The Real Paranoia-Inducing Purpose of Russian Hacks
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
It disturbs me that so many intelligent people in the IT community know this and stay silent because it makes Trump look bad.
Not to mention the fact that the content of the emails shows major collusion between the DNC and the mainstream media.
I feel like the facts have gone out the window when it comes to destroying someone you dislike.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/need-official-attribution-russia...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/is-dnc-email-h...
Media reporting around cybersecurity doesn't tend to acknowledge that people other than the security services have computers in Russia and China.
It became a meme among hacking victims to blame intelligence agencies, probably because it looks substantially less bad than getting owned by 15-year-olds. We let it pass without comment in dozens of cases before this one.
Gotcha. Seems perfectly reasonable.
"Dismiss evidence that makes Trump look bad out of hand"
What evidence? This is what I'm talking about. There are claims that it's the Russian government with no actual facts besides a trail that ends at a sordid VPN service.
There are plenty of other things that Trump says to make him look bad, I don't need even more evidence based on hearsay and opinion.
If we let things like this go on, a Sanders candidate will never have a future. If someone is bad, let the facts speak for themselves.
Yes, a lot of people have been very insistent that a lot of things in those emails make the DNC look really really bad. I've even seen them referred to as treasonous.
Strangely, not a lot of people actually bother to mention specifics about what, in those emails, we're supposed to be outraged over, only that we're supposed to be outraged.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Hillary fan by any means, but the obvious attempt at propaganda is obvious, when every attempt to discuss the possible Russian connection to the DNC hacks, and Trump's links to Putin and Russia (whatever the smoke to fire ratio might be, there) is met with immediate attempts to change the subject to Clinton and the DNC emails.
Assange is on record as saying as much (and lambasting journalists who can't count to two).
Granted, he has an incentive to spread misinformation about the identity of his sources, but it's not impossible that's there's a pro-bernie (or even just an anti-corruption) sys-admin working for the DNC who wanted this stuff to come to light.
For me, allegations of Russia 'interfering' in a US election pale in comparison to actual evidence of the DNC interfering to undermine the democratic process.
The contents of the leaks are much less disturbing than the fact that they were hacked and released at all. It made some Bernie diehards unhappy, and got one political chairwomen fired, but it's mostly just small embarrassing stuff that's probably not too different from any leaks you'd see from a C Suite email server.