4 ms·

If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a mess

If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a messenger.

mrgordon 10y ago
I certainly agree with you to a certain extent, but if we're honest there were just as many things to leak about Trump if they had wanted to do so. If you smear one side to put the other side in power and undermine American democracy on the world stage, then you are influencing the election for the benefit of other countries.
- dleslie 10y ago
  Ah, whataboutism; a great way to shrug one's shoulders.
- grandalf 10y ago
  So you are accusing Wikileaks of sitting on a trove of data that was highly unflattering to Trump?
  - GVIrish 10y ago
    No, there is no evidence of that. What is clear is that 'someone' provided illegally obtained materials to Wikileaks, and all indications are that it was Russia. Russia chose to provide information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump. Wikileaks just ran with what it got.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > all indications are that it was Russia. If the server in question had been on US soil, say in AWS US-East, would this count as an indication of a US Government sponsored attack?
    - mi100hael 10y ago
      > all indications are that it was Russia If you worked during normal Russian business hours and used a few proxies and a final exit IP in Russia paid for with a stolen Russian credit card, the assumption would be that you're Russian. It wouldn't prove it, though. AFAIK the attacker just guessed Podesta's GMail password, so it could have been a kid in Tennessee[1] for all we know. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_email_hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_email_hack
      - GVIrish 10y ago
        It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies were incorrect in their analysis. The US intelligence community has a high degree of confidence on this one, but you never really know unless you can see the evidence first hand. That's what makes this sort of espionage so effective and dangerous. You can significantly damage an adversary by meddling in their elections, with little risk to yourself. Yeah it might raise tensions, but the US is not going to retaliate with sanctions or military action. I can only imagine in the future that this sort of thing will become a lot more common. No other nation can challenge the US militarily, but anyone can wage war in cyberspace.
        grandalf 10y ago
        > It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies were incorrect in their analysis I receive phishing emails like the one Podesta clicked on from time to time. They typically end up in my spam folder on gmail and get ignored. They can ensnare technically illiterate people, but are not very sophisticated attacks. The spokesperson said that the phisher was targeting government officials in a number of countries. It's difficult to see why this makes the attacker "state sponsored". Is the idea that only a state would desire to dig into the emails of other states? I'd say that many corporate interests would also benefit from it, as would those doing speculative investment, etc. The list is long. The other thing is that there was no damage to the US election. Arguably the release of the Podesta emails helped American voters learn more about candidates than would have been possible without alternative news orgs like Wikileaks. If on the other hand there was a Stuxnet style attack on electronic voting machines, or on traffic lights near polling places, then sure, it's likely state sponsored. Any teenager with pentesting tools and a VPS could have done all the hacking relevant to this election. Sure he/she could have been on the state payroll, but it counts more as mischief than cyber warfare. That our government and one of our candidates came out strongly beating war drums over it says more than any of the leaks or official statements.
- belorn 10y ago
  One could argue that news papers already did a good enough job of leaking things about trump, like the audio tape. I recall that first day of the DNC leaks. The top article on HN was how several US news paper had gone and removed articles about the DNC leaks, with comments that linked to screenshots with before and after shot. The question that I would bring up is if that explains why the DNC leak was first published on wikileaks, while the trump tapes wasn't.
empath75 10y ago
can you imagine the shit that would have been in trump and RNC leaks?
hackuser 10y ago
> If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty ... I don't think they were dirty, and the fact that even their private emails didn't reveal anything serious is a strong indicator. I think Trump is much dirtier, for example. Also, we assume the emails were authentic, as if Russian intelligence wouldn't conduct a sophisticated disinformation campaign.
- mi100hael 10y ago
  You don't think the following is dirty? - Clinton fed multiple debate questions ahead of time - Clinton's private speeches contradicting her publicly-espoused positions - The DNC blatantly rigging the primaries in Clinton's favor - Bill Clinton using staff paid by the Clinton Foundation for his own personal engagements - Donors to the Clinton Foundation subsequently receiving favorable treatment from the State Dept. - Clinton campaign paying protestors to incite violence at Trump events - The deputy director of the FBI in charge of the Clinton email investigation is a close friend of Clinton's campaign manager and asked for a role in the campaign. Etc etc etc (http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/ http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/) All of that information is only available due to emails made public via Wikileaks and would otherwise have been considered the stuff of loony conspiracy theorists. Many (all?) of the emails can be directly validated as authentic using DKIM, and no one including the senders/recipients have disputed their validity. Safe to say they are legit.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I think most of those are unsubstantiated and/or exaggerated. A common tactic of the right's demonization machine is to make a flood of false allegations; with the endless negative news, people assume some must be true if the list is long enough. > Many (all?) of the emails can be directly validated as authentic using DKIM Even if true, I think DKIM validates only the sending server, not the sender, recipient, or content of the email. > no one including the senders/recipients have disputed their validity. Safe to say they are legit. Part of the goal of a disinformation campaign is a sort of DoS attack, overwhelming your target with disinformation so they spend all their time and resources fighting it, and attracting more attention and coverage to it. The Clinton campaign is smart enough not to play that role.

If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a messenger.

mrgordon 10y ago

I certainly agree with you to a certain extent, but if we're honest there were just as many things to leak about Trump if they had wanted to do so. If you smear one side to put the other side in power and undermine American democracy on the world stage, then you are influencing the election for the benefit of other countries.

dleslie 10y ago
Ah, whataboutism; a great way to shrug one's shoulders.
grandalf 10y ago
So you are accusing Wikileaks of sitting on a trove of data that was highly unflattering to Trump?
- GVIrish 10y ago
  No, there is no evidence of that. What is clear is that 'someone' provided illegally obtained materials to Wikileaks, and all indications are that it was Russia. Russia chose to provide information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump. Wikileaks just ran with what it got.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > all indications are that it was Russia. If the server in question had been on US soil, say in AWS US-East, would this count as an indication of a US Government sponsored attack?
  - mi100hael 10y ago
    > all indications are that it was Russia If you worked during normal Russian business hours and used a few proxies and a final exit IP in Russia paid for with a stolen Russian credit card, the assumption would be that you're Russian. It wouldn't prove it, though. AFAIK the attacker just guessed Podesta's GMail password, so it could have been a kid in Tennessee[1] for all we know. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_email_hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_email_hack
    - GVIrish 10y ago
      It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies were incorrect in their analysis. The US intelligence community has a high degree of confidence on this one, but you never really know unless you can see the evidence first hand. That's what makes this sort of espionage so effective and dangerous. You can significantly damage an adversary by meddling in their elections, with little risk to yourself. Yeah it might raise tensions, but the US is not going to retaliate with sanctions or military action. I can only imagine in the future that this sort of thing will become a lot more common. No other nation can challenge the US militarily, but anyone can wage war in cyberspace.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        > It's certainly possible that multiple US intel and law enforcement agencies were incorrect in their analysis I receive phishing emails like the one Podesta clicked on from time to time. They typically end up in my spam folder on gmail and get ignored. They can ensnare technically illiterate people, but are not very sophisticated attacks. The spokesperson said that the phisher was targeting government officials in a number of countries. It's difficult to see why this makes the attacker "state sponsored". Is the idea that only a state would desire to dig into the emails of other states? I'd say that many corporate interests would also benefit from it, as would those doing speculative investment, etc. The list is long. The other thing is that there was no damage to the US election. Arguably the release of the Podesta emails helped American voters learn more about candidates than would have been possible without alternative news orgs like Wikileaks. If on the other hand there was a Stuxnet style attack on electronic voting machines, or on traffic lights near polling places, then sure, it's likely state sponsored. Any teenager with pentesting tools and a VPS could have done all the hacking relevant to this election. Sure he/she could have been on the state payroll, but it counts more as mischief than cyber warfare. That our government and one of our candidates came out strongly beating war drums over it says more than any of the leaks or official statements.
belorn 10y ago
One could argue that news papers already did a good enough job of leaking things about trump, like the audio tape. I recall that first day of the DNC leaks. The top article on HN was how several US news paper had gone and removed articles about the DNC leaks, with comments that linked to screenshots with before and after shot. The question that I would bring up is if that explains why the DNC leak was first published on wikileaks, while the trump tapes wasn't.

empath75 10y ago

can you imagine the shit that would have been in trump and RNC leaks?

hackuser 10y ago

> If the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty ... I don't think they were dirty, and the fact that even their private emails didn't reveal anything serious is a strong indicator. I think Trump is much dirtier, for example. Also, we assume the emails were authentic, as if Russian intelligence wouldn't conduct a sophisticated disinformation campaign.

mi100hael 10y ago
You don't think the following is dirty? - Clinton fed multiple debate questions ahead of time - Clinton's private speeches contradicting her publicly-espoused positions - The DNC blatantly rigging the primaries in Clinton's favor - Bill Clinton using staff paid by the Clinton Foundation for his own personal engagements - Donors to the Clinton Foundation subsequently receiving favorable treatment from the State Dept. - Clinton campaign paying protestors to incite violence at Trump events - The deputy director of the FBI in charge of the Clinton email investigation is a close friend of Clinton's campaign manager and asked for a role in the campaign. Etc etc etc (http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/ http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/) All of that information is only available due to emails made public via Wikileaks and would otherwise have been considered the stuff of loony conspiracy theorists. Many (all?) of the emails can be directly validated as authentic using DKIM, and no one including the senders/recipients have disputed their validity. Safe to say they are legit.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I think most of those are unsubstantiated and/or exaggerated. A common tactic of the right's demonization machine is to make a flood of false allegations; with the endless negative news, people assume some must be true if the list is long enough. > Many (all?) of the emails can be directly validated as authentic using DKIM Even if true, I think DKIM validates only the sending server, not the sender, recipient, or content of the email. > no one including the senders/recipients have disputed their validity. Safe to say they are legit. Part of the goal of a disinformation campaign is a sort of DoS attack, overwhelming your target with disinformation so they spend all their time and resources fighting it, and attracting more attention and coverage to it. The Clinton campaign is smart enough not to play that role.