Russia may try
Not only is Trump raising the specter of electoral fraud by Democrats, but today Senate minority leader Harry Reid said Russia may try to manipulate voting results in favor of Trump. In calling for an FBI investigation, Reid noted (1) the threat of Russian interference “is more extensive than is widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results;” (2) Vladimir Putin’s “goal is tampering with this election;” and (3) Trump’s former and current advisers are closely connected to the Russian leadership.
“Trump and his people keep saying the election is rigged,” said Reid. “Why is he saying that? Because people are telling him the election can be messed with.” If Russia concentrates on “less than six” swing states, it could alter results and undermine confidence in the electoral system.
That’s just fucking terrifying.
Trump is saying the election is rigged because he knows Clinton is going to win. It’s bullshit; a narcissist’s defense against acknowledging failure.
Surely if he thought the Russians were going to ensure his victory, he wouldn’t advertise it.
Barring catastrophe, I don’t think this election will be close enough to flip. But if Russian interference is really a thing, an investigation is still a good idea.
I honestly had a higher opinion of Putin’s intelligence than that. (Not his humanity. I’m not sure he has any. But I’ve had a good opinion of his smarts.)
If Russia really is meddling, to what end? If they really wanted to see the Dumpsterfire in power, they’d sure as hell keep their contribution hidden. If they want the US to know they’re meddling, then why? Beyond an increase in nebulous begrudgery, which does nothing for Russia, it wouldn’t accomplish anything.
What am I missing?
quixote @2
Agreed, it would be far more practical for the Russians to corrupt some US politicians in regard to specific issues than to interfere in the electoral system. Putin must be enjoying his reputation as a Machiavellian puppet master.
Re how this happened, what those doing this wanted, I had a small pile of conjectures. None of it evidenced real directly, mind. And though I do kinda work in the field (have done some work on intrusion detection stuff, been some years now though; mostly I’m more a secure networking/crypto guy), I can’t really pretend to much insider knowledge here; this isn’t really in my orbit…
That said: my picture of the Russian capabilities in the area is: they’re comparatively primitive, against, say, Israel and the US, who can do stuff like Stuxnet, when sufficiently motivated. Or, more fairly, I think: they’re of a different character. Looking at the intrusions attempted here, they’re all so far fairly soft targets, servers of political organisations, some of who don’t seem to have been always as careful as they probably should have. So I’m guessing they’ve a stable of operators using known and fairly low-tech exploits, none of this crazy zero-day stuff, patient, sophisticated worms attacking industrial control systems, so on. But this is what they do, and note also it kinda meshes with their _other_ online game: trying to tilt opinion, flooding networks with trolls pushing the line they want out there. Low-tech, not hard, but keep at it, you can get places. Email tells you what people are thinking. Creating noise can confuse people, getting a lot of people doubting, say, what it’s going to cost to join NATO (see Sweden’s experience, in this, if you haven’t already heard this bit.)
So my take is: maybe they thought they wouldn’t get caught, overestimated their own capabilities, or figured eve if they did leave a trail there’d be enough deniability they could continue to confuse things, and the blowback of being seen as actively promoting a particular candidate would be manageable enough, leaving the whole possible payoff worth that risk, at least.
The other possibility, seriously, I could imagine them not even minding that much getting caught. Yes, one possible cost is people react resentfully, push ever harder against their preferences. But against that, they might be hoping reducing people’s confidence in the system overall is still good psyops. People think it’s a mess, they’re not confident in their own nation’s systems, that’s music to the ears of an old KGB man, I’d figure. Divide and conquer is pretty much standard procedure, and a nation with competing interests that’s fearful, suspicious, divided, well, look, that’s exactly how he likes them.
It may also be, I keep wondering, that they’re just getting a bit cocky about what they can do with this stuff, having had more than a few minor successes, sticking to what they do well, and, sure, now, there’s grandiose dreams of hacking voting machines, writing the returns the way they want them. In short, they got greedy, and they got careless. And here we are.
Well since we’re still waiting to see any evidence at all that the naughty russians have been hacking into DNC servers, voting machines or anything else this looks like either Reid is totally paranoid or Reid is setting the stage for claiming HRC wuz robbed. If anybody is going to hack voting machines in key swing states it’s going to be the gop; just like Ohio 2004. But I guess Putin makes such a great person to blame everything on – as long as nobody looks at the facts.
Re ‘waiting for any evidence at all’, no, you’re waiting for evidence you consider sufficiently convincing, apparently, and that may be fair enough; while I think the balance of evidence points that way, like a lot of things in life, there will probably always be room for doubt. But characterizing this as ‘paranoia’ really isn’t on; lots of competent people are saying, yeah, this is what it looks like.
Decent summary of what’s out there at Wired, I guess:
https://www.wired.com/2016/07/heres-know-russia-dnc-hack/
I’d add: I think the DNC hack/release thing, while a bit unprecedented, is kinda the logical extension of previous tactics. It might have been pretty irresistible, at the time, once the investment was made in the intel, and they had stuff the figured might make a real mess of the convention. And bear in mind the game here is as likely to be to cripple and deligitimise a Clinton presidency, not actually prevent one.
(Thomas Rid’s thing at Motherboard is a bit more fleshed out with context, but it’s essentially the same evidence.)
Any evidence other than “security experts” (all anonymous and all of whom are famously unbiased and impartial) say blah blah or that these incredibly sophisticated hackers left their names and were found with two hours of analysis work? Given that US politicians are quick to blame Putin for everything I’d need to see something more than a couple of most likely planted digital “clues”. Colour me unconvinced.
Seriously, Sailor, ‘all anonymous’? Where are you even getting this?
Rid is by no means anonymous. Nor Crowdstrike. Nor (their competitors) Mandiant and Fidelis. And plenty of people with their name out there but at further remove are saying, okay, fits (see Schneier). Scepticism in the face of the unprecedented is not unreasonable, but it seems to me you’re _choosing_ to remain uninformed, here.
I can’t comment on the speed with which Crowdstrike says they identified the intrusions. Beyond that, in my limited experience, once you know to look, generally even the best tools can be detected. This isn’t witchcraft. It’s disks and RAM and backups, and it’s harder to make these ‘forget’ than people generally appreciate. Hollywood scifi may depict brilliant ghost hackers who never get caught, magically ‘scram’ the attack in real-time as the cops close in, and programs that erase themselves completely if you try to inspect them, but reality is… messier. Stickier, even.
It isn’t impossible (I think it pretty unlikely) the consensus view about this is simply wrong, and the alleged lone hacker really was. I think it also unlikely planted evidence would survive long in the environment in which it currently finds itself, but that’s a bit harder to call, I guess.
Not denying that hacks have taken place. Just sceptical of the kneejerk “the russians did it”. And sceptical that crowdstrike’s CEO is an impartial player. Also sceptical of the identification of the hackers as “the russian state” – that’s pure supposition. Anybody can plant phony names in a hack and even if the hosting servers are located in Russia it doesn’t mean that the hackers are in Russia; and even if they are in Russia it doesn’t mean that they are “russian state” actors. It’s just become routine to demonise Russia in general and Putin in particular wiithout any evidence of wrongdoing. It’s probably due to Putin’s resistance to american hegemony that has brought so much misery to so many countries. After all how dare he resist the american empire?
Hrm. Issues with your latest:
First. ‘Kneejerk’. Umm, no. Evidenced. Again, contrary to your previous claims, much of this is public, much of this is online. You could look at the pattern of behaviour of Cosy Bear, Fancy Bear/Advanced Persistent Threats 29/28. The hours they operate (8 to 8, Moscow time). The targets they select.
The rather remarkable resources they would have to have access to (including, interestingly, linguistic ones) for this to be practical. So, again, no, it isn’t just some casual insinuation, or politically convenient to surmise these are likely state actors. There are quite reasonable and cogent reasons for thinking so. And so again, we go back to, with this context: the tools found were those they are known to use. Yes, the command and control address being in common with the hack of the German parliament. Yes, the metadata.
(Oh. Also: dunno about any ‘servers in Russian’ as in your comment above, but, no, the command and control address isn’t in Russia. It’s registered to a French ISP, server in Pakistan. The tie isn’t through where the address was, it was where else it was used, and how. I really do get the impression from the way you’re swinging this stuff around you simply assume the people involved are stupid, bigoted, happy to pick an obvious demon, where, in fact, in contrast to some present, they’re careful, informed, and doing their best to work with the breadcrumbs they have to build the trail.)
And ‘kneejerk’, I might add, hardly fits the response of lots of people in the field, who naturally had their doubts (and still do have some caveats in their certainties, in some cases), wanted to kick the tires thoroughly before saying, okay, this fits. Any more, mind, than ‘paranoid’ did in your last, but, again, you do seem a mite careless with your adjectives, here.
Oh, and right, ‘without any evidence of wrongdoing’. Again with this. And again: there is evidence. You happen to reject it. Largely, it’s become pretty clear to me, without actually reading it, considering the quality of your objections, so far. But the margin in even bothering with you on this at any greater length, I gotta tell you, I’m not seeing it. You want to believe your Kremlin Che Guevera is simply getting a raw deal just for sticking a fork in the empire’s eye, you go with that, I guess. I’m no educator. Haven’t the patience, thanks.
To the rest, I’d say, in closing: the pattern of Russian involvement looks to me like: push parties that are likely to break alliances, weaken centrist ones that join and preserve them. Break up the EU, reduce US influence internationally, all of this broadly aligns with their intentions, here. And, in doing this, shifting opinion toward nasty right-wing racist thugs, bringing out the absolute worst instincts in frightened, increasingly xenophobic populations, all this is perfectly fine with them, if it means governments and coalitions not sharing their interests are weakened thereby. Nor have they been at all concerned that the means used be especially honest: see, for instance, the Lisa Affair in Germany (and note its timing, relative to the German election, and its likely cost to Merkel…)
… all of which is saying: if you vote in the US (I do not), my recommendation would be: kick the tires thoroughly on any October surprises. If it’s scandalous and inflammatory and smells fishy, and it’s three days to the election, do please try to keep up on your reading, I guess? A retraction or a million qualifications after the vote, revealing a tale signifying nothing cooked up into much sound and fury isn’t going to help anyone.
I’m actually predicting that something that looks Yuuuuugggge will blow up 3-6 days prior to the election, but turns out to be nothing much. Call me a cynic. Whether that will be generated locally or by 3rd party actors who knows.