#dnc battles bots | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jilyandbambi · 4 years ago

Text

not to mention, just as they did in 2016, Russian propagandists continue to work just as hard to spread misinformation and malcontent amongst the Left & left-leaning as they do to the Right. And because wallowing in apathy and cynicism is easier and gets you more notes on Tumblr, you dumb bitches fall for it all the time.

A lot of the “Hillary is shit!!” “the DNC cheated Bernie!111!!” “voting your conscience when there’s no mathematical possibility for a 3rd party candidate to beat the main 2″ posts that were circulating around 4 years ago and the “don’t vote for a r*pist,” , “Joe Biden would be a conservative everywhere else!”, “Bernie was our only shot at REAL change” posts going around now are written and spread by bots.

What’s more, it really doesn’t matter whether there’s even a kernel of truth in them because the goal is to cash in on your weariness and fatalism re: politics in order to get you to not vote. You may read these posts, KNOW that they’re only maybe 1/10 of an exaggerated truth, and still reblog that post bc the overall sentiment is something you agree with (ie: the DNC is corrupt, Biden’s a terrible nom, etc), not caring that you’re still spreading propaganda and hurting our chances of getting Tr*mp out of office because at the end of the day YOU’RE still planning to vote. STOP THINKING LIKE THIS. Because, inevitably, that post is going to appear on the dash of someone who believes like you do, and that could sway them into not voting.

It’s popular in progressive spaces like Tumblr to shit on the United States, its government, its institutions, its politicians, and justifiably so. Nobody has to tell me, a disabled black woman, how necessary and cathartic it is to drag America by its asshole hairs.

As a representative democracy, though, the United States functions exactly as it was designed, in ways that are both positive and harmful. But far too many people on every side of the political spectrum are criminally misinformed on the topic of HOW our government functions on an administrative level,

Anyone who’s been to third grade knows there are 3 branches of government and what those 3 branches do, but in my opinion, too few people bother to extend that process beyond the federal government. That is, we’re shit about considering the full importance of local government.

Let’s do a thought experiment using the ACA, colloquially known as “Obamacare.” This law was passed in 2010 (significantly watered down from its original form so as to pass through the senate), was signed into law by the President, then immediately was battled out in the Supreme Court until Finally, FINALLY, it became law. Oh, but no, wait, 22 states with Republican governors and/or legislatures, refused to implement the Medicaid expansion, and immediately began assembling legal cases in order to challenge the 2 most important, and most popular portions of the ACA: coverage for pre-existing conditions and the individual mandate. Legal challenges that are still being pushed by Republican Attorneys General, and upheld by conservative federal courts in the hopes of getting these arguments heard before the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, in the hopes of effectively repealing arguably the most important healthcare law in United States history.

Why bring all this up?

To drive home the point that in a federalist system such as the United States, sweeping, aggressive policy reform requires widespread, top-down and back again cooperation between every legislative, executive, and judicial branch of every state, of every metro area, of every county, of every municipality that comprises the Union in order for said reform to be implemented smoothly.

There were enough Millennial & Gen X voters in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. to replace conservative mayors, governors, city council members & state legislators & DAs & Attorneys General who opposed the ACA. There were enough to show up to prevent the Democrats from losing the House and then the Senate in the middle of Obama’s presidency, thereby allowing him the chance to appoint the Supreme Court Justice McConnell stole from him. There were enough.

There are enough now.

Reform--positive, lasting reform--is a slow process. The reason it rarely comes as a result of a violent overthrow of a stable, if corrupt and unequal, system is because revolution is violent and chaotic and human beings crave stability and safety. Functional, democratic institutions and governing bodies take YEARS, decades, to develop and safeguard, however, and Unfortunately, as a lot of you demonstrate with your political posturing on this here site, people don’t like to wait for the government to get better at governing, and they certainly don’t like to do it during times of unrest and uncertainty. People want answers, they want assurance, they want the promise of something better regardless of whether what’s being promised is even remotely feasible. It’s out of this frustration and restlessness that dictators and autocracies coalesce.

OTOH, while it’s not as romantic as revolutionary suicide, so long as your government exists within the barest framework of democracy, it is much, much, MUCH easier to build upon that foundation, remodeling and adding on and so on as needed than it is to start from scratch with twigs and twine in the ashes of a scorched field.

And the way we do that is by voting, and voting ALL THE TIME. Get rid of the notion that there’s only one or two Good™ politicians out there and if the golden goose can’t be our nominee there’s no point and this country will never see progress because that’s not how any of this works. It never has been. And if that’s what you expect out of the person living in the White House then it’s a dictator you want, not a president although I think a scary amount of yall wouldn’t mind a dictator so long as it could be Bernie Sanders.

Policy changes take shape when the executive, legislature, and judiciary work with their counterparts at the federal, state, and local levels to implement the reforms the people who vote for them want to see. Then, like with any employer-employee relationship, it’s those citizens jobs to hold their elected officials’ feet to the fire to make sure the people who work for them are doing the job they were hired to do. If not, they get the ax.

That’s the other rub: and this is just my opinion, mind you, but I think one major reason so many people go up for Bernie is because in your heart of hearts you think that because he has this supposedly spotless track record of progressivism and has his heart in the right place, were he to be president you could go back to sitting out elections for the next 4 years and not paying attention to politics as much because The Man Who Swore To Make Things Better is in office and Daddy always keeps his promises so what is there to worry about? This is the exact mistake Gen Xers and older Millennials made during and after Obama’s first term so I mean history and rhymes man

We live in a democracy, though, so that’s not how that works, either. Democracies, by definition, are participatory. They only function properly when citizens participate. By Voting, obviously, but also by paying attention to how their elected officials are representing them and standing on their necks when they start slacking off. That’s another reason “choosing between the lesser of two evils” is a shit argument against voting: BECAUSE PART OF YOUR JOB IS TO MAKE SURE THAT THE DOUCHEBAG OR TURD SANDWICH WHO LANDS THE JOB DOES IT TO YOUR SATISFACTION, regardless of whether they were your #1 draft pick, SuperSpecialAwesome, 99% match candidate, you don’t get to look away, leave them to their own devices and never bother to check in. Of course your employee is going to slack off and flout company rules if there’s no accountability.

So, what have we learned:

change is difficult, tedious, and wildly unsexy during the implementation stage (most things are, sorry)

for the changes you want to see implemented to actually be implemented,

politicians who support these changes have to be elected to every electable position possible in every branch and every level of government

so that the implementation encounters as little resistance as possible

for THAT to happen, you have to vote literally ALL THE TIME.

Every time.

Consistently.

(And then you have to check in to see whether your elected officials are doing the work they said they’d do, and if they’re not, light a fire under their asses)

So quit acting like it doesn’t matter or change is impossible bc it’s not happening with a snap of Bernie or AOC’s fingers and go fucking vote some more dems and progressives in to help them out.

Go. Vote.

I have this huge lecture brewing in my head about how profoundly unhelpful cynical political posts are on Tumblr. Don't get me wrong: I think there is a lot wrong with our current system. But also like... I think people don't really fathom that everyone can see the things you post. Thus, the things you post contribute, in a small way, to the giant pool of political content that forms the overall "tone" of Tumblr-related political content people consume. Whether we like it or not (I don't) that has a pretty big impact on how people behave in the real world.

So, deeply cynical, ill-informed things contribute to an overall tone that frankly discourages people from participating in the system. You don't have to explicitly say "don't vote" to discourage people from voting. You just have to contribute to an overall tone that casts doubt on the fact that there is hope we can make things better–but only if we take action.

Idk, the words for what I'm trying to say feel like they're in knots in my head right now. But I think you're responsible for the consequences of the words you choose to share. And I'm not sure this is the right time to contribute words that may discourage people from voting. We're kinda staring down the barrel of a gun at fascism.

#long post #rant

6 notes · View notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment https://nyti.ms/2TmvgfS

🚨 🚨 BREAKING: As the November impeachment hearings got underway, Russia's GRU hacked Burisma in what appears to be a repeat of 2016, when GRU hackers breached the DNC and then selectively leaked emails to hurt Clinton's candidacy. https://t.co/nQhhndnAV3 with @AllMattNYT and @nicoleperlroth

The GRU attacks appear to be running parallel to an analog effort by Russian spies to dig up information that could embarrass the Bidens. Russian spies are trying to penetrate Burisma and working sources in the Ukrainian government in search of emails, financial records.

Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment

By Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg | Published Jan. 13, 2020 Updated 7:04 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 13, 2020 |

With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.

The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.

It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.

The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.

Then, as now, the Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area 1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company.

The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.

“The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers.

“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”

The Justice Department indicted seven officers from the same military intelligence unit in 2018.

The Russian attacks on Burisma appear to be running parallel to an effort by Russian spies in Ukraine to dig up information in the analog world that could embarrass the Bidens, according to an American security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. The spies, the official said, are trying to penetrate Burisma and working sources in the Ukrainian government in search of emails, financial records and legal documents.

Neither the Russian government nor Burisma responded to requests for comment.

American officials are warning that the Russians have grown stealthier since 2016, and are again seeking to steal and spread damaging information and target vulnerable election systems ahead of the 2020 election.

[Read: Even as American election defenses have improved, Russian hackers and trolls have become more sophisticated.]

In the same vein, Russia has been working since the early days of Mr. Trump’s presidency to turn the focus away from its own election interference in 2016 by seeding conspiracy theories about Ukrainian meddling and Democratic complicity.

The result has been a muddy brew of conspiracy theories that mix facts, like the handful of Ukrainians who openly criticized Mr. Trump’s candidacy, with discredited claims that the D.N.C.’s email server is in Ukraine and that Mr. Biden, as vice president, had corrupt dealings with Ukrainian officials to protect his son. Spread by bots and trolls on social media, and by Russian intelligence officers, the claims resonated with Mr. Trump, who views talk of Russian interference as an attack on his legitimacy.

With Mr. Biden’s emergence as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination last spring, the president latched on to the corruption allegations, and asked that Ukraine investigate the Bidens on his July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. The call became central to Mr. Trump’s impeachment last month.

The Biden campaign sought to cast the Russian effort to hack Burisma as an indication of Mr. Biden’s political strength, and to highlight Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to let foreign powers boost his political fortunes.

“Donald Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into lying about Joe Biden and a major bipartisan, international anti-corruption victory because he recognized that he can’t beat the vice president,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign.

“Now we know that Vladimir Putin also sees Joe Biden as a threat,” Mr. Bates added. “Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our elections.”

The corruption allegations hinge on Hunter Biden’s work on the Burisma board. The company hired Mr. Biden while his father was vice president and leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, including a successful push to have Ukraine’s top prosecutor fired for corruption. The effort was backed by European allies.

The story has since been recast by Mr. Trump and some of his staunchest defenders, who say Mr. Biden pushed out the prosecutor because Burisma was under investigation and his son could be implicated. Rudolph W. Giuliani, acting in what he says was his capacity as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, has personally taken up investigating the Bidens and Burisma, and now regularly claims to have uncovered clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing.

The evidence, though, has yet to emerge, and now the Russians appear to have joined the hunt.

Area 1 researchers discovered a G.R.U. phishing campaign on Ukrainian companies on New Year’s Eve. A week later, Area 1 determined what the Ukrainian targets had in common: They were all subsidiaries of Burisma Holdings, the company at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment. Among the Burisma subsidiaries phished were KUB-Gas, Aldea, Esko-Pivnich, Nadragas, Tehnocom-Service and Pari. The targets also included Kvartal 95, a Ukrainian television production company founded by Mr. Zelensky. The phishing attack on Kvartal 95 appears to have been aimed at digging up email correspondence for the company’s chief, Ivan Bakanov, whom Mr. Zelensky appointed as the head of Ukraine’s Security Service last June.

To steal employees’ credentials, the G.R.U. hackers directed Burisma to their fake login pages. Area 1 was able to trace the look-alike sites through a combination of internet service providers frequently used by G.R.U.’s hackers, rare web traffic patterns, and techniques that have been used in previous attacks against a slew of other victims, including the 2016 hack of the D.N.C. and a more recent Russian hack of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“The Burisma hack is a cookie-cutter G.R.U. campaign,” Mr. Falkowitz said. “Russian hackers, as sophisticated as they are, also tend to be lazy. They use what works. And in this, they were successful.”

**********

Barr Asks Apple to Unlock iPhones of Pensacola Gunman (This is a slippery-slope when you allow the government, especially this administration, to unlock people's phones. We already know this administration using racial-profiling at both the U.S.-Mexico and Canadian borders. Also it raises the question of 'free-speech' and the 1st-amendment.

The request set up a collision between law enforcement and big technology firms in the latest battle over privacy and security.

By Katie Benner | Published Jan. 13, 2020 Updated 3:16 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 13, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr declared on Monday that a deadly shooting last month at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., was an act of terrorism, and he asked Apple in an unusually high-profile request to provide access to two phones used by the gunman.

Mr. Barr’s appeal was an escalation of an ongoing fight between the Justice Department and Apple pitting personal privacy against public safety.

“This situation perfectly illustrates why it is critical that the public be able to get access to digital evidence,” Mr. Barr said, calling on Apple and other technology companies to find a solution and complaining that Apple has provided no “substantive assistance.”

Apple has given investigators materials from the iCloud account of the gunman, Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force training with the American military, who killed three sailors and wounded eight others on Dec. 6. But the company has refused to help the F.B.I. open the phones themselves, which would undermine its claims that its phones are secure.

Justice Department officials said that they need access to Mr. Alshamrani’s phones to see messages from encrypted apps like Signal or WhatsApp to determine whether he had discussed his plans with others at the base and whether he was acting alone or with help.

“The evidence shows that the shooter was motivated by jihadist ideology,” Mr. Barr said, citing a message that Mr. Alshamrani posted on last year’s anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks warning that “the countdown has begun.” He also visited the 9/11 memorial in New York over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Mr. Alshamrani also posted anti-American, anti-Israeli and jihadist messages on social media, including just two hours before he attacked the base, Mr. Barr said.

Mr. Barr turned up the pressure on Apple a week after the F.B.I.’s top lawyer, Dana Boente, asked the company for help searching Mr. Alshamrani’s iPhones. Apple said that it would turn over only the data it had, implying that it would not work to unlock the phones and hand over the private data on them.

Apple’s stance set the company on a collision course with a Justice Department that has grown increasingly critical of encryption that makes it impossible for law enforcement to search devices or wiretap phone calls.

The confrontation echoed the legal standoff over an iPhone used by a gunman who killed 14 people in a terrorism attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in late 2015. Apple defied a court order to assist the F.B.I. in its efforts to search his device, setting off a fight over whether privacy that was enabled by impossible-to-crack encryption harmed public safety.

As in the investigation into the Pensacola shooting, the San Bernardino gunman, Syed Rizwan Farook, was also dead and no longer had a right to privacy. In both cases, law enforcement officials worked to piece together a clear motive and any ties to extremist groups.

The San Bernardino dispute was resolved when the F.B.I. found a private company to bypass the iPhone’s encryption. Tensions between the two sides, however, remained; and Apple worked to ensure that neither the government nor private contractors could open its phones.

Mr. Alshamrani’s phones are also of interest because he tried to destroy them at some point before he began firing, according to a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Justice Department officials have long pushed for a legislative solution to the problem of “going dark,” law enforcement’s term for how increasingly secure phones have made it harder to solve crimes, and the Pensacola investigation gives them a prominent chance to make their case.

But the F.B.I. has been bruised by Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated complaints that former officials plotted to undercut his presidency and by a major inspector general’s report last month that revealed serious errors with aspects of the Russia investigation. A broad bipartisan consensus among lawmakers allowing the bureau to broaden its surveillance authorities is most likely elusive.

But much has also changed for Apple in the years since Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, excoriated the Obama administration publicly and privately in 2014 for attacking strong encryption. Obama officials who were upset by Apple’s stance on privacy, along with its decision to shelter billions of dollars in offshore accounts and make its products almost exclusively in China, aired those grievances quietly.

Now Apple is fighting the Trump administration, and President Trump has shown far more willingness to publicly criticize companies and public figures. When he recently claimed falsely that Apple had opened a manufacturing plant in Texas at his behest, the company stayed remained silent rather than correct him.

At the same time, Apple has financially benefited more under Mr. Trump than under President Barack Obama. It reaped a windfall from the Trump administration’s tax cuts, and Mr. Trump said he might shield Apple from the country’s tariff war with China.

Even so, people close to the company say that Apple will not back down from its unequivocal support of encryption that is impossible to crack.

Mr. Barr indicated on Monday that he is ready for a sharp fight.

He had said last month that finding a way for law enforcement to gain access to encrypted technology was one of the Justice Department’s “highest priorities.”

Mr. Alshamrani, who was killed at the scene of the attack, came to the United States in 2017 and soon started strike-fighter training in Florida. Investigators believe he may have been influenced by extremists as early as 2015.

The investigation into the shooting also found that some Saudi students training with the American military in Pensacola had ties to extremist movements while others possessed pornography, which is forbidden in Saudi Arabia. About a dozen trainees will be sent back to Saudi Arabia as a result.

Investigators have not found evidence to suggest that any of those students knew about Mr. Alshamrani’s contact with extremist groups or his mass shooting plan.

______

Comments from readers to the above article and I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

"We've got a lot more to fear, as Americans, from William P. Barr than we do from terrorists' iPhone data."

RUSSELL RALEIGH NC

"Barr should spend more time poking around and ensuring that our voting machines are as secure as an Apple phone." JEAN, CLEARY

"Let me get this straight: Barr demands access to potential evidence for an act of terrorism. The House requested access to documents of potential evidence and witness testimony for an inquiry into an act jeopardizing national security. I would like to hear from Barr - or this administration - regarding how public safety is important to them but national security is not. How public safety is important to them but climate change is not. How public safety is important to them but environmental regulations protecting air and water quality is not. Barr's appeal is obviously not about potential harm to Americans." E. SOL, PORTLAND

"Just to be clear, you can't have a backdoor for law enforcement without also leaving the device vulnerable to malicious actors. Politicians don't seem to understand this (probably because they're all too old to even know how to use their iPhones). There's no magical 'middle ground' solution where only law enforcement would be able to bypass security and unlock the phone. A backdoor is a backdoor and someone smart *will* figure out how to take advantage of it. If a law were passed requiring a backdoor for law enforcement, your phone would be vulnerable. That's just the way it is. I can't support any politician who tries to force Apple or any other manufacturer to make their phones less secure."

MR. ADAM'S, TEXAS

"What's not said is that Apple cannot access the contents of encrypted iPhones. This is by design. There is no backdoor for Apple because that would mean a backdoor for potentially anyone who has the tools and expertise to exploit it. Barr is either ignorant of this or willfully ignoring it."

PATRICK, ST. PAUL MN

"Barr made a "high profile request" so he could publicly blame Apple when they refuse. But Apple must resist because there is way more at stake than investigating one crime no matter how terrible it was. Capitulate this time and soon the government will be back demanding access to someone else's phone, and someone else again, etc., all with the "ticking time bomb" rationale. Then it won't be long before our phones, with all their detail about who we are, what we do, where we go, etc. are fair game for government and police on whatever rationale they invent."

PAT, SOMEWHERE

"I'm no great fan of Apple; however, considering the fact that Barr belongs in jail for his illegal acts, lies, and overall corruption, I hope Apple tells him to take a hike." GEORGE ELIOT, ANNAPOLIS, MD

"If Apple gives the government the ability to break encryption they may just as well just forget adding it at all. Both of our super secret agencies, the NSA and the CIA have allowed hacking tools to be stolen. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Apple gives them the keys that our government will find some way to lose them. Even if they didn’t, I have no desire to have what is already an exceptionally insecure digital environment further compromised by giving access to our government. Stand strong Apple."

CRAIG, CAROL STREAM, IL

"Stand your ground Apple. As time passes phones will contain even more of our private lives. You have no right to give them access to my personal property, just because you happened to make it. Thank you." MOMS AWARE, BO

"If Apple were to build a "back door" override to the encryption on the iPhone, accessible by the FBI, it would be a certainty that bad actors would eventually obtain it or hack it. It would be the end of any expectation of privacy, already a precious commodity in today’s world." BOB, NY STATE

"What exactly is Barr asking Apple to do? The article does not make this clear. Apple says (credibly) it has turned over all data from the account, and Barr seems not to dispute this. So st Barr asking Apple to use its resources to try to hack into its own phone? Is the idea that somehow Apple might be aware of security flaws and not identifying those to the FBI? I am seriously concerned about Barr's request. While I do take very seriously the problem of defending the US against bad actors, this must be balanced against potential harm to democracy and civil liberties -- and Barr has given us no indication he is to be trusted in making such a judgment."

SC, MIDWEST

"Well, Apple should be hired to make our voting booths secure! No other company has been able to stop the Russians and other criminals from interfering in our elections. Maybe Apple could protect our votes."

DUDLEY, BANNER ELK, NC

"Apple has given investigators materials from the iCloud account of the gunman, Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force training with the American military, who killed three sailors and wounded eight others on Dec. 6. But the company has refused to help the F.B.I. open the phones themselves, which would undermine its claims that its phones are secure." No. It would undermine the privacy of all Americans above and beyond the way it already is. We pay taxes and a good portion of that money goes to a Department of State that has refused to sanction Saudi Arabia for the worst of the crimes it and its citizens have perpetrated on this nation. We pay taxes and some of that money, a great deal of it, goes to the NSA, FBI and CIA. Let them use their resources and gumshoe investigative skillz to track down anyone who may have coached or directed this terrorist to commit this crime. Steve Jobs was right to refuse to give the FBI and DOJ the tools to crack open an iPhone. It is the right policy. Our collective privacy rights are not trumped by the police state because it is more convenient to do their job through trampling on our rights than it is to actually investigate. Since Edward Snowden's revelations nothing has been done to safeguard Americans' rights to have their lives remain private vis a vis the state and corporations. Good for Apple for saying no. As for these Saudi students? Send them home." RIMA, SOUTHERN CAL.

Law enforcer often talk as if they have an entitlement to people's most private digital activities. I've read and seen local officials at different levels talk as if the human owners are merely a worthless impediment to a rightful police activity. Many times, access is treated as an excuse to go wandering about the private lives of suspects and even individuals tangentially related. When authorities secure search warrants to go into individuals' homes, they're looking principally for physical objects that confirm their suspicions about a crime and help them build a case. However, mobile phones and digital devices capture not only actions but often deeply private thoughts of owners, as well. Americans need spaces that are sacrosanct. That includes portions of the digital world. Just because mobile devices exist does not mean authorities should ever have the right to crack them open and rummage around. Police have other avenues -- such as social media and strong search tools -- to find what people have already shared online. However, the brains and thoughts of Americans -- to which phones are often an extension -- are supposed to remain their own -- in all instances. The U.S. Constitutions says so.

PEGGY ROGERS PA

**********

Iran’s Grim Economy Limits Its Willingness to Confront the U.S.

Fearful of public anger over a plunging economy, Iran’s leaders appear to be turning inward, pulling back from escalation.

By Peter S. Goodman | Published Jan. 13, 2020 Updated 6:44 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 13, 2020 |

LONDON — Iran is caught in a wretched economic crisis. Jobs are scarce. Prices for food and other necessities are skyrocketing. The economy is rapidly shrinking. Iranians are increasingly disgusted.

Crippling sanctions imposed by the Trump administration have severed Iran’s access to international markets, decimating the economy, which is now contracting at an alarming 9.5 percent annual rate, the International Monetary Fund estimated. Oil exports were effectively zero in December, according to Oxford Economics, as the sanctions have prevented sales, even though smugglers have transported unknown volumes.

The bleak economy appears to be tempering the willingness of Iran to escalate hostilities with the United States, its leaders cognizant that war could profoundly worsen national fortunes. In recent months, public anger over joblessness, economic anxiety and corruption has emerged as a potentially existential threat to Iran’s hard-line regime.

Only a week ago, such sentiments had been redirected by outrage over the Trump administration’s Jan. 3 killing of Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. But protests flared anew over the weekend in Tehran, and then continued on Monday, after the government’s astonishing admission that it was — despite three days of denial — responsible for shooting down a Ukrainian jetliner.

The demonstrations were most pointedly an expression of contempt for the regime’s cover-up following its downing of the Ukrainian jet, which killed all 176 people on board. But the fury in the streets resonated as a rebuke for broader grievances — diminishing livelihoods, financial anxiety and the sense that the regime is at best impotent in the face of formidable troubles.

Inflation is running near 40 percent, assailing consumers with sharply rising prices for food and other basic necessities. More than one in four young Iranians is jobless, with college graduates especially short of work, according to the World Bank.

The missile strikes that Iran unleashed on American bases in Iraq last week in response to Gen. Suleimani’s killing appeared calibrated to enable its leaders to declare that vengeance had been secured without provoking an extreme response from President Trump, such as aerial bombing.

Hostilities with the most powerful military on earth would make life even more punishing for ordinary Iranians. It would likely weaken the currency and exacerbate inflation, while menacing what remains of national industry, eliminating jobs and reinvigorating public pressure on the leadership.

Conflict could threaten a run on domestic banks by sending more companies into distress. Iranian companies have been spared from collapse by surges of credit from banks. The government controls about 70 percent of banking assets, according to a paper by Adnan Mazarei, a former I.M.F. deputy director and now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Roughly half of all bank loans are in arrears, Iran’s Parliament has estimated.

Many Iranian companies depend on imported goods to make and sell products, from machinery to steel to grain. If Iran’s currency declines further, those companies would have to pay more for such goods. Banks would either have to extend more loans, or businesses would collapse, adding to the ranks of the jobless.

The central bank has been financing government spending, filling holes in a tattered budget to limit public ire over cuts. That entails printing Iranian money, adding to the strains on the currency. A war could prompt wealthier Iranians to yank assets out of the country, threatening a further decline in the currency and producing runaway inflation.

In sum, this is the unpalatable choice confronting the Iranian leadership: It can keep the economy going by continuing to steer credit to banks and industry, adding to the risks of an eventual banking disaster and hyperinflation. Or it can opt for austerity that would cause immediate public suffering, threatening more street demonstrations.

“That is the specter hanging over the Iranian economy,” Mr. Mazarei said. “The current economic situation is not sustainable.”

Though such realities appear to be limiting Iran’s appetite for escalation, some experts suggest that the regime’s hard-liners may eventually come to embrace hostilities with the United States as a means of stimulating the anemic economy.

Cut off from international investors and markets, Iran has in recent years focused on forging a so-called resistance economy in which the state has invested aggressively, subsidizing strategic industries, while seeking to substitute domestic production for imported goods.

That strategy has been inefficient, say economists, adding to the strains on Iran’s budget and the banking system, but it appears to have raised employment. Hard-liners might come see a fight with Iran’s archenemy, the United States, as an opportunity to expand the resistance economy while stoking politically useful nationalist anger.

“There will be those who will argue that we can’t sustain the current situation if we don’t have a war,” said Yassamine Mather, a political economist at the University of Oxford. “For the Iranian government, living in crisis is good. It’s always been good, because you can blame all the economic problems on sanctions, or on the foreign threat of war. In the last couple of years, Iran has looked for adventures as a way of diverting attention from economic problems.”

How ever Iran’s leaders proceed, experts assume that economic concerns will not be paramount: Iran’s leaders prioritize one goal above all others — their own survival. If confrontation with outside powers appears promising as a means of reinforcing their hold on power, the leadership may accept economic pain as a necessary cost.

“The hard-liners are willing to impoverish people to stay in power,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a research institution in London. “The Islamic Republic does not make decisions based on purely economic outcomes.”

But Iran’s leaders need only survey their own region to recognize the dangers that economic distress can pose to established powers. In recent months, Iraq and Lebanon have seen furious demonstrations fueled in part by declining living standards amid corruption and abuse of power.

As recently as November, Iran’s perilous economic state appeared to pose a foundational threat to the regime. As the government scrambled to secure cash to finance aid for the poor and the jobless, it scrapped subsidies on gasoline, sending the price of fuel soaring by as much as 200 percent. That spurred angry protests in the streets of Iranian cities, with demonstrators openly calling for the expulsion of President Hassan Rouhani.

“That’s a sign of how much pressure they are under,” said Maya Senussi, a Middle East expert at Oxford Economics in London.

In unleashing the drone strike that killed General Suleimani, Mr. Trump effectively relieved the leadership of that pressure, undercutting the force of his own sanctions, say experts.

Within Iran, the killing resounded as a breach of national sovereignty and evidence that the United States bore malevolent intent. It muted the complaints that propelled November’s demonstrations — laments over rising prices, accusations of corruption and economic malpractice amid the leadership — replacing them with mourning for a man celebrated as a national hero.

A country fraught with grievances aimed directly at its senior leaders had seemingly been united in anger at the United States.

“The killing of Suleimani represents a watershed, not only in terms of directing attention away from domestic problems, but also rallying Iranians around their flag,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

Mr. Trump had supplied the Iranian leadership “time and space to change the conversation,” he added. Iranians were no longer consumed with the “misguided and failed economic policies of the Iranian regime,” but rather “the arrogant aggression of the United States against the Iranian nation.”

But then came the government’s admission that it was responsible for bringing down the Ukrainian passenger jet. Now, Iran’s leaders again find themselves on the wrong end of angry street demonstrations.

For now, the regime is seeking to quash the demonstrations with riot police and admonitions to the protesters to go home. But if public rage continues, hard-liners may resort to challenging American interests in the hopes that confrontation will force Mr. Trump to negotiate a deal toward eliminating the sanctions.

Iran may threaten the passage of ships carrying oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for more than one-fifth of the world’s consumption of liquid petroleum. Disruption there would restrict the global supply oil, raising the price of the vital commodity. That could sow alarm in world markets while limiting global economic growth, potentially jeopardizing Mr. Trump’s re-election bid, as the logic goes.

Iran previously had a different pathway toward gaining relief from the sanctions: Under a 2015 deal forged by President Barack Obama, the sanctions were removed in exchange for Iran’s verified promise to dismantle large sections of its nuclear program.

But when Mr. Trump took office, he renounced that deal and resumed sanctions.

The Iranian leadership has courted European support for a resumption of the nuclear deal, seeking to exploit divergence between Europe and the United States. The Europeans have been unhappy about Mr. Trump’s renewed sanctions, which have dashed the hopes of German, French and Italian companies that had looked to Iran for expanded business opportunities.

Whatever comes next, Iran’s leadership is painfully aware that getting out from under the American sanctions is the only route to lifting its economy, say experts.

The nuclear deal was intended to give Iran’s leaders an incentive to diminish hostility as a means of seeking liberation from the sanctions. Mr. Trump’s abandonment of the deal effectively left them with only one means of pursuing that goal — confrontation.

“They see escalation as the only way to the negotiating table,” said Ms. Vakil. “They can’t capitulate and come to the negotiating table. They can’t compromise, because that would show weakness. By demonstrating that they can escalate, that they are fearless, they are trying to build leverage.”

*********

Iran Protests Rage Over Downed Jet, as Other Nations Seek Redress

Protesters chanted against Iran’s clerical rulers for a third day, while Ukraine’s foreign minister said five countries would seek action against those responsible.

By Ben Hubbard | Published Jan. 13, 2020 Updated 3:16 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 13, 2020 |

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Protesters and riot police faced off in at least two cities in Iran on Monday, a third day of angry demonstrations at the country’s leaders after the government acknowledged having shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing 176 people.

The protests are the most recent spillover from escalating regional tensions between the United States and Iran that built up to President Trump’s decision to kill a high-ranking Iranian general, and Iran’s firing missiles at United States forces in Iraq in response.

After days of denials, Iran acknowledged early on Saturday that it had shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight on Wednesday, blaming the attack on human error. But the government’s obfuscation has angered many Iranians, already squeezed by poor economic conditions exacerbated by United States sanctions, and some took to the streets soon after.

Videos from inside Iran shared on social media on Monday showed university students in Isfahan and the capital, Tehran, chanting against the country’s clerical rulers while riot police deployed nearby.

The extent of the protests and the amount of violence used to try to stop them were hard to assess because of tight restrictions on social media and the news media inside the country. Videos from previous days have shown protesters carrying off bleeding comrades while gunshots echoed in the background.

The authorities in Iran denied that security forces had opened fire.

“At protests, police absolutely did not shoot because the capital’s police officers have been given orders to show restraint,” Hossein Rahimi, the head of Tehran’s police, said on Monday, according to state-run news media.

[Read: Iran’s only female Olympic medalist has defected from the country over “lies” and “injustice.”]

Late Sunday, Mr. Trump warned Iran not to target the demonstrators. Framing himself as a supporter of the media, which in other circumstances he has frequently disparaged, Mr. Trump exhorted Iran’s leaders to allow unfettered reporting.

“To the leaders of Iran — DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” he wrote on Twitter. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

To the leaders of Iran - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!

8:48 AM - Jan 12, 2020

The Ukrainian plane took off from Tehran on a flight to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, before dawn on Wednesday, and barely two minutes later it was struck by an anti-aircraft missile fired by an Iranian crew. Iranian forces had fired missiles at American forces in Iraq hours earlier, and were on the alert for retaliation by the United States.

In addition to the domestic outrage, Iran may also face demands for compensation from nations whose citizens were killed on the plane, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko of Ukraine told Reuters on Monday in an interview in Singapore.

“We have created this group of foreign ministers from the grieving nations. On Jan. 16, we will meet in person in London to discuss the ways, including legal, how we are following this up, how we are prosecuting them,” Mr. Prystaiko said, referring to the Iranians.

The talks would include five nations, he said: Canada, which lost 57 citizens, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sweden and another country he did not identify.

They and other nations have pushed for greater international involvement in the investigation of how the crash happened, and Mr. Prystaiko said Tehran had agreed to hand over the jet’s black boxes for analysis, but had yet to set a date to do so.

Mr. Prystaiko separately told the BBC in an interview broadcast Monday that President Hassan Rouhani of Iran had accepted full responsibility for the crash, without trying to shift the blame onto the United States for escalating overall tensions in the region.

“At least at the presidential level, nothing of this nonsense was mentioned,” Mr. Prystaiko said, describing Mr. Rouhani’s phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday. “He tried to do his best to explain that it was human error, that no one who is to be punished will escape the punishment.”

Tensions between the United States and Iran have soared since 2018, when Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of an international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program and imposed the first in a series of sanctions on Iran to punish it for what his administration sees as its destabilizing activities across the Middle East.

After a number of attacks on United States assets and allies in the Middle East in recent months, Mr. Trump ordered the killing on Jan. 3 of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force. He headed Iran’s efforts to support and direct allied militias in the region.

Those militias include an Iraqi group that fired rockets at a military base in Iraq late last month, killing one American contractor. United States forces retaliated against militia bases, killing more than two dozen fighters, and militias responded by surrounding the American Embassy compound in Baghdad, breaching its perimeter wall, setting fires and throwing rocks.

The killing of General Suleimani in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport raised fears that Iran or its network of allies across the Middle East would respond against the United States and its allies, possibly igniting a regional war.

On Wednesday, Iran responded by firing a barrage of missiles at two military bases in Iraq that host United States forces, inflicting some damage but killing no one. The Ukrainian jet crashed after being struck in the air by an Iranian missile a few hours later.

______

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

0 notes

nothingman · 7 years ago

Link

Back when Russian hacker Yevgeniy Nikulin got arrested in Prague in association with US charges of hacking Linked in and DropBox, Russia quickly delivered up its own, far more minor indictment of him to set off a battle over his extradition. Months alter, Nikulin’s legal team publicized a claim that an FBI Agent had discussed a deal with him, related to the hack of the DNC — a claim that is not as nuts as it seems (because a number of the people hacked had passwords exposed in those breaches). Whatever the reason, Russia clearly would like to keep Nikulin out of US custody.

And not long after Russian hacker Alexander Vinnik got detained in Greece related to the Bitcoin-e charges, Russia dug up an indictment for him too. Russia has emphasized crypto-currencies of late, so it’s understandable why they’d want to keep a guy alleged to be an expert at using crypto-currencies to launder money out of US hands.

What’s a more interesting question is why Russia waited so long to manufacture a Russian indictment for Pyotr Levashov, the alleged culprit behind the Kelihos bot, who is currently facing extradition to the US from Spain. Levashov was detained in April, but Russia only claimed they wanted him, too, a few weeks ago, around the same time Levashov started claiming he had spied on behalf of Putin’s party.

Perhaps it’s harder to manufacture a Russian indictment on someone the state had had no problem with before. Perhaps Russia has just decided this ploy is working and has few downsides. Or perhaps other events — maybe the arrest of Marcus Hutchins in August or the extradition back to the UK of Daniel Kaye in September — have made Levashov’s exposure here in the US even more problematic for Russia.

But I find it really curious that it took five months after Levashov got arrested for the Russians to decide it’d be worth claiming they want to arrest him too.

Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.

Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.

via emptywheel

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

0 notes

mindthump · 7 years ago

Photo

To Understand Today's Cyber War Study Cold War Spycraft http://ift.tt/2urbqQW

Have state-sponsored hackers been spending nights reading Cold War spy novelists like John Le Carré? It sure seems that way. Because those classic espionage techniques are being reinvented as the latest strategies to compromise Western democracies.

Take the recent reports on Russia’s attack on a U.S. company that provides voting support and systems to local election offices. According to these reports, Russian-sponsored hackers made their way into the company system by sending phishing emails to local officials. They hoped they were naïve enough to open the emails, which would have introduced malware into the voting infrastructure.

This “weakest link” approach is similar to how the KGB during the Cold War attempted to penetrate “target installations” to compromise vulnerable Americans. (There was reportedly a KBG playbook on recruiting Americans that explains their strategy.)

So if we want to look forward and secure ourselves from hacking, we should look backward at how old-school spy-craft is being applied to new-school cyber-craft. The principles have not changed. In fact, we are at greater risk now that sophisticated algorithms, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies are moving spy-craft to a new, almost super-human level.

Here are some striking parallels between the Cold War and the Cyber Wars -- and some tools and tactics you can adopt to defend yourself.

Related: Russia's U.S. Election Hacks Are Worse Than We Thought

1. Handlers haven’t gone away.

Old-School Spy-craft: In the good old days, the CIA and KGB’s operatives -- spies, moles, and other agents -- penetrated key organizations and stole crucial information. Shrewd handlers trained those spies, or “assets” to go undercover, penetrate their targets surreptitiously and assess the most essential information to pursue.

New-School Cyber-craft: There are still asset-controlling handlers -- we call these handlers “state sponsors” and their assets “threat actors” -- whose missions include penetrating strategic targets like governmental institutions, enterprise databases and even critical infrastructure. Cyber-oriented military units as well as state-sponsored groups of hackers hired by governments are controlled by these malicious puppeteers.

Related: U.S. Intel Chiefs Push Back on Trump and Russia Hack

2. HUMINT-- Modelling our modern spies.

Old-School Spy-craft: Espionage 101 teaches spies to identify the sources of information that their government needs, and scoop them up faster than you can say “undercover agent wearing trench coat.”

Once successfully immersed in the right community, the spies often remain silent (sleeper agents), biding their time until receiving the order from their handlers to strike. These embedded agents avoid communication with their handlers for long periods of time so as not to arouse suspicion. This requires significant training and “Bourne”-like self-sufficiency -- both physical and emotional.

New-School Cyber-craft: Like human spies, self-sufficient malware can be trained to enter surreptitiously into protected systems and search for specific information that fits the spy’s Modus Operandi, while blending into the scenery -- or, on the contrary, “hiding in plain sight.”

Self-sufficient malware, like the spies of old, must also be able to overcome well-engineered sequences of security traps deployed to block their outbound communication. The more self-sufficient the malware, the more successful. While their old-school human counterparts had their own booze-and-caffeine fueled limits, unlike real people, bots never get burned out. And real spies didn’t have Artificial Intelligence to sift through a vast tonnage of communications and unstructured data, including phone conversations, emails and key data banks, automatically understanding context like humans do and identifying the relevant data they need.

The recent DNC hacks are a textbook example -- the sensitive emails were exposed to the outside world by self-sufficient malware that patiently lingered on the inside of DNC servers for almost a year, silently collecting information… until the right moment.

Related: The Worst Hacks of 2017 -- So Far

3. Double agents: Trust is a slippery thing.

Old-School Spy-craft: Handlers sent their most skilled agents into target-rich networks, such as an intelligence agency, to zero in on whoever on the inside had access to the most classified information and was vulnerable to being flipped into a double agent. Often it was someone with a weakness that made them susceptible to compromise -- affairs, a drinking problem, gambling debts, etc. This was a classic tactic employed by the KGB and other intelligence agencies during the Cold War.

New-School Cyber-craft: In today’s world, insiders can turn against their employers, becoming the cyber equivalent of double agents. When you wreak havoc from within, you eliminate the need to penetrate well-protected, or even “air gapped” systems (those disconnected from the internet). Edward Snowden is the perfect example of an insider threat who became a very real one. Many companies fixated on outside threats overlook the hazards within.

Defending against new-school cybercraft.

It’s much more affordable to mount a cyberattack than invest in building a spy operation. That makes it easier for nations and organizations least expected to join in this newfangled cyber battle. With the barrier to entry so low, it is essential that we re-engineer our thinking to defend against new-school cyber-craft. Here are five ways to think differently:

1. Revert to methods of previous eras.

There are methods that seem antiquated but are un-hackable. The Dutch government, for example, has announced that it is returning to hand counting its ballots amidst fears of cyberattacks during elections. And super-sensitive conversations are best handled in-person.

Related: The Frightening Potential of Hackers Disrupting the Ballot

2. Increase utilization of data encryption.

These methods have existed for years, but typically have not been used on personal computers and phones because they slow them down and can require additional integration. The risk of cyber threats counters those objections. Institutions must widen their definition of “critical infrastructure” to include data encryption both in data centers and on PCs of key political and business figures.

3. Smarter anti-malware.

Much as sophisticated counterintelligence units ferret out moles in intelligence organizations, we need smarter anti-malware software -- such as tools that can sniff out concealed AI capabilities in software –- that can be “trained” to hunt self-sufficient bots.

Related: Election-Year Email Troubles Are a Warning for Business Leaders

4. Behavior analytics.

Intelligence agencies have internal measures used to identify double agents. It's time to acccelerate deployment of network and identity behavior analytics able to identify insiders (i.e. employees and contractors) acting in strange and anomalous fashions. Someone who suddenly shows up on a Sunday night to download files is the equivalent of a mid-level intelligence agent who is suddenly driving a BMW and buying a vacation home.

5. Collaboration

Organizations should collaborate by exchanging threat information (TTPs) and knowledge about the threat actors behind them, so they can proactively implement more targeted security measures.

To protect ourselves from clear and present dangers, we must go back to the future. Today’s security strategists would be well-advised to look to the ways of the past and adapt their lessons to cyber-security of today to create a safer tomorrow.

Related: To Understand Today's Cyber War Study Cold War Spycraft Phishing In All Its Forms Is a Menace to Small Businesses How OneLogin Was Compromised and the Lessons for the Rest of Us

#IFTTT #Feedly #future #hmmm #good to know

0 notes

viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

How America Can Beat Russia in Cyber War, Despite Trump

Hackers working on behalf of the Russian government have attacked a wide variety of American citizens and institutions. Targets have included the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National Committee, prominent Democratic and Republican officials, and university and academic research programs. These attacks started years back but have continued after the election. They have hit government sites, like the Pentagon’s email system, as well as private networks, like US banks. And they have widened to target our allies, such as in the run-up to the German election.

WIRED OPINION

About

P.W. Singer (@peterwsinger)is strategist at New America and the co-author of Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know.

This is not the kind of cyber war imagined in the past, with power grids going down in fiery cyber Pearl Harbors. Instead, it is a competition more akin to the Cold War’s pre-digital battles that crossed influence operations with espionage. Now, just as then, there is a need for deterrence, both to defend the nation as well as keep an ongoing conflict from escalating into physical damage and destruction.

While Russian president Vladimir Putin has denied this campaign exists, the US intelligence community, FBI, and allied intelligence agencies have all identified these activities. What’s more, five different well-regarded cybersecurity firms (CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant, ThreatConnect, and SecureWorks) have reported Russia’s role, which is notable, as such firms are competitors and have an incentive to debunk each other’s work. Russia’s cyber aggression is real, and it is spectacular that anyone would keep denying it.

While there is ongoing debate as to whether Trump has been compromised (or rather kompromat) by Russian compromise operations and investments, what is not debatable is that his position on this effort has been mystifying, to say the least. For months, Trump denied that the hacks had even occurred, then claimed they could have been anyone (such as his infamous “400-pound” hacker), and refused to acknowledge Russia’s efforts.In Trump’s press conference this week, he finally acknowledged Russia’s role, but yet again held back, not criticizing the attacks and not identifying a government response. Instead he blamed one of the victims, the DNC, and shrugged off that attack’s significance. (“As far as hacking, I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people,” he said, asserting that the real problem was the DNC’s poor “hacking defense.”)

There are many threats in cyberspace, from criminals stealing personal information to governments (like China) that have broken into government databases. But no single threat has brought these acts together in the wide-ranging and brazen manner of Russia, targeting not just individuals and organizations, but the fabric of democracy itself. So what can be done to defend America in this realm? And what can be done in our strange new predicament, a conflict that must be fought not led by, but in spite of, the incoming commander-in-chief?

The Obama administration’s recent moves to sanction Russia for targeting US democracy were a good start, albeit too little and too late—criticism that the Republican congressional leadership was quick, and right, to make. A test of its sincerity will be whether Congress backs its words with action, by turning the sanctions into law and strengthening them further. This will make it harder for Trump to set them aside, as both his aides have noted and he hinted would be the case at his press conference. Instead, strengthened sanctions would show Putin that the party of Reagan and Eisenhower is still willing to stand up to Moscow, rather than shower it with praise.

Deterrence is not about punishment, though, but rather it seeks to find pressure points to influence future action. Here the overall weakness of the Russian economy (indeed, it is sad that the US is being bullied about by the world’s 13th largest economy), as well as its oligarchic structure, are choice leverage points. Targeting the financial assets of Putin and his allies, especially those held outside the country in real estate and tax shelters, would be one way to expand this effort. Outing these assets should also be the target of any covert cyber action. The Russian regime’s anger at the publication of the Panama Papers, showing where a small portion of its money was hidden around the world, reveals an area to exploit further. The same twin goal of outing and defanging networks should also be applied to the digital and financial infrastructure that has been used to conduct the attacks themselves.

Our strategy should be joined with an effort to build resilience, the ability to shrug off future attacks. This is also known as deterrence by denial, where, by making attacks less beneficial to the attacker, you make them less likely. Importantly, building up resilience has the added bonus of being useful against any attacker, not just Russia. The same improvements that would make it harder for Russia’s “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear” (the industry terms for two of the primary Russian efforts) to operate successfully would also aid against high end threats like China’s or even low-level cybercriminals.

In 2015 the Obama administration identified a series of best practices that top companies use for their own cybersecurity, which could also be implemented by government and spread further across society. The administration also convened a bipartisan commission of experts, which just last month issued its own set of recommendations. Those include identifying high-value assets that need to be better protected, recruiting top talent, and accelerating the deployment of detection systems.

Ensuring that these steps are implemented could be one of the most important things the new Congress can do to limit the US’s vulnerabilities. And since these two tracks come from the lessons of the marketplace and a bipartisan commission of experts, the GOP should find them politically palatable. (This already existing pool of vetted ideas from actual experts also points to how there is no need to wait for the Trump team’s promises of various study groups, most recently one supposed to be led by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose own security firm’s website has41 publicly known vulnerabilities.)

The success of Russia’s attacks and interference in the 2016 election are dangerous not just because of their impact, but also because of how they will serve as a guidepost to others in the future. Congress should redefine the institutions involved in our democracy as critical infrastructure, in order to provide higher levels of support from the federal government. Contrary to the approach so far, however, we must recognize that the critical infrastructure of elections is not just the voting machines, but also the wider ecosystem, including parties and campaigns. Much as banks compete, but still share threat information, our election systems and political organizations, including even both the RNC and DNC, should have had the structures to cooperate in this space. Indeed, the only thing that would have been necessary to stop the entire DNC hack was a better line of communication between the organization’s IT staff and the FBI agents who had been tracking the Russian hacking for years.

Our need for resilience extends beyond bits and bytes, though, to building up better political resistance to the influence operations that allows Russia to exploit its cyber attacks. We must continue to uphold our freedom of speech but also ensure that authoritarian leaders don’t take advantage of it. Congress should reconvene the Active Measures Working Group, an interagency effort during the Cold War that debunked the worst of Soviet misinformation. It should also work in cohesion with our NATO allies to help identify and counter Russia’s campaigns (many of which just pivoted from targeting US to European voters). This will also help in debunking the individuals and outlets who have chosen to become either willing partners or , “useful idiots,” for foreign government propaganda.

Other parts of society will also have to weigh their own roles, much as in the Cold War. Tech firms have too long looked away at the manipulation of their networks by extremist groups and now authoritarian governments. The activities by Russian troll factories and bot campaigns that accelerate false news and propaganda violate terms of service and should become a target of reform in social media.

So too does traditional media need to rethink how it rewards these campaigns. When hackers outed millions of people cheating on their spouses after the Ashley Madison breach, responsible journalists reported on the breach, but not the fruits of it. By contrast, they breathlessly reported the most minute and personal details in the latest Russian government attacks. The New York Times public editor even acknowledged last year that by acting this way, the paper had ended up functioning as a “a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.” Will media continue to be so in the future?

Akin to the Cold War, we face a long-term challenge that has to be managed and mitigated. For as long as we use the Internet, adversaries like those in Putin’s Russia will seek to exploit it and us. The question now is our response. History will record that Donald Trump became president aided in some part by the most important and successful cyber attack to occur so far. Will history then also record that we did nothing about it?