Data. Information that can be analyzed. Don’t speak to me like I’m a child. Unlike yourself, I can read.
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And I think I’ll just stop there. Good luck navigating this confusing world of conflicting authorities and blind faiths, friend. I’ll just leave this here:
Not to Godwin the thread, but wasn’t “impressing Hitler with individual initiative” one of the guiding “principles” of SS officers?
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Not according to Comey’s statement about mishandling classified information, but as I said this is off topic.
This is called “Monday morning quarterbacking.” There was a civil war in Libya, it was going on for a while before the US and other NATO countries decided to help those opposed to Gaddafi. Had we not stepped in and Gaddafi stayed in power undoubtedly someone would be complaining about Obama’s missed opportunities. Nevertheless, when people usually bring up “Benghazi” they aren’t actually addressing the larger civil war, but one night of violence that led to the deaths of three Americans, and confusion among administration staff about whether it was related to protests over an anti-Muslim film. This is also Monday morning quarterbacking, combined with a dose of conspiracy theory. We can’t expect our politicians to foresee every event and plan for every contingency, but whatever lapses there were sure seem like reasonable human error compared to the lapses of the Bush administration.
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- This is begging the question.
- This is just speculation, whereas there is some (imperfect) evidence suggesting Russians are behind it.
- You are seriously overstating the competency of competent hackers. Having worked in QA (and other capacities) for professional software companies, I know that disciplined professionals working in a team context make more serious mistakes than this every day. It would hardly surprise me that an undisciplined black hat accustomed to working alone would be even sloppier than this.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t allow you to make any conclusions at all. Compare with: “It certainly sounds as if someone wanted people to think that someone wanted people to think it looked like the Russians!” We can nest these endlessly, or come up with somewhat more creative narratives like your BfV idea.
Nothing can be “proven” in a strong sense – the best you can hope for is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence. But you’re never going to get that in incidents like this where anonymous actors who may or may not be acting on behalf of a state spy organization. If you insist on a high standard of evidence, then it will never be met, the situation will always constitute a mystery, and you’ll never be able to arrive at a conclusion that would inform your next action.
The best you can do is marshal the evidence that is available for the given conclusions and go from there. The “it was the Russians” side of the argument has some admittedly imperfect (for the very reasons you state) evidence, but so far the “it was not the Russians, it was some third party who wants us to think it’s the Russians” side has not provided any. Or, in the absence of evidence, the very least that would be needed would be a compelling narrative for someone else with the motive and means to do this and make it look like it was state-connected Russian hackers doing it.
I like to think of myself as an open-minded guy, but if I’m judging this on the basis of the case each side has made, “it was a state-connected Russian hacker” seems to be the safest conclusion at the moment.
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Both death threats and asking people to attack someone based on the color of their skin are among those things that are not covered by “freedom of speech” in most European jurisdictions. In other words, you can go to prison for that.
In my ideal world, a platform provider like Twitter would issue a temporary ban in extreme cases, and then wait for the court verdict. If the speech is found to be not illegal, then I do not see why I would want a private entity like Twitter censoring it, either.
In my ideal world the investigation into such crimes starts immediately when it is reported to the authorities. In my most ideal of worlds, the decision about whether to take some content offline / temporarily ban someone / … could be handled by a legitimate authority, as a preliminary injunction.
Now, what to outlaw and what to consider as “protected speech”, there is room for a lot of debate here. That’s why countries have constitutions, democratically legitimized laws, and constitutional courts that check whether those things fit together. The opinions of our digital feudal lords should not play into this, and neither should their interest in their company’s reputation or financial bottom line.
I do not believe that definition applies to a situation where “penetrating another nation’s computers or networks” and “causing damage or disruption” are entirely separate from each other. This was a regular act of espionage (if it was indeed “the Russians”), followed by the not-quite-altruistic disclosure of information about a shameful act.
Keep in mind that attacks are possible that would be considered real acts of war, so “cyber warfare” should not be used in an inflationary manner, either.
Also NKVD under Stalin, also many mafia organizations. The man in charge doesn’t order things - he expresses wishes that the underlings then generously take up on their own initiative. It maintains plausible deniability, leaves open the option to punish the underlings if they screw up (because it’s up to them to figure out how to fulfil the leader’s wishes well), and, hopefully, keeps the underlings too busy working out the uncertainties of the leader’s wishes that they don’t have time to plot for personal gain. It’s a time tested approach.
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It turns out if you don’t do shit like this in the first place then no one can find out you did shit like this. Because, you know, you didn’t.
Anyway, I’m still not sold on Putin-did-it. It’s definitely a possibility, but I’m pretty sure the FBI were the ones who told us North Korea was behind the Sony leak.
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Someone, but not me.
I think it would be very hard for Twitter to prove in a court of law that Milo’s roundabout suggestions to his followers that they trolley Leslie Jones are illegal or hate speech. He’s essentially been a professional troll for quite awhile, and Twitter has temporarily banned him several times; this was essentially his third (fourth? fifth?) strike, and after a series of embarrassing missteps recently, Twitter’s trying to show that it won’t tolerate that kind of bullying.
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This is exactly why, for me, considering “Cyberattacks” as acts of war as a matter of US policy is so fraught. I had similar concerns with “North Korean” hacking incidents a year or so ago. Cybersecurity investigations are engines that manufacture pretense out of innuendo.
That is simply not good enough; let’s not go to war or create a diplomatic incident based on these mirrors or this smoke. This has been and will be abused by “credible” authorities to forward wrongful agendas. I simply refuse to consider it to be credible or to view acts subsequently justified by it or based upon it to be legitimate.
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You’re using a private company’s platform and agreed to its TOS. They have every right censor their users because they could be legally liable (criminally and civilly) if one user compelled another user to break the law.
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I don’t fully agree with this.
Yes, if its the truth, then its good to know. However, we also know that we only have a piece of the truth, and if that piece of truth has been selected to guide thought and action, then its actually being used in the service of a lie.
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Per this and several other pieces of reporting already posted here, there are also indications that the leaked documents and emails may have been altered:
See the above. No one here appears to have seen a shameful truth and looked to right a wrong. Its increasingly obvious that an antagonistic foreign government saw an opportunity to manipulate information they could come by easily to their own benefit.
Assange/Wikileaks have a history of being cosy with Russia or acting in ways that just happen totally by accident (wink wink) to dovetail nicely with Russian goals and actions. So I’d buy it on that end, particularly given their involvement here. Snowden on the other hand released his dump in concert with well regarded journalists based here and in Western Europe, with a careful approach to scrubbing info that wasn’t pertinent to what they were attempting but might cause a bunch of unneeded chaos. Its almost the opposite of what Wikileaks has traditionally done. However much I dislike the guy, and think he had a political ulterior motive, he had a (mostly) clear point and seemed fairly above board about the whole thing. Though again he landed in Russia, and who knows what he had to give up to get safe passage there. In my opinion that’s likely the US’s fault, Russia taking opportunistic advantage after the feds badly mishandled it.
Manning? Manning seems to be a deeply troubled person who was taken advantage of and used by unscrupulous people. And her sad story was the point at which I decided Wikileaks probably wasn’t the good guys.
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Well yes, the metadata of the leaked documents is not exactly proof of who leaked them. Taken in the absence of any other data at all - such as who committed the hack - this is weak evidence.
But the proof of who stole them in the first place is pretty strong, almost iron clad. So if we feel there is a 95% confidence the Russians stole them, and the metadata of the documents also points back to Russians, then the confidence level they are being leaked by the same agents is pretty high. Otherwise whomever is leaking them got them from the Russians and wanted things to point back to the Russians… right up until security analysts pointed out the metadata pointed back tot he Russians, at which point all the metadata miraculously disappeared. Which, again, suggests its the Russians trying to cover their tracks.
It boils down to Occam’s razor. The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one.
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welp its time to add russia to the “vast right wing conspiracy” to hurt the teflon two.HAHA! they are so desperate it is insanely funny.good luck with your fantasies fbi!
You… didn’t read any of the linked articles, did you?
you…do realize that the us media is a mockingbird media and I don’t really have time to read state propaganda.
As it happens, Snowden’s flight connecting through Moscow was arranged by Wikileaks. So that’s one more WikieLeaks action that ended up helping out Russia.
I have a similar opinion of Snowden; Probably my biggest concern about him is the possibility that his tradecraft wasn’t as good as he thought it was.and China and/or Russia were able to get there hands on his data while he was in Hong Kong.
