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[EatinOlives]

It is looking like you are right. And just as bad, most Americans are completely ignoring this news. This is such a smaller story than it should be. Just fucking baffling to me.

Indeed, I don't think I can hope for any meaningful opposition from the democrats until we get a nearly top-down restructuring. Their current leadership only works when things are relatively conforming to a certain status quo. But they have no desire or capacity to get down and dirty even when it's needed.

Didn't the US intelligence community find insufficient evidence for Iraqi WMDs?

Don't say that, we have false equivalences to indulge in!

 

[commedieu]

Fight back how? What do you want people to do about it?

Impede trump in every legal way possible. Like the Republicans did.

Damn that was easy.

 

[sphagnum]

That was a mind-numbingly stupid read.

I actually don't think theres anything wrong with being skeptics about what the US government says, considering how often it's flat out lied in the past. The thing is, this time around the story really does seem to point towards Russian involvement. It bothers me, as the article noted, that apparently 50% of Clinton voters think that Putin literally had the vote tallies hacked but that's more the fault of bad reporting than what Obama is doing.

I think Taibbi's skepticism is warranted but wrong. At least he's willing to admit it could be true. The problem is we probably won't see the hard evidence because it could expose intelligence assets.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Rolling Stones posted an interesting article:
Something About This Russia Story Stinks - Nearly a decade and a half after the Iraq-WMD faceplant, the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment

The writer of the article wrote in Russia for over a decade.

He spent most of that time abusing Russian girls while his partner threatened to murder Russian women who didn't want to get an abortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/4s1tdh/matt_taibbi_and_mark_ames_are_serial_rapists/

 

[sphagnum]

The writer of the article wrote in Russia for over a decade.

He spent most of that time abusing Russian girls while his partner threatened to murder Russian women who didn't want to get an abortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/4s1tdh/matt_taibbi_and_mark_ames_are_serial_rapists/

Well that changes things somewhat

 

[hawk2025]

I actually don't think theres anything wrong with being skeptics about what the US government says, considering how often it's flat out lied in the past. The thing is, this time around the story really does seem to point towards Russian involvement. It bothers me, as the article noted, that apparently 50% of Clinton voters think that Putin literally had the vote tallies hacked but that's more the fault of bad reporting than what Obama is doing.

I think Taibbi's skepticism is warranted but wrong. At least he's willing to admit it could be true. The problem is we probably won't see the hard evidence because it could expose intelligence assets.

There isn't -- healthy skepticism is, well, healthy!

But the way the article was written and the situation framed around a false equivalency with Iraq WMDs is absurd. The article is a series of fallacies.

 

[commedieu]

The writer of the article wrote in Russia for over a decade.

He spent most of that time abusing Russian girls while his partner threatened to murder Russian women who didn't want to get an abortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/4s1tdh/matt_taibbi_and_mark_ames_are_serial_rapists/

jeSus Christmas

 

[Quixzlizx]

Maybe Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald can put together a Russian sock puppet show.

 

[hawk2025]

The writer of the article wrote in Russia for over a decade.

He spent most of that time abusing Russian girls while his partner threatened to murder Russian women who didn't want to get an abortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/4s1tdh/matt_taibbi_and_mark_ames_are_serial_rapists/

My luggage!

I'll give this a read.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Impede trump in every legal way possible. Like the Republicans did.

Damn that was easy.

Most people don't know the law very well (myself included) and that's vague.

Maybe folks should head over to http://election.princeton.edu for a real guide on what to do next. Also, be warned that it's likely not going to work vs. the Trump coalition as things stand right now.

 

[Byakuya769]

Maybe Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald can put together a Russian sock puppet show.

Lol.

Can someone explain this hugging of Russia from the professional left? Putin stands or benefits from pretty much everything we on the left stand against!

 

[Quixzlizx]

Lol.

Can someone explain this hugging of Russia from the professional left? Putin stands or benefits from pretty much everything we on the left stand against!

Capitalism = Bad
America = Capitalism
Therefore, anyone opposed to America = Good

Even though Russia is a thuggish robber baron state that the American 1% creams itself about turning America into.

 

[hawk2025]

Just read that reddit post, and it actually sources the comments. It's worse that I expected.


...wow.

 

[Dominican Power]

The writer of the article wrote in Russia for over a decade.

He spent most of that time abusing Russian girls while his partner threatened to murder Russian women who didn't want to get an abortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/4s1tdh/matt_taibbi_and_mark_ames_are_serial_rapists/

What a piece of shit.

 

[Knuckle Sandwich]

Lol.

Can someone explain this hugging of Russia from the professional left? Putin stands or benefits from pretty much everything we on the left stand against!

Go so far left you end up right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

 

[sphagnum]

Lol.

Can someone explain this hugging of Russia from the professional left? Putin stands or benefits from pretty much everything we on the left stand against!

Skepticism about the American government leading to an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" scenario I presume.

 

[jett]

What's going on with America, seeing so many Trumpers actively defend Russia and Putin. Literally on Russia's side with this hacking/retaliation business.

I understand these people are blind in their adoration for the Donald, but this is a bit much.

 

[sphagnum]

What's going on with America, seeing so many Trumpers actively defend Russia and Putin. Literally on Russia's side with this hacking/retaliation business.

I understand these people are blind in their adoration for the Donald, but this is a bit much.

Putin has the admiration of conservatives because he's a strongman who showed up Obama, doesn't like gay people, and is supporting (Orthodox) Christianity in Russia. He also likes to blow things up. Alt right types love him because he's funding fascist groups across the world to tear apart the liberal order and he's a right wing nationalist.

 

[tiredheadcrab]

Didn't the US intelligence community find insufficient evidence for Iraqi WMDs?

Yeah I wrote a story about it on the previous page. It was mostly bush administration fucking things up as usual.

 

[petran79]

First of all Russia actually loaned money to Cyprus. That wasn't done out of charity either, but mainly the because Cyprus has a lot of Russian investor money that was in danger of going poof because of the banking crisis there.

Also even if Russia hadn't done that what does it have to do with Ukraine? The sphere of influence mindset that people like you display here is scary af to someone actually living in a country sharing border with Russia. We aren't some political playthings you can just throw away to appease Putin. People in Ukraine obviously chose west over east too and you should respect that.

According to the statements of a Cypriot political figure, they didnt. At least not in billions of Euro which was the needed sum to avert the crisis.

You tell me about it? We have Turkey at our borders who currently is more unstable than they ever were. Not forgetting Cyprus of course. Military jets fly all over the sea borders and islands. Fake dog fights take place once in a while. In any other Western or Asian country this would mean war. But we are used to it. Dont mistake the decisions of the governments and political parties with those of the people.

It isnt so much a matter of choice. Especially with that Germany.
Also Europe are full of national rivalries to have only Russia as their main enemy. Former Yugoslavia. Hungary and Romania. Greece and Turkey. Albania and FYROM. Gibraltar. Ireland and Britain. Germany are also reminiscent of their imperial past.
Situation in Europe isnt exclusively Russia's fault.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

As far as i understand, the 13 pages that the secret service released shows how the attack was carried out but features no proof that it was GRU/FSB/Kreml, so at this stage these are technically accusations against the Russian gov.

A recent Spiegel.de article suspects that the CIA does know it was Russia, but to obtain that info they more or less had to hack Russian gov. servers - so it would be no good look to actually tell the story in detail. I know you hacked me because i hacked you :/

What a mess.

 

[thefro]

What's going on with America, seeing so many Trumpers actively defend Russia and Putin. Literally on Russia's side with this hacking/retaliation business.

I understand these people are blind in their adoration for the Donald, but this is a bit much.

A good number of those "folks" online are part of Russia troll farms. Basically astroturfed paid employees leading the other alt-right morons.

 

[Ryuuroden]

Lol, Russia has plants in all news magazines now I guess.....

 

[Esiquio]

Any hacker worth his wages would be practically impossible to track. I would love to see more detailed reports. There's thousands of script-kids and excellent veteran hobbyists out there (from every country) constantly trying to hack any big government but I'm curious how they have pinpointed that the Russian government specifically tried to hack the polls.

The JAR includes information on computers around the world that Russian intelligence services have co-opted without the knowledge of their owners in order to conduct their malicious activity in a way that makes it difficult to trace back to Russia. In some cases, the cybersecurity community was aware of this infrastructure, in other cases, this information is newly declassified by the U.S. government.

We know about the computers that Russia hacked to use in their hacking. This is very, very standard practice to do. Famous examples include stealing Wi-Fi from across the street using a Cantenna, then routing that connection through a couple VPNs for obscurity. After that, breaking into a vulnerable system, something that is low-hanging fruit, and using that as a platform to engage in the activity you want to do. This layering makes it very difficult to peel back the onion layers, but the NSA can do some scary shit, not just in the U.S., but across the world. Revealing more specifics of how we know would be a dumb play, but pretending we did it a certain way through implication or this is standard counter-intel work.

Finally, the JAR includes information on how Russian intelligence services typically conduct their activities.

I like this part, it sounds like more work with InfraGard to protect our vulnerable companies and infastructure.

Sauce: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/29/fact-sheet-actions-response-russian-malicious-cyber-activity-and

 

[Esiquio]

As far as i understand, the 13 pages that the secret service released shows how the attack was carried out but features no proof that it was GRU/FSB/Kreml, so at this stage these are technically accusations against the Russian gov.

A recent Spiegel.de article suspects that the CIA does know it was Russia, but to obtain that info they more or less had to hack Russian gov. servers - so it would be no good look to actually tell the story in detail. I know you hacked me because i hacked you :/

What a mess.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here, but here's what I found:

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

Link to the FBI document about Russian hacking during the election. It was not the Secret Service, as you said. I read the thing in its entirety, but only the first ~5 pages give any specifics to the hacking, the rest are standard best practices advice to organizations (the advice is very good).

*TLDR:* two (Russian-based) hacking groups used URL shorteners/URLs that looked similar to legit sites in spear-phishing e-mails to various organizations, idiots clicked on malicious links (like they always do), you know the rest. GG, DNC. There's no specific information of why we "know" it was Russia, but I expect that to stay classified for some time to come.

 

[kirblar]

Didn't the US intelligence community find insufficient evidence for Iraqi WMDs?

The intelligence community got stuck having to come up with a plausible cover story for the neoconservative battle plabs. Iraq was not being pushed by the civil service side of our government.

 

[kittenbreath]

Lol.

Can someone explain this hugging of Russia from the professional left? Putin stands or benefits from pretty much everything we on the left stand against!

There's a current within anti-imperialist activism which is exclusively focused on the sins of the United States and the West, and reflexively embraces any government which opposes US foreign policy or the liberal international order. For those sharing this point of view, there are no first principles other than opposition to the US, and they tend to be just as enamored by strongmen as those on the far-right (just for different reasons).

 

[AndyD]

The intelligence community got stuck having to come up with a plausible cover story for the neoconservative battle plabs. Iraq was not being pushed by the civil service side of our government.

Indeed. But I think he means they never came forth with evidence as they have here, leading the executive and Congress to then act, instead they were behind the politicians. They really shot themselves in the foot to a certain extent by not coming out more strongly and saying there is no solid evidence because they undermined their own credibility for the future (now).

 

[DiscoJer]

Indeed. But I think he means they never came forth with evidence as they have here, leading the executive and Congress to then act, instead they were behind the politicians. They really shot themselves in the foot to a certain extent by not coming out more strongly and saying there is no solid evidence because they undermined their own credibility for the future (now).

What? Don't you remember Colin Powell going to the UN and laying down what the CIA said? It's far more detailed than what was revealed here (which is basically just phishing emails, probably from Russia)

It was also wrong in retrospect

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/colin-powell-wmd-speech/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/colin-powell-u-n-speech-was-a-great-intelligence-failure/

 

[TestOfTide]

Didn't the US intelligence community find insufficient evidence for Iraqi WMDs?

What? Don't you remember Colin Powell going to the UN and laying down what the CIA said? It's far more detailed than what was revealed here (which is basically just phishing emails, probably from Russia)

It was also wrong in retrospect

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/colin-powell-wmd-speech/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/colin-powell-u-n-speech-was-a-great-intelligence-failure/

Yes and that was Colin Powell basically lying by misrepresenting the intel the CIA had.

The first time the Bush Admin asked the CIA if Saddam had WMDs or ties to Al Qaeda, the CIA basically said "no". Bush Admin responded by telling the CIA they didn't like that answer and to find any evidence they could that their first assessment was wrong, so the CIA did that, but they still framed it as "here's things that could MAYBE point to Saddam having WMDs and/or being connected to Al Qaeda".

 

[Dalibor68]

So is there actually any hard proof this time? According to the german Spiegel article from yesterday IT experts around the world are surprised that the 13-page report includes so little to no actual reliable, hard proof. Just many many indicators pointing in a direction. And/or that the only way the CIA can know it was russians would be if they illegaly hacked into their network as well.

(for those who can read german: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netz...f-usa-operation-grizzly-steppe-a-1128045.html)

 

[petran79]

So is there actually any hard prove this time? According to the german Spiegel article from yesterday IT experts around the world are surprised that the 13-page report includes so little to no actual reliable, hard proof. Just many many indicators pointing in a direction. And/or that the only way the CIA can know it was russians would be if they illegaly hacked into their network as well.

(for those who can read german: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netz...f-usa-operation-grizzly-steppe-a-1128045.html)

Even most of the comments are skeptic. This has more to do with phishing than hacking, demonstrating how little politicians know about internet security. I wonder if even the affected computers hadnt still Windows XP or older OS.

 

[Kill Your Masters]

Even most of the comments are skeptic. This has more to do with phishing than hacking, demonstrating how little politicians know about internet security. I wonder if even the affected computers hadnt still Windows XP or older OS.

Yeah, if they got phished they won't admit it in an official statement, looks weak. (weaker than getting "hacked")