U.S. Blames Russia For Hacks to Influence Election
How’s that reset button working out?
President Barack Obama’s administration has officially blamed Russia for the recent hacks to influence the 2016 presidential election. Fingers have longed pointed fingers at Russia whenever hackers posted emails from the Democratic National Committee and phone calls with Democrats, but now U.S. intelligence agencies have enough confidence to put the blame on Russia:
“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said.
The agencies said some state election systems have been recently scanned and probed and that this action originated from servers operated by a Russian company. But the statement stopped short of definitively blaming the Russian government for that activity.
Just days before the Democrat National Committee, a Romanian hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 gave emails to Wikileaks that showed the DNC conspired from within to ruin Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) campaign against Hillary Clinton.
This caused the DNC to “quarantine” then-DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the Democrat convention. She later resigned a day before the convention kicked off while the DNC fired three top officials.
Another document dump showed emails that contained the words pay to play. Those high paying donors eventually became ambassadors. Other emails showed the DNC staged TV protests.
U.S. officials have now said all of these hacks come from Russia:
“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said the joint statement from agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
It added that leaks by three entities—a hacker self-described as Guccifer 2.0, the website DCleaks.com and the organization WikiLeaks—“are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”
Also, just last week, a Department of Homeland Security official said hackers targeted election systems in 21 states. This has led DHS to persuade states to take advantage of federal and private protection of its election systems.
Concerns over election security peaked in August when “hackers successfully infiltrated one state board of election and targeted another” in Illinois and Arizona.
The FBI provided “eight separate IP addresses” and thinks they may have been linked since the hackers used one address in bothe attacks. The department recognized one address since it “surfaced before in Russian criminal underground hacker forums.” Rich Barger, chief intelligence officer for cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect, told Yahoo News that “the method of attack on one of the state election systems — including the types of tools used by the hackers to scan for vulnerabilities and exploit them — appears to resemble methods used in other suspected Russian state-sponsored cyberattacks, including one just this month on the World Anti-Doping Agency.”
The Kremlin, of course, has denied the accusations.
The Wall Street Journal provided the options the administration may use against Russia:
An administration official said the U.S. government could activate numerous measures in response to the alleged Russian operation, including diplomatic and economic steps as well as criminal charges.
Accusing a foreign government of attempting to interfere in the U.S. election leaves several difficult choices for the White House. Many computer experts and even U.S. lawmakers have said there should be more of a deterrent to prevent nation states from launching computer attacks.
The White House may choose to level sanctions against Russia or Russian businesses believed connected to the operation, or it may launch computer attacks of its own if President Barack Obama believes such retaliation is merited.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress grew frustrated with the administration for not calling out Russia. California Democrats Adam Schiff and Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrats on the House and and Senate intelligence committees, cited classified briefings weeks ago that proved Russia did commit the hackings. Schiff praised the announcement:
“I hope this will establish a deterrent to further meddling,” he said. “I don’t think the Russians have decided yet how much they plan to continue their interference, so I think this attribution is very timely. We’re also encouraging the administration to work with our European partners, who have been the subject of even worse meddling, to coordinate a response to this.”
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Comments
Maybe it’s time to conduct elections via snail mail with representatives of both parties monitoring the counting process. The only solution for a nearly 100% secure election process is a closed process.
OTOH, this country is woefully behind the times regarding cyber security where Constitutional impediments, (perceived), offer our adversaries unfettered access to our most “secured” data.
It’s sorta like “old math” that is out of place even though it works every single time…
Do I believe that state sponsored Russians have been doing this hacking? No.
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Do I believe that the US is supporting terrorist groups in Syria as a way to try and topple the Assad government? Yes.
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Do I believe that much of what we hear about coming from Syria is less than objective and truthful and that reality is quite unrelated? Yes.
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Do I believe that these claims about Russian hacking and many other similar anti-Russian claims are nothing more than propaganda to paint Russia in a way that will justify further actions including war? Yes.
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Do I believe that our Democrat leaders know they have failed and are looking towards a war as an excuse to blame their failure upon while also using it to gain more power at the expense of the Constitution? Yes.
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Do I believe that this administration is working behind the scenes to take control over the election process so that they can control or at least manipulate the results? Yes.
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Do I believe that this administration is setting the stage such that should Hillary become unelectable then many crises will arise in this country thereby leading Obama to declare martial law and then suspend the upcoming election? Yes.
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Am I in any way optimistic? Nope, not one bit. I believe that the next year or two will fundamentally change this country and the world for the much, much worse – and that’s when I am having a good day.
Do I believe you are objective in any way, shape, or form?
No
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Do I believe anyone gives a damn about what you believe?
No
The techies at Reddit say the security at the DNC was poor enough that anybody with a little determination, as distinct from specialized skills, could have done it.
You were actually down voted on this. Gee, I wonder which troll did that?
So. Mittens was right about this…TOO…!!!
Certainly not my idea of a “pure conservative”, compare and contrast to the piles of crap we see littering the POTUS election today. A fine man…a grown up.
Will they still blame Russia when a quarter million Hillary absentee ballots appear?
We won’t see that kind of chicanery.
You don’t expend a lot of artillery when the other side is observed falling on their own grenades.
The election is over.
“Russian hackers” is a pillar of Grandma’s crime family. Her campaign still has not denied the veracity of the hacks, they don’t have to, the feds and the media speaks for them. Putin did it, Trump=Putin, Trump did it.
That’s ok, I’ll down vote myself.
I wonder what they have on Trump? Oh, that’s right, they owning him. He is insolvent without their money. That should be good enough.
The FBI provided “eight separate IP addresses” and thinks they may have been linked since the hackers used one address in bothe attacks.
This is kid stuff. You’d think nobody at FBI had ever heard of dynamic IP addresses … you know, the type we all use. There’s no such thing as “the address”; ISPs (a.k.a. Internet Service Providers) are assigned huge blocks of Internet Protocol addresses which are used as needed. That is, any particular computer’s address changes constantly. That’s what “dynamic” means. There are static IP addresses but they cost more. Sometimes you need one, usually you don’t. Anybody who knows enough to work through a server in Russia isn’t going to be dumb enough to use a computer with a static IP address.
are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.
Note the two weasel phrases in there … “consistent with” and “methods and motivations” … both clues that they haven’t the slightest reason to believe any of this b.s.
This isn’t a handle the Admin can use to whack Russia over the head with. Obama et al don’t give a hoot about Russia, or any foreign affairs; the conquest they’re shooting for is the subjugation of the United States. And since they’re dealing with people so technologically challenged that they actually fall for this tripe, they just may succeed.
They know all that stuff, most likely. They’re just betting on us not knowing about it, or being so distracted with other things that we will not pay attention.
Just think about it. “Hackers” smart enough to hack into the Democratic National Convention, but not smart enough to hide their own IP address.
Yeah, right.
Everyone blames the U.S. for premature evacuation, progressive wars, emigration reform (e.g. refugee crises), violent regime changes, backing terrorists organizations e.g. Libya-ISIS Affair), trials by sodomy (e.g. Gaddafi), mass abortions, and catastrophic anthropogenic progressive corruption.
Comrade Sheikh Buraq Hussein Obama’s ‘Media Echo Chamber’ begins the task of positioning itself for calling to abandon the November 8th election and instead proclaim Sheikh Hussein Obama Dictator and president For Life, or until the National Emergency Is over.
Heck, with the Democrats screaming about voter ID, maybe Putin should start sending ” voting” tourists here if (big if as I’m not sure it’s true they were the ones hacking) he wants to skew the election.
Voter fraud to compete with the dems past mastery of fraud.
Remember, you don’t need an ID to vote according to dem theology, unless you’re trying to enter their headquarters. Then it’s mandatory or you can’t get in.
You know that because the left (and Obama/Jarrett) are accusing the Russians of hacking the election, the left and Obama/Jarrett are hacking the election.
We now live in a banana republic. If Trump loses, it’s final, save a civil war.
You best start polishing your musket, then, because it’s hard to imagine Trump winning at this point. He could still pull it out, but it seems increasingly unlikely.