3 ms·

While the methods used were very simple, I have an opinion why this could be done for some government or political party. The emails and data from a political p

While the methods used were very simple, I have an opinion why this could be done for some government or political party. The emails and data from a political party are probably very boring stuff, so a typical hacker would not bother to spend a lot of time sending thousands of phishing emails to get access to them. And later he would have to read through them to find some facts the mass media would be interested in. Usually hackers hunt for things like credit card numbers or fame.

Natsu 10y ago
Hackers have been targeting boring government docs for as long as there's been hacking, sometimes just for laughs, bragging rights, etc. If all the docs are boring, isn't that all the more reason to think that a nation state had nothing to do with this? The NSA would've intercepted your new router in the mail with a backdoor and could've used a TEMPEST van to read your screens from miles away. I have to believe those mighty Russian hackers have figured out comparable tricks by now and aren't reliant on people falling for idiotic phishing scams to get their information. I mean, they have Snowden, who showed us the NSA's TAO programs... right?
- okreallywtf 10y ago
  Why bother when it wasn't needed? They have the motive to do it, as much or more than anyone else and certainly the capacity. They are tied to a disinformation campaigns [1] that seem to have the goal of sowing suspicion between allies who oppose them and have everything to gain by swaying our political process. That isn't enough evidence of course, but I'm surprised by the suspicion here and I can only chock it up to the increase in cynicism that is partly a result of these very actions. Because the Bush administration managed to finagle the intelligence enough to justify the war in Iraq we can just ignore our intelligence agencies whenever we want, right? Internal bullshit like what was going on at the DNC is annoying, frustrating and unfortunate but people are falling for the trap hook line and sinker. This happens everywhere, you can damn be sure it was going on at the RNC as well but republicans wouldn't have abandoned their party (at this point its pretty clear nothing can make a fair number of them abandon their party) but independents and some liberals are doing exactly what the hackers want (whoever they turn out to be, likely the Russians): we are getting cynical and despondent. Rather than getting involved and saying we should clean house, its like "well if you didn't suck so much you wouldn't have lost." while doing nothing to make things suck less. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden...
  - Natsu 10y ago
    Because an attack like that gives you short term access which isn't particularly valuable to a nation state. It was quickly found out and stopped.

Natsu 10y ago

Hackers have been targeting boring government docs for as long as there's been hacking, sometimes just for laughs, bragging rights, etc. If all the docs are boring, isn't that all the more reason to think that a nation state had nothing to do with this? The NSA would've intercepted your new router in the mail with a backdoor and could've used a TEMPEST van to read your screens from miles away. I have to believe those mighty Russian hackers have figured out comparable tricks by now and aren't reliant on people falling for idiotic phishing scams to get their information. I mean, they have Snowden, who showed us the NSA's TAO programs... right?

okreallywtf 10y ago
Why bother when it wasn't needed? They have the motive to do it, as much or more than anyone else and certainly the capacity. They are tied to a disinformation campaigns [1] that seem to have the goal of sowing suspicion between allies who oppose them and have everything to gain by swaying our political process. That isn't enough evidence of course, but I'm surprised by the suspicion here and I can only chock it up to the increase in cynicism that is partly a result of these very actions. Because the Bush administration managed to finagle the intelligence enough to justify the war in Iraq we can just ignore our intelligence agencies whenever we want, right? Internal bullshit like what was going on at the DNC is annoying, frustrating and unfortunate but people are falling for the trap hook line and sinker. This happens everywhere, you can damn be sure it was going on at the RNC as well but republicans wouldn't have abandoned their party (at this point its pretty clear nothing can make a fair number of them abandon their party) but independents and some liberals are doing exactly what the hackers want (whoever they turn out to be, likely the Russians): we are getting cynical and despondent. Rather than getting involved and saying we should clean house, its like "well if you didn't suck so much you wouldn't have lost." while doing nothing to make things suck less. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden...
- Natsu 10y ago
  Because an attack like that gives you short term access which isn't particularly valuable to a nation state. It was quickly found out and stopped.