Obama "Sanctions" Russia

[wmenorr67]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/29/obama-orders-sanctions-against-russia-expels-operatives-in-response-to-hacking.html

Like Putin is worried.

In addition to the sanctions, the State Department has declared 35 Russian intelligence operatives "persona non grata" in the U.S., and is shutting down two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.

What componds?  If they are consulates, wouldn't they be sovereign Russian property and he couldn't touch them?

Can't wait for the "evidence" considering he is saying it has been multiple elections.  Wonder if they were 2008 and 2012 that helped him get elected.

Obama also said that the administration will be providing a report to Congress "in the coming days" about Russian attempts to interfere in the election, as well as previous election cycles.

[Perd Hapley]

Would it be too out there to wonder if Obama's not deliberately provoking Russia and Israel, just to leave a mess for Trump? What's next? Incursions into Canada?

[Ben]

Would it be too out there to wonder if Obama's not deliberately provoking Russia and Israel, just to leave a mess for Trump? What's next? Incursions into Canada?

Well, I would imagine that a sensible retaliation for Putin would be to expel US operatives from his country, tit for tat, so that would certainly be a headache for Trump.

I'm also still waiting for evidence, while keeping in mind that this was a DNC hack (that, at least regarding the Podesta hack, could have been pulled off by a bored 13 year old), not an "election hack". McCain is not helping matters.

Regarding Israel, that just seems to be pure spoiled child, since Netanyahu has already said things will be different in a few weeks, so no real headache for the Trump admin there (other than from our own pro-palestine politicians).

[DittoHead]

I'm also still waiting for evidence, while keeping in mind that this was a DNC hack (that, at least regarding the Podesta hack, could have been pulled off by a bored 13 year old), not an "election hack". McCain is not helping matters.

A report was released today, although it's almost entirely nonsense to me so I don't know if it counts as evidence. There's a few nice flow charts though.

[RoadKingLarry]

Would it be too out there to wonder if Obama's not deliberately provoking Russia and Israel, just to leave a mess for Trump? What's next? Incursions into Canada?

I'd  sooner expect a surrender to Mexico and an executive order returning all "occupied lands".

[RevDisk]

https://www.scribd.com/document/335307386/JAR-16-20296#fullscreen&from_embed

Mostly the report fails to mention that these were NOT government computers, but strictly private organizations. That had hilariously bad password management and virtually no security. There should have been user training, two factor authentication (preferably NOT the smartphone variety either), regular audits, etc.

The 'report' is entirely generic. There's very very little meaningful information. 

[Ben]

https://www.scribd.com/document/335307386/JAR-16-20296#fullscreen&from_embed

Mostly the report fails to mention that these were NOT government computers, but strictly private organizations. That had hilariously bad password management and virtually no security. There should have been user training, two factor authentication (preferably NOT the smartphone variety either), regular audits, etc.

The 'report' is entirely generic. There's very very little meaningful information. 

Good points that the MSM and other usual suspects are ignoring. You certainly know more about this stuff than I do Rev, so correct me if I'm wrong. Based on the info I've seen out there, most of the incursions were or were started via PEBKAC and similar. I mean, Clinton lost Blackberries what, six times? Those were gov devices. I have to wonder how many DNC related private devices were misplaced, not watched over, etc. Then of course falling for even the obvious social engineering attempts.

[KD5NRH]

Would it be too out there to wonder if Obama's not deliberately provoking Russia and Israel, just to leave a mess for Trump? What's next? Incursions into Canada?

Only if he and his family lead the charge.

(Southpark quotes withheld.)

[Andiron]

I want to see the Russian hack the Republicans next   

[Firethorn]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12/29/obama-orders-sanctions-against-russia-expels-operatives-in-response-to-hacking.html

Like Putin is worried.

Putin, China, the rest of the world knows these aren't the actions of "America", but of a lame duck politician losing power.

It's just more stuff for Trump to reverse when he gets into office.

[Hawkmoon]

Good points that the MSM and other usual suspects are ignoring. You certainly know more about this stuff than I do Rev, so correct me if I'm wrong. Based on the info I've seen out there, most of the incursions were or were started via PEBKAC and similar. I mean, Clinton lost Blackberries what, six times? Those were gov devices. I have to wonder how many DNC related private devices were misplaced, not watched over, etc. Then of course falling for even the obvious social engineering attempts.

Do you really believe she lost all those Blackberries? I don't. I think she screwed them up to a point of not being usable and, rather than admit that she had screwed them up (and probably compromised classified information), she conveniently reported them as "lost" and just got a new one and started over.

[HankB]

. . . keeping in mind that this was a DNC hack (that, at least regarding the Podesta hack, could have been pulled off by a bored 13 year old), not an "election hack".

If "the election" was hacked, I'd expect that voting machines, vote totals, voter registration lists, maybe even recounts were tampered with . . . but by all official reports, they weren't. So the ELECTION wasn't hacked, DEMOCRATS were. And we learned about their shady, unethical, backroom deals against Bernie Sanders, some racist emails, cheating with a complicit media, etc. This is WHISTLEBLOWING, it shined a light on corruption, and not ELECTION hacking.

. . . McCain is not helping matters.

When has this Keating Five veteran EVER helped America as a politician? (He's appearing of late with Lindsay Graham, too, which is NOT a point in either man's favor.)

I want to see the Russian hack the Republicans next   

I saw a report that "someone" (Russians?) actually tried  - repeatedly - to hack the RNC, but was defeated, since they had some actual security in place.

[RevDisk]

I want to see the Russian hack the Republicans next   

Allegedly already done. Just didn't release any or much of it. If you are a GOP type, feel free to believe it was because there was nothing to release. If you are Leftist or cynical, Russia didn't want to release information about the folks not warmongering against them.

[RevDisk]

Good points that the MSM and other usual suspects are ignoring. You certainly know more about this stuff than I do Rev, so correct me if I'm wrong. Based on the info I've seen out there, most of the incursions were or were started via PEBKAC and similar. I mean, Clinton lost Blackberries what, six times? Those were gov devices. I have to wonder how many DNC related private devices were misplaced, not watched over, etc. Then of course falling for even the obvious social engineering attempts.

Report says it straight out. They sent spam emails to con people into giving out their password or install malware. Term is spearphishing, individually targeted phishing emails.

[Monkeyleg]

Why isn't anyone listening to Julian Assange? He said that the DNC was not "hacked", but rather that the emails came from a DNC insider who was mad about what was going on.

We can believe Obama, we can believe Hillary, we can believe the FBI, we can believe the CIA, or we can believe Julian Assange. I'll take Assange any day.

[Andiron]

Allegedly already done. Just didn't release any or much of it. If you are a GOP type, feel free to believe it was because there was nothing to release. If you are Leftist or cynical, Russia didn't want to release information about the folks not warmongering against them.

Not seeing a downside to either of those.

[Unisaw]

Wait, isn't Obama the one who sent an election team to help the folks running against Netanyahu?  What a hypocrite.

[bedlamite]

[RevDisk]

Why isn't anyone listening to Julian Assange? He said that the DNC was not "hacked", but rather that the emails came from a DNC insider who was mad about what was going on.

We can believe Obama, we can believe Hillary, we can believe the FBI, we can believe the CIA, or we can believe Julian Assange. I'll take Assange any day.

Na. We can believe all of them have separate agendas, none of which are necessarily the truth. Wikileaks was intended by Assange to be an ego project to build a cult following. One should always take that into account. He focuses mainly on the US and western countries because they won't kill him and they're easy targets. Sure, they'll try to pull legal shenanigans but generally not have him shot in the back of the head or poisoned.

Obama wants to throw some roadblocks in the next President's way. From his perspective, to hopefully lessen damage to his policies by Trump and restrict Trump's options. Making him look overly friendly and/or dependent on the Russians will be effective. Hillary is exceptionally bitter at losing an election that she believes should have been her coronation, it's solely about taking any bit of revenge she can muster.

The FBI is caught politically. They let Hillary off from felony charges when most of the agents know she broke the law. But the FBI essentially deciding the elections will have consequences. Now politicians on both sides are furious at them. Republicans for the FBI playing along with the DOJ political theater of "clearing her" and Democrats for not doing a good enough of playing along. They're trying to stay in the middle of the road, which was impossible.

CIA has its own interests. I laughed at the NPR when they had General Hayden for an interview, and he claimed the CIA was not partisan and didn't play partisan politics. All agencies, and the overwhelming majority of government employees, within a hundred miles of DC play partisan politics. If they weren't interested in partisan politics, they would have wrangled a transfer to ANY other branch office or facility to get the hell away from that hive of villainy and scum. Hayden in particular is a good example. As far as I'm aware, he lied to Congress about illegal domestic surveillance in direct violation of the Constitution. Plus yanno, torture, Gitmo population, etc. Congress were complete morons when they didn't at least TRY to throw him into prison for repeatedly lying to them AND illegally monitoring them while they were investigating his crimes.

[Ben]

I've been trying to remember how many sanctions were enacted after the OPM hacks, which actually were breaks into gov systems that took valuable data. Oh wait...

I find it a little hard to believe that the Russians bungled so badly while running simple social engineering attacks on private systems that we absolutely know it was them, but we could never act against "maybe the Chinese, maybe the Russians, maybe the Russian mob, maybe a kid in Uzbekistan" who pulled off the OPM incursions because they were too smart to leave a footprint on systems that actually have intrusion detection software.

[Ben]

If "the election" was hacked, I'd expect that voting machines, vote totals, voter registration lists, maybe even recounts were tampered with . . . but by all official reports, they weren't. So the ELECTION wasn't hacked, DEMOCRATS were. And we learned about their shady, unethical, backroom deals against Bernie Sanders, some racist emails, cheating with a complicit media, etc. This is WHISTLEBLOWING, it shined a light on corruption, and not ELECTION hacking.

I do have to give Obama's people credit from the tactics perspective of coming up with the term "election hack". It's almost as powerful for them with the general headline reading population as "climate denier" is. I've been seeing people on the TeeVee who, while criticizing Obama and knowing this was only a hack of DNC related computers and even while saying that no ballot machines were touched, still calling this an "election hack". Same as when people speak out against the politics of AGW, but still use the term "climate denier" to describe their side of the argument.

Your average knucklehead completely ignores the facts and just remembers "election hack". Oh noes!!! ballots were magically changed by the ruskies!!!!* Nevermind that so far almost all the actual election fraud that has been discovered has favored dem candidates.

* I don't believe there is any doubt that the leaked dem emails hurt dems, and why dem emails were leaked but not republican emails is another conversation, as is "was it right to do so?" Obama et al however, seem more concerned with using the hacks against Trump et al than in seeking justice or getting to the truth. Let alone admitting even one of the leaked emails was in any way wrong and addressing the content of the leaks.

[TechMan]

Putin appears to be ignoring Obama.  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/30/putin-vows-not-to-stoop-to-obamas-level-after-us-kicks-out-russian-intel-operatives.html

[Ben]

Putin appears to be ignoring Obama.  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/30/putin-vows-not-to-stoop-to-obamas-level-after-us-kicks-out-russian-intel-operatives.html

I was just about to post that. Whatever else you can say about Putin, the guy knows how to play an elegant game of chess. Of course he's not exactly facing a master opponent.

[TechMan]

I was just about to post that. Whatever else you can say about Putin, the guy knows how to play an elegant game of chess.

I do agree with that, he appears to be a grand master currently playing against a developmentally disabled toddler.

[wmenorr67]

Putin also realizes that in just about 3 weeks that not only does the game player change but the game is going to be completely different and probably with no rules to follow.  Think of the games Hawkeye and BJ used to play on MASH.