Russian Hack Conspiracy Theory Unraveling

[Smitty-48]

Old school espionage is Ivan's preffered method, and still the primary threat, for the GRU to score, state secrets wise, they need a Mole; John Walker, Aldridge Ames, Robert Hanssen, etcetera,

The most important state secret, to Mr. Ivan, is who are the CIA/MI6 Moles in his ranks, and he's not going to get that, from hacking.

[ssu]

I don't outright deny that there are Russian Active Measures in play, I just don't find them to be effective

That there actually was these active measures at play was my basic point. That the political opposition that lost the elections is making huge fuss about them is just part of the ordinary divisive US politics.

I think Putin is popular in America because American politicians have become a bunch of gutless effeminate panty waists on the aggregate, and Americans prefer their leaders to be more rootin tootin like Putin, so Americans are envious that Russia has a bad ass leader and America has Barack Hussien Wasserman-Shultz & Co.

At least in the "information warfare", the US is now failing miserably.

And I think where they are failing the most is to get their own citizens to believe in their own government. Now Americans might say that there nation is great, has all those freedoms, their constitution and so on, but that "America" is rather hazy and definately doesn't turn into belief in their own actually physical institutions. Perhaps the only one left is the Armed Forces, but for example the view of the IC shows that even this can melt away, possibly.

And the reason is obvious: the divisiveness of US politics where the opposition isn't just critical about the administration, but totally against it in every possible way. When you are told that your government is an abject failure, never had any success in anything, the wears you down and demoralizes you. There's a difference between being critical and being totally demoralized.

[Martin Hash]

Other nations are already socialist States, that battle either never occurred or was solved with violence. Until the Cold War ended, the few socialist flare ups in America were put down, mostly immigrants, so America limited its immigration until 1964 when the gates were thrown open & many socialists again came in. Until the liberty/socialist war is won by one side or the other, American politics will remain incredibly devisive.

[BjornP]

Old school espionage is Ivan's preffered method, and still the primary threat, for the GRU to score, state secrets wise, they need a Mole; John Walker, Aldridge Ames, Robert Hanssen, etcetera,

The most important state secret, to Mr. Ivan, is who are the CIA/MI6 Moles in his ranks, and he's not going to get that, from hacking.

No doubt that that's where Putin's personal experience shines, but propaganda is just as old school as espionage and just as useful. RFE was highly efficient behind the Iron Curtain, whereas the Soviets at the time primarily targeted intellectuals, the anti-war/Peace movements, and Western Communists. You don't put that much money into the Russian version of VOA unless you expect it to yield results. Compare that slashed budget...:

http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-rt-news-n ... ce-2137008

..to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding

or:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Fre ... io_Liberty

The success of RFE (and the BBC) in the old days was that they made sure programming came in as many languages as possible, and that broadcasters were in tune with popular sentiments by giving room to a wide range of political viewpoints (that were compatible with capitalism and democracy) as opposed to selling a hardline ideological, one-size fits all package. Otoh, only the already converted and radicals were swayed by Soviet propaganda. Same applies today, I think. Only today, the hardline, one-size fits all ideological views come from the cultural radical/progressive elite and it's Russia that manages to make programming that appeals just as much to American right-wingers skeptical of their own government/NATO as it appeals to non-American left-wingers skeptical of... the US government/NATO.

[BjornP]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-r ... SKBN14S0O6

President-elect Donald Trump accepts the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia engaged in cyber attacks aimed at disrupting the presidential election and may take actions in response, his incoming chief of staff said on Sunday.

...

Priebus said Trump plans to order the intelligence community to make recommendations as to what should be done. Depending on those recommendations, "actions may be taken," he said.

That proves it....

...Trump has become a Democrat!

[ssu]

I think this matter is now closed.

Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump accepts the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia engaged in cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the U.S. elections, his incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus said on Sunday, adding that "actions may be taken" in response.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Priebus said Trump "accepts the fact that in this particular case it was entities in Russia" that were behind the intrusions into the Democratic Party organizations and operatives.

Priebus said Trump plans to order the intelligence community to make recommendations as to what should be done. Depending on those recommendations, "actions may be taken," he said.

That's it for the idea of the hacking not been done by Russia.

Now no need for Trumpists to "defend" their President by conspiracy theories.

[Speaker to Animals]

Lol, no. If you want me to believe it, then show the evidence.

It's possible they did it. But possible does not equal guilt.

[Smitty-48]

Trump is a Hawk, there will be plenty of "actions taken" in response to the Russians, Trump's whole mandate of a massive build up of the US military, will require a Russian threat as well as a Chinese threat, just because Trump does not have a personal beef with Vladimir Putin, does not mean that a GOP administration is going to be a bunch of Russia Doves, that was never in the cards, but first Trump has to purge the Obamabots and Cucks, it's not going to be an Obamabot led response to the Russians, Trump will have his own version, which will likley be focussed largely on building up America's military might for unilateral action as neccessary, rather than trying to assert precise control of the Russians with a three thousand mile screwdriver.

[Smitty-48]

The purge has already begun by the way, Trump just fired all US ambassadors, worldwide, they have to be out, by innauguration day, even though there will be no replacements for them until confirmations can be completed, usually, the new administration waits until it has a replacement, but Trump is purging Obama's ambassadors first, then finding replacements for them after.

[kybkh]

For now, here are specific ways in which the Intelligence Community’s Report goes wrong. Annex A of the report focuses primarily on the CONTENT of what is on RT. If a handful of people turn it on, only THOSE FEW will ever access any content at all. So, the content tells us nothing at all about who is watching and with what effect. The report after pages on content goes on to quote what Russian editors of RT INTEND to ACCOMPLISH–again, with nothing about what they DO accomplish with RT [if anything]. Pages report RT’s ties to government. Again, no connection whatever to what if any EFFECT on exactly WHAT AUDIENCE in US.

We come to that last 3 pages of this Annex: two of them [one of which is entirely graphs] touch on possible EFFECT and they are very misleading and downright inaccurate.

1. RT’s TV audience: The report uses RT’s OWN estimate of audience and then ends the sentence “it does not publicize its actual audience.” Before this mild disclaimer, the report gives RT’s estimate of 550 million people worldwide and 85 million in the US. THIS IS WHOLLY IMAGINARY. IT REFERS TO POTENTIAL AUDIENCE: HOUSEHOLDS THAT CAN RECEIVE A SIGNAL ***IF AND ONLY IF**THEY BOTHER TO TURN IT ON.

They do not. Nielsen analyzed the top 94 cable news programs from December 2014 through March 2015 [these are cable news exclusively, excluding the big news giants] RT did not even make it onto the list, which ended with a fraction of a hundredth of a percent.]

In Europe, the audience is less than 0.1%. The Report seems unaware of or chooses not to show these data. Instead it shows “growth”, which is really meaningless. When the numbers are low, very small changes can be big percentages.

2. It’s YouTube that seems to be the shocker in the Report–such large numbers! Sure, unless you know [as the Report seems not to know] that 81% of the most popular RT videos over 5 years were created by foreign countries and have nothing to do with Russia or any propaganda campaign. RT goes after foreign videos of disasters [Fukushima nuclear plant or volcanoes] and violence catastrophes and buys the rights, gets the videos to the largest search engines and puts its logo at the top. ONLY 1% OF RT’S TOTAL EXPOSURE ON YOUTUBE ARE POLITICAL VIDEOS.

THAT’S IT! a report that is very short on facts, prone to leave the wrong impression among readers, and searching for a longer, fuller story than the fact of election-time hacking. Why did the Intelligence Community avoid the facts–which, after all, are not classified. Some neutral oversight body needs to check this out. Meanwhile, let’s have more information, more views, more research with much more stringent methods.”

http://eastwestaccord.com/duke-universi ... ni-report/