> What I haven't heard is a reasonable argument on whether this mattered in the slightest. Read the linked article. If you have some specific arguments to addr

> What I haven't heard is a reasonable argument on whether this mattered in the slightest. Read the linked article. If you have some specific arguments to address, that's helpful. Blanket, aggressive denials are just a way to raise unsubstantiated doubts. > Washington Post reports [4] that actually this was basically port scanning. Not at all. First, the article says that not much is known. Second, here is an excerpt about what is known: Illinois: a contractor who works two or three days a week at the state board of elections detected unauthorized data leaving the network, according to Ken Menzel, general counsel for the Illinois board of elections. The hackers had gained access to the state's voter database, which contained information such as names, dates of birth, genders, driver's licenses and partial Social Security numbers on 15 million people, half of whom were active voters. As many as 90,000 records were ultimately compromised. Finally, while many state election officials insist their security stopped the attacks, the truth of security is that they don't know what they are missing, especially with highly resourced attackers attacking poorly resourced, generally insecure systems. Could the Russians bypass the security of the state of Ohio's election systems? I don't have much doubt ... EDIT: A bit more on Russia's influence campaign: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-o...