4 ms·

Does a failure to influence the elections make their hacking ok?

• ng12 8y ago
  Kind of, mostly because I don't trust the media to differentiate between rogue actors doing some port sniffing and targeted state-sponsored hacking. For example, I'm fairly convinced most fake news is about making a quick buck, not about actually influencing the illection.
  • nbabitskiy 8y ago
    There is no doubt inside Russia, that e.g. DNC leak was a state-sponsored campaign, conducted by the guys in the same department that employed the Salisbury's killers (military intelligence). The fake news trolls all work for a private company, owned by a Putin's crony oligarch called Prigozhin, and we are way past adding "allegedly" at this point. Why are they too called "hackers" is a mistery. How would you go about making a quick buck with fake news? Betting on Trump on the eve of the elections 4 to 1 (iirc) would be more of a gambling addiction than business plan.
    • ng12 8y ago
      > https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50... This guy claimed he was making $10-$30k a month. There was another piece I can't find right now about a couple of college kids doing something similar. Fake news is wildly profitable.
      • nbabitskiy 8y ago
        A guy claiming to be one of the biggest on the fake news market makes a rounding error of a 30-second NFL finals ad. That's all we have to know about the fake news. (Good for him, though).