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Russia and American elections, now featuring radical republicans as co-stars


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Posted (edited)

If you're the little punk and the big bully has a cast on his leg and a case of the flu, do you take your shot and try to knock him out? China and Russia may decide that now is the time.

Edited by retread
Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 10:48 PM, retread said:

If you're the little punk and the big bully has a cast on his leg and a case of the flu, do you take your shot and try to knock him out? China and Russia may decide that now is the time.

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I think they would consider that rude.  They are more about exploiting vulnerabilities and letting us do the heavy lifting in destroying ourselves. 

Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 11:09 PM, Orca of Peace said:

we underrate ourselves economically and militarily. Nothing can destroy the US, not even Americans. We are God on Earth and have been for a long time. 

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Nonsense.

There's no such thing as an invincible nation.  Ask Rome.

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Posted

To this point, it's mostly been cyber reconnaissance, but there is an end game. For the Chinese, it might be 100 years out. I'm not so sure about Putin...

Compared to other empires, we've just about reached the average life span. Doubt the states would ever be broken up, but we can def be knocked off our pedestal.

Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 11:24 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Which is probably why we’re being attack via cyber subversion, information warfare, espionage, and hacking the infrastructure.  

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and China is laying the groundwork to fuck us financially.

Posted

If the US is crippled by losing electrical power and economic chaos, the world economy will tumble with it. The notion of conquering or destroying a major country is counterproductive. In the Cold War, I began to wonder what the Soviet Union would gain by rolling the tanks over Europe and imposing communism. Seems like they'd destroy everything of value and have more states draining them rather than making them wealthy.

This whole alternative means of attack to undermine confidence within and without the US seems to be a play to gain soft power as we forfeit it. Influence is the prize.

To point to our tanks and aircraft carriers and giant army in confidence that they will guarantee the status quo remains is naive. We've proven over and over that the hammer of the military isn't the best tool for most international issues and conflicts. But we always tell ourselves that it's still WWII and we're fighting Hitler. The world will love us when we kill our way to another shining victory.

Idiot World.

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Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 11:35 PM, retread said:

I've posted this a few times, but only b/c it's a great interview. David Sanger on cyber security and how vulnerable we are.

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621338178/journalist-warns-cyber-attacks-present-a-perfect-weapon-against-global-order

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We were made vunerable when a close ally fucked our NSA Operation Olympic Games and Stuxnet was discovered by Kasparsky.  

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13535210-confront-and-conceal

Thanks for re posting that interview.

 

Posted (edited)
  On 7/29/2018 at 12:21 AM, RomaVicta said:

If the US is crippled by losing electrical power and economic chaos, the world economy will tumble with it. The notion of conquering or destroying a major country is counterproductive. In the Cold War, I began to wonder what the Soviet Union would gain by rolling the tanks over Europe and imposing communism. Seems like they'd destroy everything of value and have more states draining them rather than making them wealthy.

This whole alternative means of attack to undermine confidence within and without the US seems to be a play to gain soft power as we forfeit it. Influence is the prize. 

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I'm sure there are things we could be doing to shore up our cyber security, but we're consumed with everything besides that.

Paper ballots in elections would go a long way to protect the ballot box. I'm sure we have the intellectual capabilities to safeguard nuclear facilities and power grids, but we just don't seem to be doing it.

Edited by retread
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Posted

They've already hacked into the basis for a functioning democracy, albeit without changing any votes. What if large blocks of the power grid go out and banks are disrupted?

I'm not sure it's as simple as mutually assured damage/destruction.

Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 10:41 PM, Pancho Negro said:

Seriously when will some fucks wake the fuck up?!?

 

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If they take out communication satellites - and Millennial can't text or Instagram or Tinder, they'll surrender to anyone in return for their access to the interwebs.

Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 10:41 PM, Pancho Negro said:

Seriously when will some fucks wake the fuck up?!?

 

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I read about this earlier in the week. This comment, “They got to the point where they could have thrown switches” said Jonathan Homer, chief of industrial control system analysis for DHS." caused a small ruckus in the ICS Security community. DHS was exaggerating by making this statement. There were comprised HMI systems and work stations that display historian info graphics. The ICS systems themselves were not impacted. It's not possible to "throw switches" from peripheral work stations which reside on a separate and less secure network.

The Senate testimony on this issue was interesting but pretty useless. Congress will roll out the dog and pony show but do nothing to address the problems. I also got a feeling that this was more about politics than a desire to strengthen our national security posture.

 

Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 11:14 PM, Orca of Peace said:

nothing in human history can match American firepower, industrial base, resources and tech supremacy.

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Trump is scared to death of Putin.  

Putin is the guy that will punch the bully right in the nose.  

Trump knows it and doesn't want to play with people that will hit back.  

Posted
  On 7/29/2018 at 2:00 AM, Laga4 said:

Trump is scared to death of Putin.  

Putin is the guy that will punch the bully right in the nose.  

Trump knows it and doesn't want to play with people that will hit back.  

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both guys are bullies, but I agree that Trump is intimidated. Good thing for America is we have capable men in uniform (and others) behind Trump who will do the practical to safeguard any credible threat.  IMO what we see at high level meetings are superficial, when powers engage we have hundreds of people in nameless agencies that move the mountains. 

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Posted
  On 7/28/2018 at 10:41 PM, Pancho Negro said:

Seriously when will some fucks wake the fuck up?!?

 

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Welp, better grab a generator or two before them dang things get priced out, after the grid is busted...

The good thing is there are 3 different grids (mostly) 1 east coast/ 1 west coast/ and 1 that covers most of Texas...

Posted (edited)

Another thing to be concerned about is politicians taking a softer public stance on Russia for fear they might be specifically targeted in election interference campaigns.

You will never know this happening but I’d be weary of any elected official taking an unusual soft stance on Russia or overly downplaying what they’ve done. 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
Posted
  On 7/30/2018 at 10:22 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Another thing to be concerned about is politicians taking a softer public stance on Russia for fear they might be specifically targeted in election interference campaigns.

You will never know this happening but I’d be weary of any elected official taking an unusual soft stance on Russia or overly downplaying what they’ve done. 

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You really are going down the rabbit hole aren't you ? 

Posted
  On 7/30/2018 at 9:43 PM, Pancho Negro said:
 
Which is why Russia doesn't make any military moves in our direction. They know they'd be obliterated. They aren't even sure if half of their equipment works or will work long enough to sustain any conflict of significant time.
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Posted
  On 7/30/2018 at 11:09 PM, Grandioso said:

 

Remember Rocko’s thread on shaggy asking why loony libe were so afraid of Russia?

 

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It’s hard to break through to some people that the Russia threat isn’t conventional military. 

The type of warfare they’re waging isn’t intended to get us to fight Russians on a battlefield. (we’d wipe the floor with them in that theater).

The Russians want Americans to fight each other enough to the point the whole system breaks down and we are governed by politicians beholden to Putin’s ideology instead of the American ideals.  

They’ve been working towards this for a long time and will continue to do this for the foreseeable future.  The only way to combat it is increase awareness and/or punch back.

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Posted
  On 7/30/2018 at 11:26 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

It’s hard to break through to some people that the Russia threat isn’t conventional military. 

The type of warfare they’re waging isn’t intended to get us to fight Russians on a battlefield. (we’d wipe the floor with them in that theater).

The Russians want Americans to fight each other enough to the point the whole system breaks down and we are governed by politicians beholden to Putin’s ideology instead of the American ideals.  

They’ve been working towards this for a long time and will continue to do this for the foreseeable future.  The only way to combat it is increase awareness and/or punch back.

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And they are cocky as fuck about their plans. They bragged about their new weapons being pointed at America a couple years ago at a cyber conference. They want to be seen as relevant again, post Obama, who downplayed their global presence most his Presidency. His biggest mistake of his term.  

Posted (edited)

Obama dropped the ball on Russia and Putin exploited it big time.  The biggest current problem with the Russia threat is people look at it through an Obama/Trump and election interference lens.

Trump supporters blame Obama for everything Russia got away with and they’re not entirely wrong.  

Democrats blame Trump for conspiring with Russia to take the White House and they’re not entirely wrong either.

The focus should be at pointing the big finger at Putin if we really want to deter him.

Putin’s biggest fear is being overthrown due to public opinion going so far south his people feel compelled to take action.

The best thing Americans can do is turn public opinion against Putin so loudly he becomes a pariah in his own country.  This is done by exposing all his crimes and corruption.

And we bring the traitors working for him to justice, of course. 

Also, US foreign policy towards Russia going forward should be CONTAINMENT.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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