New Russian Site Is Designed to Sway U.S. Voters
Source: PoliticalWire
June 2, 2018 at 7:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
McClatchy: A new Russian influence operation has surfaced that mirrors some of the activity of an internet firm that the FBI says was deeply involved in efforts to sway the 2016 U.S. elections, a cybersecurity firm says.
A website called usareally.com appeared on the internet May 17 and called on Americans to rally in front of the White House June 14 to celebrate President Trumps birthday, which is also Flag Day
The websites operators once worked out of the same office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency had its headquarters.
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Read more: https://politicalwire.com/2018/06/02/new-russian-site-is-designed-to-sway-u-s-voters/
GoneOffShore
(17,341 posts)Just right for Faux watchers.
lark
(23,158 posts)If Russia steals this next election, as they have already telegraphed their intention, we will no longer be the USA as we know it. The fascist oligarchs will have taken over and we can expect the theft of all our SS, Medicare and Medicaid funds, the end of public education, the end of any governmental involvement in healthcare, no labor laws, no choice, no birth control pills, just the serfs and barons model of government, just like Russia.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)or Republican party will soon make it 50 million Americans living in poverty with no college education.
Response to Sunlei (Reply #4)
RestoreAmerica2020 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)President Trump's administration has done little to mitigate the threat of Russia attacking the 2018 midterm election.
U.S. officials, including former National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster, have claimed that this administration has not done enough to dissuade Russian meddling.[8] Most recently President Trump put the brakes on new economic sanctions on Russia, a day after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley laid out a preliminary plan to impose new sanctions. This decision by President Trump came after the Kremlin denounced the new sanctions plan as international economic raiding.[9] Furthermore, NSA Director Admiral Rodgers testified to Congress that Trump has given no order to counter Russian election meddling.[10] While former National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster warned of Russian election meddling and publicly denounced their continued attacks, he was removed by President Trump and John Bolton took his place. National Security Adviser Bolton has been pushing to eliminate a top Cyber-Security position in the White House as he attempts to reorganize the National Security Council.[11]
Cybersecurity experts and former National Security Council officials expressed alarm at the idea of eliminating the job, saying it would undo much of the progress the U.S. has made on cyber efforts and send the wrong message about U.S. priorities in the digital domain. The coordinator a post created at the beginning of the Obama administration leads a team of NSC staffers who manage federal cyber strategy on everything from election security to encryption policies to digital warfare.
The FBI is currently attempting to thwart a sophisticated malware system that is linked to Russia's military intelligence agency, the Russian malware has infected hundreds of thousands of routers.[12] The Justice Department has announced actions to disrupt the advanced botnet malware system. It is recommended to restart your router as it may be infected.[13]
1) TechCrunch - DHS and FBI detail how Russia is hacking into U.S. nuclear facilities and other critical infrastructure
2) Department of Homeland Security: United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) - Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors
3) New York Times - Trump Misleads on Russian Meddling: Why 17 Intelligence Agencies Dont Need to Agree
4) NPR - 10 Months After Election Day, Feds Tell States More About Russian Hacking
5) Washington Post - The nations top spies said Russia is continuing to target the U.S. political system
6) New York Times - White House Penalizes Russians Over Election Meddling and Cyberattacks
7) New York Times - Indictment Makes Trumps Hoax Claim Harder to Sell
8) Washington Post - America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections
9) Washington Post - Trump puts the brakes on new Russian sanctions, reversing Haleys announcement
10) New York Times - White House Has Given No Orders to Counter Russian Meddling, N.S.A. Chief Says
11) Politico - Bolton pushing to eliminate White House cyber job
12) New York Times - F.B.I.s Urgent Request: Reboot Your Router to Stop Russia-Linked Malware
13) United States Department of Justice - Justice Department Announces Actions to Disrupt Advanced Persistent Threat 28 Botnet of Infected Routers and Network Storage Devices
much thanks for "Poppins" work to do all the work on source footnotes for every fact posted. Thank the Gods a Canadian helps America resist the attacks against our democracies., Sunlei 5/2018
Turbineguy
(37,369 posts)If the Russians fail to attack the election, He'll get impeached.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)His permanent dictatorship depends upon thwarting American voters.
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)ignore. Spreading the word around like here on DU land about the website helps a lot. Hopefully our DU website has taken steps to protect itself and its users from DOS attacks and the like (denial of service, where millions of online attempts to logon to a website will occur, and possibly lead to system crashes).
One thing DU could do, once a malicious attack is detected, is immediately implement member only (those w/ gold stars by their IDs for those not in the know) logons until the situation is stabilized.
Don't know if alternate websites have been backed up or something like this, to prevent a repeat of the 2016 attack that disabled DU for several days. In this case, an alternate website for DU could already be out there, w/ latest copies of user IDs and so forth, and a minimum of posts (say, just keep last week or so of posts, for backup purposes), and then have the active DU site (this one we're all on now) send 'sleeping pills' to the dormant DU website (every 30 seconds or so). Then, when an attack occurs, and our DU is knocked off the air (internet), the backup DU starts 'waking up' and takes over control, thus ensuring the continuity of the DU website.
Just some thoughts here, from an IT/network guy.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)early on election day and kept it shut down for about a week after the election.
I always though we should have taken up a collection to hire the best security company & prosecuted the criminals. I would have happily donated.
SWBTATTReg
(22,166 posts)back in the early 1980s was to write the rules on detection of bad actors and then react to them (knock them off, secure measurable data for prosecution purposes and the like).
The whole thing (data network) was new to all of us (AOL Online was one of our first customers) so new methods to gather data and track these 'hackers' on the data network (vs. the voice world), had to be developed and put in place in order to detect and knock them off if need be (via the network control center), if they were shown to be malicious. Also, we developed methods to bring up an alternate data network should something happen to the original data network (remember, these types of networks were used for point of sale transactions (POS) and the like, so it was critical for companies that used the data network that they had backup.
In today's data world, the tools are better but the sheer numbers involved (millions of userIDs, millions of data calls), all of the time, makes this a massive job, that a lot of folks didn't really anticipate the scale of. Most of the main players such as FB, AOL Online, etc. simply use the networks put in place by the phone companies (they pay or rent the data links that comprise their networks (to the hosts supporting the FB application, etc.)).
The voice world that we pretty well trained on data (I was an IT guy from the get go), was very lacking in data and the transmittal of data, and it freaked them out when they took in the fact that you really truly don't know 100% who is on the other end of the data call (as opposed to originating telephone number, terminating telephone number, etc.).
TryLogic
(1,723 posts)There must be other tactics that are the real ones.
Pepsidog
(6,254 posts)FSogol
(45,528 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)not much our government can legally do to prevent "fake news" propaganda like Republican parties- foxTV lying to their fans.
FSogol
(45,528 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)JohnnyRingo
(18,643 posts)It relies on the sad fact that people will believe anything that comports with their already held world view.
If they believe Obama is working behind the scenes to overthrow a patriotic Donald Trump to promote Islam, they'll eat it up like a free 36 ounce steak. Whether that's good for them or not.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)his Federal house arrest last week(he sent incripted messages to Federal witnesses)-everything he did went up to the icloud and right into the Feds hands
Liberalhammer
(576 posts)I think they could care less Russia and the right have the same agenda.
Nitram
(22,890 posts)our air defense communications, this website could be a test of the country's reaction to blatant internet disinformation websites attempting to divide the populace along different political and social fault lines. Judging by the headlines on the site there were "news" stories that seemed to be trying to stir up discontent along the lines of racism, class, political party, gun rights - mixed in with fairly authentic news stories (although I didn't't want to validate the site by actually clicking on any of the stories to actually read them).
Codeine
(25,586 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)they were told to set up the website as a consolation