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Russia Behind Cyber-attack, Says Ukraine's Security Service (bbc.com)
Ukraine says it has discovered who the perpetrators of last week's destructive ransomware attack are. From a report: Ukraine says it has proof that Russian security services were involved in the cyber-attack that targeted businesses around the world last week. The country's security service, the SBU, said it had obtained data that points to a link with an attack on the nation's capital, Kiev, in December. Ukrainian firms were among the first to report issues with malicious software on Tuesday, before the virus spread. Moscow denied any involvement, adding that the allegations were "unfounded".
The virus, which disrupted IT systems across the globe, froze computers and demanded a ransom be paid in the digital currency Bitcoin, which is untraceable. Further reading: The Petya Ransomware Is Starting To Look Like a Cyberattack in Disguise.
Putinbots army in 3... 2... 1...
This is in line with Russia's motives, but lying and blaming Russia is also in line with Ukraine's motives, particular if they are wanting US backing. This, neither claim should be trusted until we can see sufficient evidence.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm not so sure that Donald Trump himself is directly a puppet, I think his strings are being pulled by person(s) in his administration, and that he's just the typical 'great white male' power-hungry jackass with delusions of grandeur that historically gets used. It might even be a cabal within the Republican party itself, conspiring with Russia to steal the election out from under Hillary Clinton -- not that Clinton would have been any better overall than Trump, it would have been just a different flavor of bad and evil. The ugly truth of the matter is, there wasn't a single candidate in the 2016 election that was really truly suitable to run this country (I almost said 'The Greatest Nation on Earth', but we haven't been that since World War 2) so it didn't really matter who got elected or how, 300,000,000 people here (and most of the rest of the free world) end up losing regardless. The only good thing that would have come out of Clinton being elected would have been that it wasn't due to foreign influence and/or hacking of our electoral process.
Even while we're picking up the pieces of the farce that was the 2016 election, and while we're investigating and uncovering the conspiracy and outside influences, and (with any luck, closing the holes that allowed it to happen), then repairing the damage the Trump 'administration' is causing to this country and it's reputation with the rest of the free world (if that's even possible in our lifetime at this point), there's a bigger concern: containing Vladimir Putin and his ambitions of empire. If it's not exceedingly clear to anyone at this point that Putin wants to build a new Russian empire, then you're either not paying attention, or you're in deep denial. The invasion of Crimea was just a proof-of-concept, to see if he would be allowed to get away with it ('achievement unlocked', apparently). The meddling and hacking of the 2016 U.S. election, and other elections in various countries, is helping lay the groundwork for further Russian military actions in the EU, by installing leadership in key NATO countries that will be more sympathetic to Putin and Russia (or just plain more easily manipulated). I'd imagine the next big-ticket item on his to-do list will be to dismantle NATO, or at least weaken it to the point where it's ineffective. Influencing/hacking the BrExit vote helps to destabilize the EU, which in turn will help destabilize NATO. France is another big piece of the puzzle, and it's unclear to me whether or not Macron would ultimately be a help or a hindrance to Russia; I'm leaning towards Macron being a hindrance. The ongoing war in Syria, and the continual stream of refugees from that country, is also a further destabilizing force in EU countries, especially Germany; does anyone actually think that Putin actually likes Assad? Assad is a butcher, plain and simple, waging a war of extermination against his own citizens; even Putin must have to hold his nose when dealing with Assad, and the Syrian conflict and Assad are just more tools for Putin to use. Daesh (so-called 'Islamic State'), for all we know, might even be getting some clandestine support from Putin, just because they've been so good at destabilizing the entire region; even I would lean away from this however because of how over-the-top, savagely, animalistically violent Daesh has been; they have NO friends anywhere. Even Al-Qaeda distanced themselves from them as 'too extreme'. More likely, Putin is using Daesh as an excuse to 'help' Syria, and is playing off the refugee crisis it's causing, as distraction for everything else going on (like the invasion of Crimea, for instance, and continual cyberattacks, which are masquerading as 'cyber crime').
Oh, and one more thing: don't blame most of the people who (actually) voted for Trump; in the parlance of the old Soviet Union, they're just 'useful idiots', whether they knew who and what they were voting for or not. The sad truth is that most U.S. voters really don't have (or can't have) a full enough grasp of the Big Picture to really kn
The article's central message is plausible: Russia running a cyberwar against Ukraine and at the same time trying to build up knowhow. But at the same time the author knows that he can write anything about Russia and it will be believed. At the same time the story is part of a large anti-Russia and anti Trump campaign.
I don't keep track so I don't have a lot of links ready but I know the news about a russian cyberattack on US powerplant was bogus. Russian hacking of DNC was bogus.Russian-Trump links are bogus. Russian hacking of french elections was bogus. But these debunkings only come through very slowly. On the other side there is a barrage of claims that is so overwhelming nobody can begin to debunk them.
And I see good reasons why the democrats and the military industrical complex prefer to have high tensions with Russia and why they want to blame Russia for the failed elections. And I see why the press goes along with it.
And I think that whatever Russia is doing(a lot less than claimed, but certainly a lot of business as usual nasty stuff) it's a good idea to improve the ties with them rather than deteriorate them. That is my opinion about policy. That it's in the west's interest. I also think they're open for chances for improvement , at least as long as Putin is there.
But look at this thread. It's almost unanimous against Russia. Any outsider looking here without any knowledge of the situation would know, this is bad. It means no good thinking will come out of it.(there's more reasons for that though). It also means propaganda is still very effective here and now.
So the article of the topic here may have a good degree of truth, but it's all part of an anti-russian frenzy which I think is a very bad idea.
Here's a new link about a lot of the hacking stories. It covers quite some ground. I'd have to dig for the rest. The ones I mentioned are some I'm pretty certain of although one can debate how convincing the proof is.
https://consortiumnews.com/201...
I didn't discuss Trump. I'd like to get rid of him but I'm convinced the current campaign to link him to Russia is extremely dishonest. He's right about that. Maybe he'll go down because in his efforts to stop them he'll do something very illegal. Or maybe he'll stay in power because he made the right friends. The Saudis and the weapons manufacturers for instance. Then all that the anti Russia campaign will have achieved is to give us the worst of both worlds. Thanks for cooperating everyone.