Payback? Russia Gets Hacked, Revealing Putin Aide's Secrets (nbcnews.com) 228
Ukrainian activists have compromised 2,337 messages in the Microsoft Outlook accounts of two assistants to a top aide of Vladimir Putin. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes NBC News:
A Ukrainian group calling itself Cyber Hunta has released more than a gigabyte of emails and other material from the office of one of Vladimir Putin's top aides, Vladislav Surkov, that show Russia's fingerprints all over the separatist movement in Ukraine. While the Kremlin has denied the relationship between Moscow and the separatists, the emails show in great detail how Russia controlled virtually every detail of the separatist effort in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, which has torn the country apart and led to a Russian takeover of Crimea...
"This is a serious hack," said Maks Czuperski, head of the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, which has searched through the email dump and placed selected emails online. "We have seen so much happen to the United States, other countries at the hands of Russia," said Czuperski. "Not so much to Russia. It was only a question of time that some of the anonymous guys like Cyber Hunta would come to strike them back."
A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that the U.S. "had no role" in the breach -- but when asked if the material was authentic, replied there was "nothing to indicate otherwise."
"This is a serious hack," said Maks Czuperski, head of the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, which has searched through the email dump and placed selected emails online. "We have seen so much happen to the United States, other countries at the hands of Russia," said Czuperski. "Not so much to Russia. It was only a question of time that some of the anonymous guys like Cyber Hunta would come to strike them back."
A senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that the U.S. "had no role" in the breach -- but when asked if the material was authentic, replied there was "nothing to indicate otherwise."
Breaking news! (Score:4, Funny)
Breaking news!
Reports state that Vladislav Surkov has been seen en route to Siberia.
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Vladislav Surkov has commited suicide in front of the Kremlin.
... by tying himself up and shooting himself in the head half a dozen times while his hands were tied, stopping to reload on several occasions.
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Reports indicate that the incident took place tomorrow.
Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
I approve of governments hacking each other and sharing each other's dirty little secrets with the public. Adversarial systems work well in the service of justice and honesty.
I hope someone hacks Merkel's and May's E-mails too and publishes them. Unfortunately, the Germans are likely too careful to let that happen.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Typical leftist M.O. Cloak their evil acts in a facade of humanitarianism, and if anyone disagrees with the policy, scream that they're a racist, xenophobe, bigot, *ist, *ophobe, or literally hitler.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
Except that Merkel is not a leftist, at least for European standards. She heads a centre-right coalition with strong Christian roots. This given, she's probably more on the left of the political spectrum than Hillary Clinton, but that's because the US political system is strongly shifted towards the right.
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The US political system has not so much shifted to the right as jumped to a parrallel track. So a corporatists scale of those who want to steal everything on the left and those who want to kill everyone on the right. The scale is then a balance of how much they want to steal and how much they want to kill, weird as fuck (seriously it's the reality). The Russian stuff on US main stream media, well, boy who cried wolf much, seriously US main stream media guys, you bullshitted so much in the US elections, no
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You get your news about Russia from RT? Heh. If you're not a paid shill, use some basic common sense and read about Russia from a neutral country's media -- say China.
So a corporatists scale of those who want to steal everything on the left and those who want to kill everyone on the right.
Democrats and republicans have long been in agreement on killing everybody (everybody who looks at us wrong or has oil, anyway). They both want to steal too, the difference is who they want to take from and give to. Both
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"Later, at the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of the FDJ district board and secretary for "Agitprop" (Agitation and Propaganda)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"Christian and humanist ideals...".
Hmmmmmm.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
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You're saying she deserves credit for playing the "I know what's good for you" dictator?
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Would you rather have a waffling flip-floper who checks the polls every day, or someone who governs based on their principles?
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I have nothing but respect for her leadership.
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The fact is Germany needs bodies, like most industrialized nations. You can debate all day whether people from certain parts of the world should be admitted to a Western nation, but almost all the Western nations are well below population replacement birthrates. In some places, like Spain and Japan, it is far more pronounced, but Germany, if not quite so bad, is still in need of workers.
The anti-immigrant types often couch their language, talking about how the right kinds of immigrants should be admitted. I
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We are about to see a massive increase in automation throughout the west, which will drop the jobs esp. the low-end ones.
At the same time, if the world does not stop the AGW and SOON, we will see lots of nations fighting for water and food.
Best thing then is to be out of the way with a minimal population.
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You can debate all day whether people from certain parts of the world should be admitted to a Western nation, but almost all the Western nations are well below population replacement birthrates.
So how about taking steps to increase the birthrate instead of replacing the population? Replace Germans with Syrians, you don't get more Germans. You get Syria in Germany.
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Within a generation those Syrians are Germans. Your distinctions are entirely arbitrary.
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She probably single-handedly blew the EU, as more and more populations will vote for leaders who do not agree with unlimited muslim immigration, and unfortunately the only ones who do have less nice other ideas. Anyway, as the elections for local governments in Germany are any indication, she will not be prime minister after the next elections any more. She has already created a defacto split of her own party: it's often called CDU/CSU, and the CSU part has all but officially broken off.
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Even people in northern Bavaria (Franken) are not even considered real Bavarians (sorry, in German) https://www.welt.de/reise/deut... [www.welt.de]
The CSU is only part of the CDU because otherwise they would die out as a regional party.
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I've never been a fan of Merkel (wrong party anyway), but I'm pretty sure that her emails wouldn't reveal anything but hard work and things we already know. Whether you agree with her or not, this woman earns some respect, especially since she has clearly chosen her Christian and humanist ideals over her political future when she decided a refugee politics that is compatible with the German constitution instead of carving in to dumb populism.
Of course they would.
In all her years of doing her job you never think she nor her close advisors have never bad mouthed a political ally, used a dirty trick to handle a political opponent, endorsed a policy they didn't believe in for political convenience, buried a potential scandal, or talked about doing a favour for an influential private citizen?
Sure, these are all things we know politicians do, but they're rarely publicly visible. Angela Merkel is human, therefore if her emails are being used for any s
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What Merkels emails would reveal is that she most likely spends a majority of her time making sure she stays in power, by eliminating potential rivals. What hard work you expect to find is a mystery to me, because on almost every topic in her entire career, she always waited which way public opinion would swing before she jumped to the front of the long-going crowd and shouted "follow me".
This is also true of the refugee crisis, in which initially all of Germany was extremely welcoming. Her mistake was that
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I've never been a fan of Merkel (wrong party anyway), but I'm pretty sure that her emails wouldn't reveal anything but hard work and things we already know.
Well, we may learn things that would not harm her reputation, but would cause damage to others. For instance, I am certain Merkel's inbox has some stuff on how French and Dutch politicians carved to the Lisbon treaty, after their People rejected the EU constitution treaty.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
I approve of governments hacking each other and sharing each other's dirty little secrets with the public.
Indeed. For an example of what happens when we don't do this, look at Europe exactly 100 years ago. WW1 was caused by secret agreements, and massive misunderstanding of other countries intentions. For instance, the Germans were shocked when Britain entered the war against them. They shouldn't have been. There were even misunderstandings between allies. The Austrians expected the Germans to defend their eastern border while they invaded Serbia. Instead, Germany sent 90% of its army against France, leaving the Austrians to face the full force of the Russian offensive into Galicia. If the spies had done their jobs, perhaps the war could have been avoided.
It would be best if countries would volunteer to be transparent, but that is not realistic. So leaks, hacking, and spying are the only way to prevent excessive secrecy, and the corruption and misjudgement that goes with it.
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Well, maybe the Kaiser couldn't figure it out, but Wilhelm II wasn't exactly the brightest of bulbs. For goodness sake, Britain, France and Russia had entered the Triple Entente with the pretty obvious intent of responding to any potential German aggression. Beyond that, maintaining the independence of the Low Countries had been a policy of successive English, and later British governments since late Tudor and early Stewart times, so if Germans didn't think Britain was going to respond to the invasion of Be
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I approve of governments hacking each other and sharing each other's dirty little secrets with the public. Adversarial systems work well in the service of justice and honesty.
I hope someone hacks Merkel's and May's E-mails too and publishes them. Unfortunately, the Germans are likely too careful to let that happen.
Russia is using its hacks to run a smear campaign against one candidate to interfere with the Democratic election in another country.
IF the US is behind this hack, it's using the hacks to expose the Russian dictator's attempts to secretly invade another country.
Jumping down one level of abstraction really changes things.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
(1) That is Hillary's claim, not fact.
(2) What has come to light isn't a "smear campaign", it is actual facts about Hillary and her lies and deceptions, facts that US voters are entitled to.
(3) The simplest explanation why there is nothing like this being released on Trump is that (a) Trump has not engaged in Hillary's level of corruption and deception, and/or (b) Trump's staff isn't terminally incompetent when dealing with E-mail, like Hillary and the DNC.
And if that "interference" consists of exposing fraud, corruption, and deception by one of the candidates, I think it's a good thing.
Furthermore, foreign governments have a legitimate interest in not having to deal with a lying, crooked war-monger like Hillary. I would see no reason to fault them for that even if Hillary's beliefs about who is doing this are true.
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Problem with smear tactics now, what's the point, every accepts the corporations will lie about everything ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. Right there John Oliver that pommy shite stain selling his soul for corporate propaganda without batting an eyelid. Main stream media has become completely and utterly useless.
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Yes, for a politician to succeed, they need to be corrupt liars. It's a pretty fundamental rule of politics. That's why Hillary Clinton succeeds and Jill Stein fails.
There are two things that we have influence over as citizens. First, the fact that politicians are corrupt liars doesn't mean that any level of corruption and dishonesty is acceptable; we still need to punish politicians when they misbehave
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Here, let me help you out with that. [dhs.gov]
Continuing...
Have some nice charts [nytimes.com]
Anyway, as for this hack: I actually doubt this was the US. One, the US generally gives "won't confirm or deny" statements in situations like this, rather than outright denial. Second, Ukraine has an awful lot of computer talent on their own, and all the motive in the world. A lot of people in the US don't realize that the industry that's booming the most in Ukraine right now is IT; they're a popular outsourcing destination for Europe.
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Is that the same US intelligence community that was convinced there was proof that Saddam had some nukes?
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All that really matters is whether the leaks are true. In the case of Podesta's emails, we can validate them by the DKIM signature [erratasec.com]. We know how Podesta was hacked, though, it was exactly this phishing email [wikileaks.org]. See how that is a bitly link to "reset" his Google password? What I don't know is how they could possibly miss that GMail would flag this saying something like "THIS IS NOT FROM GOOGLE YOU MORON."
Similarly, whether or not that was American intelligence that hacked a top Russian aide, what's perhaps
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"are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts."
This is not proof of any kind.
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That DHS supports Clinton's line does not prove anything. Their boss wishes her to win [bbc.com] — and so, likely, wish most of the DHS own officials. She is from the Party of Government.
It may be truth, or it may be truthiness, but they'll say the same thing in any event.
NY Times has not endorsed a Republican for President since Eisenhower. They are careful to skew their news-coverage and opinion-pages to help Democrats.
I
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I actually feel bad for the more moderate GOP elements. I grew up in a conservative family in the US (no longer live in the US - but US politics affects us all). While there's many in the party who love Trump, there's also a lot who despise him and all he stands for - but feel they have no other option.
While I have no sympathy for people who cast their vote out of bigotry (against races, religions, sexualities, genders, etc), for people who cast it out of ideology, I can fully understand, even where I don'
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The fact is, that the GOP is no longer Republican. It has been being destroyed by the Tea* that continues to run out the Republicans calling them all RINOs. Sadly, the TEA* do not have a clue that they have more in common with constitutional or even a nazi fascists party.
As to pro-lifers and pro-choice, I wish that they would get a grasp of reality. Im NOT in favor of elective late term abort
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Re, late term abortion: just over 1% of abortions are late term. Of these, the overwhelming majority are due to severe fetal deformities/other issues - commonly fatal. I ask people to put themselves in the mother's situation. You're pregnant, most of the way through your pregnancy and you receive the most devastating news you could get. Perhaps your child's brain never developed. Perhaps their lungs are deformed, and your only experience with your child will be watching them gasp and suffocate before they die. These are the real-world situations mothers face when having to make the decision about a late-term abortion. Random combinations of genes don't always play nicely. Meanwhile, you're still pregnant. You've still got people coming up, smiles on their faces, "Oh, when's the baby due? I bet you're so excited!", and having to explain to them every time that your child will die at birth.
What's the purpose of dragging it out? To make the mother suffer? To make the child suffer?
Another misconception is that late term abortions are D&E. They almost never are. Not only is it medically preferable to induce labour whenever the uterus is capable of it, but there comes a point where D&E isn't even a realistic medical possibility. If an induced miscarriage leads to a potentially viable child - evaluated by the same medical standards as for non-induced delivery - by law doctors are required to perform any life-saving procedures, within the same decisionmaking confines.
The Trump view of people "ripping babies" out of uteruses at "nine months" for no reason and killing them isn't even remotely close to the actuality. It's a unicorn. To be fair, Clinton misstated it also, describing the life of the mother as being a common cause for late-term abortion (it isn't).
Anyway, I think I've accidentally derailed things a bit here, and should apologize for that.
Sweden, eh? Iceland is my home - if you move, welcome to the Nordic club. :) Today's actually our election day here, and we may end up with a Pirate-headed government. I know the guy who's one of the most likely PM candidates if the pirates end up leading a coalition government; I think most Slashdotters would love him. Worked first setting up fab labs around the world and infrastructure for sharing medical/educational info in poor countries, then spent the past several years working on a project to datamine government reports to root out indications of secret diversion of money (corruption, weapons smuggling, things of that nature).
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One of the standard rhetorical tricks in a debate, particular one on a very emotive issue, is to appeal to the most extreme cases. Clinton may have got some details wrong, but the one thing she was right about is just how very rare these extreme late term abortions Trump was talking about are. Abortions carried out after 21 weeks make up 1.4% of all abortions in the US, and the number of extreme late term abortions at 24 weeks or more probably amount to less than a tenth of a percent. But because abortions
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump really doesn't care about abortion but he has to take a stand against it to get the votes of the huge number of christian fundamentalists in the US.
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True, but then everyone has to live with the choices they've made. No one has to raise a child, they can always give it up.
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No, you're just deliberately obtuse.
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It also doesn't affect you. You'll never again be an unborn child whose fate is determined by the present mood of your mother.
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Interesting morality you have there.
Do you also raise no objection to killing defenceless Swiss people, assuming you're not one yourself?
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This is true. I can not vote for someone who supports abortion.
Out of interest what level is your biology education? I find there is a strong correlation between strict anti-abortion views and level of science education.
Also worth pointing out, Trump is pro-choice, like most other things he is just saying what you want to hear to get your vote. If he wins, he won't go near that issue. How will that make you feel?
I consider the abortion of a human life to be murder.
Good thing that abortions are usually done on foetuses, not humans (see above)
Holding that belief how could I possibly vote for someone who supports abortion? Homosexuality and Transgender issues I can compromise on, even gay marriage but murder of the innocent is a line I can not cross.
Yet you'll happily support policies which result in the actual deaths of actual
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It is strange that people who hate abortions, arr perfectly fine with death penalty and warmongering.
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That will stop the parties from side issues (can not afford it) and to focus on REAL issues.
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Yes. Trump pushed the logical extreme and Clinton was unable to handle it. Sure, twitter was all over it but twitter wasn't at the debate. She was all tied up in her rhetoric that she forgot the broader context of the situation.
It's not just last month fetuses that are viable.
Technology has advanced to the point where abortions and heroic attempts to save the fetus overlap. A great deal of money can be spent to save a single infant in this manner.
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BUT, I believe that not just in the 3rd trimester, but once the fetus is viable outside of the body, is a good time to put restrictions on abortions.
Thankfully, the number of abortions after that point, really are rare and few are elective. So, by putting in such a bill, it does not impact much.
The real issue is that the far right go overboard and then try to use that stop 100%
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Huh? No, I'm here because I love Iceland. It's a wonderful country. Lively creative culture in town, always things going on, but then I can drive a few minutes outside of town and be in the middle of nowhere, with some of the most amazing landscapes on Earth. :)
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Re, late term abortion: just over 1% of abortions are late term. Of these, the overwhelming majority are due to severe fetal deformities/other issues - commonly fatal.
Are you one of the people that pretend that Dr. Kermit Gosnell didn't exist?
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My point is that Dr Gosnell considered what he did to be abortion, not murder. Further, plenty of people at the time supported him, and only dropped their support after he was convicted. And now many of those same people pretend he never existed, and pretend that nothing like his practices could ever happen.
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I'm registered Libertarian, though if there was A PARTY THAT WAS REAL HONEST TO GOD REPUBLICAN, I would switch. The fact is, that the GOP is no longer Republican. It has been being destroyed by the Tea* that continues to run out the Republicans calling them all RINOs. Sadly, the TEA* do not have a clue that they have more in common with constitutional or even a nazi fascists party.
What a bizarre thing to write. Take away the Tea Party people and what do you have left? Big business, neo-cons, and social conservatives. And it's been much that way since shortly after the US Civil War (neo-conservativism is relatively new, but the rest has been around for a while). I don't recall your beliefs aligning with any of them, but YMMV.
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But there's no bigotry behind pro-lifers; it just comes down to a different worldview.
You make it sound symmetric, but it is not. Only one side wants to force their morality on others. That sounds bigoted to me.
OK, I'm not American, so its hard to understand. I know people who believe abortion is wrong, but they don't seem to think they have a right to compel other people.
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I grew up in a conservative family in the US (no longer live in the US - but US politics affects us all). While there's many in the party who love Trump, there's also a lot who despise him and all he stands for - but feel they have no other option.
Sure they do, they have Hilary, who has a platform entirely full of Republican Party ideals. It's the liberals that don't have a candidate that's representing them in this election.
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Seeing the manner in which Democrats behave on social media has caused me to flip my party affiliation this election. The histrionics started to wear thin at a certain point. The vitriol and anti-liberty attitudes of Democrats make them look like they are "projecting".
The communist pretending to be a Democrat also didn't help.
They may find that the insults they are eager to overuse may end up diluted by their shenanigans.
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Seeing the manner in which Democrats behave on social media has caused me to flip my party affiliation this election.
You say that as if the other side are any better? I get that people hate the Democrats, but don't pretend that the Republicans are in any way different.
This election is choice between a professional politician, who may actually be satan, but is capable of keeping things ticking along, and Ronald McDonald who has absolutely no idea what he's doing and could burn the house down.
The least worst option would be to pick the politician, and then vigourously campaign your local Republican representative to sort
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The least worst option would be to pick the politician, and then vigourously campaign your local Republican representative to sort their shit out and produce a viable candidate for 2020.
Not possible. If Hillary gets in she grants amnesty and we find out there's really more like 20-30 million illegals in the US (they've been saying 11 million for 20 years now). Plus she ramps up the importation of millions of more semi-retarded 3rd worlders. Texas flips blue and that's pretty much all she wrote for the Republic.
This is a war of the top against the middle using poor people from authoritarian cultures with high corruption tolerance as pawns to stuff the ballot boxes, starting with the Immigra
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Not possible. If Hillary gets in she grants amnesty...
Yeah it doesn't work like that. Do you what Congress is?
Plus she ramps up the importation of millions of more semi-retarded 3rd worlders.
Trump currently has the retard vote [pewresearch.org] by a landslide. So yeah, wrong again...
This is a war of the top against the middle using poor people from authoritarian cultures with high corruption tolerance as pawns to stuff the ballot boxes, starting with the Immigration Act of 1965. This is the last stand. It's Trump or slavery. Your choice.
Trump is the 1% you goose. The very thing you despise has tricked you into thinking he will save your sorry ass.
This is why Trump polls well with stupid people, they haven't developed the critical thinking skills necessary to see past the bullshit catchphrases.
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THIS IS WAR! (Score:2, Insightful)
And CNN has one big hard on! Wolf is said to be walking around like Ron Burgundy.
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10 emails are easily faked but 1 GB is actually probably easier to hack than fake.
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So what one does is hack the 1GB of emails and then fake 10 that lay out your opponents' plans for murdering puppies.
Not saying that's what happened here. So far I haven't seen any leaks/hacks that appear to have fakery in them, but now that we've got weaponized leaking I'm sure it's coming.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Serve them right... (Score:2)
... for using Outhouse. No wonder Mr Putin has asked that all Russian government systems be moved to open source as soon as possible.
Putin's aids secret (Score:2)
Anyone else read that as Putin's aids secret, or was it ju$ ,ou*(*
no carrier.
No surprises there (Score:2)
Not a surprise.
Still a very one-sided way to look at it. Last I checked history, the seperatists didn't start the falling apart of the Ukraine, it was the right-wing extremist behind the Maiden movement, who escalated the protest into civil war and then took control of the government. There seem to be interesting ties to several western governments, but I'm not sure we will ever learn the truth.
That Russia supports the seperatists is basically the worst-kept not-quite-secret of the world.
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Re:Wikileaks (Score:3)
I would expect WikiLeaks to show up in Russian emails regardless of their involvement. If I was Putin, and not involved in the hacking, I would be delighted to receive credit for mucking up US politics. I can easily imagine Putin bragging or laughing it up with his cronies over email.
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What does Wikileaks have to do with the seizure of Crimea and occupation of Donbas?
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What does Wikileaks have to do with the returning home of Crimea and liberation of Donbas?
FTFY.
Re:MH17 (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, other than than Girkin bragging about the shootdown on VKontakte? Or the photo of the BUK battery with one missile missing.
Ukraine banned commercial only from flying low (below 32000 ft) because there was no suspicion Russia would provide their troops with weaponry useful only against planes with no direct combat roles, as those troops were thinly disguised as "not active duty soldiers".
Re:MH17 (Score:5, Informative)
A commercial flight had flown over the exact same area several hours before without incident. Since the Russians hadn't had the Buk missile system in place at that time the flight flew on its way without incident.
Once the Buk system was in place Russian troops, with the help of their terrorist allies, shot down MH-17. They bragged about shooting down a "Ukrainian" plane, even posted videos of themselves celebrating the act. Their joyous phone calls and postings on social media were also recorded.
Only after they realized they had shot down a commercial airliner [vice.com] did they then frantically try to deny they're the ones who shot it down. They tried to remove their videos and postings but copies had already been made. When the plane fell to the ground the Russians and their terrorist allies then disturbed the crime scene by going through the passengers personal belongings, including taking people's credit cards and cash.
To further try and cover up their crime they refused access to the Dutch investigators for several days.
Unfortunately for the Russians, all the evidence pointed to them shooting the plane down, including pictures of the Buk system [unian.info] which came into Ukraine with all its tubes filled, then leaving immediately after the shoot down with at least one empty tube.
This video [youtube.com] shows MH-17 falling to the ground after the shooting, being filmed by either a terrorist or Russian troop. Also, near the end of the video, at the 6:25 mark, a recording of a Russian newscaster reporting on the shoot down and stating the terrorists had shot the plane down. Since you speak Russian you will be able to understand her words and may even recognize her from your daily propaganda newscasts.
Of course you'll deny what she's saying but it doesn't matter. The world knows the truth. Russia is supporting the terrorists in Ukraine and Russia was involved with, if not responsible for, the shooting down a civilian airliner.
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There's no lack of self-awareness like an American Exceptionalist accusing people of foolishly buying Russia propaganda. When you're sucking down supertanker-loads of third grade bullshit brought to you by the same people who said Saddam had ties to Al Queda and WMD's. People who questioned that propaganda were also accused of being Saddam lovers. SSDD.
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They also moderate good-faith posters as being trolls or flamebait. I take it as a compliment.
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There are many American trolls on /., you'll see them foaming at the mouth about Russia. That's basically the party line (or lack thereof) on foreign policy these days if you're an Obama or Clinton supporter. Issues like investigating Hillary Clinton's vast and deep corruption is a far more important issue than some propaganda-spewing acolyte crying "but...but...but...RUSSIA!"
We laugh at their weak attempts of distraction as opposed to those of a master in the craft such as Vladislav Surkov.
TFTFY.
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It's all but certain it was a Buk missile system that brought the aircraft down, which lands this squarely in Russia's court. I don't even think Russia puts that much effort into denying it now.
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Because they might be shot down, thereby incurring a rather heavy loss? (Apart from the 298 lives).
manu0601 is right. The only certain conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence that has been published so far is that it was the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to ensure the safety of all flights over its territory. Under the circumstances, it is surprising that MH17 was explicitly diverted form its normal flight path so as to route it directly over the area where the fighting was fiercest. No
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And what would that be? That Russian-backed separatists are such out of control goons that Russia handing them Buk missile systems was inevitably going to lead to casualties? There's little doubt of what brought the jet down, and little doubt as to who brought it down, so now we're left with putting the blame on Ukraine for incompetence, but not bringing up the fact that it was Russian-backed irregulars who destroyed a civilian aircraft?
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Of course not, because that would mean having to admit that Russia handed a bunch of separatist rebels an advanced surface to air missile and letting them bring down aircraft indiscriminately. Much better to declare the BBC is unreliable or has an ax to grind.
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They comprehensively present the evidence for the missile type and launcher that destroyed the plane
Please note my point about the civil war area.
Even if we get confidence about what shot down MH17, that still does not tells us who operated it. You have a zone not fully controlled by anyone, filled with soldiers from both side, foreign fighters, US and Russian spies and war instructors. And all these people can seize and use weapons from each others.
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Please note my point about the civil war area.
Even if we get confidence about what shot down MH17, that still does not tells us who operated it.
Apart from the operators bragging about it on social media you mean? And the cellular metadata putting them all in the right place at the right time, and wire tapped calls of their connections with Moscow? Apart from that we have no idea...
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Apart from the operators bragging about it on social media you mean? And the cellular metadata putting them all in the right place at the right time, and wire tapped calls of their connections with Moscow?
You refer to John Kerry's statement from july 2014, right?
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Apart from the operators bragging about it on social media you mean? And the cellular metadata putting them all in the right place at the right time, and wire tapped calls of their connections with Moscow?
You refer to John Kerry's statement from july 2014, right?
Couldn't remember the original source, but there is plenty on the Internets...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
http://www.news.com.au/travel/... [news.com.au]
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Yes, that's the guy who will be going to Siberia (if anyone). Or perhaps the IT planner. As I said before, Mr Putin has very wisely asked everyone in the Russian government to cut across to open source as soon as possible. When another nation's government is trying to destroy you by any and all means, it isn't smart to use software written in that country.
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You have trouble believing that when both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president in the US have likewise been grossly irresponsible with email security?
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Zero evidence has been presented that Russia is "guilty" of anything ... But American Exceptionalists seem eager....
I came across this the other day in a different context and found it interesting. I had never heard about "whataboutism" or "tu quoque" for the Latin lovers out there.
"Whataboutism"
Whataboutism is a term describing a propaganda technique used by the Soviet Union in its dealings with the Western world during the Cold War. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the response would be "What about..." followed by the naming of an event in the Western world.[1][2] It represents a case of tu quoque or t
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It's the same sort of argument as "look who's talking" or the "pot calling the kettle black". Yes, if you are debating a specific issue then a diversion into "whataboutism" is clearly a logical fallacy.
In the context of international relations however, I think it can be an entirely valid tactic. When the USA government criticizes Russia or some other nation for its policies, they are essentially scrutinizing those countries by some sort of "moral standard" to which a nation should conform. With Russia, i
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NATO's military and economic power dwarfs Russia. Russia is, these days, a regional power whose reach basically extends little past the Bosporus. Yes, it has some big nukes, but it can never actually use them because to do so would see the Russian state dissolve in a nuclear fire. So it has it points its nuclear penis around, trying to embolden its own citizens, even as Putin and his pals lead the country into a prolonged economic decline that can only end with Russia on its knees.
It's a pity. Russians are
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NATO's military and economic power dwarfs Russia. Russia is, these days, a regional power whose reach basically extends little past the Bosporus.
Additionally, Russia has a very different view of history compared to the interpretations common in North America. Not that either one is necessarily "wrong" or "right", but aspects of each are certainly different.
Take WW2 for example - most North Americans have little understanding how devistating that war was in the USSR. This video for example gives some graphics about per-country WW2 deaths that shows how the USSR's deaths dwarf everyone else's. I can see how this type of history can make a people feel
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I give you credit. Most Kremlin-paid posters pretend to be Westerners. At least you make it very clear who you are.