To answer my own curiosity, is DU confident that they can identify Russian bots,

[TygrBright]

12. The Admins may or may not choose to answer this question.

If they don't, it's very likely because even describing whatever tools they've created for site security could offer unfriendly trolls clues on how to evade our excellent MIRT squad.

"Bots" are probably not much of an issue here as discussion board posting is more complex than social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Trolls and their sockpuppets, OTOH, are a constant issue and very likely some of them do originate outside the US.

MIRT does a reasonable job, and the community has tools to participate in the process of alerting on trolls.

As far as hacking the site itself, after the Election Day hack security was hardened considerably, and I'm fairly sure the Admins alerted any law enforcement authorities they thought might or should be interested in that hack, and have cooperated with any attempts to trace it to a source.

Ongoing security for the site and members' information has been good and continues to evolve as threats evolve. It's one reason I have no problem with being a Star Member.

If you have specific concerns about your own member information, etc., you can ask in the "Ask the Administrators" forum and/or drop a PM to Skinner, Elad, or EarlG.

helpfully,
Bright