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Government Security United States

Were Russian Hackers Deterred From Interfering In America's Election? (omaha.com) 240

"Despite probing and trolling, a Russian cyberattack is the dog that did not bark in Tuesday's midterm elections," writes national security columnist Eli Lake. This is the assessment of the Department of Homeland Security, which says there were no signs of a coordinated campaign to disrupt U.S. voting. This welcome news raises a relevant and important question: Were cyber adversaries actually deterred from infiltrating voter databases and changing election results...?

In September the White House unveiled a new policy aimed at deterring Russia, China, Iran and North Korea from hacking U.S. computer networks in general and the midterms in particular. National security adviser John Bolton acknowledged as much last week when he said the U.S. government was undertaking "offensive cyber operations" aimed at "defending the integrity of our electoral process." There aren't many details. Reportedly this entailed sending texts, pop-ups, emails and direct messages warning Russian trolls and military hackers not to disrupt the midterms. U.S. officials tell me much more is going on that remains classified. It is part of a new approach from the Trump administration that purports to unleash U.S. Cyber Command to hack the hackers back, to fight them in their networks as opposed to America's.

Bolton has said the policy reverses previous restrictions on military hackers to disrupt the networks from which rival powers attack the U.S. Sometimes this is called "persistent engagement" or "defend forward." And it represents a shift in the broader U.S. approach to engaging adversaries in cyberspace.... The difference now is that America's cyber warriors will routinely try to disrupt cyberattacks before they begin... The object of cyberdeterrence is not to get an adversary to never use cyberweapons. It's to prevent attacks of certain critical systems such as voter registration databases, electrical grids and missile command-and-control systems. The theory, at least, is to force adversaries to devote resources they would otherwise use to attack the U.S. to better secure their own networks.

Jason Healey, a historian of cyber conflicts at Columbia University's School for International and Public Affairs, asks "How much of cyberspace will survive the war?" warning that "persistent engagement" could lead to a dangerous miscalculation by an adversarial nation-state -- or even worse, a spiral of escalation, with other state's following America's lead, changing the open Internet into more of a battleground.
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Were Russian Hackers Deterred From Interfering In America's Election?

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  • Uh-huh (Score:5, Funny)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @10:46PM (#57623980) Journal

    National security adviser John Bolton acknowledged as much last week when he said the U.S. government was undertaking "offensive cyber operations" aimed at "defending the integrity of our electoral process." There aren't many details. Reportedly this entailed sending texts, pop-ups, emails and direct messages warning Russian trolls and military hackers not to disrupt the midterms.

    Clearly, Russian trolls' and military hackers' personal kryptonite is US government pop-ups and direct warning messages.... Just the one question: why did we wait until this election cycle to break out the big guns?

    • Clearly, Russian trolls' and military hackers' personal kryptonite is US government pop-ups and direct warning messages

      I imagine a text to a burner phone you think is secure would scare most of people. And since Russia is starting to play shadow war assassination games, they might worry about being targeted.

      • Clearly, Russian trolls' and military hackers' personal kryptonite is US government pop-ups and direct warning messages

        I imagine a text to a burner phone you think is secure would scare most of people. And since Russia is starting to play shadow war assassination games, they might worry about being targeted.

        Perhaps, if the target were within the jurisdiction of US authorities, but the interference is at the very least State-approved and quite likely State-sponsored... just as similar programs in the US, China, and all the rest of the nations sitting on the UN Security Council and even many of those who do not.

        On the plus side, it's an improvement over thousands of years of seeking advantage through conventional warfare. This is modern day influence peddling... winning the hearts and minds with minimal body b

        • And since Russia is starting to play shadow war assassination games,

          Perhaps, if the target were within the jurisdiction of US authorities

          Russia took out some people who thought they were safe in the UK. I'm not so sure the US would take them out, but I'm not sure I would bet my life against it.

      • I imagine a text to a burner phone you think is secure would scare most of people.

        Well, of course... because the first thing that an opposing force does after identifying your phone is warn you that they've done so.

    • by Nutria ( 679911 )

      You clearly overlooked the quote U.S. officials tell me much more is going on that remains classified.

      • You clearly overlooked the quote U.S. officials tell me much more is going on that remains classified.

        Whenever the governors tell you there's more afoot than they are able to reveal because classified,aka:National Security, you can rest assured it's very much like the Saudis explaining Khashoggi's death as an interrogation accident, I mean a rogue operatives escapade, er, um, shit, we don't know what happened, but it definitely wasn't the fault of the Crown Prince.

    • You'd have to ask Obama. However the answer would be that the establishment thought it could never lose and taking a hardline stance would mean that Hillary couldn't whip out another reset button after the election since the first worked so well.

    • Maybe Trump can't afford to pay them THIS time. Maybe the CIA re-routed their attacks into a honeypot. Maybe Russia likes how things are going, so no need to stir the pot.
  • No need this time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dims had it all:
    - Fake news collusion
    - Ballot stuffing
    - Illegal votes

  • The far left and the media have been beating this drum for multiple years.

    If one were to take all the claims at face value, you would think that there's Russians in the bloody toaster. They're everywhere! Doing all the bad things, they ran the election, they hacked servers, "they" are every single account on social media that doesn't mean heavily left.

    If you disagree with anything, you're not real, probably a Russian bot! Or a Nazi, clearly!

    They wonder why people are voting differently to how they actually

    • Funny how things change. In my youth, it was the right that was playing the scary Russian threat card. Remember McCarthy?

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:13PM (#57624100)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • The US has no left.

          • The US has no left.

            A sentiment that the US's lefties LOVE to repeat, in a routine attempt to make their far lefty ideas sound somehow more reasonable. "Sure, we think there should be a $32 trillion government takeover of all health care, but that's a reasonable, center-right position, because there is no left here in the US." Or, "We think there should be no borders, and that the law enforcement agency tasked with capturing felons illegally present in the country should be abolished - but that's not some nonsensical far-lef

            • And now a party that represents that positions? Because unless there is one, you can have any opinion you want, if nobody is there to represent you, you may as well not exist in our political world.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Dorianny ( 1847922 )
          Is the GOP really so incompetent that they would have elections stolen in a State they control the Governor's office the Secretary of State and Florida’s Chief Election Officer posts? Maybe they should invite Putin to come lead the GOP directly
          • Is the GOP really so incompetent that they would have elections stolen in a State they control the Governor's office the Secretary of State and Florida’s Chief Election Officer posts?

            Spoken like someone who is, oddly, pretending not to know that such things are - in almost every practical way that impacts the way elections are conducted - run at the county level. And in the FL counties that are the recurring problems, we have Democrats to blame. And they HAVE been blamed, and caught, multiple times. But the local Democrats like the results of their corruption, so keep putting the same people or their ilk right back in charge. That's exactly what's going on in Broward, right now. It's o

        • You'd think the American left would have much more in common with the former Communists in Russia than anybody on the right

          Yeah, that Putin is such a hippie.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The difference now is that Russia doesn't have to put people on the ground in the US, they can do it all over the internet, up to and including organizaing events that Americans unwittingly attend. The scale is also completely different, with their reach being to millions of people via social media.

        Fortunately it does look like social media companies are starting to get on top of this and it's working. Or maybe the Russians just didn't think it was worth putting too much effort into this election, because i

        • by gtall ( 79522 )

          That and having their lapdog in the Oval Office means they do not have to try hard to screw up the U.S.

        • If Omnicom has Colgate and Crest as customers do we then claim they are trying to sow confusion, no, it's simply business as usual.

    • the entire American Intelligence community is beating this drum. There's no one outside the right wing that isn't saying that Russia interfered with our last election, and virtually everyone (again everyone outside the right wing) says the interference was largely successful.

      We're a weaker and more divided nation since the last election. That our President had an advert that multiple networks refused to run this last election speaks volumes to how how much of a mess things are right now.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Yet despite all these claims, the only "evidence" is accusations against a handful of facebook trolls. Remember when Mueller leveled an indictment against that company that didn't even exist at the time of the supposed "interference"? Remember how he panicked when they called his bluff and said they'd see him court, and he tried to delay since he had sweet fuck-all?

        The media and Hollywood are masters of making fringe opinions seem like they're mainstream. If you want to throw an accusation like "division" a

      • by Anonymous Coward

        These are the publicly known US intelligence agencies:
        Twenty-Fifth Air Force
        Army Intelligence and Security Command
        Central Intelligence Agency
        Coast Guard Intelligence
        Defense Intelligence Agency
        Dept of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
        Homeland Security Department Office of Intelligence and Analysis
        State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
        Treasury Department Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
        Drug Enforcement Administration Office of National Security Intelligence
        Feder

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The FBI under Obama stated there were no ties between Russia and our President BEFORE the took place that started this scam.
        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-fbi-says-no-direct-ties-between-russia-donald-trumps-campaign/

        This "so-called Trump dossier" was investigated under Muller and it can not be verified.
        https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-russia-dossier-robert-mueller-investigation/

        All this crying about Russia hacking our election, well the fact is the way the election system is setup i

    • by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:20PM (#57624128)

      If i was the russian government trying to push the republicans, i would just secretly fund the antifa.
      Those boys do wonders to ruin the reputation of the democrats.

      • Haven't you heard? Anything you don't like hearing about your side is a false flag.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      The far left and the media have been beating this drum for multiple years.

      The Russian government had a preference for Trump and a loathing of Hillary as she pointed out their corruption. This is well known established fact.

      What people forget, or gloss over, is their goal was not a happy productive America under Trump. No, they did more than simply support Trump or attack Hillary. They were inflaming tensions throughout the country. They were doing what they could to tear us apart.

      The most likely reason we saw less this election than the last is there was no need to fan any pa

    • It is not about left vs right. Russia is sowing discord and distrust in democracy. Russia has been interfering in many countries not just the US, but also Germany, France, Britain, Norway and more. Russia funds far-right parties like National Front in France, supports the anti EU UKIP party in the UK and the left-wing Spanish Podemos party that has a favorable view of Russia, and lots more. Now the 2016 election was also about Putin not liking Clinton since Bill supported Yeltsin.
    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      Just curious - are the US military and intelligence services part of the far left?

      I'm not denying things were sensationalized but it seems like the response to this was to basically deny it's happening at all.
    • by Livius ( 318358 )

      The possibility of Russian interference certainly shouldn't be ignored, but since 2016 it's just been an excuse for the Democrats to avoid asking themselves hard questions about how they alienated so many voters.

      Seriously, they lost to Donald Trump! If that's not a wake-up call I don't know what is.

  • "missile command-and-control systems on the public internet?

  • Motivation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gavagai80 ( 1275204 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:05PM (#57624070) Homepage

    Russia had no significant motivation to hack the midterm elections. They're not republicans. They supported Trump to a degree as a practical matter because they have a degree of hold over him. Their ad buys have mostly been centered around stirring up hatred between Americans via conspiracy theories, not about supporting one party or the other. A split government is really the best for them. All that matters is that we keep attacking each other until we're not longer a threat to them.

    To be clear, I don't begrudge Russia for it considering how much worse the CIA has done around the world. It's not like they're going after an innocent nation. What Russia is doing is simply trying to weaken a nation which has insisted on making a mission of prying satellite states out of Russia's sphere of influence and promoting democracy to Russia itself. If the USA didn't make a career of threatening Russia, it wouldn't be targeted.

    • We should all hail the day that nations dispatch their tribalism and TLAs like America's CIA, Russia's KGB, Britain's MI6, France's DGSE, & ad infinitum are unnecessary in a perfect world of international cooperation.

      If the USA didn't make a career of threatening Russia, it wouldn't be targeted.

      Hmmm... Like when, during the Kennedy administration, the US threatened Russia when they deployed ballistic missiles in Cuba?

      • Re:Motivation (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:27PM (#57624146)

        Actually Kennedy did when he deployed missiles to turkey and they retaliated with cuban missiles, but lets not let facts stand in the way of politics.

      • Re:Motivation (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11, 2018 @01:03AM (#57624324)

        Like when, during the Kennedy administration, the US threatened Russia when they deployed ballistic missiles in Cuba?

        Exactly like that, actually. Those missiles were in response to American missiles in Turkey.
        The whole point of deploying to Cuba was as a bargaining chip for the removal of the missiles in Turkey, which is exactly how the ordeal played out.

        As a general rule, citing history works better when you actually know the history.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        Nope, the day that happens is the day these nations make radical missteps because they have no insight into what the others are doing. Spying is good for us.

    • The Left has done a great job stirring up hate without any help from "those dirty foreigners". Did you hear just the other day they mobbed and vandalized a journalist's house while his terrified wife cowered in the pantry? How does this unite us? As for conspiracy theories, you mean the one about how the Democrats rigged the primaries to keep Bernie out? Or the one about how they Democrats ordered the media to cover Trump? And the media obeyed? Those conspiracy theories?
    • I don't think the sum of evidence shows Russia had any interest in supporting Trump. There has been plenty of anti-Trump fervor generated but it only started once the anti-Hillary campaign wasn't the primary objective anymore. I say this not to support Trump but as the most simple and logical explanation of all the information we have been seen. The reason it seems like Trump is soft on Russia is that he doesn't see them as a threat, unlike everyone in the political class which he was not a part of. It'
      • I don't think the sum of evidence shows Russia had any interest in supporting Trump.

        You also aren't an intelligence analyst with full access to all the raw information. You only get bit and pieces, most of which is preprocessed, just like the rest of us. Your view on this matter is of no consequence.

    • To be clear, I don't begrudge Russia for it considering how much worse the CIA has done around the world. It's not like they're going after an innocent nation.

      It's true, the US has done wrong things many times in the belief it was for the greater good, whatever those in power at the time thought that to be. Still, that is no excuse and we need to do better for the sake of humanity and not just our own skins.

      What Russia is doing is simply trying to weaken a nation which has insisted on making a mission of prying satellite states out of Russia's sphere of influence and promoting democracy to Russia itself.

      The fact that you think the promotion of democracy is a threatening action is quite telling. Russia actually was a fragile democracy when Putin was first elected. Since then he turned it right back into an authoritarian nation. All nations and people shoul

      • Putin is Yeltsin's chosen heir and Yeltsin was elected using heavy US PR support. There is no way he could actually be in any way anti-democratic(that is anti-US), those corrupt US politicians just used Putin as a fall guy for their failure to execute the decision to make Hilary the President. It would work just fine if some Bernie Sanders supporters didn't vote Trump in protest. Election outcome doesn't matter much because relative outsiders like Bernie can be kept out via party decision and nobody will vo
        • by gtall ( 79522 )

          Yeltsin also is on the record as ruing the day he supported Putin.

        • There is no way he could actually be in any way anti-democratic(that is anti-US), those corrupt US politicians just used Putin as a fall guy for their failure to execute the decision to make Hilary the President.

          LOL! Right, because Putin's "70 at 70" re-election objective doesn't exist and it was a totally fair election with no ballot stuffing at all. What planet are you from?

          • There is no need for ballot stuffing. Any elections of such scale are merely publicity circus, and this applies to all countries, not only Russia. People don't have enough information on who to vote for, and have no say over which choices end up in ballots in the first place. Media decide what information they will have and consequently how will they vote and pretty much all media in Russia is US-controlled or -influenced.
            • pretty much all media in Russia is US-controlled or -influenced.

              LOL! Yeah, that's why reporters that a critical of Putin keep "falling" out of windows. A more likely scenario is that Putin is a brutal authoritarian who chafes at the prospect of exposure.

              There is no need for ballot stuffing. Any elections of such scale are merely publicity circus, and this applies to all countries, not only Russia. People don't have enough information on who to vote for, and have no say over which choices end up in ballots in the first place.

              The US has primaries which decide who's on the ballot. Don't confuse the US with Russia where Putin runs disinformation campaigns [washingtonpost.com] to keep people off the ballot.

              Sure, there is a segment of the US population who has been susceptible to disinformation from dishonest "news" outlets which is why we need better laws to keep

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yeah, threatening Russia with Democracy is surely loosing the Hounds of Hells on them.

    • Russia had no significant motivation to hack the midterm elections. They're not republicans. They supported Trump to a degree as a practical matter because they have a degree of hold over him.

      To the degree that they support Trump, they have a motive to keep Republicans in power. Republicans have shown that they'll protect Trump regardless of what he does.

      Further, the current incarnation of the Republican party has shown itself to be pro-authoritarianism, pro-isolationism, anti-trade, and anti-liberalism*. All of that is good for Putin.

      * To be clear, I'm not just saying they're not liberal, I'm saying they're opposed to Liberalism [wikipedia.org]. Being pro-liberalism has, until recently, been a normal part

    • You are right that Russian purpose is not to support one party. Russia want to sow discord and distrust in democracy. Russian meddling the US 2016 presidential elections was partially motivated by Yeltsin's dislike of Clinton since Bill supported Yeltsin. And Putin has often accused the CIA of sabotaging Russian elections. A former US ambassador to Russia gave 50 million USD to civil society assistance in Russia 2012 which is talked about in Russia as evidence of US interference. Putin plays on popular ant

    • Russia would benefit from an ineffective/weak US government. Divide and conquer is what they require. Either that or make the US alienate allies by electing a hyper-nationalist reality tv star like trump.
  • The US is divided like I wasn't since the civil war. Why bother investing any more effort? Every AAA-gunner will tell you, when the enemy plane is already coming down in flames you can stop shooting.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      In the run up to WWII, the Republicans were adamant about not entering the war on the side of the Allies. The country was very much split at the time as to whether it was a "wise" thing to do. You must also have not lived through the 60's. Blacks in the U.S. were marching and whites were choosing sides. Wallace was campaigning on racism, much worse than Trump although I think Trump's is more insidious given the stealth methods he and the Republicans go to hide it. Nixon ran on a Southern strategy to energiz

      • There has always been division before elections. What's "new" is that the country doesn't find a common ground again after.

  • No proof (Score:5, Insightful)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:14PM (#57624106)

    First we are said without proof that Russians made the 2016 presidential elections. Then we are told without proof that they were stopped from influencing the 2018 midterm elections.

    Alternative explanation: Russians try to influence all US elections with negligible impact, and democrats lost in 2016 because they chose the wrong candidate.

    • Your "alternative explanation" is almost certainly correct. The Russians excel at only two things; vodka and psyops. They spawn hate and discontent by lying to both parties, and trying to aggravate divisions. I'm sure they're deliriously happy with their recent successes.

    • Mr. Lake needs to go back and re-read his Sherlock Holmes. The dog that didn't bark in the night was an important clue leading to the identity of the killer, not an indication that nothing happened.

      Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
      Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
      Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
      Holmes: "That was the curious incident.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It was only without proof if you shut your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and started singing "la la la la" as loudly as possible.

      • It was only without proof if you shut your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and started singing "la la la la" as loudly as possible.

        And here you are, like clockwork, making sure that you toss out some lazy ad hominem at the person who said that, and providing exactly zero evidence. Because there is none.

    • See here [nytimes.com]. Heck, the wikipedia artcile [wikipedia.org] has tons of sources.

      And if you think a national election where the winning candidate lost the popular vote by 3 million and won the electoral collect by about 100,000 votes wasn't impacted by a wide scale campaign from an ex-KGB guy who specialized in information warfare, well, I don't even know if I should call that naive. There needs to be a stronger word for it. Perhaps something German?
    • The Democrats choosing the wrong candidate and Russians having an impact are not mutually exclusive. It could be (and is likely the case) that the Russians had an impact, but it was a relatively small impact, only swaying a few percent of the vote.

      However, they'd really only have to sway a small percentage of the vote-- a few thousand out of over 120 million-- to change the outcome of the election. Given the numbers at play, it's almost certain that the outcome would be different if not for Russian inter

  • I'm pretty sure that Russia - which has never abandoned their goal to rebuild the Soviet Union - has no particular interest in any candidate, but desires to cause the maximum in hate, discontent. and confusion. They don't even have to DO anything; just CLAIM that they did.

    And members of both parties, but the Democrats especially, are digging as deep a hole as they can. They think that they can make partisan gains by destroying the OTHER party more than they are damaging their own.

  • stopped agents entrenched in the USA from renting out VMs and dedicated servers to tunnel attacks through locally.

    The same policies probably acted as a much better IDS too, stopped payloads in their tracks as they brushed up against the small print getting routed to /dev/null

  • Russia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Saturday November 10, 2018 @11:38PM (#57624178) Journal
    Was super expert last time but not expert this time?
    Time to look for another cyber story?
    • because nobody expected Trump to win except 538 and a few folks on the far left sounding the gone (notably Secular Talk on Youtube) because of how pissed off the working class was.

      Trump was a failed business man (albeit a successful actor). This came out in numerous lawsuits, notably when he sued a journalist who (rightly as it turned out) pointed out that Trump wasn't a billionaire. He had a mountain of lawsuits against him and had made a career of using his brand to sell cheap merchandise and defraud
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I appreciate that we finally have someone who pushes back.

  • by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Sunday November 11, 2018 @12:17AM (#57624248)

    ... is America itself.

    I'm a 72 year old retired IT guy and it's all I can do to minimize my goddam footprint on this goddam Internet.

    I'm not afraid of obvious threats. What scares me is the boiling frog.

    Advertisers are the water and we are the frogs.

  • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Sunday November 11, 2018 @12:24AM (#57624264)
    So that means there was no interference. Just like nobody ever interfered with our elections in all of history and fake news didn't exist until 2016.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      2016 was the watershed year when the mainstream media finally dropped the mask and came out as full-throated political partisans. They openly supported the most corrupt candidate for President in American history. [twimg.com] Their treatment of Trump was unprecedented in its hostility. The media live in an echo chamber where they think that they are loved and adored by the population. They believe they are the final authority on truth and that we, their grateful audience, should believe everything they tell us.

      "Th [nytimes.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward

    While CNN and Fox have USians fighting ourselves, China and Mexico are laughing their asses off.

    Your enemy is not the racist republican nor the communist libtard. It is the media, controlled by vested foreign interests that has you hating your fellow citizen. Republicans are not racist, nor are liberal lazy drug users living off the government. Hate those that want you to hate your fellow countrymen. Ask yourself who is to gain from division.

    Everytime you rage against those lazy liberals or those racis

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      "CNN and Fox" have viewerships in the low millions. The U.S. has over 300 million people. Find another strawman.

    • While CNN and Fox have USians fighting ourselves, China and Mexico are laughing their asses off.

      Um... a bit perhaps but they also have their own problems. Mexico has a lot of domestic problems to contend with. And China, they've been doing very well, with careful state planning with very long term goals in mind except as it the problem with such systems, the recent not-quite-dictator decided he's actually rather be ruler for life.

      That's the blessing and curse of democracies: they're wildly inefficient. A d

  • Because the only way to defend a network is to think like an attacker, and far better, be an attacker. Every time we PWN an adversary, someone will ask, "Would that have worked against us?" And the answer will be, "Yeah, they've PWNed us for years with that."

  • The Russians have no need for farther intrusions. They successfully installed their trojan horse in 2016 and it's been working brilliantly obstructing, jamming, overturning and breaking administration systems ever since.

    • Oh, please. Just like YOU and everyone else, the Russians thought that the Clintons would be returning to power. Their entire motivation was to stir the pot and create an angry cultural/media landscape to diminish the effectiveness of the incoming Hillary administration. This is their playbook in countries all around the world, and has been since Soviet days. They didn't start spending a handful of cash more seriously until AFTER the election was over, when they did some immediate hard changes in their tone
  • The list of people interested in the election results is very, very long. Russia certainly is on that list somewhere, but most likely not near the top. There are many others more interested and more motivated to play around.

    Russians can be assumed to not be totally stupid. As such they would understand how much theatre US politics is and how little it actually matters who sits in what chair, a few special chairs exempted. Too many decisions are made behind the scenes anyways, but non-elected officials. Too

  • Do you bother kneecapping someone whose head you just blew off?

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