5 ms·

What's silly is saying oh, since I read some stuff online about how crappy the DNC security is, I should probably chalk it up to some unknown actor for some vau

by ak4g 10y ago

What's silly is saying oh, since I read some stuff online about how crappy the DNC security is, I should probably chalk it up to some unknown actor for some vauge hand-wavy reasons instead of taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value. Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? Why would you do anything other than take allegations of yet another Kremlin attempt to interfere in fair elections as seriously as the people of Europe and Ukraine have learned, the hard way, that they must?

dxhdr 10y ago
> taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value Frankly, it's hard to do that in a post-Snowden, post-Comey world.
- ak4g 10y ago
  Then use your critical thinking. I'll repeat the question: > Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    Because it helps them justify a larger budget? This is ridiculous. Why would they not lie? The US intelligence community appears to lie reflexively about everything. Why would anyone take their words at face value?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- grandalf 10y ago
  > it's hard to do that I'd say it's completely impossible to do that :)
  - tptacek 10y ago
    For what it's worth, and apropos this thread, I responded to your comment about this issue from earlier this week (sorry it took me so long). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664172
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Thanks for replying. I don't disagree with any of your conclusions but I'll reply in that thread with a brief comment in a moment.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    There are some people that, if they told me the sky was blue I'd look around for unexplainable chromatic aberrations.
wyager 10y ago
>Why would they lie? Are you joking? Do you not see the massive political motivation there? And of course, the US government has a great track record with telling the truth about security issues.
- tomjakubowski 10y ago
  What's the political motivation for the DNI to lie? Clapper isn't really a politician and as far as I know he's not affiliated with any party.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Clapper isn't really a politician No one who gets any position that requires Senate confirmation is "not really a politician" (and, yes, that includes general/flag officers in the military) -- they may be purely bureaucratic rather than electoral politicians, but they are politicians nonetheless. But, yeah, I don't see a lot of evidence that Clapper is a Democratic (or other) partisan.
  - turar 10y ago
    Russia just told the US that if Americans attack Syrian troops, Russia will intervene on Syria's behalf. That should be the major story actually.
- ak4g 10y ago
  Of course I do, which is why I asked the 2nd question: > What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? The political motivation is what would make lying here colossally stupid.
zzzcpan 10y ago
What would be the point in telling the truth? There is no truth, no lies, just carefully crafted words to pursue political agendas. I fail to recognize any difference between carefully selected truth and a lie. They all are used to achieve the exact same thing.
alasdair_ 10y ago
> taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value. >Why would they lie? One reasonable reason for why they would lie is that their jobs are somewhat political and the person being targeted is likely going to be their boss soon. Claiming Russia is behind the hacks draws attention away from the hacks themselves, the shady campaign finance allegations they brought to light and the fact that Clinton was storing classified data in her home (I know the hacks were not of that particular server, but the two are still related.) In a world where James Clapper is willing to egregiously lie, under oath, to congress, the default assumption that these people can be trusted to automatically tell the truth is suspect. So far, the main evidence that I can find that links the hacks to the Russian government are two things: 1. Some of the documents had Russian metadata added to them. 2. The timing of the attacks seems to follow public holiday schedules for the Russian government. These are both reasonable items of circumstantial evidence but it doesn't seem to be enough to accuse a foreign government directly. Since this event has national political implications, and since the people making the statements have good reasons for being less than truthful, I am happy waiting for better evidence before making a decision one way or the other.
- whybroke 10y ago
  So The Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security are conspiring to provoke a serious intentional problem solely to distract from an already admitted to and apologized for personal server that is only important to Trump voters (ie won't change the election outcome)? Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory?
  - ZoF 10y ago
    Yes, it is the "already admitted to and apologized for personal server" that this would distract from; certainly not the ongoing email leaks or content of those already released. The server was a simple 'mistake' anyone could 'accidentally' make; I honestly think people don't understand how easy it is to accidentally configure a mailserver, happened to me just this morning. >Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory? Sadly, it doesn't sound wild at all.
turar 10y ago
Why wouldn't they lie?
Animats 10y ago
If the announcement came from, say, Major General Mark W. Westergren, USAF, Deputy Chief NSA/CSS, it would be more credible. He's not a political appointee, and should know in detail what's going on in this area.
- meowface 10y ago
  Why would that make a difference? If the US government is so brazen to force a public official to lie about this, they would make him lie about it, too. (There's almost no chance there is a conspiracy here. I think it is probably Russia.)
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > If the announcement came from, say, Major General Mark W. Westergren, USAF, Deputy Chief NSA/CSS, it would be more credible. He's not a political appointee I am aware of no commonly used definition of "political appointee" that does not include (among others) all officers of government that go through the appointment-by-the-President-and-confirmation-by-the-Senate process that applies to -- as well as to officials that get more media attention for this process -- all military officers (and with notably more personal attention in the process to 1-star and higher ranks -- generals and admirals.)
- dnautics 10y ago
  All O7- and above are not apolitical; all flag officers in all services must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate at each promotion beyond O6. It's often a rubber stamping process, but it is there. Denial of promotion and individual intervention is relatively frequent. Technically all officers also have this treatment but Senate oversight and intervention is much lower, and the batches are much bigger.
travmatt 10y ago
Also, a republican led incident response firm attributed the hacks to Russia.
Natsu 10y ago
> Why would they lie? - To distract us from their own incompetence. - To avoid talking about the content of those leaks (from memory, the WaPo is an arm of the DNC that they hold illicit fundraisers with, the DNC funneled all of the money to Hillary from the outset so Bernie never had a shot, etc.) - To paint Trump as an agent of a foreign power (he's bad enough even after you filter out the nonsense). They turned off logging on those servers to avoid transparency. If they want me to believe claims like this, I'll need to see the full server logs from the email server. Oh, wait, they destroyed those. How convenient. My thoughts are that the elections will continue to get worse as long as we keep voting for lizards to keep the wrong lizard from winning. Anyone who tells you you're limited to the choices made for you on the ballot bears some personal responsibility for the mess.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
It's comical that anyone claims US presidential elections are fair. I'm not picking a political side here, both parties are duping the voters.

by ak4g 10y ago

dxhdr 10y ago

> taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value Frankly, it's hard to do that in a post-Snowden, post-Comey world.

ak4g 10y ago
Then use your critical thinking. I'll repeat the question: > Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Because it helps them justify a larger budget? This is ridiculous. Why would they not lie? The US intelligence community appears to lie reflexively about everything. Why would anyone take their words at face value?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
grandalf 10y ago
> it's hard to do that I'd say it's completely impossible to do that :)
- tptacek 10y ago
  For what it's worth, and apropos this thread, I responded to your comment about this issue from earlier this week (sorry it took me so long). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12664172
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Thanks for replying. I don't disagree with any of your conclusions but I'll reply in that thread with a brief comment in a moment.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  There are some people that, if they told me the sky was blue I'd look around for unexplainable chromatic aberrations.

wyager 10y ago

>Why would they lie? Are you joking? Do you not see the massive political motivation there? And of course, the US government has a great track record with telling the truth about security issues.

tomjakubowski 10y ago
What's the political motivation for the DNI to lie? Clapper isn't really a politician and as far as I know he's not affiliated with any party.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Clapper isn't really a politician No one who gets any position that requires Senate confirmation is "not really a politician" (and, yes, that includes general/flag officers in the military) -- they may be purely bureaucratic rather than electoral politicians, but they are politicians nonetheless. But, yeah, I don't see a lot of evidence that Clapper is a Democratic (or other) partisan.
- turar 10y ago
  Russia just told the US that if Americans attack Syrian troops, Russia will intervene on Syria's behalf. That should be the major story actually.
ak4g 10y ago
Of course I do, which is why I asked the 2nd question: > What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? The political motivation is what would make lying here colossally stupid.

zzzcpan 10y ago

What would be the point in telling the truth? There is no truth, no lies, just carefully crafted words to pursue political agendas. I fail to recognize any difference between carefully selected truth and a lie. They all are used to achieve the exact same thing.

alasdair_ 10y ago

> taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value. >Why would they lie? One reasonable reason for why they would lie is that their jobs are somewhat political and the person being targeted is likely going to be their boss soon. Claiming Russia is behind the hacks draws attention away from the hacks themselves, the shady campaign finance allegations they brought to light and the fact that Clinton was storing classified data in her home (I know the hacks were not of that particular server, but the two are still related.) In a world where James Clapper is willing to egregiously lie, under oath, to congress, the default assumption that these people can be trusted to automatically tell the truth is suspect. So far, the main evidence that I can find that links the hacks to the Russian government are two things: 1. Some of the documents had Russian metadata added to them. 2. The timing of the attacks seems to follow public holiday schedules for the Russian government. These are both reasonable items of circumstantial evidence but it doesn't seem to be enough to accuse a foreign government directly. Since this event has national political implications, and since the people making the statements have good reasons for being less than truthful, I am happy waiting for better evidence before making a decision one way or the other.

whybroke 10y ago
So The Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security are conspiring to provoke a serious intentional problem solely to distract from an already admitted to and apologized for personal server that is only important to Trump voters (ie won't change the election outcome)? Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory?
- ZoF 10y ago
  Yes, it is the "already admitted to and apologized for personal server" that this would distract from; certainly not the ongoing email leaks or content of those already released. The server was a simple 'mistake' anyone could 'accidentally' make; I honestly think people don't understand how easy it is to accidentally configure a mailserver, happened to me just this morning. >Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory? Sadly, it doesn't sound wild at all.

turar 10y ago

Why wouldn't they lie?

Animats 10y ago

If the announcement came from, say, Major General Mark W. Westergren, USAF, Deputy Chief NSA/CSS, it would be more credible. He's not a political appointee, and should know in detail what's going on in this area.

meowface 10y ago
Why would that make a difference? If the US government is so brazen to force a public official to lie about this, they would make him lie about it, too. (There's almost no chance there is a conspiracy here. I think it is probably Russia.)
dragonwriter 10y ago
> If the announcement came from, say, Major General Mark W. Westergren, USAF, Deputy Chief NSA/CSS, it would be more credible. He's not a political appointee I am aware of no commonly used definition of "political appointee" that does not include (among others) all officers of government that go through the appointment-by-the-President-and-confirmation-by-the-Senate process that applies to -- as well as to officials that get more media attention for this process -- all military officers (and with notably more personal attention in the process to 1-star and higher ranks -- generals and admirals.)
dnautics 10y ago
All O7- and above are not apolitical; all flag officers in all services must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate at each promotion beyond O6. It's often a rubber stamping process, but it is there. Denial of promotion and individual intervention is relatively frequent. Technically all officers also have this treatment but Senate oversight and intervention is much lower, and the batches are much bigger.

travmatt 10y ago

Also, a republican led incident response firm attributed the hacks to Russia.

Natsu 10y ago

> Why would they lie? - To distract us from their own incompetence. - To avoid talking about the content of those leaks (from memory, the WaPo is an arm of the DNC that they hold illicit fundraisers with, the DNC funneled all of the money to Hillary from the outset so Bernie never had a shot, etc.) - To paint Trump as an agent of a foreign power (he's bad enough even after you filter out the nonsense). They turned off logging on those servers to avoid transparency. If they want me to believe claims like this, I'll need to see the full server logs from the email server. Oh, wait, they destroyed those. How convenient. My thoughts are that the elections will continue to get worse as long as we keep voting for lizards to keep the wrong lizard from winning. Anyone who tells you you're limited to the choices made for you on the ballot bears some personal responsibility for the mess.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

It's comical that anyone claims US presidential elections are fair. I'm not picking a political side here, both parties are duping the voters.