Hacking the public
21/10/20 14:36![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsIf Donald Trump's Covid diagnosis was the perfect example of an October surprise before the elections, the umpteenth hacker scandal involving the Democrats has now shifted attention back to the role of the media and the social networks in politics.
Last Thursday, the NYPost dropped a bombshell by claiming Hunter, Joe Biden's son had tried to extort financial gains from the largest Chinese energy company on behalf of his family.
The investigation of the tabloid is based on data from a leaked MacBook hard-drive that is claimed to have been left at a Delaware PC service office last year, never to be retained again.
The laptop was then seized by the FBI, but the NYP claims the service owner had copied the files, and then they ended up in the hands of none else but one Rudy Giuliani, Trump's staunch supporter and advocate. The tabloid claims they learned about the existence of those files from Steve Bannon, another nice guy who was arrested on charges of defrauding a charity fund that was meant to help build that infamous Mexico wall.
Under a headline saying Biden's Secret Mails, the NYP has placed photos of Hunter and Joe Biden, and published excerpts from the son's correspondence with his father, and with some of his business partners, discussing a possible deal with CEFC China Energy Co.
One of the mails, entitled Expectations, supposedly discusses the distribution of money, company shares and assets, and commitments for possible top positions in a future joint company with the Chinese giant.
The text proposes that "person X" should get 20% of the ownership in that company, while another 10% are to be controlled by the "big guy". The media doesn't specify who Big Guy is. There is another name included, "Jim". Other abbreviations supposedly denote a number of consultants and partners also involved. The proof that the archive truly belonged to Hunter, the NYP says, are a few of his personal photos, also found in the hard-drive.
The publication has sparked a big media problem now. Both Facebook and Twitter have moved to restrict access to the NYP publication. The latter cites a violation of their policy against disseminating hacked documents. The NYP Twitter profile was frozen, and White House speaker Kayleigh McEnnany also complained that she had no access to her profile after she had shared the NYP article.
Now, such restrictive measures were taken by the social networks after they had been made hostage of the dirt war from the 2016 election. Back then, WikiLeaks published huge data archives from stolen mails from the DNC, particularly ones belonging to Hillary Clinton's election campaign chairman John Podesta. The investigation showed that the data had been hacked by employees of the Russian intelligence services as part of their effort to influence the US election process four years ago.
Turning the media into post boxes for damning material that has been obtained illegally, and whose dissemination could be used for political purposes, is nothing new of course. The various secret services have often indulged in the practice. Usually the motivation of the hackers and leakers is soon pushed to the side once the public debate gets hijacked by the overall scandal.
It was fear of repeating the same scenario in 2020 that forced Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft to come up with a shared position, warning that they would be using instruments of combating purposeful attempts to disrupt the election debate, including the so called "hack and leak" operations. In fact, Twitter's policy of blocking hacked materials has been in place since 2018.
As is to be expected, the Republicans responded in full force, as have their most vocal surrogates. And that has made the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to publish a statement: "Our communication around our actions on thenypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable."
Biden's team accuses the NYPost of having withheld critically important elements of the story when they were sought for commentary. Now they have been informed that the leaked letters were provided by Rudolph Giuliani, whose discredited conspiracy theories and links to people involved with the Russian secret services have been well established.
Now less than two weeks before the actual election, the scandal has become news number one around the media. It is virtually impossible to open any outlet without coming across this story. Whether this will ultimately become a hacking operation against the public's perception is still too early to say, but it certainly is yet another red light.
Besides, the danger doesn't end on election day. As the chief of security at Facebook, Alex Stamos says, if an ill-intended player is in possession of damning information against a rival candidate with high prospects for victory, nothing stops them from keeping silent until election day, and then planting the bomb under the brand new administration.
Last Thursday, the NYPost dropped a bombshell by claiming Hunter, Joe Biden's son had tried to extort financial gains from the largest Chinese energy company on behalf of his family.
The investigation of the tabloid is based on data from a leaked MacBook hard-drive that is claimed to have been left at a Delaware PC service office last year, never to be retained again.
The laptop was then seized by the FBI, but the NYP claims the service owner had copied the files, and then they ended up in the hands of none else but one Rudy Giuliani, Trump's staunch supporter and advocate. The tabloid claims they learned about the existence of those files from Steve Bannon, another nice guy who was arrested on charges of defrauding a charity fund that was meant to help build that infamous Mexico wall.
Under a headline saying Biden's Secret Mails, the NYP has placed photos of Hunter and Joe Biden, and published excerpts from the son's correspondence with his father, and with some of his business partners, discussing a possible deal with CEFC China Energy Co.
One of the mails, entitled Expectations, supposedly discusses the distribution of money, company shares and assets, and commitments for possible top positions in a future joint company with the Chinese giant.
The text proposes that "person X" should get 20% of the ownership in that company, while another 10% are to be controlled by the "big guy". The media doesn't specify who Big Guy is. There is another name included, "Jim". Other abbreviations supposedly denote a number of consultants and partners also involved. The proof that the archive truly belonged to Hunter, the NYP says, are a few of his personal photos, also found in the hard-drive.
The publication has sparked a big media problem now. Both Facebook and Twitter have moved to restrict access to the NYP publication. The latter cites a violation of their policy against disseminating hacked documents. The NYP Twitter profile was frozen, and White House speaker Kayleigh McEnnany also complained that she had no access to her profile after she had shared the NYP article.
Now, such restrictive measures were taken by the social networks after they had been made hostage of the dirt war from the 2016 election. Back then, WikiLeaks published huge data archives from stolen mails from the DNC, particularly ones belonging to Hillary Clinton's election campaign chairman John Podesta. The investigation showed that the data had been hacked by employees of the Russian intelligence services as part of their effort to influence the US election process four years ago.
Turning the media into post boxes for damning material that has been obtained illegally, and whose dissemination could be used for political purposes, is nothing new of course. The various secret services have often indulged in the practice. Usually the motivation of the hackers and leakers is soon pushed to the side once the public debate gets hijacked by the overall scandal.
It was fear of repeating the same scenario in 2020 that forced Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft to come up with a shared position, warning that they would be using instruments of combating purposeful attempts to disrupt the election debate, including the so called "hack and leak" operations. In fact, Twitter's policy of blocking hacked materials has been in place since 2018.
As is to be expected, the Republicans responded in full force, as have their most vocal surrogates. And that has made the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to publish a statement: "Our communication around our actions on the
nypost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable."Biden's team accuses the NYPost of having withheld critically important elements of the story when they were sought for commentary. Now they have been informed that the leaked letters were provided by Rudolph Giuliani, whose discredited conspiracy theories and links to people involved with the Russian secret services have been well established.
Now less than two weeks before the actual election, the scandal has become news number one around the media. It is virtually impossible to open any outlet without coming across this story. Whether this will ultimately become a hacking operation against the public's perception is still too early to say, but it certainly is yet another red light.
Besides, the danger doesn't end on election day. As the chief of security at Facebook, Alex Stamos says, if an ill-intended player is in possession of damning information against a rival candidate with high prospects for victory, nothing stops them from keeping silent until election day, and then planting the bomb under the brand new administration.
(no subject)
Date: 21/10/20 19:23 (UTC)https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1316621229751762945.html
It is also worth remembering that Trump was impeached because he tried to fabricate evidence against Biden; or at least get the Ukraine to do so for him.