The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post Reply
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by mister_coffee »

Well whatever they were trying to do, it doesn't exactly look like it worked very well.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by Rideback »

Russian hackers took down Mississippi secretary of state website
https://www.rawstory.com/rissian-hackers-election/
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by Rideback »

Thing is all they have to do is feed Fox, Breitbart, Truth Social and those outlets will launder it for them. The statement from the Chef indicates they're doing it now and from the sounds of reports from Musk on Twitter about the bots, the accounts that FB says it's still having to shutdown it's not as difficult as it sounds.

The Russians can read which seats are tight pretty easily, they don't need Paul Manafort handing over polling to their guy in the CIgar Room, and then all they have to do is 'surgically' (the word the Chef used) target those seats. Just like in '16 when the Russians sent over operatives to learn on the ground, where they covered Arizona pretty extensively, there's been operations in place for decades now.
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by mister_coffee »

Rideback wrote: Tue Nov 08, 2022 1:41 pm No doubt. But then again if they can swing votes to Rep's so they retake Congress then Kevin McCarthy's promise that 'there won't be any more blank checks to Ukraine' is worth engaging the bots.
When you think about it a bit, it probably is pretty hard to do that in 435 separate congressional races and a few dozen Senate races.

You'd have to both come up with a pretty shrewd political analysis on which races were close enough for misinformation to matter very much (e.g. why make up information about whoever runs against Cathy McMorris Rodgers since she is so very likely to win anyhow?). Then you'd have to make up pretty tailored information for each district and the candidates you wanted to harm. That to me seems like a lot of work and harder to do for someone on the other side of the world who probably doesn't speak our language very well. It also seem to me that any attempts to do so would be pretty obvious and pretty easy to expose.

I am also doubtful that any generic "Democrats bad, Republicans good" misinformation (or vice versa) would move the needle very much. At the same time I don't doubt that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and probably a bunch of other countries that do not like us very much would be happy to throw any bombs they could and stir up troubled waters here. It is just that I can't see a very practical way to do it at scale.

This ain't 2016.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by Rideback »

No doubt. But then again if they can swing votes to Rep's so they retake Congress then Kevin McCarthy's promise that 'there won't be any more blank checks to Ukraine' is worth engaging the bots.
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by mister_coffee »

I think the Internet Research Agency and the various GRU hacking groups are a bit busy with the Ukraine war.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by PAL »

Where's James Bond when you need 'em?
Pearl Cherrington
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by Rideback »

American right wing candidates and punditry have learned to launder and weaponize the bot messages. For their base, the bot messages are now, unfortunately, the norm and all the more believable. Pretty sure his ego had something to do with his timing.
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by mister_coffee »

I'd keep in mind that Prigozhin is probably one of the most dangerous people in the world right now. He is also a total snake and I wouldn't trust him if he said the sky was blue. From my point of view he probably was just throwing a bomb at us to see what would happen.

Yeah, the Rushka troll farms are still active -- all you need to do is read the comments sections on youtube and you will quickly realize just how many there are. But I am starting to doubt anyone is paying much attention anymore.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by Rideback »

As the guy who runs the infamous 'bot farms' Putin's 'Chef' has denied this for years. But times have changed and Putin's crowd is scrambling to regain any nod towards relevancy and the power Russia was perceived to own. The Russian bot farm is still and again exceedingly dangerous to the US and by explicitly boasting of their goals everyone should take a heads up.

That he chose to make this statement now is still relevant, it's not an empty boast, just look at the impact on Twitter, Facebook, the media and the Rep candidates who still, to this day, use the Russian disinformation as campaign tools.
just-jim
Posts: 614
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2022 8:24 pm
Contact:

The Russians are coming…..wait, they are here!

Post by just-jim »

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise…

Russians admit interference in US elections.

“The powerful Russian businessman and a close Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted to interfering in US elections on the eve of a midterm vote in which Republicans will seek to take control of Congress and state-wide offices across the country.

“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Prigozhin, who has previously been accused of influencing the outcome of elections across continents, said in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.

“Carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can,” Prigozhin, 61, added.”


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -elections

These are the Russian ‘bot farms’ - their goal is to rile up and anger voters on the right through disinformation.
Other sources have pointed to the same people as influencing the 2016 UK vote on Brexit, where the far right in Britain was clamoring for separation from the EU.
.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests