Special Counsel Mueller Charges 12 Russian Intelligence Officers With Hacking Democrats During 2016 Election (cnbc.com)

Special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a new indictment charging 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democrats to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and with stealing information of about 500,000 American voters, the Justice Department announced Friday. From a report: The indictment lodged in Washington, D.C., accuses the Russian spies of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and of releasing emails obtained from that cybersnooping with a a goal of influencing the election. The accused also hacked into state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and into companies that provided software used to administer elections, according to Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein said he briefed President Donald Trump about the case earlier in the week.

Comments

Re:hmm

[Alascom]

It is important to include all relevant facts.

Peter Strozk, the FBI boss in the news for saying he would "stop Trump" from becoming President, was the person who paid Stefan Halper as an FBI informant and placed him inside the Trump campaign.

Stefan Halper then used his influence inside the campaign to recommend and hire Carter Page, who is now accused of being a Russian spy.

So the trail of facts seems to show a very very different story.

1. FBI's boss (Peter Strozk) hires a mole
2. FBI place mole inside Trump campaign (due to fear of russia)
3. FBI Mole recommends and hires a Russian spy (Carter Page)
4. FBI gets warrants to spy on campaign based on Russian spy "infiltrating" the campaign - Peter Strozk (see 1) leads the investigation
5. Opponents claim Trump colluded with Russians and deny FBI bias.

If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.

Re:And Russia Shrugs

[PopeRatzo]

I'm sure Russia will be falling over themselves to round these guys up and turn them over to the U.S. We can hold a trial in absentia to help make us feel better, but these individuals will never see the inside of a courtroom unless they are paying a parking fine in Mother Russia.

The purpose of these new indictments is not to bring Russian intelligence operatives to justice. The purpose is to establish grounds for conspiracy charges against Americans. There's still a lot more to come from this investigation. Don't think for a second that this is some sort of conclusion. That mistake has been made every time new indictments are brought: "Is that all Mueller has?" is the cry from the Trump camp every time one of these new indictments is announced. You can tell from the unforced errors coming out of the Trump administration that the pressure is building.

Detecting trolls and sock puppets on Slashdot

[shanen]

If I ever had a mod point to give, then I might give you one on the grounds that it's the only visible mention of "hackers" in this discussion.

In general, I was not made happy by the lack of "funny" comments, even though it's a serious topic with little room for humor. However, it was more saddening to see the dominance of the discussion by obvious trolls and sock puppets. Does it call for a review of the ontology of lies? Or a new ontology of trolls?

The so-called victory of #PresidentTweety was razor thin. What that actually means is that each and EVERY group that can plausibly claim to have influenced about 80,000 voters has an equally plausible claim to be the margin of Trump's residency in the "dump", as he described the White House. Actually, you could argue for 40,000 if they were voters swung away from Hillary and over to Trump.

There are strong and credible evaluations (including some bipartisan ones) that strongly indicate that the tactics of Putin's goons influenced at least that many suckers among the millions of voters they targeted. Ergo, it's rather hard to deny that Trump owes Putin, but it's only a question of degree. My assessment is that Trump is much more beholden to Mike Pence for delivering the votes of the religious lunatics.

Or perhaps it's more significant that the US government is almost surely more guilty of interfering in elections than the Russians? If money does translate into votes, then it would be a sure call. Do you know how much of the Marshall Plan funding was actually diverted to the CIA? And how much of that dark money was used for meddling in elections in places like Italy and Japan?

Still, it feels worse when our own ox has been gored. It might be worse in this case only because of the old KGB kompromat on Trump that Putin inherited. (I still think the Golden Shower rumor is a clever feint created by Putin to make his puppet feel safer.)

Re:As they say in Russia

[amicusNYCL]

Very awful, and highly disliked (you might even say the second most-disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, after Trump himself).

But that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not Russians are actively trying to influence elections and subvert democratic processes in the US and Europe.

And it's troubling that so many people in the US are trying to discredit an investigation into whether or not our democratic processes are being actively subverted.

Re:As they say in Russia

[fafalone]

Considering what comes out of peoples mouths when they explain why they voted for Trump or still support him, arguing that no one is stupid enough to have been influenced by something that dumb isn't very persuasive.