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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 o

by 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.

by GVIrish 10y ago

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.