Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President What We Don't, Can'

[Pete F.]

An interesting book about the last election.
We have another election coming in roughly a month, what are we doing about this?
Donald Trump has adopted many contradictory positions since taking office, but he has been unwavering on one point: that Russia played no role in putting him in the Oval Office. Trump dismisses the idea that Russian interference affected the outcome of the 2016 election, calling it a “made-up story,” “ridiculous,” and “a hoax.” He finds the subject so threatening to his legitimacy that—according to “The Perfect Weapon,” a recent book on cyber sabotage by David Sanger, of the Times—aides say he refuses even to discuss it. In public, Trump has characterized all efforts to investigate the foreign attacks on American democracy during the campaign as a “witch hunt”; in March, he insisted that “the Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever.”

Few people, including Trump’s opponents, have publicly challenged the widespread belief that no obtainable evidence can prove that Russian interference changed any votes. Democrats, for the most part, have avoided attributing Hillary Clinton’s defeat directly to Russian machinations. They have more readily blamed James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, for reversing Clinton’s thin lead in the final days of the campaign by reopening a criminal investigation into her mishandling of classified e-mails. Many have also expressed frustration with Clinton’s weak performance as a candidate, and with her campaign’s tactical errors. Instead of investigating whether Russia tipped the electoral scales on its own, they’ve focussed on the possibility that Trump colluded with Russia, and that this, along with other crimes, might be exposed by the probe being conducted by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

The U.S. intelligence community, for its part, is prohibited from investigating domestic political affairs. James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, told me, “We try not to spy on Americans. It’s not in our charter.” He emphasized that, although he and other intelligence officials produced—and shared with Trump—a postelection report confirming an extensive cyberattack by Russia, the assessment did not attempt to gauge how this foreign meddling had affected American voters. Speaking for himself, however, he told me that “it stretches credulity to think the Russians didn’t turn the election.”

Ordinarily, Congress would aggressively examine an electoral controversy of this magnitude, but the official investigations in the House and the Senate, led by Republicans, have been too stymied by partisanship to address the ultimate question of whether Trump’s victory was legitimate. Although the Senate hearings are still under way, the Intelligence Committee chairman, Richard Burr, a Republican, has already declared, “What we cannot do, however, is calculate the impact that foreign meddling and social media had on this election.”

Even the Clinton campaign has stopped short of attributing its loss to the Russians. Joel Benenson, the campaign’s pollster, told me that “a global power is #^&#^&#^&#^&ing with our elections,” and that “every American should be outraged, whether it changed the outcome or not.” But did the meddling alter the outcome? “How will we ever know?” he said. “We probably won’t, until some Russians involved in it are actually prosecuted—or some Republican, in a moment of conscience, talks.”

Politicians may be too timid to explore the subject, but a new book from, of all places, Oxford University Press promises to be incendiary. “Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know,” by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, dares to ask—and even attempts to answer—whether Russian meddling had a decisive impact in 2016. Jamieson offers a forensic analysis of the available evidence and concludes that Russia very likely delivered Trump’s victory.
The rest of the review is here
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...tion-for-trump

[Sea Dangles]

Pete,let him escape from your head for a bit. You are in need of some clarity.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

Pete,let him escape from your head for a bit. You are in need of some clarity.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I'm pretty clear and don't worry it doesn't say that Trump did it, but is a pretty clear explanation of what and how the russians did interfere.

"Jamieson is scrupulously nonpartisan in her work. Beth Myers, who helped lead Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and worked with Jamieson on a bipartisan project about Presidential debates, told me, “If Kathleen has a point of view, I don’t know what it is. She’s extraordinarily evenhanded. She is fair and fearless.” Anita Dunn, a Democratic adviser to Barack Obama, agrees. She, too, worked with Jamieson on the Presidential-debates project, and she studied with her as an undergraduate. Jamieson, she says, “is constantly pointing out what the data actually shows, as opposed to those of us who just assert stuff.”


But, if the russians interfered in our elections it is ok with you?
Vozmozhno, vam stoit vzyat' uroki russkogo yazyka

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

But, if the russians interfered in our elections it is ok with you?
Vozmozhno, vam stoit vzyat' uroki russkogo yazyka

We should ask what the world thinks about that. Maybe the world can convict Russia of breaking the world hacking law.

[The Dad Fisherman]

The Russians have been meddling in our elections for decades, and its never been "OK"

This isn't new

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

The Russians have been meddling in our elections for decades, and its never been "OK"

This isn't new

They are getting better at it and better voting machines will not do a thing.
An airtight case, she acknowledges, may never be possible. In the introduction to her new book, she writes that any case for influence will likely be similar to that in a civil legal trial, “in which the verdict is rendered not with the certainty that e=mc2 but rather based on the preponderance of evidence.” But, she points out, “we do make most of life’s decisions based on less-than-rock-solid, incontrovertible evidence.” In Philadelphia, she noted to me that “we convict people on probabilities rather than absolute certainty, and we’ve executed people based on inferences from available evidence.” She argued that “the standard of proof being demanded” by people claiming it’s impossible to know whether Russia delivered the White House to Trump is “substantially higher than the standard of proof we ordinarily use in our lives.”

Her case is based on a growing body of knowledge about the electronic warfare waged by Russian trolls and hackers—whom she terms “discourse saboteurs”—and on five decades’ worth of academic studies about what kinds of persuasion can influence voters, and under what circumstances. Democracies around the world, she told me, have begun to realize that subverting an election doesn’t require tampering with voting machines. Extensive studies of past campaigns, Jamieson said, have demonstrated that “you can affect people, who then change their decision, and that alters the outcome.” She continued, “I’m not arguing that Russians pulled the voting levers. I’m arguing that they persuaded enough people to either vote a certain way or not vote at all.”

The effect of such manipulations could be momentous in an election as close as the 2016 race, in which Clinton got nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, and Trump won the Electoral College only because some eighty thousand votes went his way in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In two hundred and twenty-four pages of extremely dry prose, with four appendixes of charts and graphs and fifty-four pages of footnotes, Jamieson makes a strong case that, in 2016, “Russian masterminds” pulled off a technological and political coup. Moreover, she concludes, the American media “inadvertently helped them achieve their goals.”

[Sea Dangles]

The blame for this falls squarely on the shoulders of the previous president.
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

They are getting better at it

That's called progress. Progressives should admire that. Meddling is a living breathing thing. History progresses toward the good.

She argued that “the standard of proof being demanded” by people claiming it’s impossible to know whether Russia delivered the White House to Trump is “substantially higher than the standard of proof we ordinarily use” to smear Kavanaugh.


Extensive studies of past campaigns, of American politicians Jamieson said, have demonstrated that “you can affect people, who then change their decision, and that alters the outcome.”

Like Democrats and Republicans do every election and in between.

She continued, “I’m not arguing that Russians pulled the voting levers. I’m arguing that Republicans and Democrats persuaded enough people to either vote a certain way or not vote at all.”

The effect of such manipulations could be momentous in an election

Our pols have figured that out long ago. They use the tactic to subvert our elections all the time.

Moreover, she concludes, the American media “inadvertently helped them achieve their goals.”

No . . . don't tell me . . . I can't believe that fake news colluded with the Russians to actually help Trump. Things are so murky and meddled with in our politics that the poor voter just can't know who or what to believe. Probably we should consult the world about it.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

No . . . don't tell me . . . I can't believe that fake news colluded with the Russians to actually help Trump. Things are so murky and meddled with in our politics that the poor voter just can't know who or what to believe. Probably we should consult the world about it.

Spoken like a russian troll.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Sea Dangles

The blame for this falls squarely on the shoulders of the previous president.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Is that a solution?
Sounds much like Trump's solution for Ukraine

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Spoken like a russian troll.

Wow. Like a Russian troll. I'm getting good.

BTW, this from the article in your What does the world think thread: "The country giving the U.S. its lowest rating in the survey, and the place where the biggest drop in U.S. favorability has taken place over the past year, is Russia." Must be a Putin tactic. You know, to make the Russian collusion seem a bit less credible. And he and Trump can keep their Bromance under the radar.

[Sea Dangles]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Is that a solution?
Sounds much like Trump's solution for Ukraine

Did you ask for a solution?

Oh, then let’s make it illegal to meddle in elections.👍🏿
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[JohnR]

Yep, they did, and they did it on the cheap. Too bad the Dems ran Hillary and Bernie. While they benefited (not as much as DJT) the goal was not to get Trump elected but toi sow division in the USA.

It worked, and their are tons of Useful Idiots running around.

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

The Russians have been meddling in our elections for decades, and its never been "OK"

This isn't new

Hahaha - this is so true. But Dems only raise it now because it wasn't them. I'm sure Russians, Socialist Workers Parties, COMINTERN, and the like had a LOT of influence with the local Chambers of Commerce and Rotary clubs

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by JohnR

It worked, and their are tons of Useful Idiots running around.

Bring back the bounty

[DZ]

If I remember correctly there was an Election Integrity Commission that would have looked into this issue along with other possible voter fraud issues but many states wouldn't participate.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by DZ

If I remember correctly there was an Election Integrity Commission that would have looked into this issue along with other possible voter fraud issues but many states wouldn't participate.

Not the same issue
The Trump administration said that commission would review claims of voter fraud, improper registration, and voter suppression.
This book deals with how public perception was skewed, unfortunately the reviewer injected their own viewpoint into the review. That said there still is interesting information in the review, just like all political discussion it should be taken with at least a grain of salt.