"Just two years ago, the Obama White House welcomed Russia’s top internal security official, Alexander Bortnikov, to Washington, as the head of a Kremlin delegation attending a highly publicized U.S. government summit on countering violent extremism.
What U.S. officials did not then know is that officers of the agency that Bortnikov heads, the FSB or Federal Security Service, were at that moment directing an audacious state-sponsored cyberattack to penetrate Yahoo’s email network, deploying criminal hackers to steal data on 500 million email users, according to criminal charges unveiled by the Justice Department on Wednesday. The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in California charged two FSB officers and two civilians — one Russian and one from Kazakhstan, now living in Canada — with crimes including computer hacking and economic espionage.
The FSB sponsored cyberattack, which lasted from 2014 to last September, was described by government officials today as one of the largest data breaches in history: It involved the theft of vast amounts of credit card data and other financial information, as well as personal details on individuals of high interest to the Russian government: journalists, U.S. officials and U.S. and foreign corporate executives and employees, including a senior officer of a major U.S. airline and even a Nevada gaming official.
But what was especially galling to U.S. officials is that the two FSB officers at the center of the plot, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, were assigned to the agency’s Center for Information Security, or Center 18 — a cybercrime unit that was the FBI’s point of contact for investigating criminal hacking operations.
“What this shows is that we’ve been had,” said Steve Hall, a former CIA station chief in Moscow who later directed agency operations in Russia. “Center 18 was the part of the FSB that was supposed to be working with us.”
But instead of working with the FBI and CIA to catch hackers, the FSB officers were actually working with hackers themselves, according to the Justice Department charges. In the Yahoo attack, two alleged cybercriminals were also charged as co-conspirators in the plot. One of them, Alexsey Belan, a notorious cyberthief who has been twice indicted in the United States and is on the FBI’s “Cyber Most Wanted” list, received “sensitive” law enforcement and intelligence information from the FSB that helped him avoid detection by the FBI and facilitated his theft of proprietary Yahoo data — including stealing the company’s Account Management Tool (AMT), a system that Yahoo used to make and log changes to user accounts. His purpose, a senior U.S. official said today, was to “line his own pockets with money.”
Cold Cyber War! - (
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Russia has both beds AND fat people.
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It's a 400 pound guy in his bed.
Russia has both beds AND fat people.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure this one's eating Cheetos.
Meh, the DNC is ultimately responsible for the way the election turned out.
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So why is this surprising?
Meh, the DNC is ultimately responsible for the way the election turned out.
Which the Russians hacked, along with the RNC. But they only released emails from the DNC...
get over it.
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So why is this surprising?
get over it.
Why should I get over a foreign government interfering in our election? That doesn't concern you? Maybe the shoe will be on the other foot in '20.
Your comment also had zero to do with the OP and was blatantly against the rules of the site.
Your comment also had zero to do with the OP and was blatantly against the rules of the site.
Oh no. I went against the rules! Send an email to Eric and get me banned you precious snowflake.
Dave, the Russians, Comey, the media's obsession over her emails, the media presuming she would win=tougher coverage, third term malaise, her own inefficienies, etc. all contributed to the result. It was a perfect storm.
I didn't have a horse in the race, but if you read what the Russians did and don't have a problem with it, you need to read it again.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/how-russia-wins-an-election-214524 - ( New Window )
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
I expect foreign governments to try to mess with us--just like we mess with them.
But the country has reached a sad state when media organizations--which are supposed to be non-partisan--try to control what happens in an election rather than simply reporting on it.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
Exactly. And its no secret the insistence on keeping the electoral college despite all the blurring across state lines since 1976... makes it all the more easier for foreign countries, let alone our own parties, to game the system.
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We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
Exactly. And its no secret the insistence on keeping the electoral college despite all the blurring across state lines since 1976... makes it all the more easier for foreign countries, let alone our own parties, to game the system.
No, I stocked up.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
And? We've had nuclear weapons since WW-II, I don't feel like handing one to Iran.
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the amusing hypocrisy of our country getting upset over another country trying to influence who's in charge of our government seems to be lost on a lot of people.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
And? We've had nuclear weapons since WW-II, I don't feel like handing one to Iran.
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In comment 13394478 mfsd said:
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the amusing hypocrisy of our country getting upset over another country trying to influence who's in charge of our government seems to be lost on a lot of people.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
And? We've had nuclear weapons since WW-II, I don't feel like handing one to Iran.
Horrible analogy.
Sorry you didn't like it, but I'm not targeting the remedial crowd here. Letting Russia manipulate our elections is a threat to our sovereignty and the fact that we have done the same to other countries in the past not only doesn't diminish the threat but should make it much more obvious.
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In comment 13394512 jcn56 said:
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In comment 13394478 mfsd said:
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the amusing hypocrisy of our country getting upset over another country trying to influence who's in charge of our government seems to be lost on a lot of people.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
And? We've had nuclear weapons since WW-II, I don't feel like handing one to Iran.
Horrible analogy.
Sorry you didn't like it, but I'm not targeting the remedial crowd here. Letting Russia manipulate our elections is a threat to our sovereignty and the fact that we have done the same to other countries in the past not only doesn't diminish the threat but should make it much more obvious.
The current President always gets the better part of the person he has dealings with. Even though that person may think they are getting the better part of the deal.
The last President? not so much. I feel safer now then then.
^^^^
agree with this
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In comment 13394512 jcn56 said:
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In comment 13394478 mfsd said:
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the amusing hypocrisy of our country getting upset over another country trying to influence who's in charge of our government seems to be lost on a lot of people.
We've only been trying to do it to other countries since, I don't know, soon after 1776?
And? We've had nuclear weapons since WW-II, I don't feel like handing one to Iran.
Horrible analogy.
Sorry you didn't like it, but I'm not targeting the remedial crowd here. Letting Russia manipulate our elections is a threat to our sovereignty and the fact that we have done the same to other countries in the past not only doesn't diminish the threat but should make it much more obvious.
I agree, that doesnt mean we want Putin interfering. Or Iran to have nukes. But participating in hundreds of coups only increases the likelihood of other countries doing the same. It also gives us no moral high ground.
Of course the easiest way to meddle in another countries politics is through military aid. When, for example, you pump billions of dollars into the Saudi regime, you cement their dictorial power over their citizens. People die and are tortured in that case. Or you pump billions into Egypt, its government the product of a coup, people die. In that case thousands. Or are jailed. Lets keep perspective here. When you build bases in those dictatorships now your really meddling no? Or your banks gamble away the economy which affects the entire world by causing a global crash, you are meddling no? Some estimates have a million people dying as a result of starvation cause of that crisis. Or you ignore climate change putting the earth at risk. Thats meddling no?
This time the roles were reversed. Now that we know it sucks. Lets stop meddling and also reinforce our own protections so outside powers cant do it to us.