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The Military Crime Democrats Government Security

Russia's Rise To Cyberwar Superpower (dailydot.com) 79

"The Russians are top notch," says Chris Finan, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, now a CEO at security firm Manifold Technology, and a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration. "They are some of the best in the world... " Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake": In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world's great and most active cyber powers. The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee... The evidence -- plainly not definitive but clearly substantial -- has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have "high confidence" that Russia is behind the attack...

Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlin's expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat.

The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the "historic and precedent-setting" cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. "Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight."
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Russia's Rise To Cyberwar Superpower

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  • But, it fits a narrative I suppose. Lots of security companies who have a narrative they want to sell and lots of Twitter accounts who try to appear credible retweeting it wildly for the same. But of course, we all know an IP address can be mapped to a particular identity.
    • Title needs a translation. Somebody hacked into our computers that didn't follow basic security guidelines.... oh wait, hard to blame anyone but yourself then.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The world now knows of efforts like QUANTUMSQUIRREL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that would give any friendly or other nation, its staff, ex staff and former staff the "skills" to become any ip range for any reason.
      Just use the right tools, time of day and the perfect ip will always be stumbled upon by consultants to run to the press with.
  • In the US, we talk about getting rid of our defensive agencies- the NSA is about half in charge of cyberdefense- and don't even consider attack. My proposal is we offer a $1 billion bounty to anybody that can blow the Great Firewall open. That'll show them.
  • Oh noes, the scary Russians want to hack our computers and steal our data. For our own protection, we must give up all our freedoms and give our data to the NSA. The children who must be thought of, the terrorists, the druggies, and the pedophiles welcome scary Russian hackers into the fold.

  • The Democrats can't blame their own crappy practices for their problems, so they blame Russia. They can't blame China because China has given Clinton too much money.

    • You don't "blame" the Russians for being "top notch". They aren't. They just have a lot of people working at it, and we are just sloppy in the security department, or pretending to be so to create kind of an attractive honeypot. This isn't just another "Red Scare". We are dealing with real sociopaths, and we kinda have to be one to know one. This is today's problem, and solution. And I have to admit, the democrats are better at the game. At least they know the art of subtlety when facing the public. The rep

  • I came here for news for nerds, not to read the latest press release from the Clinton campaign. This is pretty much the 5th story ,correction 8th or 9th that is directly in line with press releases from the Clinton campaign https://slashdot.org/index2.pl... [slashdot.org] .

    ABC,CBS,CNN,NBC,NYTIMES and Politico were all colluding with DNC but you're going to cite Politico on basically the same story.

    Fuck sakes the Slashdot editors posted a orange story about Michael Moore going off on Trump but not a red hot story
    • "I came here for news for nerds, not to read the latest press release from the Clinton campaign"

      I approve this message ..
  • by Anonymous Coward

    For A) Clintons' computers are a joke for running on Windows 95 with NO antivirus and NO firewall, protected only by a good-hope faith (they're too cheap to buy a real one), and for B) Russians have always been very well educated in mathematics, a matter most hated by all of north-american students (when not flipping hamburgers for a penny per hour, they prefer softie humanistic gender studies where strict logic is unnecessary and only positive emotions are needed in order to graduate). For C) I choose "cy

  • We thought russia hacked air force one and then it turned out later it was just some guy named George Lasco?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    All just a smoke screen to stem the outrage when it is revealed Hillary Clinton's email server was, indeed, hacked by Russians as well. Hell, her server was an open smorgasbord of secrets for the worlds state funded cyber-units.

    When that happens it will be "See, see, see Trump and the Russians are against po' whittle Hillary. Those awful terrible White Men!" (But let's not mention the 143 MILLION dollars Putin gave the Clinton's in exchange for uranium. Look it up.) ~

    • by skids ( 119237 )

      When Trump was letting the religious nutjobs rape the Republican platform committee, the only place his campaign put their foot down was on one item that opposed Russian interests in the Ukraine. So, there's ample reason for suspicion.

  • by Nyder ( 754090 ) on Saturday July 30, 2016 @12:49PM (#52612793) Journal

    God, I love politics. On one hand we got the FBI and cronies wanting encryption weaken to make their job easier, and on the other hand, we got a big cyber threat from Russia/China.

    Which one is it you fuckers?

  • by quax ( 19371 ) on Saturday July 30, 2016 @01:23PM (#52612991)

    And what most people in the West don't realize is that the vast majority of Russians side with him on this.

    Russia has been invaded over and over again. It informs the national mindset, and fundamentally ingrains the urge to have a strong Russian military, and to retain bordering nations as neutral buffer states.

  • The people to fear here are the Western Exceptionalist Five Eyes. [wikipedia.org] They're the ones trying to tap every communication from every person on the planet, not the Russians.

  • "The Russians are top notch," says Chris ...

    Russia can not even produce a computer or a smartphone. These fairy tales are being generated by lobbying firms to justify spending of billions on cyber-war crap-ware. American people are so gullible.

    • The most of security crapware is made by Russians...
    • If creating hardware were required to demonstrate skill, the self-image of 99% of Slashdot's users would be irreparably harmed. ;-)

  • Every state is attacking every other state. Some are attacking themselves.

    It's the ultimate assymetrical warfare. And hugely successful.

  • 'Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake"'

    There is no evidence that the DNC hack was carried out by the 'Russians'.
  • So, Mitt Romney was an idiot for calling Russia a threat 4 years ago. But now, we have a new narrative to push: the Russians are helping Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by releasing emails from the DNC. As part of that, now we have to push the idea that Russia has a badass hacking army that's a threat to the US. Is that about right?

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