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from the all-your-email-are-belong-to-us dept.
From NPR:
President Obama has ordered the intelligence community to conduct a "full review" of "malicious cyber activity" timed to U.S. elections, the White House said Friday.
The review will go all the way back to the 2008 campaign when China was found to have hacked both the Obama and McCain campaigns, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said at a Friday press briefing.
In the 2016 election, U.S. intelligence officials charged that Russia had interfered. In early October, they released a strongly worded statement saying they were "confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations." The statement went on to say "these thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process."
Shortly after that, WikiLeaks began posting emails hacked from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta's Gmail account. The slow drip of those emails, including transcripts of Clinton's remarks to Goldman Sachs, hung over the campaign in its closing weeks and proved embarrassing at times. Podesta said he spoke to the FBI about the hacking, and intelligence experts blamed Russia for that as well.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:02AM
For a second there I thought this was going to be about them doing something reasonable like looking into questionable voting machines. But no.
Is it really so terrible that leaked emails may have caused voters to know something about a candidate before voting? Or is voting supposed to be like trading stocks, where no one is supposed to have an unfair advantedge over anyone else, and acting on information that isn't public will get you prosecuted for "insider voting?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:48PM
> Or is voting supposed to be like trading stocks, where no one is supposed to have an unfair advantedge over anyone else,
Yeah it damn well is. How can you even argue otherwise? That one candidate should have their "secrets" exposed while the other side does not. How does that serve the voting public?
Russia hacked both campaigns, but they only released the dirt they have on one candidate. That means they've got blackmail material on trump. In what world is it good for the USA to have a president who is compromised by russia from the first day he gets into office?
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:49PM
Yeah it damn well is. How can you even argue otherwise? That one candidate should have their "secrets" exposed while the other side does not. How does that serve the voting public?
I have a solution. How about you hack the other side next time? No reason the Russians should be the only ones who can play that game.
Russia hacked both campaigns, but they only released the dirt they have on one candidate. That means they've got blackmail material on trump. In what world is it good for the USA to have a president who is compromised by russia from the first day he gets into office?
What exactly has been compromised?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:58PM
I have a solution. How about you hack the other side next time? No reason the Russians should be the only ones who can play that game.
Because I'd be prosecuted and thrown in prison if I did that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:59PM
> I have a solution. How about you hack the other side next time? No reason the Russians should be the only ones who can play that game.
WTF?
Did you just argue that political parties should hack each other? You do know that hacking is illegal, right?
> What exactly has been compromised?
I feel like you are either a dumbfuck or you are playing a dumbfuck on soylent.
Surely you are not such a dumbfuck as to believe that the RNC has no dirty secrets?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:13PM
Did you just argue that political parties should hack each other? You do know that hacking is illegal, right?
Yes and yes. Funny how people care about legality when it's their party that gets hacked.
Surely you are not such a dumbfuck as to believe that the RNC has no dirty secrets?
And you're confident that they're emailing those dirty secrets, why? It's worth noting here that the Democrat secrets that were revealed, weren't particularly dirty. They showed that the DNC (DNC != Democrat Party BTW, it's the organization that coordinates nation-level activities like in the last year primary scheduling and the party convention, or coordinating nation-wide campaign funding of Democrat party candidates in the main elections) was in the tank for Clinton, but that was about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:06PM
> Yes and yes. Funny how people care about legality when it's their party that gets hacked.
Funny how you just make up motivations and ascribe them to people you don't like.
Kind of like you have no moral principles yourself and think everyone else is just like you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:29PM
Yeah, he's a steaming pile of horribleness. Badly propagandized beliefs, shitty ethics, poor critical thinking skills, and a closed mind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @07:46AM
But more relevantly, who would suggest that we just not reveal important secrets about powerful actors, if we can't equally reveal those secrets? Why someone whose favorite pol just got burned by Russian intelligence. People without a horse in the race don't care who gets nailed as long as someone does on a frequent enough basis. Turnover of the crooks is good in politics and everyone will eventually get their turn. But people with a pet politician always complain when their guy gets whacked.
And that brings me to my original point. All this nasty fighting is good for democracy. First, it digs out true viewpoints and relevant secrets. It culls the particularly corrupt. It gives intelligence agencies something more worthwhile to squander their funds on than spying on regular people.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:15PM
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:50PM
You have exactly zero evidence that Russians hacked either campaign. What you have is the unsubstantiated word of the CIA. If I have to explain to you why one should never believe what the CIA says (OK, one example, WMD in Iraq), you are a lost cause.
I take it as incontrovertible proof that the DNC has finished its conversion to NewGOP as I watch it try to reignite tensions with Russia, and this time without even an ideological basis like "Commie Bastards". I don't see Russia as an enemy -- the DNC however, that lot is fucking dangerous (mass surveillance, due process free execution, gutting the War Powers Act, the NDAA, the new propaganda bill, and they never say a fucking thing when their own kind act like neocons (entirety of Obama's reign)).
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 12 2016, @01:40AM
The CIA specializes in overthrowing governments. It seems that now it's becoming more public about trying to overthrow its own, and with the new breaking news about them entering the frey to tie Trump to the Russians, and everything falling into place after 9/11, I totally believe that.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @11:09PM
Oh we should have more transparency. Of that I agree. However, the things popping out of those emails shows exactly how F'd up everything is. One of the candidates was screaming 'its rigged'. The other side was screaming it wasnt. Turns out it *IS* rigged. But not as in a computer hacker sort of way. But more in a 'people with political power are fucking you and lying to you' sort of way.
Russia hacked both campaigns, but they only released the dirt they have on one candidate. That means they've got blackmail material on trump. In what world is it good for the USA to have a president who is compromised by russia from the first day he gets into office?
You have 0 proof of that or than a gut feeling. It *could* be true. But you will need to prove it. We *do* however have mountains of proof how the DNC was f'ing everyone over. Next up the RNC.
However, I do have to say when you can register your dog to vote and get a voter packet to mail in something is wrong. I can pretty much 100% say my dog does not care who wins.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday December 12 2016, @01:30AM
Yeah, I'd love to know what exactly happened in that one precinct in Detroit that had 95% of the votes cast for Clinton. That sounds like nothing shady happened at all... Best was watching CNN gloss over this WTF moment when they reported the results from that precinct.