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Dear Obama, from Infosec

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Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

bcoates wrote: post #41
dragonwriter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was first attributed to the Russians by CrowdStrike. I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership.

CrowdStrike's partisanship is like the news media's: bias towards spectacle, unwarranted certainty, and producing a coherent narrative facts be damned.

Seems if that were true that they'd be pretty ineffective at their job as a cybersecurity firm and easily outcompeted in the market.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#82

Post by [deleted] »

petre wrote: post #17
nl wrote: post #12

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("W…

This Russians hacked the election narrative is just like Saddam has WMDs back ten years ago, only more dangerous. So unless any hard evidence comes to light, we can safely dismiss it as propaganda and not get too excited about it.

[deleted]

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#83

Post by badlucklottery »

tremon wrote: post #77
badlucklottery wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I do trust Assange much more than the CIA though. But do you trust Assange more than the 17 US intelligence agencies? And the actual president? And members of congress (including many Republicans who would directly benefit from any intelligence pointing another way)? At this point it's getting close to Assange vs the world. Even Trump won't directly say the Russians weren't involved anymore, he's just muddying the w…

But do you trust Assange more than the 17 US intelligence agencies? And the actual president? Yes. Does that really surprise you?

Not surprised but definitely saddened a bit. Because at this point I doubt anything is going to dispel the conspiracy for you if you think it's that widespread. Anyone who disagrees will merely be "in on it".

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#84

Post by bcoates »

dragonwriter wrote: post #81
bcoates wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CrowdStrike's partisanship is like the news media's: bias towards spectacle, unwarranted certainty, and producing a coherent narrative facts be damned.

Seems if that were true that they'd be pretty ineffective at their job as a cybersecurity firm and easily outcompeted in the market.

They don't get paid for the accuracy of their public pronouncements, it's just a marketing tool to raise their profile. It doesn't prevent them from being competent and maintaining clients.

Also, most clients would be more than happy to have someone proclaim that the reason they got owned was because they were the target of spooky foreign state actors and not because they're bad at security. There's no money in downplaying the sophistication of an attack.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#85

Post by AnimalMuppet »

santoriv wrote: post #22
nl wrote: post #12

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("W…

> The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("We have communication intercepts between the hacking groups and the GRU/FSB, and there they are, and here is how we got…

Clapper lied because he considered the program (the one he lied to defend) to be in the security interest of the US. One could see, from his point of view, why he could think this. (I think it's too narrow a view, but I can see how he could have tunnel vision in this area.)

Does the intelligence community have reason to believe that lying about Russian attempts to manipulate a US presidential election are justified? For them to believe that, they'd have to believe either that Trump is an existential threat to the US, or that Russia must be countered starting immediately.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#86

Post by AnimalMuppet »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #64
sergers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I was thinking... While I know it's leaning to one side and highly opinionated, I was watching Oliver Stone's untold history of the United states, right after the election. I actually felt some anger and disgust into how US has influenced other nations and their own "democratic process" since it's beginning...

Not sure why that means we should be OK with the current situation though. That logic is along the lines of "The U.S. has done some imperialistic stuff. Nazi Germany did some imperialistic stuff. Let's call it a draw."

Well, the US has orchestrated elections with considerable more manipulation than Russia (allegedly) used here. The US has also overthrown governments that it didn't like. So we can't call it a draw; morally we have to call it a loss for the US. (That is, until you start thinking about things like Russia rolling tanks into Warsaw in 1956 and Prague in 1968...)

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#87

Post by AnimalMuppet »

camus2 wrote: post #31
yakcyll wrote: post #29

Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. That, plus, it shouldn't matter who has done it, since (especially if it was Russia) they most likely won't be persecuted for it. What the focus should be put on is making sure this won't happen again - but that the general public isn't very interested in.

> Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. There was no "election hacking", a DNC executive failed for a fishing scam, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that it was the Russians. It's interesting how liberals became CIA and FBI shills in less that 2 weeks after the election, while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party. Now maybe Ru…

Well, the "liberals" are only a parody of liberals at this point. But then again, the "conservatives" are only a parody of conservatives, too...

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#88

Post by lsh123 »

flukus wrote: post #19
nl wrote: post #12

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("W…

> The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. Then they should say nothing. "It was the Russians, trust us" simply doesn't cut it.

> Then they should say nothing. "It was the Russians, trust us" simply doesn't cut it.

This would be better than releasing a report that makes no sense to technical/security people.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#89

Post by unclebucknasty »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #86
unclebucknasty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why that means we should be OK with the current situation though. That logic is along the lines of "The U.S. has done some imperialistic stuff. Nazi Germany did some imperialistic stuff. Let's call it a draw."

Well, the US has orchestrated elections with considerable more manipulation than Russia (allegedly) used here. The US has also overthrown governments that it didn't like. So we can't call it a draw; morally we have to call it a loss for the US. (That is, until you start thinking about things like Russia rolling tanks into Warsaw in 1956 and Prague in 1968...)

Well, that's a lot to assume, including a.) that you know categorically that the U.S. really has engaged in "considerably more manipulation" and b.) that the quantity of manipulation alone determines the morality. For instance, does manipulating two elections to depose brutal dictators add up to a "moral loss" against manipulating one election of a peaceful, "benevolent" country to gain access to its resources?

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of arguing which interventions are "more moral"--just pointing out the flaw in your reasoning.

So, let's just concede that you are completely correct. That still doesn't argue for the U.S. doing nothing in response, as some seem to suggest. It's actually mind-blowing that people are offering that as a reason that the U.S. should not protect its democratic process--allowing anyone to engage in an all out assault on it with impunity.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#90

Post by peterwwillis »

Does anyone here think that Russia would not try to influence our elections if they had the chance?

I guess i'm confused as to why we should care if they did. Even if Trump didn't win through fair elections, he was still nominated by us. I think that's damning enough to say we deserve him.

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