11 ms·

Macron condemns 'massive' hacking attack

130 points by inputcoffee 9y ago

abritinthebay 9y ago
1 minute on a search engine dude. Exert yourself.
- imron 9y ago
  > Exert yourself. I have, and I can't find a single instance where Wikileaks presented edited versions of the emails and made claims about them such that the contents of the email revealed the edited version to be inaccurate and/or lies. You stated there are plenty of examples. I'm just asking for one. If there are plenty, it should not be difficult to find one, but like I said in my original comment, everyone makes these statements about Wikileaks but no-one provides actual hard examples of it. As a counter example, in my post I claimed that many people said emails in Wikileaks were falsified, but later evidence showed this was not the case. It's trivial to find an example of this, such as Donna Brazile stating that the emails showing she provided CNN townhall interview questions to Clinton in advance were doctored [0], but DKIM verification later showed the emails were authentic [1], and Brazile later admitted she did actually leak the questions [2]. That was easy enough to find in Google without any exertion. So where are the examples of Wikileaks lying and/or misleading people about the contents of specific emails? I'm just asking for one example. 0: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-donna-brazile-wikileaks-230064 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-donna-braz... 1: http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikileaks-emails.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikile... 2: http://www.salon.com/2017/03/20/finally-donna-brazile-apologizes-for-passing-debate-questions-during-clinton-sanders-primary-battles/ http://www.salon.com/2017/03/20/finally-donna-brazile-apolog...
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    How about one that goes tweet by lying tweet? One that was literally on the first page of Google. You can't have exerted yourself too hard. https://www.amalanetwork.com/latest/2016/07/23/shills-and-scandals-the-misleading-dncleaks-tweet-by-tweet https://www.amalanetwork.com/latest/2016/07/23/shills-and-sc... Again - they repeatedly mislead. They did it again with the CIA dump. Due to their repeated misleading, obviously slanted, presentation of their dumps, and obvious mishandling of them (like putting 1000s of innocent civilians at risk) Wikileaks has zero credibility.
    - who-benefits 9y ago
      Due to your apparent need to discredit any unpleasant truth about your team, you don't have any credibility either. Next time link a source with a better exclamation-point/sentence-without-logical-fallacy ratio. I feel stupider having read that tripe
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        Ahh ad hominem on both me and the source! Impressive. Thanks for conceding you have nothing.
    - Natsu 9y ago
      That seems to disagree with certain conclusions reached by Wikileaks after reading various emails. It does not appear to substantiate any claims that actual documents were faked. The Wikileaks tweets all appear to link to their sources, allowing for this kind of lengthy disagreement with those simplified conclusions.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't post uncivilly or conduct flamewars on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278218 and marked it off-topic.
r721 9y ago
Post from AtlanticCouncil's Digital Forensic Research Lab: https://medium.com/@DFRLab/hashtag-campaign-macronleaks-4a3fb870c4e8 https://medium.com/@DFRLab/hashtag-campaign-macronleaks-4a3f... >The #MacronLeaks files include several tags in Russian https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/860788188981452801 https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/860788188981452801
Gatsky 9y ago
Obviously right wing candidates either don't use email or have nothing interesting to say.
- dep_b 9y ago
  What's so left-wing about Macron in your opinion?
  - badlucklottery 9y ago
    I don't think anyone said he was. His whole platform seems to be as centrist as possible.
  - nextstep 9y ago
    He was a member of the Socialist Party (PS) until he pivoted more centrist in 2009.
    - dep_b 9y ago
      Now he's going to liberate 150.000 government workers of their jobs to bring down mass unemployment. Doesn't sound really logical if I put it down like that but that's what it comes down to. Reminds me of Macri in Argentina. Probably just as ineffective.
  - mhh__ 9y ago
    He's left-wing, but not that kind of left winger (socialist) a la Corbyn.
- aaronbrethorst 9y ago
  Was your comment intended to be sarcastic?
  - hvass 9y ago
    What do you think?
BenderV 9y ago
Given that the election is tomorrow., I don't believe this hack will impact the result (at least, certainly not as much a if it would have appeared 1 week ago).
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Right before the election is far more dangerous. Fake or out-of-context portions will cause immediate outrage and take days/weeks to research and explain (and the French campaign blackout means the campaign can't explain until after the election). As an example, 538 makes a compelling argument that the Comey letter - later found to be essentially a false alarm, but after the damage was done - influenced the US election. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probab...
  - matt4077 9y ago
    You may be right, although there can be a "too close to the election" if it means there isn't enough time to go through the documents to find anything incriminating, and/or for the information to spread. In this case, it's highly unlikely that it will change the election's outcome, given that Macron has a solid 20%+ advantage in all recent polls. It also bears repeating that debate about the Comey letter is somewhat silly in that it usually treats "Comey swung the election" and "Hillary made mistakes" as mutually exclusive options. In reality, it's almost certainly true that they both, as well as other reasons, were necessary conditions for a Trip win.
    - BenderV 9y ago
      Then, it could be that this leak is intended to destabilize the next president and that this time-window is the perfect time to release it without opposition. (If he win - most likely -, then he won't focus directly on this. Any bad informations will strengthen the opposition - he is challenged by both left and right.)
  - skybrian 9y ago
    The Comey letter was two weeks before, though. Enough for a few news cycles, not enough for it to die down. This seems too late?
dep_b 9y ago
Rotschild vs Nazi's. I would stay in bed if I was French. You don't want to be responsible for any of them.
- lazaroclapp 9y ago
  And that's exactly how you end up with Nazis... "after Hitler, our turn". The time for voting further left was the previous round of the election, unfortunately.
- F2 9y ago
  That's not how democracy works comrade. Russians and right wing populist nut jobs are engaging in concerted effort to harm the free world and everyone in it for their own benefit. If you don't actively help to protect the principles of modern democracy you're effectively complicit in it's destruction. You don't get to sit there crying like a child "wahhh but it's not exactly the way I like it!". The fact of the matter is if one option isn't great when the other is actually dangerous, you get off you butt and participate in the process. That's your duty as an adult that get's to live in a democratic society.
walrus01 9y ago
Considering the amount of money that large political parties pay for high-six-figure salary media consultants, stylists, image consultants and PR fluffers.... You would think they would want to hire a few professional, highly qualified NetSec sysadmins and give them authority to enforce network, server and endpoint security policies over an organization as a whole. But nope. DNC is a fine example of failing to prioritize network security. edit: I mean it's not exactly rocket science in terms of recruiting. Find a person who would be qualified by their years of experience and proven track record to be the chief security officer at an organization the size of cloudflare, limelight or netflix (or similar) and offer them a job at an equally high salary. Pay relocation and COLA expenses.
- egourlao 9y ago
  En Marche! was only founded within the last year. Although they attracted a considerable amount of donations, not sure we're talking about the same scale of money.
  - Signez 9y ago
    Also, accounting in French political campaigns are very restricted to ensure fairness between candidates (no more than EUR 4'600 per candidate per physical person, no business donations; the total expenses are capped to ~22m€). Accounts are checked after each elections by the National Commission on Campaign Accounts and Political Financing; it is an active check, as some of the previous campaigns refunds were blocked because of some wrong doing. More details available on Wikipedia (translated from FR): https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFinancement_des_campagnes_pr%C3%A9sidentielles_en_France&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...
    - PierreRochard 9y ago
      Shouldn't this be a government expense, and not a campaign expense? Do candidates pay for their own physical security?
uladzislau 9y ago
Now expect Russians to be blamed, worked well in US, rinse and repeat.
- lazaroclapp 9y ago
  Not the only possibility, specially given the level of the attacks. But, would you be surprised if it was the Russians nonetheless? Geopolitically speaking, they are pretty high up in a short list of nations that benefit enormously if the EU breaks apart...
- saghm 9y ago
  Did it work well? The party that was hacked lost
- int_19h 9y ago
  Yes, of course, it's all totally a coincidence that every time these conveniently-timed-for-election hacks and document dumps happen, it's always to the benefit of whatever candidate is running on a "let's be friends with Russia and ignore what they're doing in Ukraine and Syria" platform.
  - jpkeisala 9y ago
    https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/71985846.jpg https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/71985846.jpg
  - zigzigzag 9y ago
    You mean all twice, both times leaks from or against politicians that are deeply unpopular? Of the candidates running in the French first round, all of them were anti-EU except Macron. Given the "anything anti-EU == Russian" idiocy, perhaps you can explain why this is seen as some kind of rare thing that needs frantic dot-joining?
- wavefunction 9y ago
  I expect Russians to interfere in our elections just like anyone else but that also doesn't mean I find it acceptable. I don't approve of US meddling in free and democratic elections either. I'm not one of the folks who thinks we should go to war over something like this, but it leaves me with no illusions about Putin's aims nor should any limits be placed on punitive actions targeting Putin and his cadre.
agumonkey 9y ago
Earlier today a few tweets from extreme right leaders involved very very bad edited documents (composited pdf, fake iphone tweet screenshots).
mmbaghdad 9y ago
This year will witness major changes in how politicians perceive the internet and network security
dmitrygr 9y ago
Are people today so devoid of personal responsibility that they are unwilling to admit that their claims of "sophisticated hacking attempts" are nothing more than an excuse for one of their staffers clicking a phishing email? I get that it is hard to admit responsibility, but this is ridiculous...
- walrus01 9y ago
  A huge percent of the time it's an OSI layer 8 (meat) problem.
- epigramx 9y ago
  > their claims of "sophisticated hacking attempts" are nothing more than an excuse for one of their staffers clicking a phishing email and you know that how?
  - walrus01 9y ago
    podesta, DNC
    - epigramx 9y ago
      And that is related to Macron how?
      - walrus01 9y ago
        It's a perfect recent example of a high ranking staffer in a political party clicking through a phishing email. And the person who was supposed to advise him that it was a phish, actually telling him to enter his credentials. And even admitting to it afterwards in numerous interviews. I have no idea as to what went on with the specifics of this recent french "hack".
        gertef 9y ago
        https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 Not quite. The IT aide did say that the email (which was an imitation of a real "You've already been hacked" email template) was legitimate, but did not directly recommend clicking on links in the email. He recommended visiting a correct URL. He should have said "I'm not sure, but don't click; to be safe, go to this URL instead" Amusingly, the IT guy uses bit.ly for his surveys, and the phishing link was also a bit.ly link.
ghughes 9y ago
This will not stop until we get secure communication and collaboration tools into the hands of election campaign operatives.
- fooker 9y ago
  You can not really stop social engineering with more tools. If anything, the attack surface will increase.
tryitnow 9y ago
OK, so what's the content of the documents. Best I can tell is that he has a bank account in the Cayman's? Ummm, why is that surprising for a former investment banker? This just seems like a desperate attempt to help Le Pen.
- renaudg 9y ago
  No, the bank account thing was a poorly doctored PDF posted to 4chan last night. Immediately debunked. This is different, email archives from a handful of staffers + accounting spreadsheets. Probably a few juicy things but nothing groundbreaking so far
- Signez 9y ago
  Even that was debunked, as a french journalist on Twitter spotted that the pdf leaked (earlier today) was poorly doctored with an vector-based image editor, and was able to move the actual text layer around. Source (in French but pictures are enough): http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-demmanuel-macron-une-intox-venue-de-4chan.html http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-dem...
  - alexknvl 9y ago
    https://archive.fo/VCz3I/22b9ae6e1cfad9328490576e8ddb4549f8766b63.jpg https://archive.fo/VCz3I/22b9ae6e1cfad9328490576e8ddb4549f87... Now, I have no idea which one is the original, but AFAIU once you take a jpg and scan it into pdf, it's easy to move the text around (?). EDIT: I hope my implication is clear. I think that the jpg file is more likely to be the original photo. It was later scanned as a pdf. Then OCR'd version was edited a bit by merging parts of the text (or only parts of it were OCR'd). Then a journalist opened it up in an editor and saw those layers. Going in the opposite direction would require someone to produce an authentic looking jpg from an obviously OCR'd pdf. That seems like less likely to me.
    - jimrandomh 9y ago
      When software OCRs a PDF, it does it by adding an invisible text layer aligned with the original text, while leaving the original text visible. This makes the PDF searchable, without having to worry about changing the font, introducing OCR errors where people can see them, or disturbing the background. What we see here is very unambiguously the result of a PDF-editing program, not a scan+OCR.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
non_sequitur 9y ago
I think it's funny the campaign can't decide whether to announce that the leaked materials are actually legitimate or not. From the Wall Street Journal: The cache includes both authentic and falsified documents “with the goal of sowing doubt and disinformation,” the campaign said." Basically, "If there's anything bad, it's fake news"
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  Well, that'd certainly be an effective technique. Dump a bunch of real emails, but slip in one or two horrible fake ones. With just a couple days to an election it could have an impact on a tighter race than the French one is currently.
- gertef 9y ago
  It's funny that they are being honest about the likely contents of the cache? "both authentic and falsified documents" was speculated in the DNC/Russia hacks, and also claimed to be the Russia Today strategy abotu news, and whether it was true or not then, it's clearly a clever idea for any future crackers.
  - non_sequitur 9y ago
    From BBC: "The campaign said the documents showed only legitimate campaign activities." From WSJ: "The cache includes both authentic and falsified documents “with the goal of sowing doubt and disinformation,” the campaign said."
  - imron 9y ago
    > "both authentic and falsified documents" was speculated in the DNC/Russia hacks, Yes, that claim was made many times, including by people directly implicated by the leaks, and yet and later it was found that they were all true, with not one source pointing out an actual fake email or document.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      There was plenty of selected editing by Wikileaks - which is what most reports about that referred to. The actual sources, no. But given the sources we're rarely presented as the first point of information by the main distributor... it's a fair criticism
dpflan 9y ago
There are some details about one of the manipulated PDF's here; the article is in French: http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-demmanuel-macron-une-intox-venue-de-4chan.html http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-dem...
- dbcooper 9y ago
  That article is about the fake "4chan" offshore bank account document that was circulating earlier this week. It is not about the email dump.
  - dpflan 9y ago
    My fault for being distracted while trying to add content. It's too late for me to be the one to remove the comment.
jimjimjim 9y ago
Similar to "follow the money", on a world view, who benefits from isolationism and breaking up western alliances? trump: isolation + lessen ties with europe. le pen: isolation + lessen ties with europe. brexit: isolation + lessen ties with europe. now, who benefits? who benefits from a weakened europe.
- who-benefits 9y ago
  Europeans
- pottersbasilisk 9y ago
  The working classes, and who does it hurt? International Bankers.
- redwood 9y ago
  Clearly Putin. If you make democracy look untenable it becomes less threatening to an autocrat.
  - fixxer 9y ago
    Or me, since I want isolation and fewer ties to Europe.
    - CCing 9y ago
      Why ?
      - fixxer 9y ago
        I don't support free trade when the comparative advantage is the cost of labor. I don't support Europe's socialist ideals. Edit: awww, downvote. One less fake internet point :(
        jpkeisala 9y ago
        What do you mean by Europe's socialist ideals?
ceejayoz 9y ago
"The Macron email dump came minutes before France's campaign blackout started at midnight. Candidates can't respond before polls open Sunday" - https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506 https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506
- notahacker 9y ago
  Famed nonpartisan custodian of information Wikileaks' Twitter feed is trying to argue that timing it for the day before the election when the candidate is barred from properly addressing the rumours in the media proves that it isn't an attempt to influence the election (and it's totally unfair that it will be used to boost hostility to Russia) Assange truly has no shame.
elihu 9y ago
I have read [1] that France has a 24-hour period before voting where political reporting and campaigning are forbidden. Were these documents released during the blackout period? If so, that's kind of clever, since it will presumably be all over social media, but more respected information sources who could debunk wild claims may be forced to remain silent. [1] http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2017/Pres/Maps/May05.html/#item-8 http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2017/Pres/Maps/May05.html/#...
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  They were released right before the blackout, yes. https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506 https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506
  - mhh__ 9y ago
    Wow, fancy that!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- renaudg 9y ago
  You got this exactly right.
- untog 9y ago
  That might overstate the number of voters out there discussing this on social media. By it but being reported in mass media it might be that comparatively few people are ever aware of it.
- cm2187 9y ago
  But on the other side if any wrong doing is exposed (which is far from granted) the press won't be able to use it. But the second round of the presidential election is too far in favour of Macron to be derailed anyway. Macron will get elected. What few non french nationals realise though is that the president in France has very little power unless he also controls the parliament. These leaks if they expose any wrong doing could affect the coming parliamentary elections for which getting an absolute majority is already a long shot to Macron.
grondilu 9y ago
> If they opt for liberal Emmanuel Macron How is he labelled as "liberal"? He's been a member of the French socialist party. He only left it last year for his campaign.
- walrus01 9y ago
  in comparison to Le Pen, nearly everyone is a flaming liberal/socialist. What exists to the right of Le Pen? Actual swastika wearing nazis?
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Actual swastika wearing nazis? Pretty much. Including her estranged father: http://www.timesofisrael.com/le-pens-father-slams-her-performance-in-french-debate/ http://www.timesofisrael.com/le-pens-father-slams-her-perfor...
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > What exists to the right of Le Pen? Actual swastika wearing nazis? For the record, her own father, which she ejected from the party, was a well known antisemite and worshipper of Hitler himself...
  - grondilu 9y ago
    It's kind of sad that we classify Politics so linearly. After all originally it was only based on where representatives were seated at the assembly. What characterizes Le Pen is the nationalist stand inherited from her father : basically the idea that most problems come from immigration so that we should close borders and kick foreigners away. The schism between "socialism" and "liberalism" has imho, nothing to do with that. It's more an economical philosophy about the ownership of capital, as discussed by Marx. In addition to that there are differences regarding some moral values, where "conservatives" are usually seen as people who stand their grounds on old principles (like heterosexual marriage, death penalty, gun ownership), though it seems to me that this is very much an American. Anyhow, this makes it all very confusing, especially when translating, and I suppose that's why an article written in English did not say Macron is "socialist" but rather "liberal", even if in France "liberal" kind of means "right-wing".
kome 9y ago
According to the journalist Marie Turcan, 4chan is behind those intox: https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/860497827356704768 https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/860497827356704768
- wavefunction 9y ago
  That's just a link on 4chan, which any anon can make. It's nice place to drop wild allegations.
nooneyouknow 9y ago
This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to recent elections... well, anywhere. Relevant: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/dont-info-op-until-you-see-the-whites-of-their-eyes-55624258f120 https://medium.com/@thegrugq/dont-info-op-until-you-see-the-...
_pdp_ 9y ago
While I agree with the comments that political parties should hire infosec people to get their shit secured, you will be surprised how many fortune 500 companies actually do that and how many of them have more than 3 infosec specialist on staff.
chvid 9y ago
What is supposed to be in these links? (That actually have any significance.) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-05/macron-says-he-victim-massive-coordinated-hack-after-9-gigabytes-private-documents-r http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-05/macron-says-he-vict... Points to this: http://archive.is/eQtrm http://archive.is/eQtrm Which points to something saying "item not available". But apparently 9 GB of data. Seems like a nothingburger to me.
- desdiv 9y ago
  These links work. Don't ask how I got them. https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part1/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part1_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part... https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part2/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part2_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part... https://archive.org/download/xls_cedric/xls_cedric_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/xls_cedric/xls_cedric_archive.t... https://archive.org/download/Macron_201705/Macron_201705_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Macron_201705/Macron_201705_arc... But seriously, using archive.org as a dump? Get your shit together, Ruskies, and use IPFS next time. EDIT: Here are the magnet links in case the archive.org links go down. magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6a9f03af2d552b42a23e69abbbe38737b8906454&dn=Macron%5F201705&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601505.us.archive.org%2F27%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801505.us.archive.org%2F27%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:fc36c7e406187d83ec6602ff59183c3c56f3ea9b&dn=xls%5Fcedric&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601507.us.archive.org%2F11%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801507.us.archive.org%2F11%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b8f18fcb16819e34d01ea94d393f256cc540f99e&dn=Pierrpersongmail.com%5Fdrive.part1&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601502.us.archive.org%2F34%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801502.us.archive.org%2F34%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:80baae16065f6fbc276e718bda2c5db4a6435f8d&dn=Pierrpersongmail.com%5Fdrive.part2&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601503.us.archive.org%2F22%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801503.us.archive.org%2F22%2Fitems%2F
zyxzevn 9y ago
Everything about this is related to the immigration problem in Europe. I'll try to formulate this as neutral as possible. The immigration problem is seen as huge in Europe, and also in the US. Therefore people choose candidates that are against more immigrations, or at least recognize this as a problem. People are worried for economic reasons, integration-problems, violence, attack on women, terrorists. There are many reports, and people do not know who to trust, especially with the terrorists. What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. If we look back in history, we can see that a part of these (mostly male) immigrants are coming from Syria (some say only 25%). Syria is currently in a war with ISIS and Al Qaida. And at the same time Syria is under attack from "moderate rebels" that are supported by the US (continuing a policy against Syria). Also Kurds are fighting, and Turkey, sometimes against each other. And many more states. It is a big mess. Most people do not see US meddling as a solution. Peace is usually achieved by NOT attacking people living in another country. Tried to make it so simple that politicians can understand it ;-)
- hackuser 9y ago
  > The immigration problem is seen as huge ... in the US. Therefore people choose candidates that are against more immigrations That's not true. The candidate that supported immigrants and immigration received more votes in the U.S.; an entire major party is supportive of immigration, as are some members of the other party. > What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. I would not; I would be thrilled for them, proud of our country and community, and I would find out how I could help them. Many others have the same reactions. The U.S., for example, has been welcoming immigrants for its entire history - almost every American is one or is descended from them. Canada was very welcoming of them - look at their pointed response to Trump's immigration policies. > If we look back in history, we can see that a part of these (mostly male) immigrants are coming from Syria I don't see how this is related to acceptance of immigrants.
- m3rc 9y ago
  >What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. What a pathetic attempt at a dog-whistle. If you want to start writing anti-immigrant comments just do it, don't doll it up in this bullshit pseudo pragmatism. Not like other people are letting it stop them.
doener 9y ago
http://archive.is/eQtrm http://archive.is/eQtrm
- urbanxs 9y ago
  The difference between europe and the us is that countries like germany with the support of Brussels dictate to other members what to do.
lacampbell 9y ago
What is the point of having political circle-jerk material like this on hacker news? Everyone just congratulates each other on how pro-globalisation/immigration they are. Dissidents are shouted down and name called. No one changes their mind. No one is really interested in discussing. Their minds are made up.
secfirstmd 9y ago
This is a topic I am very very worried about. Especially in Europe. Myself and some friends where thinking about writing a basic guide for small, democratic (in the global meaning of the term) parties, without big infrastructure resources, to be able to use if they want to have basic information security. I'm kind of swamped with my human rights work but if there is any one on here interested in contributing, shoot me a mail (you can find me in the profile) and we can see what we can do.
macawfish 9y ago
Hacking the democratic process seems, to me, tantamount to treason, honestly. It defeats the entire principle of democracy. That said, there are a lot of things which are detrimental to democracy.

130 points by inputcoffee 9y ago

abritinthebay 9y ago

1 minute on a search engine dude. Exert yourself.

imron 9y ago
> Exert yourself. I have, and I can't find a single instance where Wikileaks presented edited versions of the emails and made claims about them such that the contents of the email revealed the edited version to be inaccurate and/or lies. You stated there are plenty of examples. I'm just asking for one. If there are plenty, it should not be difficult to find one, but like I said in my original comment, everyone makes these statements about Wikileaks but no-one provides actual hard examples of it. As a counter example, in my post I claimed that many people said emails in Wikileaks were falsified, but later evidence showed this was not the case. It's trivial to find an example of this, such as Donna Brazile stating that the emails showing she provided CNN townhall interview questions to Clinton in advance were doctored [0], but DKIM verification later showed the emails were authentic [1], and Brazile later admitted she did actually leak the questions [2]. That was easy enough to find in Google without any exertion. So where are the examples of Wikileaks lying and/or misleading people about the contents of specific emails? I'm just asking for one example. 0: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-donna-brazile-wikileaks-230064 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/megyn-kelly-donna-braz... 1: http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikileaks-emails.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/10/yes-we-can-validate-wikile... 2: http://www.salon.com/2017/03/20/finally-donna-brazile-apologizes-for-passing-debate-questions-during-clinton-sanders-primary-battles/ http://www.salon.com/2017/03/20/finally-donna-brazile-apolog...
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  How about one that goes tweet by lying tweet? One that was literally on the first page of Google. You can't have exerted yourself too hard. https://www.amalanetwork.com/latest/2016/07/23/shills-and-scandals-the-misleading-dncleaks-tweet-by-tweet https://www.amalanetwork.com/latest/2016/07/23/shills-and-sc... Again - they repeatedly mislead. They did it again with the CIA dump. Due to their repeated misleading, obviously slanted, presentation of their dumps, and obvious mishandling of them (like putting 1000s of innocent civilians at risk) Wikileaks has zero credibility.
  - who-benefits 9y ago
    Due to your apparent need to discredit any unpleasant truth about your team, you don't have any credibility either. Next time link a source with a better exclamation-point/sentence-without-logical-fallacy ratio. I feel stupider having read that tripe
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      Ahh ad hominem on both me and the source! Impressive. Thanks for conceding you have nothing.
  - Natsu 9y ago
    That seems to disagree with certain conclusions reached by Wikileaks after reading various emails. It does not appear to substantiate any claims that actual documents were faked. The Wikileaks tweets all appear to link to their sources, allowing for this kind of lengthy disagreement with those simplified conclusions.
dang 9y ago
Please don't post uncivilly or conduct flamewars on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14278218 and marked it off-topic.

r721 9y ago

Post from AtlanticCouncil's Digital Forensic Research Lab: https://medium.com/@DFRLab/hashtag-campaign-macronleaks-4a3fb870c4e8 https://medium.com/@DFRLab/hashtag-campaign-macronleaks-4a3f... >The #MacronLeaks files include several tags in Russian https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/860788188981452801 https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/860788188981452801

Gatsky 9y ago

Obviously right wing candidates either don't use email or have nothing interesting to say.

dep_b 9y ago
What's so left-wing about Macron in your opinion?
- badlucklottery 9y ago
  I don't think anyone said he was. His whole platform seems to be as centrist as possible.
- nextstep 9y ago
  He was a member of the Socialist Party (PS) until he pivoted more centrist in 2009.
  - dep_b 9y ago
    Now he's going to liberate 150.000 government workers of their jobs to bring down mass unemployment. Doesn't sound really logical if I put it down like that but that's what it comes down to. Reminds me of Macri in Argentina. Probably just as ineffective.
- mhh__ 9y ago
  He's left-wing, but not that kind of left winger (socialist) a la Corbyn.
aaronbrethorst 9y ago
Was your comment intended to be sarcastic?
- hvass 9y ago
  What do you think?

BenderV 9y ago

Given that the election is tomorrow., I don't believe this hack will impact the result (at least, certainly not as much a if it would have appeared 1 week ago).

ceejayoz 9y ago
Right before the election is far more dangerous. Fake or out-of-context portions will cause immediate outrage and take days/weeks to research and explain (and the French campaign blackout means the campaign can't explain until after the election). As an example, 538 makes a compelling argument that the Comey letter - later found to be essentially a false alarm, but after the damage was done - influenced the US election. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probab...
- matt4077 9y ago
  You may be right, although there can be a "too close to the election" if it means there isn't enough time to go through the documents to find anything incriminating, and/or for the information to spread. In this case, it's highly unlikely that it will change the election's outcome, given that Macron has a solid 20%+ advantage in all recent polls. It also bears repeating that debate about the Comey letter is somewhat silly in that it usually treats "Comey swung the election" and "Hillary made mistakes" as mutually exclusive options. In reality, it's almost certainly true that they both, as well as other reasons, were necessary conditions for a Trip win.
  - BenderV 9y ago
    Then, it could be that this leak is intended to destabilize the next president and that this time-window is the perfect time to release it without opposition. (If he win - most likely -, then he won't focus directly on this. Any bad informations will strengthen the opposition - he is challenged by both left and right.)
- skybrian 9y ago
  The Comey letter was two weeks before, though. Enough for a few news cycles, not enough for it to die down. This seems too late?

dep_b 9y ago

Rotschild vs Nazi's. I would stay in bed if I was French. You don't want to be responsible for any of them.

lazaroclapp 9y ago
And that's exactly how you end up with Nazis... "after Hitler, our turn". The time for voting further left was the previous round of the election, unfortunately.
F2 9y ago
That's not how democracy works comrade. Russians and right wing populist nut jobs are engaging in concerted effort to harm the free world and everyone in it for their own benefit. If you don't actively help to protect the principles of modern democracy you're effectively complicit in it's destruction. You don't get to sit there crying like a child "wahhh but it's not exactly the way I like it!". The fact of the matter is if one option isn't great when the other is actually dangerous, you get off you butt and participate in the process. That's your duty as an adult that get's to live in a democratic society.

walrus01 9y ago

Considering the amount of money that large political parties pay for high-six-figure salary media consultants, stylists, image consultants and PR fluffers.... You would think they would want to hire a few professional, highly qualified NetSec sysadmins and give them authority to enforce network, server and endpoint security policies over an organization as a whole. But nope. DNC is a fine example of failing to prioritize network security. edit: I mean it's not exactly rocket science in terms of recruiting. Find a person who would be qualified by their years of experience and proven track record to be the chief security officer at an organization the size of cloudflare, limelight or netflix (or similar) and offer them a job at an equally high salary. Pay relocation and COLA expenses.

egourlao 9y ago
En Marche! was only founded within the last year. Although they attracted a considerable amount of donations, not sure we're talking about the same scale of money.
- Signez 9y ago
  Also, accounting in French political campaigns are very restricted to ensure fairness between candidates (no more than EUR 4'600 per candidate per physical person, no business donations; the total expenses are capped to ~22m€). Accounts are checked after each elections by the National Commission on Campaign Accounts and Political Financing; it is an active check, as some of the previous campaigns refunds were blocked because of some wrong doing. More details available on Wikipedia (translated from FR): https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFinancement_des_campagnes_pr%C3%A9sidentielles_en_France&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...
  - PierreRochard 9y ago
    Shouldn't this be a government expense, and not a campaign expense? Do candidates pay for their own physical security?

uladzislau 9y ago

Now expect Russians to be blamed, worked well in US, rinse and repeat.

lazaroclapp 9y ago
Not the only possibility, specially given the level of the attacks. But, would you be surprised if it was the Russians nonetheless? Geopolitically speaking, they are pretty high up in a short list of nations that benefit enormously if the EU breaks apart...
saghm 9y ago
Did it work well? The party that was hacked lost
int_19h 9y ago
Yes, of course, it's all totally a coincidence that every time these conveniently-timed-for-election hacks and document dumps happen, it's always to the benefit of whatever candidate is running on a "let's be friends with Russia and ignore what they're doing in Ukraine and Syria" platform.
- jpkeisala 9y ago
  https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/71985846.jpg https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/71985846.jpg
- zigzigzag 9y ago
  You mean all twice, both times leaks from or against politicians that are deeply unpopular? Of the candidates running in the French first round, all of them were anti-EU except Macron. Given the "anything anti-EU == Russian" idiocy, perhaps you can explain why this is seen as some kind of rare thing that needs frantic dot-joining?
wavefunction 9y ago
I expect Russians to interfere in our elections just like anyone else but that also doesn't mean I find it acceptable. I don't approve of US meddling in free and democratic elections either. I'm not one of the folks who thinks we should go to war over something like this, but it leaves me with no illusions about Putin's aims nor should any limits be placed on punitive actions targeting Putin and his cadre.

agumonkey 9y ago

Earlier today a few tweets from extreme right leaders involved very very bad edited documents (composited pdf, fake iphone tweet screenshots).

mmbaghdad 9y ago

This year will witness major changes in how politicians perceive the internet and network security

dmitrygr 9y ago

Are people today so devoid of personal responsibility that they are unwilling to admit that their claims of "sophisticated hacking attempts" are nothing more than an excuse for one of their staffers clicking a phishing email? I get that it is hard to admit responsibility, but this is ridiculous...

walrus01 9y ago
A huge percent of the time it's an OSI layer 8 (meat) problem.
epigramx 9y ago
> their claims of "sophisticated hacking attempts" are nothing more than an excuse for one of their staffers clicking a phishing email and you know that how?
- walrus01 9y ago
  podesta, DNC
  - epigramx 9y ago
    And that is related to Macron how?
    - walrus01 9y ago
      It's a perfect recent example of a high ranking staffer in a political party clicking through a phishing email. And the person who was supposed to advise him that it was a phish, actually telling him to enter his credentials. And even admitting to it afterwards in numerous interviews. I have no idea as to what went on with the specifics of this recent french "hack".
      - gertef 9y ago
        https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 Not quite. The IT aide did say that the email (which was an imitation of a real "You've already been hacked" email template) was legitimate, but did not directly recommend clicking on links in the email. He recommended visiting a correct URL. He should have said "I'm not sure, but don't click; to be safe, go to this URL instead" Amusingly, the IT guy uses bit.ly for his surveys, and the phishing link was also a bit.ly link.

ghughes 9y ago

This will not stop until we get secure communication and collaboration tools into the hands of election campaign operatives.

fooker 9y ago
You can not really stop social engineering with more tools. If anything, the attack surface will increase.

tryitnow 9y ago

OK, so what's the content of the documents. Best I can tell is that he has a bank account in the Cayman's? Ummm, why is that surprising for a former investment banker? This just seems like a desperate attempt to help Le Pen.

renaudg 9y ago
No, the bank account thing was a poorly doctored PDF posted to 4chan last night. Immediately debunked. This is different, email archives from a handful of staffers + accounting spreadsheets. Probably a few juicy things but nothing groundbreaking so far
Signez 9y ago
Even that was debunked, as a french journalist on Twitter spotted that the pdf leaked (earlier today) was poorly doctored with an vector-based image editor, and was able to move the actual text layer around. Source (in French but pictures are enough): http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-demmanuel-macron-une-intox-venue-de-4chan.html http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-dem...
- alexknvl 9y ago
  https://archive.fo/VCz3I/22b9ae6e1cfad9328490576e8ddb4549f8766b63.jpg https://archive.fo/VCz3I/22b9ae6e1cfad9328490576e8ddb4549f87... Now, I have no idea which one is the original, but AFAIU once you take a jpg and scan it into pdf, it's easy to move the text around (?). EDIT: I hope my implication is clear. I think that the jpg file is more likely to be the original photo. It was later scanned as a pdf. Then OCR'd version was edited a bit by merging parts of the text (or only parts of it were OCR'd). Then a journalist opened it up in an editor and saw those layers. Going in the opposite direction would require someone to produce an authentic looking jpg from an obviously OCR'd pdf. That seems like less likely to me.
  - jimrandomh 9y ago
    When software OCRs a PDF, it does it by adding an invisible text layer aligned with the original text, while leaving the original text visible. This makes the PDF searchable, without having to worry about changing the font, introducing OCR errors where people can see them, or disturbing the background. What we see here is very unambiguously the result of a PDF-editing program, not a scan+OCR.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

non_sequitur 9y ago

I think it's funny the campaign can't decide whether to announce that the leaked materials are actually legitimate or not. From the Wall Street Journal: The cache includes both authentic and falsified documents “with the goal of sowing doubt and disinformation,” the campaign said." Basically, "If there's anything bad, it's fake news"

ceejayoz 9y ago
Well, that'd certainly be an effective technique. Dump a bunch of real emails, but slip in one or two horrible fake ones. With just a couple days to an election it could have an impact on a tighter race than the French one is currently.
gertef 9y ago
It's funny that they are being honest about the likely contents of the cache? "both authentic and falsified documents" was speculated in the DNC/Russia hacks, and also claimed to be the Russia Today strategy abotu news, and whether it was true or not then, it's clearly a clever idea for any future crackers.
- non_sequitur 9y ago
  From BBC: "The campaign said the documents showed only legitimate campaign activities." From WSJ: "The cache includes both authentic and falsified documents “with the goal of sowing doubt and disinformation,” the campaign said."
- imron 9y ago
  > "both authentic and falsified documents" was speculated in the DNC/Russia hacks, Yes, that claim was made many times, including by people directly implicated by the leaks, and yet and later it was found that they were all true, with not one source pointing out an actual fake email or document.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    There was plenty of selected editing by Wikileaks - which is what most reports about that referred to. The actual sources, no. But given the sources we're rarely presented as the first point of information by the main distributor... it's a fair criticism

dpflan 9y ago

There are some details about one of the manipulated PDF's here; the article is in French: http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-demmanuel-macron-une-intox-venue-de-4chan.html http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-dem...

dbcooper 9y ago
That article is about the fake "4chan" offshore bank account document that was circulating earlier this week. It is not about the email dump.
- dpflan 9y ago
  My fault for being distracted while trying to add content. It's too late for me to be the one to remove the comment.

jimjimjim 9y ago

Similar to "follow the money", on a world view, who benefits from isolationism and breaking up western alliances? trump: isolation + lessen ties with europe. le pen: isolation + lessen ties with europe. brexit: isolation + lessen ties with europe. now, who benefits? who benefits from a weakened europe.

who-benefits 9y ago
Europeans
pottersbasilisk 9y ago
The working classes, and who does it hurt? International Bankers.
redwood 9y ago
Clearly Putin. If you make democracy look untenable it becomes less threatening to an autocrat.
- fixxer 9y ago
  Or me, since I want isolation and fewer ties to Europe.
  - CCing 9y ago
    Why ?
    - fixxer 9y ago
      I don't support free trade when the comparative advantage is the cost of labor. I don't support Europe's socialist ideals. Edit: awww, downvote. One less fake internet point :(
      - jpkeisala 9y ago
        What do you mean by Europe's socialist ideals?

ceejayoz 9y ago

"The Macron email dump came minutes before France's campaign blackout started at midnight. Candidates can't respond before polls open Sunday" - https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506 https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506

notahacker 9y ago
Famed nonpartisan custodian of information Wikileaks' Twitter feed is trying to argue that timing it for the day before the election when the candidate is barred from properly addressing the rumours in the media proves that it isn't an attempt to influence the election (and it's totally unfair that it will be used to boost hostility to Russia) Assange truly has no shame.

elihu 9y ago

I have read [1] that France has a 24-hour period before voting where political reporting and campaigning are forbidden. Were these documents released during the blackout period? If so, that's kind of clever, since it will presumably be all over social media, but more respected information sources who could debunk wild claims may be forced to remain silent. [1] http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2017/Pres/Maps/May05.html/#item-8 http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2017/Pres/Maps/May05.html/#...

ceejayoz 9y ago
They were released right before the blackout, yes. https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506 https://twitter.com/RachelDonadio/status/860624629899157506
- mhh__ 9y ago
  Wow, fancy that!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
renaudg 9y ago
You got this exactly right.
untog 9y ago
That might overstate the number of voters out there discussing this on social media. By it but being reported in mass media it might be that comparatively few people are ever aware of it.
cm2187 9y ago
But on the other side if any wrong doing is exposed (which is far from granted) the press won't be able to use it. But the second round of the presidential election is too far in favour of Macron to be derailed anyway. Macron will get elected. What few non french nationals realise though is that the president in France has very little power unless he also controls the parliament. These leaks if they expose any wrong doing could affect the coming parliamentary elections for which getting an absolute majority is already a long shot to Macron.

grondilu 9y ago

> If they opt for liberal Emmanuel Macron How is he labelled as "liberal"? He's been a member of the French socialist party. He only left it last year for his campaign.

walrus01 9y ago
in comparison to Le Pen, nearly everyone is a flaming liberal/socialist. What exists to the right of Le Pen? Actual swastika wearing nazis?
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Actual swastika wearing nazis? Pretty much. Including her estranged father: http://www.timesofisrael.com/le-pens-father-slams-her-performance-in-french-debate/ http://www.timesofisrael.com/le-pens-father-slams-her-perfor...
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > What exists to the right of Le Pen? Actual swastika wearing nazis? For the record, her own father, which she ejected from the party, was a well known antisemite and worshipper of Hitler himself...
- grondilu 9y ago
  It's kind of sad that we classify Politics so linearly. After all originally it was only based on where representatives were seated at the assembly. What characterizes Le Pen is the nationalist stand inherited from her father : basically the idea that most problems come from immigration so that we should close borders and kick foreigners away. The schism between "socialism" and "liberalism" has imho, nothing to do with that. It's more an economical philosophy about the ownership of capital, as discussed by Marx. In addition to that there are differences regarding some moral values, where "conservatives" are usually seen as people who stand their grounds on old principles (like heterosexual marriage, death penalty, gun ownership), though it seems to me that this is very much an American. Anyhow, this makes it all very confusing, especially when translating, and I suppose that's why an article written in English did not say Macron is "socialist" but rather "liberal", even if in France "liberal" kind of means "right-wing".

kome 9y ago

According to the journalist Marie Turcan, 4chan is behind those intox: https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/860497827356704768 https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/860497827356704768

wavefunction 9y ago
That's just a link on 4chan, which any anon can make. It's nice place to drop wild allegations.

nooneyouknow 9y ago

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to recent elections... well, anywhere. Relevant: https://medium.com/@thegrugq/dont-info-op-until-you-see-the-whites-of-their-eyes-55624258f120 https://medium.com/@thegrugq/dont-info-op-until-you-see-the-...

_pdp_ 9y ago

While I agree with the comments that political parties should hire infosec people to get their shit secured, you will be surprised how many fortune 500 companies actually do that and how many of them have more than 3 infosec specialist on staff.

chvid 9y ago

What is supposed to be in these links? (That actually have any significance.) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-05/macron-says-he-victim-massive-coordinated-hack-after-9-gigabytes-private-documents-r http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-05/macron-says-he-vict... Points to this: http://archive.is/eQtrm http://archive.is/eQtrm Which points to something saying "item not available". But apparently 9 GB of data. Seems like a nothingburger to me.

desdiv 9y ago
These links work. Don't ask how I got them. https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part1/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part1_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part... https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part2/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part2_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Pierrpersongmail.com_drive.part... https://archive.org/download/xls_cedric/xls_cedric_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/xls_cedric/xls_cedric_archive.t... https://archive.org/download/Macron_201705/Macron_201705_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/Macron_201705/Macron_201705_arc... But seriously, using archive.org as a dump? Get your shit together, Ruskies, and use IPFS next time. EDIT: Here are the magnet links in case the archive.org links go down. magnet:?xt=urn:btih:6a9f03af2d552b42a23e69abbbe38737b8906454&dn=Macron%5F201705&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601505.us.archive.org%2F27%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801505.us.archive.org%2F27%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:fc36c7e406187d83ec6602ff59183c3c56f3ea9b&dn=xls%5Fcedric&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601507.us.archive.org%2F11%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801507.us.archive.org%2F11%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b8f18fcb16819e34d01ea94d393f256cc540f99e&dn=Pierrpersongmail.com%5Fdrive.part1&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601502.us.archive.org%2F34%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801502.us.archive.org%2F34%2Fitems%2F magnet:?xt=urn:btih:80baae16065f6fbc276e718bda2c5db4a6435f8d&dn=Pierrpersongmail.com%5Fdrive.part2&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdownload%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia601503.us.archive.org%2F22%2Fitems%2F&ws=http%3A%2F%2Fia801503.us.archive.org%2F22%2Fitems%2F

zyxzevn 9y ago

Everything about this is related to the immigration problem in Europe. I'll try to formulate this as neutral as possible. The immigration problem is seen as huge in Europe, and also in the US. Therefore people choose candidates that are against more immigrations, or at least recognize this as a problem. People are worried for economic reasons, integration-problems, violence, attack on women, terrorists. There are many reports, and people do not know who to trust, especially with the terrorists. What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. If we look back in history, we can see that a part of these (mostly male) immigrants are coming from Syria (some say only 25%). Syria is currently in a war with ISIS and Al Qaida. And at the same time Syria is under attack from "moderate rebels" that are supported by the US (continuing a policy against Syria). Also Kurds are fighting, and Turkey, sometimes against each other. And many more states. It is a big mess. Most people do not see US meddling as a solution. Peace is usually achieved by NOT attacking people living in another country. Tried to make it so simple that politicians can understand it ;-)

hackuser 9y ago
> The immigration problem is seen as huge ... in the US. Therefore people choose candidates that are against more immigrations That's not true. The candidate that supported immigrants and immigration received more votes in the U.S.; an entire major party is supportive of immigration, as are some members of the other party. > What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. I would not; I would be thrilled for them, proud of our country and community, and I would find out how I could help them. Many others have the same reactions. The U.S., for example, has been welcoming immigrants for its entire history - almost every American is one or is descended from them. Canada was very welcoming of them - look at their pointed response to Trump's immigration policies. > If we look back in history, we can see that a part of these (mostly male) immigrants are coming from Syria I don't see how this is related to acceptance of immigrants.
m3rc 9y ago
>What would any of you think when 500 people from a far away country were placed near your house? You would experience it as a some kind of problem. What a pathetic attempt at a dog-whistle. If you want to start writing anti-immigrant comments just do it, don't doll it up in this bullshit pseudo pragmatism. Not like other people are letting it stop them.

doener 9y ago

http://archive.is/eQtrm http://archive.is/eQtrm

urbanxs 9y ago
The difference between europe and the us is that countries like germany with the support of Brussels dictate to other members what to do.

lacampbell 9y ago

What is the point of having political circle-jerk material like this on hacker news? Everyone just congratulates each other on how pro-globalisation/immigration they are. Dissidents are shouted down and name called. No one changes their mind. No one is really interested in discussing. Their minds are made up.

secfirstmd 9y ago

This is a topic I am very very worried about. Especially in Europe. Myself and some friends where thinking about writing a basic guide for small, democratic (in the global meaning of the term) parties, without big infrastructure resources, to be able to use if they want to have basic information security. I'm kind of swamped with my human rights work but if there is any one on here interested in contributing, shoot me a mail (you can find me in the profile) and we can see what we can do.

macawfish 9y ago

Hacking the democratic process seems, to me, tantamount to treason, honestly. It defeats the entire principle of democracy. That said, there are a lot of things which are detrimental to democracy.