# CIA Assessment on Russian Election Interference **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 12, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564 "2016-12-12T23:14:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/41 "2016-12-13T05:59:00Z")
Why all the excitement about blaming the Russians? Even if the leaked emails were stolen by Russia–why does it matter? If the emails had been stolen by someone else, would everything be okay? The issue to me isn’t that the big bad Russkies hacked our computers…governments do that to each other every day. The issue is : what was contained in those emails that scares the Democrats so much? If you’re participating in an election in a democracy, why do you have to keep so many secrets? Ideally, everything that all the parties do should be open to the public. Businesses have trade secrets, that must be legitimately kept hidden. But political parties are not private businesses. If they have secrets, the public deserves to know about them before the elections. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/42 "2016-12-13T06:14:26Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > _ **why do you think Putin is so enthusiastic about a Trump administration?** _ Because donald’s so tough? Because he’s so canny and poker faced in his public statements? Perhaps it’s because he didn’t spend the campaign playing coy with whether he’d shoot down Russian jets over Syria or not. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/43 "2016-12-13T06:27:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Dial it back – a lot! > If you need to get personal, take it to The BBQ Pit. > > [/Moderating] Understood. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/49beb7/32.png) [@Omega\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Ego)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/44 "2016-12-13T06:31:53Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Why all the excitement about blaming the Russians? > > Even if the leaked emails were stolen by Russia–why does it matter? > If the emails had been stolen by someone else, would everything be okay? Could be our [historically low](http://www.gallup.com/poll/189284/americans-russia-less-negatively-less-threat.aspx) opinion of them, bellicose military history, sanctions against them, position in the Syrian war, or the fact [they are the sole country to prefer Trump](https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TU4poN-at-CqGaobAWLhgP5veFU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6355769/HandelsRus4.png). Something tells me they might be trying to do us harm. > [@](#): > > The issue to me isn’t that the big bad Russkies hacked our computers…governments do that to each other every day. > The issue is : what was contained in those emails that scares the Democrats so much? I don’t know. Comb through them and come back? > [@](#): > > If you’re participating in an election in a democracy, why do you have to keep so many secrets? > Ideally, everything that all the parties do should be open to the public. Fine by me. Release the RNC emails. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/45 "2016-12-13T07:14:44Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Why all the excitement about blaming the Russians? > > Even if the leaked emails were stolen by Russia–why does it matter? > If the emails had been stolen by someone else, would everything be okay? > > The issue to me isn’t that the big bad Russkies hacked our computers…governments do that to each other every day. > The issue is : what was contained in those emails that scares the Democrats so much? > > If you’re participating in an election in a democracy, why do you have to keep so many secrets? > Ideally, everything that all the parties do should be open to the public. > > Businesses have trade secrets, that must be legitimately kept hidden. > But political parties are not private businesses. > > If they have secrets, the public deserves to know about them before the elections. One word: Pizzagate. I mean, before that, I would have used “climategate” as an example of how trivially easy it is to pick through private communication to find something that seems like foul play (but isn’t). But the fact is, we have perfectly good examples from _this case_. Even politicians have a right to some basic privacy. Even if there was nothing there, hacks like Sean Hannity or Alex Jones would have found something. There were some things there, but there’s no reason to believe that’s out of the ordinary, or that the republicans’ communications were likely to be any less problematic. I wonder how the election would have gone if we had gotten all of Trump’s personal emails from the last 8 years? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/46 "2016-12-13T07:51:36Z")
> [@Omega\_Ego](#): > > Release the RNC emails. There’s some dispute about if any hacked RNC emails even exist. The NYT claims to have an anonymous source that says they do, but I haven’t seen anyone able to confirm this. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Even politicians have a right to some basic privacy. Sure, but it’s a right they’re unlikely to realize when they hire crappy IT guys that have to ask reddit for help managing their email server. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/47 "2016-12-13T07:53:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > All of this Russian interference bullshit is starting to piss me off. Democrats and liberals in general are starting to go off the rails. What did the Russians do exactly? Does anyone have any idea? What they didn’t do was hack into voting machines because one of the strengths of the American voting system is that it is completely decentralized, every state is different and the voting machines generally are not connected to the internet at all. So what was it they did? While I would agree that everyone voted of their own free will, and subsequently we ended up with Trump, (and I also agree that Johnson was the right vote 😉 ) I would have to say that your statement seems deliberately obtuse. You may as well say, “What crime is Bernie Madoff supposed to have done exactly? People gave him money of their own free will! I know people who did it! He didn’t stick a gun in their face. It’s what everyone chose to do!” If your standard for wrong-doing is sticking a gun in someone’s face or vote tampering, then yeah, no wrong has been done. But if that was the legal standard, we wouldn’t have crimes like fraud, impersonation of an officer, crying “fire” in a crowded building, etc. Trump’s win is based on a fairly small percentage of the population. A few hundred thousand votes, in the right places, could have changed the entire election. If the population, on average, had been 0.1% more favorable towards Hilary, she may have been the President. (I didn’t do the math, but you get the gist.) And so if you ask, could targeted advertising, targeted misinformation, and targeted revelations with negative or misleading implications have swung that small percentile of the vote? Then yes. I think that could reasonably be done. I think it’s reasonable to believe that, minus Russian tampering (if there was any), that the electorate may well have chosen differently. Rumor has it that the FBI largely took out the Black Panthers, back in the 60s and 70s, by helping to sow discord within the organization, through a few well-placed moles and forged letters. Information, and the ability to control how it is portrayed, is not a nothing power. Whole countries live on propaganda and lies, and would fall apart without them. The CIA and KGB destabilized a good number of countries, through the Cold War era, using misinformation (and other) tactics. The whole “there will never be peace in the Middle East” meme is based on the rise of Fundamentalist Islam, a movement whose rise was supported by the CIA, to keep Russia out of the region. Minus that and most of the region might have been more like Turkey. Fundamentalist Christianity has been on the rise, as a political power in the US, over the last few decades and just made its largest victory yet, with the promotion of Pence to the Whitehouse. The free will to do something doesn’t mean that you weren’t conned. If someone tells me that this bar-shaped brown thing in a wrapper is chocolate, when it’s actually some poisonous concoction made to look like a candy bar, I will end up killing myself of my own free will, through no fault nor intention of my own. If you would argue that no crime was committed against me nor needs to be investigated, I would seriously question your reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/48 "2016-12-13T08:07:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure, but it’s a right they’re unlikely to realize when they hire crappy IT guys that have to ask reddit for help managing their email server. When someone breaks into my home and steals my shit, I have not “failed to realize” my right to property, my right to property has been _violated_. Even if I forgot to lock my door. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/49 "2016-12-13T08:11:14Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > When someone breaks into my home and steals my shit I have not “failed to realize” my right to property, my right to property has been _violated_. Yup, and if you leave big piles of $100 bills in your driveway overnight, your right to property is also likely to be violated. Buy better locks or reap the almost-inevitable reward. Whether that’s “right” or “fair” is irrelevant. It happened. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/50 "2016-12-13T08:30:17Z")
So, look at it the right way, its really _their_ fault they were hacked! Why, its almost like entrapment, they made it so easy those poor Russian guys just couldn’t resist! Sashaying around dressed like that, just asking for it! ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/51 "2016-12-13T08:33:47Z")
The police might be marginally less sympathetic if you hung your front door key by the door bell. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/52 "2016-12-13T08:36:09Z")
I imagine that is so! What I can’t imagine is it being relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/53 "2016-12-13T09:56:40Z")
I’m sure not. For others if you have stuff you want to keep secret, you should keep it from discovery with intelligent care. Months ago, it was pointed out that any country’s intelligence service with a budget of more that $130 could have hacked a Gmail account, and that old Hil’s email server was _less_ secure than Gmail - Blum: You don’t need to be a cat-burglar to hack into an email account and you don’t need a cloth to wipe a server clean. One would think that a former United States Senator, one would think that a former Secretary of State, would know this as well, would you agree? Wow. Clinton doesn’t even have a computer in her office? How is that even possible in our day and age?\* **[Hillary’s Email Was Less Secure Than… Gmail](http://dailysurge.com/2016/07/hillarys-email-less-secure-gmail-rate-gmail-account-hacked-129-video/)** However, there Hil was just Secretary of State, and those emails weren’t so important; but for the DNC, they had plenty of private stuff too arcane for the common man. You’d imagine they could have dropped, say, $500k from the Clinton Foundation for computer security in order to win the election they spent $1.2 billion to secure. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/54 "2016-12-13T10:51:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What’s the basis for the claim that the RNC was hacked? Dopers have said that, but I’m afraid it might just be something they’ve told each other so much they believe it’s true, because they really want to believe it’s true. Are you sure that’s not just something you’ve told yourself because you really want to believe it’s true? > [@Shagnasty](#): > > You did get it. There isn’t much more too it than that. Putin likes Trump and vice-versa. Russian-US relations have been deteriorating for a number of years now and that is not a good thing. Anything to make that better is a net positive because the possibility of a nuclear exchange or even a new Cold War are dire. > > Like I said, I am not a Trump supporter but Obama was terrible at Russian relations and Hillary Clinton would be more likely to get us in a major conflict than anyone else. I keep hearing this and yet I see no evidence for it. Certainly we’re less likely to get into a conflict with Russia in the short-term under Trump because we’re much less likely to oppose their expansionist ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere in eastern Europe, and will be less supportive of NATO. But how well did appeasement work out for Neville Chamberlain? Jimmy Carter aided the Soviets and it prolonged their regime; Reagan took a harder stance and the Soviets collapsed under their own flaws. The soft approach is not always the best. Conversely, Trump advocated a much harder line against Iran and has indicated an intent to tear up an agreement that has pushed back Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons for a decade. How do you think that’s going to play out? Is that approach less likely to get us into a major conflict? Basically this whole argument is “Electing Clinton means that the Russians are more likely to hack our systems and steal our secrets…so let’s elect someone who will just tell the Russians all our secrets. Then our systems will be safe!” > [@](#): > > I am trying to look at the silver lining here. If Russia and the U.S. coordinated their efforts, they could take out Syria and wipe out ISIS strongholds in a matter of days. I am not sure if that is the right course of action but it is better than having two very strong rivals with very different goals competing in the same region with pointless shows of dickmanship like close fly-by’s of U.S. military ships. You can start a very real international incident or even a full-scale war with that type of causal provocation. And now we’ve got a president-elect with a Twitter addiction and an unwillingness to take State Department advice. Given Trump’s behaviour in the past month, how much more casual provocation do you think we’ll see? > [@Evan Drake](#): > > A lot of people, both left and right all around the world were terrified of a Hillary victory. Actually most people around the world were terrified of a Trump victory - except for Russians, who strangely preferred Trump. And the reason most of them preferred Clinton, for all her flaws, is that they rightly recognized that putting an ignorant narcissist with no self-control in charge of the nuclear arsenal is incredibly dangerous. > [@](#): > > Most Americans probably weren’t; and if Hillary lovers, no doubt would have preferred Russia turned to glass to a Trump victory. Careful there, man - you’ve dropped a whole bunch of straw. Wouldn’t want you to trip on it. By the by, there is a certain entertainment value in watching the party of Reagan all lining up to defend Russian shenanigans against the US’s security services. How times change. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/55 "2016-12-13T11:32:24Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Whether you did or not, _ **why do you think Putin is so enthusiastic about a Trump administration?** _ Because Trump isn’t going to kill Russian pilots to protect Islamist rebels in Syria. That’s not something we can say with certainty about Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/56 "2016-12-13T11:32:31Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > But Russians didn’t write those emails, did they? [Just the punched-up bits…](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-being-behind-the-dnc-hack) > [@](#): > > The metadata in the leaked documents are perhaps most revealing: one dumped document was modified using Russian language settings, by a user named “Феликс Эдмундович,” a code name referring to the founder of the Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka, memorialised in a 15-ton iron statue in front of the old KGB headquarters during Soviet times. The original intruders made other errors: one leaked document included hyperlink error messages in Cyrillic, the result of editing the file on a computer with Russian language settings. After this mistake became public, the intruders removed the Cyrillic information from the metadata in the next dump and carefully used made-up user names from different world regions, thereby confirming they had made a mistake in the first round. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/57 "2016-12-13T11:37:10Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Because Trump isn’t going to kill Russian pilots to protect Islamist rebels in Syria. That’s not something we can say with certainty about Clinton. More likely “Because Trump isn’t going to do squat if Russia decides to ‘re-acquire’ the rest of Ukraine. That’s not something we can say with certainty about Clinton.” ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/58 "2016-12-13T15:23:35Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > **FBI:** We have found more Hillary Clinton emails, but they’re probably nothing new. > > **Republicans:** This must be investigated immediately! > > **CIA:** We have found a connection to Russia rigging our Presidential election. > > **Republicans:** So, what? Has anyone said that no investigation is necessary? AFAICT, the Republican response has been largely along the lines of the OP. Needs to be investigated, but we shouldn’t accept any particular hypothesis at this time. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/59 "2016-12-13T16:40:41Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There’s some dispute about if any hacked RNC emails even exist. The NYT claims to have an anonymous source that says they do, but I haven’t seen anyone able to confirm this. And in full contrition for my earlier behavior: this is true. However, we are dealing in a mix of two worlds where so little is truly secure, and it is even more rare to know “who shot who in the what, now?” I can almost always tell my customers where the attack is coming from, and what they’re trying to do within a few minutes. Sussing out a who and a why is sometimes very difficult, sometimes very easy. However, the parties reporting on this, and now investigating it are several levels up the food chain from I. In this case the secrecy is exacerbated by the spy aspect, and by the fact that either side releasing anything but the bare minimum necessary to achieve their goal is going to expose methods and capabilities to the other side. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure, but it’s a right they’re unlikely to realize when they hire crappy IT guys that have to ask reddit for help managing their email server. And this is the part that gives me heartburn. Really, if a nation is willing to throw all of its weight against you, there’s no practical way to be absolutely sure you can stop a determined attacker with a legacy protocol open to them. At least not in a way that everyone else is going to want to use. Podesta used Gmail, which is relatively secure. It got hacked. Even if he had two-factor authentication turned on, it’s possible to compromise that with a concerted attack. So basically, if you deal in secrets that a nation would want: don’t use email, or use it in such an inconvenient manner (e.g. encrypting the content at rest with an out-of-band system) that the end user would be looking for alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564/60 "2016-12-13T16:45:27Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Has anyone said that no investigation is necessary? **Omg a Black Conservative** did, in effect, in post #8. FWIW, by ‘Republicans’ I largely meant Republican voters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cia-assessment-on-russian-election-interference/774564.md?page=4)