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posted by on Monday January 02 2017, @10:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the poor-sources-of-information dept.

Glenn Greenwald reports via The Intercept

The Washington Post on Friday [December 30] reported a genuinely alarming event: Russian hackers have penetrated the U.S. power system through an electrical grid in Vermont. The Post headline conveyed the seriousness of the threat:
[Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, officials say]

The first sentence of the article directly linked this cyberattack to alleged Russian hacking of the email accounts of the DNC and John Podesta--what is now routinely referred to as "Russian hacking of our election"--by referencing the code name revealed on Wednesday by the Obama administration when it announced sanctions on Russian officials: "A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials."

The Post article contained grave statements from Vermont officials of the type politicians love to issue after a terrorist attack to show they are tough and in control.

[...] The article went on and on in that vein, with all the standard tactics used by the U.S. media for such stories: quoting anonymous national security officials, reviewing past acts of Russian treachery, and drawing the scariest possible conclusions ("'The question remains: Are they in other systems and what was the intent?' a U.S. official said").

The media reactions, as Alex Pfeiffer documents, were exactly what one would expect: hysterical, alarmist proclamations of Putin's menacing evil.

[...] The Post's story also predictably and very rapidly infected other large media outlets. Reuters thus told its readers around the world: "A malware code associated with Russian hackers has reportedly been detected within the system of a Vermont electric utility."

What's the problem here? It did not happen.

There was no "penetration of the U.S. electricity grid". The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all its computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.

Apparently, the Post did not even bother to contact the company before running its wildly sensationalistic claims, so Burlington Electric had to issue its own statement to the Burlington Free Press, which debunked the Post's central claim (emphasis in original): "We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization's grid systems."


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:07AM (#448731)

    Alt-Right
    Democrats
    Republicans
    Most Corporations
    People in general

    And you would still be correct.

    It is funny to watch people make these comments against a particular group when it often covers their own group as well...

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:30AM (#448739)

    Except, there are no SJWs! The are like gay Nazi unicorns, a figment of a disordered alt-right fevered imagination.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @03:19AM (#448754)

      SJW is just the latest coded defensive-dude swear word.

      Some past synonyms:
      feminazi
      self-hating jew
      race traitor
      fag-lover
      rino
      cuck
      libtard
      feminsta
      cultural marxist
      tree-hugger

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:22AM (#448802)

        You forgot DFH, and Dagos and Wops and Bohunks and Polacks and Serbo-Croats, and Misegenists and Communists and Socialists and
        Anarchists and Gold-standardists, and Roundheads and Cavaliers, and Papists, and Pepsi-lovers, and Pacifists and Anti-war Dirty Fucking Hippies, and we are back at the beginning. Not the only circle of right-wing bugabears you could construct, have at it yourself! Start with Benedict Arnold!
        s

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @02:50PM (#448914)

        In order to address a problem, you must first accurately label it. Most of those are very accurate, unlike the wing-nut leftist labels of "Racist" "Bigot" "RACIST" "Xenophobe" and of course their favorite "RACIST!!!!!" I think the last one is starting to lose it's power, the rest have already been rendered inert through overuse.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @09:07AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @09:07AM (#449276)

          F***ubg RACISt!!!!