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Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.
[...] The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by The Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.'s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn't done meddling.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday June 16 2017, @05:56AM (32 children)
This Russian stuff is just silly:
- If this were orchestrated by the Russian government, they wouldn't have gotten caught, or at least not left tracks. Proxies exist. Assuming the attacks actually did originate in Russia, most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
- There still seems to be no evidence that any of the hacks actually achieved anything.
- There seems to be no evidence as to what effect the hackers would have liked to achieve. The fact that they accessed DNC servers only shows where security sucked the most, or else where they left the biggest footprints. For all we know, they were funded by the Clinton Foundation, and were working to get Hillary! elected.
- The presumption that the Trump team was in any way involved in this? That's just a D fantasy, because they are still looking for some way to understand why Hillary! was rejected.
Last but not least:
- Cybersecurity on American voting systems sucks. We knew that already.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:02AM
Yeah and why should we believe the NSA?
They even think Wannacry is linked to North Korea...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)
Yeah, because the Reps servers don't exists; they (the Reps) are operating purely on deep Christian faith of some flavor or another.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 16 2017, @03:07PM (1 child)
You may be right. I don't think so, but you could be right.
Funny thing is, that "deep Christian faith" seems to be a helluva lot more secure than the DNC's servers.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 16 2017, @05:54PM
It does precisely dick, so that makes sense. The most secure computer is not, it turns out, the one disassembled and locked away in a rad vault under the ocean; it's the one that doesn't exist.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday June 16 2017, @08:17AM (2 children)
Don't agree at all. With the known surveillance capabilities of the US quite the opposite is true - it's probably not possible for anyone to have e.g. exfiltrated the DNC data across the internet without leaving real tracks. On the other hand, if someone carted it out on a flash drive the lack of evidence makes sense.
These latest accusations, from what I've seen so far, are of a bit of a different character though. It does seem there were 'probes' done, not an effort to sway this election but certainly an effort to see how 'hackable' the election was. The attribution to the Russians, in this case, is not so incredible, though it still seems to be based more on inference than evidence. When *any* intelligence agency pulls a job like that it's probably safe to assume they will leave a false trail.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @09:59AM
They may leave tracks and the tracks may go to Russian IPs but where's the proof that those tracks ultimately go to the Russian Gov?
Just because a hitman from Russia doesn't mean he is killing people on behalf of the Russian government.
Just because a hacker is in Russia doesn't mean he's doing it for the Russian government either.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:53PM
So you think it was Mossad?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday June 16 2017, @09:27AM (18 children)
Not at all silly. The opportunity was the 2016 election. The Russians most certainly have motives and means.
> most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
You really believe that? Local hackers giving it a try for the lulz? No way. This isn't the 1990s any more, when any 16 year old punk hacker could easily embarrass a large organization because they used feeble or no security at all on their computer systems. You know, stuff like logging in remotely with telnet, sending passwords in the clear across who knows how many network hops, no ssh, no vpn, nothing to protect it. No, the default amount of protection is a bit better these days, and hackers are much more businesslike now, trying to turn a profit on their knowledge. Exploiting a security flaw is certainly still the method of choice, no need to resort to much more expensive spy agency methods such as physically introducing a keylogger into the victim's keyboard or a spy cam over the victim's keyboard. But with major software producers on the hot seat to patch vulnerabilities ASAP, these professional crackers are much more circumspect with their knowledge. An exploit might be good for only a short time, before a patch is issued.
> There seems to be no evidence as to what effect the hackers would have liked to achieve.
Oh come on. No motive, really? Trump's refusal to reaffirm US support for NATO's article 5 "an attack on one is an attack on all" was pure gold to Russia. Russia has been wanting to roll NATO back for, oh, almost 70 years now, ever since its founding a few years after the end of WWII. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not change that. Hillary was very much a status quo candidate who would not have made waves on the possibility of dumping NATO.
> Cybersecurity on American voting systems sucks. We knew that already.
With this, I agree. Maybe we ought to do more research in this area, quit cutting funding for science? Voting is a tough problem. And, put more in the budget for replacing antiquated computer systems? It's not just Windows XP, that's actually very modern compared to some of the stuff they're still using. Pretty embarrassing that US government agencies might still be running COBOL programs on 1960s IBM mainframes. How about the Department of Defense still using floppy disks, and I don't mean 3.5" or even 5.25" floppies, try 8" floppies from the 1970s! So much for the US being the leader in tech, eh?
And, this mania to privatize and outsource everything, maybe, you know, for a function as critical as voting is to a democracy, it ought to be developed in house, and not by the likes of Diebold? At the very least, private vendors shouldn't be allowed to get away with bull about "trade secrets" being reason why no one can inspect or review their work, not for something like voting. They will cut corners and cheat, if they can get away with it. We know businesses will do that. Some of that about government supposedly being so inefficient and wasteful is private business propaganda. NASA did after all get us to the moon.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @10:04AM
It's the 2000s where stuff like this and similar happens fairly regularly:
http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/new-sony-films-pirated-in-wake-of-hack-attack-1201367036/ [variety.com]
Or perhaps you believe the Russians were behind this and other hacks too.
(Score: 4, Touché) by fustakrakich on Friday June 16 2017, @11:31AM (14 children)
See? This is the problem. A person says one thing, and you say another. Show us some evidence
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @11:37AM
Perhaps they are a string theorist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:15PM (1 child)
can you please quote the whole sentence that was being addressed? or at least read it?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:01AM
I read the whole thing and stand by what I said. This kind of bullshit happens all the time. It is a means of deflection.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tonyPick on Friday June 16 2017, @02:22PM (10 children)
Evidence of Russian involvement? Well, just following the story links...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/06/mark-warner-more-state-election-systems-targeted-by-russians-nsa-senate-intelligence/102549928/ [usatoday.com]
Which has the leaked NSA report which concluded that....
(and presumable genuine, since they are prosecuting the leaker)
And referencing the report we have members of the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that:
And there are similar conclusions from the FBI, the CIA, the ODNI, the DHS, and even the UK's GCHQ. You think the Clintons are secretly running all of those agencies? (Seriously, you might. You sound a little jmorrisy over there.)
And if that's not enough the article has even more details on the attacks on the Illinois state system.
Plus there's the (multiple) analysis of the DNC attacks: Long Summary here... https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/the-public-evidence-behind-claims-russia-hacked-for-trump/ [arstechnica.com] (spoiler: The Evidence Indicates Russia)
Versus this you have proposed the interesting argument that
Oh yeah. They funded people to impersonate known active Russian groups to hack their own systems and then not reveal the details of those impersonators until after the election, in order to get win the election through.... some complex scheme that you can't quite describe, but which might be there?
And on:
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you'll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. " - Donald Trump, July 27; That's DT directly encouraging Russia to hack the DNC email server for a start. If people suspect his team was involved then he's got no-one else to blame, since he said that one out loud and in public.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 16 2017, @03:20PM (6 children)
Personally, I don't really know what to believe. But, I'll throw "mass hysteria" out there. You might take a look at McCarthyism again. Maybe McCarthy uncovered a bad guy or six, but he did his level best to destroy thousands of lives in the process. And, at that, there are differing definitions for "bad guy". It's entirely possible that McCarthy did this country no good at all, while destroying those thousands of lives. At the very best, the good that he did is negligible.
So, another round of paranoid Americans feeding off of their own phychosis isn't all that implausible.
Besides, let us accept at face value, all of the accusations against Russia. Let's just believe everything our intel communities and the DNC are telling us. In effect, we are admitting that we are incompetent, and the Russians are at least competent. And, we're whining that it's Russia's fault that we are incompetent? Phhht. Smoke and mirrors, and the smoke is being blown up our asses.
Then, there is the fact that no one can point to any result, and declare, "See there! THAT is what the Russians did! Roanoke, Virginia (or your choice of city or county, or even state) voted Democrat, unanimously, but the results were changed to give Trump a 53% share of the votes!" No one has found a single verified instance of voting manipulation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday June 16 2017, @06:57PM (3 children)
I'm not so concerned about the voting manipulation, and I'm willing to accept that the Electoral College fucked us up the ass again. The places that voted for Trump I was expecting, and the popular vote was wildly in HRC's favor. If the votes were that manipulated, then we really need to revamp the whole voting process. We should be investigating, regardless of partisan politics, all electronic voting machines. I think we should get rid of the fuckers, or at least move to a receipt with cryptographic signatures. That way a website can report your vote, preserve anonymity, and you are holding the only proof of how you cast your vote.
Russia showed us that we cannot have confidence in our voting processes without a full fucking review. Period.
What concerns me more than anything, is that Orange Anus won't release his fucking taxes. Egotistical prick can't handle the rest of us seeing that he isn't worth 10 billion, but in the mean time, we have absolutely no fucking clue how compromised he is, if at all. We can't have a president that flaunts conflicts of interest in the way that he and his family have. Our democracy doesn't work without trust, and that racist dipshit wipes his ass with the foreign emoluments clause. How do we *know* that he isn't compromised by Russia? That he doesn't have huge financial interests in appeasing Russian foreign interests?
He's president (not mine), and that's a fucking tragedy, but if we are to have any hope going forward, he needs to put the conflicts of interests to rest. That only happens with transparency, that only happens with the release of his taxes, and that only happens with him and his shitty abhorrent children-of-the-corn family divests themselves of their financial interests that are in conflict with serving the U.S in the capacity they wish to.
Until Donnie Tiny Hands nuts up and does what it takes to be president, he is nothing but an illegitimate president waiting for another civil war while the country craters into a 3rd world hell hole. The country will not move on till he addresses it. Unlike Obama and his birth certificate, this is really fucking serious. We have no ability or reason to trust that bombastic shithead.
All of this is separate from impeaching his corrupt ass for trying to lean on the fucking FBI director, of all people. Complete. Fucking. Moron.
You were in the military. Partisan bullshit aside, are you really that comfortable that Dear Leader isn't compromised by the Russians and/or financial interests? He's the Commander in Chief, and possibly, in Russia's pocket. That's the very fucking definition of untenable, but maybe that's just me.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 16 2017, @10:38PM (1 child)
Most of my loans are from Deutsche Bank. I got a lot of loans from them, I mean, not a lot a lot. I mean, not a lot for me, it may be a lot for you. Less than a billion, but almost a billion, from Deutsche Bank. Which is German, not Russian. Around a billion dollars, it could be more but I think it was less. And if Russia guaranteed those loans, so what? They do what I say. I don't do what they say. I do what I want. What's best for America. And I always, always put America first. Let me tell you, Deutsche Bank did a close internal examination, that's what they called it, of my account. And they found no collusion. When Deutsche Bank themselves, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end? Folks, it's a total hoax. #TrumpHotels [twitter.com] #MakeAmericaGreatAgain [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:43AM
Fuck off and die in a fire
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:05AM
There's no need for all the emotional baggage. Use paper ballots and the problem is solved.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:15AM (1 child)
You see, I might find that an interesting argument; I don't think I'd agree with it given the sheer scope and range of corroboration of the above stuff (and the fact not all of it is from America: Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand and maybe the Dutch and the French for a start), but it's certainly a possible explanation and while it might be unique in it's scope there have been smaller scale examples of that before [bbc.co.uk]. You could probably try and make that case and not sound like a lunatic.
However the OP (and others) are not arguing that this stuff is wrong, or that they don't agree with it, but are saying that it doesn't exist, which is just... I don't know - it seems to me the American politics in general, and the recently the American right in particular, appears to take Reality as a thing you can just opt out of, based on whether it agrees with "our side(tm)" or not. This doesn't do anything other than undermine any valid arguments that might be made (even if it's clearly a vote winner).
Minor point:
To quote TFA: "In many states, the extent of the Russian infiltration remains unclear. The federal government had no direct authority over state election systems, and some states offered limited cooperation. When then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said last August that the department wanted to declare the systems as national critical infrastructure -- a designation that gives the federal government broader powers to intervene -- Republicans balked."
And I can point at at least one politician who thinks voter fraud was thing that happened [independent.co.uk] in the last election. Hey, don't you trust him anymore? :D
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:38PM
Your choice of words is excellent. "I might find that" and "I don't think I'd agree".
You seem to undertand perfectly that I was just throwing that out there for consideration.
The one thing that almost makes the idea plausible, is the fact that MSM and the DNC seem to be obsessed with the idea of Russian manipulation of the election. I may be exaggerating a little, but it seems like every day, even when there is no news to report, someone writes another article with a newly tweaked spin.
It can be awfully difficult to find a proper balance in this kind of ongoing - uhhh - investigation or witch hunt. It's easy to lose interest, because it gets boring after awhile. It's also easy to get obsessed, if you take the issue personally. My "safe space" on this story, is sitting in the shade of the skepticism tree in my back yard. ;^) I figure that about the time Trump is three and a half years into his term (first, or only?) they should have figured things out.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:56AM (2 children)
"Leaks"... please. How does anybody know they aren't planted also? Sorry, until this stuff is thoroughly and publicly cross examined, we are getting nothing but hearsay.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday June 17 2017, @08:23AM (1 child)
Some Leaks. Some official statements. Some summary reviews. Some investigation analysis. From multiple sources and nations. All producing a reasonably coherent picture of motive, tools and techniques indicating a targeted attack with a specific culprit.
I mean unless you think that everybody involved is just making stuff up, which would be absolutely fucking craz....
Oh. Right. You possibly do.
You could start with the Ars Technica analysis here:
https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/the-public-evidence-behind-claims-russia-hacked-for-trump/ [arstechnica.com]
https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/clinton-campaign-email-accounts-were-targeted-by-russians-too/ [arstechnica.com]
Or the crowdstrike analysis
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ [crowdstrike.com]
Or if you don't trust them, how about SecureWorks
https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign [secureworks.com]
Or if you don't trust them there's Fidelis
https://www.fidelissecurity.com/tags/dnc-hack [fidelissecurity.com]
Or if you don't trust them there's also Mandiant and ThreatConnect a google search away.
You might not *like* it, or think you have reasons to mistrust it, but arguing "It doesn't exist. And if it does it's just hearsay. And if it isn't then it's fake" isn't the most compelling chain of argument.
How long until you want a time machine to go back and sit on the wire and get the packet captures as they come in to prove that the data in the analysis isn't fake? You don't seem to have got to the part of being Skeptical where you say "What if I'm wrong? What could convince me of that?".
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @11:16AM
So far none of it is admissible in a court of law. All these 'analysts' are still speculating. Bring it before the judge, and then we can talk. So far, the only real evidence is within the DNC correspondence itself (if there isn't some fake stuff inserted there as well). And so far, all the plausible voting fraud is also within the DNC, in their primaries. Until it makes it into court, all this Russian stuff is just more birtherism, and the democrats are just crying over another loss after they couldn't prove anything from 2000 either. Introspection is not their strong suit.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday June 16 2017, @11:32AM
You have some interesting points. However, I do disagree that security is better today that it used to be. Even disregarding all of the 0-day exploits that keep popping up, we have the largest security hole of all: stupid users who click on phishing links (Colin Powell and John Podesta), stupid providers who use security questions (Sarah Palin), and back to stupid users who think "password" is a password (John Podesta again).
It really doesn't take the powers of a a national government to hack email accounts and servers, when you have users practically begging to be hacked...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @03:42PM
So the hackers, also hacked Trumps mind and knew beforehand that he would refuse to support article 5?
Think about how much more useful info they could have gained elsewhere.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @12:03PM (2 children)
When it looked like Trump could lose, he blamed a 'hack' and Hillary, et al said 'dont be stupid, there is no hack'.
Hillary loses and suddenly there is hackzzzzz!!!
RIGHT!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
The difference is that Trump had exactly zero evidence to back up his claim. Now it appears that there is some credible evidence of Russian meddling. Hence, the reason for the investigation. You do believe in investigating when there is actual evidence, right?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:23AM
Well, i believe in investigating when there is an acusation: you know, someone says "there was a hack" and you say "oh, really... i better investigate to see if there is evidence to follow this up with".
You go:
1. Find evidence: follow through with an investigation.
2. Find no evidence: don't follow through.
Trump was just told "Don't be stupid". There was no investigating for evidence (of which, it appears, there has been for years!).
SO: "You do believe in investigating when there is actual evidence, right?"
My answer is YES!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday June 16 2017, @02:52PM (1 child)
If the objective is not to change the outcome of the election, but to make people skeptical of the election's legitimacy, then Russia actually benefits from letting the tracks go back to Russia.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:11PM
No don't you see, the Russians planted the evidence because they knew if we found no evidence it would prove it was them. This is standard conspiracy 101 level stuff on InfoWars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 16 2017, @03:45PM
- If this were orchestrated by the Russian government, they wouldn't have gotten caught, or at least not left tracks. Proxies exist. Assuming the attacks actually did originate in Russia, most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
Edward Snowden, a guy with firsthand knowledge, believes the NSA can absolutely track ex-filtrated data and figure out who did it. I think I trust his opinion more than yours.
XKeyscore, which Snowed revealed in 2013, “makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops,” [politico.com]
Snowden argued that publicizing the consequences of insidious data hacking clear is the best national defense. “Without a credible threat that USG can and will use #NSA capabilities to publicly attribute responsibility, such hacks will become common,” he tweeted, adding, “This is the only case in which mass surveillance has actually proven effective. Though I oppose in principle, it is a mistake to ignore.”