Americans which only makes the USA weaker. Apart from achieving some military victory of the USA there is nothing better for him...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Comey and Rogers both told the Congressional Committee that there was Russian interference in the elections.
The Republicans on the committee didn't argue.
You won't accept anonymous or 'biased' sources. What evidence would you accept?
Voting systems are constitutionally defined as being under the control of the states who then submit their representatives for voting for legislation and for the electing the President.
Homeland Security wanted to regulate state election systems under the guise of "critical infrastructure." That's a power grab and it starts with them just mandating certain security requirements. Then they need to "inspect" the systems and "check" the records to make sure they're secure. Then you end up with a standardized election system and, of course, Homeland Security can peek at the results at any time they want.
There was a similar call after the 2000 elections as well - part of how we ended up with all these "electronic voting systems" that Diebold made and were all easily hackable. The feds were well on their way to enforcing a standardized election system at the time too until the states balked.
I don't think "con artist" is name calling; it is just shorthand to describe his business habits to date. He convinces people to do things not in their best interest by lying to them. He puts on a good show and gets people to have confidence in him, and then produces zilch. Just look at Trump University, the Taj Mahal debacle, or the Trump Network (vitamins). None of has proven to be illegal (yet), but none of it was ethical. Hopefully he'll do better for we the people than he did for his previous clients and investors.
This is one of the interesting features of most conspiracy features. "How come nobody is talking about XXXXX." The answers are normally, "They are, you just choose to ignore it" or "They aren't talking about it because it represents a worldview held by so few people, that nobody would even understand what they are talking about."
I don't bitch when the local news doesn't cover the installation of a new pipe organ in Polynesia with a rare type of reed stop. My wife doesn't complain when ABC doesn't do an expose on her phone's sudden failure to send emails. On the other hand, my son wants to know why nobody's talking about the fact that some kid traded him fake Pokemon cards. Is it because they are trying to hide something? Maybe they knew that kid had fake cards!
I guess conspiracy theorists just never grew up. A kid thinks, "People are not talking about what I think is important, therefore they must be against me personally." A well-rounded adult thinks, "People are not talking about this thing I think is important. They must have better things to do with their time. Maybe I can talk to some people and get their opinion about what's important to them." A typical American conspiracy theorist proclaims loudly, "The media isn't giving my flat-earth theory the air time it deserves, therefore Obama is a secret Muslim who is going to make me gay marry an illegal immigrant atheist."