6 ms·

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.
  - DearDon 10y ago
    I think you're pretty spot on with this. A handy thing to keep in mind when it comes to things like these is that we can only speculate. It happens too often that speculation and assumptions are presented as fact, or that someone retelling what another person says fails to use the same qualifying language and states something as fact. I've personally come to speculate that there is some dodgy and disgusting acts occurring at this pizza joint. I'm not going to get dogmatic and explain why. The media, through negligence or design, seems to almost always picks the weakest arguments and presents them as the best there is, if by design it's akin to strawmaning in my book. It works to drum up insane amounts of controversy and/or presents the opposing narratives case as weak. This is why we have 4chan and reddit with these rabid 'citizen journalists' that do all this investigation and forget how stupid it, and they, can be made to sound, it's also why we're going to get more of them, they can navigate through information that allows them to speculate (with good judgment in some cases IMO) that the MSM will just not cover.

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.
- DearDon 10y ago
  I think you're pretty spot on with this. A handy thing to keep in mind when it comes to things like these is that we can only speculate. It happens too often that speculation and assumptions are presented as fact, or that someone retelling what another person says fails to use the same qualifying language and states something as fact. I've personally come to speculate that there is some dodgy and disgusting acts occurring at this pizza joint. I'm not going to get dogmatic and explain why. The media, through negligence or design, seems to almost always picks the weakest arguments and presents them as the best there is, if by design it's akin to strawmaning in my book. It works to drum up insane amounts of controversy and/or presents the opposing narratives case as weak. This is why we have 4chan and reddit with these rabid 'citizen journalists' that do all this investigation and forget how stupid it, and they, can be made to sound, it's also why we're going to get more of them, they can navigate through information that allows them to speculate (with good judgment in some cases IMO) that the MSM will just not cover.