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Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by Glyptodon on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:50PM (#16394767)
1) If the parties acted principled, open, and upfront as befits the democratic process rather than turning themselves into utterly skeezy Potemkin villages there would be nothing to selectively leak/embarrass them with. Every leak is self inflicted damage caused by the notion that they can do, and get away with, anything as long as they keep the public far enough away.

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.)

Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by avs733 on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:05PM (#16394929)
>1) If the parties principled and upfront as befits the democratic process rather than utterly skeezy there would be nothing to selectively leak/embarrass them with.

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...

Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by smsm42 on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:20PM (#16396435)
> First, the Russians, in other instances

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.

Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by bomb199 on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:09PM (#16394979)
Re: 1)

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!

Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by bllguo on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:20PM (#16395103)
I actually agree that the true underlying problem is how uninformed and easily manipulated our populace is. I agree that this wouldn't be an issue if our society was better off and more knowledgeable. Regardless, I disagree that we shouldn't care about Russian meddling.
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by auntienomen on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:19PM (#16395096)
They used phishing attacks to steal people's login credentials. That's not an open door.
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by Glyptodon on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:24PM (#16395152)
Was referencing voting systems/records, sorry I wasn't more clear.
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by ABCLAW on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:54PM (#16394802)
1) So? 2) Would you prefer it wasn't illegal to walk through the doors at all?
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by Glyptodon on Friday February 16, 2018 @01:57PM (#16394832)
At the very least it would make people more serious about locking them.
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by IntronExon on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:09PM (#16394968)
Sounds like paradise for lock pickers without moral fiber (actual pickers tend to have good rules they abide by) and desire to monetize their hobby.

“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?

Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by Glyptodon on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:22PM (#16395124)
Can we extend this a bit so that if you design and build a house without a roof and you're wet when it rains it's the building company and construction code's fault?
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by IntronExon on Friday February 16, 2018 @02:32PM (#16395225)
No, but it’s good to know that if you’re careless, tired, sick, etc... I have free reign to rob you blind.
Re:U.S. Charges 13 Russians, 3 Companies for Interfering wit... by mrguyorama on Friday February 16, 2018 @03:05PM (#16395590)
In United States law, trespassing is often still trespassing, even when the door is open