No they did not. They did get access to voter rolls in one (or maybe two? it's unclear) case, but that's it. Voter rolls and voting systems are not the same thing.
> but the most logical conclusion is that they did
No it is not. Most logical conclusion is that reading the data is much easier than changing it, and thus it is more likely that they gained just read access than that they gained both read and write access. Even if they did, changing voter rolls would not give them much, unless they somehow managed to also convince hundreds of people, otherwise ineligible to vote, to actually show up in person and vote using fake voter records (which would be an excellent case for voter ID if anybody in US politics could be bothered to have a logically consistent opinion). But most likely scenario is using these data for identity theft - as it includes driver license numbers, partial or full SSNs etc. - in short, everything you need to open an account online. By far the most likely scenario is stealing this data for commercial purposes.
> Even if they didn't, they should rightfully be charged for penetrating the voting systems at all.
They did not penetrate voter systems, they accessed voter rolls (list of voters). For which the culprits, of course, should be charged, even though it's mostly useless as there's no chance US can punish them in any way unless they are so stupid as to visit the US or a country which extradites to the US. Which astonishingly is what some people are stupid enough to do. Thus only "mostly".
Target voters in enough locations likely to have large turnout for your opponent and you'd be able to tip the election in your favor, so long as you had any chance at all to win. This wouldn't be enough to help someone who is going to lose 83/17 but a 60/40 loss could be tipped your way and that's what most outcomes in the US are.
Do you think if it really happened we'd notice it? So far I am not aware of any case of vote being disrupted to any noticeable measure along the scenario you describe, anywhere. So this appears to be pure speculation.
> This wouldn't be enough to help someone who is going to lose 83/17 but a 60/40 loss could be tipped your way and that's what most outcomes in the US are.
Yet there is, as far as I know, not a single case of election ever being tipped this way. By other forms of fraud - surely, though even then it's very hard to connect specific instances of fraud to specific outcomes - but this kind of fraud, never happened.
2) Charging people with crimes for walking through open doors does not actually keep the doors closed. (And the utter disinterest in actually securing and auditing our voting systems relative to hunting heads only goes to show that we don't even care about locking the door, we just want a scapegoat to appease our rage.)
This is incorrect both on a practically every level.
First, the Russians, in other instances where they have 'leaked' emails have both changed contents and in fact inserted emails. See David Satter[0] Because the emails were private to begin with, you are taking an enormous leap of faith to trust them as fully accurate simply because they were 'leaked.' The absolutely easiest thing to do would be to leverage any potential misinterpretations or suggestions of impropriety by inserting things to make that worse.
Second, we see a group of people intentionally, aggressively, and dangerously taking things out of context and mislead others to drive a narrative. See Pizza gate.
Third, you entire argument relies on no one ever misunderstanding another person's communication. Has anyone ever misinterpreted your actions? your words?
Yes, political parties are sometimes skeezy, so are people. But the broader point here is that one group is leveraging and digging and amplifying some bad behavior into not just a believe that it is universal and unfixable (which you seem to already accept) but an actual undermining of the whole system.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/26/russi...
Those are different "Russians" - judging from the name (Cyber Berkut) they most likely not even Russians but Ukrainians, as "Berkut" is the name of the security force that has been, among others, protecting Yanukovich in Maidan events in Ukraine in 2014. Russian group would not likely take the name of Ukrainian security force - there are a lot of nice Russian names available. But pro-Russian Ukrainians (which there are a bunch of) would. In any case, the only relation of those to APT*s is that they also leaked emails. So far I don't think there was a credible claim of any Wikileaks-published DNC mails as being fake, were there?
> But the broader point here is that one group is leveraging and digging and amplifying some bad behavior
Wasn't that like what 90% of past electoral campaigns were doing - digging dirt on each other (going back to high school and beyond) and blowing it up into a huge deal? I don't think Russians exactly invented the whole "dig up some dirt on the opposition and talk about it incessantly" trick.
As far as the Clinton/DNC leaks go, there was actually nothing damaging in them. Yet somehow it got spun up into a giant conspiracy that they had evidence didn't exist, thanks to the leak!
“Oh yeah, door was wide open, I swear!”
Can we extend this a bit so that if you’re walking through a park at night, mugging you is kosher?
Did they actually do what is claimed? Maybe, but are they really doing anymore than anyone else? Less anyone doubt we might charge them with something they didn't do, remember we have fought wars over what countries were later proven not to do.
In the end, what was revealed by whoever is that our own democracy's greatest threat lies from within and most likely always will
Even beyond the domestic political implications of Russian involvement in our election, Russia is actively supporting groups that are likely shooting at Americans and our allies today (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/17/evidence-russian-mil... or https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/04/24...).
Is it hysterical to care about these issues?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia...
France: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/05/french-electio...
Germany: https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-impact-of-russian-...
Netherlands: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2017/06/06/rus...
Actually there's no evidence that they hacked into anything -- it's all BS hearsay and "trust us" from secret agencies and no evidence pudding.
http://time.com/4600177/election-hack-russia-hillary-clinton...
Bears in the Midst: Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
There is no evidence in the post, only claims.
What is your basis for disbelieving all of those people and groups?
I personally looked through all technical evidence that was in public and that I could find (of course I could miss some, I am not perfect and I have a day job), and 90% of it is conjecture and references to some private data that I could not see. Maybe that private data shows what they say, maybe not - there's no way to see. The only semi-public info that I could see is that bit.ly fishing thing that shows that the fishing operation (which is only one of the multiple hacks that happen) is most likely performed by the same organization that performed a number of other fishing operations, which could be useful to Russians, and thus most likely is performed by Russians (either the government or private contractor working by the government order). There were also some scripts and sources of Ukrainian and Russian origin, seemingly, but those are traded on darknet so anybody could get their hands on them.
That is the only data I've seen in public that pinpoints the whole deal to Russia - all other things are "trust us, it's Russia". Which may very well be true - but "trust us" is not exactly a proof. It doesn't mean it's not Russia - very well may be - but the conclusive proof is still not there.
That isn't the case for many of the involved parties (for example the Dutch government, or Mitch McConnell.) And I'm not sure I agree with your argument that "pin it on Russia" would be the most face-saving lie (compared to "just call it a leak" for example.)
Look, I share your desire to see the actual evidence first-hand; "just trust us" rarely sits well with me either.
But if this is a lie, it's a remarkably well-coordinated lie, apparently agreed upon by many sources with competing or even conflicting motivations and biases. Even in your description of your own research you appear to concede that there is evidence connecting the hacking to, if not necessarily the Russian government, then at least Russians; and that it was certainly in the Russian government's interest; and that what information is currently public tends to fall in line with the information we're told is still secret. (I hope I'm not mischaracterizing your statements here, I do appreciate the amount of detail and thought apparent in your comment)
It's true that the public doesn't have, as you say, "conclusive proof" at this time. But many people seem to be taking that lack of conclusive proof as evidence that it's all just fake news, a huge cross-party conspiracy to mislead the public.
(And the conspiracy theorists oddly always gloss right over the question of who did do the hacking if not the Russians, they're just certain that it wasn't the Russians, because the government and the media says it was the Russians, and everybody knows you can't trust the government or the media.) (And that mistrust, of course, is the precise goal of the Russian disinformation campaigns we do have conclusive proof exist. So that's an interesting detail.)
That's the part I can't get past. On the one hand you have a plausible, coherent explanation which fits all the available evidence; on the other hand you have... well... what? Unsupported free-form skepticism, as far as I can tell.
True, the Dutch confirmation is much more valuable, as they have no apparent reason to be partisan on either side. So if it is confirmed with some evidence, it would be very heavy indication towards APT's indeed being Russian and being responsible for the hacks they are claimed to be responsible. It's one thing McCain - which has been at war with Russia since forever and grasping at anything anti-Russian he could reach - saying it and it's another thing Dutch with no partisan motivations saying that. When I rote the above I didn't know about Dutch confirmation, which makes me attribute more likelihood to the Russian attribution if I after some research I am convinced Dutch aren't mistaken and not motivated by something that I wasn't aware of (I know next to nothing about Dutch politics so no idea there).
> And the conspiracy theorists oddly always gloss right over the question of who did do the hacking if not the Russians
Oh, here might be lots of options. E.g.:
1. Russians, but not those Russians - I mean, independent Russian group which is not controlled by Kremlin. Who leaked the emails for lulz.
2. Independent group outside of Russia that has its interests aligned with Russia at the moment - say, Belorussians or Iranians or Kazahks or whatever, I'm not going to list all countries connected to the internet here.
3. Independent group outside of Russia having a beef with Clinton, but having no connection with Russia whatsoever and Russians just got lucky that they also hated Clinton.
4. Independent group outside of Russia not giving a tweet about politics but doing it for lulz and darknet bragging credits.
5. The emails were not published as a result of the hack, the hacks happened independently and the emails were leaked by the insider, unaware of simultaneously happening hack by any of the above.
6. No idea. I don't know a lot of things, and it's completely possible I wouldn't also know who leaked DNC emails. That's always a valid option.
I do not say any of those are true (except for the last one which very well might be true :) but they are certainly options for the answer of "who hacked it and leaked emails".
> And that mistrust, of course, is the precise goal of the Russian disinformation campaigns we do have conclusive proof exist. So that's an interesting detail.
Giving that mistrust of the government is pretty much written into US Constitution and, if one reads what the Framers wrote, was deeply on their minds when they wrote it, the Russians are about 230 years late to the table here.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...
Additionally, if you look at the private security company posts, they ALSO cross reference material of note.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
So is the only source you’ll accept is your eyes watching the hacking in person?
Pretty much the same process evidence undergoes on criminal trial. You present it, you get it through adversarial process, if it survives, we have some reasonable (though not 100%, as well known) chance it's true.
Of course, a prosecutor saying "well, we've seen the evidence and we conclude the defendant is guilty" would not fly very well in court. But that's mostly what we have here.
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-qu...
You may want to take a closer read of the editor's note prepended to the Nation article you linked to, which is a lengthy apology for the article's inaccuracy:
>we should have made certain that several of the article’s conclusions were presented as possibilities, not as certainties. And given the technical complexity of the material, we would have benefited from bringing on an independent expert to conduct a rigorous review of the VIPS technical claims[...] We have obtained such a review in the last week [...which] lays out several scenarios in which the DNC could have been hacked from the outside, although he does not rule out a leak.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagate-explained-721c...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagaters-are-the-very...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russiagate-is-making-ever...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/10-trump-administration-a...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-problem-with-the-clin...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/clintonists-suddenly-clai...
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-to-criticize-trump-wi...
Call me crazy but I'm going to side with the intelligence community (and Obama and John McCain and the Dutch government and even Mitch McConnell) on this one.
[edit: added adjectives, and the Dutch because they deserve it]
I was pointing to the arguments -- could not care less if Humpty Dumpty wrote them.
>Call me crazy but I'm going to side with the intelligence community (and Obama and John McCain and even Mitch McConnell) on this one.
I'd just call you gullible. If one actually wants to get out of the establishment bubble, that's the last source they'd want to slide with.
But of course they have such a great track record for people to be trusting them, from Operation Mockingbird to the Contras, WMDs, lying about surveillance, and so on...
Look, I'm no fan of the CIA, I share the frustration with not being able to see the classified evidence first-hand, and I'm all for skepticism when it comes to source bias and motivation. But when your argument boils down to literally everyone of significance is lying except for Donald Trump, that's no longer something that can be described as "skepticism".
We even had other countries confirm our conclusions before and it was still wrong.
I don't mean to say, it is definitely wrong, but I can't agree that is is almost certainly right either due to these same parties have all lied before.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/spy-agencies...
Because they have proven such integrity? I still remember the pictures being shown on TV from our intelligence community of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
And if this were just one source, or just one agency, or even just one political party, I might be more skeptical. (My usual routine when a story seems questionable is to check a source with the opposite political bias. If Fox and the WaPo both say something happened, I'm much more likely to believe that it did.)
Not for nothing, but:
"The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation... is to undermine the official version of events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events" https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-swede...
Seems like it's working.
In one short paragraph you've changed the subject from Russian election interference to the separate issue of Trump's collusion; you've characterized that collusion as a "conspiracy theory" for no apparent reason; somehow you've decided it's to blame for the rigged voting process within the Russian not-a-democracy; and I have no idea what the bizarre "declaring anybody from foreign country speaking about anything happening in another country to be a crime" is in reference to, if anything at all. Impressive!
But I'll give you this one:
> [Putin]'s just lucky US politics happened to be insane in a way that benefits him.
That's right on the nose.
I am glad you are able to see it as two issues. 99% of the press isn't.
> you've characterized that collusion as a "conspiracy theory"
Which it most definitely is, by definition - it's a theory (with no factual basis after two years of investigation) and it's about a conspiracy. What is it if not conspiracy theory?
> somehow you've decided it's to blame for the rigged voting process within the Russian not-a-democracy
I decided nothing of the sort. Of course US craziness is not to blame for Russian fake elections. But US craziness makes it harder for US to point to Russians that they just had fake elections, because Russians would say "didn't you just said telling other people about their elections is criminal? So please do shut up". US just shot itself in the foot on this one, and for no good reason whatsoever.
> I have no idea what the bizarre "declaring anybody from foreign country speaking about anything happening in another country to be a crime" is in reference to
Oh, you do have an idea, drop the pretense. You are perfectly aware what I am referring to, you just like to pretend it's not what it is saying. But, unfortunately, it is.
Oh horsepucky. There’s a sliiiight difference between “no factual basis” and “ongoing investigation whose results have of course not yet been made public.” There’s also no shortage of publicly available information supporting it; I could reel off the long list of meetings and shady-looking emails and trump tweets and etc but I’m sure you’re quite as well familiar with it as I am.
> You are perfectly aware what I am referring to
I really, genuinely, honestly have no idea what that lunatic raving is. Feel free to explain it, if you like.
Yes there is. But given the way it has been conducted so far - where any information against Trump has been leaked very promptly - and yet in the whole time absolutely nothing confirming the "collusion" theory has been found, and everything that came out - e.g. Flynn, Manafort, Papadopulos & now Russian trolls' indictments - show nothing of the sort, it's pretty safe to conclude it won't be ever found, because there's nothing to find. Of course, one is free to believe otherwise, as one is free to believe we are yet to discover the lost city of Atlantis, the Yeti and the UFOs hidden in Area 51, we just didn't look well enough. Hope dies last.
> There’s also no shortage of publicly available information supporting it;
Yep, there is. If fact, there's none.
> I could reel off the long list of meetings and shady-looking emails and trump tweets
Yes, there were meetings and emails and tweets, none of them has any evidence of Trump colluding with anybody to do anything, let alone anything criminal or even out of the course of routine politics. They may be evidence of thousands of things, but not that particular one.
> I really, genuinely, honestly have no idea what that lunatic raving is
> you’ve chosen to fall back to playground-level argumentation.
It is a fascinating level of lack of self-awareness - telling me I'm on "playground-level" in the same sentence as as subjecting me to a playground-level insults!
OK, I will indulge your pretense. I was referring to the prosecution of Russian individuals under the theory that participating in US politics, by publicly expressing your opinion on social media, or other venues, while not being US citizen, can be criminal. Of course, there are also some instances of actual fraud in the indictment, like identity theft, which are different matter, but conduct like "tweeting about US politics", or even "tweeting about US politics while having a profile on Twitter falsely claiming you are an American" should not be part of any criminal prosecution or criminal indictment.
It may not come as a surprise that I think you're wrong about basically everything else in that comment, though.
> where any information against Trump has been leaked very promptly
This is a baseless claim. We have no knowledge of what information hasn't been leaked. Kind of by definition.
> yet in the whole time absolutely nothing confirming the "collusion" theory has been found
Strike "found", replace with "made public". Because, again, the investigation is still happening, and its contents are still secret. Don't declare victory before the game's over.
> none of them has any evidence of Trump colluding with anybody to do anything
Yet again, we have no way of knowing what evidence has been found by the FBI but not yet made public because, yet again, the investigation is still happening. We do have a lot of instances of Trump and associates trying to cover up various meetings, which isn't typical behavior for innocent people. Kushner's little backchannel hotline to the Kremlin isn't exactly routine politics either. (It's not a proof-positive slam dunk -- Kushner might be able to explain it as sheer incompetence on his part, that he literally had no idea how criminal it would appear to attempt to hide your communication with Russia from your own country's security apparatus -- but it merits investigation. Which, as we know, is ongoing.) That's just a couple examples from what you and I both know is a long list of actions that sure smell incriminating from here.
But there's little point in us arguing about all the many details, because, say it with me everybody you know the words: the investigation is still ongoing. We don't know what we don't know. We'll find out one way or the other when more indictments drop, or when they close up shop.
> I was referring to the prosecution of Russian individuals under the theory that participating in US politics, by publicly expressing your opinion on social media, or other venues, while not being US citizen, can be criminal.
Aaaah, I see. Well, in the spirit of avoiding playground-level discourse, I will withdraw my description of it as "lunatic raving", and in place say "such a wildly absurd mischaracterization of the contents of this indictment that I literally did not realize this indictment was what you were talking about."
It does not consist of "declaring anybody from foreign country speaking about anything happening in another country to be a crime". That's an absurd claim. "Tweeting about US politics while having a profile on Twitter falsely claiming you are an American" is not criminal behavior. Creating a multi-million dollar operation to generate thousands of propaganda-dispensing social media accounts, posing as everything from BLM activists to the Tennessee Republican Party (really!), buying political ads, and staging political rallies within the US, all with the explicit intent of manipulating the election, however... that's a different story.
Ah yes, the famous Russell's teapot. I am sure it is full of evidence against Trump. But so far it hasn't been found in any other place. And there were enough leaks from all levels to demonstrate the capability and the willingness to leak. So one must ask, why this capability hasn't yet been deployed to reveal any real evidence of collusion? Obviously the theory that nobody is willing to leak stuff about this is false. What other theory is there?
> Strike "found", replace with "made public".
Russell's teapot again. You are of course free to believe in hidden evidence of anything you like. I prefer to believe in open one, and that one does not contain a smidgen of collusion.
> Creating a multi-million dollar operation to generate thousands of propaganda-dispensing social media accounts, posing as everything from BLM activists to the Tennessee Republican Party (really!), buying political ads, and staging political rallies within the US, all with the explicit intent of manipulating the election, however... that's a different story.
No it is not. It's exactly the same story - people saying words on the Internet (or in public on the streets, as it were). If it's a crime for 100 people to do it, then it's a crime for one person to do it. If it's a crime to do it for a million dollars, then it's a crime to do it for 10 cents and a lollipop. If it's a crime for a Russian to buy political ads and stage political actions - then it's a crime for any foreign national to do that. And that's exactly the theory major part of Muller indictment is based off - and that you just agreed you believe in too, in complete disregard for Constitutional freedoms and natural freedoms of every person, such as freedom of speech, association, etc. No amount of putting "the same, but with scary Russians" on it will change the basic premises of it.
Declaring your support for the constitutional rights of non-citizens is an interesting rhetorical choice. As is describing a large-scale propaganda mill as just the same thing as a rando spouting off on twitter. (Especially followed by the rhetorical flourish "then it's a crime for any foreign national to do that". Which, well, yes: it is. I even did that thing people do on the Internet where I looked it up for you, here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/11/110.20) And obviously I think your reading of who's leaked what, and what public evidence, both solid and suggestive, currently exists is quite selective. (I'm sure that feeling is mutual!) And most obviously of all, neither one of us is going to convince the other of... well, anything.
So: have a nice day. We can reconvene after the next round of indictments, if you like.
We are quite good at propaganda also
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-b...
It seems this should still be important, right? Before we take actions that lead to hostility between nations, possibly even wars, shouldn't we be absolutely sure?
https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2213767-dutch-intelligence-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-26/release-t...
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/12/dutch-official-admits-ly...
Seems to be quite a disingenuous summary of content
I'm not sure about your anecdote regarding alleged surprise. The only surprise I really caught were the public reactions to the news.
OK, I admit, I took the optimistic route. The pessimistic one would be they knew for months, they tried for months to stop it, and they failed, and they didn't tell anyone about it. That sounds even worse to me.
> Primarily, any initial entry into one government system
DNC is not government. At least not yet :)
I trust you understood what I meant, regardless.
I’m willing to believe it’s possible they failed. I recall talks by a former NSA director about the dire need for improved cybersecurity programs and it wasn’t well received at the time— in light of all the patriot act business
Maybe it’s a wake up call?
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-i...
[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-11-03/inside...
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign...
[4] https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-25/DEF%20CON%2025%20vot...
Depends on your degree of trust in the US and Russian governments.
Re: the DNC/RNC, even if they didn't hack anything, they did leak the information that they acquired - clearly to shape the political situation. Still reprehensible.
> they did leak the information that they acquired - clearly to shape the political situation. Still reprehensible.
This is not only legal, but has been done many times by all MSM outlets. Some got well-respected prizes for it. Some got movies made in their honor for it. May be still reprehensible, but certainly not something one usually gets indicted for.
Hack that and people get turned away at the polls.
NIC ICA Report:
Like an old Chinese proverb: Mosquito only sting the eggs already with cracks.
The corruption is to a degree that anyone can influence US political system with comparably very insignificant cost.
At this juncture, how can you fix the external influence while the internal is so eager to cooperate? Like a stick without support on ground, are you going to put a sign that no one should touch it, but how can you keep it stand? And what's the point of disallow people touching it, which I can blow it off using my mouth...
Fix both of them. In any order. US has both a corruption problem (although less so than other countries IMO), AND an outside influence problem.
There are 300+ million people in the country and a budget of over $3 Trillion / year. We can afford the resources to simultaneously fix both problems. There's absolutely no reason to fix things one at a time.
I don't want to paint these issues in purely moral terms. In many ways they're attributable to the increasing complexity of a technological society and the momentum of economic relations. We don't have a good paradigm for self-governance in an increasingly networked society.
The list goes on and on and on for virtually forever. My point is: we work on ALL the problems, simultaneously, as much as possible. There should be no one suggesting that we only try to solve one or two of these at a time.
We will fail to fix some problems, but we will succeed in fixing other problems. And it will only happen because people will throw their hardest try at fixing all of the problems.
We are ahead in many respects: the population in general knows the wide variety of problems that this country has. So we're able to talk about it. So we're at least at step 1. It'd be nice if we could come to consensus faster, but politics has always been a painfully slow game (Civil Rights took over a decade of demonstrations for example to fix a single issue). This country has always been a bit slow on the uptake, but at least public awareness is generally good.
EDIT: voter roll != voter systems... edited so I don't spread FUD. Don't want to distract from the main point. The success of Russia's efforts may be only a symptom of the problems in the US - you still have to treat the symptoms.