Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by appleflaxen 3464 days ago
Consultant-for-hire: "the propaganda is true; i found evidence"

The claims are not believable on their face, given that it's a security firm hired by the DNC. They describe evidence, but it's hard to independently evaluate that evidence as a neutral third party.

And even if they are true, and Russia did hack the DNC in order to influence the election? Then the american people had more evidence upon which to base their vote.

I am incredibly unhappy with Trump, but the "russian manipulation" cry is meaningless without

1) evidence that the information they propagated was untrue (indeed: it seems most damning precisely because it is true)

or

2) that the russians somehow manipulated the actual mechanics of the vote, so that the tallies ended up being counted incorrectly.

Because if it's just an antagonistic despot publicizing true facts and having the american public weigh those facts? That's called democracy.

Let me reiterate: I'm extremely unhappy with how it played out, but you can't credibly criticize it.

Having said that: somebody (maybe a russian) did hack a computer system. Prosecute them criminally (the same way you would the watergate burglars).

2 comments

Just because something is true doesn't mean that releasing it to the public is good. For instance, there were hacked documents released for some Congressional races that were expected to be close races where Democrats had an edge. These releases included the detailed campaign strategy documents of the Democratic candidates in those races. There was nothing in those releases showing any wrongdoing, or even hinting at any. Just internal planning documents for the campaigns. There was no legitimate public interest in releasing it, except maybe as historical documents after the election.
More information available for the public to make an informed decision seems like it's always a good thing. What's good for Democrats != what's good for the public.
When Comey came out and said it was the Russians trying to influence the election, then this accusation became truth to me. After all, he's been denying this for a while and wrote a rather timely and perhaps inappropriate letter about a week before the election.