Journalism has never been as impartial as people like to believe, bias and opinion always infects every piece. This in itself isn't necessarily a problem, except when society and the media becomes an echo chamber, and difference of opinion is marginalized.
Edit - should add, journalism is being fixed. The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant.
> The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant.
I would hardly call this a fix. The MSM is certainly unreliable, but "twitter and various blogs" are even less so.
As a medium, Twitter is unreliable. When you take the entirety of social media, the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth.
I don't think that necessarily qualifies as newsworthy. A "real journalist" would have read those e-mails, found them to be pretty weird, then did an investigation to determine if anything of merit could be uncovered before printing a story. If there were any journalists involved, the pizzagate story would have been a perfect example of "irresponsible journalism", i.e. projecting unfounded claims based on rabid speculation and "gut instincts", yet being unable to prove anything definitively.
> the fact pictures and video can be taken in real time, you can then come to a conclusion that is close to the truth.
Sure, but a live video stream of newsworthy events represents a minuscule fraction of social media "reporting" and isn't even really representative of journalism in general since it's usually just an ad-hoc video from a citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Even then, the conclusions drawn from citizen videos are often extremely contentious either because they are incomplete or just poorly shot (perhaps with the videographer leaving their own hysterical or biased commentary as a narration of events)
I have seen an endless stream of fakes and lies spread virally through social media for the last few months, and no refutation or correction ever reaches the same kind of viral spread that the original claim did - not even ones from the original person making the claim. The refutations don't support people's existing worldview, so they don't spread.
Part of the problem is intrinsic to the velocity of news in a hyperconnected world. If a breaking story comes out and your paper delays in covering it, it will lose out to another paper that is quicker to publish. If no other paper has the information yet, then your paper will be inevitably accused of deliberately sitting on the story. It's a no win situation. Even here we see that errors in just one or two stories has led to commenters accusing WaPo of being a worthless propaganda arm.
Furthermore, decreasing ad revenue and increasing competition means that newsrooms are financially strapped compared with earlier days. Back then, even big newspapers published just a few print editions a day. But now there's a constant 24-hour news cycle. It's impossible to check every story 100%; nothing would ever get published. So the editor has to settle for a sub-certain level of confirmation, with fewer fact checkers on staff to boot.
To a certain extent, it's better to issue the retraction later. You get eyeballs on your page for the initial story, then more attention for the fallout and retraction. I've now clicked on that WaPo article thrice instead of just once -- cha-ching. Obviously too much of that damages the reputation, but there are a number of tremendously successful organizations that unapologetically and routinely dispense fake news and still prosper as a result. People have been successfully conditioned to care less about accuracy and more about "tell me good stuff about my team and bad stuff about the other team."
Ironically the Russians have broken into the homes of US diplomats in Moscow and have pooped in them (among other things like killing one of their dogs).
>At a recent meeting of U.S. ambassadors from Russia and Europe in Washington, U.S. ambassadors to several European countries complained that Russian intelligence officials were constantly perpetrating acts of harassment against their diplomatic staff that ranged from the weird to the downright scary. Some of the intimidation has been routine: following diplomats or their family members, showing up at their social events uninvited or paying reporters to write negative stories about them.
But many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality. In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
And closing down a school for diplomats kids...except it appears that didn't happen either. I am finding it very hard to believe any of the Russia vs US news
Here's an article [1] in English from Finland (not sure if the paywall is active for foreigners) by the largest newspaper in the country about an activist who has been harrassed for 11 years by the FSB for operating a pro-Chechen website in the past. They've left dead birds inside his home etc. Pictures included. Russia officially petitioned the UN Security Council to add the guy to the official UN "al-Qaeda" terrorist list.
Ongoing harassment is a regular practice among spy agencies. The underlying message is "we know who you are" and sometimes a threat, sometimes to undermine.
The agents and officers they actually care about, they (and we) rarely touch. It's better if they think their cover is intact.
They just ran an article calling Obama's decision to give a farewell address unusual, even though in reality every single president going back to Washington has given a farewell address.
That's the biggest threat here. The public is going to become desensitized to the histrionic Russian conspiracy news, and a significant portion of them will start dismissing MSM messaging about Russia outright.
I can imagine Russia actually doing something heinous and it making zero waves, all because of the media who cried wolf.
1. Select an arbitrary NFL game being played in the first week of season.
2. Email a sufficiently large ( > 131,072) group of people, telling half of them that Team A will win. Tell the other half people that team B will win.
3. The game will necessarily yield a loser. (To account for ties, tell your audience team N will not lose, instead of will win)
4. The emailed people who received the correct prediction become the remaining pool, and those that received the incorrect prediction are no longer involved in this exercise.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for the first 16 of the 17 weeks of the NFL season, always retaining the half of the pool who received the correct prediction.
6. After the 16th game, since you started with a sufficiently large pool, you will have sent the correct predictions for all 16 games to a nonzero number of people.
7. This nonzero number of people, if they have paid attention, will be forced to believe that you can predict the winner of the 17th game, and will be willing to give you ridiculous amounts of money to obtain that 17th prediction.
In their eyes, you can predict the future, but all you did was apply successive approximation, which is how many analog to digital converters work.
The same tactic works in reverse, you simply need to keep the people paying attention to the incorrect predictions long enough. I'll leave the most recent example of this phenomenon as an exercise to the reader.
The GOP has been claiming Obama is a Kenyan Muslim for -8 years (including Trump's harrassment re: his birth certificate), and a recent poll [1] showed that 41% of republicans still believe he wasn't born in the US. So, it would appear that the US population has quite an appetite for these stories.
The really shameful part of this is the xenophobic garbage spewed by Democrats who are upset their candidate lost the election. They can't handle the thought that they simply lost, so now anyone who disagrees with them is an agent planted by Putin.
But don't you see that you're doing the same from the opposite side? Any criticism of Putin is attributed to bitter Democrats, so there can be no valid criticism of Putin any more.
There's plenty to criticize Putin for- Democrats just don't want to look at how badly they bungled this election and others. (Ask yourself why since 2010 they've lost over 1000 governorships, state legislature seats, and Congressional seats. It ain't Russia!)
And at the same time some of them are saying crap like "Who cares about Russia, their only contribution to the world was the gulag". I'm paraphrasing here, but this is what I was referring to in my post above. In their zeal to denounce a man they see as a racist bigot, they turn to bigotry themselves. Shameful is the word for it. I mean, look at this: https://twitter.com/timjacobwise/status/809188697002409988
All in all it's just a startling 180- 4 years ago, Democrats were (correctly) lambasting Romney for BS tough-talk about Russia.
To be fair: "The first sentence of the article directly linked this cyberattack to alleged Russian hacking of the email accounts of the DNC and John Podesta." so really WP already put this in the context of the election.
The problem is that there isn't any real criticism. Much like their failed election campaign - they focused so much on character assassination, that any valid criticism of Trump could simply be dismissed.
If I had to argue a point in a university essay, and argued in the fashion the media has for the last year, any of my profs would have failed me.
You'd think educated professionals, in a supposedly intellectual, free society would do better. But nope, just "Putin is a dictator", or "Trump is a racist". It's these journalists' fault no one listens any more.
> If I had to argue a point in a university essay, and argued in the fashion the media has for the last year, any of my profs would have failed me.
I'd argue that elections have never been won this way. They've always been about identity and attacking your opponent. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but that the 2016 Democratic campaign was not unique in that regard. Hell, Trump's own campaign was run as a referendum on Hillary Clinton as much as it was anything to do with his strengths.
Even by that token, they should have taken a different angle on Trump. The guy is shameless, most of his dealings are out there for everyone to see, and they take the one angle that couldn't be proven - that he's racist, based on what, comments about illegal immigration?
Had they not stacked the deck against Sanders, they'd have a principled, likeable candidate in the general, and then they could have used the angle of Trump being unprincipled. Unfortunately Hillary is equally unprincipled, and less likeable.
He's authorized the bombing of civilian areas in Syria.
You might think the evidence that the journalists were killed by Russia is inflated. You might think the Russians living in Ukraine deserve to live under the rule of mother Russia. You might not think there are civilians among the Syrian rebels. But I'm pretty sure that those things at least meet the bar of real criticism.
All you can really do is sit back and watch as Western citizens succumb to optimism and ignorance of Putin's intentions. Putin is clearly backed by the establishment. Just look at Obama's inaction and weak sanctions over the past 8 years.
Obama has had Americans assassinated without trial.
He's bombed and destabilized other countries (Libya)
He's funded and armed terrorists fighting in civilian areas of Syria.
See how easy that is? One thing I've learned is just how many shades of gray exist in the real world, and as such I refuse to accept the narrative that Putin is a literal cartoon villain.
People are just tired of democrats calling anything who doesn't agree with them a racist/sexist/islamophobe when the VAST majority of conservatives are none of the above.
But again, within one line you've diverted from talking about the actual topic, Putin, to a random attack on a preconceived notion of what "Democrats" are. How is that relevant?
(All else aside, "the problem with Democrats is that they stereotype large groups of people" is a fantastically ironic statement to make)
That's just not true. Democrats have been pushing the narrative that "Russian hackers" are undermining America, and pushing it quite aggressively. So it's completely valid to bring those efforts up in regard to a dramatically over-hyped story about "Russian hackers."
That's exactly the point I was making in the first place - that it is now not possible to criticise Russia without the Democrats being mentioned. There's clearly a real, valid conversation to be had about Russian intelligence efforts against the US (as there is about Chinese efforts, and anyone else) but that conversation is repeatedly shut down with "yeah but Democrats". It doesn't contribute anything and
makes it sound like Democrats are the only ones complaining about it, which isn't remotely true.
What is the boundary between what we consider "fake news" and news with a tiny kernel of truth somewhere in it (in this story it sounds like a semi-related laptop was infected with some malware) that is sensationalized to claim something much broader? I think that there are some pieces of news (e.g. meme-news that people post on social media sites, that would be similar to what one might read in a tabloid) that get automatically rejected by my BS filter a lot easier than something like the piece mentioned in the article, which was posted by a respectable journal.
If we can't create a common sense and universally accepted definition of fake news that's also specific enough, then no attempts to ban "fake news" should even be made.
In my book, manufacturing 90% of the story based on a "small kernel of truth" still counts as fake news, but perhaps others disagree.
This stuff can lead to war (McCain actually called this an act of war from Russia, after reading the original WashPost article), and in fact it has. Unsurprisingly WashPost was a big part of pushing the U.S. into the Iraq war as well.
In many ways it is worse in my opinion. Blatantly false stories (like the one claiming Trump won the popular vote) are easily and quickly debunked. WaPo's brand of exaggerated stories based on a small kernel of truth is a lot more insidious and persistent.
There isn't any value in establishing an arbitrary boundary. A small clickbait blog with a story that is 100% manufactured typically has less effect on public opinion than a mainstream outlet that publishes half or quarter truths. They are both doing a huge disservice to the public and are ethically bankrupt, and shouldn't even be called journalists.
WaPo published entirely facts and revised their headline to be more accurate. Their initial statement was not really wrong as much it implied a deeper penetration than what actually happened.
These events have a reaction time, a response time, and a validation time. It is critical that legitimate news outlets keep their validation time small so that they can accurately report events.
The danger is pretty clear, if response time is shorter than validation time, people or systems will respond, perhaps irreversibly, before validation can be achieved.
That is how you do real damage in a system. Hopefully a very public critical response to the Washington Post here will help extend their response time again past the validation time.
The Washington Post corrected their story. This is a key differentiator for higher quality publications. They try to get it right but if they don't, they must prompty correct their article.
The article from The Intercept comes across as more alarmist than the original one from the Post. The second paragraph reads:
> While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a security matter, the discovery underscores the vulnerabilities of the nation’s electrical grid.
There's a nuance that seems to be lost in Greenwald's interpretation of the article.
Greenwald is like Assange in that regard. He's more interested in scoring points against the bad guys than doing a public service. Any public service he has provided in the past is purely coincidental.
> There's a nuance that seems to be lost in Greenwald's interpretation of the article.
It's not lost, it is deliberate
Make no mistake, GG has no interest in the truth, he is only interested in furthering his agenda. Which, in this case, of pushing mistrust in mainstream media, is shared in common with alt-right sites
Correct, but it's the collective push of "independent" news sites, including The Intercept
And as much as they push for the "Mainstream media is untrustworthy" agenda, guess what, they are less trustworthy than the mainstream media. But it's more insidious
Nobody[0] reads corrections. The damage is done when the original, incorrect, inflammatory article is published. You can't unring that bell, and the Washington Post editors know that.
I would argue that a reasonable person would actually read a correction. it's not exactly un ringing a bell but many of us come away with the truth even if we believed the original at first
An interesting showhn project would be to continually scrape a story and make an externally visible commit log for it so that you could see how it changed over time.
For your reference the fourth paragraph from WashPost story:
>Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities
> There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.
"and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid."
So, the first step in penetrating a system was accomplished, getting the code onto a device that could potentially (or so they attacker may have hoped) be connected to the target network.
Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack. The headlines and responses are arguably alarmist and not fully informed, but it's still an attack. The dismissal of alarmism seems intended to obscure the likelihood that there was, in fact, the start of an attack.
If a spear phishing attack fails, was it not still an attack? That it was an attack in the direction of the power grid is, by definition, alarming. [EDIT: The first sentence in this paragraph confuses my point, and can profitably be ignored.]
The intercept's article could have been less sensationalist itself, and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be. Competition? Schadenfreude? Sensationalist link baiting?
Regardless, I had hoped for a more sober and professional style from the intercept from its early days, and I've long ago stopped reading it, modulo the odd HN post.
> Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack
Nobody is disputing that. But "electric company employee's laptop gets a computer virus" is a far cry from "the Russian government is attacking our infrastructure".
I think that the US govt is now throwing it's toys out of the pram because it thinks other countries (Russia) are using the same methods that the US employs to attack it's enemies and to influence the elections of other nations against them (the US). Personally I think it shows a huge degree of paranoia within the US govt, either that or it is a handy way to try and elicit support for future actions (further economic sanctions) against Russia. Especially as this comes a day after Russia brokered a peace deal in Syria, something the US could not achieve.
Stuxnet happened. Did anything happen here? Was anything disrupted, do this look like a coordinated state actor attempt?
Russians have shut down an airliner full of people and also occupied a good chunk of Ukraine and there was less hoopla in the media about it. Someone finds a PHP shell on a laptop and Washington Post is going nuts with "OMG Russians are about to disable our power grid".
If this is not Fake News then I don't know what is...
Was WaPo a respectable news outlet at some point? I feel like it was, I wasn't following it much before. It has gone the way of Fox News it seems recently. Oh well..
> If this is not Fake News then I don't know what is...
Obamaism, the McCarthyism of the 21st century. Otherwise known as good old propaganda. It goes like: Russia hacked the election, Russia hacked our grid, Donald Trump is a in fact Russian robot programmed to win the US elections and destroy America, etc.
Except it isn't. I love how some people seem to deliberately confuse an ineffectual technocrat with an evil dictatorial left-wing conspiracy leader pretending to be an ineffectual technocrat.
If malware on a computer with a completely unknown origin is now considered a "Russian attack", I don't even know what to say. Words have no meaning any more.
It is circular, but who's going to notice? We went to war in Iraq with the same quality of argument, sound reasoning is sadly not a per-requisite for war.
>and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be.
You shouldn't wonder. The Washington Post is, and always has been, the voice of the DC/Media establishment and the number one disseminator of their propaganda. Remember that the absurd "PropOrNot" garbage was published in the Washington Post after being turned down by several major media outlets that at least seek to maintain the semblance of credibility.
The Intercept in general (and Greenwald in particular) seems to spend an inordinate amount of time combating the "Russia Hysteria", as they've labeled it.
The United States went to war in Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses. The cost of that mistake was gigantic, and continues to pile up.
This saber-rattling against Russia could have serious consequences, and seems to be inspired mainly by a need to find some kind of scapegoat on which to blame the DNC's absurd loss against Trump.
You are absolutely right, that was a particularly unfortunate mix-up. I was thinking about how animosity towards Afghanistan was skillfully employed to justify invading Iraq, and in the process mixed myself up.
Well it was false pretenses in that not one of the attackers was from Afghanistan not were there any proven links between the attackers and Afghanistan other than Osama being assumed to be the mastermind and residing in Afghanistan at the time.
At this point I am not sure if the justness of the argument makes much difference. When you make world changing decisions you have to accept that you will be judged by history, and not on the terms that you decide.
It's odd that they think that the hack lost them the election. The hack (as with any email hack) is only useful if it uncovers wrongdoing.in this case it uncovered wrongdoing by the DNC, so whether the hack was state sponsored or not is really irrelevant, had the DNC not tried to fix the result of the nomination process it would not have mattered one iota that they were hacked.
Thank you... that's been my thoughts all along. I mean, does it really matter if this was the Russians, or some guy in North Carolina? The facts remain, and I'd be willing to bet there's been effort to hack Trump's mail by similar foreign actors.
In the end, there was some shady stuff in the emails, and if there wasn't it likely never would have seen the light of day.
Does it matter that a foreign, non-friendly country hacked an email system and deliberately staged releases of info in attempt to cause maximum damage to a political party and sway the outcome of an election?
I'm going to have to say "yes".
DNC, RNC, Green, Independent, etc. it shouldn't matter who got hacked. I'd hope that all Americans would be concerned about this.
Perhaps if those Americans were also concerned with the numerous times the US had acted in a similar fashion in other countries elections they may have a point to make. But generally they were complicit in those situations because they never complained or protested then, but now the shoe is on the other foot.
I suspect Greenwald has been on an anti-Hillary-media kick in retaliation for Bernie's perceived mistreatment. He sees the Russia story as a scapegoat for Hillary's loss, and he'd rather see a mass media mea culpa about backing the wrong candidate.
Who exactly has proposed starting a war with Russia or anything remotely resembling that? Certainly not the incoming US president, who has been remarkably consistent in praising Putin, currently denies the attribution of the hacks, and during the election was quoted encouraging Russia to do more hacking. Not that it matters, but even the hawks have not called for military action, at least in any way connected to the hacking; there may be some stuff related to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and intervention in Syria, but that's different. You're attacking a strawman.
Well, lets see, the Pentagon considers cyber attacks against critical US infrastructure (including the power grid) an act of war that can warrant a military response [0].
And now we have a major US newspaper publishing articles claiming (with the most tenuous of links) that Russia is hacking the US power grid.
Not to mention a whole bunch of other dubious anti-Russia stories making the rounds based on flimsy 'evidence' that boils down to what another commenter posted the other day:
"Russians drive trucks. Hackers used trucks. Therefore the hacks were clearly done by the Russians"
It's not a straw man to say people calling for calm against Russia Hysteria are doing so because they don't want things to escalate to war with Russia.
> Certainly not the incoming US president
And so I find myself looking more and more forward to a Trump presidency. There are still 20 days to go however, so lets hope the media and the left can calm themselves down before then.
Do you think sanctions are not a casus belli? This is economic warfare, Russia is effectively a land locked county without a warm water port, the US encircles it with troops, has strategic nuclear weapons on its door step and the only bordering region that the US does not directly control is another not especially friendly nuclear super power.
People don't see the chess board and make Russia look like the villain; look at NATO in 1991 and look at it today if Canada would have joined the Warsaw Pact and if Russia was keeping enough nukes in Mexico to kill every living human in the continental United States where do you think we would be now?
All what Russia sees is a military alliance pushed onto their border, a continuous presence of US nukes in Europe, the US never stopping it's strategic air command nuclear bomber flights and then criticizing Russia for resuming them, the EU and the US pushing to bypass Russia's pipelines in the Caspian Sea and the US deploying a missile shield in Europe that would nullify Russia's current strategic arsenal after unilaterally withdrawing from the anti-ABM treaty.
And you say Russia is reckless and is a threat to world peace?
1) Where do we have nukes in Europe?
2) Russia invaded Georgia and stole Crimea, that's more hostile activity than anything we've done in response.
3) Russia has started making advanced missiles to bypass missile defense systems and will have them soon, so who really cares of the missile defense shield?
4) Russia is an autocratic nightmare state where Putin, a man rumored to have engineered the terrorist attacks that led to his quick rise to power, kills or exiles any opponents or critics.
5) Russia hacked the fucking DNC to make Trump win, which is an act of war.
6) NATO has never threatened Russia. If Russia is terrified of NATO, it is due to paranoia.
7) Russia isn't encircled by US troops.
8) It makes sense for the EU and US to avoid using Russia's pipelines when Russia is a morally reprehensible country the way it is being run right now.
"Obama was referring to the roughly 200 B61 nuclear bombs that the US has deployed in five Nato nations stretching from the Netherlands to Turkey - and a Russian arsenal estimated at 2,000 tactical weapons."
" ... The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared
to the momentous issues that the East and West have
tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of
hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battle-field weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost
an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be
easy to tidy up."
Google NATO Nuclear Sharing;
WHY THE FUCK are there nukes in freaking Belgium, when Russia had 12 missiles in Cuba the US almost started WW3, today the US is keeping nearly 100 of them in Turkey.
2) Russia invaded Georgia and stole Crimea.
HAHAHAHA
Seriously, Russia did not start the Georgian conflict, sure they "overreacted" but Georgia did invade first, they were prompted by the west and then Bush folded and withdrew his advisers.
The Georgian conflict was about oil, the EU was building a new pipeline to circumvent Russia, they made a power play and Russia returned in kind.
"Stole" Crimea is probably the most laughable statement I can think of considering how the entire Ukrainian conflict started, the US and the EU pushed for elections they didn't like the results so a political proxy war was started which ended with the ousting of the pro Russian president which all the US and EU observers stated was democratically elected.
Russia was at risk of losing their only warm water port, and the most ironic thing is that whilst Crimea holds Russia's most important naval base in the region it's pretty analogous to another little piece of "stolen" land that you might know as GITMO, the big difference is that GITMO is not that strategically important to the US in fact it's not important at all, all US naval bases are in effect warm water ports, GITMO isn't even geographically important since mainland florida is just a day of sailing away.
3) Russia has started making advanced missiles to bypass missile defense systems and will have them soon, so who really cares of the missile defense shield?
Russia started improving their missiles as a counter to the work the US had conducted on missile defense, the US pulled out of the Anti-ABM treaty which was criticized by nearly everyone around the world and now it has a more or less effective missile shield.
In 2020 the US missile shield will likely to make all current Russian strategic weapons ineffective which would drastically change the balance of power in effect negating any nuclear deterrence this brings us closer to a nuclear war not further away.
Russia can't afford to spend trillions on ABM like the US has since the early days of the SDI, but making more and better missile is affordable to them, however this puts them again as an aggressor even tho the only thing they do is to attempt to restore the deterrence.
4) Russia is an autocratic nightmare state where Putin, a man rumored to have engineered the terrorist attacks that led to his quick rise to power, kills or exiles any opponents or critics.
It's not Finland but it's not an autocratic nightmare, Putin was an intelligence officer, he refused to participate in the general's coup in 1991, you should really read more about how he rose to power.
Russia doesn't have the same democracy as the US, the "unique" flavor of what they call "managed democracy" works it's not perfect, it might not be even "good" but it's far from being an autocratic nightmare.
5) Russia hacked the fucking DNC to make Trump win, which is an act of war.
The US prompted up more dictators than the Soviets ever did, they interfere in elections openly all the time including in those of allies, and when they don't like the results they impose sanctions or start civil wars so give me a break.
Meddling in the elections of other states was always something nation did and will continue to do, you want to make sure the person in power is some one would would end up working best for you.
The US effectively elected Yeltsin, the also have actually helped out Putin in the early years; Putin was somewhat of a surprise to both Russia and the West he was prompted for being effective but not threatening.
So far I haven't seen any evidence that show that Russia hacked the DNC, and if it did that it had any effect on the elections.
Russia did not make the FBI reopen the investigati...
@ quick rise to power, I was referring to this:
"The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 and injuring more than 1000 people and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War.
The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September.[1] The next day Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2] According to sentences of judicial authorities of Russia, acts of terrorism were organized and financed by heads of the illegal armed group Islamic institute "Caucasus".[3] Thirty-six hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. There are allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimise the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to the presidency.[4][5]"
I for one, think Putin orchestrated said bombings.
@ troop deployments, having a smattering of troops in countries around Russia doesn't really make them "surrounded by troops" imo
@ autocratic nightmare, lol, yes, it is an autocratic nightmare state. Putin kills or exiles opposition and press that is in any way negative towards him. There is no freedom of the press in Russia. There is no right to protest in Russia. Gay people are regularly killed or imprisoned in Russia. Corruption reigns supreme in a way that we could never even touch.
As for the rest, I never said the US was morally pure. I disagree with many things that we do, but that doesn't change the fact that I consider the manipulation of our elections to be tantamount to an attack on our country.
Russia may be backed into a corner in many ways, but that doesn't excuse them fucking with European and US politics.
It's publicly available malware code. For all we know, someone at Burlington Electric got it from an online ad. It sounds like you're jumping on the bandwagon of seeing an evil Russian spy around every corner.
From where I sit it seems the left and mainstream media are determined to start a war with Russia, including attacking people who are simply trying to be a voice of reason. This behavior is a hell of a lot more worrying than Russian cyber warfare as the last time this happened we actually did end up going to war, in Iraq.
Perhaps they're trying to learn from the mistakes of 'WMD hysteria' that gripped the world media in the lead up to the Iraq War?
I mean if the intelligence community is going to drum up shoddy evidence that could potentially lead to war, I'd sure hope the media would spend an inordinate amount of time trying to combat it.
That's because ever since Snowden he's started to turn into a Russophile. I think him being attacked for releasing Snowden triggered him to start just ranting against any US political or "establishment" forces and start supporting Russia because they helped out his source in the biggest story he's ever written.
The malware was generic malware. Anyone could buy it. It was not employed only by Russians. So finding it on a laptop is not strong evidence that Russians put it there.
Absolutely, correct. In college, I worked for a security team contracted to GE. There's an absurd number of APT trying to get details about GE's engines and production. Executives, engineers, even pilots would have to send their laptops to that team for inspection. Finding newly created APT viruses is a weekly event. You end up seeing trends -- like a specific file, or registry keys, or running 'strings' on a binary, etc. -- that it becomes obvious that you can tie multiple incidents to the same author/group.
A word of advice: Don't go to porn sites, install Limewire (dated; today's equivalent), torrent, TOR, etc. on your work computer. Conversely, keep your work off of your personal computer.
Last time I was present for a pen test, the testers compromised a laptop, then moved laterally to compromise a other devices, which got them to a host that mattered.
I find this article as misleading as the original WP article. Truth is out the window, get used to it. If one side can come up with utter nonsense, then why can't the other?
It's not a matter of GG being white or black (not racially), it's a matter of taking his opinions/writings with a bit of salt, but taking them nevertheless.
As much as Noahpinion is entitled to his opinion, so is GG.
Yeah that's just simplistic enough for lazy centrists who would rather not put into question their absolute support for the status quo and the official "truth". Iraq aftermath already caused enough turmoil for their precious minds, wouldn't wanna rack up the therapist bills by rocking the boat even further.
What's the supposed link there? Much of my political outlook comes from the disaster of Iraq, but I'm not pro-Russia and I don't see how they would be related.
Fake news isn't a new phenomenon, in the 1870s a satrical/comedic article in a New Zealand newspaper about an impending Russian invasion led to such wide spread hysteria that the colonial government almost bankrupted itself. To sate the public it had to invest heavily in naval vessels and build 17 forts to fight off the (non existent) Russian menace.
It's a wee bit hypocritical for the US to get so upset about these things though, considering all the elections that the CIA have been involved in, not to mention the stuff that Snowden revealed (like tapping the German Chancellors phone). Everyone knows that whatever espionage Russia is doing to the US the US is doing back in kind. All the powers will be hacking each other.
It makes us look hypocritical. We are hypocritical. Who is the current administration trying to fool? The world or its citizens?
The petty finger pointing needs to stop. The low sophistication of the DNC hack just reinforces this. Besides, if you don't want to be embarrassed then don't do embarrassing things and then sulk when you're exposed.
> don't do embarrassing things and then sulk when you're exposed.
Thissss. I'm so sick and tired of the hypocrisy. If there was a "Chinese snowden" who leaked that China was doing the same stuff we where it would start a war. If Russia or China started building military bases through out the world for "democracy" we would loose our shit.
Why are we surprised when other world powers follow our example and try to hack the shit out anything they can get their hands on. Can't we be grown ups about this? It's a total double stAndard. We mess with so many elections around the world, and cry foul when someone does it to us.
Don't get me wrong, I understand why we do it, and sometimes agree with it. I feel like it stems from almost a prehistoric primitive tribal instinct - I live if my tribe lives, and to do that we have to control the other tribes.
By all means continue to dominate other countries, but PLEASE STOP USING THE MORAL SUPERIORITY CARD.
> Besides, if you don't want to be embarrassed then don't do embarrassing things and then sulk when you're exposed.
I don't think that is a very good argument. If you were to look through the email of most middle-sized organisations you would be able to find embarrassing things.
Yep, the point I was trying to make is that there's been fake news probably since the invent of news. It's interesting that it's always the Russians though :)
"Hypocrisy" is a tough concept to apply to whole nations, I'd say. I suspect most of the people upset about the Russian angle aren't exactly supporters of CIA election meddling either.
Journalism isn't about "demanding verification" it's about getting it for yourself, and waiting until you have it before writing an article.
Also, him saying "false story" is, itself false, because the the facts are objectively true. Officials did say what they were quoted as saying, and the NYT changed the headline shortly after publishing the story, which is (like it or not) common practice in the industry. Glenn was party to it himself while at The Guardian.
It's just "weird" to me that there's a faction of people out there who don't believe that Russia infiltrated the DNC, and I think it's because they're politically motivated to not believe this to be the case.
There's never been such an ignorance driving security news before. It's alarming and completely out of left field.
It's equally unfathomable to me that there are people who take the Russia/DNC story as fact, even when no concrete evidence has been presented. That WaPo tries to throw fuel on the fire with by exaggerating a small morsel of truth (see: "RUSSIA HACKS U.S. POWER GRID") is even more concerning.
edit: Since you edited your original post - I would want to see the same report that Obama saw, the one that led his administration to go so far as saying Putin was "personally involved" in orchestrating the attack. Redact sensitive info/sources as necessary.
Anything less makes it ludicrous to accuse a nuclear superpower of cyber warfare.
Define weird. Unless you just want to suggestively italicize some words and winkwinknodnod
I am pretty skeptical about the extent of direct Russian governmental involvement in the hacking of the DNC and Podesta's email account given the paucity of evidence. It would seem far more likely that Putin's regime turns a blind eye to certain activities either originating in or passing through their domain, as long as the target falls within certain parameters.
Don't get me wrong, I think a certain amount of firm resolve is due to be shown to Russia now and in the future, but I think there are many valid reasons for that without needing to invent them.
> I am pretty skeptical about the extent of direct Russian governmental involvement in the hacking of the DNC and Podesta's email account given the paucity of evidence.
I'm sorry, but what? There is a preponderance of evidence, way more than is usually available for such things.
What piece of evidence is missing? What would convince you?
This is why every time there was a post about "banning fake news" on HN, I specifically gave WashPost as an example (knowing they've written pure propaganda/false stories in the past) and questioned "whether a site like WashPost would have its fake news articles blocked on Facebook, too", when they are caught manufacturing stories (which they arguably did here).
Because if such articles from the big media companies wouldn't be blocked, then the system would be biased and unworkable, and Facebook or Google will just find a lot of backlash against them over it.
The Washington Post, is a national media institution who has had their press credentials revoked by Trump. Therefore the organization, by definition, at a disadvantage, when it comes to gaining CONTEXT about the subject of their reporting. Thus, The Washington Post is mired in CONTROVERSY. This is only natural.
People misinterpret each other's text messages and internet comments, often with CONTROVERSIAL outcomes, because the initiator of the message has failed to provide sufficient CONTEXT. This is only natural.
The entire aviation industry vilified Captain Sullenberger, even though he had just saved 155 peoples lives, because everyone investigating the incident lacked sufficient CONTEXT to explain to themselves, and each other how Sully was able to accomplish something that had never happened in the history of aviation. Captain Sullenberger did, in fact, possess sufficient CONTEXT, which he gained over a long career of landing other failing airplaines. This CONTEXT possessed by Sullenberger, at least as portrayed in the movie, is written all over Tom Hanks face in the form of a stiff upper lip. That guy was as cool as the other side of the pillow the whole time, before, during, and after his water landing. Once sufficient CONTEXT was provided, the CONTROVERSY immediately subsided. This is only natural.
The United States of America is at a fairly CONTROVERSIAL point in its history. I wonder, if American's sought out the true CONTEXT of the people they find the most CONTROVERSIAL, their political opponents, if said CONTROVERSY would naturally subside.
Find someone you disagree with, and see how long you can keep talking to them.
There's more than enough real news to be upset about. With all the focus on email hacking, why no furor over the stolen $100mn?
In the meantime we hear sob stories about the consulate chef being deported. Poor guy! Hard to feel bad when he's got 9 digits stashed in a Swiss account.
Isn't malware on some worker's laptop a common way of penetrating disconnected networks? Not that it matters, as it serves the agenda equally well being either a "false" or a "true" story. Seems like calling Russia out on covert operations was too scary for them, so they chose hacking as a more acceptable thing.
> Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.
This is journalistic ethics in action. WaPo has publicly admitted a mistake and revised their article as a result. Greenwald can (and deserves to) give himself a pat on the back.
That being said, I am disappointed in his bad faith equivocation of the (occasionally sloppy and partisan) news media with "news" that is patently false and engineered to maximize advertising revenue. Calling this "fake news" just gives the GOP more (dishonest) ammunition in its 40 year war with the Post.
That's exactly right. This wasn't fake news, but rather a poorly researched story. And a correction was published.
With fake news, the story is never retracted or corrected, but continues to be elaborated. Compare this to the "Clinton runs a network of child sexual abuse through a pizzeria in DC."
Too late. I already saw a news segment about Russia hacking US power plants on mainstream Italian TV. There will be no retraction here and the disinformation is already in the public consciousness.
It's pretty clear he sees himself as an ally to Julian Assange, and is jumping to his defense.
It's sad that this is what it's come to, and that we can't separate WikiLeak's role in this from the Russians. Good journalism would be explaining to the people how WikiLeaks works, and how the source of the information isn't relevant to WikiLeaks.
Right, so it's not WaPo/The Guardian who are spreading fake news to push a narrative, but rather the person who asks for actual evidence before jumping to conclussions who is the sad one?
They do this bullshit all the time. Post poor and/or misleading reportage for clicks, then fix it in post[1]. It appears as an advertising scam masquerading as editorial policy. The WaPo has some great people working there, but there's a lot of hands in between theirs and the words we ultimately see on the screen or page.
Excellent point, and the main point is... it doesn't really cost them anything if it doesn't get called out by another high-visibility actor. And the whole "call them out" thing obviously takes lower and lower priority if all you're trying to do is to out-"produce" your competitors. It's all a pretty depressing case of perverse incentives... again :(.
The problem with this is that, much like fake news, no refutation or retraction ever spreads as wildly and virally as the original sensational claim. So people will carry on believing that Russia hacked the power grid, just like they have with all the other bogus, sensationalised, narrative-pushing claims so far. It's basically a way for papers to have their cake and eat it: they get to profit from the original bogus claim while insisting that it shouldn't affect their reputation for good journalism because they corrected it.
The point is, there's been a sustained campagin to discredit Russia at every opportunity by the Dems who are buthurt about their election loss.
I am not saying that Russia did nothing and I don't think Glenn is saying that either, rather he wants us to think more critically before accepting "secret evidence" from the same people who pushed us into the Iraq War, not that controverial a position, or is it?
Discredit Russia from what? It is widely and commonly known that the Russian government routinely hacks or attempts to hack U.S. government IT assets and the assets of organizations involved with the government, including nonprofits and contractors. This is old--like over a decade old--news.
I don't know where people get the idea that it is some unbelievable stretch of the imagination that Russia would hack the DNC. The only surprising thing to me is that the frickin' DNC was not ready and expecting them to.
Every headline I see from the Washington Post is framed dramatically in the favor of left wing opinions. They obviously only hire/print journalists that will drink the kool-aid spewed from the powers that be (Jeff Bezos??). If you don't see that, I challenge you to expand your mind by putting yourself in the shoes of someone who may see things differently or who comes from a different background.
My questions at this point in regards to WaPo are: Do their journalists actually have their heads so far up their asses that they believe their opinions are unquestionably correct? Or is the for-profit newspaper pushing this crap out as part of a hidden agenda that happens to benefit from left wingers being in power? OR are they just fear mongering and stirring the pot just to keep the sheeple distracted from something bigger???
Please stop posting unsubstantive comments here, and please also stop posting inflammatory comments about divisive topics. We've asked you this several times before.
293 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] threadIs there a way contemporary journalism can be fixed?
The Post is being called out by The Intercept, a publication launched in 2014 [1]. That looks an awful lot like a system reacting to itself.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept
Edit - should add, journalism is being fixed. The MSM is becoming increasingly irrelevant, social media and independent journalists who are on Twitter and various blogs are becoming more relevant.
I would hardly call this a fix. The MSM is certainly unreliable, but "twitter and various blogs" are even less so.
And even though Pizzagate is firmly in conspiracy theory territory, you've got to admit - some of Podesta's emails were fucking weird.
I don't think that necessarily qualifies as newsworthy. A "real journalist" would have read those e-mails, found them to be pretty weird, then did an investigation to determine if anything of merit could be uncovered before printing a story. If there were any journalists involved, the pizzagate story would have been a perfect example of "irresponsible journalism", i.e. projecting unfounded claims based on rabid speculation and "gut instincts", yet being unable to prove anything definitively.
Sure, but a live video stream of newsworthy events represents a minuscule fraction of social media "reporting" and isn't even really representative of journalism in general since it's usually just an ad-hoc video from a citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Even then, the conclusions drawn from citizen videos are often extremely contentious either because they are incomplete or just poorly shot (perhaps with the videographer leaving their own hysterical or biased commentary as a narration of events)
Furthermore, decreasing ad revenue and increasing competition means that newsrooms are financially strapped compared with earlier days. Back then, even big newspapers published just a few print editions a day. But now there's a constant 24-hour news cycle. It's impossible to check every story 100%; nothing would ever get published. So the editor has to settle for a sub-certain level of confirmation, with fewer fact checkers on staff to boot.
To a certain extent, it's better to issue the retraction later. You get eyeballs on your page for the initial story, then more attention for the fallout and retraction. I've now clicked on that WaPo article thrice instead of just once -- cha-ching. Obviously too much of that damages the reputation, but there are a number of tremendously successful organizations that unapologetically and routinely dispense fake news and still prosper as a result. People have been successfully conditioned to care less about accuracy and more about "tell me good stuff about my team and bad stuff about the other team."
The anti-Russia hysteria is getting ridiculous, and the more the media drum it up, the less people believe it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0ArMMGXcAIo8oL.jpg
>At a recent meeting of U.S. ambassadors from Russia and Europe in Washington, U.S. ambassadors to several European countries complained that Russian intelligence officials were constantly perpetrating acts of harassment against their diplomatic staff that ranged from the weird to the downright scary. Some of the intimidation has been routine: following diplomats or their family members, showing up at their social events uninvited or paying reporters to write negative stories about them.
But many of the recent acts of intimidation by Russian security services have crossed the line into apparent criminality. In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russ...
[1] http://www.hs.fi/sunnuntai/art-2000002847124.html
The agents and officers they actually care about, they (and we) rarely touch. It's better if they think their cover is intact.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DC10fyQgNqo
Yes Mr inspector the poor lads though they where being burglarised and as "drink had been taken" they got a bit boisterous
Their opinion pieces can have a bit more "free thinking", definitely, but they are always marked as opinion.
> Corrections & Amplifications:
> Departing presidents in recent years have given farewell addresses in the final weeks of their terms.
I can imagine Russia actually doing something heinous and it making zero waves, all because of the media who cried wolf.
1. Select an arbitrary NFL game being played in the first week of season.
2. Email a sufficiently large ( > 131,072) group of people, telling half of them that Team A will win. Tell the other half people that team B will win.
3. The game will necessarily yield a loser. (To account for ties, tell your audience team N will not lose, instead of will win)
4. The emailed people who received the correct prediction become the remaining pool, and those that received the incorrect prediction are no longer involved in this exercise.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for the first 16 of the 17 weeks of the NFL season, always retaining the half of the pool who received the correct prediction.
6. After the 16th game, since you started with a sufficiently large pool, you will have sent the correct predictions for all 16 games to a nonzero number of people.
7. This nonzero number of people, if they have paid attention, will be forced to believe that you can predict the winner of the 17th game, and will be willing to give you ridiculous amounts of money to obtain that 17th prediction.
In their eyes, you can predict the future, but all you did was apply successive approximation, which is how many analog to digital converters work.
The same tactic works in reverse, you simply need to keep the people paying attention to the incorrect predictions long enough. I'll leave the most recent example of this phenomenon as an exercise to the reader.
[1] http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-poll-shows-that-41-of-rep...
And at the same time some of them are saying crap like "Who cares about Russia, their only contribution to the world was the gulag". I'm paraphrasing here, but this is what I was referring to in my post above. In their zeal to denounce a man they see as a racist bigot, they turn to bigotry themselves. Shameful is the word for it. I mean, look at this: https://twitter.com/timjacobwise/status/809188697002409988
All in all it's just a startling 180- 4 years ago, Democrats were (correctly) lambasting Romney for BS tough-talk about Russia.
If I had to argue a point in a university essay, and argued in the fashion the media has for the last year, any of my profs would have failed me.
You'd think educated professionals, in a supposedly intellectual, free society would do better. But nope, just "Putin is a dictator", or "Trump is a racist". It's these journalists' fault no one listens any more.
I'd argue that elections have never been won this way. They've always been about identity and attacking your opponent. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but that the 2016 Democratic campaign was not unique in that regard. Hell, Trump's own campaign was run as a referendum on Hillary Clinton as much as it was anything to do with his strengths.
Had they not stacked the deck against Sanders, they'd have a principled, likeable candidate in the general, and then they could have used the angle of Trump being unprincipled. Unfortunately Hillary is equally unprincipled, and less likeable.
He claimed judge Curiel couldn't do his job because of his ethnicity.
He claimed the Central Park five were guilty even though they were cleared by DNA evidence.
His company was fined for not renting to blacks and Hispanics.
The whole birtherism stuff.
He's invaded territory of other countries.
He's authorized the bombing of civilian areas in Syria.
You might think the evidence that the journalists were killed by Russia is inflated. You might think the Russians living in Ukraine deserve to live under the rule of mother Russia. You might not think there are civilians among the Syrian rebels. But I'm pretty sure that those things at least meet the bar of real criticism.
Btw, do you keep up with Ukrainian news?
Why the hyperbole earlier?
He's bombed and destabilized other countries (Libya)
He's funded and armed terrorists fighting in civilian areas of Syria.
See how easy that is? One thing I've learned is just how many shades of gray exist in the real world, and as such I refuse to accept the narrative that Putin is a literal cartoon villain.
People are just tired of democrats calling anything who doesn't agree with them a racist/sexist/islamophobe when the VAST majority of conservatives are none of the above.
(All else aside, "the problem with Democrats is that they stereotype large groups of people" is a fantastically ironic statement to make)
That's just not true. Democrats have been pushing the narrative that "Russian hackers" are undermining America, and pushing it quite aggressively. So it's completely valid to bring those efforts up in regard to a dramatically over-hyped story about "Russian hackers."
In my book, manufacturing 90% of the story based on a "small kernel of truth" still counts as fake news, but perhaps others disagree.
This stuff can lead to war (McCain actually called this an act of war from Russia, after reading the original WashPost article), and in fact it has. Unsurprisingly WashPost was a big part of pushing the U.S. into the Iraq war as well.
https://www.democracynow.org/2004/8/13/washington_post_admit...
No lessons learned, it seems.
If only. How long has the claim that Clinton runs a child abuse ring through a Washington DC pizzeria been going on? The Obama birther controversy?
These things are very difficult to debunk even in the presence of clear contrary information.
The danger is pretty clear, if response time is shorter than validation time, people or systems will respond, perhaps irreversibly, before validation can be achieved.
That is how you do real damage in a system. Hopefully a very public critical response to the Washington Post here will help extend their response time again past the validation time.
The article from The Intercept comes across as more alarmist than the original one from the Post. The second paragraph reads:
> While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a security matter, the discovery underscores the vulnerabilities of the nation’s electrical grid.
There's a nuance that seems to be lost in Greenwald's interpretation of the article.
It's not lost, it is deliberate
Make no mistake, GG has no interest in the truth, he is only interested in furthering his agenda. Which, in this case, of pushing mistrust in mainstream media, is shared in common with alt-right sites
I completely agree
> Greenwald isn't powerful enough to impose it.
Correct, but it's the collective push of "independent" news sites, including The Intercept
And as much as they push for the "Mainstream media is untrustworthy" agenda, guess what, they are less trustworthy than the mainstream media. But it's more insidious
[0] To within experimental error.
It's much more likely that they know they can publish something fake, get the desired public impact, and then retract it and retain credibility.
The Washington Post is not a "higher quality publication".
>Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities
Here's an earlier cached version: http://web.archive.org/web/20161231011622/https://www.washin...
> There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.
"and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid."
So, the first step in penetrating a system was accomplished, getting the code onto a device that could potentially (or so they attacker may have hoped) be connected to the target network.
Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack. The headlines and responses are arguably alarmist and not fully informed, but it's still an attack. The dismissal of alarmism seems intended to obscure the likelihood that there was, in fact, the start of an attack.
If a spear phishing attack fails, was it not still an attack? That it was an attack in the direction of the power grid is, by definition, alarming. [EDIT: The first sentence in this paragraph confuses my point, and can profitably be ignored.]
The intercept's article could have been less sensationalist itself, and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be. Competition? Schadenfreude? Sensationalist link baiting?
Regardless, I had hoped for a more sober and professional style from the intercept from its early days, and I've long ago stopped reading it, modulo the odd HN post.
Nobody is disputing that. But "electric company employee's laptop gets a computer virus" is a far cry from "the Russian government is attacking our infrastructure".
I'm not saying that is true, but it does makes sense.
Russians have shut down an airliner full of people and also occupied a good chunk of Ukraine and there was less hoopla in the media about it. Someone finds a PHP shell on a laptop and Washington Post is going nuts with "OMG Russians are about to disable our power grid".
If this is not Fake News then I don't know what is...
Was WaPo a respectable news outlet at some point? I feel like it was, I wasn't following it much before. It has gone the way of Fox News it seems recently. Oh well..
Obamaism, the McCarthyism of the 21st century. Otherwise known as good old propaganda. It goes like: Russia hacked the election, Russia hacked our grid, Donald Trump is a in fact Russian robot programmed to win the US elections and destroy America, etc.
>> Nobody is disputing that
>>> Just because they failed doesn't mean it wasn't an attack
Nobody is disputing that. What's being disputed is (a) the target and (b) the attacker.
What do "signature" and "tied to" mean in this context?
Stuxnet happened in a very similar way
You shouldn't wonder. The Washington Post is, and always has been, the voice of the DC/Media establishment and the number one disseminator of their propaganda. Remember that the absurd "PropOrNot" garbage was published in the Washington Post after being turned down by several major media outlets that at least seek to maintain the semblance of credibility.
The United States went to war in Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses. The cost of that mistake was gigantic, and continues to pile up.
This saber-rattling against Russia could have serious consequences, and seems to be inspired mainly by a need to find some kind of scapegoat on which to blame the DNC's absurd loss against Trump.
I'm glad they're doing this.
I hardly call 2,000 dead Americans, and an attack on American soil "false pretenses".
If you want to claim that it was misguided to perform a full scale invasion vs. targeted special ops missions, that is a more interesting argument.
Now, the war in Iraq on the other hand, that was false pretenses...
In the end, there was some shady stuff in the emails, and if there wasn't it likely never would have seen the light of day.
I'm going to have to say "yes".
DNC, RNC, Green, Independent, etc. it shouldn't matter who got hacked. I'd hope that all Americans would be concerned about this.
Is anyone talking about a war with Russia besides folks like Greenwald and Taibi, for whom it is making a nice straw man?
And now we have a major US newspaper publishing articles claiming (with the most tenuous of links) that Russia is hacking the US power grid.
Not to mention a whole bunch of other dubious anti-Russia stories making the rounds based on flimsy 'evidence' that boils down to what another commenter posted the other day:
"Russians drive trucks. Hackers used trucks. Therefore the hacks were clearly done by the Russians"
It's not a straw man to say people calling for calm against Russia Hysteria are doing so because they don't want things to escalate to war with Russia.
> Certainly not the incoming US president
And so I find myself looking more and more forward to a Trump presidency. There are still 20 days to go however, so lets hope the media and the left can calm themselves down before then.
0: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13614125
The entire left establishment, from Hillary to Obama.
Hillary wanted a no-fly zone in Syria. Obama just imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia, which is a precursor to war.
The mental gymnastics are hitting Olympic levels with the left.
People don't see the chess board and make Russia look like the villain; look at NATO in 1991 and look at it today if Canada would have joined the Warsaw Pact and if Russia was keeping enough nukes in Mexico to kill every living human in the continental United States where do you think we would be now?
All what Russia sees is a military alliance pushed onto their border, a continuous presence of US nukes in Europe, the US never stopping it's strategic air command nuclear bomber flights and then criticizing Russia for resuming them, the EU and the US pushing to bypass Russia's pipelines in the Caspian Sea and the US deploying a missile shield in Europe that would nullify Russia's current strategic arsenal after unilaterally withdrawing from the anti-ABM treaty. And you say Russia is reckless and is a threat to world peace?
Close enough to "everywhere" to say everywhere.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1597489/us-now-likely...
"Obama was referring to the roughly 200 B61 nuclear bombs that the US has deployed in five Nato nations stretching from the Netherlands to Turkey - and a Russian arsenal estimated at 2,000 tactical weapons."
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB11...
" ... The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared to the momentous issues that the East and West have tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battle-field weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be easy to tidy up."
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nuclear+weapons+in+europe
Google NATO Nuclear Sharing; WHY THE FUCK are there nukes in freaking Belgium, when Russia had 12 missiles in Cuba the US almost started WW3, today the US is keeping nearly 100 of them in Turkey.
2) Russia invaded Georgia and stole Crimea.
HAHAHAHA
Seriously, Russia did not start the Georgian conflict, sure they "overreacted" but Georgia did invade first, they were prompted by the west and then Bush folded and withdrew his advisers. The Georgian conflict was about oil, the EU was building a new pipeline to circumvent Russia, they made a power play and Russia returned in kind.
"Stole" Crimea is probably the most laughable statement I can think of considering how the entire Ukrainian conflict started, the US and the EU pushed for elections they didn't like the results so a political proxy war was started which ended with the ousting of the pro Russian president which all the US and EU observers stated was democratically elected.
Russia was at risk of losing their only warm water port, and the most ironic thing is that whilst Crimea holds Russia's most important naval base in the region it's pretty analogous to another little piece of "stolen" land that you might know as GITMO, the big difference is that GITMO is not that strategically important to the US in fact it's not important at all, all US naval bases are in effect warm water ports, GITMO isn't even geographically important since mainland florida is just a day of sailing away.
3) Russia has started making advanced missiles to bypass missile defense systems and will have them soon, so who really cares of the missile defense shield?
Russia started improving their missiles as a counter to the work the US had conducted on missile defense, the US pulled out of the Anti-ABM treaty which was criticized by nearly everyone around the world and now it has a more or less effective missile shield. In 2020 the US missile shield will likely to make all current Russian strategic weapons ineffective which would drastically change the balance of power in effect negating any nuclear deterrence this brings us closer to a nuclear war not further away.
Russia can't afford to spend trillions on ABM like the US has since the early days of the SDI, but making more and better missile is affordable to them, however this puts them again as an aggressor even tho the only thing they do is to attempt to restore the deterrence.
4) Russia is an autocratic nightmare state where Putin, a man rumored to have engineered the terrorist attacks that led to his quick rise to power, kills or exiles any opponents or critics.
It's not Finland but it's not an autocratic nightmare, Putin was an intelligence officer, he refused to participate in the general's coup in 1991, you should really read more about how he rose to power. Russia doesn't have the same democracy as the US, the "unique" flavor of what they call "managed democracy" works it's not perfect, it might not be even "good" but it's far from being an autocratic nightmare.
5) Russia hacked the fucking DNC to make Trump win, which is an act of war.
The US prompted up more dictators than the Soviets ever did, they interfere in elections openly all the time including in those of allies, and when they don't like the results they impose sanctions or start civil wars so give me a break. Meddling in the elections of other states was always something nation did and will continue to do, you want to make sure the person in power is some one would would end up working best for you. The US effectively elected Yeltsin, the also have actually helped out Putin in the early years; Putin was somewhat of a surprise to both Russia and the West he was prompted for being effective but not threatening.
So far I haven't seen any evidence that show that Russia hacked the DNC, and if it did that it had any effect on the elections.
Russia did not make the FBI reopen the investigati...
The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September.[1] The next day Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2] According to sentences of judicial authorities of Russia, acts of terrorism were organized and financed by heads of the illegal armed group Islamic institute "Caucasus".[3] Thirty-six hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. There are allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimise the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to the presidency.[4][5]"
I for one, think Putin orchestrated said bombings.
@ troop deployments, having a smattering of troops in countries around Russia doesn't really make them "surrounded by troops" imo
@ autocratic nightmare, lol, yes, it is an autocratic nightmare state. Putin kills or exiles opposition and press that is in any way negative towards him. There is no freedom of the press in Russia. There is no right to protest in Russia. Gay people are regularly killed or imprisoned in Russia. Corruption reigns supreme in a way that we could never even touch.
As for the rest, I never said the US was morally pure. I disagree with many things that we do, but that doesn't change the fact that I consider the manipulation of our elections to be tantamount to an attack on our country.
Russia may be backed into a corner in many ways, but that doesn't excuse them fucking with European and US politics.
@ US nukes, this is nothing new right? I don't see how that should matter to them too much.
@ missile defense shield, I kind of agree with that bit, although I find the idea that either side would ever use nukes ridiculous
@ NATO paranoia, I'd say Crimea and Russian ambitions to re-establish a more USSR-looking country make those fears well founded.
@ pipeline... that's just economics. Having your own pipeline and not having to rely on a somewhat hostile power is always going to be preferable.
I mean if the intelligence community is going to drum up shoddy evidence that could potentially lead to war, I'd sure hope the media would spend an inordinate amount of time trying to combat it.
A word of advice: Don't go to porn sites, install Limewire (dated; today's equivalent), torrent, TOR, etc. on your work computer. Conversely, keep your work off of your personal computer.
Is there a catch-all term for middle-aged white lefty dudes who are pro-Russia because their political outlook was defined by the Iraq War?
[1] https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/815104514046902273
As much as Noahpinion is entitled to his opinion, so is GG.
you seem intent on forcing your particular world view on hn than providing moderation of explosive or unpleasant reading.
i find reading all the posts you like to detach often more interesting reading than any of the hn comments that get left over.
It's a wee bit hypocritical for the US to get so upset about these things though, considering all the elections that the CIA have been involved in, not to mention the stuff that Snowden revealed (like tapping the German Chancellors phone). Everyone knows that whatever espionage Russia is doing to the US the US is doing back in kind. All the powers will be hacking each other.
The petty finger pointing needs to stop. The low sophistication of the DNC hack just reinforces this. Besides, if you don't want to be embarrassed then don't do embarrassing things and then sulk when you're exposed.
Thissss. I'm so sick and tired of the hypocrisy. If there was a "Chinese snowden" who leaked that China was doing the same stuff we where it would start a war. If Russia or China started building military bases through out the world for "democracy" we would loose our shit.
Why are we surprised when other world powers follow our example and try to hack the shit out anything they can get their hands on. Can't we be grown ups about this? It's a total double stAndard. We mess with so many elections around the world, and cry foul when someone does it to us.
Don't get me wrong, I understand why we do it, and sometimes agree with it. I feel like it stems from almost a prehistoric primitive tribal instinct - I live if my tribe lives, and to do that we have to control the other tribes.
By all means continue to dominate other countries, but PLEASE STOP USING THE MORAL SUPERIORITY CARD.
I don't think that is a very good argument. If you were to look through the email of most middle-sized organisations you would be able to find embarrassing things.
And if we believe that such exists elsewhere, then we should be calling for more exposure of such vs ignoring it as operating as normal.
Russian subs have been seen in some Swedish bedrooms the early-mid part of this year. Those Ruskies are capable of anything, you know.
Why?
Also, him saying "false story" is, itself false, because the the facts are objectively true. Officials did say what they were quoted as saying, and the NYT changed the headline shortly after publishing the story, which is (like it or not) common practice in the industry. Glenn was party to it himself while at The Guardian.
It's just "weird" to me that there's a faction of people out there who don't believe that Russia infiltrated the DNC, and I think it's because they're politically motivated to not believe this to be the case.
There's never been such an ignorance driving security news before. It's alarming and completely out of left field.
edit: Since you edited your original post - I would want to see the same report that Obama saw, the one that led his administration to go so far as saying Putin was "personally involved" in orchestrating the attack. Redact sensitive info/sources as necessary.
Anything less makes it ludicrous to accuse a nuclear superpower of cyber warfare.
Have you even looked at the "evidence" out there so far? It's entirely circumstantial evidence put out by third party info sec groups.
I am pretty skeptical about the extent of direct Russian governmental involvement in the hacking of the DNC and Podesta's email account given the paucity of evidence. It would seem far more likely that Putin's regime turns a blind eye to certain activities either originating in or passing through their domain, as long as the target falls within certain parameters.
Don't get me wrong, I think a certain amount of firm resolve is due to be shown to Russia now and in the future, but I think there are many valid reasons for that without needing to invent them.
I'm sorry, but what? There is a preponderance of evidence, way more than is usually available for such things.
What piece of evidence is missing? What would convince you?
fvey vs fsb played out in public.
otherwise its too much effort and they'll just go along with whatever seems trendy and cool at the time.
And its definately not cool to point out the sun has set on the American empire.
Because if such articles from the big media companies wouldn't be blocked, then the system would be biased and unworkable, and Facebook or Google will just find a lot of backlash against them over it.
The intercept has plenty of "all hat" articles where the picture painted by the headlines doesn't necessarily match the content.
People misinterpret each other's text messages and internet comments, often with CONTROVERSIAL outcomes, because the initiator of the message has failed to provide sufficient CONTEXT. This is only natural.
The entire aviation industry vilified Captain Sullenberger, even though he had just saved 155 peoples lives, because everyone investigating the incident lacked sufficient CONTEXT to explain to themselves, and each other how Sully was able to accomplish something that had never happened in the history of aviation. Captain Sullenberger did, in fact, possess sufficient CONTEXT, which he gained over a long career of landing other failing airplaines. This CONTEXT possessed by Sullenberger, at least as portrayed in the movie, is written all over Tom Hanks face in the form of a stiff upper lip. That guy was as cool as the other side of the pillow the whole time, before, during, and after his water landing. Once sufficient CONTEXT was provided, the CONTROVERSY immediately subsided. This is only natural.
The United States of America is at a fairly CONTROVERSIAL point in its history. I wonder, if American's sought out the true CONTEXT of the people they find the most CONTROVERSIAL, their political opponents, if said CONTROVERSY would naturally subside.
Find someone you disagree with, and see how long you can keep talking to them.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=controversy
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=context
In the meantime we hear sob stories about the consulate chef being deported. Poor guy! Hard to feel bad when he's got 9 digits stashed in a Swiss account.
> Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.
This is journalistic ethics in action. WaPo has publicly admitted a mistake and revised their article as a result. Greenwald can (and deserves to) give himself a pat on the back.
That being said, I am disappointed in his bad faith equivocation of the (occasionally sloppy and partisan) news media with "news" that is patently false and engineered to maximize advertising revenue. Calling this "fake news" just gives the GOP more (dishonest) ammunition in its 40 year war with the Post.
With fake news, the story is never retracted or corrected, but continues to be elaborated. Compare this to the "Clinton runs a network of child sexual abuse through a pizzeria in DC."
Too late. I already saw a news segment about Russia hacking US power plants on mainstream Italian TV. There will be no retraction here and the disinformation is already in the public consciousness.
It's sad that this is what it's come to, and that we can't separate WikiLeak's role in this from the Russians. Good journalism would be explaining to the people how WikiLeaks works, and how the source of the information isn't relevant to WikiLeaks.
They do this bullshit all the time. Post poor and/or misleading reportage for clicks, then fix it in post[1]. It appears as an advertising scam masquerading as editorial policy. The WaPo has some great people working there, but there's a lot of hands in between theirs and the words we ultimately see on the screen or page.
1. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FixItInPost
I don't know where people get the idea that it is some unbelievable stretch of the imagination that Russia would hack the DNC. The only surprising thing to me is that the frickin' DNC was not ready and expecting them to.
Usually people say something like this when they have no evidence. So citation needed.
My questions at this point in regards to WaPo are: Do their journalists actually have their heads so far up their asses that they believe their opinions are unquestionably correct? Or is the for-profit newspaper pushing this crap out as part of a hidden agenda that happens to benefit from left wingers being in power? OR are they just fear mongering and stirring the pot just to keep the sheeple distracted from something bigger???
is it the good AIDs or bad AIDs (Mary Whitehouse experience reference)
It was clearly the good computer virus designed to penetrate state infrastructure. because Glenn Greenwald said so.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13293235 and marked it off-topic.
please can you delete my account and all my comments. also, you need to reconsider your life, or just take it, easy either way.
that "we" thing, those voices in your head are not real people.
oh, and tell your mum i want my belt back.
It's OK though, fear not, because Facebook will tell you what's real and what's not.