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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:07AM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

Related Stories

The Real Lesson of the Alleged Russian Hack 40 comments

John Arquilla at ACM writes:

What a pity that senior leaders in the American government and intelligence community have decided to play political football with the alleged Russian hacks of John Podesta's and other Democrats' emails. By using these intrusions to gin up fears about the "integrity" of the electoral process—which is already befouled by the focus on finding and spreading dirt on the opposition—the real story is being neglected. And what is that real story? It is that, despite more than two decades of consistent public warnings that have reached the highest levels of government, cybersecurity throughout much of the world is in a shameful state of unpreparedness.

Take the United States, for example. Since the mid-1990s, there have been approximately 200 cybersecurity bills brought before Congress. Only one has passed, quite recently at that, and it only calls for voluntary information-sharing about cyber incidents. Legislation aside, there have also been several government-sponsored commissions and top-level exercises focused on understanding and illuminating the cyber threat. Each of these has signaled that "the red light is flashing;" that is, American cybersecurity is in very poor shape. Indeed, former cyber czar Richard Clarke and Robert Knake, in their book, Cyber War, list the U.S. as having the poorest cyber defenses among the leading developed countries.

TL;DR: The lesson(s) are: we must improve defenses, better use of strong encryption, and don't wait for government policy to protect you.

Previously:
Obama Orders Sweeping Review of International Hacking Tied to U.S. Elections
How Hackers Broke into John Podesta and Colin Powell's Gmail Accounts


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:21AM (#439935)

    I didn't vote for Hillary, but Hillary won my state anyway. There's literally nothing I personally could have done differently to benefit Hillary more.

    Because, the People don't vote for the President. The States vote for the President. Never forget that fact.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:34AM (#439937)

      I didn't vote for Hillary,

      Heretic! How could you be so stupid! After the xkcd guy told you to vote for Her! I'm mailing a bobcat to your house, and I expect you to perform cunnilingus on it! Then die.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @12:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @12:14PM (#439955)

        Thanks for the warning, moron! When I receive the bobcat in a box, I'll return to sender! Then eat pie.

    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:47AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:47AM (#439938)

      My state is red. Regardless of my voting, it would not have made a difference either. There's literally nothing I personally could have done differently to benefit Hillary more.

      It is strange to me that we can both make arguments from polar opposite realities and have the same personal outcome.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:34AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:34AM (#439946)

        It is strange to me that we can both make arguments from polar opposite realities and have the same personal outcome.

        "You're missing the point! The individual doesn't matter. It was a team effort, and I was the one who came up with the whole team idea...me!"

        Because, the People don't vote for the President. The States vote for the President. Never forget that fact.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:31PM (#440460)

      There's literally nothing I personally could have done differently to benefit Hillary more.

      You could have:
      1) Donated (more) money to her campaign.
      2) Personally talked to people in your local area about why she was a better candidate.
      3) Traveled to a "swing state" to campaign for her there.
      4) Moved to a "swing state."
      5) Campaigned for her on the internet.
      6) Offered technical assistance to her campaign.
      7...

      Assuming you wanted to (which is a huge assumption), there is literally tons of things you could have done more to benefit Hillary. And that's not even counting illegal things, such as hacking the RNC and releasing emails.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:02AM

    by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:02AM (#439943) Journal

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:48PM (#439970)

      > 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

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:49PM (#439988) Journal

        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

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:58PM (#439990)

          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

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:59PM (#439991)

          > 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

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:13PM (#439993) Journal

            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

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:06PM (#440008)

              > 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

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:29PM (#440068)

                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

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 12 2016, @07:46AM (#440251) Journal
                Think about it. Nobody does equal reveals. Stories are routinely about single targets. Why suggest that Russian intelligence ought to have a higher moral standard of news reporting than the actual media (who incidentally was quite asleep on this subject)?

                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

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:15PM (#440026)
        What if i want to vote for the party that is BETTER at keeping their secrets... secret.
      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:50PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:50PM (#440038) Journal

        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

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday December 12 2016, @01:40AM (#440161) Homepage

          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

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @11:09PM (#440109)

        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

      by SanityCheck (5190) on Monday December 12 2016, @01:30AM (#440156)

      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.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:22AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:22AM (#439945) Homepage Journal

    A fundamental rule of politics is to distract from domestic issues by identifying a foreign enemy. The chances that the Russians would bother to mess with the US elections? Dunno, I'm skeptical...

    "the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations"

    In any case, the absolutely fascinating aspect of all the email releases is simply this: No one ever disputed the contents of the emails, not even in the tiniest detail. They screamed and cried about the fact that the emails were made public, but the actual corruption and criminality evidenced by the contents? Apparently all true. And that is the real news of the day.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:49AM

      by zocalo (302) on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:49AM (#439948)
      I actually find it hard to believe they *wouldn't* try to influence the election. The must have taken a good hard look at all the candidates and worked out which ones would be most likely to benefit their interests, even before it came down to Hillary vs. Trump, and then coming up some kind of rating system as to which candidates would be the ones that they thought most likely to cause the best combination of weakening the country concerned - the US in this case - while enabling them to strengthen their own position. Assuming they had acquired some "interesting" information on the candidates in the process of doing that, then why wouldn't they try and leverage that to promote the cause of their preferred candidate?

      I agree with your second point though, that the contents of the emails wasn't really disputed is the more interesting story here. The question is, do we ascribe that to the idea that it was 100% unequivocably true, or just that the media wasn't prepared to question their information in case is ruined the narrative they were trying to spin (too much like actual journalism, and we don't do that anymore!) and the public's willingness to lap it up without question because it fitted with their personal worldview? The reality is almost certainly somewhere in the middle, of course, but the media has collectively made it impossible to determine just where in the middle the truth lies - there are almost no verifiable sources, quotes are almost always out of context, rebuttals are barely reported on at all. It's a brave new world of news reporting, and it's almost all totally useless if you are interested in any kind of truth but what someone with an agenda wants you to believe.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:16PM (#439962)

        > there are almost no verifiable sources, quotes are almost always out of context, rebuttals are barely reported on at all

        That's not true. Sure it happens sometimes. But not most of the time. The problem is that people get their news from the headlines. The body of the reports are skimmed or just completely skipped far too often. So those rebuttals, the context of the quotes and the identities of their sources are there, just ignored.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jelizondo on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:36PM

        by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:36PM (#439967) Journal

        There is not a shred of evidence that Russia or any other State actor hacked the election. Bear in mind that the very same people that are making such claims without proof also claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which to this day have not been found.

        If HRC had used a secure (?) government server, the FBI would not have had anything to investigate; if the DNC had not rigged the election in favor of HRC, there would not have been leaked emails; if Bill & Hillary weren’t taking money from foreign governments, there would not have been anything to hold against them.

        It is quite easy to blame the Russians but if, a big if, the Russians indeed tried to influence the election the root cause is the corrupt ways of HRC and the DNC. If you give your enemies weapons, don’t blame them for using them against you.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @02:00PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @02:00PM (#439972)

          There is not a shred of evidence that Russia or any other State actor hacked the election.

          Uh, no. They have the phishing email that compromised podesta. It used the same exploit, and more importantly the same back-end server infrastructure that the fancybear hacking group used in other attacks that were indepdendently traced to russia.

          Bear in mind that the very same people that are making such claims without proof also claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,

          Don't blindly repeat Trump talking points without checking them. Its not the "very same people" - because the intelligence agencies were highly skeptical of the idea that iraq had wmds. Its was the Bush administration that took low-confidence intelligence based on 5-year old data and sexed it up to sell the invasion:

          Congress eventually concluded that the Bush administration had "overstated" its dire warnings about the Iraqi threat, and that the administration's claims about Iraq's WMD program were "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting."

          The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion [vice.com]

          • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:55PM

            by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:55PM (#440040) Journal

            That's evidence of a phishing email, not that Government of Russia hacked the emails.

            Also, thank our lucky stars someone so careless with technology isn't part of the government.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @02:09AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @02:09AM (#440169)

              > That's evidence of a phishing email, not that Government of Russia hacked the emails.

              Those fingerprints on the gun used to kill the victim aren't evidence that the suspect killed the victim, its evidence that he touched the gun.

              Seems like you don't understand how evidence works.

              • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday December 12 2016, @05:02AM

                by hemocyanin (186) on Monday December 12 2016, @05:02AM (#440221) Journal

                You got a source? And by that I don't mean the lying bastards at the CIA/FBI?

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:41AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:41AM (#440229)

                  Do you have proof their evidence is faked?

                  No, I didn't think so.
                  So stop playing the role of dumbfuck. We've got more than enough intellectually dishonest masturbation here on soylent.

                  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:18PM

                    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:18PM (#441707) Journal

                    CIA: Santa is real.
                    Me: That's bullshit.
                    You: Do you have proof?

          • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:58PM

            by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:58PM (#440041) Journal

            Let us not forget that HRC was JUST AS BAD as GWB about cheerleading for the Iraq war.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtK9AzcU42g [youtube.com]

            synopsis:
            -- 1:40 HRC enters room

            -- Code pink intro: war in Iraq will harm American and Iraqi families and cost a lot.

            -- 6:30 HRC parrots the WMD arguments, blames the danger to Iraqis on Hussein, ignores harm to Americans, financial costs, and the fact that Iraq was not a threat to the US nor involved in 9/11.

            -- 8:52 HRC lies about careful review of WMD info [remember that HRC never even read the National Intelligence Estimate which while suggesting WMDs existed, also contained significant disagreements with that conclusion that a reader not interested in a particular outcome would have agreed called the whole thing into question].

            -- 10:00 Audience member: not up to the US to disarm Hussein, up to the world community, Iraq has no connection to terrorism, not only are Iraqi people in danger, so are US people, and will harm the economy. It's reckless.

            -- 11:14 HRC: The world community would not take on difficult problems without US forcing the issue. Goes on and on about Bosnia. Segues into how GWB tax cuts are a bad idea.

            -- 13:29 [regarding the tax cuts] "Here at home, this administration is bankrupting our economy forcing us to make the worst kinds of false choices between national and homeland security, which they don't fund ..." [IOW, HRC would have preferred GWB raise taxes for more war and domestic surveillance. Interesting to think of in light of Snowden's revelations.]

            -- 14:12 HRC is given a pink slip

            -- 14:20 HRC goes off: "I am the Senator from NY I will never put my people at risk ..." [Yeah, like Saddam had anything to do with 9/11.]

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:05PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:05PM (#439992) Journal

          Bear in mind that the very same people that are making such claims without proof also claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which to this day have not been found.

          It's worth noting here that this isn't correct. The Bush administration created a separate intelligence processing system [theguardian.com] for the Iraqi invasion run by Vice President Cheney which bypassed the usual intelligence processing provided by the CIA. And the spectacularly bad stuff they accepted over objections by the rest of the intelligence community is the real basis for the accusations that "Bush lied" going into the Iraqi invasion.

          Of course, the same pressure to deliver a desired result may be going on. But Obama will be gone in a bit over a month. There just isn't that much he can do. I think more that he's creating a deliberately embarrassing situation for Trump which sadly is probably one of the best things Obama has done during his entire two terms.

          And my view is that Russia did help (or at least give the appearance of helping) the Trump campaign. Whether that help was done with the knowledge of Trump or with the purpose of actually helping Trump win (rather than merely sowing division), is a different story.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jelizondo on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:58PM

            by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:58PM (#440013) Journal

            Ok, the maybe the WMD were invented by someone else with Isreali help, per the column you linked.

            However, the CIA has lied before, numerous times; some examples:

            CIA lied about Iran-Contra [chicagotribune.com]

            Convicted CIA officer for lying to Congress [independent.co.uk]

            CIA lied about torture program [theguardian.com]

            CIA was spying on Senate [theguardian.com]

            Anytime a "high-ranking officer" talks to the press and his/her name is not given, my B.S. detector goes off. Anytime someone from the CIA talks to the press I know there is a good chance they are lying, evidence or not. (As they have fabricated "evidence" before.)

            I think, the whole "the Russians are coming" charade was an attempt by the DNC and HRC to discredit Trump and scaring people into not voting for him. Putin is too smart for such an operation to be directly traceable to Russia. Maybe he did do it, but before I believe that I want to see some kind of evidence and not anonymous sources telling the media the CIA "thinks" Russia hacked the election.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:39PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:39PM (#440051) Journal

              Putin is too smart for such an operation to be directly traceable to Russia.

              Unless, of course, he wants such an operation directly traceable back to Russia. It's no skin off his teeth what we do with that information or the infighting that results.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:54PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:54PM (#440039) Journal

          Putin: If I wanted to influence the US election, I would have donated to the Clinton Foundation.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @02:17AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @02:17AM (#440171)

          > If HRC had used a secure (?) government server, the FBI would not have had anything to investigate

          Are you joking?
          Do you think who operates the server made any difference? Sure it made it more salacious, but what the FBI found would have been on the state.gov email server exactly the same as it was on the clinton.com server. But even more importantly it did not rise to the level of criminality anyway. But that doesn't matter does, she's guilty as far as you are concerned, right?

          > ; if the DNC had not rigged the election in favor of HRC, there would not have been leaked emails;

          Because a couple of DNC staffers talking shit about Bernie was proof of massive conspiracy.

          The very fact that your version of events is so disconnected from the reality is the very problem the russians leveraged. That you can't even recognize your own credulous complicity is pretty damning.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:37PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:37PM (#439983) Journal

        I agree with your second point though, that the contents of the emails wasn't really disputed is the more interesting story here.

        They were.

        https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactured-fake-news-that-msnbc-personalities-spread-to-discredit-wikileaks-docs/ [theintercept.com]

        Credit/points to dbv [soylentnews.org]

        It's a sneaky and indirect way of disputing it, sure, but you could hear the FUD repeated by Podesta and others in interviews.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:55PM (#439989)

          > It's a sneaky and indirect way of disputing it, sure, but you could hear the FUD repeated by Podesta and others in interviews.

          What "interviews?"

          I never watch MSNBC or look at their website and this is the first I've heard of any of this. That dailynewsbin site looks like a bottom of the barrel kind of thing.
          So MSNBC spends a 10 or 20 minutes on this, sends a few tweets and it all disappears into the ether.
          It certainly was not a denial that got any traction.

          Apparently you never heard any of those denials either since you keep telling us that dbv pointed this story out to you.

          What I did hear constantly was clinton surrogates deflecting discussion of wikileaks by saying they were stolen and then changing the subject. Just the typical deflection tactics that you hear any time a reporter asks a politician a question they don't want to answer.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:14PM

            by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:14PM (#439994) Journal

            http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/oct/23/are-clinton-wikileaks-emails-doctored-or-are-they-/ [politifact.com]

            https://twitter.com/johnpodesta/status/784539553281355776 [twitter.com]

            "I’m not happy about being hacked by the Russians in their quest to throw the election to Donald Trump, [I] don’t have time to figure out which docs are real and which are faked."

            I remember other Clinton surrogates saying something similar, casting doubt on the authenticity of the emails in the weeks leading up to the election.

            Apparently you never heard any of those denials either since you keep telling us that dbv pointed this story out to you.

            dbv pointed out The Intercept's article, which I linked.

            --
            [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:11PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:11PM (#440010)

              "I’m not happy about being hacked by the Russians in their quest to throw the election to Donald Trump, [I] don’t have time to figure out which docs are real and which are faked."

              That's a far cry from saying they are faked. Maybe you are a just a political naif, but that's just generic deflection. You give it more importance than anyone on that show did.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @06:19PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @06:19PM (#440018)

              Lets game this out.

              If some clintonian does say the emails are legit and one of them turns out to be fake, what do you think is going to happen?
              Whatever that faked one says has now been endorsed by the clinton team.

              The only rational thing for them to do is to say what they said - that the emails are unreliable because they came from an unreliable source and that they aren't going to validate them for anyone.

              That's not anything close to saying a particular email was forged. Its simply not giving anyone leverage to harm them further.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:21PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:21PM (#439995) Journal
          Note the use of the term, "really disputed". That allows for half-hearted disputing. I certainly wouldn't consider it evidence that the emails are fake.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @10:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @10:05AM (#440296)

        Google validated the email with domain keys. There are very few ways for Russia to mess with that:

        1. P=NP or similar earthshattering crypto break

        2. Google is pwned

        3. Russia used Hillary's pwned server, actually sent the email to the recipients, and this didn't result in conversation leading to a "what are you talking about, I didn't email you" moment.

        None of those is even remotely likely. In other words, the email is real. The hacking is a distraction from this simple fact: the leaks couldn't happen if the emails hadn't been written. Next time, try not to be evil.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:41PM (#439969)

      > The chances that the Russians would bother to mess with the US elections? Dunno, I'm skeptical...

      What are the chances the americans would "bother" to mess with the russian election?
      Because Putin has been complaining about that for years. [telegraph.co.uk]

      Seems like a pretty good reason to expect him to return the favor.

    • (Score: 2) by tisI on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:59PM

      by tisI (5866) on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:59PM (#439971)

      But hey,
      The US covertly meddled in the last Russian election as well as the US meddles covertly with every government and country around the world.
      Our CIA was fucking about in Benghazi stirring unrest and civil war when a couple of their agents were killed there a few years back.

      Fair is fair.

      We Americans make great bullies about the world but really are the biggest pussies when we get pwned.
      Get used to it. We're so far behind. Too busy bickering amongst ourselves.

      --
      "Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:35PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday December 11 2016, @03:35PM (#439982) Journal

      In any case, the absolutely fascinating aspect of all the email releases is simply this: No one ever disputed the contents of the emails, not even in the tiniest detail.

      https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactured-fake-news-that-msnbc-personalities-spread-to-discredit-wikileaks-docs/ [theintercept.com]

      Credit/points to dbv [soylentnews.org]

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:29PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:29PM (#439996) Journal
        Actually looking at those links, I don't see the emails disputed in the prior poster's "tiniest detail". No actual detail is disputed. Instead it is vague claims like ""I've seen things" [...] "that aren't authentic" or “#PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done.” And of course, they're not even saying that now.
    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:03PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:03PM (#440022) Journal

      The Russians had the motivation to interfere in the elections. Syria alone would be reason enough. Hillary is a known warhawk, who wanted to invade Syria, whereas Trump is unlikely to attack an ally of Russia.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:25PM (#439964)

    How dare the Russians place their country so close to all of our military bases! And much worse!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:03PM (#440007)

    American intelligence agencies have lost all credibility since helping log-roll the country into the Iraq war. Only fools would trust their "investigation" of computer hacking, where the evidence is going to be unclear and easily faked, and there is such a partisan political backdrop.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:12PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:12PM (#440025) Journal

    Just how many elections has the United States meddled in, in it's history? I couldn't even offer a decent guess. All of the banana republics, for starters. When we didn't like a government, we quashed it, and made sure that our favorite replaced the former government. We don't even make a secret of "regime change" anymore. We publicly announce that we don't like a government, send in the troops, kill everyone we don't like, and appoint a dictator. Unlike what happened in Iran, where we attempted to keep all that nasty stuff secret.

    If the Russians, the Chinese, Iranians, and a dozen South American countries attempt to influence our elections, we only have ourselves to blame. We set the example for them.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:35PM (#440465)

      Just how many elections has the United States meddled in, in it's history? I couldn't even offer a decent guess. All of the banana republics, for starters. When we didn't like a government, we quashed it, and made sure that our favorite replaced the former government. We don't even make a secret of "regime change" anymore. We publicly announce that we don't like a government, send in the troops, kill everyone we don't like, and appoint a dictator. Unlike what happened in Iran, where we attempted to keep all that nasty stuff secret.

      If the Russians, the Chinese, Iranians, and a dozen South American countries attempt to influence our elections, we only have ourselves to blame. We set the example for them.

      You are arguing that "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" type moral stance, which has some plausibility.

      I'll trump that by saying from a real politick, "might makes right" stance... look at all those banana republics. Do you really want the US to end up looking like that?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:34PM (#440072)

    Lets just call it like it is, they are just setting the stage for the government to develop new powers NECESSARY for the safe guarding of our VERY DEMOCRACY!

    What a load of shit... they just want to find the whistle blowers before they share more secrets they don't want getting out.

    Its a very easy rule: if your government is doing things that it really doesn't want the people to find out about... those things are very very wrong!! The perpetrators should swing from a tree, but since we live in slightly more law abiding societies I'll settle for serious jail time along with the public humiliation. Make the politicians afraid of getting caught again, right now its an open cesspool that gets to sit out in the sun because no one can figure out how to clean it up.

    I'm giving Trump one chance to come through on draining the swamp, but I'm 99% sure that won't happen.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 12 2016, @01:34AM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 12 2016, @01:34AM (#440159)

    Its part of the healthy stages of grief process as the planet rejects the insanity of the last few decades.

    There was tons of denial before the election with massively faked poll results and fundraising to recount.

    This is part of the Anger stage, perhaps? I mean dirtbags were rioting and trashing their neighborhoods before it got too cold, sometimes beating random white people as hate crimes. Might be bargaining, like if we just give up more civil liberties and trash our international relationships a bit more, then they'll win, kind of like famously an end stage doctrine to win was calling white people racists just one more time then they're sure to vote for us, LOL.

    Haven't seen much depression or acceptance yet. Give them time, its the death throes of an entire movement.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:39AM (#440228)

    Does it not strike anybody as unusual that this claim isn't about cheating in any sort of way but simply giving the public access to factual information? It gets even more bizarre in that much of the information released would nominally be available under freedom of information queries, but aren't simply because our elected officials are working to actively subvert that process. Politicians are openly freaking out about their actual opinions and views being revealed, instead of just their finely tuned lies crafted by entire teams of public relations people.

    That they can do this, and nobody seems to realize the insanity of it all just bewilders me.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @05:46AM (#440230)

      > Does it not strike anybody as unusual that this claim isn't about cheating in any sort of way but simply giving the public access to factual information?

      A lie of omission is still a lie.
      The fact that trump wasn't given an equal amount of exposure is half the problem. The other half is that a foreign country was the instigator.
      Trump hasn't even disclosed his tax returns. You know Russia has hacked the fuck out of the IRS and has all of that info. Just waiting for the right opportunity to release it (or to threaten trump with releasing it in order to make him suck putin's cock).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @04:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @04:26PM (#440419)

        Of course Russia wouldn't release any info on their desired candidate.
        If you wanted "equal" exposure, you could go ahead and get the dirt on Trump and release it in favor of your candidate. Or, actually, maybe Hillary could have asked her middle east friends whom *she* got into power to hack Trump for her!

        In all honesty, both major party candidates were horrendous, which is why I didn't vote for either. Hillary wouldn't have been any better and would have directly led us into the next cold war, along with putting her own corporation leaders into office.

        The United States has a history of screwing over elections all around the world.
        Maybe now that it directly affects the US, the country will finally unite and fix the broken election system.