The Trump Presidency

And I think that we can all agree that the response has been tepid, mainly because we don’t yet know the extent and magnitude of the encroachment. Are we talking about metadata manipulation or demonstrated malfeasance beyond purportedly accessing voter rolls? Or both? But let’s be careful about disingenuously confusing ‘non-existent’ and ‘tepid’.
 
And just to make it clear: my suggestion is to throw money at the technical shortcomings demonstrated by all our systems (both personal and enterprise) during the election. We could create a task force to appropriately divvy funds and/or awareness. See what the Baltic States did to confront their own issues with Russian electoral foul play.

What are yours?
 
Hawk said:
I'm not erasing their feelings, I'm just categorizing them somewhere between sorta unreasonable and entirely misplaced.
Click to expand...

Situating someone's position "between sorta unreasonable and entirely misplaced" might as well be erasure: you're sitting from your (extremely privileged) position and denying the value and substance of a large number of (mostly marginalized) people's feelings and beliefs.

But let's take privilege out. I'd wager we're roughly equal there, so let's use me as the example. I personally have never felt a strong sense of community, or a welling up of patriotic fervor, in the pre-event anthemic spectacle; indeed, the prescribed and perfunctory nature of this act has usually produced the opposite sentiment (alienation) in me. (That's not even mentioning the various American hypocrises I can't help but reflect on when emplaced in such a sea of unmilitated salute.) My response is certainly not unreasoned; I'd argue it's hardly misplaced either.
 
Hawk said:
And I think that we can all agree that the response has been tepid, mainly because we don’t yet know the extent and magnitude of the encroachment. Are we talking about metadata manipulation or demonstrated malfeasance beyond purportedly accessing voter roles? Or both? But let’s be careful about disingenuously confusing ‘non-existent’ and ‘tepid’.
Click to expand...

1) So accessing voter rolls is benign and couldn't be used to undermine an election? Good to know.

2) It's supremely entertaining to see you playing the "wait for the investigation to play out" card now.
 
Hawk said:
And just to make it clear: my suggestion is to throw money at the technical shortcomings demonstrated by all our systems (both personal and enterprise) during the election. We could create a task force to appropriately divvy funds and/or awareness. See what the Baltic States did to confront their own issues with Russian electoral foul play.

What are yours?
Click to expand...

I think that's certainly a good idea. Odd that there's not a full-court press at the federal level to make it happen.
 
Honestly, dude, you've got to account for your piece in this in order to address it frankly.

You've said that:

-you are pro-Russia. Ok, fine. My contention, and I don't think you'd argue with it, is that they stand to benefit a hell of a lot more than we do from a closer relationship, so it is neither in our national interest, nor particularly morally defensible, to become best buddies with them without some tangible and meaningful concessions on issues of contention.

- their ****ing around with our election was justifiable tit-for-tat.

You've excused the DNC/HRC campaign hacks. You've said that the Russia investigation was akin to birtherism, and--after declaring pre-election that it was irrelevant--you unequivocally declared it dead in March.

So for me to assume that you're writing in good faith about remedies for their unquestioned-- regardless of what you think about the Trump campaign angle--election interference is a pretty big leap.
 
Julio3000 said:
1) So accessing voter rolls is benign and couldn't be used to undermine an election? Good to know.
Click to expand...

This is the problem with your entire approach: it's not as simple as "accessing" voter rolls. It's like ... uh, kind of crucial to determine whether or not the 'disturbances' that certain locales experienced with their voter rolls in/around/on election day were a result of direct targeting or if they were 'incidentally collected' as a part of a greater cyber-intrusion (hmm ... sounds a lot like Stuxnet ... but I digress). There was a great deal of digital saber-rattling that went down between Russia and the United States throughout October and into early November of 2016, including some seriously major attacks on our "internet of things".

When I was in middle school I used this file sharing service called Hotline (this predates the Napster/Limewire era) to download porn, movies, and music. In a nutshell, the sharing was facilitated by the end-user selecting files on his/her personal computer that he/she was willing to send out to anyone who searched for them via the Hotline software. One day, probably in my haste to hide my porn, I accidentally selected my entire hard drive for sharing ... and left my computer connected to the internet (hello, 56K modem) overnight to download some files. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the following morning and saw that hundreds of random people (ironically enough, most from Eastern Europe) had basically downloaded everything on my computer - all my documents, images, e-mails. It was horrifying - but it was my fault. I didn't secure my information. I messaged this one guy who I could see was currently downloading my school reports one by one and was like, "What is wrong with you? What the hell are you doing?" and all he said was "What do you mean?"

Anyways, cyber-probing is a thing. That Russia (or the GRU or GRU sub-contracted fatboys) may have "accessed" sensitive databases or networks is not an earth-shattering revelation. Hell, it's not even necessarily egregious. We went through this with the Podesta "hacks" - dude e-mailed himself his own password and it was something like "podesta123" ... it doesn't take a concentrated, sophisticated hack to produce that kind of information. By the same token, given that information, it doesn't take a concentrated, sophisticated hack to harvest that information, either.

So, yeah, I do reserve to the right to wait for a comprehensive forensic investigation to bear out before I start making absurd claims backed by conspiratorial nonsense.
 
Hawk said:
This is the problem with your entire approach: it's not as simple as "accessing" voter rolls. It's like ... uh, kind of crucial to determine whether or not the 'disturbances' that certain locales experienced with their voter rolls in/around/on election day were a result of direct targeting or if they were 'incidentally collected' as a part of a greater cyber-intrusion (hmm ... sounds a lot like Stuxnet ... but I disgress). There was a great deal of digital saber-rattling that went down between Russia and the United States throughout October and into early November of 2016, including some seriously major attacks on our "internet of things".

When I was in middle school I used this file sharing service called Hotline (this predates the Napster/Limewire era) to download porn, movies, and music. In a nutshell, the sharing was facilitated by the end-user selecting files on his/her personal computer that he/she was willing to send out to anyone who searched for them via the Hotline software. One day, probably in my haste to hide my porn, I accidentally selected my entire hard drive for sharing ... and left my computer connected to the internet (hello, 56K modem) overnight to download some files. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the following morning and saw that hundreds of random people (ironically enough, most from Eastern Europe) had basically downloaded everything on my computer - all my documents, images, e-mails. It was horrifying - but it was my fault. I didn't secure my information. I messaged this one guy who I could see was currently downloading my school reports one by one and was like, "What is wrong with you? What the hell are you doing?" and all he said was "What do you mean?"

Anyways, cyber-probing is a thing. That Russia (or the GRU or GRU sub-contracted fatboys) may have "accessed" sensitive databases or networks is not an earth-shattering revelation. Hell, it's not even necessarily egregious. We went through this with the Podesta "hacks" - dude e-mailed himself his own password and it was something like "podesta123" ... it doesn't take a concentrated, sophisticated hack to produce that kind of information. By the same token, given that information, it doesn't take a concentrated, sophisticated hack to harvest that information, either.

So, yeah, I do reserve to the right to wait for a comprehensive forensic investigation to bear out before I start making absurd claims backed by conspiratorial nonsense.
Click to expand...

Guess she was asking for it when she wore that short skirt.

So what are the absurd claims and conspiratorial nonsense that I've suggested? The only thing I have ever counseled is waiting until the investigation is done-- something that you specifically disagreed with-which also seems to be now what you are counseling re electronic intrusion.
 
Julio3000 said:
Honestly, dude, you've got to account for your piece in this in order to address it frankly.

You've said that:

-you are pro-Russia. Ok, fine. My contention, and I don't think you'd argue with it, is that they stand to benefit a hell of a lot more than we do from a closer relationship, so it is neither in our national interest, nor particularly morally defensible, to become best buddies with them without some tangible and meaningful concessions on issues of contention.

- their ****ing around with our election was justifiable tit-for-tat.

You've excused the DNC/HRC campaign hacks. You've said that the Russia investigation was akin to birtherism, and--after declaring pre-election that it was irrelevant--you unequivocally declared it dead in March.

So for me to assume that you're writing in good faith about remedies for their unquestioned-- regardless of what you think about the Trump campaign angle--election interference is a pretty big leap.
Click to expand...

1) So, in this fun little labels game, if I'm "pro-Russia" does that mean you are "anti-Russia"? I've said repeatedly that I believe normalizing relations with Russia is "geopolitical common sense" - and it is, pretty much across the board. I don't really understand, or care much about this argument that Russia "has more to gain" than we do. Who cares? The Cold War is over. Who had more to gain in the Iranian negotiations? The Cuban ones? And I'm sorry if I scoff at whatever your notions of a 'moral defense' are after you supported shaking hands with those two villainous operators.

2) Yes. That Russia might respond in kind to attacks (diplomatic/cyber/strategic) is justifiable to me. But look at you showing off that faux backbone of patriotism.

3) "Excused" the hacks? And with the birtherism/Russian investigation schtick again? Now I have a label for you: chronic over-exaggerator.

4) Oh, come on. I don't see how you can write something like that with a straight face - it's almost McCarthyistic. That (supposedly) being "pro-Russia" precludes me from talking about American cyber-security and cyber-awareness seems kinda unhinged to me, comrade.
 
Hawk said:
1) So, in this fun little labels game, if I'm "pro-Russia" does that mean you are "anti-Russia"? I've said repeatedly that I believe normalizing relations with Russia is "geopolitical common sense" - and it is, pretty much across the board. I don't really understand, or care much about this argument that Russia "has more to gain" than we do. Who cares? The Cold War is over. Who had more to gain in the Iranian negotiations? The Cuban ones? And I'm sorry if I scoff at whatever your notions of a 'moral defense' are after you supported shaking hands with those two villainous operators.

2) Yes. That Russia might respond in kind to attacks (diplomatic/cyber/strategic) is justifiable to me. But look at you showing off that faux backbone of patriotism.

3) "Excused" the hacks? And with the birtherism/Russian investigation schtick again? Now I have a label for you: chronic over-exaggerator.

4) Oh, come on. I don't see how you can write something like that with a straight face - it's almost McCarthyistic. That (supposedly) being "pro-Russia" precludes me from talking about American cyber-security and cyber-awareness seems kinda unhinged to me, comrade.
Click to expand...

1) Nah, man. I'm using your own words. You described yourself as pro-Russia. I'm very much anti-Putin, and have made no secret of it, but I'm personally kind of a Russophile going back to my school days, which is neither here nor there. But I've stated numerous times that I am in favor of strategic cooperation with Russia if it makes sense for our national interests.

2) Still kinda wondering what the US did that was analogous.

3) Homes, you did. Repeatedly. Your point of view was that there were no hogs, and even if there had been, turnabout is fair play. You want quotes?

4) like I said, I agree with you about cyber security and cyber awareness, but you've used it as a surrogate for actually addressing what happened.
 
Julio3000 said:
Guess she was asking for it when she wore that short skirt.

So what are the absurd claims and conspiratorial nonsense that I've suggested? The only thing I have ever counseled is waiting until the investigation is done-- something that you specifically disagreed with-which also seems to be now what you are counseling re electronic intrusion.
Click to expand...

No need to blur the 'collusion' investigation and the cyber-penetration investigation/analysis.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top