So the US is back in yet another war again, this time the front lines have been opened in a Cyberwar.
What do you call the Cype version of the "Bay of Tonkin incident" this time?
How about global meddling of others where only the US sees itself to be allowed exclusively to go to Cyberwar?
Even in Cyber warfare, attacks will be recorded and what the US is doing is not retaliation but an attempt of punishing someone pre-emptively.
Perhaps the real problem is not that we have not stopped the Russian "information warfare" but that we have allowed decades of the dumbing down of education in this country. As an electorate we seem unable to evaluate information for accuracy or even to think logically about what we read or hear from TV commentary. Otherwise, why would millions of people continue to believe a president who clearly lies almost every hour?
I have concluded that we are an easy target for the Russians (or the Chinese, North Koreans, etc), and that no amount of effort from the our Cyber Command groups can protect us from our own stupidity.
11
The headline should be "US Cyberoperation Admits It Can't Do Much" beyond warning bad actors, due to vulnerability of electrical grid.
1
So finally something is being done to deter the meddling of our elections.
It's nice to know that "The United States Cyber Command is targeting individual Russian operatives to try to deter them from spreading disinformation..."
Is trump all for this or will he try to stymie it? What about Facebook, Twitter and the other social media. Will they be vigilant on how their sites are being used?
Without the full cooperation of these entities it will be very, if not extremely difficult for the Cyber Command to do it's job.
Twitter and Facebook, two American companies, are delivery systems for nationalistic fascist propaganda.
The company executives clearly have no idea of history let alone the lessons of history.
It’s is a shame that American ingenuity is being deployed to destroy American values.
6
Please include the President as he seems to lying daily in attempt to impact the upcoming elections.
10
The whole thing is hilarious. "Cyber Command" Who came up with that ridculous name and why is the head of the department dressed like a 5 star general? Sure protect networks but really what is needed is a more literate, educated, critically thinking populous. Snake oil is quite popular these days.
5
@justpaul
What do you think it should be called?
As for the comment about the head of the department, Maybe he's dressed as a general because he IS a general. 5 star or not. Does it really matter?
As for your comment regarding the populous, we already have those people. Unfortunately the people now in power are trying their best to dumb down America.
to prevent this we must vote them out of office.
4
What on earth is the source of "in large part to keep Moscow from escalating in response by taking down the power grid"? Has someone in the defense business stated that they believe that Moscow (or another malicious actor) currently has the capability to do such a thing? If they have, then for God's sake what, if anything, is being done about that? Why is it even possible to make such a statement?
4
@MikeG The power grid is made up of industrial control systems which are naturally vulnerable to cyber attack since they weren’t built with security in mind. As such, the Department Of Homeland Security has stood up a section called Industrial Control Systems-Cyber Emegency Response Team (ICS-CERT) specifically tasked with assessing public facing ICS that could be hacked remotely. In 2012, they spoke to my class and said they reduced roughly 100k to 10k in three years so I’d imagine that number is a lot smaller now. Keep in mind, this is a government entity assessing private companies so the reports they create are mostly recommendations, but it’s their choice. There is a national critical infrastructure list that identifies power grids, but it doesn’t identify what happens if companies don’t make the recommended changes.
4
@Brad Olson
Thank you for making my point: critical infrastructure is not adequately protected. It is at risk. "Recommendations"? Are you kidding me?
Great but when will someone do the same thing for operators within the country? I’m more concerned about the Koch brothers influencing the elections.
6
@Wasted This belongs to the FBI Cyber Division if people are actually committing crimes. Misinformation, unf ortunately, is not a crime that someone has been directly convicted for.
Since Trump was even on the ballot, there has been an increase in a new business profession called a "conspirator theorist". These new trades/occupations are popping up across America and usually are also aligned with right wing "nationalists".
Coincidentally, Trump echoes these "conspirator theorist's" verbiage on a daily basis.
3
"Almost all of the Russian disinformation efforts, according to current and former officials, are aimed at sowing dissent, polarizing the political parties and setting the stage for the 2020 presidential election."
Great effort. But doesn't that behavior remind you of someone else? Someone currently unfettered, with a megaphone?
6
The best way to curtail Russian meddling starts at the very top, Vladimir Putin. The US needs to release info on his extensive corruption and sizable ill gotten fortune IN Russia and worldwide. Reputinedly' to be well over $100 billion, some in the know believe he's the worlds richest individual. Incredible, on a Government salary no less.
Secondly, despite decades of cynical if not outright immoral efforts by republicans to suppress voting and voters rights, we MUST insure those rights for all.
Voting districts need to be studied and redrawn by a non-partisan National commission. No more gerrymandered districts (many more done by republicans than democrats).
Election Day needs to be made a national holiday or at least moved to Saturday.
Republicans will fight every effort to level the voting 'playing field' because they know with present and anticipated demographics going against them, they can not win fairly and squarely. Claims of voter fraud prevention are hugely fraudulent themselves. The USA has virtually NO significant voter fraud. Documented Cases number in the low hundreds out of hundreds of millions of votes cast.
Lastly, more stringent policing of social media for manipulation by bots, etc., be they Russian, Chinese, or home grown PACs is mandatory.
Let's do it!
9
The surest way to disarm Russian campaign influence campaigns is for our politicians to stop trying to exploit divisive issues to gain votes.
1
I do not for a moment believe that our CIA and NSA have been sitting on their hands this whole time. Nor do I believe that they didn't engage in similar actions as to the Russians prior to now.
5
Russia is nothing compared to Trump when it comes to spreading disinformation. You can be sure that if the house and senate are not reclaimed by our democracy, then disinformation and vote rigging will be just one more new norm.
7
The response sounds a little...fuzzy.
These are Russian intelligence operatives we're talking about right?
The poisoners? The murderers?
The same kind of adversaries we killed in Syria? About 300 of them I think.
Is this a measured response on par with the assault on our elections?
I don't think so.
I think that a reasonable response would be to render the Russian cyber capabilities usable only for web browsing, gaming, like Red Dead Redemption maybe, first rendition. And Amazon purchases.
Let them experience Perestroika again.
Rethink their "crazy Ivan" attack on the U.S.
If we implement a "robust" reaction to what the mischievous Russians may have considered a "lark", perhaps they might reconsider their posture and contemplate a little glasnost.
If we do not exact a meaningful reckoning for the Russian transgression we may wind up with, I don't know... Jill Stein as president next time.
And she might be better than Trump... but not by much.
2
This is ridiculous. Russia is attacking us and our response is to tell them we know who you are and please stop?
I'm not advocating a physical war with Russia, but we need to respond in a way that inflicts pain on them to make them stop.
Where are all the cyber weapons we've spent billions on? Where are the sanctions on the Russian country and not some weak knee banking sanctions on billionaires? We don't need Russia and the way they are already acting on the world stage we don't have to play nice to get them to play nice.
The Russians are openly attacking our Democracy and our Country and all we do is complain. What's up with that?
3
@wfisher1
That is an excellent perspective! I recommend contacting your congressman and tell them that. If we get enough people across the country, we can increase operations where we have the greatest threat.
1
Hear that?
That's laughter coming from the Internet Research Agency.
1
This type of asymmetric attack requires an asymmetric response. Text message warnings of being on "double secret probation" is not going to sway very many Russian trolls. My confidence in our Cyber Command is pretty low, if they think this is a form of PSYOPS.
2
"We can see you" has never been a strong deterrent
When Russian hackers start disappearing, now THAT would give them pause for sure.
2
They going after Trumps lies?
He seems to think we are so ignorant that we believe people with zero wealth and zero power have such leverage on our country.
let's be honest. if, as an american, you are getting your "factual" information from social media outlets like Facebook and twitter or even from commenters on reliable, network or newspaper websites, you aren't smart enough to vote in any election and you should abstain from voting. we all know that information obtained on the internet is to be taken with a grain of salt and fact checked. even reliable sources like the nyt or cnn or fox put their own propaganda spin on everything they release, and we all know that. so to think that we can put stock in something on social media or in a comment section is just plain ludacris. and I challenge anyone who does get their information that way and think it really is reliable or believable to just not cast a vote anymore. have we as Americans really bece either that dumb or lazy, or both?
3
Seeing a lot of unsubstantiated claims here?
Is this supposed to be reporting?
Online trolls, from Russia, or anywhere else, didn't elect Trump.
Hillary Clinton lost the general election by saying "what you're gonna vote for Trump, the crotch grabber?"
She took close states for granted and ran to Trump's right on several issues.
And many of the accounts shut down by Facebook and Twitter were simply leftish types calling out Hillary and other corporate Democrats.
2
Laura Rosenberger, the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a former Obama administration official.
This women sounds like one of the most dangerous people in America. I think Facebook is unethical, but our government deciding what we see and hear is disgusting. There is more false information on our “own” sites compared to others, plus, these are all filtered by the providers. If I use a VPN, will I see 404 errors. We are not morons and do not require our brains held by our government. The mistrust our government shows its citizens is far more dangerous that something Russia is doing.
They should go grab a few of those hackers from whatever country they are in like they did when they raided Osama Bin Laden and put them in prison with American criminals. See how many people would still want to try to mess with American elections. Or we can just email them. Whatever works.
1
Pathetic. The best out cyber command leadership can come up to is a sternly worded email that “you are being watched”? Weak, feckless, and disgraceful cowardice. We must be aggressive instead.
1
They going after the 400lb fat guy ?
9
"Cyber Command" ^ ^ I needed a good laugh, thanks, NY Times.
And who are these "outside experts" determining the effectiveness of Twitter and Facebook's "purging".
Just me or does this sound like an episode of Rick and Morty?
3
The whole problem with this reporting is that US has always been monitoring Russian cyber activities. The idea that the US is going to target supposed king pins in the miniscule troll effort is just plain propaganda. The US is by far the biggest practitioner of cyber warfare in the world. The US overtly interferes in Russian affairs and with its neighbors as well as people in Russia. One can make the case that Putin has short circuited democracy in Russia. Financial corruption in Russia is epic. And there is some connection with Trump. The idea that the Russians are brainwashing voters or as the NYTs like to say demoralizing them is laughable.
5
Who knows?
Maybe hacking the Russians will turn up a list of which candidates won the mid-terms.
9
Tracking their work? How about some proactive cyber attacks on those identified. Saying we don't want to cyber attack Russia because it might escalate things is just allowing Russia to bully the U.S. We spend all this money on the NSA , might as well use some of those powerful capabilities.
13
@infinityON
I've worked in that space. Believe me, we're launching attacks. It's not something we broadcast publicly for obvious reasons.
1
Anyone who believes that they aren't penetrating the state level voting apparatus is quite naive. Lots of well informed people visit and comment on the NYT and I would assume many of them vote. Anybody observe the antique systems in use when they vote? You've got old, unpatched Windows based systems dating from the turn of the century. How many security updates have you received from Apple and Microsoft during that time? How many do you think your election board has performed? What about the servers that aggregate the totals? Folks, this is child's play for a nation state. The Russians may not make anything anyone is the world wants besides oil, vodka, and weapons, but they do know their computers.
6
Good. And it’s about time. The fact that we’ve arrived late to the party is embarrassing enough, but the fact that having our eye off the ball to begin with, an oops that resulted in Trump, is inexcusable.
5
So, 2 weeks before the election, the powerful weapon the U.S. is using to see to it that Russian's don't interfere with our elections is to tell those Russians we know that the ARE interfering? Why so little so late?
12
Would be letters for freelancer or overload posts?
Jesus, it is about time we we do something about Russian cyber-war. Russia is a 2d rate power, crush them.
5
NOW?!?!?!
5
It’s about time. Shut down their entire grid and block access to undersea cable/satellite telecommunication transmissions for a couple hours. Cyber Command. Better than the Space Force.
4
@Joe B.
They would, but...the supreme leader's investments.
5
Can't tell you how happy I am to be reading about US cyber operations in the NYT. NOT! These actions are far more effective when done quietly. But evidently administration and/or Pentagon officials feel it more important to be SEEN doing something than actually doing it.
Even more depressing to read (if its true) that our operations are limited due to fear of Russian retaliation. Doesn't speak well for our defensive capabilities, to the flexibility of our authorities to rapidly respond, or the strength of our actual capabilities. Pretty sad in the country that birthed all this stuff.
3
You can bet that whatever was “leaked” and made its way into The Times was done so by design as part of the counter cyber campaign. Probably as a first step of deterrence to let the Russians know we are on to them.
This seems to be a rather innocuous approach, considering......
Isn't something much more consequential warranted?
5
Yes! How about PAPER BALLOTS in all Federal elections!
4
Puhleeze!!!
A message of "don't do that" is worthless, exactly what the dema-gouger in chief wants, that and all the money.
5
Finally. I've been doing this (messaging Russian operatives flooding comment sections of nearly every website available to let them know that I know they are pseudo mercenaries of the disinformation campaign) since early 2016. I am not paid to do so but I couldn't sit idly by and watch what was happening. Having a degree in history, propaganda messages are easy to identify. The message doesn't change, only the names do.
I'm happy that there will be a more deliberate effort to fight this war. However, Intelligence agencies cannot do this full time. They do not have enough people to effectively combat the Red Tsunami that is coming from Russia. Everyday people like those commenting here, need to call these people out. You can tell who they are, they can't spell and they seem be making use of Google translation services. I've even had several accede that they are not from the US and delete their comment. It is a real thing. Arm yourself with the truth, and fight the good fight. When you see a spun message, unspin it for the good of those who may be young and uneducated reading comments in an effort to untangle some of these verbose articles and videos. Call them out. It is not a waste of your time.
15
@Johnna S
I have thought if a structure and training were provided, many thousands of Americans would donate their time and efforts to undermine Russian oligarchs and Putin. We could hack into their business and social computer accounts, use translation programs that cause doubt in their country and leadership. Truthful accounts of their murders of those who were critical. I see only defensive plans being discussed, not offensive efforts.
3
The internet and social media allow for the instant, unfettered dissemination of propaganda and disinformation to a worldwide audience. It's a true paradigm shift, and there's no stopping it.
The only answer is education and critical thinking skills, but history suggests that those will continue to lag far behind.
56
...especially under a party-cult that expressly attacks public schools and their funds, replaces them with for-profit, for-corporate-welfare, and for-faux-Christ schools, and loves the poorly educated.
7
If foreign influence were eliminated, maybe we would be able to protect voting rights, protect voting machines, eliminate the Electoral system, reign in social media somehow, ungerrymander voting districts and move toward a sane health care destiny.
With foreign interests in play, domestic tranquillity will remain a pipe dream.
13
“Mr. Trump has handed off approval for certain actions....”. Well look out, Nellie! We are going on the offensive- identifying and warning. And then we bring out the big guns- threats of individual sanctions.
Maybe we could try this with home-grown drug gangs, car-jackers, thieves, murderers....to say nothing of white-collar criminals. I bet Putin is shaking in his boots.
This is our response to all of Russia's attacks against the USA?
How totally and utterly pathetic and lame. it just underscores how much the Republicans are beholden to Putin.
Patriotic Americans really need to vote the GOP out of Congress!
21
Wow just in time.
Imagine if Donald Trump became President of the United States.
By the way every person with any common or streetwise sense knows that you do not tell your enemy or opponent what and when and how you are planning to defend yourself. Military intelligence is as much of an oxymoron as Donald Trump intelligence.
The failure of America's national defense intelligence security apparatus to deter and defeat the 9 / 11/01 terrorist attacks anc Russian hacking and meddling in the Presidential campaign and election of 2016 are dishonorable disgraces that no one has been held accountable for.
5
Better late than never...?
4
They steal an election, and we send them threatening emails.
Not good.
21
So the military doesn’t want Russia to know that we know. I submit that they already know and we should do something to show we know. What about opening the outlets on 20% of the vodka tanks?
5
This story smells fishy. The actions are timid and too little, too late. We've had two years and now two weeks til the mid-terms? And we're not being aggressive because Russia might trigger a shutdown of a grid within our borders?
Sounds like the intelligence community is getting played to provide cover for the Russian agent in the Oval Office. So The Orange Creature and his minions can say they tried.
14
Finally! Although the U.S. Cyber Command's strategic approach is expected to be incremental, depending upon the Russian reaction to any measures taken, why not lay out for Putin what we are prepared to do if this election/societal meddling and sabotage does not stop. Particularly, public disclosure of the secrets we know about Putin's hoarding of vast wealth overseas in confidential accounts and other systematic corruption he bears personal responsibility for.
2
The Russian's don't need a covert cyber campaign, they have donald trump espousing lies everyday and the lies are fully reported and shared hundreds of times each day by our own media!
MSM has not provided anywhere near similar coverage on Democratic campaigns and on what planks and platforms Democratic candidates run.
Spotted coverage on voter suppression.
Good coverage on specific campaigns.
Excessive coverage on trump's outlandish statements that only serve to reinforce the lies in the minds of selective willing listeners.
Understand this basic tenet in change management: when a person hears a thing at least seven (7) times and the thing is undisputed in some form, a person begins to believe the thing.
MSM is creating falsehoods by covering trump to excess and then AFTER the elections, the pundits will sit around a table and posit what happened. You reap what you sow.
7
So who's checking Russian manipulation of the Guatemalan Caravan? Timing its arrival at the Texas border for November. Maintaining persistently larger, more determined crowds than heretofor.
3
A meaningless response to what is a blatant act of war on the U.S. So, the U.S. admits that the Russians hold our power grid hostage? Typical of his generation, Putin only understands one thing - brutal force. Substantial reinforcement of NATO in countries like Poland, arming Ukraine and Baltic states with offensive weapons, and much broader sanctions will send Putin an unmistakable message. We should turn the tables and engage in the same kind of cyber warfare, a broadly-aimed disinformation campaign, that Russia uses on the U.S. Wait, let's not forget, Putin has an ace up his sleeve - a public that elected Donald Trump.
5
They're just doing this NOW? Gee, way to be proactive guys!
8
Sounds like the cyber effort consists of sending Russian operatives a strongly-worded Email. That'll show those rascals! And no one ever accuse the government of not taking this serious.
7
it is good to know that someone in authority is taking measures against Russian intervention. Certainly the president would welcome intervention if he thought it would ensure a Republican victory. This President is not on our side, and it is good that someone is guarding American democracy in spite of him.
2
The best offense is a good defense. Not the other way around.
We should have known better than to unleash Stuxnet.
Really two years later and we are just starting this now? Two weeks before a hugely significant election?
12
A year before Mr. Trump even announced that he was running President Obama's team informed him that Russia was trying to interfere in our elections and Obama's team was putting together counter measures. President Obama told them to "stand down" and do nothing because he thought that Mrs. Clinton would win by a landslide. Then, after the DNC server was hacked, the DNC reused to have the FBI look at it. Now the server is missing. Talk about your keystone cops.
1
@P McGrath - Where are you getting your facts from? I don't recall reading anything about a "stand down" order.
1
“Please don’t do it again.”
Imagine FDR saying that on Dec 8, or GWB on Sept 12.
We have a self-proclaimed traitor as our President, through his public invitation of Russian interference in our elections on his behalf. Given that, and his overall lawlessness, any Republican vote today is a traitorous vote.
It’s there for all to see, and the shame of history will be hard upon this country.
There is time for true patriotism to overcome the swamp of selfishness and racism that blinds too many. But not much.
Vote, and resist. If not, your children will neither forget nor forgive.
12
The election is only a couple of weeks away and they have just started? Way to be on the ball and taking it seriously.
3
Regarding mail in voting. I, for one, have always looked forward to going to my local poll. I’ve voted in garages, churches, basements, libraries. There’s something emotionally special about seeing neighbors, strangers, and friends of all races and ages standing in line together to express their rights as free citizens.
4
President Trump and Bolton's personal inaction is either weakness or collusion.
13
@Frank Scully
You forgot to list "cluelessness."
6
Too little, too late and not sufficiently serious. This is more window dressing by an administration which takes money from the Russians in one hand while pretending to scold them with the other. It is all another lie.
We need a federal law mandating the use of voting machines which produce a paper copy of every ballot and a counting system which requires automatic matching of records. It may take longer, but it will be less prone to manipulation.
We also need an electoral system which focuses on getting all citizens to vote instead of focusing on denying, suppressing and discouraging voting by some.
52
@SWLibrarian Agreed. Also check out the voting system we have here in Washington state. All by mail. You can also register by mail. It is set up such that no fraud is possible, and they even allow you to mail the ballot in postage free.
19
@Greg Wessel
I, for one, have always looked forward to going to my local poll. I’ve voted in garages, churches, basements, libraries. There’s something emotionally special about seeing neighbors, strangers, and friends of all races and ages standing in line together to express their rights as free citizens.
@SWLibrarian I agree and the only way to ensure that is to vote Democrat next month.
2
If the US government wants to protect the integrity of US elections, they need to end gerrymandering of districts, overturn Citizens United, dismantle the Electoral College, end superdelegates and take Facebook and Twitter offline. Then they need to end the blanketing of airwaves with toxic 30 second attack ads and reform the corporate media who refuses to air genuine issues for debate instead favoring gossip, innuendo and optics. Then they need to take state oversight out of partisan control and end the purge of voter rolls, fake measures to combat fraud, and closing of voting stations in poor districts.
Then, and only then, should they turn to foreign bad actors.
30
They are not mutually exclusive.
4
@Xoxarle Nope. Needs to happen simultaneously.
1
Perhaps this might mitigate the accusations by anti-Trumpers that Trump is influenced by Putin. In fact, Trump's actions so far have proven he's no friend of the Russia.
Or, more likely, it’s just for show. What did Putin and Trump talk about in Helsinki, anyway?
1
Really? Canceling the missile treaty is a big win for Russia. Continuing to churn up discord in this country is another.
9
@MCH - how soon you forget. Trump acts against Russia only when he's forced to by his own party or by sensible people in the Administration. The Republican-controlled Congress was so worried about his weakness against Putin that they passed a law.
"President Trump signed legislation on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them [...]
The legislation, which also includes sanctions on Iran and North Korea, represented the first time that Congress had forced Mr. Trump to sign a bill over his objections by passing it with bipartisan, veto-proof majorities.[...]
The measure reflected deep skepticism among lawmakers in both parties about Mr. Trump’s friendly approach to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and an effort to prevent Mr. Trump from letting the Kremlin off the hook for its annexation of Crimea, military intervention in Ukraine and its meddling in last year’s American election."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/europe/trump-russia-sanctions.html
Bipartisan, veto-proof majorities. Sometimes Trump does bring the country together. Like when he seems hesitant to defend it. And many actions taken in the Executive Branch credit "The Administration" rather than "The President". If Trump was pushing all the steps his staff has taken, he'd have been tweeting them. No tweets, just crickets...
6
Dear NSA,
can you please do something about the Russian-aligned, un-American, self-identified Nationalists who are flooding social media with lies about Democrats, impoverished Latinos, Middle Easterners, and the economy in order to gaslight the American people and scare them to vote a certain way?
Thanks!
Sincerely,
The 95% of the world who can see what's happening and want it to STOP
79
2 years, for 2 years we've known that Russia hacked our elections and now Trump decides to do something about it.
If this don't show that he's Putin's BFF, then nothing does.
40
@BTO Asking the Russians to please stop attacking us is not "doing something about it." We have been and are still under attack. We should do something serious about it.
3
How do I contact (via email?) the department that controls/moderates these comments. Either there is some kind of glitch or I am being blacklisted for some reason that I cannot fathom. All the phone numbers I call want to know about my subscription (on which I spend a considerable percentage of my discretionary income). Please advise. Thank you.
6
"Stupid is as stupid does." The camel is inside the tent this time.
6
So we’re using strong language and firmly requesting these trolls stop? Then what? Likely the just move to another anonymous internet identity that hasn’t been identified and continue their malicious activity.
13
All well and good but could someone explain to me what our national security adviser is doing in Moscow, in effect telling the Russians to go ahead and meddle in our elections, just after the Justice Department indicted a Russian agent for meddling in our elections. What madness is this?
24
Russia, Saudi Arabia, N. Korea, China:
"No Collusion. Trumps' only statement of truth (Don't forget MS13 -one of two hundred gangs operating in US for 85 years). No Collusion, but felonies great a plenty, including Huge International Tax Fraud.
Oh yeah, Remember the Dems organized that march of Immigrants to the Border.
Who in their right mind can believe and follow this man; as POTUS?
24
"The campaign, which includes missions undertaken in recent days, is the first known overseas cyberoperation to protect American elections, including the November midterms."
Why were these safeguards not put into place ling ago in 2016 when intelligence agencies confirmed Russian meddling in our elections? Surely the most sophisticated security apparatus in the world could have preemptively attacked the enemy in this cyber war against our democracy long before "recent" days.
Is it just that the general public has not been apprised of what measures have been taken? Or is it that Trump has thwarted these measures in order to justify his possiby illegitimate election. I would like to believe the former but fear the lattter especially when "recent days" are now just two weeks away from such a momentous election where Trump will inevitably question its validity should the Republicans lose their dominance in Congress.
How dare this country monitor the elections of countries in the developing world when we cannot or will not monitor our own.
30
@HMP
Mitch McConnell would not approve any effort to stop that attack.
8
Why not simply hack any Russian computer system, instead of issuing warnings? Hack their oil, banks, transportation, airports, and whatever else it takes to make the Russians realize that the USA can return hacking in kind!
27
@Majortrout
1) It is quite safe to assume this has been happening for many years.
2) It is not in the interest of the US to confirm any such activity.
3) Foreign entities have made such accusations for many years
4) Most hacking tools used today are believed to have originated within our own NSA (writing here as a US citizen)
5) The stuxnet worm that took out the Iranian nuclear facility is such an example.
3
@Majortrout
as in full on cyberwar to see whose kung fu is better?
2
@Majortrout I think it's the concept of MAD rearing it's ugly head. We have not taken the necessary steps to protect our own infrastructure so if we attack theirs, we will ensure our own destruction as well.
How about as an alternative, until we have protected our own grid, transportation etc, we lock them our of our financial system, air space and such?
2