Yeah, he knows a lot about hacking. Like he knows a lot about “cyber”.
ditto Obama, of course …
I’d be willing to put the CIA’s accuracy up against Trump’s. The guy doesn’t even know what he said on Iraq, whereas the CIA at least acknowledges they were wrong.
Meh, even the CIA seems to be hedging their bets on whether it was the Russians or not.
I remember back in the day when it was always the Chinese. I guess it depends on what suits the game.
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
Applies perfectly to this red-baiting stupidity right now.
Cite?
Prob the North Koreans by March /boohiss
Got to be, we are assured by an expert that its “red-baiting”, they are the only actual Communists left.
I’m on a phone right now, so i’ve got limited ability to hotlink or format, but in the JAR, they used the word “likely”. They don’t appear to believe it’s a certainty.
The truly appalling thing about this is no one is accountable in the USA. The enemy is the enemy for now and next time it might be someone else and of course we have evidence and of course we can’t tell you about it.
Why is no one accountable, doesn’t it undermine still further whatever is left of democracy in the country …
Such is the nature of modern day intelligence work. On Dec. 8, 1941, they would have said that the attack on Pearl Harbor was “almost certainly” the Japanese. Of course, it might have been any number of countries that would have preferred the calm, steady American leadership of Trump.
Let’s examine that statement and see what the point might be. The use of probability-based assessments is typical of the vast majority of technical analyses of complex issues. For instance, if you read the thousands of pages of the latest IPCC assessments on climate change, terms like “likely” and “very likely” appear throughout, along with lesser probabilities on many issues. Almost nowhere does a term like “absolutely certain” appear, and indeed with rare exceptions such a term is incongruous with the conduct of science.
Yet in the IPCC analogy, when “likely” and “very likely” is associated with thousands of independent lines of evidence, the overall scientific level of confidence on general conclusions is fairly clear, and harping on specific individual uncertainties is generally recognized as denialist mendacity.
In the hacking case, much of the specific evidence is classified, but from a general audience standpoint, when three government agencies and a bunch of European nations all state that they have evidence of Russian hacking, and the president, with access to all available details, feels the evidence is strong enough to justify significant diplomatic sanctions, then it seems pretty convincing. Much as in the climate debate, when deniers and contrarians insist on a myopically misplaced emphasis on the use of probabilistic terms in technical analyses, they are trying to reprocess the argument in such a way that “likely” now means “maybe, maybe not” and their preferred position of denial of things they’d rather not believe is falsely portrayed as a significant possibility, despite overwhelming reason to believe otherwise.
Or, IOW, stop microanalyzing individual words and putting your own interpretations on them based on what you want to believe, and rationally look at the big picture.
Argument from authority. Which may work when combined with some evidence. None was presented except a piece of code that may have originated in Russia but, as arstechnica article stated, can be bought in hacker “market” by anyone.
I’m on a phone but here are the first paragraphs of that report:
The CIA does not take credit for the JAR. The JAR specifically says it “expands” not “amends” nor “repudiates” the report that initially pointed the finger at Russia. I also don’t see the word “likely” in there. Maybe it is in one of the other 12 pages of the JAR, but this report clearly says Russia did it.
Wherever you got this idea that the CIA is backing away from the assessment, it clearly isn’t from this report.
I distinctly remember when a bunch of US intelligence agencies and European nations all said they had evidence that Saddam was trying to obtain WMDs. The president at the time, with access to all available details, felt the evidence was strong enough to justify a war. It was all very convincing. So convincing that even HRC voted in favor of the war. It was also all very wrong. Given that recent experience, I think a bit of skepticism here is in order. YMMV.
I am rationally looking at the big picture. The intelligence community gets stuff wrong sometimes. They’ve done so in dramatic fashion in recent times. If you want to take their word for something, be my guest. In the land of reality-based worldviews, some of us would like to see a bit more evidence first. I’m not alone in this either:
Salon: Down the rabbit hole: Government’s first report on Russian hack is woefully inadequate
Rolling Stone: Something About This Russia Story Stinks
Ars Technica: White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election
You’ve demonstrated, here, that you don’t understand the concept of “argument from authority” as a type of fallacious thinking. Here’s the Rational Wiki definition of the fallacy:
Argument from authority - RationalWiki
The essence of the fallacy is the citation of one or more ‘authority figures’ who are not authorities on the topic in question. Wolfpup cited actual authority figures on the topic in question (“three government agencies” et al). Wolfpup therefore made an argument that is valid rather than fallacious.
Trump said today that he doubts it was the Russians behind the hacking. “It could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.” He went on to say, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday” what he knows.
What is with his need to claim special knowledge? It’s as if he’s a child on the playground taunting another kid, “I know something you don’t know.” In less than three weeks, the man will be POTUS and of course he’ll know things we don’t know. And he already gets the intelligence briefings so he’s already got info we don’t have. That’s the nature of the job. Why does he need to tease us with this fact?
They voted to give the President the ability to declare war. I though he was going to use it as a threat, not declare war so quickly.
Asked and answered.
In addition to Man-Baby’s need to be one-up on every other inhabitant of the planet, there’s apparently still some little corner of his mind flooded with fears that he won’t get to be President–that something will happen to prove Putin actually did more to elect him than most people believe (hacked voting machines or such).
Seems unlikely to me. But Trump is an insecure guy. He worries. Hence the ‘let’s move along’ and ‘there’s no real way to know!’ themes.