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Now consider "pizzagate," a claim that John Podesta and possibly Hillary Clinton were somehow involved in some kind of child trafficking ring based on a few cry

by api 10y ago

Now consider "pizzagate," a claim that John Podesta and possibly Hillary Clinton were somehow involved in some kind of child trafficking ring based on a few cryptic out of context sentences in their e-mails. Clinton was known for being anti-Putin, while her rival Trump seems pro-Putin. Can I be forgiven for thinking we're in the midst of a full-blown cyber war assault by Russia against political opponents abroad? If this is indeed the case, I really think the best thing for US intelligence to do would be to take a page from the Russian playbook and leak everything they have on this and "doxx" everyone involved.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pat_space 10y ago
What's more likely, Podesta getting phished or "a full-blown cyber war assault by Russia against political opponents abroad"?
- supsters 10y ago
  Can we really think in terms of likeliness after what was revealed in South Korea?
- sgift 10y ago
  I lack insight into russias cyber war capabilities, so I have genuinely no idea. As has probably no one else outside russias security cycles.
- kevinh 10y ago
  Those two aren't mutually exclusive.
- guelo 10y ago
  I don't understand what you mean. Podesta getting phished could be part of a larger cyber war.
- sigmar 10y ago
  Russia's GRU has used spearphishing many times. This isn't isolated or out of the ordinary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_Bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_Bear
- geofft 10y ago
  Podesta was phished. That is a fact. But every Pizzagate claim relies on interpretations of the emails that were (accurately, to the best of my knowledge) leaked, not what's in the emails. The "evidence" is stuff like a handkerchief with a map that seemed "pizza-related," plus the claim that this must be coded language because obviously people don't have pizza-related-map handkerchiefs, plus 4chan and UrbanDictionary references to "pizza" and "hot dog" being coded language used by pedophiles. It's the same as with the "spirit cooking" nonsense. Yes, he was invited to a "Spirit Cooking dinner". No, there's no reason to believe that a "Spirit Cooking dinner" really means a Satanic ritual. It could be, in theory, yes; there's no way to prove that it isn't. But it probably isn't.
  - api 10y ago
    Is there even any evidence that he attended this dinner? ... that and having a taste for pretentious shock-art is not a crime last I checked. I've had a little bit of contact with East Coast elite circles before and that kind of vapid modern "aaaaaht" is par for the course. Never saw anything quite as over the top as Abromovic but I definitely saw things in the same shock-jocking coated with art school babble genre. I always figured it was a stuff people pretended to like for social signaling purposes. I don't consider all the pizzagate claims impossible. Blackmail has historically been a tool of political manipulation and so a high placed blackmail ring is not unthinkable. I just consider them unlikely, especially in light of the (IMHO rather obvious) existence of an intentional cyber warfare and propaganda campaign against the Clinton presidential campaign. I've become even more suspicious after listening to one or two interviews about "pizzagate" and hearing the following names and sources mentioned repeatedly: Brietbart news, gab.ai, 4chan, and the Washington Times. The latter is owned by a front for the Unification Church. The first two are pretty well known alt.right outlets, and 4chan is not exactly known for being a forum for unbiased rigorously vetted investigative journalism. (Nor is Reddit.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times The sources for this seem to have negative credibility. I'm being equal opportunity here. If there was a massive push to label Trump as head of a child abuse blackmail ring and all the info came from hard-left rags and people known for supporting Clinton I'd be just as skeptical.
redthrowaway 10y ago
If Putin wanted to frame Clinton and Podesta for child rape, he would have come up with something far more convincing than pizzagate.
- frozenport 10y ago
  This is why Clinton kept her emails on a secure server :-/
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but her server was anything but secure. It wasn't even using TLS.
fit2rule 10y ago
>full-blown cyber war assault This "cyber-war" is, naturally, a little less abhorrent to ones personage as the alternative which is that .. >Clinton is the tip of the ice-berg of a global conspiracy to blackmail .. and control governments .. by way of sick, sexual, perversion, involving human slavery and .. beyond .. .. okay. I understand. I hope its not true, too. Lets use Democracy (tm), et al., to find out ..
- api 10y ago
  There seems to be more evidence for the former than the latter.
  - fit2rule 10y ago
    Really? There is evidence? Because, so far, not a single shred of evidence has been presented. The fantasy that Russia hacked the elections is just as ethereal as the fantasy that the US Gov't has been compromised by pedophile networks. I mean, both of these evil conspiracies are as 'proven' as each other, and both result in the same conclusion: the US is truly fucked.
geofft 10y ago
I believe your interpretation of the facts. But the other interpretation, which a bunch of folks hold firmly to, is that Pizzagate is accurate and the NYT is publishing this article as a way of discrediting it. The problem is that you have to believe either that there's a vast Russian conspiracy to destroy America by manipulating the media, or a vast American conspiracy to run a child trafficking ring by manipulating the media. There isn't a particularly compelling explanation of the facts where you don't believe in a conspiracy at all. And since both possibilities are so far out of our usual experience, the people who favor each interpretation talk past each other.
pjc50 10y ago
It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between "cyberwarfare" and "a bunch of idiots on reddit".
- geofft 10y ago
  I don't think the fact that they're on Reddit is particularly interesting. Consider that we did, already, have a big moral panic over Satanic ritual abuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse We already know that humans are susceptible to believing that people at the highest levels of power are participating in Satanic rituals and child abuse, despite a lack of sensible evidence. Funny that that's exactly what was insinuated about the Democrats. We, as humanity, have got to get better at handling the cognitive biases of ourselves at scale.
  - redblacktree 10y ago
    Suggestions?
nx11x 10y ago
Russians already consider the leaked Panama documents a Western "doxx." The Panama leak, if you recall, showed that one of Putin's friends, a humble musician otherwise, was holding accounts worth $2bn. Western media, and opposition media in Russia, ran the story for weeks as proof of Putin's corruption. Kremlin predictably called it a Western hoax, and an act of cyber war. I wouldn't be surprised if they ~actually~ viewed it as such. If that's the case, the DNC leak might well have been motivated, in part, as their retaliatory strike.

by api 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pat_space 10y ago

What's more likely, Podesta getting phished or "a full-blown cyber war assault by Russia against political opponents abroad"?

supsters 10y ago
Can we really think in terms of likeliness after what was revealed in South Korea?
sgift 10y ago
I lack insight into russias cyber war capabilities, so I have genuinely no idea. As has probably no one else outside russias security cycles.
kevinh 10y ago
Those two aren't mutually exclusive.
guelo 10y ago
I don't understand what you mean. Podesta getting phished could be part of a larger cyber war.
sigmar 10y ago
Russia's GRU has used spearphishing many times. This isn't isolated or out of the ordinary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_Bear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_Bear
geofft 10y ago
Podesta was phished. That is a fact. But every Pizzagate claim relies on interpretations of the emails that were (accurately, to the best of my knowledge) leaked, not what's in the emails. The "evidence" is stuff like a handkerchief with a map that seemed "pizza-related," plus the claim that this must be coded language because obviously people don't have pizza-related-map handkerchiefs, plus 4chan and UrbanDictionary references to "pizza" and "hot dog" being coded language used by pedophiles. It's the same as with the "spirit cooking" nonsense. Yes, he was invited to a "Spirit Cooking dinner". No, there's no reason to believe that a "Spirit Cooking dinner" really means a Satanic ritual. It could be, in theory, yes; there's no way to prove that it isn't. But it probably isn't.
- api 10y ago
  Is there even any evidence that he attended this dinner? ... that and having a taste for pretentious shock-art is not a crime last I checked. I've had a little bit of contact with East Coast elite circles before and that kind of vapid modern "aaaaaht" is par for the course. Never saw anything quite as over the top as Abromovic but I definitely saw things in the same shock-jocking coated with art school babble genre. I always figured it was a stuff people pretended to like for social signaling purposes. I don't consider all the pizzagate claims impossible. Blackmail has historically been a tool of political manipulation and so a high placed blackmail ring is not unthinkable. I just consider them unlikely, especially in light of the (IMHO rather obvious) existence of an intentional cyber warfare and propaganda campaign against the Clinton presidential campaign. I've become even more suspicious after listening to one or two interviews about "pizzagate" and hearing the following names and sources mentioned repeatedly: Brietbart news, gab.ai, 4chan, and the Washington Times. The latter is owned by a front for the Unification Church. The first two are pretty well known alt.right outlets, and 4chan is not exactly known for being a forum for unbiased rigorously vetted investigative journalism. (Nor is Reddit.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times The sources for this seem to have negative credibility. I'm being equal opportunity here. If there was a massive push to label Trump as head of a child abuse blackmail ring and all the info came from hard-left rags and people known for supporting Clinton I'd be just as skeptical.

redthrowaway 10y ago

If Putin wanted to frame Clinton and Podesta for child rape, he would have come up with something far more convincing than pizzagate.

frozenport 10y ago
This is why Clinton kept her emails on a secure server :-/
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but her server was anything but secure. It wasn't even using TLS.

fit2rule 10y ago

>full-blown cyber war assault This "cyber-war" is, naturally, a little less abhorrent to ones personage as the alternative which is that .. >Clinton is the tip of the ice-berg of a global conspiracy to blackmail .. and control governments .. by way of sick, sexual, perversion, involving human slavery and .. beyond .. .. okay. I understand. I hope its not true, too. Lets use Democracy (tm), et al., to find out ..

api 10y ago
There seems to be more evidence for the former than the latter.
- fit2rule 10y ago
  Really? There is evidence? Because, so far, not a single shred of evidence has been presented. The fantasy that Russia hacked the elections is just as ethereal as the fantasy that the US Gov't has been compromised by pedophile networks. I mean, both of these evil conspiracies are as 'proven' as each other, and both result in the same conclusion: the US is truly fucked.

geofft 10y ago

I believe your interpretation of the facts. But the other interpretation, which a bunch of folks hold firmly to, is that Pizzagate is accurate and the NYT is publishing this article as a way of discrediting it. The problem is that you have to believe either that there's a vast Russian conspiracy to destroy America by manipulating the media, or a vast American conspiracy to run a child trafficking ring by manipulating the media. There isn't a particularly compelling explanation of the facts where you don't believe in a conspiracy at all. And since both possibilities are so far out of our usual experience, the people who favor each interpretation talk past each other.

pjc50 10y ago

It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between "cyberwarfare" and "a bunch of idiots on reddit".

geofft 10y ago
I don't think the fact that they're on Reddit is particularly interesting. Consider that we did, already, have a big moral panic over Satanic ritual abuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse We already know that humans are susceptible to believing that people at the highest levels of power are participating in Satanic rituals and child abuse, despite a lack of sensible evidence. Funny that that's exactly what was insinuated about the Democrats. We, as humanity, have got to get better at handling the cognitive biases of ourselves at scale.
- redblacktree 10y ago
  Suggestions?

nx11x 10y ago

Russians already consider the leaked Panama documents a Western "doxx." The Panama leak, if you recall, showed that one of Putin's friends, a humble musician otherwise, was holding accounts worth $2bn. Western media, and opposition media in Russia, ran the story for weeks as proof of Putin's corruption. Kremlin predictably called it a Western hoax, and an act of cyber war. I wouldn't be surprised if they ~actually~ viewed it as such. If that's the case, the DNC leak might well have been motivated, in part, as their retaliatory strike.