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A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

theguardian.com

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Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#31

Post by apstls »

mjfl wrote: post #12
sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated effort by US intelligence to deceive the people into believing that a nation that has been openly hostile against US cyberspace has… continued to do so, this time in a new way?

If this was indeed a sarcastic comment, I would consider dialing back the subtlety so you don’t inadvertently appear to lend credence to misinformation currently being spread among less scrupulous portions of the population.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#32

Post by jacquesm »

apstls wrote: post #31
mjfl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated ef…

Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe this.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#33

Post by epakai »

tomohawk wrote: post #30
sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

Russia Meddling was all sourced from Hamilton 68, which is now completely discredited. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html

Seen it with my own eyes, but several people in this thread go all out to completely dismiss it based on twitter files that exist to push a particular narrative.

There were concerted efforts to push messaging via left-wing sub-reddits. I saw how the narrative pushed had little logical basis towards achieving the ends they pretended to push. I watched as the trolls waxed and waned with the war effort. I watched the same spaces push anti-Ukraine messaging when it had nothing whatsoever to do with their claimed political goals. Then I watched most of them disappear after enough people pointed out what they were doing.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/titwwg/fyi_...

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#34

Post by pfisherman »

mjfl wrote: post #12
sph wrote: post #2

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial…

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

“Domestic intelligence”? You mean the FBI? US intelligence agencies by law do not operate within the US.

Did the Russians interfere in the US election? This is unquestionably true. The DNC did not leak their strategy docs by themselves.

Was Russian interference in the 2016 election decisive? Highly unlikely. Imo, it would be generous to say the effect was marginal at best.

In hindsight the whole thing was pretty stupid; and lines with the Russian government’s increasingly erratic and incompetent behavior. They could have achieved the same end with none of the blowback by just doing nothing.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#35

Post by barbazoo »

whatshisface wrote: post #29
ianai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point is, whatever option is agreeable wouldn’t require the kind of build out to get us here-wiring up the internet, researching and scaling smartphone tech, etc. direct democracy seems like a pretty obvious max for logistical problems to governance and modern tech would make it possible. So anything below it possible too.

They have direct democracy in Switzerland and they don't need the internet for that.

> Popular votes can be held up to four times a year.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/switzerland-direct-de...

At some point you need technology, otherwise it would just get too expensive.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#36

Post by from »

alisonatwork wrote: post #20
rossdavidh wrote: post #9

"Given their expertise in subterfuge, it is perhaps surprising that Hanan and his colleagues allowed themselves to be exposed by undercover reporters." Surprising, unless the guys are actually just good at lying to potential customers, to fleece them of as much $$ as possible. I'm not saying they don't use sock puppet social media accounts, etc. but really, how would any of their customers know if it was at all effec…

One of the tropes of spy novels is you can never trust a spy, and I think it'd be fair to say you can never trust a hacker or disinformation merchant either. Nevertheless, intelligence agencies and organized crime continues to exist, because the people employing said sources make their own risk assessments and incorporate that into the cost benefit analysis. And it appears that there is still at least some perceived…

Facebook, Twitter, etc remove coordinated influence campaigns like these all of the time. There is a headline in major publications almost every time and an article on their corporate blogs. What these political consulting companies do is not exactly illegal in countries with free speech which is why there isn’t as much governmental effort. The American governments argument for “conspiracy to defraud the United States” in the IRA case is tenuous and untested to say the least which is why they mostly focused on the fact that they used fullz to register PayPal accounts in the indictment.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#37

Post by upsidesinclude »

apstls wrote: post #31
mjfl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated ef…

No, the previous comment brought up Trump, which is clearly alluding to "Russian collusion".

I'm fine with distaste for Trump and the realities of disinformation campaigns, but the focus of the Twitter files in this regard is clearly specific to the false Russia Trump connection propagated by Dem polticians and leftists.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#38

Post by mjfl »

apstls wrote: post #31
mjfl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated ef…

[flagged]

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#39

Post by mjfl »

pfisherman wrote: post #34
mjfl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

“Domestic intelligence”? You mean the FBI? US intelligence agencies by law do not operate within the US. Did the Russians interfere in the US election? This is unquestionably true. The DNC did not leak their strategy docs by themselves. Was Russian interference in the 2016 election decisive? Highly unlikely. Imo, it would be generous to say the effect was marginal at best. In hindsight the whole thing was pretty stup…

> US intelligence agencies by law do not operate within the US.

An unbelievably naive statement.

Re: A hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections

#40

Post by barbazoo »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
baremetal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct democracy with full vote transparency for every voter.

That's what the USSR had. Didn't work so well. A secret ballot is a major requirement for democracy.

There was one option on the ballot, I think that was more the problem. Having choice and not having someone with a gun escort you to the ballot box are bigger requirements. If there were no repercussions, voting could totally be open, don't you think?
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