Russian charged by US in connection with cyber attacks

Russian charged by US in connection with cyber attacks

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An alleged Russian hacker arrested on Wednesday in Prague has been charged by US authorities in connection with the 2012 cyber attacks on LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring.

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Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin, 29, was arrested by police at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at a hotel in the Czech city.
His identify was unknown until Friday when the US attorney’s office for the Northern District of California announced that a grand jury had indicted Mr Nikulin on multiple counts of computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft and other related charges.
Mr Nikulin remains in the Czech Republic where he will await a court’s decision on whether to extradite him to the US. On Wednesday a spokesman for the Russian embassy was quoted by Interfax, a Russian news service, stating that they would request that he be returned to Russia.
US authorities allege that Mr Nikulin accessed an email account of an employee at LinkedIn and another at Formspring, a social question and answer website, while also gaining access to computers at Dropbox.
Mr Nikulin allegedly stole usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords. According to the indictment, he conspired with three unnamed people. One of the unnamed co-conspirators allegedly offered to sell the Formspring database for €5,500.
LinkedIn initially said that a small number of accounts had been compromised but earlier this year increased the number of members affected to more than 100m. At the time LinkedIn asked its members to update their passwords and add two-step verification to their accounts.
On Wednesday after Mr Nikulin was arrested, LinkedIn said: “Following the 2012 breach of LinkedIn member information, we have remained actively involved with the FBI’s case to pursue those responsible. We are thankful for the hard work and dedication of the FBI in its efforts to locate and capture the parties believed to be responsible for this criminal activity.”
The charges come as tensions between the US and Russia over cyber attacks has escalated. This month Washington accused Moscow of using hackers to interfere with the presidential election, blaming them for attacks on the Democratic National Committee.
US authorities have been under pressure to arrest overseas hackers and extradite them to the US to face allegations and potential jail time in a bid to deter future cyber attacks.
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Major U.S. websites disrupted by cyberattacks

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Websites were temporarily inaccessible to many users in the U.S. on Friday, after a major domain host reported two large attacks on its servers.
Major websites in the U.S. were disrupted repeatedly on Friday, after a major domain host reported two large distributed-denial-of-service attacks on its servers.
Though the initial problems appeared to be resolved in just over two hours, they resumed later in the day.
Users initially reported problems with Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, Reddit, Etsy, SoundCloud, The New York Times, Sony’s PlayStation Network and others.
Dyn, a Domain Name System host that monitors and reroutes internet traffic, said it began experiencing an attack just after 7 a.m. Eastern time Friday that affected mostly users on the East Coast. Around 9:30 a.m., it said in a statement that service had been “restored to normal.”
Just after noon, however, Dyn announced that it was again experiencing an attack, and, once again, users of sites including Twitter and Spotify reported more problems. The new outage appeared to affect West Coast cities as well.
“Our engineers are continuing to work on mitigating this issue,” Dyn said in a statement on its site.
Amazon said on a site showcasing the status of its web services that some of its customers had trouble connecting to endpoints in its Northern Virginia region between 4:30 and 6:11 a.m. Pacific time. A similar problem was seen in its Ireland region, the company said.
Amazon said that the root of the problems laid with an unspecified third-party Domain Name System provider. “We have now applied mitigations to all regions” to prevent similar impacts, Amazon said, adding that during the outage, all the security controls of its cloud-computing service continued to operate normally.
The level of disruption Friday was difficult to gauge, but Dyn provides internet traffic management and optimization services to some of the biggest names on the web. Critically, Dyn provides domain name services, which translate the human-readable addresses such as “twitter.com” into an online route for browsers and applications.
Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at Intel Security, compared an outage at a domain name services company to tearing up a map or turning off GPS before driving to the department store. “It doesn’t matter that the store is fully open or operational if you have no idea how to get there,” he said in a telephone interview.
Distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks are on the rise, said Vince Berk, chief executive of FlowTraq, a network-security company that specializes in detecting and defeating DDoS attacks.
As security experts get better at keeping threats at bay, hackers are increasingly turning to the DDoS attack, which he described as the “crudest form of an attack you can perpetrate.”
A DDoS attack blocks users trying to access a site. If you wanted to slow down business at a bricks-and-mortar post office, for example, you could gather a thousand friends to get in line all at once and buy 100 stamps each. That would prevent other customers who want to mail packages from getting service. This is similar to how a DDoS attack works, Berk said.
To attack a company as large as Dyn, a hacker needs to commandeer a large number of computers and program them to all start sending traffic to Dyn at the same time. By doing this, the hacker will clog up the site with so much “junk traffic” that they cannot serve actual customers, according to a blog post from security expert Brian Krebs, whose own site was the target of a DDoS attack last month.
Companies like Dyn are a “prime target,” Berk said, because of their role in communicating with internet browsers to translate a web address into an IP address — the numeric code that corresponds to a web page. By attacking a company like Dyn, hackers can take down a vast number of websites at once.
Marc Dupuis, a professor at the University of Washington who specializes in cyber security, said that the proliferation of web-connected devices beyond the traditional realm of personal computers can make these attacks more devastating.
Not only tablets and smartphones, but internet-connected cameras and even kitchen appliances can be marshaled for criminal purposes. “Some of these toys for kids have internet connectivity,” he says. “People don’t think about security for these devices.”
For James Norton, the former deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who now teaches on cybersecurity policy at Johns Hopkins University, the incident was an example of how attacks on key junctures in the network can yield massive disruption.
“I think you can see how fragile the internet network actually is,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is monitoring the situation, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday. He said he had no information about who may be behind the disruption.
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How to Win the Cyberwar Against Russia | Foreign Policy - Foreign Policy (blog)

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Foreign Policy (blog)

How to Win the Cyberwar Against Russia | Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy (blog)
How to Win the Cyberwar Against Russia « | Foreign Policy | the Global Magazine of News and Ideas.
Analysis: How to win the cyber war against Russia - Houston ...Houston Chronicle

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Time to get real about Russia cyber war: Max Boot - USA Today - USA TODAY

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USA TODAY

Time to get real about Russia cyber war: Max Boot - USA Today
USA TODAY
Our democracy is under attack by Russia, but almost no one is treating the situation with the gravity it deserves. President Obama is loathe to retaliate. Would-be ...

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Could Obama's Threat of Retaliation against Russia Lead to Cyber War? - Scientific American

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Scientific American

Could Obama's Threat of Retaliation against Russia Lead to Cyber War?
Scientific American
Late last week Obama administration officials used NBC News to send Moscow a cryptic threat: The U.S. government is “contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action” against Russia for allegedly interfering in the upcoming U.S. elections. Anonymous ...
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Sky Views: Behind the US-Russia cyberwar - Sky News

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Sky Views: Behind the US-Russia cyberwar
Sky News
Sky News - First for Breaking News, video, headlines, analysis and top stories from business, politics, entertainment and more in the UK and worldwide.
Hacking charge: US, Russia on the brink of cyber warPakistan Observer

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No, It’s Not Just You. The Internet Is Having Problems.

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Users of Twitter, Netflix and many other sites reported outages on Friday morning, and a major host said it was under attack.

The Wall Street Journal: Denial of service attack affects Amazon, Twitter, others

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A denial of service attack made some websites, including Twitter, and some of Amazon’s cloud services, unreachable for many internet users.
   

Cyber attack hits hundreds of sites

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Websites such as the FT, Twitter, Reddit, eBay and Spotify suffer traffic disruptions

Donald Trump Heckled by New York Elite at Charity Dinner

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Breaking with decades of tradition at the gathering once he took the microphone, Mr. Trump set off on a blistering, grievance-filled performance that translated poorly to the staid setting, stunning many of the well-heeled guests who had filed into the Waldorf Astoria hotel for an uncommon spectacle: an attempted détente in a campaign so caustic that the candidates, less than 24 hours earlier, declined to shake hands on a debate stage.
Relations did not much improve.
Mr. Trump’s set began typically enough. He joked about the size of his hands and Mrs. Clinton’s comparatively small crowds. He even very nearly poked fun at himself — insofar as a zinger about his wife, and her partly plagiarized Republican convention speech, qualifies — when discussing the “biased” news media.
“You want the proof? Michelle Obama gives a speech, and everyone loves it,” Mr. Trump said. “My wife, Melania, gives the exact same speech and people get on her case.”
Some sharper jokes about Mrs. Clinton seemed to edge just to the line.
“Just before taking the dais, Hillary accidentally bumped into me. And she very civilly said, ‘Pardon me,’” Mr. Trump said, as murmurs filled the room. “I very politely replied, ‘Let me talk to you about that after I get into office.’”
Mrs. Clinton, seeming to get the joke before some others, bellowed before the punch line.
But quickly, his remarks took a more menacing turn.
Mr. Trump said Mrs. Clinton was merely “pretending not to hate Catholics,” an allusion to hacked correspondences from Clinton aides that appeared to include messages criticizing Roman Catholic conservatism.
He wondered aloud how someone like Mrs. Clinton — “so corrupt,” he said — could sell herself to the American people. “What’s her pitch?” he asked. “The economy is busted, the government’s corrupt, Washington is failing. Vote for me.”
He fake-griped that “all the jokes were given to her in advance.”
He appeared to disparage the Clinton Foundation’s oft-criticized efforts in Haiti.
“As some of you have noticed, Hillary isn’t laughing as much as the rest of us,” he said.
By then, he had decisively lost the room.
As for Mrs. Clinton, she began with some easy self-deprecation.
“I took a break from my rigorous nap schedule to be here,” she said, adding, “Usually, I charge a lot for speeches like this.”
But she quickly turned to more cutting satire, joking that Mr. Trump was “translating from the original Russian” on his teleprompters and wondering just how President Obama might be able to visit the White House for a reunion of former presidents under a Trump administration.
“How is Barack going to get past the Muslim ban?” she asked.
She also spoke of the Statue of Liberty, recounting how for most Americans, the green lady of freedom represents a shining beacon of hope and a welcome symbol for immigrants arriving on the nation shores. But Mr. Trump, she added with a glint of steel, “looks at the Statue of Liberty and sees a 4” — a not-so-veiled reference to his comments rating the physical appearance of women.
“Maybe a 5 if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair,” she continued, before making an explicit, if subtle, pitch for becoming the nation’s first female president.
“You know, come to think, know what would be a good number for a woman? 45,” she concluded triumphantly.
At the dinner before the remarks, the pair could be seen chatting, at least briefly, seated two seats apart, with only Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, between them. (Perhaps only a man of God could, for a night, soothe a campaign that has included an F.B.I. inquiry, overnight Twitter binges, multiple accusations of sexual misconduct and an international feud between the Republican nominee and Pope Francis).
Before the candidates spoke, Alfred E. Smith IV, the chairman of the dinner, which benefits Catholic charities, seemed to offer a preview of what may await Mr. Trump as he tries to return to New York society life should he not win the White House in November.
“Before the dinner started, Trump went to Hillary and asked, ‘How are you?’” Mr. Smith said, waiting a beat. “She said, ‘I’m fine — now get out of the ladies’ dressing room.’”
Even under the best of circumstances, Mr. Trump is not known for an eagerness to laugh at himself. A veritable roasting at Washington’s annual “nerd prom,” the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner, in 2011 may have hastened — or even catalyzed — his bid for the Oval Office. And now a flagging presidential campaign — most polls place him several percentage points behind Mrs. Clinton nationally — has done little to help.
Then there was the guest list. In addition to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump was surrounded on the dais by assorted adversaries from his political and professional life. Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor who has vocally opposed Mr. Trump’s bid, was perched in the first row, just in front of the candidates. And Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, whose office has opened an investigation into Mr. Trump’s foundation, was positioned a safe distance away in the back.
At least one Trump ally, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, did attend what is, during even typical election seasons, a quintessentially New York event, packed with local political leaders and power brokers.
This year, it so happens that two New Yorkers can also be found at the top of the ballot.
One seemed to have more fun on Thursday than the other. Mr. Trump sat with his arms tightly folded as Mrs. Clinton spoke, a similarly taut smile across his face. But when Mrs. Clinton returned to one his favorite themes — her health — he seemed momentarily buoyed.
Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton said, had chivalrously sent a car to ferry her to the dinner. “Actually, it was a hearse,” she said.
Finally, Mr. Trump laughed with real joy.
Continue reading the main story
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Oh, That War on Cops

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Writing in the Washington Post thirteen months ago, Radley Balko assured his readers that, contrary to widespread belief, there was no “war on cops.” He cited a Rasmussen poll taken the week before that found 58 percent of respondents believed there was indeed such a war while just 27 percent did not. Public opinion was at odds with the truth, Balko wrote, and he had the data to support his position: FBI statistics showed that officer deaths from gunfire and non-fatal assaults on police had been declining for years.  Balko wrote that 2015 was “shaping up to be the second safest year for police ever, after 2013.”
It’s good to be reminded when the actual statistics run counter to public perception. Police work is after all concerned with seeking the truth, and law enforcement is not served when hysteria is fomented by misleading information. That said, what would Balko say about this year? Has the war whose existence he denied last year now begun?
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, 46 police officers have been shot to death in the United States so far this year, a staggering 55 percent increase over the number seen at this time in 2015. Balko would perhaps argue that this is an aberration, a statistical blip on an otherwise downward trend, like a brief rally in a long-term bear market. And maybe it is, but whatever the multi-year trend may be, a 55 percent increase surely bears examination. Even the skeptics of the “war on cops” must admit that there has been a change in attitudes regarding crime and policing over the last several years, a change that became all the more pronounced with the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. Lest we forget, the officer who shot Brown was actingcompletely within the law when he did so. Despite this, the Brown shooting brought the Black Lives Matter movement to prominence, and despite its origins in the poisonous lie of “hands up, don’t shoot,” it continues to shape both perceptions and policy in American policing.
As proof of this, witness how farcical have become the meetings of the Los Angeles Police Commission, where the same small group of BLM activists appear every Tuesday morning toharangue the panel, often in the coarsest of terms, this despite the obvious ideological sympathy the commissioners have for the protesters. It was this same police commission, after all, that found an officer had acted “out of policy” when he shot a woman who aggressively advanced on him while brandishing a knife. Reflecting the commission’s emphasis on “de-escalation,” the panel ruled that the officer should have “re-deployed,” a euphemism for their insistence that he should have run away.
The same blinkered mindset has also taken root in Chicago, where policy changes on police use of force are, according to the Chicago Tribune, “aimed at reducing controversies.” Chicago’s politicians and the Police Department’s command staff are understandably eager to avoid “controversies” that might undermine their comfortable positions, but what price will the city’s cop’s pay for this eagerness? We already have an answer to that question in the form of an officer who was badly injured by a man under the influence of PCP. The officer decided not to use her gun to defend herself, she told Superintendent Eddie Johnson, because the feared a public backlash if she did. On Oct. 5, two officers were flagged down and alerted to a traffic accident that had just occurred on the city’s West Side. The officers stopped to investigate and found that a car had crashed into the front doors of a liquor store. The driver of the car was walking away and ignored the officers’ commands to stop. And here the officers had a decision to make: They could let the man walk away, impound the car, and take a hit-and-run report, thereby avoiding even minimal risk of “controversy,” or they could do their duty and stop him, the better to find out how he had come to drive his car into the liquor store.
Being conscientious and diligent cops, they chose the second option, bringing themselves into contact with one Mr. Parta Huff of Maywood, Illinois. Unknown to the officers was the fact that earlier on that same day, Huff had appeared in court to answer to a charge that he assaulted a police officer in nearby Forest Park last April.  In that incident, an officer saw Huff run a stop sign and attempted to pull him over. Huff drove off but crashed the car and tried to run away. The officer was injured in the altercation that followed.
But again, the Chicago officers were unaware of this history when they tried to contact Huff. And they were also unaware (though it would soon become apparent) that Huff was under the influence of PCP. In the ensuing struggle, three officers were hurt, with the female officer described above suffering a concussion, among other injuries. A firefighter who responded to treat the officer was captured on a police body camera saying, “A couple months ago, you could have shot him,”
The firefighter’s time frame might have been understated by a year or two, but the point remains. Had that officer shot Huff so as to prevent him from bashing her head into the pavement, the headlines would have read, “Cop shoots unarmed black man,” and the drill would have played out in familiar fashion, with protesters shutting down Michigan Avenue and politicians scrambling to avoid “controversy” by disavowing the officer’s act of self-defense. While the laws governing police use of force has gone all but unchanged since the Supreme Court’s Graham v. Connor decision in 1989, much else is different, thanks in no small part to the continuing fraud perpetrated by the Black Lives Matter movement and its fawning sympathizers in the media and its cowardly servants in government.
And if it weren’t bad enough that BLM’s lies have so influenced people outside law enforcement, we now see their effect on people who presumably should know better. On Monday, at the San Diego meeting of the International Association of Police Chiefs, the group’s president, Chief Terrence Cunningham, of the Wellesley, Mass., Police Department, issued an apology “for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color.” Putting aside the noxious concept of inherited guilt, in delivering his apology, Cunningham illustrated the divide between so-called police executives and the rank-and-file officers they purport to lead.
The president of one of the largest police organizations in the United States on Monday, OCT. 17, 2016, apologized for historical mistreatment of minorities, calling it a "dark side of our shared history" that must be acknowledged and overcome. Terrence Cunningham, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said at the group&squot;s annual conference that police have historically been a face of oppression, enforcing laws that ensured legalized discrimination and denial of basic rights. He was not more specific. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat)The president of one of the largest police organizations in the United States on Monday, OCT. 17, 2016, apologized for historical mistreatment of minorities, calling it a "dark side of our shared history" that must be acknowledged and overcome. Terrence Cunningham, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said at the group's annual conference that police have historically been a face of oppression, enforcing laws that ensured legalized discrimination and denial of basic rights. He was not more specific. (AP Photo and caption/Elliot Spagat)
People rise in their respective police departments to the extent they can (or convincingly pretend to) adopt the political views that dominate their local governments, and Chief Cunningham would seem a perfect fit for Wellesley, a prosperous suburb of Boston. A few facts about the town: The black population is 2 percent; the median income in 2014 was $159,615; 82.2 percent of residents over age 25 have at least a bachelor’s degree and 48.5 percent have graduate degrees; and in 2012 the town voted 56 to 41 percent for Obama over Romney. When it comes to crime, the town hasn’t seen a murder in at least 14 years and averages only a handful of robberies and assaults annually. While Chief Cunningham may speak eloquently for his placid little town, he would seem an inapt choice to address issues related to the increasing crime seen in so many of America’s cities.
Although Chief Cunningham made an effort to seem evenhanded by speaking of the thousands of police officers who over the years have sacrificed their lives while doing their duty, he neglected to mention the eight who had been murdered just in the previous two months. (Another was murdered on Wednesday, the fourth killed in California in the last two weeks.) And, since Cunningham is so concerned with policing and its effects on “communities of color,” he might have added some context to his apology by noting that of the 543 cop-killers identified since 2006, 222 of them, or 41 percent, have been black.
We of course will never know if any of the police officers murdered in the last two years died because they hesitated to defend themselves out of fear of controversy. But we now have the word of one Chicago cop who is candid enough to admit she did not shoot a man when she had every legal and moral right to do so. She speaks for lots of cops, not just in Chicago, but all across the country. Surely she will be more circumspect the next time she confronts some uncooperative suspect.
The war on cops is real, but the losers in this war are not the cops themselves, but rather the law-abiding citizens who must live in the areas most affected by crime and most in need of effective policing. When the police fear controversy, the criminals don’t fear the police.
<a href="https://pjmedia.com/blog/oh-that-war-on-cops/" rel="nofollow">https://pjmedia.com/blog/oh-that-war-on-cops/</a>
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Oh, That War on Cops | PJ Media

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According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, 46 police officers have been shot to death in the United States so far this year, a staggering 55 percent increase over the number seen at this time in 2015
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Фигурант «дела Белых» рассказал о передаче взяток

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 Полная лента ПОЛИТ.РУ

Владелец Нововятского лыжного комбината (НЛК) Юрий Зудхаймер утверждает, что самостоятельно обратился в ФСБ из-за требований, которые предъявлял ему экс-глава Кировской области Никита Белых, передает Reuters. В настоящее время бизнесмен является фигурантом дела, возбужденного в отношении бывшего губернатора.
По словам Зудхаймера, комбинат он получил в собственность от его бывшего владельца Альберта Ларицкого, который сначала взял у него в долг 40 млн долларов на модернизацию предприятия, а потом не смог вернуть деньги и в счет погашения кредита отдал НЛК.
Став хозяином лыжного комбината, Зудхаймер узнал, что на предприятии висит задолженность перед Сбербанком в размере 14 млн долларов. Требование вернуть деньги выдвинул ему губернатор Кировской области Никита Белых. Бизнесмен утверждает, что Белых требовал деньги «на выборы» 2014 года взамен на некую помощь НЛК.
Зудхаймер признал, что дважды давал Белых деньги — 200 тысяч евро в 2014 году лично и 50 тысяч евро через посредника в мае 2016 года. После этого, как утверждает владелец НЛК, экс-губернатор вновь требовал денег — 150 тысяч евро «на выборы». Такой суммы у предпринимателя не было, и он пошел здание ФСБ на Лубянке.
Зудхаймер рассказывает, что фсбшники подготовили для него обработанные спецраствором купюры и подробно объяснили, как ему самому не запачкать руки об деньги. Эта взятка и была передана Белых в ресторане в центре Москвы, где агенты ФСБ произвели задержание бывшего чиновника.
«Перед тем, как он взял пакет, я хотел ему сказать — нет, не надо, не бери», — признается Зудхаймер. По его словам, «была секунда», когда он думал остановить Белых — но, тем не менее, передал ему пакет с деньгами.

Чехия создала подразделение для борьбы с российской пропагандой

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Министр внутренних дел Чехии Милан Хованец создал подразделение, которое будет противостоять пропаганде из России, влияющей на общественное мнение в Евросоюзе и странах-членах НАТО.

The Latest: Trump camp blew through $70 million last month - Washington Post

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 Russian Intelligence, organized crime and political interference - Google News


Washington Post

The Latest: Trump camp blew through $70 million last month
Washington Post
The organization, which has been posting stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta, said in a tweet that it has a “surprise in store” for Kaine and Brazile. Kaine ignored a reporter's questions about the tweet following a rally ...
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Two great reads on Trumpism - The Interpreter

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 Trumpism - Google News


Two great reads on Trumpism
The Interpreter
Trump's shocking rise and spectacular fall have been a singular disaster for U.S. politics. Built up in the press as the American Hitler, he was unmasked in the end as a pathetic little prankster who ruined himself, his family and half of America's two ...

Faith in Putinism: A Church-State Symbiosis - Catholic World Report

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 Russia influence in Eastern Europe - Google News


Catholic World Report

Faith in Putinism: A Church-State Symbiosis
Catholic World Report
The drop in church attendance in Europe and in both North and South America add to this view, even though few Russians themselves attend services in the ROC on anything like a regular basis. ... Putinism is now being built reactively, around strongly ...

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Charles Krauthammer: My vote, explained

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 Opinions

The WikiLeaks disclosures make the case against Hillary Clinton even more clear.





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Trump and Obama agree on one thing: Aleppo is a lost cause

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 Global Opinions

The Obama administration's hesitancy to make a move could make Trump's vision of a fallen Aleppo a reality.





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In the debates, Hillary Clinton showed exactly why she should be president 

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Facing Trump’s unpredictable low blows, Clinton stayed steady and substantive.

В ходе битвы за Мосул погиб первый американский военный

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 Lenta.ru : Новости

В ходе начавшейся операции по освобождению иракского Мосула погиб первый американский военнослужащий. Американец находился на месте боев в качестве специалиста по обезвреживанию боеприпасов и помогал курдскому ополчению пешмерга. Он умер от ранений, полученных при взрыве заложенного у дороги фугаса.

Benghazi intel in Clinton 'quid pro quo' email

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Benghazi intel in Clinton 'quid pro quo' email
Benghazi in Clinton 'quid pro quo' email

Cybersecurity experts: Podesta infiltrated by Russian hackers - CBS News

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CBS News

Cybersecurity experts: Podesta infiltrated by Russian hackers
CBS News
Cybersecurity experts confirmed on Thursday that the Gmail account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was infiltrated by the same Russian hackers who targeted other Democratic groups. “Boy, that WikiLeaks has done a job on her, hasn't it?” Trump ...

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Senior marines encouraged junior ranks to engage in 'reefing' game where losers were hit so hard they couldn't sit down for weeks, court hears 

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Donald Trump, spoiled brat in chief 

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 Opinions

His contempt for democracy shows that he needs a timeout.





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Record High: 60% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana

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 Sputnik International

The number of Americans who support the legalization of marijuana has grown to an all-time high of 60%, nearly double the 31% supporting it in 2000.

A New Financial Architecture and - Executive Intelligence Review (EIR)

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 Russian - International "Mafia" - organized crime - Google News


A New Financial Architecture and
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Just a few days ago, the official coordinator for the cooperation with Russia of the German government said on the Second Channel of German TV, that a direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia can no longer be excluded. ... but ...

The Economist посвятил Путину жесткую обложку: соцсети в восторге - Апостроф

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Апостроф

The Economist посвятил Путину жесткую обложку: соцсети в восторге
Апостроф
Критичная статья под названием "Путинизм" о президенте России Владимире Путине вышла на обложке авторитетного журнала The Economist. На обложке изображен затемненный портрет Путина с красными огоньками вместо глаз. Судя по ...

EU Backs Off Threats of Immediate Action Over Aleppo Attacks - Wall Street Journal

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Wall Street Journal

EU Backs Off Threats of Immediate Action Over Aleppo Attacks
Wall Street Journal
BRUSSELS—European Union leaders said early Friday that all options remained available if the Syrian and Russian bombing campaign against the northern Syrian city of Aleppo continues but backed off any threat of immediate action. In a statement agreed ...
Aleppo: Who still lives in this decimated city -- and why?CNN
The Latest: Russia Says Aleppo Escape Corridors Under FireNew York Times
Credible political transition remains 'central issue' in ending horrific Syrian conflict, says UN chiefUN News Centre
Washington Post -Daily Beast -NPR -Reuters
all 1,272 news articles »

What a sting on a regional governor says about how the Kremlin wins elections

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - On a Friday evening in June, German businessman Yuri Zyudheimer and Russian regional governor Nikita Belykh sat down in a private booth in Megu, an upscale Japanese restaurant in central Moscow.
  
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Russia wants to weaken the EU, EU leaders say

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia is trying to weaken the European Union, EU leaders agreed on Thursday, noting they needed to stay the course and remain united in policies towards Moscow.
  

Russia ID's Suspected Hacker, Protest Planned Extradition

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The Russian national accused by American officials of hacking U.S. targets and arrested earlier this month in the Czech capital is 29-year-old Moscow resident Yevgeny Nikulin. Czech authorities this week said the suspect was detained October 5 in downtown Prague in response to an Interpol warrant requested by the United States, and he now faces a Czech extradition hearing, according to RFE/RL's Current Time TV.  Current Time's investigation uncovered Nikulin's Instagram account under the handle "i.tak.soidet," displaying a taste for luxury cars and jewelry and a digital trail that led through Belarus and Poland to the Czech Republic in the weeks before the Prague arrest. WATCH: Czech Police Arrest Russian Accused Of Cybercrimes The Instagram account went private shortly after Current Time's Russian-language report was published October 20. Soon after that, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed Nikulin’s identity for journalists in Moscow.  "The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Prague are actively working with the Czech authorities to prevent the extradition of a Russian citizen to the United States," she added. The detention of Nikulin shows Washington is mounting a global manhunt against Russian citizens, Zakharova said Thursday, Reuters reported. LinkedIn Hack Hours after news emerged of Nikulin's arrest, the professional networking service LinkedIn issued a statement suggesting the development was connected to a 2012 breach of its members' information. In May, LinkedIn acknowledged that intrusion compromised more than 100 million of its users' passwords. No date has been set for Nikulin's extradition hearing, but Czech authorities said the man would remain in custody until that process.  The Russian Embassy in Prague told Current Time that Moscow will be seeking his return to Russia. Moscow, an embassy source said, rejects "the U.S. practice of forcing the entire world to enforce its extraterritorial jurisdiction." Interpol had issued a so-called Red Notice  for the alleged Russian hacker, a designation for "wanted international fugitives."  RFE/RL's Dmitry Treshchanin and Nick Shchetko contributed to this report.

Trump, Putin the Mob, and the Terrorism

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Trump, Putin the Mob, and the Terrorism

Trumpism - Putinism rears its ugly double head. Machismo, authoritarianism, greed, double dealings, criminal connections, and cheap but skillful populism and demagoguery is their common body. The Russian Mafia State and The Underworld International play their "Samson and Delilah games" with the West, using Trump as their "unwitting agent" and "playing him like a fiddle". These are the games of deception, betrayal, domination and conquest.

The similarities in personalities, both general and political, of Trump and Putin, are striking. Theirs is what Theodor Adorno called the "authoritarian personality" ("a personality type that involved the "potentially fascistic individual") or what the Russian criminals call "avtoritet" ("the authority") or "vor-v-zakone" ("the thief-in-law").

Both Trump and Putin possess the same pungent bouquet of personality traits and styles with criminal tendencies and juvenile delinquency at its core: easy and frequent, habitual, artful lying (which they probably could not separate from truth themselves), lifelong skill of camouflage, "pathological narcissism", grandiosity, risk taking (gambling), superficial psychopathic charm, bullishness and brazenness, etc., etc. The difference between them is that Putin is more adept, skillful and experienced in politico-criminal matters, which would allow him to invisibly outsmart and play his bromance buddy "like a fiddle".

Trump-Samson destroyed the GOP, singlehandedly, alarmingly, tragically, destructively and self-destructively, acting not only as an "unwitting agent" but also as an unwitting and destructive Trojan, who burrowed his way into the country's social and political life and delivered the party which adopted him, blood drained, confused and incapacitated,on a silver platter to its traditional geopolitical foreign opponents. Very much in the style of the "Fancy Bears", his Russian cyber-patrons. 

The Republican party will be reborn from this crisis and this bitter lesson. But Trump will not be able to destroy the country. This is the consolation. And with all this, he still is pretty much "unwitting" and still is unaware of the "inner workings" of not Russia onlybut, apparently his own. 

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing!" 

Mother Russia responds: "O.K., sunny, I've heard you; we'll do. We will do anything to get you elected, the whole world knows this. Don't you ever doubt me, my boy, yeah! Didn't I find a good new wife for you? And don't worry about the costs either, we will put it on your credit account, you can pay it back later, at our convenience... Because you are my kind!" 

"Finally! I have nothing to lose except my capitalist GOP shackles! This is my last and resolute battle! The Oligarchs of the World, unite! Putin, if you hear me, leak, leak, leak! Leak more! Right on their heads! And keep whispering your sweet Melania somethings into my ears at night (just like this mantra: "Oh, wouldn't it be nice to get along with Russia, Trump-ik?"), it is like the two of them have merged into The One. It's so erotic, who needs to grab pussies...
"The iconic intensely aggressive style, for which Trump would become world renown, began in his youth. By the age of 13, he became a bit more than his parents could handle. They determined the best avenue for the young Donald was to send him to military school. So, off he was shipped to the college preparatory, military style boarding school of the New York Military Academy (NYMA)."

Did young Donald perceive his "shipping off" to military school ("shape up or ship out") as an act of betrayal by his parents? Did it start the never ending cycles of rage and the desire for revenge? What role did this circumstance play in the formation of his adult character? Did it contribute into his deeply felt ambivalence about the rules, authority, and power? Are these feelings of ambivalence and rage the sources of his potential capacity for betrayal, which alarmed so many experienced people who declared him the present and the future danger to National Security

“When I look at myselfin the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same,” the 70-year-old presumptive Republican nominee once told a biographer. “The temperament is not that different.”
At the same time, his adaptive capacity for change (the ability to be "reformed", among other factors, by the political-military establishment), has to be assessed also. His hypothetical need for this reform might also be viewed as the maladaptive psychological replay ("repetition compulsion") of the old drama. It probably was one of the key moments in his early and later life history. 

The present and future historians and political scientists will try to analyze and understand the 2016 Presidential Elections in depth. It looks like the some of the major contributing factors, among others, of GOP looming defeat, are the "technical issues": Trump's lack of the personal and political maturity and professionalism, and his campaign managers' lack of the political acumen, in comparison with the much better prepared, experienced and strategically adept Democratic party operatives, in addition to the substantive issues: the nature and character of the political appeals of the candidates and the structures of their respective electorates. 

Now Trump looks more like Laocoon, tied up in painful and torturing knots by the serpents of truth that he himself has unleashed. The defeat looks inevitable and well deserved.


Both Trump's and Putin's connections with organized crimeare well documented

"Security Analysts Issue Dire Warning: Trump Is The ‘Manchurian Candidate’ Of The Russian Mafia... The stunning article reveals that Trump’s connections inside Russia go far deeper than what has been discussed in the mainstream media to date, and along a much darker path."
"Putin’s power is founded on his links to organised crime. Putin has a close circle of criminal oligarchs at his disposal and has spent his career cultivating this circle."
"The Republican candidate’s links to Russia are a mix of bling, business and bluster spanning 30 years. The FT has compiled this account from a variety of sources, tracing Trump's fascination for Russia from its beginnings in Soviet times, through the Putin era to the US presidential campaign." 

How should the future President deal with Russia?
"There will be no ‘reset’ with Russia"
"Russia is now a threat. The U.S. should treat it like one". 
"The best answer to Russian aggression is containment". 
On the somewhat deeper level, the question is, how to deal with the powerful and hidden forces that are behind the "mafia state", and I venture a guess. 

Destroy or at least control the Russian - International "Mafia" - organised crime, in which Russia plays now a major role, and with which the Russian Intelligence services are most inextricably linked and intertwined, and use them as a conduit, operational tools and means of subversive activity, (hypothetically) from terrorism to mass shootingswar on police, and other "active measures" and "special operations", to covert and overt political interference, that we know and do not know aboutand you will solve at least half of the problem. This is the area with which law enforcement is the most familiar with and could be potentially most successful, in comparison with the direct counterintelligence work, which is complex, intricate, often operates outside the official realm of law enforcement, and should be left to the highly specialized and trained security services. 

What are the roots of this phenomenon of "authoritarianism", descending historically to the times immemorial, from ancient Greek tyrants, to more recently, Hitlerism and Stalinism, among many other historical figures and examples, large and small?
Its association with criminality, in many aspects and respects, seems to be logical; it is a crime to deny and suppress the personal liberties of others.

Just by the way, Stalin was a direct product of the criminal world, in which he grew up, matured and acquired his skills which he later used in his political struggles, the main among them, the old familiar "divide and conquer". This circumstance shaped the Soviet Union and the history of post-WW2 world.

What are the psychological and social underpinnings of this phenomenon of authoritarianism, and what are their vicissitudes? 
Why does this political mechanism work so well in the countries like Russia, where Trump and Putin are supported by the majority, and why, hopefully, it will never work in America? 
What are the political immunity factors? 
Free speech, free press, pluralism, healthy intellectual honesty and civic duty. 

Michael Novakhov

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Pro-Clinton national security experts: Trump almost definitely a Putin puppet

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Отток капитала из России в январе-сентябре составил $9,6 млрд

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mikenova shared this story from  Russia News Review.

 "Ведомости". Ежедневная деловая газета

Отток капитала из России по итогам января - сентября 2016 г. составил всего $9,6 млрд, что говорит о завершении периода адаптации экономики. Об этом заявил замминистра финансов Рос сии Максим Орешкин на конференции в РАНХиГС.

Vladimir Putin's armed fleet heads for Dover as Russia squares up to Royal Navy vessels - Daily Mail

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BBC News

Vladimir Putin's armed fleet heads for Dover as Russia squares up to Royal Navy vessels
Daily Mail
The HMS Richmond has reported the Russian fleet is heading south towards the Dover strait while several NATO vessels are being deployed to keep the flotilla under surveillance. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin has recalled two corvettes from the Mediterranean ...
UK warships shadowing Russian naval task forceBBC News
UK sends warships to shadow Russian naval task forceBBC News
Russia vs NATO 2016: UK, Russia Strengthen Naval Base In English ChannelMorning Ledger
Metro -The Guardian -Telegraph.co.uk
all 74 news articles »
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US Might Take Retaliatory Action Against Russian Cyber Attacks 

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Joseph Biden claimed on NBC that the U.S. was making preparations to strike back at Russia for attempting to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

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