FBI director James Comey has signed on to a previously reported CIA assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin directly intervened in the US presidential election in aid of Donald Trump, according to an internal CIA memo obtained by the Associated Press and Washington Post. The report has also been endorsed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, giving it the unanimous support of US intelligence agencies.
While the hack focused on the DNC and not the actual voting machines (I think Trump would’ve won even without the DNC hack), this is exactly the reason why The Netherlands ditched electronic voting machines roughly 15 years ago, and went back to the traditional paper ballot and red pencil. In today’s world, any democracy worth its salt should ditch electronic voting.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration was aware of the hack before the elections took place, but didn’t want to be seen interfering with the election process, because they thought Clinton would win. Yes.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-convict…
Fakenews MSM Guardian censors removed links to their own article
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia…
At least unlike shitty BBC they didn’t rewrote it beyond recognition.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-16/nsa-whistleblower-destroys…
Only idiots can believe CIA – the organization behind assasinations, terrorism, coups and control over media.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/1975-video-cia-admits-to-congress-the-…. (video)
Edited 2016-12-17 12:44 UTC
Shoe’s on the other foot.
Remember how Obama was going to take over Texas by way of a military exercise?
Funny how they never shut up about that, but now they want other people to put up or shut up.
What you mean to say was: only we can do the things we say you’re not allowed to do.
I meant to say that Craig Murray and Wikileaks knows the DNC leaker and pointed to it many times, but US liberals are in love with CIA, who uses the media to cover it’s crimes.
Even if whistleblower will reveal himself, they will be sure Putin paid him.
Edited 2016-12-17 13:35 UTC
If you speak french, watch this if you can, it reveals a lot about how the western world spat and spit to russian’s face and led to the rise of the last 10 years conflicts :
http://pluzz.francetv.fr/videos/poutine_le_nouvel_empire.html
It not happened all of a sudden, there are roots in the double talk westerns have toward russia. And I’m glad some french national TV dared to speak about.
Edited 2016-12-17 20:21 UTC
Well, can’t speak for the last 10y, but I’m deeply regretful, that USA did spat & spit at SU back in the day.
I literally can practice my religion, freedom of speech, freedom of congregation, of education, of wealth, etc.
Heck, I 100% sure that somebody in my family avoided torture if not death thanks to “meddling USA”.
For the last 10y? We all heard the stories how USA overthrow governments (loyal to Russia)… Russia? They simply invade Your country, take some land, break economy.
Everybody and their grandmas would choose USA if there was only choice between the two.
I’ve worked as an election judge in a county with electronic voting. Before I was leery but after I am satisfied they’re safe
Primarily voting machines shouldn’t be internet connected. Vote so should be stored and physically moved to a tally site. Secondly, a proper chain of authority over the machinery with physical seals, redundant vote storage, counts matching sign in totals and equipment *owned, maintained, and stored by your voting district* make me very confident any democracy can use electronic voting.
Hacking a machine in a lab is very different than hacking it in the wild with election officials watching.
Edited 2016-12-17 12:36 UTC
Physical controls are imperative as you say! But that is also true with paper ballots as well… if you don’t maintain tight monitoring over the ballots who is to say they have not been tampered with.
The real problem with electronic voting is that it can be designed to silently misscount votes….
cb88,
Very true, although that probably didn’t happen and would be extremely difficult to pull off on a wide scale for devices that aren’t connected to a network. Although there’s no doubt that some of these machines are technically hackable and on a local scale it would be possible for a corrupt administrator to tamper with the machines he’s overseeing.
I think you could increase the confidence in an electronic vote by adding redundancy with multiple vendors implementing the spec independently and then tabulating the data separately. This way it would be much more difficult for anyone (including the voting machine vendors) to hack all implementations. If any one of them produced one or more discrepancies then you could say with absolute certainty that the voting machine was tampered with and/or faulty (since a compliant implementation would always produce the same outcome as the other implementations). Even a single vote discrepancy would warrant an investigation because it’s proof of either a non-compliant implementation or tampering.
Also, I think it’s pretty stupid not to have an open source mandate for voting machines…
Edited 2016-12-18 02:29 UTC
You know, if receipts are good enough to them, the mighty, to control and take my money, it should be good also to verify elections results. The scheme should be something like:
– voter goes to vote anywhere;
– presents his credentials, and is liberated to vote;
– if allowed vote and get a receipt printed by the vote machine.
The receipt he got has a numeric code:
a) the complete unique identification of the machine he used, it is already a public information;
b) part of his unique identification as a voter missing, for example the last three digits (not the verification digits, please);
c) date and time of the vote and his choices coded by his own password. The damn machines have a numeric keyboard and he can pick any sequence of two or more digits he likes right at that time;
d) random padding to guarantee uniqueness of the receipt, guaranteed because of “a” and because the machine has a list with all registered votes receipts, it can keep generating randoms until finally registering one unique;
e) checksum of the whole thing.
The algorithm must be public and there must exist programs that don^A't need to connect to the Internet to verify the receipt, the voter just needs to download before the data associated to the candidates he could pick.
All coded receipts must be published by a third party, independent organization. Validation can be done online by simply using his own password an comparing the computed results of his vote. The independent third party can register the votes that were validated but would not need to ask credentials on doing so, the thing already has a checksum for verification purposes.
Fix most of concerns we have. If anyone that works on this industry thinks this is good ideal feel free to improve and implement it free of charge, the steps above are published as public domain and without restrictions.
You need a paper trail if you want to be able to find out if the machines have been tampered with and which effect it had.
But I don’t see what electronic voting machines can do which would be worth the hassle anyway. The USA isn’t even able to count their votes faster than countries which use old fashioned paper ballots.
Yes it is, if your voting software was poorly designed.
It’s simple, a precint’s results must all be digitally signed, so tampering with it will invalidate that specific precint’s vote counts, so, the work around is to manually count the votes on that specific precint.
But while paper ballot voting can easily be observed by interested members of the public how can you observe what happens in those black boxes? They might be safe, but public trust in the vote not being rigged is just about as important.
Needless to say, there no proof.
Now the government’s making up conspiracy theories. Why should we believe theirs?
Edited 2016-12-17 12:45 UTC
Indeed, THIS is the definition of Fake News. Especially when it became legal to Propagandize their own citizens in 2013.
Russia didnt do shit, people just HATE hillary with a passion, because of exactly this reason: She wanted to war with Russia.
And when she lost, they switched their strategy and did the exact same thing they accused Trump of wanting to do if he lost the election.
Its all bread and circus now.
> russia invades ukraine
> russia invades ukraine again
> russian rebels shoot down and slaughter ~300 people, of which ~200 dutch citizens
Hacking the DNC would be the least of Putin’s crimes.
Edited 2016-12-17 14:56 UTC
Those so called “invasions” were heavily propagandized by western media. The fact is, the people of Crimea ASKED FOR IT, they wanted to secede.
And who shot down that jet is still contested, was it russians directly? was it their backed rebels? or was it the ukraine backed militants doing it just to blame it on russia?
My money is on the latter.
I see now why you willingly swallow the propaganda, because a few of your countrymen died there.
Besides, my comment was related to the US election. Even if russia did all those things you say doesnt mean they also hacked the elections.
I know who the agressors are, and its the west. They have been building bases all over the border to russia since the cold war. For them it never stopped, just went into public sleep mode.
I dont fear the russians one bit, even though my country (Norway) is pretty close. The ones i do fear however, are the criminally stupid politicians in the EU and US openly pushing for WW3 and i wont have it!
Edited 2016-12-17 15:38 UTC
See previous sentence. I rest my case.
Ah, the age old “your just a crazy person for believing such things” shtick.
I on the other hand think you and your kind are simply stupid for believing everything your told, not even questioning it.
I have only one rule:
The more the the gov and the media want me to believe something, the more i believe the opposite.
Youve sadly lived a protected life thinking YOUR state is the nice one among the many. History though is against you im afraid.
Fact is they are all bad, that is what a state is for. Its there to rape you while smiling and telling you it loves you.
It is entirely possible to believe that your own government(s) are shitbags while equally believing that Russia & Putin are even bigger shitbags. The two are not mutually exclusive. It is not an either/or equation.
Vanders,
I nominate this post for a “sticky”.
You know, people are so ingrained with “my side vs the other side” mentality that they often fail to see that both sides suck and are guilty of the same things. The partisanship has been extremely harmful not just in presidential elections but also in congress where we can’t get anything done. Obviously the power of the dominant parties needs to be broken up, but unfortunately neither of the parties is willing to do it when it is in power.
You’d imagine that with 2/3 of the population hating both clinton and trump that third parties would finally have been able to make a dent. But due to the electoral college they still got exactly 0% of the electoral vote. The truth is, unless the electoral college is replaced, we’re going to continue to be plagued by this problem.
Edited 2016-12-17 18:09 UTC
Nope.
The electoral college was designed from wisdom. The vulnerable populous in the metropolis regions in general have no idea of where their food or power comes from and are too easily lumped together mentally when it comes to political influence. The electoral college represents a more diverse group of people.
icicle,
Even if you feel that votes should be weight unequally, it doesn’t make me wrong: The EC’s debilitating effect on third parties is not an opinion, it’s a fact. And unless one has a vested interest in keeping third parties out, then the EC is really not a good solution.
You claim to support the EC to promote geographic diversity, and that’s understandable, but the EC also impedes political party diversity for both urban and rural voters. Is this aspect of the EC acceptable in your opinion? I find it hard to believe, assuming someone’s intentions for diversity are genuine, that they would favor a system that systematically discourages 3rd party voting.
Using your logic that artificially increasing the value of votes has merit because it increases diversity, then why not increase the value of 3rd party votes for the same reason? This clearly would increase diversity too. You couldn’t say it’s unfair without being at least a little hypocritical; it’s just a matter of who it’s unfair to.
Of course this is all hypothetical for the sake of discussion, I am under no pretense that the parties in power would reform elections to increase diversity.
So just because i dont believe one side that automatically makes me believe the other?
Thats some grade-a strawmanning there.
Actually i dont believe either of them, they are both propaganda machines wanting me to think and behave a certain way.
Which i refuse to do. I live by my own rules, not whats dictated to me by society.
That is exactly the logic you applied to Thom.
No i accused him of swallowing his propaganda. Obviously he believes it or he wouldnt have posted it here.
Or was it my comment about him living a protected life perhaps?
Which was more an observation, though in hindsight i see he says hes critical of his own state so that might have been uncalled for.
In any case, i wish Thom a happy Christmas. I have a feeling this one is gonna be fun :p
I always find this interesting. “It” goes like this:
1) I have considered the evidence logically and clearly and I do not accept the version presented by the mass media.
2) I have considered the evidence logically and clearly and I accept the version presented by the mass media.
Apparently only version #1 can ever be correct. There is an inherent assumption that if your views align with the majority of people, you simply haven’t thought hard enough about. You aren’t woke. We can not accept the concept that somebody has considered the same evidence and reached a different conclusion!
It’s a ridiculous non-sequitur and it deserves to be treated with contempt for the weak illogical position it is.
Edited 2016-12-17 21:47 UTC
Nowhere did i say any of those words, all i did was call people who never question what they are told stupid.
Just as Thom said those who do are crazy.
You see, very few people actually do any research beyond what they get spoon fed by the media.
Your #2 option is what most people do, except they DONT logically and clearly consider evidence at all. They simply accept it at face value.
Because there is a prevalent view in this world that state/media never lies to you and has your best interest at heart.
Accepting things without questioning them is illogical and deserving of contempt.
And yet, you accept without questioning that anyone who states Russia is behind the slaughter of MH17’s passengers is a victim of propaganda.
So, do you contempt yourself? Or are you not that consistent?
You just love mincing words and making it into personal attacks dont you? Frankly im tired of discussing this any further, we will never convince each other of anything. So this thread is pointless.
Have a nice Christmas
Edited 2016-12-18 00:09 UTC
Where is the personal attack in that comment?
As usual, when the arguments of Putin apologists fail – as arguments of dictators inevitably always will – they wildly flail screaming about mainstream media and run away. So predictable.
The moment you use the catch phrase – Putin apologist – anything you might have argued that would have been interesting or logical now needs to be dismissed because you are arguing from emotionality only.
So tell me; how do you seperate the people who fall into group #2 from the people who are just “toeing the line”? Ah.
Like, you’ve seen the claims made Russia and the “evidence” they’ve presented and you’re all like “Oh yeah, this is all solid and logically sound evidence, totally believable” and you just accept it?
Russia is the only country who released evidence to the public.
Almaz-Antey – not only performed nature experiment with real warhead,
they also released classified info about BUK system to the investigators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREtudlZeHs
http://tass.ru/boeing-presentation/vvedenie/
Russia:
Radar data
Manufacturer classified info/experiment
USA: zero
Ukraine: lies
No radar data (hiding)
No radio records (hiding)
They said they have no BUK in that area, but it was filmed on TV.
Denied they had jets in area, despite of witnesses on the ground who have seen the fall of boing.
JIT investigation is based on information provided by SBU.
Let Jack the ripper to lead the investigation.
Oh! I see! You’re just another pro-Russian troll! Silly me.
The media and the government also say that molten lava is extremely dangerous, and you definitely, definitely shouldn’t attempt to eat it.
I think your choice is clear.
Now your just being stupid. Unlike you i dont need people to tell me what to think or do, i manage that fine on my own. Maybe you should try it?
Really? You don’t think your mind is full of propaganda from your family and the schools?
Half of you probably have been told carrots are good for your eyes, which was British WW2 propaganda.
You should pay attention to your own words. You say that no matter what, you’re going to do the opposite of what the government says to do. If you do that, you are 100% letting someone else dictate what you do. Think about it.
Also, “you’re”, “I”, “don’t”, and “I” again. Oh wait, the rules of grammar don’t apply to you since you’re such an anarchist. Silly me!
Exactly! Listen to this guy, Mario would know, he has some experience with lava pits.
Thats the highway to insanity and it looks like you have already travelled it quite a way. Just because someone or some institution which you don’t trust says something it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. And even if it wasn’t the whole truth the opposite would only be true by chance.
Try to think yourself instead of listening to idiots on the internet which tell you stories which somehow sound like what you’d like to believe.
Thom Holwerda,
Actually, the public was made aware of the hack before the elections took place, it even came up in the debates. Obama didn’t act on it because he didn’t want to be seen as meddling with the election. Regardless of one’s opinion about Obama, he was undoubtedly right here, it absolutely would have been seen as meddling. It might have even hurt Clinton for him to get involved before the election, but who really knows?
It’s disappointing that the FBI director actually did meddle, seemingly intentionally, by alleging the existence of more evidence against Clinton that turned out not to be true. At best it was irresponsible, at worst, he defrauded the people. Would it have changed the outcome? Nobody can’t say that, but the electoral vote was extremely close.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing…
I didn’t like how Clinton won the primaries and found that to be unethical as well. We were screwed with at every angle.
Edit: I didn’t hear that the GOP also got hacked until after the election. It’s not clear to me who knew that & when?
Edited 2016-12-17 17:45 UTC
The evidence from independent investigations
LOL Bellingcat?
The man who hates anything russian and funded by NATO propaganda Atlantic Council?
I expect unbiased report from him
Add pathetic clown Julian “Jihadi Julian” R~APpcke to that list =)
No, the independent (non-governmental) Netherlands-led investigation consisting of independent SCIENTISTS from countless countries, INCLUDING RUSSIA, who performed one the most diligent, detailed, and comprehensive scientific investigations into a disaster ever performed. The evidence presented by the investigators – photos, videos, telephone conversations, and tons more – is so incredibly overwhelming, it forced Russia to change its stories several times AGAIN after publication. At this point, with such overwhelming evidence available for peer review, only the most desperate or idiotic would maintain this was anything but a case of a passenger airliner shot down by idiot rebels supplied with Russian weaponry, by Russians.
Not random YouTube videos, not the daily-changing propaganda stories from Putin or the murderers of MH17 themselves – but cold, hard, freely available, peer reviewed evidence.
You can choose to be on the team consisting of Holocaust deniers, 9/11 truthers, or Pearl Harbour conspiracy thinkers – or just accept reality: that Putin gambled, lost, and caused the slaughter of 300 innocent lives, even more sanctions, a tanking and crumbling Russian economy, and eventually, the further collapse of whatever’s left of the Russian economy.
But make no mistake about it: the murderers WILL be brought to justice. We got people like Mladic rotting in a The Hague prison cell – do you really think we’re not going to get the murderers of MH17 and have them face justice in The Hague?
Keep dreaming.
Edited 2016-12-19 15:47 UTC
Which one? Unlikely that JIT is “independent”.
9/11 truthers
Your allies and friends – Saudi Arabia did it. It is not a secret. Why are you not outraged? How about “justice in The Hague?”
supplied with Russian weaponry, by Russians.
So Saudi-Arabia is slaughtering poor people of Yemen with American and British bombs. Obama very happy because he increased weapon trade with SA.
caused the slaughter of 300 innocent lives
When americans shot down iranian airplane with 300 innocent lives the captain received the medal for it.
a tanking and crumbling Russian economy, and eventually, the further collapse of whatever’s left of the Russian economy
We will not return to the 1990-style total destruction caused by Yeltsin.
This is actually related to the topic:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-09/news/mn-22423_1_boris-yeltsi…
http://monthlyreview.org/2006/12/01/the-myths-of-democracy-assistan…
We got people like Mladic rotting in a The Hague prison cell
Yeah, also you killed innocent people of Belgrad,
annexed Kosovo and give power to criminals
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/14/kosovo-prime-minister-…
“do you really think we’re not going to get the murderers of MH17 and have them face justice in The Hague?”
You can take Poroshenko any day
But you’re safe to blame Russia, because BUK is a russian weapon anyway.
Edited 2016-12-19 16:42 UTC
Did Georgia “ask” too?
I’m sure you’re enjoying when your city is shelled with Grads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdshKePUhI
Do you know why Saakashvilli is in Ukraine? Because he is wanted in Georgia
Sure. Just like those people in Austria and in the Sudetenland and in Danzig and so on asked for the F~A 1/4 hrer to bring them home into the Reich.
What a load of shit.
Ukraine was part of Russia (and the Soviet Union) from the 17th century until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
The vast majority of people in Eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians. They are persecuted by the pro-Western puppets installed in Kiev.
The 298 people died because their crappy Third World airline (MAS) flew over a declared war zone at the unsafe altitude of 33,000 feet (within missile range). Any aircraft in the area was a potential target. The Ukrainian military also uses the Buk missile system
298 people died because poorly trained rebels used a Russian supplied missile system to shoot down a civilian aircraft. Oh and then Russia attempted to cover it up and deny all responsibility.
P.S: It doesn’t matter if it was a “war zone”; the only thing that matters is if it was declared a No Fly zone via. a NOTAM. Eastern Ukraine was a trunk route for East Asian flights, and was not declared a no-fly zone, and MH17 was flying at 33,000ft. Any competent military would have been capable of identifying it correctly as a civilian aircraft. Nobody planned for poorly trained idiots with access to technology like the BUK; but then Ukraine was a unique situation in many ways.
Typical brainwashed Thom hiding his head in the sand.
Clinton crimes AKA DNC leak was probably leaked by some Bernie supporter, like you =)
Clinton won the popular vote. By over 2.5 million votes. People didn’t hate her.
I assure you, they did. Just that most who voted for her hated Trump more. Had she won, it would’ve been like being dunked in urine, rather than feces. The fact that both of these horrible people weren’t immediately laughed out of the primaries is a good sign that we’re ef’d as a society.
Remove the 5 boroughs of NYC and her “popular vote” evaporates. IDK about you but I wouldn’t consider having an area barely 320 square miles be some sort of gauge on how people in a country of 3,676,486 square miles feel about a candidate. If you look at her numbers a good chunk of her “popularity” comes down to NY and CA, away from the coasts her numbers evaporate.
I won’t even bring up the leaked video of the NYC election commissioner talking about how widespread the issue of fraud was in his district nor how the DMV law Jerry Brown passed a couple of years back makes it trivially easy for illegals to vote, but links are below..
https://pjmedia.com/video/hidden-camera-nyc-election-commissioner-ta…
https://freespeechtwentyfirstcentury.com/2015/10/28/california-signs…
But the fact is the states that aren’t on the coasts? Yeah they didn’t care for HRC which is why her unfavorable rating stayed insanely high during the entire race. Hell she couldn’t even win AR, a state her hubby practically owned for over a decade and which I have zero doubt would make him governor again if he simply asked, but HRC has none of Bill’s charm or charisma and came off as arrogant, out of touch, and seemed to base her entire campaign on identity politics which was a recipe for disaster.
Yeah and if you remove all the pointless empty flyover states with nothing but hicks and meth addicts, Clinton would win. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t consider having such a vast, empty area with like 2 people and one cow per square mile to be some sort of gauge on how people in a country of 3,676,486 square miles feel about a candidate.
See? This shit works both ways.
[since I want to make this very clear: I don’t actually advocate the above]
There are some real cultural differences between the Midwest, the South and the coasts, but they don’t have much to do with methamphetamines or livestock.
This satire piece on The Onion is a pretty good summation of what a lot of middle-Americans think:
http://www.theonion.com/article/remains-of-ancient-race-of-job-crea…
The difference between California and the Midwest is like the difference between Italy and Germany. We still have a lot of mittelstand in the Midwest, but in Cali people want to be the American version of Ferrari (prestige at the expense of reliability and utility).
We’re the opposite, quite happy to work on something un-sexy but important. We have companies like 3M, which does $30B in business every year making simple things that work reliably and selling them for a fair price. (Side benefit: you can actually read our road signs in the dark because 3M’s reflective coatings are night-and-day better than what’s used elsewhere.)
There’s also long-standing distrust of the East Coast. Alphonso Taft (father of President W.H Taft) said that “The notorious selfishness and dishonesty of great mass of men you find in New York is to my mind a serious obstacle to settling there.” A lot of Midwesterners still think that, and many were unhappy to be stuck with two New York hustlers on election day.
Not sure why the quote got mangled, but this is the second time I’ve had that happen, and I wasn’t able to fix it last time. I think it’s something about the browser I’m using.
It always amazes me how so-called “liberals” make the most bigoted statements. How do you people stand yourselves?
You should read the rest of my comment before replying – specifically the disclaimer at the bottom.
I know right, turns out they are the worst of the worst, just a bunch of spoiled self entitled millennials…. They give Trump a bunch of crap on how he has to accept the election results and then they do exactly what they didn’t want him to do…..
snorkel1,
I’ve accepted the election results, it doesn’t mean I have to (or should) like Trump now. I’ve criticized Obama all along, and now all of a sudden criticizing Trump is a big deal? Well screw that, it comes with being president. If it weren’t Trump then people would be criticizing Hilary right now. Frankly I’ve never seen such sore winners after an election with even Trump denying that he didn’t win by more.
Edited 2016-12-19 23:10 UTC
Again, why don’t you read TO THE END (THE END! THE END!) of my post before attacking me? Are you really that dumb?
Jesus, no wonder fake news is a thing. Gullible as fuck.
No shit! So their votes don’t count or what? Do you vote by sqm now? How about another sezession if thats how you think about your co-patriots?
The bulk of those in heavily populated California.
But we don’t elect our presidents by popular vote. We elect them by a plurality of popular votes in all states in the union who then select electors who determine our president based on this process.
Clinton had one of the highest untrustworthy percentages of any presidential candidate in history. She is very disliked, just not by ‘liberals’.
TM99,
You don’t know many liberals then
Seriously, the real liberals were for Bernie Sanders.
It’s ironic given the public perception, but historically it’s the democrats who’ve done the best at balancing the budget and the republicans who blow it away. Hillery was actually quite conservative.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-is-a-fiscal-…
I voted for Sanders in the primary. I consider myself a leftist, not a ‘liberal’ as most self-identified Democrats do.
I do agree in part but so many did follow Sanders and voted for her still. I was extremely disappointed that Sanders didn’t just tell her to fuck off after rigging the primary. Instead he played nice to get that toothless chairmanship over ‘voter outreach’. What a waste.
TM99,
Do you think it would really have made a difference if he contested it? He could have continued to run in the general election, but if she didn’t drop out they would each receive votes and they would unquestionably cancel each other out much like the ’92 election with Ross Perot.
Edited 2016-12-19 14:00 UTC
Yes sure Russia never does shit and the Democrats where planning to invade Russia. Retard.
It’s no wonder that fake news is so effective when people believe crazy stuff like what you just wrote. You don’t even understand the difference between a “conspiracy theory” and intelligence gathering and analysis.
Because theirs are based on some facts like hacks that really happened.
The conspiracy theories in which Trump and his braindead supporters believe are just based on invented reality.
I am so relieved to see how many of you are awake to this.
It blows my mind the comments that are pro fascism being thrown around is news lately. I guess those people can’t have informed nuanced conversations.
even if Russia did hack the DNC, it’s the DNC’s own fault for having such shitty security on their I.T. Assets.
Not to mention they had plenty of dirty laundry and for one I am glad someone exposed it. Though it’s probably not the Russians…Any hacker worth their salt wouldn’t leave clues pointing to them. It was probably china or North korea who left bread crumbs pointing the finger at the Russians.
I bet the DNC geniuses are now PGP encrypting each and every email that goes out….at least you would think they would do that now, but since they are obvious mental giants….
Edited 2016-12-17 18:08 UTC
snorkel1,
The GOP was hacked as well. The difference is that their data didn’t get leaked to wikileaks and/or wikileaks didn’t publish it.
Edited 2016-12-17 18:17 UTC
According to the RNC that is false.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/reince-priebus-rnc-hacked/story?id=4…
bassbeast,
I have only one rule:
The more the the gov and the media want me to believe something, the more i believe the opposite.
On a serious note, the story keeps changing. The FBI told them they were hacked and a republican congressman McCaul said it too “Yes, they have hacked into the Republican National Committee. So this is, again, they are not picking sides here I don’t think. They are hacking into both political parties … We’re not sure why they’ve released some documents and not others. What we don’t know is the extent of damage done and what they were able to retrieve out of the RNC itself. That’s, again, the subject of an FBI investigation.”
But then in another interview he reversed his position “I misspoke by asserting that the RNC was hacked. What I had intended to say was that in addition to the DNC hack, Republican political operatives have also been hacked”
So, yeah…I wish the FBI would release all the evidence it has about all the hacking to independent investigators, but there’s not much chance for that to happen. Maybe some day someone with evidence will retire and write a tell-all book about what actually happened.
Maybe we need to rethink government having oversight of itself… without civilian oversight there’s just too much going on that we never get a strait answer for.
Edited 2016-12-17 23:00 UTC
I’ll remember what you wrote the next time there is a huge data breach (think Yahoo or Ashley Madison) during which all of your dirty laundry is exposed. But, bah, your services should just have better IT security, right? There’s no harm; no foul. It’s no big deal.
Edited 2016-12-18 21:18 UTC
It really is about security, had they practiced better email security there would have been no breach unless they managed to get all the private keys for each user.
It really is that simple.
Also no one cares about my email, and if I did have stuff to hide I would be encrypting everything with a public/private key system like PGP.
Edited 2016-12-19 21:03 UTC
I’m just wondering what this has to do with operating systems? I mean were the electronic voting booths running on some old DOS system that was easily hacked from Russia?
no, it’s unlikely.
Her unfavorable rating in Jan before the “hack”( which just FYI was a really lame phishing email that the IT staff had told Podesta DO NOT OPEN which of course he did and input his User ID and password) was 57%, her unfavorable rating right before the election? 56%.
HRC simply had too many skeletons in her closet and came off as arrogant and entitled and the leaks had no effect on that, nor did it change her unfavorable and untrustworthy ratings. HRC was about the worst candidate that the DNC could have possibly run and all the leaks accomplished was letting us know why the DNC pushed such a lame candidate which was because she was the candidate of Wall street, no different than Romney in 2012.
Welcome to the future. Here is where governments and the companies under their control are used to look after their interests.
This will include at least the following:
1) Strengthening their political climate by installing friendly governments (US and UK has been doing this for decades).
2) Controlling tech sold by companies in your country so that when it goes overseas your secret orgs can get back in easily again.. to service the domestic needs. Intel ME etc.
This is happening. All countries. If it’s not, you are deluding yourselves.
So. Put on your tin foil hat. Eat a bucket of grits. Get used to it. The avalanche has already begun, it’s no longer time for the pebbles to vote.
Else.. go and drink the cool-aide (Jones town style).
“..this is exactly the reason why The Netherlands ditched electronic voting machines roughly 15 years ago, and went back to the traditional paper ballot and red pencil. In today’s world, any democracy worth its salt should ditch electronic voting.”
Paper ballot doesn’t necessary better. In Indonesia, there’s rumor, in 2009, that that time elected president have cheated on voting paper.
There’s always a risk/ hole to be used to cheating. In traditional ballot, you can pay the people administering the ballot/ voting (often the case in traditional ballot). With electronic, you hire competent hacker to hack the result.
First, with a properly designed voting software, that is impossible, since a window for the hacker to exploit the vulnerability of a secure voting system is too small and is not worth the effort. Voting machines are not connected to the public network.
Second, even if the hacker will penetrate the result, he must go at the top(the last count) for the hacker to be successfully rigged the result.
Third, with a successfully rigged result, it must be consistent with other parallel counts created, present in a secure voting software, because a parallel count is required for a properly designed secure voting software. And that will raise a lot of red flags when one result is inconsistent with other results given that they have been feed with the same raw election data.
Fourth, all of these counts(by precints, regions, by provinces etc.) are digitally signed, so tampering all of them is next to impossible, even if the tamper is successful in one or two, that will invalidate the results and will trigger a recount = manually.
5th, the hacker is hopeless and the politician will resort to fake news and black propaganda.
allanregistos,
I agree with you that there’s a lot we can and should be doing to make electronic safer from hacking. But nothing is 100% guarantied.
Fraudulent votes can be digitally signed too, especially if the hacker has an exploit and manages to get his code running on the voting machine. When unauthorized code is running, anything is possible – including manipulating the voter’s screen and input.
An administrator with physical access to the machine could modify the machine with something like a Raspberry Pi to control the actual display + touch screen while emulating fake touchscreen inputs into the authentic voting machine software. The algorithms would sign the fraudulent votes and the users would be non-the-wiser that votes were altered.
These kinds of attacks where the administrators are involved are unlikely, but plausible and difficult to prevent absolutely.
I like acobar’s suggestions earlier, however it goes against one of the requirements that voters must not be able to prove who they voted for after the fact. It would open up the possibility of voters being pressured into voting a specific way in exchange for money (or blackmail or employment or whatever). This is the reason almost all jurisdictions prohibit voters from recording their own votes using cameras.
Its not that paper voting is immune to cheating, its that it is easier to observe and verify and prevent cheating that way.
CIA has rigged elections and used shady tactics in over 100 forreign countries. And they scream foul when it happens to the US? Hypocrites much?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skQN8zct-ow
I was refraining to post on this particular news as I don^A't have much to add to the discussion, but your post stroke a chord.
First and foremost, totally agree with you and, as so, I would like to highlight some points that we keep on forgetting, as individuals and as society:
a) first step on any argumentation must be ascertaining of facts. If something proves wrong or very likely to be wrong there is not much value on follow a line of thinking about it or, at least, should be on the bottom of our list;
b) we should/must concentrate on discredit the arguments instead of the arguer. If the arguer has caught many times cheating we must put more effort on “a”;
c) if we want to be taken seriously we must apply the same rules we ascribe to the other to ourselves. We can^A't call people unrighteous and keep get caught committing the same misdealing;
d) things can be lawful but ethically questionably the same way they can be unlawful but ethically equitable. The right thing to do is first and foremost fix the rules;
e) If we insist on transgressing the established laws we should expect others to do the same with a serious aggravation, we can not control which one they will pick to violate;
f) we must analyze what went wrong and why first blaming ourselves. As individuals and as a society, we have this particular evil tendency to shift guilty to others, perhaps, as a way to easy our conscience instead of analyzing our faults when facing the consequences, the others do the same.
These are simple rules we should strive to pursue.
Edited 2016-12-18 10:53 UTC
I’m wondering, how would Ms Clinton explain how the Democrats behaved toward Bernie Sanders, using what can be called ballot fraud against this perfect electoral system, in this so rainbow shining democracy ? Have she a personal beef against him ?
but sadly the supposedly tech savvy editor of OSAlert apparently doesn’t understand the differences between a leak and a hack.
Nothing at the DNC was hacked. All emails from the DNC and Podesta were leaked by insiders. This has been confirmed by Wikileaks themselves including Assange and Murray.
Sorry I trust an organization like Wikileaks that has never been proven to be wrong with any of their documents far more than I trust your arrogant moralizing over OUR election and not yours.
Much of the arrogance of the USA is based on the assumption to be the land of the free which govern themselves democratically. More so, which more or less invented freedom and democracy. For that reason alone you might have to bear with what the rest of the world thinks of your democracy.
In the end.
The Republicans did not win the election, the Democrats lost.
It was not the registered Republicans that voted for Trump that put him over the top. It was the registered Democrats and Independents that could not vote for Clinton that put him in office. Regardless of emails that Clinton DESTROYED after a congressional subpoena to produce them, and Obama said nothing.
Political interference? Obama used the IRS to destroy the Tea Party. Obama wants non-citizens to vote. Obama is doing all he can to start trouble with Russia before January 20th. The list is long, and the blind will not see.
In the United States we have many citizens, but not all citizens are ‘Americans’.
Trump did not win. ‘Americans’ did.
But? How would you call those citizens of the USA?
Nothing more than a pathetic attempt to steal the election. It’s long been known that it was an insider leak and not a hack. And furthermore, the leak revealed that the Democrats were trying to illegally subvert the primaries – why no mention of this now?
What a stinking cesspool of corruption our political system is. It doesn’t serve “we the people” at all, its all about the special interests.
hmayle,
I agree, every election it’s the same deal with both parties. The middle class has long been underrepresented in politics. Just like his predecessors, Trump’s administration is shaping up to be full of special interests: big oil, wallstreet, billionaires. I’ll be surprised if he appoints anyone who will speak up for the middle class. So far he appears to be favoring fiscal policies that tilt the economy even further in favor of wealthy elites. I guess we’ll see what happens…
Edited 2016-12-19 00:35 UTC
I wholeheartedly disagreed. With manual-voting, flying voters can easily insert themselves into any voting precincts with the help of authorities, **easily**.
While in automated process, this will require people in various levels in the election committee to fully cooperate and validate the number of votes counted in which is impossible because of digital certificates and other securities.
Of course, not all systems are 100% secure, but the window of which hackers will be able to exploit vulnerabilities is so small that it doesn’t worth the effort, so they will go back to the *fake news* and all those propaganda to damage the reputation of their political opponents and gained votes.
Manual voting is okay for a country with a very small population, but it is hell for countries like the Philippines with 40 to 60 million voters, because it will take months to get meaningful election results, not to mention the alleged electoral fraud that comes with manual election voting.
So, no Thom, you are greatly mistaken.
Edited 2016-12-19 00:21 UTC
The Netherlands has 17 million people and I do not recall that it takes weeks to get election results.
Here in France(67 million people, 45 million voters), we use manual voting (with very few recent exceptions in some towns) and it takes only a few hours (less than 2 usually) to get the complete results of all elections.
Because no punch cards used but full named flyers easy to identify. And because citizens cares and help counting.
The last UK general election had a turnout of 66% on a population of 64m people. The 42 million votes were counted by hand, and most results were declared within 12 hours; the stragglers mostly took no longer than 24 hours.
The myth that manual counting is “slow” and electronic voting is the only “solution” is just that; a myth.
It’s also a myth because people don’t seem to understand how counting votes works. It’s not like 100 people are counting 10 million votes in The Netherlands, while 100 people are counting 200 million votes in the US. As the number of votes increases, so do the number of people counting those votes.
Whether you have 100 voting districts counting on average 40000 votes, or 1000 voting districts counting 40000 votes each, it has no bearing on how quickly the votes can be counted.
This is correct. I have counted votes in a local election in the UK.
It was basically one box dumped on a table and we put the votes into piles. A different person then checked each of the piles. (spoilt papers was the one you want to count as there are some funny failures).
I think I actually only counted a few hundred in total, all while being fueled by tea (it is England after all
)
You numbers are a bit high, should be more around 30m voters. Not all inhabitants of the UK may vote after all.
The last general elections in Germany saw 44.3m voters casting double as much votes (you’ve got two), the final results where published at 3.15 am in the night after just about 9h.
More than 600.000 people helped organising and counting the vote. Maybe the USA needs less man power, but that man power is also what secures the integrity of the vote.
Edited 2016-12-20 12:08 UTC
I don’t see how that changes anything. If I’m registered several times by authorities, electronic voting does what to prevent that? If you are allowed to vote several times, thats it. You can’t change that while counting the votes, no matter which method you chose.
@Thom
It looks like your post has attracted lots of Putin’s trolls!
From:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/17/trumped-putin
It is, in the words of former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who briefed George W. Bush on 9/11 but supported Hillary Clinton this year, ^aEURoean attack on our very democracy. It^aEURTMs an attack on who we are as a people. A foreign government messing around in our elections is, I think, an existential threat to our way of life. To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11.^aEUR