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Putin Claims Russia Proposed a Cyber War Treaty In 2015 But the Obama Admin Ignored Them (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Russian president Vladimir Putin (who denies any Russian part in the hacking) claims the Obama administration ignored a proposal in 2015 that might have avoided all of this. His administration suggested working out a cyber treaty with the US but was ignored by Obama officials, Putin told film director Oliver Stone in Showtime's four-part series broadcast this week. "A year and a half ago, in fall 2015, we made proposal to our American partners that we work through these issues and conclude a treaty on the rules of behavior in this sphere," he said in Stone's documentary The Putin Interviews. "The American side was silent, they didn't reply to us."
and the US arrogantly thought that they were better hackers.
Putin right now: We do not hack other nations, those are independent patriotic Russians.
Putin if he signed a treaty: We do not hack other nations, those are independent patriotic Russians.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Given the environment of this admission I can't be the only one who doubts this.
I don't doubt it, but I think he is spinning it. Think about the problem of attribution in the cyber realm, then think about what good such an agreement would be? All it would do is become something for groups to use to try and attack others in public while doing absolutely nothing to stop any of the cyber attacks. The administration probably "ignored it" (meaning told them to take a hike) because they saw it as a nothing-burger proposed solely for propaganda reasons.
So, Russia was not involved but if there was a treaty they would not have been involved and they would not have done the hacking they did not do.
My sig doesn't address Anons, sigs aren't visible to them.
At this point, if you want to point out all the flaws of Hillary Clinton and the radical Democrats who assaulted or shot at Trump Supporters or GOP members, feel free to also point out the racists who were incensed about the removal of Confederate statues or Samuel Houston's statue which is even more entertaining because he despised the Confederacy. Feel free to also point out the Trump supporters who shot and killed various people for "looking" Muslim. I own the fact that yes there was Bernie Supporter who shot up a GOP team. That's sad and I don't know where he managed to get the message that violently attacking GOP officials was okay. Violently attacking anyone is not okay. Yet the GOP needs to own their own extremist and that's something they don't care to do. Most of the time they don't acknowledge this happening. I think the most we managed to get out of Trump was a, "Stop It" and that was after he was questioned and begged. Bernie has apologized time and again over this single individual.
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Treaties need to be verifiable and respected to be of any use. No possible good could have come of signing such a treaty with someone who claims that his military is just on vacation when they invade another country and that his hackers are just unemployed patriots.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I think the more realistic explanation is that it was ignored because it means the U.S. would have to knock-off (or obfuscate behind a third party for purposes of deniability, because lets face it we're not going to stop doing it) a lot of the stuff it's doing. Everyone likes to think that they're the good guys, but the U.S. has a long history of interfering in foreign countries so it's laughable to suggest that not carrying out our own operations. But as you point out, there isn't much point in a meaningless treaty when both sides know that both they and the other side won't actually uphold it.
The Senate are serious about it, voting 98-2 for more sanctions on Russia; the House will probably follow suit. Trump would like to be buddies with Putin. The investigations should eventually find out how much sympathy and influence Russia has in the various other factions in Trump's Administration.