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Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

nytimes.com

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Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#51

Post by VikingCoder »

concinds wrote: post #31
cglouch wrote: post #9

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it does bother anyone that the NYT title calls it "election hacking"? To me that sort of slyly suggests that the actual election / voting process was hacked, which as far as I know did not happen. Perhaps "election-related hacking" would be more accurate. I don't mean to say the DNC and other such hacks weren't a big deal, but I worry that people who just read titles are getting th…

Ever since the election, the media has been trying to confuse people about Russia's "hacking", and keep using the phrase "hacked the election", so frequently and rigorously that it's obviously deliberate. And it worked: 50% of Democrats believe Russia hacked the election results (that's right, the results themselves, not just the DNC) according to the latest YouGov poll. The media is no longer proving itself worthy o…

First, we should all probably ignore YouGov, as it has fairly low credibility.

Second, it's alarming to watch people on YCombinator not acknowledge that almost always, the best way to hack a system is social engineering.

And if you combine actual hacking of people at the top of a political party, with social engineering, it's really not a stretch to call that "election hacking."

Sure, it's a little bit sensationalist, but when the DHS and FBI themselves refer to "malicious cyber activity" "by the Russian civilian and military intelligence services to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election", it's really not a bad short summary.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#52

Post by swalsh »

I hope that some day in the future we learn the truth about this year. Some people believe that the leaks were a few rogue CIA members, others blame a dude in eastern Europe, and of course Russia. I have no idea what the truth is, but I think under the covers there's some interesting drama.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#53

Post by etchalon »

mathetic wrote: post #47
etchalon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's missing the point. Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party. The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself. The Russians are "to blame" because they're the ones who committed the action.

I don't like Russia as much as the next guy, but the US doesn't really have moral high ground here. The repeating argument in NSA revelations was that intelligence agencies are here to gather intelligence outside the country and on their own citizens. Well then it follows, outside the country it would be pretty weird if Russia spied on US citizens, but not political parties. This goes both ways of course. Once you se…

The US does not have a "moral high ground" here, but that's also beside the point. Yes, we interfere in the elections of other countries. We also bomb other countries. And yet, if another country bombed us, we'd be pretty pissed about it.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#54

Post by mnarayan01 »

noobermin wrote: post #39
concinds wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since the election, the media has been trying to confuse people about Russia's "hacking", and keep using the phrase "hacked the election", so frequently and rigorously that it's obviously deliberate. And it worked: 50% of Democrats believe Russia hacked the election results (that's right, the results themselves, not just the DNC) according to the latest YouGov poll. The media is no longer proving itself worthy o…

Here you go[0]... That's not "50% believe." 35% thinking "Probably true" sounds to me like they believe it's possible. A nearly equal percent think it's "Probably not true" (32%) [0] http://hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/rh.jpg

"Probably not true" seems like a much better fit for "Well...it's possible".

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#55

Post by etchalon »

jsmith0295 wrote: post #48
etchalon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's missing the point. Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party. The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself. The Russians are "to blame" because they're the ones who committed the action.

I think it's also worth noting that this was not a particularly sophisticated attack. Podesta fell for a simple phishing attack. A lot of media attention around this has made it sound like something out of an action movie, but the attack itself was actually quite simple. People who have access to so much important information need more training about this sort of thing so they don't just give their password away. It…

It wasn't even a sophisticated phishing attack. If you believe the reporting, the whole thing would have been avoided were it not for a typo.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#56

Post by concinds »

noobermin wrote: post #39
concinds wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since the election, the media has been trying to confuse people about Russia's "hacking", and keep using the phrase "hacked the election", so frequently and rigorously that it's obviously deliberate. And it worked: 50% of Democrats believe Russia hacked the election results (that's right, the results themselves, not just the DNC) according to the latest YouGov poll. The media is no longer proving itself worthy o…

Here you go[0]... That's not "50% believe." 35% thinking "Probably true" sounds to me like they believe it's possible. A nearly equal percent think it's "Probably not true" (32%) [0] http://hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/rh.jpg

I think we disagree on the definition of "probably" (≠ plausibly).

For the record, for others reading, the question was: "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President".

"Definitely true" + "probably true" add up to 52%. Much worse: it adds up to 37% when you include all Americans. That's a catastrophic media failure.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#57

Post by 234dd57d2c8db »

etchalon wrote: post #6
vkazanov wrote: post #3

So, Clinton was corrupted, and somebody noticed it, and it is Russians who are to blame? Huh.

I think that's missing the point. Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party. The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself. The Russians are "to blame" because they're the ones who committed the action.

"Weren't particular interesting" What? The results of the attack are the entire reason Hillary lost! Remember how it came out how she has two sets of beliefs, "One private and one public", aka tell the plebs what they want to hear then make backroom deals with Goldman Sachs. Did you even read any of the emails?

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#58

Post by matt4077 »

cglouch wrote: post #9

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it does bother anyone that the NYT title calls it "election hacking"? To me that sort of slyly suggests that the actual election / voting process was hacked, which as far as I know did not happen. Perhaps "election-related hacking" would be more accurate. I don't mean to say the DNC and other such hacks weren't a big deal, but I worry that people who just read titles are getting th…

Headline space is limited. The first sentence is more precise: "...for its efforts to influence the 2016 election".

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#59

Post by toehead2000 »

mejari wrote: post #37
toehead2000 wrote: post #13

So is this how US politics will be from now on? Every president spends their lame duck period doing everything possible to sabotage the next guy (if they're the other party)? I seem to recall GWB having a bit more decorum than Obama here but maybe I'm wrong. Is the political climate really more poisonous than ever or does it just seem that way?

What action has Obama done that can be seen as "sabotaging the next guy"?

Haha I can't believe Im getting downvoted for the comment. Classic hacker news.

Anyway, did you read the article? He's kicking out a bunch of ambassadors and closing down diplomatic outposts in a way that will be hard to undo.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#60

Post by ZenoArrow »

etchalon wrote: post #6
vkazanov wrote: post #3

So, Clinton was corrupted, and somebody noticed it, and it is Russians who are to blame? Huh.

I think that's missing the point. Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party. The results of that attack (which weren't particular interesting) are secondary to the attack itself. The Russians are "to blame" because they're the ones who committed the action.

>"Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party."

Is there any evidence that the hacks came from Russia?

From what I've seen, the Russians have just been the scapegoats. Just because something is repeated a lot on the news, doesn't make it true. If there's evidence the hacks were orchestrated by the Russian government (or even involved Russia at all), let's see the evidence. Without the evidence, the claims are baseless.

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