Forgive me if this has been asked, but what exactly are the Russians suspected of doing? Did they somehow change votes or somehow change the totals? There is a lot of hoopla about Russian hackers but I have not heard anything about what they have actually done.
Wikipedia has a fairly lengthy article on this.
From that, the most definitive statement is from Adrian Chen:
…and wrote “maybe it’s some really opaque strategy of like, electing Donald Trump to undermine the U.S. or something, like false flag kind of thing.”
Who can ask for more rigorous certitude than that ?
Suspected? By whom? There are doubtless some folks out there who suspect that the Russians used mind-control chips embedded in the skulls of all Americans to determine how every individual voted. Strictly speaking, then, the Russians are suspected of doing that, but it doesn’t mean much.
They certainly pushed a number of false news stories, most of which favored Trump over Clinton. Their motives for doing so were probably to influence the election in some way, either directly to favor Trump, or just to increase the general level of chaos (both hypotheses have serious proponents). They are also the most likely culprit for the hacks into various e-mail accounts which have occurred during this election.
Now, might they have gone further than that? No evidence has been found, if so. But of course, one can never completely rule out the possibility that they did it and were just that good at hiding the evidence.
The Russians caused me to stub my toe yesterday.
“Russia hacks 2016 Presidential election” is ridiculously hyperbolic and intentionally vague, bringing to mind nefarious manipulators of electoral machines etc.
The reality is much more mundane. Some email accounts have been phished (note: not “hacked”) and their contents published. No evidence presented so far by anyone that it went any further than those particular accounts. No evidence presented that any of the contents that were published were altered in any way.
That’s about it.
I’ve seen this “it wasn’t hacking” type of downplaying a lot lately. The definition of hacking, as much as there is one, is to gain unauthorized access to a system. That’s exactly what the Russians did, then they released the stolen emails, which were mostly boring as hell, presumably in order to suck the wind out of the Clinton campaign.
They also hacked House Democrats and have been pushing pro-Trump propaganda for months. Although they did hack voter registrations in a few states, there’s no reason to believe they directly effected the vote, but it was a much larger operation than you’re trying to make it sound.
Even by that definition, the statement “Russia Hacks 2016 Presidential Election” is incorrect. There is no Presidential Election “system” that they gained unauthorized access to.
And I refuse to call phishing a “hack”. A hack implies a modicum of skill, technical proficiency or knowledge on the part of the perpetrator, and at least some resistance/defense on the part of the victim.
A phishing operation such as Podesta and DNC fell victim to is the cheapest/most effortless way to get things and relies wholly on the stupidity of the victim. Setting your password to “p@ssw0rd” and not changing it even after it has been published to the whole world by Wikileaks (like Podesta did) makes it even stupider.
Phishing requires skill. There’s skill in convincing your victim to be stupid enough to give you their information. It’s not usually computer skill, but it is skill.
Are we just arguing over the OP’s phrasing of the question, or are news outlets also using the exact same wording?
Poll: 55% of Americans bothered by Russian election hacking
Robert Gates criticises ‘laid back’ US response to Russia election hack
U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack
Obama threatens retaliation against Russia for election hacking
etc. etc. etc.
If they did, they failed miserably. Mrs Clinton won by almost 3 million votes. Though, they may have preemptively hacked the electoral college. Not sure how you do that.
Mrs. Clinton did not win by almost 3 million votes. She lost the election. She did win an irrelevant side contest by that many votes, but that side contest is not the election.
My original topic title was not meant to be a declarative statement. In hindsight, I should have phrased it as a question.
I agree, but let’s be clear that the media is using shorthand here. “Russia gains access to political party IT system to further an information warfare campaign” is an unwieldy headline. One simply can’t take headlines too literally, but if the story itself contains assertions to the effect that Russia took control of voting results, then you have a point and that story is wrong.
If you google the terms “hacking social engineering” you’ll find many, many, many reputable sources reporting on how manipulation of humans to gain unauthorized access to computer systems is one method of hacking. If your point is that people should have better passwords, then whoop-de-doo. If your point is that “real hackers” do not use social engineering, then I’d like to introduce you to a Scotsman who has some opinions on the worth of his countrymen that eat haggis in the wrong way.
ETA: and it seems pretty clear that Russia has used similar tactics to take control of other computer systems, such as that belonging to the Joint Staff. Russian hack on the Pentagon: Hackers struck last year at the heart of the U.S. military in 2015 - CBS News
Taken out of context is effectively changed.
The emails were published en masse, most of them completely innocuous. I haven’t seen anyone, including the email originators, claim that the emails were selectively published. There’s the context.
I have seen them taken out of context and selectively published.
That’s the fault of whatever media source took them out of context. Wikileaks published them all together.
I’m worried about all these covert Russian efforts to sway the American election …
“Putin praises ‘bright and talented’ Trump” – CNN – Dec 17th, 2015
What a bunch of sneaky bastards … how dare they hide their opinions behind their stated opinions … we’d have to read between that space between the lines to see what they’re up to … sneaky bastards …
But the emails did start a conspiracy theory that the Clintons were behind a child sex ring in a pizza restaurant, which spurred a young armed man to invade the restaurant in order to free the children hidden in secret tunnels below a part of the restaurant used to play table tennis. (Holy shit, did I just type that out in all seriousness, or have I gone completely insane?)
Thus, the fact that the emails were innocuous doesn’t mitigate that real world reactions to the emails were not necessarily innocuous or inconsequential.