The Russians Are At It Again

[Frodo]

New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway US voters, experts say

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Virginiá]

I'm aware how dicey this kind of power could get, but this is a situation where allowing the NSA to sinkhole Russian IPs/domains/servers (so that computers in America would be unable to view it) would probably come in handy. It wouldn't stop them, but it would make their lives more difficult. This combined with retaliatory hacking might be necessary if there is no other way to get them to stop.

The one thing that can't be done is nothing, as they are monkeying in our political system to advantage one party over the other (in addition to chaos). To do nothing would create its own kind of political issues, where Democratic voters are left wondering why their country won't protect the system, which is a question that answers itself if Republicans control the White House (correctly or not).

[Person Man]

I'm aware how dicey this kind of power could get, but this is a situation where allowing the NSA to sinkhole Russian IPs/domains/servers (so that computers in America would be unable to view it) would probably come in handy. It wouldn't stop them, but it would make their lives more difficult. This combined with retaliatory hacking might be necessary if there is no other way to get them to stop.
Can they be effective over the Dark Net by turning Shodan into malware or something like that? If so, trying to sinkhole these hosts and servers could be something that could cause other problems
The one thing that can't be done is nothing, as they are monkeying in our political system to advantage one party over the other (in addition to chaos). To do nothing would create its own kind of political issues, where Democratic voters are left wondering why their country won't protect the system, which is a question that answers itself if Republicans control the White House (correctly or not).

The hacking would be asymmetric? I mean, they might have an open head of state position in 2022, maybe it's time for us to get seats in the Kremlin? Then again if that's too late or wouldn't work, we could just hack their infrastructure, maybe shut down plants, disrupt transit systems and industry and the like...much what we did with Iran but with Stuxnet, but far more reaching.

[President Johnson]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.

[America Needs R'hllor]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Don't worry! Trump is on the job!

Trump administration eliminates White House cybersecurity post

You must be logged in to read this quote.

President Trump hasn't given an order to counter Russian meddling, top cyber official says (Feb. 27, 2018)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[KingSweden]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.

[HillGoose]

bruh i wish Trump would kick Putins ass already.

i dont understand why we aren't helping Ukraine more

[Crumpets]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.

I imagine that going disastrously wrong very quickly. Firstly, the people most likely to participate in a national uprising are young males (maybe best to quickly Google what the political views of young Russian men are these days) while those most susceptible to information campaigns, particularly online tend to be older people. Secondly, it's not like there's some liberal democratic government in waiting should Putin be overrun (I mean, unless you include the Liberal Democratic Party, but... yeah). If anything, removing Putin would probably bring about a vacuum for an even more hardline government than we see today with even less of an incentive to negotiate with the West.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.

I think you are wrong in every conceivable way.

First, we shouldn't be attacking other countries, even if we use psyops instead of bombs. We need to defend and strengthen ourselves, and do so honestly: our social cohesion and critical thinking, our internet and particulaly election systems. Focusing on offense (spying) at the expense of security is part of how we got into this mess in the first place!

If you want to take agressively defensive actions, like letting the NSA do to troll farms what happened to Iranian centrifuges, that's one thing. But actively interfering in another nations' goverment like this is a violation of sovereignity. It's practically an act of war, which is why so many of us are upset. We already do too much of this kind of thing. We should stop, not double-down.

And finally, we should stop believing our own propaganda. Putin doesn't fear his own people. Yes, he's an autocrat whose government murders opponents. But he's also pretty popular and seen as an effective leader.

[Virginiá]

The hacking would be asymmetric? I mean, they might have an open head of state position in 2022, maybe it's time for us to get seats in the Kremlin? Then again if that's too late or wouldn't work, we could just hack their infrastructure, maybe shut down plants, disrupt transit systems and industry and the like...much what we did with Iran but with Stuxnet, but far more reaching.

The NSA is actually pretty good at tracking the groups that do a lot of the monkeying around. The Snowden files included documents of operations where they literally hacked Chinese / North Korean hackers, as those hackers were executing an operation. Not to mention some European intelligence agency that hacked a Russian state building's security footage and watching hackers doing stuff in regards to the DNC hacks.

For instance:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-snowden-docs-indicate-scope-of-nsa-preparations-for-cyber-battle-a-1013409-2.html

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That is how the government is able to attribute so many of these hacks to actual people and actual governments despite that seeming impossible. For the little the public knows, the US government knows 1000x as much about all these attacks.

As for the government finding hackers, that probably isn't too hard, given what I posted above, and the NSA's own search engine, called XKeyScore. Building your own massive cache of intercepted data is easy when you have submarines that can install surveillance devices on undersea fiber optic cables, and when your people can hack critical network routers responsible for handling an entire country's internet capabilities.

[ProudModerate2]

Fantastic. /s
Cant wait to see Idiot-In-Chief standing at the podium while addressing the nation, and once again begging for the Russians to interfere and find dirt on the Orange Clown's political enemies (Mueller, Comey, etc).

[Progressive Pessimist]

At it again? I don't think they ever stopped. Maybe it would have if our Executive Branch actually did anything about it.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

I think it is time for coordinated effort by the West to launch an information campaign in Russia to hurt Putin in his regime. That's what he fears the most: An uprise by his own people.