The US must make clear that any Russia cyberattack, including disinformation campaigns, will have

[orangecrush]

The US must make clear that any Russia cyberattack, including disinformation campaigns, will have consequences



If the ripples of Russian aggression against Ukraine haven’t reached US soil already, they may soon. As the United States backs Ukraine and its European NATO allies with military and other support, and threatens to impose crippling sanctions on Russia in the event of an invasion of its smaller neighbor, Russia is all but certain to hit back at America the way it knows best: with cyberattacks.

The Department of Homeland Security warned in a bulletin last month that Russia has a “range of offensive cyber tools that it could employ against US networks.”

At one extreme, that range includes malware that can bring down critical electrical and communications systems, with potentially deadly consequences. While there is a strong likelihood Russia will use targeted attacks on critical infrastructure and other systems inside of Ukraine in an effort to destabilize that nation ahead of an incursion, Putin is not likely to take that approach in the United States. Such a move would be seen as a declaration of a war Russia knows it can’t win.


But Russia will almost certainly turn to what has become a signature tool of cyber warfare when it comes to the United States: disinformation campaigns that take advantage of the anything-goes environment of social media and the polarized state of American politics to undercut American policy.

“The kind of opinion-shaping information warfare and misinformation that they are masters at has got to be attractive to them,” said James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So I’m sure they’re thinking of that. How do they put out false news? Will they disrupt American politics in a way that will buy them time and space when it comes to attacking Ukraine?”


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/11/opinion/us-must-make-clear-that-any-russia-cyberattack-including-disinformation-campaigns-will-have-consequences/%3foutputType=amp


Think Canadian style "trucker protests", disruption around state capitols, etc.

They had 4 years of Trump to tear us down, now Putin is going for broke.

[OneBro]

1. I assume Putin knows any secrets entrusted to Trump.

The only hope lies in the fact that Trump’s utter lack of critical thinking skills and limited mental capacity means Trump is incapable of remembering anything beyond the size of the crowd at his last Nazi-R-Us rally.

[Roy Rolling]

2. Trump's Pea-Sized Brain

Putin is smart enough to not rely on Trumps’s brain—that’s why he demanded the documents and cyber access.

Trump is the worst traitor in American history—move over Benedict Arnold.

[orangecrush]

5. He took top secret papers with him

If you or I had a clearance and did that, we'd be sitting in federal prison.

I have no doubt he sold whatever he could get, or used it as leverage to keep his Russian creditors from burying his ass.

[Hortensis]

3. Whenever I see waves of anger and discontent whomped up

here and through other media over some issue, I assume Russia's augmenting whatever domestic anti-Democratic subversives are up to. Though the Kremlin could be driving it directly too. Cheap, extremely effective warfare either way.

Democrats ARE the big enemy they have to destroy in order to win, of course. They've effectively destroyed resistance in the Republican Party and weaponized most of the right against their own nation.

[orangecrush]

6. The virus

And 4 years of Trump weakened this democracy.

It looks to me like this country could easily swing to full autocracy if we fail to elect democrats in the next election cycles.

The misery of the COVID was used as a tool to divide by Russian disinformation.

[Hortensis]

7. Absolutely. Unabelievably, except it's real.

Though I believe both the GOP's refusal to block spread of pandemic disease and the election of a vicious, depraved clown are irrefutable evidence that Republican leaders and large segments of the electorate were already politically subverted well before the 2016 election, to the point of great evil and self destructive irrationality.

People who once prided themselves on being good, caring neighbors, and their brothers' keepers, now insisted on their right to spread killer disease around their own communities -- out of factional spite. And many on the farther left believed Big Lies tailored especially for them that were every bit as viciously despicable and unbelievable as those tailored for the right. All against Democrats, of course, and all requiring enormous betrayal of previous strong principles.

Epidemic disease has not only often been used as a tool to destabilize and overthrow governments, but to increase power and wealth. So when Covid appeared in China it must have looked like a major gift to our RW powers, as well as for Putin's political warfare against many nations. Our electorate's now terrifyingly shaky, and the flow of our wealth to the RW's megadonors increased tremendously, all enabled by the misery and deaths that are still continuing.

[Hortensis]

8. Absolutely. Unabelievably, except it's real.

Though I believe both the GOP's refusal to block spread of pandemic disease and the election of a vicious, depraved clown are irrefutable evidence that Republican leaders and large segments of the electorate were already politically subverted well before the 2016 election, to the point of great evil and self destructive irrationality.

People who once prided themselves on being good, caring neighbors, and their brothers' keepers, now insisted on their right to spread killer disease around their own communities -- out of factional spite. And many on the farther left believed Big Lies tailored especially for them that were every bit as viciously despicable and unbelievable as those tailored for the right. All against Democrats, of course, and all requiring enormous betrayal of previous strong principles.

Epidemic disease has not only often been used as a tool to destabilize and overthrow governments, but to increase power and wealth. So when Covid appeared in China it must have looked like a major gift to our RW powers, as well as for Putin's political warfare against many nations. Our electorate's now terrifyingly shaky, and the flow of our wealth to the RW's megadonors increased tremendously, all enabled by the misery and deaths that are still continuing.

[TomWilm]

4. Because it takes less evidence to start a war ....

... than to convict a shoplifter!

[L. Coyote]

9. Can we send the truckers to Ukraine to defend freedom? Oh wait, they work for Putin.

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