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I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a b

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors/employees would be genuinely copying classified information that is heavily related to national security, and then just loading it up on their personal Windows PC with no apparent encryption or access controls. For instance why in the world wouldn't they have OS level software restricting read access of a certain secure partition (or removable media) to a specific whitelist of processes? Or why wouldn't they use an airgapped machine? Then there are issues like the NSA being so anxious and happy to leak this information, and then them indirectly 'wink wink' confirming it publicly completely destroying the purpose of we don't comment on speculation --- when you start commenting on certain speculation, it indirectly says something about other speculation that you actually choose not to comment on. They're also seemingly unconcerned that somebody is leaking information that, if true, shows the NSA to be incompetent and also exposes attack vectors for enemy actors. There are also things like Kaspersky previously volunteering to provide complete source access to the government. Our government declined the offer. How does this make sense? Since Iraq I have become much more critical of pretty much everything. Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia. Or at the minimum start Red Scare 3.0. I have no idea why they would want to do this, but I tend to abide Occam's razor, and this all being true requires a lot more effort than this just being "Yellowcake 2.0."

0xfeba 9y ago
I'm so skeptical now of skeptical Russia posts. A 25 day old account who's first comment [0] was about media and divisiveness. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Maybe that's the first part of the evil plan? Make people see Russians everywhere. I try to look at content and don't care much who the poster might be. Because everyone has motive even if it's just boredom or attention.
  - Larrikin 9y ago
    When the number one tactic involves paying people to troll and influence on social media it's being willfully ignorant to look at every post in a vacuum and to not look for patterns.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      I'm not saying the original poster isn't Russian, maybe they are. Does it really matter? If what they are saying isn't true we can contradict it or ignore it right? However if what is being said is true maybe the bigger problem is not _who_ is saying what but rather that this truth exists to be said and maybe we should do something about that rather than ascribing motives which may or may not be accurate.
      - jejeuei73737 9y ago
        If I can’t trust the messenger there is little point in my verifying their claims
        mythrwy 9y ago
        If you can't separate a message from who you suspect the messenger might be there is little point in verifying claims either.
    - zghst 9y ago
      Let us also recognize that Russia is just one of hundreds of interests that are trying to influence conversation online, not discounting several factions in the US government. It is very easy to spot them, especially on platforms like Twitter where they spread obvious, blatant lies. No one is immune, especially with disinformation campaigns being waged by domestic parties, corporate interests, PR firms. It has always been a reality that the internet attracts misinformation and conspiracy, even more so in the past than now. And yet, we continue to evolve from a technology that doesn't allow for us to distinguish fantasy from reality.
pm90 9y ago
While I agree with your assessment of the Establishments role in the promotion of the Iraq war, I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. It seems more like the kind of behavior I've seen when you impose tedious security protocols universally without explaining it properly to those expected to follow it. I'm willing to bet that as the NSA continues to expand its digital monitoring divisions, it has increased the use of contractors a lot. And not all of them might be aware of the supremely sensitive nature of the information they are dealing with. The thing that makes me even more convinced that this is what's going on is that you don't see a lot of leaks/breaches from NSA officers(agents? not sure what the correct terminology is) but mostly from contractors. Hell, Snowden was also a contractor and not a member of the NSA. Maybe they need to realize that this kind of cost cutting is just not worth it.
- 1001101 9y ago
  > I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. Or the current globe.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  I thought the reason they used contractors was certain government rules made it a pain in the ass to hire a new employee at 100-150k.(a lowish level for a quality devs with security clearance)
  - 086421357909764 9y ago
    This has a strong weight in truth at least within the CNO world. Simply can't compete with commercial salaries (which for those with unique experiences are commanding even greater than the average SV salary).
spaceseaman 9y ago
> Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia I mean, there's verifiable evidence Russia tried to influence our election. That's pretty new for a lot of Americans. I imagine that's why the government and the media are running wild with it. Mueller is still investigating. I would say to wait till that report comes out before jumping to conclusions. I personally don't think the media and government are gearing up for some Russia conflict. This is just the first time Russia has been so involved in our politics since the Cold War, and the media is rightly running with that idea. Is it that unbelievable for some people that Russia was involved in trying to influence our election? I can't tell if you're rightly scared of the media or just can't believe Russia would do something bad. With respect to the quality of work at the NSA? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" And finally with respect to all the leaking... I think it's pretty clear that's just the NSA's lack of confidence in its leader.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  >I mean, there's verifiable evidence Russia tried to influence our election. That's pretty new for a lot of Americans. That might be new for a lot of Americans, but not for anyone who has ever paid any sort of attention to international politics. In reality it would've been bigger news if Russia hadn't tried to influence our election. And that's not specific to Russia, I'd say that about any major economic power including allies. >since the Cold War We've been in a proxy hot war with Russia for years. Syria is a major Russian ally and a big part of our activity in Syria is to reduce the regional influence/power of Russia. >I can't tell if you're rightly scared of the media One would think that a group of people whose job it is to report on global politics would understand how much of a certainty it is that Russia would try to impact all of our elections. And yet they're pretending like this is shocking. I can forgive the general public, but any media outlet feigning shock is bold faced lying.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- 9y ago
jonknee 9y ago
> For instance why in the world wouldn't they have OS level software restricting read access of a certain secure partition (or removable media) to a specific whitelist of processes? Or why wouldn't they use an airgapped machine? At some point you have to actually use your exploits, they can't all stay in secure airgapped machines. Malware is made to be used and to be used it must be copied. Obviously taking it home is egregious, but it's not like securing a private key or launch codes.
dreamfactored 9y ago
I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state employees and the security checks are basically akin to credit checks. Russia (and China and others) have an advantage here in having recently been run as controlled states and having much of the bureaucratic apparatus and social habits still in place (e.g. bring your passport to buy a train ticket to another town; little old lady stationed on every floor of a hotel keeping an eye on comings and goings etc).
- SerLava 9y ago
  Wait, are you saying the commanders are trying to destroy the soldiers' personal hidden phones by making them swim with their gear?
  - dreamfactored 9y ago
    Yes, they are banned of course as per regulations but that is hardly going to stop the hardened phone addicts
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - blackflame7000 9y ago
      Well other soldiers should stop them if they see it since the phone addict is putting everyone at risk by shrieking for cell towers
      - hahajk 9y ago
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Since Iraq I have become much more critical of pretty much everything. Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. Uh, while there were some media collaborating with the government propaganda, the government's case for war was thoroughly and pretty completely debunked in the mainstream media, nearly in real-time. Few people paid as much attention to that as what the government was saying, which the media reported as, well, what government officials were saying, but the media would have been negligent not to report that. They can hardly be responsible for the strong effect of confirmation bias combined with official-sources bias among the population.
- indubitable 9y ago
  There's a useful tool in search engines that I think are desperately underused. This [1] is a search for "Iraq" on Google with results from January 1st to March 1st, 2003. We would invade on March 20th. I'll leave the results without comment. I think they speak for themselves. A couple of asides are that it's very interesting to do the same sort of thing with "Russia" in more contemporary times. Our minds do very strange things when reconstructing the past. At the eve of the Iraq war, 72% [2] of Americans supported war. Now nearly half [3] of Americans claim they opposed the war. And the interesting thing is that people probably do genuinely believe this. Our brains do an absolutely phenomenal job of letting us lie to ourselves. Probably the one thing that inhibits progress more than any other! [1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=iraq&dcr=0&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/2003,cd_max:3/1/2003&tbas=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=iraq&dcr=0&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:... [2] - http://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-american... [3] - https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/05/21/americans-remember-opposing-2003-war-iraq/ https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/05/21/americans-remember-...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jejeuei73737 9y ago
    Internal wars about slavery, Japanese American camps during WW2, McCarthyism, an plainly obvious global imperialism schemes for over a generation.... America’s entire history is a shitshow of hypocrisy It’s a truism of humanity; each of us is ignorant and naive in our own ways Welcome to reality
RandVal30142 9y ago
>And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine & Crimea, ended up downing a civilian airliner killing them all. Slaughtered hospital workers in Syria after following victims of regime chemical weapons attack to the facilities. Has been funneling heavy weapons like T90 tanks into sub-state militias, including the designated terrorist org Hezbollah. Is currently attacking people who have documented all of this, regardless of what nation they live in. Has attempted to get Canada to take down and expose citizens using their services to publicize Russia's actions. What will it take to get you to understand Russia is at war with the world? Does another civilian airliner need to be downed? Should another analyst/journalist get kidnapped and brought into Russia to be disappeared? What is your threshold of acknowledgement here?
- deleted 9y ago
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- sergers 9y ago
  Minus the taking of land, Crimea by Russia, and the civilian abduction (US just more secretive)same can be said for US actions over the past decades. Does that mean USA is war with the world (under trump now, yes, but I am implying before that)? How many other nations elections has USA undermined, accidental civilian casualties(including downing of a civilian plane) and funding to terrorists (directly funding Taliban and supporting terrorist groups.. not to forget Saudi Arabia) As a non American, looking from the outside, it's hypocrisy that the US is offended someone else doing what they have been doing... Just Russia got caught and is being called out. But I can understand the outrage, and in no way condoning Russia's actions... They have taken it to publicized extremes stoking aggressive behaviour to other nations and particularly the US
  - RandVal30142 9y ago
    >same can be said for US actions over the past decades Is this really the best response? A deflection? Do you know how tiring it gets? How little it advances discussion? My peers are being hunted for documenting war crimes but OK US did similar stuff some decades ago so I guess the topic is resolved for good. Wrapped up nicely with a bow for eternity.
c3534l 9y ago
The problem is that people are fallable, often wrong, and always overconfident. Many presidents believe they can delegate the work of actually being president by blindly trusting those below him. In practice, you find the government to be filled with normal human beings doing their best in an organization where the shareholders are insane and irrational.
pohl 9y ago
Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia Our current president has never had a critical thought enter his mind and not have it escape his lips, or his tweeting fingertips – yet Russia (and Putin in particular) have never been in his crosshairs. I think that this fact directly contradicts your hypothesis. Then there is also the mysterious change to the GOP platform around the time of the convention.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  He's not criticised New Zealand either, as far as I know. So what? What Trump disrespects tends to be predictable: not tough enough, too friendly to foreigners, not conservative enough etc. Putin happens to be tough, conservative and not especially friendly to foreigners, all attributes that Trump respects and yet which are not very common amongst world leaders. It helps that Putin doesn't speak English and - fantasies by Clintonites aside - isn't actually doing much around the world outside of Syria, a place where they mostly spend their time bombing ISIS (something Trump approves of). So there isn't much reason for Trump to talk about them, beyond the constant Russia-linked attacks on him.
  - Haydos585x2 9y ago
    I think you'll find Russia is doing a bit world wide. They've just finished up the Zapad war games again, denounced Georgia having war games with the US. Getting back into Uzbekistan now that Karimov is gone. Russian companies are now supplying internet and phone service to North Koreans. Crimea is still going on with continuing threats to Ukranian sovereignty. Russian gov has just committed more funds to Kalningrad and the Far East. Two regions with some fairly significant strategic value. Russian has been funding the Venezuelan regime and doing so in a way that dodges US sanctions. Russian government is attempting to put Belarusian military units under their control. Russians have alledgedly been involved with the Catalonian independence movement. This is not to say other countries aren't busy too but I think it's false to believe that Putin and the Russian government is only involved in Syria.
jejeuei73737 9y ago
Occam’s Razor: A 25 day old anonymous HN acct is controlled by a shill attempting to deflect attention in readers minds (which we know Russia does along with every other nation state) Or WSJ made the whole thing about Russia hacking computers up, which really we already know their intel community does, just like every other nation states Occams Razor again: Google, Equifax, Yahoo, NSA are incompetents with technology as they have all suffered data breaches recently (waymo+uber is a breach in the same sense the NSA contractor took home data they were vetted to access and it was used outside its scope of access) Or We’re suffering a mass delusion driven by marketing and fear that perfect security is possible, just these very good tech groups sucked at it (of course no one out there benefits from the public doubting these groups abilities right?) Given humans long history of buying in to mass delusions (religion, nationalism, what brands one buys matters), Occam’s razor seems clear on this
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
shallot_router 9y ago
>There are also things like Kaspersky previously volunteering to provide complete source access to the government. Our government declined the offer. How does this make sense? First, even if they were giving access to their genuine source code repository, there's absolutely no guarantee that the binaries aren't backdoored by Kaspersky, FSB, or both. Alternatively, they could just hand over a phony copy of the source. It's kind of a pointless offer. There's no real reason to deny, but there's also no reason to accept. If the fear is that their products might be influenced or backdoored by hostile intelligence agencies, the only reasonable solution is a total boycott. (And yes, I very much understand the exact same could be said of the NSA and a lot of US-made software.)
- indubitable 9y ago
  The same code compiled by the same compiler with the same settings compiles to the same binaries. So you can indeed verify that what you're running and what you have the source code to are indeed one and the same. For that matter, they could still do that to this day. Pick the time frame that the alleged hack happened and examine the source. And again you can compare the binary output to ensure that you actually have the real thing.
  - shallot_router 9y ago
    In practice, this isn't really possible, though. The binary is usually going to be slightly different. In theory you could RE the differences and potentially disprove a backdoor, but it's not easy. Also, it's not necessarily that hard to slip a very subtle backdoor into the source.
nickbauman 9y ago
> Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war Remember Vietnam? Same thing happened. GoT Incident was a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

0xfeba 9y ago

I'm so skeptical now of skeptical Russia posts. A 25 day old account who's first comment [0] was about media and divisiveness. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362

mythrwy 9y ago
Maybe that's the first part of the evil plan? Make people see Russians everywhere. I try to look at content and don't care much who the poster might be. Because everyone has motive even if it's just boredom or attention.
- Larrikin 9y ago
  When the number one tactic involves paying people to troll and influence on social media it's being willfully ignorant to look at every post in a vacuum and to not look for patterns.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    I'm not saying the original poster isn't Russian, maybe they are. Does it really matter? If what they are saying isn't true we can contradict it or ignore it right? However if what is being said is true maybe the bigger problem is not _who_ is saying what but rather that this truth exists to be said and maybe we should do something about that rather than ascribing motives which may or may not be accurate.
    - jejeuei73737 9y ago
      If I can’t trust the messenger there is little point in my verifying their claims
      - mythrwy 9y ago
        If you can't separate a message from who you suspect the messenger might be there is little point in verifying claims either.
  - zghst 9y ago
    Let us also recognize that Russia is just one of hundreds of interests that are trying to influence conversation online, not discounting several factions in the US government. It is very easy to spot them, especially on platforms like Twitter where they spread obvious, blatant lies. No one is immune, especially with disinformation campaigns being waged by domestic parties, corporate interests, PR firms. It has always been a reality that the internet attracts misinformation and conspiracy, even more so in the past than now. And yet, we continue to evolve from a technology that doesn't allow for us to distinguish fantasy from reality.

pm90 9y ago

While I agree with your assessment of the Establishments role in the promotion of the Iraq war, I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. It seems more like the kind of behavior I've seen when you impose tedious security protocols universally without explaining it properly to those expected to follow it. I'm willing to bet that as the NSA continues to expand its digital monitoring divisions, it has increased the use of contractors a lot. And not all of them might be aware of the supremely sensitive nature of the information they are dealing with. The thing that makes me even more convinced that this is what's going on is that you don't see a lot of leaks/breaches from NSA officers(agents? not sure what the correct terminology is) but mostly from contractors. Hell, Snowden was also a contractor and not a member of the NSA. Maybe they need to realize that this kind of cost cutting is just not worth it.

1001101 9y ago
> I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. Or the current globe.
JamesBarney 9y ago
I thought the reason they used contractors was certain government rules made it a pain in the ass to hire a new employee at 100-150k.(a lowish level for a quality devs with security clearance)
- 086421357909764 9y ago
  This has a strong weight in truth at least within the CNO world. Simply can't compete with commercial salaries (which for those with unique experiences are commanding even greater than the average SV salary).

spaceseaman 9y ago

> Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia I mean, there's verifiable evidence Russia tried to influence our election. That's pretty new for a lot of Americans. I imagine that's why the government and the media are running wild with it. Mueller is still investigating. I would say to wait till that report comes out before jumping to conclusions. I personally don't think the media and government are gearing up for some Russia conflict. This is just the first time Russia has been so involved in our politics since the Cold War, and the media is rightly running with that idea. Is it that unbelievable for some people that Russia was involved in trying to influence our election? I can't tell if you're rightly scared of the media or just can't believe Russia would do something bad. With respect to the quality of work at the NSA? "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" And finally with respect to all the leaking... I think it's pretty clear that's just the NSA's lack of confidence in its leader.

Consultant32452 9y ago
>I mean, there's verifiable evidence Russia tried to influence our election. That's pretty new for a lot of Americans. That might be new for a lot of Americans, but not for anyone who has ever paid any sort of attention to international politics. In reality it would've been bigger news if Russia hadn't tried to influence our election. And that's not specific to Russia, I'd say that about any major economic power including allies. >since the Cold War We've been in a proxy hot war with Russia for years. Syria is a major Russian ally and a big part of our activity in Syria is to reduce the regional influence/power of Russia. >I can't tell if you're rightly scared of the media One would think that a group of people whose job it is to report on global politics would understand how much of a certainty it is that Russia would try to impact all of our elections. And yet they're pretending like this is shocking. I can forgive the general public, but any media outlet feigning shock is bold faced lying.
- deleted 9y ago
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9y ago

jonknee 9y ago

> For instance why in the world wouldn't they have OS level software restricting read access of a certain secure partition (or removable media) to a specific whitelist of processes? Or why wouldn't they use an airgapped machine? At some point you have to actually use your exploits, they can't all stay in secure airgapped machines. Malware is made to be used and to be used it must be copied. Obviously taking it home is egregious, but it's not like securing a private key or launch codes.

dreamfactored 9y ago

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state employees and the security checks are basically akin to credit checks. Russia (and China and others) have an advantage here in having recently been run as controlled states and having much of the bureaucratic apparatus and social habits still in place (e.g. bring your passport to buy a train ticket to another town; little old lady stationed on every floor of a hotel keeping an eye on comings and goings etc).

SerLava 9y ago
Wait, are you saying the commanders are trying to destroy the soldiers' personal hidden phones by making them swim with their gear?
- dreamfactored 9y ago
  Yes, they are banned of course as per regulations but that is hardly going to stop the hardened phone addicts
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - blackflame7000 9y ago
    Well other soldiers should stop them if they see it since the phone addict is putting everyone at risk by shrieking for cell towers
    - hahajk 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Since Iraq I have become much more critical of pretty much everything. Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. Uh, while there were some media collaborating with the government propaganda, the government's case for war was thoroughly and pretty completely debunked in the mainstream media, nearly in real-time. Few people paid as much attention to that as what the government was saying, which the media reported as, well, what government officials were saying, but the media would have been negligent not to report that. They can hardly be responsible for the strong effect of confirmation bias combined with official-sources bias among the population.

indubitable 9y ago
There's a useful tool in search engines that I think are desperately underused. This [1] is a search for "Iraq" on Google with results from January 1st to March 1st, 2003. We would invade on March 20th. I'll leave the results without comment. I think they speak for themselves. A couple of asides are that it's very interesting to do the same sort of thing with "Russia" in more contemporary times. Our minds do very strange things when reconstructing the past. At the eve of the Iraq war, 72% [2] of Americans supported war. Now nearly half [3] of Americans claim they opposed the war. And the interesting thing is that people probably do genuinely believe this. Our brains do an absolutely phenomenal job of letting us lie to ourselves. Probably the one thing that inhibits progress more than any other! [1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=iraq&dcr=0&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/2003,cd_max:3/1/2003&tbas=0 https://www.google.com/search?q=iraq&dcr=0&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:... [2] - http://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-american... [3] - https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/05/21/americans-remember-opposing-2003-war-iraq/ https://today.yougov.com/news/2015/05/21/americans-remember-...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jejeuei73737 9y ago
  Internal wars about slavery, Japanese American camps during WW2, McCarthyism, an plainly obvious global imperialism schemes for over a generation.... America’s entire history is a shitshow of hypocrisy It’s a truism of humanity; each of us is ignorant and naive in our own ways Welcome to reality

RandVal30142 9y ago

>And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine & Crimea, ended up downing a civilian airliner killing them all. Slaughtered hospital workers in Syria after following victims of regime chemical weapons attack to the facilities. Has been funneling heavy weapons like T90 tanks into sub-state militias, including the designated terrorist org Hezbollah. Is currently attacking people who have documented all of this, regardless of what nation they live in. Has attempted to get Canada to take down and expose citizens using their services to publicize Russia's actions. What will it take to get you to understand Russia is at war with the world? Does another civilian airliner need to be downed? Should another analyst/journalist get kidnapped and brought into Russia to be disappeared? What is your threshold of acknowledgement here?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sergers 9y ago
Minus the taking of land, Crimea by Russia, and the civilian abduction (US just more secretive)same can be said for US actions over the past decades. Does that mean USA is war with the world (under trump now, yes, but I am implying before that)? How many other nations elections has USA undermined, accidental civilian casualties(including downing of a civilian plane) and funding to terrorists (directly funding Taliban and supporting terrorist groups.. not to forget Saudi Arabia) As a non American, looking from the outside, it's hypocrisy that the US is offended someone else doing what they have been doing... Just Russia got caught and is being called out. But I can understand the outrage, and in no way condoning Russia's actions... They have taken it to publicized extremes stoking aggressive behaviour to other nations and particularly the US
- RandVal30142 9y ago
  >same can be said for US actions over the past decades Is this really the best response? A deflection? Do you know how tiring it gets? How little it advances discussion? My peers are being hunted for documenting war crimes but OK US did similar stuff some decades ago so I guess the topic is resolved for good. Wrapped up nicely with a bow for eternity.

c3534l 9y ago

The problem is that people are fallable, often wrong, and always overconfident. Many presidents believe they can delegate the work of actually being president by blindly trusting those below him. In practice, you find the government to be filled with normal human beings doing their best in an organization where the shareholders are insane and irrational.

pohl 9y ago

Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia Our current president has never had a critical thought enter his mind and not have it escape his lips, or his tweeting fingertips – yet Russia (and Putin in particular) have never been in his crosshairs. I think that this fact directly contradicts your hypothesis. Then there is also the mysterious change to the GOP platform around the time of the convention.

peoplewindow 9y ago
He's not criticised New Zealand either, as far as I know. So what? What Trump disrespects tends to be predictable: not tough enough, too friendly to foreigners, not conservative enough etc. Putin happens to be tough, conservative and not especially friendly to foreigners, all attributes that Trump respects and yet which are not very common amongst world leaders. It helps that Putin doesn't speak English and - fantasies by Clintonites aside - isn't actually doing much around the world outside of Syria, a place where they mostly spend their time bombing ISIS (something Trump approves of). So there isn't much reason for Trump to talk about them, beyond the constant Russia-linked attacks on him.
- Haydos585x2 9y ago
  I think you'll find Russia is doing a bit world wide. They've just finished up the Zapad war games again, denounced Georgia having war games with the US. Getting back into Uzbekistan now that Karimov is gone. Russian companies are now supplying internet and phone service to North Koreans. Crimea is still going on with continuing threats to Ukranian sovereignty. Russian gov has just committed more funds to Kalningrad and the Far East. Two regions with some fairly significant strategic value. Russian has been funding the Venezuelan regime and doing so in a way that dodges US sanctions. Russian government is attempting to put Belarusian military units under their control. Russians have alledgedly been involved with the Catalonian independence movement. This is not to say other countries aren't busy too but I think it's false to believe that Putin and the Russian government is only involved in Syria.

jejeuei73737 9y ago

Occam’s Razor: A 25 day old anonymous HN acct is controlled by a shill attempting to deflect attention in readers minds (which we know Russia does along with every other nation state) Or WSJ made the whole thing about Russia hacking computers up, which really we already know their intel community does, just like every other nation states Occams Razor again: Google, Equifax, Yahoo, NSA are incompetents with technology as they have all suffered data breaches recently (waymo+uber is a breach in the same sense the NSA contractor took home data they were vetted to access and it was used outside its scope of access) Or We’re suffering a mass delusion driven by marketing and fear that perfect security is possible, just these very good tech groups sucked at it (of course no one out there benefits from the public doubting these groups abilities right?) Given humans long history of buying in to mass delusions (religion, nationalism, what brands one buys matters), Occam’s razor seems clear on this

deleted 9y ago

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shallot_router 9y ago

>There are also things like Kaspersky previously volunteering to provide complete source access to the government. Our government declined the offer. How does this make sense? First, even if they were giving access to their genuine source code repository, there's absolutely no guarantee that the binaries aren't backdoored by Kaspersky, FSB, or both. Alternatively, they could just hand over a phony copy of the source. It's kind of a pointless offer. There's no real reason to deny, but there's also no reason to accept. If the fear is that their products might be influenced or backdoored by hostile intelligence agencies, the only reasonable solution is a total boycott. (And yes, I very much understand the exact same could be said of the NSA and a lot of US-made software.)

indubitable 9y ago
The same code compiled by the same compiler with the same settings compiles to the same binaries. So you can indeed verify that what you're running and what you have the source code to are indeed one and the same. For that matter, they could still do that to this day. Pick the time frame that the alleged hack happened and examine the source. And again you can compare the binary output to ensure that you actually have the real thing.
- shallot_router 9y ago
  In practice, this isn't really possible, though. The binary is usually going to be slightly different. In theory you could RE the differences and potentially disprove a backdoor, but it's not easy. Also, it's not necessarily that hard to slip a very subtle backdoor into the source.

nickbauman 9y ago

> Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war Remember Vietnam? Same thing happened. GoT Incident was a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident