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First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group s

by sph 4y ago

First it was Russia meddling with elections (Trump, Brexit), now it's a team led by an ex Israeli special forces guy — which reminds me a bit of the NSO Group story. You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. In Britain we learned the whole Brexit movement was paid for, and manipulated by Russian money (and it was arguably a crucial milestone mentioned in the infamous Foundations of Geopolitics book), yet there was a little noise on printed media that went nowhere. No one investigated, no top politician jailed, just business as usual. I'm not even sure that what they're selling us in our free Western countries is democracy at all.

r00fus 4y ago
Perhaps those who were instrumental in how elections were influenced were afraid that by changing the system, they'd lock themselves out of the existing election-meddling process? I'm not saying that votes are fixed (though I wouldn't be surprised), but lots of money goes into essentially buying seats of power.
stefantalpalaru 4y ago
[dead]
patrickdavey 4y ago
Did you read Mindf*ck? Fascinating book. I'd be so so angry about Brexit after reading it if I'd been affected.
arealaccount 4y ago
Russia didn’t have a “major hand” in western elections.
- olivermarks 4y ago
  It sounds as though Israel might have though...
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Given how close the 2016 elections were, even a relatively "non-major" influence (via hacking and releasing the DNC emails and running social media campaigns) was plausibly enough to change the actual outcome.
user3939382 4y ago
You missed the update where it was proven that the "Russian meddling" story was fake. The meddling in our elections was the social media companies suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election, which the media also claimed was "Russian ops" while Hunter since admitted it was his laptop (full of emails detailing the corruption in his family). The amount of propaganda and lies that is fed to the American public through these corporate media outlets is absolutely astounding.
- mjfl 4y ago
  [flagged]
- apstls 4y ago
  One minute of googling found these: - https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... - https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume4.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... - https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download Spending some time flipping through these (ignore the last two if you please, one heavily redacted and the other focusing on Trump) after reading your comment makes me wonder if we live in two parallel universes that are in the process of converging.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    It's one universe -- this activity within the government you're citing culminated in the Mueller investigation's final report, which read "insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy". Let me translate that for you: the whole thing was a hoax from day 1, discussed non-stop by our de-facto state media corporate press, and pushed non-stop for years on the American public by the DNC which is the source of those documents. The dossier that was used as a basis for launching all of this in the first place: "Main Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko was FBI operative: court document" https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/main-steele-dossier-source-igor-danchenko-was-fbi-operative/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/main-steele-dossier-source-igo... Actually it was discovered that the Clinton campaign paying for "opposition research" was in turn the source of that fake dossier. The whole thing was made up, that's not even controversial at this point. The fact that you're on here citing those documents as if it wasn't just proves the pervasiveness of the corruption of our system of democracy and media. Here's coverage on all of this from the journalist that broke the Snowden story and is maligned by our state/corporate/fascist media outlets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-lg5RU8xAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-lg5RU8xAI
bink 4y ago
What's even more scary to me is that there are several groups out there openly advertising the fact that they have exploits that can compromise all major cell phone brands, undetectably. These groups, some commercial and some governmental inside the US, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere, can hack the phones and mobile devices of Presidents/Prime Ministers, member of Congress/Parliament, Supreme Court justices, and the military. This presents the risk of blackmail/extortion being used to control critical decisions and actions made by these people every day. They are not shy about advertising these capabilities and the rules they put in place to limit damage mostly concern damage to the hacking groups, not to countries or people.
mjfl 4y ago
wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?
- knewter 4y ago
  Yes, but people that were duped prefer to keep that info from themselves
- apstls 4y ago
  Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated effort by US intelligence to deceive the people into believing that a nation that has been openly hostile against US cyberspace has… continued to do so, this time in a new way? If this was indeed a sarcastic comment, I would consider dialing back the subtlety so you don’t inadvertently appear to lend credence to misinformation currently being spread among less scrupulous portions of the population.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe this.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    No, the previous comment brought up Trump, which is clearly alluding to "Russian collusion". I'm fine with distaste for Trump and the realities of disinformation campaigns, but the focus of the Twitter files in this regard is clearly specific to the false Russia Trump connection propagated by Dem polticians and leftists.
    - epakai 4y ago
      There's enough there to remain suspicious. The Trump campaign hid their meetings with Russians (see Flynn's transition meetings). They lied about the purpose of the Trump tower meetings. They have claimed financial ties to Russian financial institutions in the past. None of these things are "false connections propagated by Dem politicians and leftists". They have made these connections evident through their own admissions, and denials. There is certainly a narrative that drives beyond what we have evidence for, but it's absurd to pretend these things were only propagated from political rivals trying to attack their rivals.
creato 4y ago
What exactly should have been done? I don't see why a "top politician jailed" is something that should happen unless they committed a crime. Trump benefited from Russian meddling and refused to admit that it happened, which is a gross failure, but its not criminal. That should be a behavior that loses votes from voters, but that's a very different problem. The only official actions that should have been taken in response were sanctions or other international relations consequences for Russia. Trump's biggest failing on this issue was to not realize he could do this without compromising the legitimacy of his election.
igravious 4y ago
Eh? Twitter Files is a thing now. “WASHINGTON (TND) — The latest Twitter files release shows the company knew there was no evidence of Russians spreading disinformation on the platform as Democrats pushed those accusations in the media.” https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/russian-disinformation-at-center-of-latest-twitter-files-revelations https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/russian-disinformatio...
tomohawk 4y ago
Russia Meddling was all sourced from Hamilton 68, which is now completely discredited. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html
- epakai 4y ago
  Seen it with my own eyes, but several people in this thread go all out to completely dismiss it based on twitter files that exist to push a particular narrative. There were concerted efforts to push messaging via left-wing sub-reddits. I saw how the narrative pushed had little logical basis towards achieving the ends they pretended to push. I watched as the trolls waxed and waned with the war effort. I watched the same spaces push anti-Ukraine messaging when it had nothing whatsoever to do with their claimed political goals. Then I watched most of them disappear after enough people pointed out what they were doing. https://old.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/titwwg/fyi_lrlourpresident_mod_of_subreddits_like/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/titwwg/fyi_...
mostlysentient 4y ago
[dead]
chimprich 4y ago
> You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. I don't think that's entirely fair. There's been no political route open to prosecuting anyone for the above, but there's been plenty of concrete actions. Western opposition to Russia has increased substantially in recent years. Would we have been as vigorous in our support for Ukraine and eager to supply weapons and all the other things if Russia hadn't been pulling off all these shenanigans? It probably had an effect and Russia is certainly facing consequences. Western intelligence has also been a lot more proactive in combatting Russian misinformation.

by sph 4y ago

r00fus 4y ago

Perhaps those who were instrumental in how elections were influenced were afraid that by changing the system, they'd lock themselves out of the existing election-meddling process? I'm not saying that votes are fixed (though I wouldn't be surprised), but lots of money goes into essentially buying seats of power.

stefantalpalaru 4y ago

[dead]

patrickdavey 4y ago

Did you read Mindf*ck? Fascinating book. I'd be so so angry about Brexit after reading it if I'd been affected.

arealaccount 4y ago

Russia didn’t have a “major hand” in western elections.

olivermarks 4y ago
It sounds as though Israel might have though...
hackerlight 4y ago
Given how close the 2016 elections were, even a relatively "non-major" influence (via hacking and releasing the DNC emails and running social media campaigns) was plausibly enough to change the actual outcome.

user3939382 4y ago

You missed the update where it was proven that the "Russian meddling" story was fake. The meddling in our elections was the social media companies suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the election, which the media also claimed was "Russian ops" while Hunter since admitted it was his laptop (full of emails detailing the corruption in his family). The amount of propaganda and lies that is fed to the American public through these corporate media outlets is absolutely astounding.

mjfl 4y ago
[flagged]
apstls 4y ago
One minute of googling found these: - https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... - https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf - https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume4.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... - https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download Spending some time flipping through these (ignore the last two if you please, one heavily redacted and the other focusing on Trump) after reading your comment makes me wonder if we live in two parallel universes that are in the process of converging.
- user3939382 4y ago
  It's one universe -- this activity within the government you're citing culminated in the Mueller investigation's final report, which read "insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy". Let me translate that for you: the whole thing was a hoax from day 1, discussed non-stop by our de-facto state media corporate press, and pushed non-stop for years on the American public by the DNC which is the source of those documents. The dossier that was used as a basis for launching all of this in the first place: "Main Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko was FBI operative: court document" https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/main-steele-dossier-source-igor-danchenko-was-fbi-operative/ https://nypost.com/2022/09/14/main-steele-dossier-source-igo... Actually it was discovered that the Clinton campaign paying for "opposition research" was in turn the source of that fake dossier. The whole thing was made up, that's not even controversial at this point. The fact that you're on here citing those documents as if it wasn't just proves the pervasiveness of the corruption of our system of democracy and media. Here's coverage on all of this from the journalist that broke the Snowden story and is maligned by our state/corporate/fascist media outlets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-lg5RU8xAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-lg5RU8xAI

bink 4y ago

What's even more scary to me is that there are several groups out there openly advertising the fact that they have exploits that can compromise all major cell phone brands, undetectably. These groups, some commercial and some governmental inside the US, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere, can hack the phones and mobile devices of Presidents/Prime Ministers, member of Congress/Parliament, Supreme Court justices, and the military. This presents the risk of blackmail/extortion being used to control critical decisions and actions made by these people every day. They are not shy about advertising these capabilities and the rules they put in place to limit damage mostly concern damage to the hacking groups, not to countries or people.

mjfl 4y ago

wasn't 'Russia meddling' a planted story by US domestic intelligence, as has come to light in the Twitter files?

knewter 4y ago
Yes, but people that were duped prefer to keep that info from themselves
apstls 4y ago
Is this sarcasm, or is there a subset of people here who truly believe that the Twitter “files” prove the significant investigative effort, offensive actions by US Cyber Command against the IRA, direct acknowledgement of the activities by Yevgeny Prigozhin, additional investigation and confirmation by private security companies that all echoed the same, highly-believable conclusion were fabricated in a coordinated effort by US intelligence to deceive the people into believing that a nation that has been openly hostile against US cyberspace has… continued to do so, this time in a new way? If this was indeed a sarcastic comment, I would consider dialing back the subtlety so you don’t inadvertently appear to lend credence to misinformation currently being spread among less scrupulous portions of the population.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe this.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  No, the previous comment brought up Trump, which is clearly alluding to "Russian collusion". I'm fine with distaste for Trump and the realities of disinformation campaigns, but the focus of the Twitter files in this regard is clearly specific to the false Russia Trump connection propagated by Dem polticians and leftists.
  - epakai 4y ago
    There's enough there to remain suspicious. The Trump campaign hid their meetings with Russians (see Flynn's transition meetings). They lied about the purpose of the Trump tower meetings. They have claimed financial ties to Russian financial institutions in the past. None of these things are "false connections propagated by Dem politicians and leftists". They have made these connections evident through their own admissions, and denials. There is certainly a narrative that drives beyond what we have evidence for, but it's absurd to pretend these things were only propagated from political rivals trying to attack their rivals.

creato 4y ago

What exactly should have been done? I don't see why a "top politician jailed" is something that should happen unless they committed a crime. Trump benefited from Russian meddling and refused to admit that it happened, which is a gross failure, but its not criminal. That should be a behavior that loses votes from voters, but that's a very different problem. The only official actions that should have been taken in response were sanctions or other international relations consequences for Russia. Trump's biggest failing on this issue was to not realize he could do this without compromising the legitimacy of his election.

igravious 4y ago

Eh? Twitter Files is a thing now. “WASHINGTON (TND) — The latest Twitter files release shows the company knew there was no evidence of Russians spreading disinformation on the platform as Democrats pushed those accusations in the media.” https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/russian-disinformation-at-center-of-latest-twitter-files-revelations https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/russian-disinformatio...

tomohawk 4y ago

Russia Meddling was all sourced from Hamilton 68, which is now completely discredited. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619029772977455105.html

epakai 4y ago
Seen it with my own eyes, but several people in this thread go all out to completely dismiss it based on twitter files that exist to push a particular narrative. There were concerted efforts to push messaging via left-wing sub-reddits. I saw how the narrative pushed had little logical basis towards achieving the ends they pretended to push. I watched as the trolls waxed and waned with the war effort. I watched the same spaces push anti-Ukraine messaging when it had nothing whatsoever to do with their claimed political goals. Then I watched most of them disappear after enough people pointed out what they were doing. https://old.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/titwwg/fyi_lrlourpresident_mod_of_subreddits_like/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/titwwg/fyi_...

mostlysentient 4y ago

[dead]

chimprich 4y ago

> You know what is terrifying? That upon learning about Russia having a major hand in Western election, nothing concrete was done. I don't think that's entirely fair. There's been no political route open to prosecuting anyone for the above, but there's been plenty of concrete actions. Western opposition to Russia has increased substantially in recent years. Would we have been as vigorous in our support for Ukraine and eager to supply weapons and all the other things if Russia hadn't been pulling off all these shenanigans? It probably had an effect and Russia is certainly facing consequences. Western intelligence has also been a lot more proactive in combatting Russian misinformation.