Twelve Russian hackers charged with 2016 US election hack

[AskTJ]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44825345

 

 

Twelve Russian hackers believed to have hacked the 2016 US election have been charged after 2 years of an ongoing court case. Half a million voters have had their data stolen also during this attack, but the Kremlin argue that there is no evidence linking the 12 to actually hacking the 2016 election.

 

Quote

The US Department of Justice has charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic officials in the 2016 US elections. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the dozen accused used spear phishing emails and malicious software. He said the hackers also stole data on half a million voters from a state election board website. The Kremlin said there was no evidence linking the 12 to military intelligence or hacking. The claims were "an old duck" and a "heap of conspiracy schemes", said Moscow's foreign ministry in a statement. Friday's indictment was the first by US officials to directly charge Russia's government with meddling in the US vote two years ago.

 

The 11-count indictment names the Russians defendants, alleging they began cyber-attacks in March 2016 on the email accounts of staff for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Mr Rosenstein said the defendants corresponded with several Americans during the alleged conspiracy, but added there is no allegation that any US citizen committed a crime. The deputy attorney general said the conspirators used fictitious online personas, including "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0", to release thousands of stolen emails beginning in June 2016. They also plotted to hack into the computers of state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and voter software, according to the indictment. Mr Rosenstein said: "We know that the goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the election." The deputy attorney general said all 12 defendants were in the Russian intelligence service, the GRU.

This is interesting. America has better things to focus on today rather than something that happened 2 years ago, but, it looks like they got butthurt like shit from this and want revenge.

 

 

[Stefan Payne]

Wanna bet they either go free or convicted because of other Things?!
 

I'm really fed up with tat "THE RUSSIANS!!11" Bullshit. This ain't before 1990, the USSR is dead. And Russia isn't the USSR.

 

But well, most Politicians of certain partys grew up in the middle of the Cold war and lived there. They might miss the time and try to recreate the boogieman they always had, knew and grew up with...

[Voids]

9 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Wanna bet they either go free or convicted because of other Things?!
 

I'm really fed up with tat "THE RUSSIANS!!11" Bullshit. This ain't before 1990, the USSR is dead. And Russia isn't the USSR.

 

But well, most Politicians of certain partys grew up in the middle of the Cold war and lived there. They might miss the time and try to recreate the boogieman they always had, knew and grew up with...

Well I would agree, there are likely still elements and members in Russia that still would hold some ideals that were around during the period of the USSR. To me it doesn't seem unlikely that this happened. The world is a bitter and savage place; with people that can and do hold grudges even as the country itself moves forward.

 

 

[hobobobo]

Da! Spasibo za vashi golosa, kapitalisticheski svinji!

 

On a more serious note, stuff is getting interesting. Is declaration of war coming after wc finals?

[Stefan Payne]

2 minutes ago, Voids said:

Well I would agree, there are likely still elements and members in Russia 

LOOL, not in Russia, in the US.

That's why the first thing they shouted was "RUSSIANS!!!111" because that worked well 40 years ago...

 

So we're talking here about people that are at lest 70 years old or more that are used to "THE RUSSIANS!!!11"...

[Stefan Payne]

2 minutes ago, hobobobo said:

On a more serious note, stuff is getting interesting. Is declaration of war coming after wc finals?

That's what some elements of the US Political Theatre want...

but most of them are either Opposition or what one likes to call "Neocon"...

 

People like John McCain...

[Willowwizard]

Honestly, even if Russia gained access to that information somehow,

31 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

General Rod Rosenstein said the dozen accused used spear phishing emails and malicious software

America should NOT be taking cybersecurity lightly. Falling for a phishing email is easy to protect against with basic training on checking the legitimacy of emails. So Russia is not the only one at fault here, America should be defending themselves as much as possible, e.g. mandatory cybersecurity audits for government agencies and such. That's just my 2 cents however.

[Stefan Payne]

40 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

Isn't he the one that might get impeached as some prepare that?!
There are some articles about that popping up...

[Taf the Ghost]

Mueller indicts GRU Agents for doing their job, wholly for bad optics for the sitting President. The main batch of DNC files were an internal leak. Guccifer 2.0 is an American that was part of the group brought in to cover up the disaster of the internal leak. (Guccifer 1.0 is a Romanian hacker that was already arrested by that point in 2016. He also said Hillary was a priestess in a witch coven.) Podesta was phished also by Central Eastern European hackers.

 

It's pleasantly surprising how cool Putin & Russia have played their responses to this, though the invention of the Anti-Russia Propaganda probably works better to Russia's reputation than it does cause any real issues.

 

This also isn't Tech News. If this was about the OPM hack, FISA or 702 Query abuse, then it'd be some tech news.

[Bananasplit_00]

*Insert the please fight ww3 over the Pacific ocean meme*

[Okjoek]

Guys they hacked my Minecraft server and made this

Now it's Ourcraft

 

edit: a Minecraft noteblock vid from less than a year ago has over 2 million views WTF

[Sauron]

So bear with me for a second... if they are charging someone with election hacking, it means they believe the elections were messed with. If they believe the elections were messed with, wouldn't this invalidate the outcome and call for a new vote...?

[Razor Blade]

23 minutes ago, Sauron said:

So bear with me for a second... if they are charging someone with election hacking, it means they believe the elections were messed with. If they believe the elections were messed with, wouldn't this invalidate the outcome and call for a new vote...?

From how I read it, the hacking didn't directly affect the presidential election votes. It stole voter data from a state board election and attempted to compromise email accounts. Seems to me that the feds are just doing their job to catch cyber criminals but Democrats are bringing this into mainstream media and calling it a conspiracy as to why democratic candidate Hilary Clinton lost the election.

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

From how I read it, the hacking didn't directly affect the presidential election votes. It stole voter data from a state board election and attempted to compromise email accounts. Seems to me that the feds are just doing their job to catch cyber criminals but Democrats are bringing this into mainstream media and calling it a conspiracy as to why democratic candidate Hilary Clinton lost the election.

To be fair, you can do a lot with private information about members of a specific party... weren't there some spicy leaks about Clinton back in 2016? Although if they aren't being charged for actively rigging the vote then I see why they won't invalidate the elections.

[Tech_Dreamer]

need the sauses reply for the final confirmation ,  Assange boi! do ya thang! he did seem to reassure at multiple times it wasn't Russian  ,  meaning this outcome might be a cold war kinda visible stamp to an already controversial issue .

[Taf the Ghost]

54 minutes ago, Sauron said:

So bear with me for a second... if they are charging someone with election hacking, it means they believe the elections were messed with. If they believe the elections were messed with, wouldn't this invalidate the outcome and call for a new vote...?

No. This is supposedly about information from Servers of the Democratic National Committee. Those have nothing to do with any electoral counting systems. Thus, the election was not "hacked". And Hillary still has never gone to Wisconsin.

[Voids]

4 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

LOOL, not in Russia, in the US.

That's why the first thing they shouted was "RUSSIANS!!!111" because that worked well 40 years ago...

 

So we're talking here about people that are at lest 70 years old or more that are used to "THE RUSSIANS!!!11"...

Please read my whole post. I thought I typed it in a clear and easy to read manner. But I was mistaken it seems.

 

These hackers would probably hold ideals of the USSR if they were indeed from Russia. It wouldn't be out of character for a country such as Russia to have informants and hackers placed in key countries such as America. 

 

For example in mainland UK there was the Salisbury poisoning linked heavily with Russia and all but an open and closed case that they are still very active in methods used during the USSR period.

 

The USSR emerged in 1922 and ended in 1991 that's a far greater time of USSR idealism than the time its been since it ended to where we are now.

 

69 years of USSR influence compared to the 27 years without the USSR.

 

Ideals take many generations to change and disappear if they ever do completely.

[colonel_mortis]

Hacking is somewhat tech related, but the main focus of this is the political side, as seen in all the responses so far. Political or politics-style discussions never go well on this forum, and are therefore prohibited to avoid leaving a huge mess for moderators to clean up, so I am now locking this topic.