Russia's at it again

Dwazza said:
Improve your cyber security and Russia will stop pulling your figurative pants down. Simples.
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Dissemination of fake news isn't affected a whole lot by improvement in cyber security. Funding of fringe groups that capitalise on racial/economic resentment as well.
 
Dwazza said:
Improve your cyber security and Russia will stop pulling your figurative pants down. Simples.
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It's the fake news which is having the biggest impact.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Having already played an influential role in the US presidential election, it looks as though Germany is the next target for Russian skulduggery.

Can anything be done to stop this? Or is Putin going to be allowed to troll the whole planet?
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Funding Le Pen as well.

But remember he's only doing all this because we tried to make Ukraine join the EU or something.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Having already played an influential role in the US presidential election, it looks as though Germany is the next target for Russian skulduggery.

Can anything be done to stop this? Or is Putin going to be allowed to troll the whole planet?
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Well lets put it this way - if you can control the elections of other countries and install candidates who are friendly towards you, then who is going to stop you from doing as you please ?
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
Dissemination of fake news isn't affected a whole lot by improvement in cyber security. Funding of fringe groups that capitalise on racial/economic resentment as well.
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Pexbo said:
It's the fake news which is having the biggest impact.
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Uh-huh...
Germany's domestic intelligence agency on Thursday reported a striking increase in Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilising German society, and targeted cyber attacks against political parties.
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Fake what now?
 
Ubik said:
Funding Le Pen as well.

But remember he's only doing all this because we tried to make Ukraine join the EU or something.
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I find it remarkable that Le Pen and her ilk talk about how they're trying to restore typical Western values and reduce opposition to them...while sucking the arse off of a man whose nation have often been the biggest opponent to those supposed Western values. Farage was at it as well on QT last night. fecking hypocritical apologists the lot of them.
 
A good read on Russian interference in (primarily) European politics. This was done two years ago so add the likes of Montenegro and the United States to the global list.

"In 2009 Political Capital was among the first to point to Russia’s growing interest in East European far-right parties. At the end of 2013 a number of analysts noticed a similar development. This time around, Russia is involving itself with far-right parties of Western Europe. Currently, Russian influence in the affairs of the far right is a phenomenon seen all over Europe as a key risk for Euro-Atlantic integration at both the national and the Union level; especially in view of the upcoming 2014 European Parliamentary elections. Spearheaded by the French National Front; post-elections, farright parties might form a pro-Russian block in the European Parliament. Or even if they were unable to do so, the representation of such forces in the European Parliament is expected to rise. All this is happening in concurrence with a political and economic crisis that has put the European Union in a vulnerable state..."

http://www.riskandforecast.com/useruploads/files/pc_flash_report_russian_connection.pdf
 
coolredwine said:
It only means that the population and the "demographics" are stupid, and in that case, they deserve it.
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Not if they are being unduly influenced by hacking, overt propaganda (such as RT), and hybrid information operations like social media troll campaigns and fake news.
 
Raoul said:
Not if they are being unduly influenced by hacking, overt propaganda (such as RT), and hybrid information operations like social media troll campaigns and fake news.
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Maybe. Maybe I am jumping on an assumption that with the advent and spread of internet, people would have enough resources to segregate the lies from truth and make well-informed decisions, put a rational thought and logic behind everything.

Maybe I am just too naive and expect people to do a lot of things to save their own country.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
It's literally in the quote? What do you reckon 'propaganda and disinformation campaign' means?
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That's clearly not the biggest issue according to the article. But keep swallowing the Clinton pills. Russia did it!

We in the west have been very naive about cyber security and are well behind in the stakes. This is why Russia and China are hacking us left, right and centre. But yeah fake news is more important and impactful than lax cyber security. Keep believing that.
 
coolredwine said:
Maybe. Maybe I am jumping on an assumption that with the advent and spread of internet, people would have enough resources to segregate the lies from truth and make well-informed decisions, put a rational thought and logic behind everything.

Maybe I am just too naive and expect people to do a lot of things to save their own country.
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It's a lot easier to spread false information than it is for the other side/objective news sources to disprove it.
 
coolredwine said:
Maybe. Maybe I am jumping on an assumption that with the advent and spread of internet, people would have enough resources to segregate the lies from truth and make well-informed decisions, put a rational thought and logic behind everything.
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The opposite seems to be happening. The ease and speed of access to all sort of news sources, credible or otherwise, are creating online echo chambers on both ends of the political spectrum, at the cost of longstanding institutions.

One of the most prominent victims is print journalism.
 
Dwazza said:
That's clearly not the biggest issue according to the article. But keep swallowing the Clinton pills. Russia did it!

We in the west have been very naive about cyber security and are well behind in the stakes. This is why Russia and China are hacking us left, right and centre. But yeah fake news is more important and impactful than lax cyber security. Keep believing that.
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Yeah, thank for the snark. Clinton pills :lol:

CIA hacking/wiretapping of foreign politicians/governments have gone on for decades, but apparently the West is naive about cyber security with ten times the budget of Russia, China and North Korea combined :rolleyes:

The average plebs when casting their votes for a far right politician are clearly influenced by cyber attacks. Right.
 
MoskvaRed said:
It's a lot easier to spread false information than it is for the other side/objective news sources to disprove it.
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Of course. Which is why I said, at this time and age, people have enough resources available at their hands to make an informed decision and not go by what is printed/shouted at their faces. But we have always been gullible and greedy and selfish and short-sighted.
 
coolredwine said:
Maybe. Maybe I am jumping on an assumption that with the advent and spread of internet, people would have enough resources to segregate the lies from truth and make well-informed decisions, put a rational thought and logic behind everything.

Maybe I am just too naive and expect people to do a lot of things to save their own country.
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Only if they are already educated about Russia's methodologies. Otherwise they are going to talk about micro level issues like fake news and not look at the broader problem which is Putin's desire to establish a Russian sphere of influence.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
Yeah, thank for the snark. Clinton pills :lol:

CIA hacking/wiretapping of foreign politicians/governments have gone on for decades, but apparently the West is naive about cyber security with ten times the budget of Russia, China and North Korea combined :rolleyes:

The average plebs when casting their votes for a far right politician are clearly influenced by cyber attacks. Right.
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Wiretaps and hacking are two different things. Apologies for the snarky bit but the point is that Russia and China hack us because they can. They shouldn't be able too, it's ridiculous. The US wasted their budget on monitoring it's own citizens and fighting terrorists. Meanwhile Russia and China hack government websites, intranets and businesses.

And yes, things such as wiki leaks and other official party leaks are more important than fake news, they have a more significant impact. I'm pretty sure the emails about how the DNC snuffed out the Sanders campaign had more influence than pizza gate.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Having already played an influential role in the US presidential election, it looks as though Germany is the next target for Russian skulduggery.

Can anything be done to stop this? Or is Putin going to be allowed to troll the whole planet?
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Cyber security can be improved but it is difficult to stop the dissemination of fake news without undermining freedom of speech, and tit for tat retaliation is not realistic due to the lack of such freedoms in Russia. Unfortunately you are dealing with people who view everything as a zero sum game.
 
coolredwine said:
Of course. Which is why I said, at this time and age, people have enough resources available at their hands to make an informed decision and not go by what is printed/shouted at their faces. But we have always been gullible and greedy and selfish and short-sighted.
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But a sensational story sticks in the mind longer than the boring truth - mud sticks after all. For example, there never was a Russian girl raped by Syrian refugees in Berlin earlier this year/last year but that lie still played its role.
 
Before we all get too worried about all of this this, we can at least console ourselves that the President-elect of the USA is extremely well informed about the threat of "cyber"

So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester, and certainly cyber is one of them.
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coolredwine said:
Of course. Which is why I said, at this time and age, people have enough resources available at their hands to make an informed decision and not go by what is printed/shouted at their faces. But we have always been gullible and greedy and selfish and short-sighted.
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Do you cross check with multiple sources each and every news story you read?
 
Dwazza said:
Wiretaps and hacking are two different things. Apologies for the snarky bit but the point is that Russia and China hack us because they can. They shouldn't be able too, it's ridiculous. The US wasted their budget on monitoring it's own citizens and fighting terrorists. Meanwhile Russia and China hack government websites, intranets and businesses.

And yes, things such as wiki leaks and other official party leaks are more important than fake news, they have a more significant impact. I'm pretty sure the emails about how the DNC snuffed out the Sanders campaign had more influence than pizza gate.
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Do you really think that was an either/or decision taken by the US? Fighting terrorists aside (which is kind of important) I would be staggered if their was any budget taken away from their internal cyber-security systems to spend on monitoring their citizens. The very idea sounds like alt-right, conspiracy nut nonsense tbh.
 
I understand how Russian propaganda influence opinions on the post-Soviet territories, but how are they planting those fake news in USA or Germany?
It's not like everyone (or even anyone) there is watching Russia Today? Or are they?

Putin's on-line trolls are painfully obvious on the runet, I doubt that they hired different ones to spam on the world-wide web, plus their English should be a dead giveaway.
 
Dwazza said:
Wiretaps and hacking are two different things. Apologies for the snarky bit but the point is that Russia and China hack us because they can. They shouldn't be able too, it's ridiculous. The US wasted their budget on monitoring it's own citizens and fighting terrorists. Meanwhile Russia and China hack government websites, intranets and businesses.

And yes, things such as wiki leaks and other official party leaks are more important than fake news, they have a more significant impact. I'm pretty sure the emails about how the DNC snuffed out the Sanders campaign had more influence than pizza gate.
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It's unrealistic to hope that you will always have a leg up in cyber warfare. We've seen lone wolves/activist groups like Anonymous being a thorn in the sides of governments worldwide for years with limited resources at their disposal. Also, It's very likely that the US and other Western democracies have equally saucy hacks but the discrepancy between the West and Russia/China control on their media and population means the latter is more impervious to the effect of such leaks. Facebook is blocked in both those countries, for instance. Doesn't mean the technologically savvies can't access it but doesn't hold true for the population at large.

On your second point, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I see the fevered swamp of fake news/disinformation like Faux News, right wing talk radio, Breitbart etc.. as having much more of an impact on creating the conditions for the ascension of far right loons. Russia's attempt at driving traffic to those sources entrenches the poorly educated in their bubbles and drive them further and further to the extremes.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
Also, It's very likely that the US and other Western democracies have equally saucy hacks but the discrepancy between the West and Russia/China control on their media and population means the latter is more impervious to the effect of such leaks. Facebook is blocked in both those countries, for instance
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Wait, what? :lol:
 
Cheesy said:
I find it remarkable that Le Pen and her ilk talk about how they're trying to restore typical Western values and reduce opposition to them...while sucking the arse off of a man whose nation have often been the biggest opponent to those supposed Western values. Farage was at it as well on QT last night. fecking hypocritical apologists the lot of them.
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Not just the far right either, it's a standard refrain of Corbyn's lot in Stop the War.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Do you really think that was an either/or decision taken by the US? Fighting terrorists aside (which is kind of important) I would be staggered if their was any budget taken away from their internal cyber-security systems to spend on monitoring their citizens. The very idea sounds like alt-right, conspiracy nut nonsense tbh.
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Everything that influenced my opinion with respect to the NSA monitoring US citizens was written by Glen Greenwald and published in The Guardian.

Look at the number of hacks and leaks. It's pretty clear that cyber security is low on the priority list.

For the number of terror attacks that were thwarted, I don't think that monitoring for terrorism was really all that important. It's entirely possible that the drone campaign has been effective at keeping most groups dispersed and largely ineffective when it comes to attacking or operating in the US.
 
harms said:
I understand how Russian propaganda influence opinions on the post-Soviet territories, but how are they planting those fake news in USA or Germany?
It's not like everyone (or even anyone) there is watching Russia Today? Or are they?

Putin's on-line trolls are painfully obvious on the runet, I doubt that they hired different ones to spam on the world-wide web, plus their English should be a dead giveaway.
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Some of the online trolls are reasonably convincing (if you ignore the question of why an "Englishman" would be passionately commenting on any Russian article within 5 minutes of it being posted). As for the Germany/USA question, they can exploit non-traditional sources of information (i.e. social media) and, in Germany at least, work on the large Russian/FSU community.
 
Ubik said:
Not just the far right either, it's a standard refrain of Corbyn's lot in Stop the War.
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Yeah very frustrating apologism on both sides. Saying "both sides are bad," is all well and good, but when it's actually a potential threat...then it doesn't seem quite so noble or admirable.
 
Stack said:
Do you cross check with multiple sources each and every news story you read?
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As much as possible, yes. I try to find a reason behind the headlines or wait before more details come out for a particular clickbait headlines before passing my judgement/decision.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
It's unrealistic to hope that you will always have a leg up in cyber warfare. We've seen lone wolves/activist groups like Anonymous being a thorn in the sides of governments worldwide for years with limited resources at their disposal. Also, It's very likely that the US and other Western democracies have equally saucy hacks but the discrepancy between the West and Russia/China control on their media and population means the latter is more impervious to the effect of such leaks. Facebook is blocked in both those countries, for instance. Doesn't mean the technologically savvies can't access it but doesn't hold true for the population at large.

On your second point, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I see the fevered swamp of fake news/disinformation like Faux News, right wing talk radio, Breitbart etc.. as having much more of an impact on creating the conditions for the ascension of far right loons. Russia's attempt at driving traffic to those sources entrenches the poorly educated in their bubbles and drive them further and further to the extremes.
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The west doesn't need a leg up, we need to be able to compete. We aren't at the moment and are losing the intelligence battle as well as the monetary one.
 
Cheesy said:
Yeah very frustrating apologism on both sides. Saying "both sides are bad," is all well and good, but when it's actually a potential threat...then it doesn't seem quite so noble or admirable.
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Maddening, really.
 
Dwazza said:
Everything that influenced my opinion with respect to the NSA monitoring US citizens was written by Glen Greenwald and published in The Guardian.

Look at the number of hacks and leaks. It's pretty clear that cyber security is low on the priority list.

For the number of terror attacks that were thwarted, I don't think that monitoring for terrorism was really all that important. It's entirely possible that the drone campaign has been effective at keeping most groups dispersed and largely ineffective when it comes to attacking or operating in the US.
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Look at the amount of people dying of cancer. It's pretty clear that cancer research is low on the priority list.

That's really back to front logic. Isn't it more likely that keeping online systems completely watertight is a really difficult task, no matter how much money is thrown at it?

For me, the only question is whether the West are using the same nefarious tactics to try and dethrone Putin and if not, why not?
 
harms said:
I understand how Russian propaganda influence opinions on the post-Soviet territories, but how are they planting those fake news in USA or Germany?
It's not like everyone (or even anyone) there is watching Russia Today? Or are they?

Putin's on-line trolls are painfully obvious on the runet, I doubt that they hired different ones to spam on the world-wide web, plus their English should be a dead giveaway.
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Germany has an anti-establishment right (basically the AFD now) and part of the left that has had a hard one for Russia and Putin for years, correlating with a growing anti-americanism. Lot of people are checking RT to - sort of - balance their news sources.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Look at the amount of people dying of cancer. It's pretty clear that cancer research is low on the priority list.

That's really back to front logic. Isn't it more likely that keeping online systems completely watertight is a really difficult task, no matter how much money is thrown at it?

For me, the only question is whether the West are using the same nefarious tactics to try and dethrone Putin and if not, why not?
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It's really not that difficult. Yes, you need firewalls, monitoring software etc but
quite possibly the most important element is knowledge. Right now, that's mostly limited to IT professionals and risk managers. Management and staff are often woefully under prepared for all not the avenues of attack that come their way. Email is probably the most popular way in for hackers and still staff open emails that are easily spotted and click on links that they shouldn't. A little training goes a long way here and it may be that this is where our largest gaps are in the cyber security stakes.

Dethroning Putin is pretty unlikely, I think a majority of Russians support his agenda of Russian aggrandizement.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
Isn't it still the case in Russia? If not mea culpa.

I'm fairly certain China was very vigorous in blocking FB early on, leading to the creation of their own social networks.
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Nope, and it never was the case. Linkedin was banned recently, and they introduced a law that a website should store the personal data of Russian citizens on Russian soil, which makes it possible for them to theoretically banned Facebook etc. (if they won't place their own servers for Russian FB in Russia).

In China yes, I believe they don't have access to Facebook, Google, Twitter and so on.
 
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