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I am under the impression that attribution is a very difficult and often impossible process. If that is true, what is the point of including "Russian" in this h

• pluma 11y ago
  The article goes on to mention "Iranian hackers" and "Chinese hackers". Obviously all those enemies of the United States are up to no good and the US must raise a cyber army against them. Just for defence, of course. Like drone strikes and boots on the ground.
• M8 11y ago
  You have answered your own question.
• PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  > what makes "Russian" hackers more exciting then just "Hackers?" It's all about what ultimately happens to the information harvested. If it's some kids in mom's basement doing it for lulz, that's not very concerning. But, presumably, Russian hackers, even if not actual Russian government employees, would pass on useful information to their government. Even if non-classified, that could be very damaging to national security. From the article, the attacks were relatively sophisticated. Which makes it more likely that "state actors" were involved. The article also claims that the two most common state actors are Chinese and Russian, and the fingerprints of this operation pointed more to Russia than China. YMMV. As you say, "attribution is a very difficult and often impossible process".
  • EugeneOZ 11y ago
    Russian hackers (and most of russian programmers) don't support current government and would never give such important information to government. This title is just part of the information war. In Russia government is trying to create image of "cruel Americans", so maybe it's the try to make something similar from USA side. Or not :)
  • bear_hug_bro 11y ago
    In the US (and a few other places in the world), the NSA has capabitilites that private hackers don't, because they get to place their equipment on the backbone. The Russian version of the NSA has no special access in the US, so what Russian government hackers can do, any private hacker can do. Any private hacker can damage national security just as much (or more) by selling the data to the highest bidder(s) or releasing it publicly. Because of this, there is no difference for national security whether Russian government hackers did it, or anyone else. The only piece of useful info is that the systems were hacked and how they were hacked. The attribution is just for show (and as always in these cases, not very reliable either).
• NN88 11y ago
  Did you ever think the government knows more than it can tell you?
  • bcg1 11y ago
    Did you ever think the government tells you more than it can know?
• mikecb 11y ago
  Sounds like a mention in passing of the most likely culprit by a background source turned into definitive proof in original article, then all other media repeat ad nauseum. This is a very typical newscycle, and doesn't mean officials have solid proof. Though it doesn't mean they do not either.
  • eoi 11y ago
    I think it's more likely a deliberate move by the White House. They want us to believe it was Russia, but they either aren't ready to publicly substantiate the claim or don't want to be held to it politically, so they make the accusation through an anonymous source.