
Top Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election - jbegley
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/
======
sigmaprimus
As a Canadian I find it disturbing that foreign governments engage in these
types of actions to affect the outcomes of elections but do find it a bit
hypocritical that the US is getting so upset about it, when IMHO the US three
letter agencies have been involved in regime change and political tampering
for decades. It kind of seems like yall got of taste of your own medicine.

~~~
x2398dh1
Hey...that's not exactly true - we did not physically change the voting
information in the machines - that would be totally unethical. We just had the
right people killed, and allowed the right people who were doing the killing
to grow extremely wealthy until they were no longer of use to us. Nicaragua,
Chile, Panama, etc's elections were always left up to the citizens of those
respective countries.

~~~
nickpsecurity
This comment is propaganda specifically because it ignores all the propaganda
that was necessary to pull those operations off. The TLA's had to convince a
good chunk of people that the replacement leader was who _they_ wanted so they
wouldn't just re-replace the leader with more bullets. Propaganda was also the
dominant technique for the recent election. Stays the best tool with it honed
to near perfection by the likes of Fox.

~~~
wfo
I think the post you're replying to was tongue in cheek and not propaganda
i.e. "we technically didn't change vote totals, we just assassinated
democratically elected leaders and installed brutal puppet dictatorship
regimes in their place [which is obviously far, far worse]".

~~~
nickpsecurity
As was mine. ;)

------
akhilcacharya
Whether the Russians were successful in vote tampering is irrelevant (and
admittedly unlikely). What is relevant is how long we will accept brazen
cyberattacks against American targets in order to leak data and hurt a
particular candidate who promised to be tough against Russia.

Would we have the same reaction if the intelligence community blamed IS
hackers or the SEA?

~~~
kem
That's similar to my take here. Whether or not Trump actively colluded with
Russia to affect election results, he's still behaving abnormally about the
issue. I mean, if you step back and look at this, and just give Trump the
benefit of the doubt and allow that maybe he was ignorant about Russia's
attacks on the US elections, is his response reasonable for a president?

He should be vigorously defending the US, and aggressively trying to get to
the bottom of it. Instead, he's actively obstructing the investigation and
thwarting US defenses. In short, he's doing the opposite of what he should be
doing as president. He's acting like a damn mole using the office to further
his own interests and those of his business associates, including Russia.

At worst Trump is a traitor, and at best he's grossly derelict of duty. How
this is not front and center of US political discussion on all sides,
including the GOP, befuddles me.

This also seems critical to interpreting Trump's voter fraud commission, as
the Russia efforts were focused on voter registration. I predict Trump will
somehow spin what was being reported on in this article into something having
to do with voter fraud. That is, "let's not talk about Russian hacking of
voter registration records, as that's just speculation. We agree, though, that
there are anomalies in the voter registration records, and given that we all
agree on that, it's time for voter ID laws."

~~~
ouid
If the president is derelict of duty, then he's a traitor.

------
x2398dh1
"...a Florida-based vendor of electronic voting services and equipment."

I would have thought we would have learned 17 years ago that Florida really
should just not be making voting equipment.

------
Cookingboy
At what point would nation-state sponsored hacking be considered as an act of
war? From this article it doesn't seem like the hacking effort had significant
result, but if, let's say if, Donald Trump was elected due to direct hacking
attempt by Russian military intelligence, then what is the correct course of
action?

~~~
korzun
The correct course of action would result in a complete restructuring of NSA.
The idiotic course of action would be waging a nuclear war with Russia.

~~~
akhilcacharya
> another country attacks us and an agency documents it

> dismantles agency so that they can do it again

????

~~~
korzun
Somebody signed off on electronic voting; someone signed off on all the
procedures and safeguards years ago. Etc.

A hacking incident of this magnitude would indicate a complete national
security failure on every single level.

You can't trust that level of incompetence.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You think it was the NSA who signed off on electronic voting? I think it was
the state election boards, and maybe the Federal Election Commission.

Anyway, the NSA is not the party that messed up to allow flawed electronic
voting. They're the party that can (and often has) detected Russian attempts
to mess with stuff. So, once again, how does cutting the NSA help?

~~~
Teever
Why can the NSA influence the decision making process at NIST but they can't
influence the design and implementation of a safe and verifiable voting system
if it's going to be electronic?

Like this really is one of those "What would you say ya do, here?" moments
because it sure as hell doesn't look like the NSA does anything preventative
that is effective.

~~~
anigbrowl
Government isn't a corporation that can be managed autocratically. Voting
systems, norms, and technologies are highly politicized and contentious, and
there's the federal government, numerous quasi-autonomous agencies, 50 state
governments, and 20000 counties, not to mention 2 political parties and
numerous regional factions.

It seems like a single technical problem to you, but socially it's incredibly
complex.

------
empath75
tl;dr; Russian hackers actually attacked voting systems, and were successful
at stealing credentials at the very least. It's uncertain if they were able to
actually hack voting machines or the count.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Almost certainly, whatever they did this election, they'll try to do more the
next one.

------
JPLeRouzic
There are simple enough statistical tests that could provide hints (or not) of
tampering activities: risk limited audits.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-
limiting_audit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk-limiting_audit)

~~~
mjw1007
That page describes ways to manually recount votes that were cast. But the
article suggests that the tampering might have been in the voter registration
databases, so that people would wrongly be refused the opportunity to cast a
vote.

------
mzs
[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-
reality...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/federal-contractor-reality-
winner-arrested-for-sending-classified-nsa-intelligence-to-news-
outlet/article/2625014)

------
Mikeb85
And this is how democracy ends...

If all it takes to enforce one-party rule is to claim the other party was
aided by a foreign power, then the 3 letter agencies can, in effect, choose
who rules.

~~~
ViViDboarder
Not exactly. It's cause for concern, not wholesale reason to discard three
results of our election. I don't think anyone is claiming that either.

If there is suspicion that there has been influence from another nation, it
should not be ignored. That would also be an end to democracy. Our nation
should attempt to reach the truth, and that truth (barring collusion) should
not invalidate a vote.

~~~
Mikeb85
If your systems aren't strong enough to withstand another nation's influence,
that's on you. The US influences elections around the world, and vice versa.

I see nothing wrong with Putin influencing US elections, god knows the US does
the same in Russia. Alex Navalny et al would be nothing without US support...

