These are all the hallmarks of misinformation campaigns: 1) How do we know the email, provided by Russian intelligence, is real? Do we take Russian intelligenc

These are all the hallmarks of misinformation campaigns: 1) How do we know the email, provided by Russian intelligence, is real? Do we take Russian intelligence at face value? > "Spring" means a fake, externally organized revolution that is seen as legitimate because it aggravates insiders to the cause. 2) An unfounded allegation, part of a misinformation campaign: Make enough of them and be angry enough, and A) people seem to bypass the somewhat crucial stage of examining them for truth, and B) because it's much faster and easier to make unsubstantiated allegations than to refute them (it's quick and easy to make things up, hard to find evidence), you can overwhelm the target. You have little idea what the author was thinking when they wrote words in a casual email (it's not a formal document; it's not the Declaration of Independence). You (or whoever you read) has chosen to apply an extreme meaning to someone else's words, but words have many meanings and can always be taken the wrong way if you want. For example, I could say 'we need to revolutionize Linux kernel management'. Someone could say, 'revolution means violent overthrow - he means to kill the kernel maintainers!' Spring also refers to a new awakening. It also could refer to the Arab Spring, which wasn't a 'fake, externally organized' revolution. Or it could refer to something that the readers of the email understand between themselves and they used in their private correspondence, but you and I don't. Certainly I say things to associates that could be taken way out of context. One sysadmin I know used to say, about intransigent problems, 'it's time to wave a dead chicken over it'.