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United States Security

Russia Hackers Had Targets Worldwide, Beyond US Election (apnews.com) 254

Raphael Satter, Jeff Donn, and Justin Myers, reporting for Associated Press: The hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election had ambitions well beyond Hillary Clinton's campaign, targeting the emails of Ukrainian officers, Russian opposition figures, U.S. defense contractors and thousands of others of interest to the Kremlin, according to a previously unpublished digital hit list obtained by The Associated Press. The list provides the most detailed forensic evidence yet of the close alignment between the hackers and the Russian government, exposing an operation that stretched back years and tried to break into the inboxes of 4,700 Gmail users across the globe -- from the pope's representative in Kiev to the punk band Pussy Riot in Moscow. "It's a wish list of who you'd want to target to further Russian interests," said Keir Giles, director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge, England, and one of five outside experts who reviewed the AP's findings. He said the data was "a master list of individuals whom Russia would like to spy on, embarrass, discredit or silence."
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Russia Hackers Had Targets Worldwide, Beyond US Election

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  • In other words (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A broad Russian strategy rather than targeting US election specifically.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Why would the two be mutually exclusive?

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Why would the two be mutually exclusive?

        Who said it was?

        The GP stated that instead of Russia's strategy being directed exclusively at the US elections, it is a world wide strategy. That's not mutually exclusive.

      • I for one am SHOCKED that a dictator willing to straight up steal part of another country and meddle with it's biggest rival's elections would DARE to do similar things ELSEWHERE!!!

        As to GP's point, I think it's worth pointing out to the slow ones in the audience that all elections and news worldwide should be examined for Russian influence. Furthermore, the magat trump supporters can insist that the 2016 election was totally kosher (despite, you know, the less popular candidate winning and ample evidenc
    • A broad Russian strategy rather than targeting US election specifically.

      Yep, Russia's strategy is to sow discord throughout the western world to weaken them to Russia's advantage. When we fight amongst ourselves we have less attention to focus on them.

  • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @10:29AM (#55476417)

    The KGB and Kremlin have been doing this forever. For the most part, we took control of the media in the sense that no foreign adversaries were able to poke through on a large scale.

    With the advent of the internet, all the walls were dropped and they were able to ramp up.

    Nothing has changed about their strategy other then its now digital.

    --
    "Those Silly Russians" - Eric Kotara

    • by Anonymous Coward

      One thing that's changed is the we've never had a President strenuously collude with Russia's attacks on our country.

      Donald Trump magnified Russia's attack on America by publicly praising it, while denying that it was Russia's doing, even though court documents now show that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia's cyberattacks on America.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        One thing that's changed is the we've never had a President strenuously collude with Russia's attacks on our country.

        Donald Trump magnified Russia's attack on America by publicly praising it, while denying that it was Russia's doing, even though court documents now show that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia's cyberattacks on America.

        ROFLMAO.

        Dude, what color is the sky in your planet?

    • by Nutria ( 679911 )

      Exactly.

      Whenever I see an "shocking" article about Russia, my first thought is, "Why the shock that countries work for their own interest and against their enemies?"

      • Agreed. *Especially* since the US doesn't exactly have a very good track record in this department.

        People in the U.S. have a choice: (a) stop being so whiny about what Russia did or (b) stopping doing essentially the same thing to a number of other countries. But the current stance of being upset while we do the same to others is nothing more than hypocrisy.

      • by Rob Y. ( 110975 )

        The thing that's shocking isn't that Russia spies on us - and even tilts toward one political party or another. It's that Facebook and other social networking sites have suddenly provided a way to easily and fraudulently inject propaganda into our electoral process. It's the way they used the info that's so shocking and scary.

        And one more thing that's shocking to me. Fox and the like have so primed a large audience to believe farcically untrue stuff (and don't go citing MSNBC or CNN - Fox is qualitativel

        • by Nutria ( 679911 )

          It's been a long time since I watched FNC. What are some examples of farcically untrue stuff that it broadcasts?

        • tilts toward one political party or another

          I thought they were going after all sides to instigate division.

      • Whenever I see an "shocking" article about Russia, my first thought is, "Why the shock that countries work for their own interest and against their enemies?"

        What's shocking is that we now have a political movement in this country that's friendly to an aggressive foreign power (on the record, Trump said it), encouraged (we have Trump Jr's email) and facilitated (TBD) meddling in our political system. It used to be you could count on whoever was in power to defend the US. Whether they liked patchouli or crewcuts they'd be flipping the f*** out over the idea that Russian agents were (or are) "working" for some aspect of the highest office in this country.

        • by Nutria ( 679911 )

          Whether they liked patchouli or crewcuts they'd be flipping the f*** out over the idea that Russian agents were (or are) "working" for some aspect of the highest office in this country.

          Nah. Uncle Joe was sorely misunderstood, and Communists really care for the oppressed, unlike the hated Yankees. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are my heroes, and the Maryknoll Sisters are my heroines.

      • Whenever I see an "shocking" article about Russia, my first thought is, "Why the shock that countries work for their own interest and against their enemies?"

        Just asking: did you snort the same blase powder over the Snowden "revelations".

        The shock—and it's usually just a mild one—is to finally see credible evidence marshalled in a public forum that the majority of the population won't immediately discount as a giant nothing burger.

        I always startle a bit when a giant nothing burger suddenly undema

    • The KGB and Kremlin have been doing this forever. For the most part, we took control of the media in the sense that no foreign adversaries were able to poke through on a large scale.

      The USSR infiltrated numerous US organizations and parts of the US government; they did a lot of damage post-WWII.

      But we still survived, and dealing with this crap is the price we pay for living in a free society. Freedom also means the freedom of stupid Americans to listen to hostile foreign powers if they choose.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:07AM (#55476731)
      in the past we didn't have a significant portion of the population willing to side with the Russians in order to achieve victory. 30 years ago just the allegations would have kept Trump (and Hilary) out of the Whitehouse. Folks were willing to ignore widespread election meddling just to get their man in office.
      • What, u joking bro? There were tons and tons of educated Americans who sided with Communism in the 1940s and 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s. Harry Dexter White was a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a Russian spy. Robert Hansen was a Russian spy. They were all up and down the US government, and somehow we still won the Cold War. Ted Kennedy colluded with the Russians in the 1984 election. Let's not pretend this is something unprecedented. The only thing unprecedented is Russia's extremely poor geopolitical
        • Nice Straw man (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
          they didn't side with Russian, they sided with Communism. Never mind the fact that Russia was not and never has been communist. They were a dictatorship that happened to use communist rhetoric. And then there's the fact that the American communists were a small minority even in the left wing.

          Nice politics troll though. The part at the end was a little odd though. Are you working for the Ruskies?
          • It is merely an honest evaluation of Russia's geopolitical situation, which existed long before Trump and the current Red Scare Part II. Some of us actually follow military affairs, you know. But hey, don't trust me, look at the facts [imgur.com]. Russia is hemmed in and losing badly. To add to it, war hysteria is being deliberately whipped up and educated people who should damn well know better are falling for the "blame the dirty foreigners" narrative.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        People have to trained to be gullible. Any time anything unfavourable to Trump comes out he decries to as fake news, and people started to think that way.

  • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @10:36AM (#55476477) Homepage Journal

    From Twitter's testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee [senate.gov] (page 11):

    With respect to #DNCLeak, approximately 23,000 users posted around 140,000 unique Tweets with that hashtag in the relevant period. Of those Tweets, roughly 2% were from potentially Russian-linked accounts. As noted above, our automated systems at the time detected, labeled, and hid just under half (48%) of all the original Tweets with #DNCLeak. Of the total Tweets with the hashtag, 0.84% were hidden and also originated from accounts that met at least one of the criteria for a Russian-linked account. Those Tweets received 0.21% of overall Tweet impressions.

    It seems to me that Twitter is a much bigger threat to our election process than Russia.

    Shouldn't speech about the election be somehow... I don't know... protected or something?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Number of tweets is the wrong metric. If 100,000 real users with 1 follower each tweet about it, and 1 Russian account with 100,000 followers tweets about it, does the Russian tweet really represent 0.001%?

      Even their Brexit troll accounts averaged a few hundred k followers, so I'd be surprised if the US election troll accounts had less than that.

  • Spain (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ISoldat53 ( 977164 )
    I wonder if what is happening in Spain was pushed along by Russia?
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by will_die ( 586523 )
      I would guess so with funding and ads. We do know that Russia was one of the main funders for the separation groups in Hawaii and in California and provided ads for the separation groups in Texas.
      • Russia told my dog to bug me because she wants to go out for a walk. Those damned Russians, stirring shit up. It's cold out there and I don't WANT to take her for a walk today!

        (it's easy at this point in history to suss out a whole bunch of fucking idiots. They're the 'Blame Russia' crowd, the people calling people they disagree with 'comrade' or 'Ivan.' Total fucking idiots, wind-up morons set loose to annoy the rest of us.)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 )
    • by Anonymous Coward

      It can look like it, if you ignore that Catalans have been demanding independence for decades. Just look at the pictures [google.es]. Notice the similarities? Those were during the 70's, when Franco was just dead. We don't need Assange or the Russians for this, thank you very much.

      Oh, but we do need help, like we once did during the Spanish Civil War that lead to WWII. Back then, the World decided that economic stability was far more important than justice. The consequence was Hitler's rising and millions dead. Have we

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      People wanting independence and freedom is now not good?
    • I wonder if Putin is hiding underneath your bed. Have you checked there today?

  • We have an experience of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is not perfect, but it kind of works.

    We need something sumilar for the Internet, Hardware, and Software. It is not a secret that numerous political and economic entities use the Internet for hidden agenda activities.
  • Destabilised Europe through Brexit. Destabilised the US through trump
    • by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:05AM (#55476715)
      Ha. Ha. Ha.

      So the Russians are behind Brexit now?
      Are they behind the open borders movement too - as an effort to destabilize western Europe and the United States?
      The Russians are behind the Scots wanting independence?
      And Catalonia?
      The Kurds as well (yes I know Kurdistan is not in Europe).
      Oooo. How about the upcoming Basque, Corsican, Sardinian, Venetian, and Sicilian Independence Movements.

      Are the Russians behind the California Independence movement? And the Alaskan Independence Movement (yeah rejoining Alaska with Russia).

      Sarah Palin's husband is a Russian operative. You heard it here first folks.
      • Ha. Ha. Ha.
        So the Russians are behind Brexit now?

        Are they behind the open borders movement too - as an effort to destabilize western Europe and the United States?

        The Russians are behind the Scots wanting independence?

        And Catalonia?

        I'd have assumed it was the USA behind Brexit. The Brits are probably behind Catalonia and the Irish behind Scots independence.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Brexit: Yes, they pushed hard for it. Take a look at "David Jones" for example [independent.co.uk].

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      People voted to exit the EU. Welcome to real democracy.
  • Of course they had more targets.

  • by DCFusor ( 1763438 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:06AM (#55476727) Homepage
    People, you're letting evil take you over here. Sure, in some eyes we dodged a bullet - but we also backed into a buzzsaw doing it. We "chose" between a corrupt elitist, and an immature buffoon - elitist. If we let that kinda thing divide us and distract attention from the fact that we really had no choice in the matter, evil wins. Yes, the deep state/MIC/IC hate the current guy - which in my opinion is one of the higher compliments - Oh, the moneyed interests in defense - and the press - and hollywood hate that one? Hmmm...Fascism is when the money runs the show...Hmmm. Totalitarianism is orthagonal, but often comes along for that ride. Hmmm.
    .
    Just sayin, we have huge issues with governance in the US, and while it's convienient to blame others (and fer sure they are involved) - it's not just the foreign influences that are the most important. They don't have any monopoly on telling us lies, and trying to blame all deception on an external cause is kinda vain. I seem to recall the old saying "fool me once, shame on you - fool my twice, shame on me". Well, we've been fooled again (apologies Who) and again for as long as I remember at age 64. How about taking some responsibility for that? Oh right, it's mostly immature kids here. You may now get off my lawn. Eisenhower had it right - and it was probably true before he said it.
    If you actually want to fix a problem, rather than just whine about it, it pays to define it correctly. Don't let hate - encouraged by people who don't have your interests at heart - win.
    Clearly, divide and conquer is at play here. And I don't think all that is external - only a few percent is.
    • Very good points. At the end of the day the most significant result of Russian meddling is that society is more polarised and that is a lot harder to fix than whoever gets to be president for a while. The corporations and the rich still benefit the most whoever gets into power.

  • USians got Trump because Obama didn't reign in Corruption in the Political Class, fix FDR style guards on the Economy, and basically governed as a Center-Right Republican on Economic issues, and Center Left Democrat on Social issues.

    Because he failed to stablize the declining middle class, allowed the decimation of Unions, and because of the Citizens United Ruling, it opened the door for our elections to be bought. This has been happening because the US have basically a far right government in Congress and

  • I'm neither pro-Russia nor pro-Trump, but the whole narrative has become so ridiculously twisted. Replace 'Russia' with 'Britain', and the story would be about how an allied whistleblower uncovered the shocking story of the Democratic primary being rigged. Where's the outrage about that?

    That Russia has wanted, and has tried to encourage, the breakup of the U.S. for decades is not news (Igor Panarin has very publicly made a career out of it). And buying ads to exacerbate the existing divisions hardly seems l

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The problem is not that they exposed wrong-doing, it's the way they did it. They exposed Hilary in a way that caused maximum damage to her campaign, even though in the end it didn't result in any prosecutions. At the same time they kept quiet about Trump and his staff's illegal dealings with Russia, which at least one of them has now admitted and taken a plea bargain for.

      Are you really so naive as to think that Russia was trying to help the US, rather than get the guy they thought would weaken their biggest

      • The problem is not that they exposed wrong-doing, it's the way they did it.

        I think that's a valid point. But it also seems to be part of what has been lost in the noise. And literally it seems like the attention ratio of "how dare Russia do that" to "how dare people try to rig the Dem primary" is 1000:1. I'm not at all against there being a lot of discussion about Russia's actions, but it also seems wrong that the underlying narrative of a semi-rigged primary got so little attention.

        They exposed Hilary in a way that caused maximum damage to her campaign, even though in the end it didn't result in any prosecutions.

        And, importantly, so far we don't have much evidence to suggest that it affected the outcome of the

    • Let me help you reconnect with reality here. If the UK HACKED a major political party and then tried to influence the people of america with a massive ad campaign around election time, they would damn sure be on our shitlist. Any country would. Sanctions would surely be on the table. And if the winning candidate then pushed to remove those sanctions, only a moron wouldn't at least investigate the possibility of the two conspiring together.

      You know how we look at whatever little dictatorship in other c
      • To me it seems like you're illustrating the exact point I'm trying to make: you're upset over the Russian meddling. I get that. I don't even disagree with it*. But where's the outrage over what was going on within the DNC itself? The purpoted "hack" wasn't stealing the DNC's money or erasing donor lists or anything like it. Rather it was revealing the nefarious deeds of people who, themselves, were essentially doing *the exact same thing* in that they were disrupting the democratic process. It's possible to

        • Firstly, when you put the word hack in quotes, you are giving a big pass to a foreign power that had an agenda to control our election, and thought the best was of executing that was to choose one side to target. It's as good as an admission that they want that side to loose. That is not something to be minimized. It is a very very big deal. Should we be doing it to other countries, no. It's a bad thing, a very bad thing.

          But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be outraged when it is done to us. That atti
          • Firstly, when you put the word hack in quotes, you are giving a big pass

            Nah, that was just me not being very clear, sorry - I was being disdainful because, literally for months, the headlines were things like "Russia hacked the election", which is false.

            That is not something to be minimized. It is a very very big deal. Should we be doing it to other countries, no. It's a bad thing, a very bad thing.

            Agreed!

            But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be outraged when it is done to us. That attitude is just the same as saying "Meh, I am ok with it." I for one am not. Any rational person shouldn't be.

            Wait, are you saying that there are exactly two allowed emotional responses? Either total outrage or "meh, I am ok with it" ? There's nothing in between? That doesn't make any sense to me, but I might be misunderstanding you - apologies if that is the case.

            I don't like the fact that Russia did this, but it's hard for me t

            • Ah, but that is the whole issue, for something that didn't happen, there seems to be a lot of evidence that it might have. Hence the investigation. Hence the reporting about the hacks. You are confusing us following information coming out of an ongoing investigation with some kind of conclusion. Originally you pissed the question of why people were so much more interested in one, rather than the other. Well, here we are. Once had vastly different consequences if it turns out to be true. I wish i coul
              • Ah, but that is the whole issue, for something that didn't happen, there seems to be a lot of evidence that it might have.

                Ok, I'd like to read up on the evidence that suggests that there might have been an offer of sanction removal/reduction in exchange for rigging the election. Can you share a link please? Outside of a huge amount of conjecture, so far there has been very little evidence that I've seen, so I'm eager to be corrected.

                You are confusing us following information coming out of an ongoing investigation with some kind of conclusion.

                Not at all. Rather, it seems like the conclusion was drawn from day one, and ever since it's been a hunt for information to support that conclusion. To me this is very much like the Republicans and

    • Most democrats would agree that the DNC and Hilary are corrupt rubbish so you score no significant points by making a big deal of it. The problem with the Russian intervention is that they promoted violent nationalism and this is far more damaging to society than which flavour of corporate politician gets elected. Trumps main problem is that he encourages division, most of the rest of his ghastly legislation will get fixed by the next corporate president but the hatred for minorities will take a lot longer

      • Most democrats would agree that the DNC and Hilary are corrupt rubbish

        Is that really the case though? I'm not disputing it so much as asking. I'm neither a Dem nor a Rep, so I don't really have a feel, but if I called myself a Democrat and supported that party (including, probably, giving money to it), I'd be more than a little pissed to find out the candidate selection process was rigged or that people were trying to rig it.

        And to be clear, this has nothing to do with Democrats per se - the same applies equally to Republicans and corruption in their party: isn't that the sor

      • The leaks (DNC emails were not hacked but leaked) proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Democrat party was corrupt to the core. You'd be shouting "LOL prove it" if this was not the case.

        Wasn't Manafort with the Trump campaign for just a couple or three months? And they booted him for appearing shady? I had an employee once that ended up in prison, twice. Am I responsible for his actions? At the time nobody wanted to work for Trump, and Manafort was an experienced campaign manager (Bob Dole in 1996)

    • I agree with you, that correlation does not mean causation in this case. But this 'hackers who disrupted the U.S. presidential election' being treated as a foregone conclusion is just more propaganda.

      The DNC wants us to believe that their emails were stolen by Russian hackers, and expects us to accept at face value the word of proven cheats and liars, even when they refuse to have the server in question turned over to the FBI for forensic analysis. We're supposed to ignore the mysterious, still unsolved, m

  • Or news for kids.Get off my lawn.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      People on the US elite coast still wonder why people all over the USA voted the way they did.
      That a candidate that can give a good speech that people enjoy would win states.
      If a person wants to win a US election have a policy thats well accepted, a person who can actually give good speeches. Someone who can talk in a positive way about the USA.

      Have some energy, charm and the ability to travel all around the different parts of the USA. Talk to lots of real people and win the needed states.
      Staying
  • Reading AP's paper, it is not obvious what their sources are.

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