He hinted at it but I doubt its true. The story got picked up by conspiracy theorists long before Julian said a word - I think he just spun it is a little for more publicity.Originally Posted by ImAnOgre
He hinted at it but I doubt its true. The story got picked up by conspiracy theorists long before Julian said a word - I think he just spun it is a little for more publicity.
We are entering a New Age of Journalism. It used to be that sources had to be verified before news agencies could report....but now all it takes is some hacker releasing (illegally gained) information and it's headline news. It's already "out there", on the internet, which makes it newsworthy. It puts journalists in a real bind: if they don't report on it they can be accused of bias; if they do report on it they can be accused of being reckless.
Strange times indeed.
So.... I'm sure you've all heard that the CIA has gone so far as to say Russia most-certainly intervened in the election specifically on Trump's behalf. Of course Trump's team replied with "nuh-uh." And in parallel, Rex Tillerson, winner of the Russian Order of Friendship and evil oil executive, is now the Secretary of State front-runner.
What exactly does the nation do, and who is supposed to do it, when the president-elect was helped into office by a country very hostile to what we previously thought of as our nation's interests?
Sigh. I just cannot believe what's happened and happening here. Not just with this, but all of it. I can call it madness without being hyperbolic. Thoughts? Fuzzy, want to chime in with a reassuring "this is nothing new in US politics" like you've reliably done for the last two decades? Because it feels new, it feels very alarming, and it feels genuinely mad to me.
Cynical me expects an impeachment coming sooner than later, deserved by president Trump the Terrible or not, and followed by a President Pence, which would make conservative America all too happy. This is truly a no-win scenario. I've never felt such a complete lack of optimism for our nation's future. Mad. Flat out. Just mad.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Every single person I know specializing in democracy is horrified.
Hope is the denial of reality
Oh no, this is definitely a new thing. It's unclear what could be legally done about it though. The impact of their intervention came from the exercise of free speech and a free press. If we were truly hostile to Russia and they to us then Clinton could have tried to nullify the release by playing up the Russia connection, tarring Trump's campaign as stooges, but we aren't and she didn't.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
And quite frankly, the hacking is much less of an issue than the reaction to that hacking by the Republicans. A vast majority of Republican Congressmen are refusing to acknowledge an attack against our electoral system. That is pretty devastating for a democracy. It means we can expect little Republican resistance from a Trump administration that tries to erode our other democratic norms and institutions.
An attempt to completely discredit our own intelligence apparatus isn't exactly a great signal either.
Hope is the denial of reality
A few thoughts....
A. It appears Russia influenced the election in two ways. First, hacking various email accounts in Clinton's campaign and the Democratic party and releasing a steady stream of choice bits of that info in ways to generate and maintain a constant air of Clinton suspicion in news headlines. Second, generating fake news stories in social media that tied into the Wikileaks material, linking it to far more extreme falsehoods and painting a far more sinister picture of Clinton than any facts possibly could. Yes, I know there were many others doing the fake news thing, some just for the ad revenue, but others with a clear right wing agenda. And one does wonder about coordination between them, the Trump campaign, and the Russians. (If evidence of that surfaced, I cannot imagine what would happen).
B. The striking thing is that the only illegal act was the initial email hacks. And that was done from outside the US with no possibility of any legal remedy or, beyond more careful security protocols, much chance of stopping it in the future. But fake news is not illegal. And you can bet that in our next election there will be many more players in this exact same game because there is no reason NOT to do it.
C. Even if it were all made illegal (at the expense of the First Amendment, no less), there is still (currently) no way to protect our elections from this kind of outside influence. The information space out there is vast, convoluted, and global, and with human psychology what it is, factual information cannot counter even extreme propaganda. There is no way at all to prevent any actors from any country from influencing our elections. This is a big big problem.
D. Lastly, Trump's response to the revelations of Russia's role in this, coupled with the links between members of his transition team and the Russian government, and his nomination of Rex for Secretary of State (with a multi-billion dollar arctic oil drilling deal he negotiated with the Russian government in mothballs by current US sanctions against Russia!!!), creates a very uncomfortable impression of cooperation and even quid pro quo between the Trump organization and the Russian government. Conspiracy theory or not, it's very easy to believably connect those dots and that alone is very very bad.
E. What. The. Fuck. Now?
Last edited by EyeKhan; 12-13-2016 at 03:13 PM.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I'm actually writing something on this topic (semi-academic). The main takeaway point is that you have to give politicians incentives to challenge this kind of behavior, and that means really going after those who do not (vote against them in primaries, send money to their primary opponents, raise a stink against them in social media), while supporting those that do, even if they have very different political views from yourself (i.e. McCain and Graham). This problem cannot be resolved through legal channels, because a lot of it is not illegal and can't be made illegal for constitutional reasons. It also can't be fixed through appeals to the public, because most people are stuck in their ideological echo chambers, which keep them from criticizing even the most egregiously undemocratic behavior (see Lewk). Even moderates are hard to convince because they have a tendency to default to the "it's not that bad" mindset.
I have colleagues who favor longer-term solutions, like sending liberal "pioneers" to live among the rural folk and convince them liberals/the educated/coastal folk aren't all that bad an break through their echo chambers. But that's a long-term project. It might be too late to save democracy by the time it has an impact.
For countries that haven't been fully compromised yet (Germany, France), there are some institutional solutions, like increasing the quality of intelligence, but it's too late for that here.
Hope is the denial of reality
Hyperbole much? "Save democracy"?
Refusing to investigate an attack on the US, appointing anti-democratic nutjobs to key positions (including a self-professed Leninist), refusing to put his assets in a blind trust (which will soon put him in violation of the Constitution), repeatedly attacking journalists and protesters (including encouraging violence against them), undermining the intelligence services, packing the government with recently-retired generals, threatening to punish individual corporations who disobey him, showing no respect for the courts, initiating what looks like an illegal purge of the Energy Department, promising to order the use of torture by the military, making up conspiracies to delegitimize elections, etc. But sure, nothing to see here.
Hope is the denial of reality
And the hyperbole continues. To be frankly honest it doesn't matter if Russia did the hacks or if it was done by internal (US Citizen) hackers. If you the catch the culprit - great, punish them. If you can't or it falls outside of the jurisdiction - what do you actually want to have happen? Trump resign because people outside of America preferred him over Clinton?
If anything it goes to show how utterly important it is for people to use good judgement with classified documents since hacking can occur. Seems like more of a case against Hillary and her e-mail scandal than anything else.
Lewk, people like you are precisely why this is a threat to democracy. You care far more about party loyalty than you do about the well-being of this country. Push comes to shove, you'll support Trump on any issue as long as he could make the case that it will hurt Democrats more. We already have "people" like Lou Dobbs and Hannity saying that disagreeing with Trump is tantamount to disloyalty to America...
Hope is the denial of reality
SCOTUS redefined People a while back. Corporations are People. Team Trump will move to reclassify the subjects, followers, or subordinates of a ruler, leader, employer, etc.: as "Not Important People". Can People and "Not Important People" coexist? Look at Trump Tower.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Again, what do you think Trump and team should do about it even if it could be proven 100% fact that Russia deliberately tried to hurt the Clinton campaign?
How are partisans a threat to democracy? There are partisans on both sides and always have been.
Did any of us ever have Lewk down as a swing voter?
Democracy can only exist as long as most people are willing to accept certain rules of the game. What we're seeing more and more of is the refusal by Republicans (and some Democrats) to accept those rules.
Hope is the denial of reality
Other than not deny it and not try to discredit the CIA? Support the creation of and actively cooperate with a bipartisan Congressional investigation. Of course it would help if Republicans were willing to launch said investigation.
Hope is the denial of reality
I thought Obama said no evidence of a hack, the FBI said no evidence of a hack, the DNC said it was an insider, and Assange said it was an insider.
And yet, people keep saying it was a Russian hack. I don't get it. I'd love to read a reputable source with evidence it was a hack.
good place to start: citations and everything
https://np.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDis..._help/db0zali/
I am curious where this came from, I remember his team accusing russia in early october.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
There's insufficient evidence that Russia was trying to get Trump elected. There's more than enough evidence that Russia hacked the DNC and tried to influence the election.
Are you serious about the latter point? There have been dozens of articles saying Russia is responsible for the hack. Just google the topic and read any NY Times/Washington Post piece on the topic. Here's the most recent: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us...ction-dnc.html
Last edited by Loki; 12-14-2016 at 02:09 PM.
Hope is the denial of reality
As far as I know the DNC guy fell for a phishing email and gave his password away. Not exactly a major "hack".
Why should the Republicans be investigating failures in the Democrats data security? That's surely for the Democrats to investigate and become more professional in.
Good to know that you're now a cyber expert, Rand. https://www.yahoo.com/news/suspected...130057960.html
Why did you wear such a short skirt? We'll investigate you, not the alleged rapist.
Hope is the denial of reality
Watching Swordfish isn't exactly the best way to study this field. A vast majority of hacks are phishing attacks. You judge the severity of hacks on the information exposed and the fallout it causes, not the avenue for which it was done.
The GOP was hacked as well. Cyber security, especially when it comes to national security, should concern everyone. When Sony was hacked everyone (government wise) seemed on board in blaming North Korea, and that was because of a shitty movie.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 12-14-2016 at 04:06 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
This confirms once again what I was saying earlier. There's absolutely no regard for American national security as long as it's the Democrats who bear the brunt of the attacks. Republicans went from calling Wikileaks traitors to calling them heroes in the span of a month.
Hope is the denial of reality
If the Democrats were a company they could be getting punished now by the FTC for this data breach.
https://www.wired.com/2015/08/court-...etting-hacked/
While the left went from calling them heroes to calling them traitors. Funny that.
Sorry to throw some cold water on this, but the FTC went after Wyndham because they were hacked 3 times, in the same manner, losing the same information, over the span of 3 years. Wyndham was attacked and failed to take the proper precautions to avoid similar attacks. Like an ATM company discovering card skimmers and doing nothing to combat them.
Wyndham's "punishment" by the way are annual security audits. Something they should have been doing to begin with, especially after the first attack. No momentary or other restrictions were placed on them.
This is of course completely ignoring the fact that the FTC got involved solely because Wyndham was in charge on the personal and financial information of consumers.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Over here a month before your vote phone and broadband company TalkTalk got fined £400k for failing to prevent a hack.
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/new...r-2015-attack/
I'm failing to see how this relates to the thread. But I don't consider this any different than the FDIC fining a bank for failing to take basic fraud and theft protections. Companies should know that you don't fuck around with customers' financial information. Far to many businesses put the IT budget somewhere below the janitor's when it comes to priority. The way your article is written, one has to question if TalkTalk had any sort of actual IT department, or at least how upper management treated their requests.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Adobe fined in US http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11...ch_settlement/
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