US Treasury & DHS Hacked by Foreign Government (1 Viewer)

[Ilov80s]

The hack was no big deal and everything is fine except that they probably hacked the voting machines and rigged the election. Not sure that makes much sense there Mr President 

 

[Navin Johnson]

Those books will be in Russian.

Лучше освежите свою кириллицу

 

[tommyGunZ]

How do you deny at this point that Trump’s allegiance is more with Putin than his oath?

Remember, he’s also cleaned out defense offices and infiltrated them with loyalists, with only weeks to go. In light of the inside access Russia gained, that’s more than troubling what his motives are in doing so.

What could possibly be Trump’s motivation for once again ignoring the findings of his own intelligence agencies and blaming another country for Russia’s attacks on our country?

If we find evidence in the next year or two that he was indeed comprised by Russia, will 50% of America even believe it?  And how many Republican congresspeople know better and yet continue support a President literally committing treason? 

 

[Sabertooth]

How do you deny at this point that Trump’s allegiance is more with Putin than his oath?

Remember, he’s also cleaned out defense offices and infiltrated them with loyalists, with only weeks to go. In light of the inside access Russia gained, that’s more than troubling what his motives are in doing so.

Shocking I'm sure.  But he's earned the benefit of the doubt right?  I mean he was elected President by the most patriotist people.  

 

[AAABatteries]

Of course no one knows right now, but this could end up being worse than covid in terms of it's impact on day-to-day life. It was a massive hack. 

The question is what will Russia do with the power they now have.  Is it so much power than to use it is equivalent to using a nuke?  If so, maybe the MAD aspect of it keeps them from moving forward.  

Can you unpack this for me?  I understand this is a massive hack but don’t see how this is possible.

 

[BigJim®]

Is there any interplay between this threat and the news reports of the exiting administration pushing to reorganize NSA/Cyber?

 

[BigJim®]

Probably not, as the hack dated back to March.

I'm thinking more along the lines of hiding the bodies, or creating chaos that undermines investigations/solutions. At this point, I'm just not sure we should assume this administration wants to put its best foot forward identifying Russia, solving things for Biden, etc.

 

[The Commish]

Is there any interplay between this threat and the news reports of the exiting administration pushing to reorganize NSA/Cyber?

If they are connected, its in a "cover our tracks" kind of way IMO.  Hard to say with this administration as those at the NSA and Cyber have also spoken poorly of Donnie lately, so that's also a completely legit reason these "reorgs" are going on.

 

[BigJim®]

If they are connected, its in a "cover our tracks" kind of way IMO.  Hard to say with this administration as those at the NSA and Cyber have also spoken poorly of Donnie lately, so that's also a completely legit reason these "reorgs" are going on.

This is what I'm curious about. I'd love to hear a legitimate reason for an administration that will be departing in 30 days doing a rushed reorganizing of national defense.

 

[timschochet]

What could possibly be Trump’s motivation for once again ignoring the findings of his own intelligence agencies and blaming another country for Russia’s attacks on our country?

If we find evidence in the next year or two that he was indeed comprised by Russia, will 50% of America even believe it?  And how many Republican congresspeople know better and yet continue support a President literally committing treason? 

He may very well be compromised. 

But there is also the possibility that he is so incredibly insecure about his victory in 2016 that he believes any criticism of Russia is an attack on his legitimacy. Based on news reporting from credible sources, I honestly think this alternative explanation is more likely. Which would make President Trump less treasonous and more pathetic. 

 

[The Commish]

This is what I'm curious about. I'd love to hear a legitimate reason for an administration that will be departing in 30 days doing a rushed reorganizing of national defense.

You won't get one because one doesn't exist.  In my view, if this was legit, it would have happened in March (they likely knew something was going on even before that if we're being real here).  At best Trump is a useful idiot at this point.  Putin knows he'd (Trump) never admit to the American public that he (Putin) got the best of him (Trump).  

 

[GordonGekko]

"Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused Russia of being “the main actor” in the hack, but were told at the last minute to stand down..."

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-mark-levin-coronavirus-pandemic-hacking-6080f156125a4a46edef2a6dcf826611

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/10/america-wheat-hunger-great-food-aid-boondoggle/

"The United States is the food bank of the world. It’s a fitting role for the world’s largest food exporter and corn producer. Between 2016 and 2017, it produced 430 million tons of corn, which amounted to one-third of global corn production. The United States provides half of all global food aid. Since the Dwight D. Eisenhower era, U.S. taxpayers have fed 3 billion hungry people in some 150 countries....Like all governments, Washington doesn’t send food aid simply for moral or humanitarian reasons. Food aid is a tool to promote national strategic interests. Food security—that is, access to sufficient quantities of nutritious food—can improve health and education and grow the economy, which opens up new markets for donor countries."

https://www.intellinews.com/russia-has-become-an-agricultural-powerhouse-but-remains-a-net-importer-of-food-181359/

"Russian grain production .... increased substantially, from 1.63 tonnes per hectare during 1987-1991 to 2.81 tonnes per hectare over 2017-2019....

In the last few years Russia’s grain production has soared to around 45 mmt of grain. Russia shipped to customers around the world earned the country some $25bn in 2019 – more than the value of its arms exports – the problem is that the food processing industry remains underdeveloped and Russia imports most of its fancy foods.

“Russia’s top agricultural exports are grain, fish & seafood, fats & oils,” says RJE. “In 2017-2018, Russia supplied 10-13% of total world grain exports and 20-23% of total wheat exports, which accounted for 80% of Russia’s total grain exports, in volume terms....

2014 was a double whammy for food imports. In addition to the ###-for-tat sanctions on agri-good imports, the sharp devaluation of the ruble following an oil price shock at the end of that year almost doubled the price of imported foodstuffs, leading to a rapid fall in consumption.

“The crisis-induced drop in food consumption and rise in production resulted in a major fall in Russian agricultural and food imports, which from 2013 to 2015-2016 declined in dollar terms by about a third, and then rose only marginally in 2017-2018,” says RJE."

The Russian Federation imported US$243.8 billion worth of goods from around the globe in 2019, up by 33.4% since 2015 and up by 2.4% from 2018 to 2019. Based on the average exchange rate for 2019, the Russian ruble depreciated by -6.2% against the US dollar since 2015 and dropped by -3.3% from 2018 to 2019.

The following product groups represent the highest dollar value in Russia’s import purchases during 2019. Also shown is the percentage share each product category represents in terms of overall imports into Russia - Machinery including computers: US$43.2 billion (17.7% of total imports) , Electrical machinery, equipment: $29.8 billion (12.2%), Vehicles: $23.7 billion (9.7%), Pharmaceuticals: $14.1 billion (5.8%)

*****

An official declaration would essentially be a declaration of war. No sitting POTUS in a transition situation like this is going to do that with a changeover coming. It could be Trump, it could be Biden, Obama, Clinton, Bush, Romney, Gore, anyone, no one is going to broker a fight that way, esp with a pandemic loose.  There is no political capital for Trump in the 2024 election cycle to do it, there is no strategic military reason to do it.  If the US gets into a fight with Russia, first it will choke out it's other grain buyers by leveraging all cross over relationships related to food aid. Then the US will cut off what it exports to Russia. First, you devalue the ruble and you destabilize the Russian economy. You want starving Russian citizens blaming Putin and anyone else in power. Solarwind hacks also impacted other countries, so you need their cooperation as staging points for the US carrier groups and air wings. Then you need to bunker up your critical infrastructure at home and factor in your fuel reserves for potential extended combat application. Conflicts between nations boil down to logistics, and logistics require time to process.  Only then do you get into a shooting war.

"Orange Man Bad" does not change tactical reality. This situation exceeds partisan conflicts in internal US politics.

 

[Ted Stickles]

 

[urbanhack]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1341196780655001600?s=21

 

[The Commish]

Executive Order to be rolled out at some point in the next few months.  There aren't a ton of details, but I suspect the "pushback" will come from the ill informed and moreso the "cyber security" companies that stand to lose as the spotlight shifts to the meaningfulness of their work.  There's a good number of these companies who's bread and butter is essentially "false sense of security".  

I'm somewhat shocked that something like this is rolling out preemptively and the quality of the EO remains to be seen, but I'm glad someone somewhere is finally starting to pay a little bit of attention even if it's just lip service initially.  We desperately need a centralized group to collect info on incidents all over the country so someone has a handle on the big picture otherwise it's just playing whack-a-mole with people way ahead of us.

 

[FairWarning]

Executive Order to be rolled out at some point in the next few months.  There aren't a ton of details, but I suspect the "pushback" will come from the ill informed and moreso the "cyber security" companies that stand to lose as the spotlight shifts to the meaningfulness of their work.  There's a good number of these companies who's bread and butter is essentially "false sense of security".  

I'm somewhat shocked that something like this is rolling out preemptively and the quality of the EO remains to be seen, but I'm glad someone somewhere is finally starting to pay a little bit of attention even if it's just lip service initially.  We desperately need a centralized group to collect info on incidents all over the country so someone has a handle on the big picture otherwise it's just playing whack-a-mole with people way ahead of us.

A good move, should have happened a very long time ago.

 

[The Commish]

While not the government being hacked...a good example of what is likely to happen more and more often to our infrastructure if we don't act:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57050690