Over the weekend, I wasted about ninety minutes of my time reading over the CIA/NSA chit-chat of Russian involvement in the US election.
First, my observation of the 13-page Grizzley Steppe report. It's basically a 99-step method of ensuring you have a closed-in network and no one is snooping within your network. For the US military and the NSA/CIA crowd....it's mandatory. For civilian-like organizations....like Hillary Clinton's bathroom-server or the DNC server....it's something that they probably never read or grasped.
Most folks around America have some small team of IT technicians who might have some of the suggested practices in place, but the majority do not. Ask the DNC, and I'm pretty sure that they don't want to talk about it.
One might want to know this particular detail.....the advice they give here....isn't just about plain government hacking.....it's the same stuff to stop a 14-year old kid from hacking your business or foundation computer network as well. You shouldn't sit there and think it's just the Russians.....there are kids in Vegas who are hacking folks as well.
Second, on the 25-page ODNI report....noting Russian involvement involvement....it's a comical piece at times.
Around page 4 of the document, there's around eight paragraphs which want to chat about RT. You know....RT (Russia Today). Yeah, you know....RT.
Here's the thing. Outside of the beltway in DC....the rest of the US....if you bring up the word RT....99-percent of folks have no idea what you are talking about. Shocking? If you use the term Russia Today? They still have no idea.
It can be a choice on your cable or satellite channel list, but I can guarantee you that 99-percent of America....from coast to coast....have never watched an hour of RT in their lives. If you do find a hundred folks who say they've watched RT....they typically into the category of PhD types, news-junkies, or some firm interest in the slant of news that RT carries. Out of 300-million people in America....I'd take a guess that fewer than 100,000 watch it on a daily basis. From the state of Alabama....from fewer than sixty people (half of what probably are university professors).
From Germany? I'd take a guess that out of 82-million people.....fewer than 3,000 watch it daily. Most of which are university students, far-left radicals, and Linke Party/Green Party members.
The affect of RT on the US election? ZERO....virtually and absolutely zero. The CIA nitwit threw a bunch of stuff into eight paragraphs which are virtually worthless but entertaining fiction.
Affect on German society? Ask around.....other than some public-TV journalists, I doubt if you can find many Germans who spend more than a hour a month watching RT.
Me? I probably watch 90 minutes of RT per month....mostly over business analysis from their Wall Street guy.....Edward Harrison. Oddly, he takes an intense and complicated subject and in 60 seconds....breaks it down into the simplest of stories. Between him and a few breaking story episodes....there's not much there of interest for me.
Is RT a threat? If you were to watch only the Today Show, or only RT, or only CNN, or only read the Washington Post.....then you are living within a dangerous sphere. The thing is that RT will put out some stories that CNN won't touch. It's not to say that RT is great.....they are sponsored by Putin and virtually every single Russia story is a positive story. It can't be that way in real life.
For the CIA? This is one of the most comical reports I've ever read. Twenty-five pages and you really don't see anything here to get frustrated or worried about.
Fake intelligence? Yeah. As much as we chat daily about fake news....you now have fake politics, and fake intelligence.
The sad thing is that it's the same CIA which dreamed up the fifteen-odd parts of the Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. The German BND? It took basically a couple of days, but they basically came to an odd opinion....virtually none of the CIA's facts worked. They were not factual. If you took the same standards for today.....I think you'd arrive at the same position.....none of these accusations really stand up.
2 comments:
Wow! Stick to the hundreds of topics you're good at. Information technology and information security is not one of them. While I enjoy reading most of your stories, this one - "CIA Fiction and Wit" - is a complete cockup.
The point you missed - RIS used spearphishing attacks to compromise systems. Spearphishing is real and it's one of the biggest causes of breaches in organizations of all types. Have you read about the retailers, banks and hospitals here that have been hacked, had customer information stolen, had systems locked with 'ransomware'? Heck, if you're one to click randomly at links it's likely you've been compromised in a phishing attack. Truth is, the RNC was probably hacked too - fools everywhere are clicking on links and creating system breaches. RIS decided not to release RNC emails. As for Hillary's server. Show me a credible citation it was hacked. The Podesta email leaks were due to a hack against his personal email account - not on Hillary's system.
Do your reader's a favor - stick to the stuff you understand.....
I'm quiet aware of the various methods out there....having had my email account and ebay account 'taken' on one occasion. No, it wasn't Russians....it was some idiot out of Thailand. If you go and look around, it probably happens a thousand times a day across the US. Everyone knows someone who has been hacked...look around...see any gov't effort or law enforcement effort to fix this? No. Why pretend Podesta or the DNC are special, when the rest of us have been hacked?
The addition of almost a page of this report relating to RT? I just sat laughing...you simply can't find that many Americans (or Germans) who even know what RT is, and it's extremely small audience of viewers. Yet they needed to fill the report with something, and it's just thrown in. It's a weak and marginal report. It's as good as the CIA Saddam report on weapons of mass destruction....which we both know where that went.
If they had hinted of mass additions to voting lists....or the addition of tens of thousands of dead-voters...now, that might have been interesting to note in Michigan and Wis.
My bottom line....look at law enforcement and the authorities...what exactly are they doing for ransomware in general? Nothing. They don't care. Same for theft of ID. Nothing.
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