Talk:Cyberwarfare by Russia

A comment

• An example of discussion at the Internet presumably involving members of a "web brigade". They react to a statement by Andrei Piontkovsky. There is nothing like that in English language blogs. However one need to know Russian to understand their slander. After reading all that, no sane person would participate in the blog.Biophys (talk) 22:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Sory to say but when I read some of you articles/comments like "Web brigades" or "2008 South Ossetia war" I also think that some no sane users would participate in Wikipedia.

So what is it I disagree with this comment.

1. There is nothing like that in English language blogs. - May be. But then what. That only means that those theoretic Web Brig-s didn't extended their activity on Western web sites. Which is strange.

2. There is nothing like that in English language blogs. - Another problem with this statemnt is that, while I'm not visiting English language blogs, I definetly see such impolite or agressive statements on YouTube. And many of those are made by Western and "prodemocratic" users. Like "You fucking arabs, we gonna screw you in Iraq", many of them contains hatred toward Russia, Vladimir Putin. And so on. So in this case it would be assumed those coments where done just by rough users and not some "CIA Web brigades". But when it comes to Russia it is credited to FSB and not such rough Russian users.

3. Both sides where using those bad words. So thats barrely an evidence of web brigades.

4. Be honest - it's just nobody care. Site admin can ban those ppls easyly and delete their offtopic posts, but he dind't done so. May be because FSB tell him not to do so :-))).--Oleg Str (talk) 09:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested move

I think this article resembles a lot an earlier version of Web brigades. Some of the text here is almost identical. Also, this article suffers from the same problems that plaqued Web brigades before it was improved by many different users. Starting from the name of the article: it should be "ALLEGED Internet operations by Russian secret police", since the existence of such operations is disputed. Creating an article with the current name could be seen as an attempt to give credibility to the existence of such operations. If I created an article called "Organization of the September 11 attacks by the Bush adminstration", that title would never be accepted by other editors. Offliner (talk) 15:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Opposed. No, some of these materials are widely accepted and others are a matter of fact (for example, persecution of "cyber-dissidents). Some of them are alleged, and that can be mentioned in the article, as usual.Biophys (talk) 16:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Please note that creation of a new article does not require a preliminary consensus, but renaming does require the consensus. This should be debated here, at this article talk page, not somewhere else.Biophys (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

• If you want to move this article, please debate it here, wait for consensus and finally ask at "suggested moves" noticeboard. Thanks.Biophys (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. Both articles are about the same fringe theory. POV-pushing editors are just trying to create miriads of BS articles about "Kremlin spying on us all" to make newcomers think it's a well-known fact.FeelSunny (talk) 17:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Wow

"he often sent his servicemen to branches of New York Public Library where they got access to the Internet without anyone knowing their identity. They placed propaganda and disinformation to various web sites and sent it in e-mails to US broadcasters"

Biophys, don't you understand yourself what bitter idiotism is this? Please, don't discredit your, no doubts, good views. ellol (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is precisely what source tells. What's the problem?Biophys (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no problem. If it's sourced, it can be published. But it's sheer idiotism! And it's clear for everyone who has a sense of reality. ellol (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this needs more research. He said some publications on Chechnya were fabricated and placed in the internet, and I have indeed seen a strange source that looks "scholar" but gives numbers that contradict each other; some of them are taken from a letter by Kobulov to Beria (without actually referring to the letter).Biophys (talk) 19:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 02:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Internet operations by Russian secret police → Allegations of internet operations by Russian secret police — There is no evidence that there are Russian secret police operating on the internet in Russia as described by the article. As such, it is basically a conspiracy theory. WP:REDFLAG states that extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources, and the ramblings of a few individuals are not extraordinary sources. — Russavia ^Dialogue 00:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. I agree with Russavia. See my comments above. Offliner (talk) 00:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. A lot of statements in this article are a matter of fact or have never been disputed. The statments/information by Tretiakov and Soldatov were never disputed. The use of SORM is a matter of fact. The indentification and persecution of cyber-dissidents (now deleted for no reason) is a matter of fact, and so on.Biophys (talk) 00:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are taliking about the article Cyber-dissident is was not deleted just mistyped. --76.71.212.68 (talk) 02:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

But note that you don't discuss SORM, something that's really worth discussing. Despite there are lots of information published on it in Russia's professional magazines. ellol (talk) 10:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support The article is too much noise out of thin air. ellol (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:WEASEL in the lead is bad enough, why escalate the weaseling to the title? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 19:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Because it is POV. --Russavia ^Dialogue 05:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - there will always be someone to deny some claim, but that doesn't mean we need to give them UNDUE consideration, particularly in the titles we select. - Biruitorul ^Talk 19:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. Some Russian nutcase dribbles some rubbish about using a public library, but gives not a single detail of what websites. This is the type of "claim" made in the article, and as such there is zero evidence that there are internet operations by Russian secret police as written in the article. They are ALL allegations. --Russavia ^Dialogue 21:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

If so, why not go directly to AfD? - Biruitorul ^Talk 23:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support since there seems to be no open archives ore whistle blowers (looking at what happened to Alexander Litvinenko it is not likely to think those will come out soon though). — Mariah-Yulia (talk) 22:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Suggested merger

If you want to merge this article with Web brigades please explain your position, debate and vote. Please stop unilateral deletions of the entire article. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 03:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Two separate subjects as I noted in Russavia's AfD nomination. One is about official action (this), one is not (web brigades) regardless of "official" assistance or not. PetersV       TALK 03:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Move

On the afd most people agree that the name is POV as not all the alleged operations were supposedly work of the police. I have also added alleged as for many operations the direct involvement of the government is a matter of controversy. Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• The move was never officially debated. There are many different opinions. Let's debate and vote.

Oppose. Biophys (talk) 00:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Support as per Alex. Also notice that Biophys in expecting people to engage in a debating society with him on the talk page, he has then gone and done this edit in order to prevent it being moved from this title. I think an explanation on that is warranted Biophys. --Russavia ^Dialogue 05:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose move. No better title has been proposed on the talkpage yet. Then again, I opposed it above already, didn't I? Oh, and WP:WEASEL, too. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 10:12, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose move. Well documented incidents, if editors feel "alleged" is required for specific incidents as being "controversial", well then, that's already taken care of. PetersV       TALK 14:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Support. There's no proof of any "internet operations" - they are just allegations. Offliner (talk) 14:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Support the move. No evidence. It's silly and idiotic. If you want to discuss FSB activities in the Internet, you should have started with technical specifications and legal position of the SORM. Rather than that there are tales by the former FSB people now living abroad, who might have simply invented the story to get the political asilym. The article is absolutely inbearable in view of human sanity. ellol (talk) 09:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Would you support moving the article on Chupacabra to Allegations of Chupacabra sightings? (Background: there's no credible evidene of Chupacabra's existence.) Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 09:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Digwuren, you've pointed it out correctly. There's no evidence of Chupacabra's existence. If you initiate the discussion on the move, and care to inform me, I'll support the move. ellol (talk) 16:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. It is not clear what name is actually being proposed here. Martintg (talk) 11:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Since this is still being discussed

Could we show the courtesy of not moving until the discussion is done? PetersV       TALK 22:50, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed section of so-called cyber-dissidents

I have removed this section, as it has nothing to do with internet operations by Russian secret police. It's inclusion in the article is improper synthesis. --Russavia ^Dialogue 00:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

These people's activities on the Internet were being monitored, no? I just see a two pronged approach on the part of officials: put out your version of information, prevent versions you disagree with. That is hardly "synthesis," that is simply and properly describing good propaganda information management. PetersV       TALK 14:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Move by copy and paste

There was no consensus to move this page. But User:ellol still moved it by copy and paste. Acting in this manner is against WP:Consensus. Please do not do it again. Thank you.Biophys (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, Biophys, you made the edit I mentioned above BEFORE ellol did what he did. It doesn't explain why you edit a page, without adding or removing anything, and it looks to me that you did it in order to prevent a page move, and I can say that this is NOT the first time you have done that. And yes, ellol don't do copy and paste moves, as they don't comply with GFDL otherwise it seems. --Russavia ^Dialogue 02:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's stay on the subject. Yes, ellol moved this article by copy and paste from another article as obvious from the diff provided by me.Biophys (talk) 02:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's not avoid the question that was asked of you which also have a diff provided. Why did you edit the other article, thereby preventing it to be moved? --Russavia ^Dialogue 02:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

One should debate the move prior to making it. Any technical matters can be easily resolved by an uninvolved administrator, and I believe that Alex was involved.Biophys (talk) 16:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That is not an answer to the question raised. Why did you, Biophys, make an unnecessary edit to the redirect page? (Igny (talk) 17:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC))

Please note that Alex moved this article to Alleged internet operations by Russian government, not the title he suggested during deletion discussion (Internet operations by Russian government).Biophys (talk) 18:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Just answer the question, Biophys. People are losing their good faith in your because of your dishonest editing tactics, and the least you can do is answer the question and explain your actions. Offliner (talk) 18:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry man, but I am not going to discuss anyone's behavior with you any more. Not on my talk page, and not at article talk pages. There are other forums for that.Biophys (talk) 18:33, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I will drop this matter as insignificant for now. However, consider yourself warned, Biophys. If you ever repeat this tactic in future, I will personally go over all of your edits to compile all the cases of such unwarranted edits of the redirect pages and will bring it up at appropriate notice board where you would have to explain these edits. (Igny (talk) 18:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC))

On an unrelated issue. Was it appropriate for some anon to close the discussion/poll just 6 days after it started? (Igny (talk) 18:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC))

Move against consensus

Contrary to lack of consensus (see above), this article was moved. This will be reverted.Biophys (talk) 20:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletions of sourced and relevant texts

What undue weight and why are you talking about? Please explain. Actually, you just reverted all my edits: [1].Biophys (talk) 02:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

We cannot base 50% of this article on Polyanskaya's claims. Also, your edits messed up the attributions as I explained in my edit summary. Offliner (talk) 02:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

First of all, you removed a lot of materials (see the diff), not only materials from Polynaskaya article. Second, she and others made an important publication on this subject: this article describes Russian internet teams in a much greater detail than any other publications. Hence, more text from there. You can add alternative views if you do not like it, and in fact such views are currently present in the article.Biophys (talk) 02:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

And you call this improvement of the article? Please explain what's the problem. This is all relevant and sourced.Biophys (talk) 04:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you please stop the reverts and explain what's the problem?Biophys (talk) 00:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at my edit summaries, I have explained my edits there. What part of them do you not understand? Offliner (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• You deleted five large segments of sourced text[2]. You must justify why. To start from something, let's consider these two segments. Why did you delete them? Biophys (talk) 00:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Agents in wikipedia

A number of publications suggested that intelligence agents may have infiltrated Wikipedia to remove undesirable information and insert disinformation . According to publication in Russian computer weekly Computerra, anonymous editors have always "corrected" and continue "correcting" articles of Russian Wikipedia in the interests of special services, although "this is nothing special since everyone knows about the special place of the secret services in the structure of Russian state"

The publication in Computerra tells about possible activity of Russian agents in wikipedia (mostly Russian Wikipedia). Please stop removing this.Biophys (talk) 17:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

In popular culture

The alleged FSB activities on the Internet have been described in the short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer Grigory Svirsky, who was interested in the moral aspects of their work. He wrote:

"It seems that offending, betraying, or even "murdering" people in the virtual space is easy. This is like killing an enemy in a video game: one does not see a disfigured body or the eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, the human soul lives by its own basic laws that force it to pay the price for the virtual crime in his real life".

Russian agents in Polish web sites

According to claims of unnamed "Polish experts on Russian affairs", reported by the Polish newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny in 2005, at least a dozen active Russian agents work in Poland, also investigating the Polish Internet. The source also claims that the agents scrutinize Polish websites (like those supporting Belarusian opposition), and also perform such actions, as—for instance—contributing to Internet forums on large portals (like Gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, WP.pl). Labeled as Polish Internet users, they incite anti-Semitic or anti-Ukrainian discussions or disavow articles published on the web, according to the source.[29]

This text is obviously about Russian state agents who work in the internet. Please stop mass deletions of relevant and sourced texts. If you continue, I will have to ask 3rd opinions at RfC and perhaps at other noticeboards.Biophys (talk) 17:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I cannot find any linking of the event with "Russian secret police" in the source. Offliner (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The statement made is a secondary source, referring to an anonymous primary source. Due to anonymity of the primary source, the statement can't be verified and its reliability can't be checked. ellol (talk) 18:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all, Offliner also removed another segment. Why? Would you please restore it? Text about Polish sites describes "Russian agents" (hence the security services). This is a common practice by journalists to refer to anonymous sources, such as unnamed governmental officials. Tygodnik Powszechny qualifies as WP:RS. If you think it does not, please ask at WP:RS noticeboard.Biophys (talk) 18:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The primary source used by Tygodnik Powszechny is anonymous, and thus the information is unverifiable and unreliable. The Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, i.e. it must be a reliable tertiary source. But the secondary source this fragment relies upon is unverifiable, because it's based on the anomymous primary source. That's why I suggest the information shouldn't be treated as reliable. ellol (talk)

Wrong. Deep Throat was an anonymous primary source in Watergate, and turned out to be entirely verifiable.

All that happens when a newspaper uses an anonymous source is that the newspaper takes responsibility. The reliability of the story is to be estimated based on reputation of the newspaper combined with what the newspaper says about the anonymous source's reliability. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 20:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Digwuren, you are an established editor, why do you lie? I'm taking a pro-Russia side, but I do not lie, unlike what you did. ellol (talk) 20:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me for not knowing the protocol. I didn't know the standard greeting in these parts of Wikipedia involves asking why you haven't stopped beating your wife yet. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 20:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You have attacked yourselves when you lied. Don't lie, and you won't feel ashamed. ellol (talk) 20:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

A lot of funny conspiracy theories are going around regarding pecularities of Russian national interests. Some of them are rather hard to believe. But the plausibility of Internet brigades is significantly reinforced by the fact that a number of editors with well-known Russian connections keep attacking an article casting light onto the Internet brigades. If the Internet brigades' story were just an old wives' tale, it certainly wouldn't deserve such an attention, and instead of removing content from here, those people would actually watch out for this kind of vandalism, so it would be reverted a bit faster than in three hours' time. I guess Internet brigades' coverup is more important than ensuring the quality of an article about Russian economy. Very sad. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 20:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Another one: [3]. This one stood for about six hours. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 20:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

These texts that is content were usually not sourced and not encyclopedic. Zezen (talk) 12:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Irrelevant section

I have removed the following Agents in wikipedia section:

A number of publications suggested that the US Central Intelligence Agency may have infiltrated Wikipedia to remove undesirable information and insert disinformation. According to a publication in Russian computer weekly Computerra, anonymous editors have always "corrected" and continue "correcting" articles of English wikipedia in the interests of English special services. Involvement of Russian security services in similar activities is likely to happen, although "this is not even interesting — everyone knows perfectly well that security bodies have a special place in structure of our [Russian] state" </nowiki>

The only last sentence is marginally related to the topic of the article. The section might be inserted elsewhere, e.g. Internet_operations_by CIA or whatever Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree.Biophys (talk) 19:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

References

Merge

See Talk:Web_brigades#Merge._again. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:52, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Unilateral moves

There were several discussions of renaming/moves above. None of them produced consensus. So, please stop renaming this article from the original title. I am going to move it back to the original title.Biophys (talk) 19:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You should discuss it here and wait for consensus prior to making unilateral moves again.Biophys (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Please, provide evidence that 1) Russian "secret police" exists, 2) Russia performs Internet operations, and I will agree to your proposed title. Regards, ellol (talk) 19:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

No, this is not a "proposed title", this is an original title. We had several discussions of renaming, and none of them produced consensus. If you agree to restore old name per WP:Consensus policy, we start discussion. If new name selected after the discussion per consensus, we will rename/move it accordingly.Biophys (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Why are you ignoring my question, Biophys? I would like to view the sources which prove the topic. Regards, ellol (talk) 20:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I want to make sure that you agree to follow policies, because otherwise the discussion does not make any sense.Biophys (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, again, why are you ignoring my question? ellol (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

One can easily propose alternative and possibly better titles, such as Internet warfare by Russian state, but this should be orderly debated and decided instead of making unilateral moves. Agree?Biophys (talk) 20:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably the best shot (along the line of compromise) would be Cyberwarfare by Russian state. We have article Cyberwarfare, and this is the closest thing. This is not allegations, but a real thing. If we had "Allegations of cyberwarfare" instead of Cyberwarfare, that would be strange, is not it?Biophys (talk) 00:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You must have forgot that WP is not about The Truth, but about reliable sources. We don't really care what you think about the Russian state. Please stop making unilateral moves and faking consensus. This is not watched 24/7, so if someone doesn't reply in 2 hours, that doesn't mean everyone agrees with you.Anonimu (talk) 06:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What title do you suggest and why? Yes, there was no consensus to move, and that's precisely the point. The article was unilaterally moved from its original title; therefore I first tried to move to original title.Biophys (talk) 15:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

My changes

I made a number of changes as follows. First, I made some changes per discussions above, such as one suggested by Alex Bakharev. Second, I checked everythin for consistency with sources. If something is still inconsistent, please explain what is it. Third, I removed a couple of segments that provide opinion pieces by non-notable people (we do not even have articles about them). If there are objections, let's discuss. What is it?Biophys (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, your edit, whatever good it might be in other respects, has at least one severe drawback. It misinterprets a source:

While it's stated "According to a publication in Russian computer weekly Computerra, the involvement of Russian security services in such activities, especially in Russian wikipedia, almost certainly takes place, although "this is not even interesting — everyone knows perfectly well that security bodies have a special place in structure of our [Russian] state" [2]"

In fact, that article only says: "О том, как анонимные редакторы, прикрывшись псевдонимами суровых вики-администраторов вроде SlimVirgin, правили и продолжают править англоязычные статьи народной энциклопедии в интересах англо-американских спецслужб, подробно рассказывалось в прошлом году ("КТ" #703, "Шпионы в стране Википедия"). Тем же самым наверняка занимаются и российские спецслужбы в русском сегменте Википедии, но демонстрировать это неинтересно - все и так прекрасно знают, что органы безопасности занимают особое место в структуре нашего государства (или, скажем, Китая, к которому мы в этом отношении куда ближе, чем к Америке или Западной Европе)."

It is: "We have written in detail how anonymous editors under cover of pen-names of serious Wiki-administrators like SlimVirgin edit and continue to edit English language articles of people's encyclopedia in interests of English-American security services the last year (link). Likely, Russian security services are engaged in the same sort of activities in Russian Wikipedia, but it's not interesting to prove that -- everybody knows clearly that security services take a special place in the structure of our government (or, say, China, who we are closer to in that respect than to e.g. U.S. or Western Europe)."

Don't you think that there's like some nuance lost in your translation? Best regards, and thanks for your hard labour, ellol (talk) 20:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

"Тем же самым наверняка занимаются и российские спецслужбы в русском сегменте Википедии, но демонстрировать это неинтересно - все и так прекрасно знают, что органы безопасности занимают особое место в структуре нашего государства".

This is fully consistent with my text. Of course we may ask third opinion, but you have to stop blind reverts to allow normal editorial work towards consensus. OK?Biophys (talk) 20:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, I just can't agree, that "но демонстрировать это неинтересно" can be translated as "this is not even interesting". But I can agree that it can be translated as "it's not interesting to show that", "it's not interesting to prove that". Yet, the piece is not consistent without referring to the activity of the English-American security services as a proven fact. That was the point of that piece, and removing it is twisting the context. Regards, ellol (talk) 20:33, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Please, stop referring to my edits as blind reverts. I disagree with that wording. Regards, ellol (talk) 20:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Why? Here it is. Biophys (talk) 20:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I can propose how this passage could sound: "According to a publication in Russian computer weekly Computerra, Russian security services are likely involved in editing Russian Wikipedia, similarly to the way English-American security services are editing the English Wikipedia, although "this is not even interesting to prove — everyone knows clearly that security bodies take a special place in structure of our [Russian] state" ellol (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would agree, but this only make sense if you stop blind reverts. Note that my last edit was not a revert to any previous version.Biophys (talk) 20:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, I understand that I might be a perfectionist and that's my bias, but I can't do nothing with that. I just can't stand looking how you are making changes which are so imperfect! The best way we could do well would be to introduce changes slowly, one piece at a time, on due discussion, and everything would go fine without nerves. ellol (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I did just that with you yesterday in Russian apartment bombings. The result? You simply reverted everything we agreed about.Biophys (talk) 20:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Biophys, where are you hurrying to? There's a plethora of time to discuss everything and to make all the necessary changes. I reverted your edit, because you made changes into the introduction which weren't discussed. Besides, I only showed some problems with your edits, and I am repeating this for the fourth time, I guess. Regards, ellol (talk) 20:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Besides, not all contributors might be able to stand your overwhelming rhytme of work, to track all proposals and changes. It is very hard even for a MIPT graduate like me. ellol (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If I am annoying you (I guess I am), allow other people to participate as well, so you won't have to deal only with me. I'm sure it would only help to improve the Wikipedia quality. ellol (talk) 21:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Back to the phrase proposed by you. Here, I must agree with Alex: CIA does not belong to this article. Other than that, everything is fine.Biophys (talk) 00:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit war

Please stop the edit war. I have reverted back the article to its longstanding stable version. Discuss before making any more blind revert. --Defender of torch (talk) 16:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

POV edit

I strongly disagree with this POV-pushing edit. First, the accusation of cyber warfare is made by multiple independent reliable sources, so it is a fact, not claim, per WP:CLAIM. And I object addition of Category:Conspiracy theories in this article. It is not supported by any neutral third party source that it is conspiracy theory or it is not a dominant view that it is a conspiracy theory. --Defender of torch (talk) 17:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, there is a group of editors who constantly declare everything they do not like a "conspiracy theory", no matter that sources tell something different. So far, I saw only one source (the article by Yusupovsky) that claims Russian teams of political bloggers rather than internet warfare in general to be a conspiracy theory.Biophys (talk) 18:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The only really reliable sources (per WP:RS) in this article either say there's no proof of such involvement by the Russian state or that there's a possibility that wasn't confirmed to this date. Please don't transform WP in a political soapbox. Also, cats are for navigational purposes, and the English language phrase best describing the subject is indeed "conspiracy theory", even if no source calls so the topic in its integrity (of course, this is mainly because the article is indeed just a WP-compiled original synthesis, a wiki-op-ed).Anonimu (talk) 19:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You only support what I said. This page currently quotes 28 WP:RS sources, only one of which calls web brigades (rather than internet warfare in general!) to be a "conspiracy theory". And you still insist it should be called "conspiracy".Biophys (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Another one [4]. How about renaming Cyberwarfare to Allegations of Cyberwarfare?Biophys (talk) 21:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me help you with sources

See this

First story.

...The most effective information, however, was not pro-Chechen, but anti-Russian. Digital images of bloody corpses served to turn public opinion against perceived Russian military excesses. In 1999, just as Kremlin officials were denying an incident in which a Chechen bus was attacked and many passengers killed, images of the incident appeared on the web.6 As technology progressed, internet surfers watched streaming videos of favorable Chechen military activity, such as ambushes on Russian military convoys.7

The Russian government admitted the need to improve its tactics in cyberspace. In 1999, Vladimir Putin, then Russia's Prime Minister, stated that “we surrendered this terrain some time ago ... but now we are entering the game again.” Moscow sought the help of the West in shutting down the important pro-Chechen kavkaz.org website, and “the introduction of centralized military censorship regarding the war in the North Caucasus” was announced.8

During the second Chechen war (1999-2000), Russian officials were accused of escalating the cyber conflict, by hacking into Chechen websites. The timing and sophistication of at least some of the attacks suggested nation state involvement. For example, kavkaz.org (hosted in the U.S.) was reportedly knocked offline simultaneous to the storming by Russian special forces of a Moscow theater under siege by Chechen terrorists.9

Second story

On April 26, 2007, the Estonian government moved a Soviet World War II memorial out of the center of its capital, Tallinn, in a move that inflamed public opinion both in Russia and among Estonia's Russian minority population.

Beginning on April 27, Estonian government, law enforcement, banking, media, and internet infrastructure endured three weeks of cyber attacks, whose impact still generates immense interest from governments around the world.

Because Estonians conduct over 98 percent of their banking online, the impact of multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, that severed all communications to the country's two largest banks for up to two hours and rendered international services partially unavailable for days at a time, is obvious.

Less widely discussed, but likely of greater consequence – both to national security planners and to computer network defense personnel – were the internet infrastructure (router) attacks on one of the Estonian government's ISPs, which are said to have disrupted government communications for at least a “short” period of time.

On the propaganda front, a hacker defaced the Estonian Prime Minister's political party website on April 27, changing the homepage text to a fabricated government apology for having moved the statue, along with a promise to move it back to its original location.25

Diplomatic interest in this cyber attack was high in part due to the possible reinterpretation of NATO's Article 5, which states that “an armed attack against one [Alliance member] “shall be considered an attack against them all.”26 Article 5 has been invoked only once, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Potentially, it could one day be interpreted to encompass cyber attacks as well.

More refs

Goble, Paul. “Russia: Analysis from Washington a Real Battle on the Virtual Front,” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, October 11, 1999, http://www.rferl.org/features/1999/10/F.RU.991011135919.asp.

Bullough, Oliver. “Russians Wage Cyber War on Chechen Websites,” Reuters, November 15, 2002, http://seclists.org/isn/2002/Nov/0064.html

Conspiracy theory? Allegations? Biophys (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes and yes. Note how the first story talks about it: "suggested", "reportedly", which are standard English language signs for reporting allegations. While the second says nothing about state involvement, just about "public opinion", "a hacker". Cyber attack by Russian citizens doesn't mean cyber attack by the Russian state, right? Anonimu (talk) 10:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Facts need proof to be substantiated. There is no proof for any of the claims and allegations in this article. Hence they are just that: claims and allegations. It's very simple. LokiiT (talk) 18:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

the article needs to be deleted/ merged per Wikipedia:V#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_sources, the title seriously violates Wikipedia:NPOV#Article_naming in virtually every point. The matter of the article is a fringe theory.

Because you just can't name an article "Obama eats kids", and then say in the second paragraph "Other than allegations, there is no evidence that Obama eats kids."

Long story short, the article is terrible as it is. Something has to be done about it.FeelSunny (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

resource

Vladimir Putin's Cyber Warriors; The Kremlin's Ham-handed Effort to Squelch Online Dissent by Andrei Soldatov December 9, 2011 Foreign Affairs 99.19.44.155 (talk) 16:47, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Fancy Bear

I deleted a sentence referring to Fancy Bear because the sources cited said nothing about it (of course, I might just have overlooked it), nor did they mention FireEye, ThreatConnect nor Kaspersky Lab. There seems to be a Guardian mention of Fancy Bear, and I hope somebody will check that out and insert it here if it is apropos. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 23:29, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

CrowdStrike's fake quotes and fake information about claimed Russia hack

I suggest to either adjust or balance CrowdStrike's claims in this article. Because according to the Washington D.C. based Voice of America (VOA) which is the largest U.S. international broadcaster and also according to the not-for-profit and independent Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), CrowdStrike were recently exposed with their misattribution of quotes and fake information. In other words, CrowdStrike lied to you. CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that initially claimed Russia hacked the DNC and tilted the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor, is being accused of misattribution of quotes in a December report. CrowdStrike have since walked back key and central claims in said report, calling their credibility into serious question.

Related articles and sources

• http://www.voanews.com/a/cyber-firm-rewrites-part-disputed-russian-hacking-report/3781411.html
• http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/23/cybersecurity-firm-that-attributed-dnc-hacks-to-russia-may-have-fabricated-russia-hacking-in-ukraine/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Francewhoa (talk • contribs) 00:34, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
• http://www.globalresearch.ca/fool-me-once-dnc-ally-crowdstrike-claimed-two-cases-of-russian-hacking-one-at-least-was-fake/5581368

Related video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKJ7SRJuz-A&feature=youtu.be

Francewhoa (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

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Vermont electric grid hoax

I've gone into much greater detail on The Washington Post's debunked "report" about Russia hacking Vermont's electric grid, and what it reveals about Wash Post's fact-checking standards (or lack thereof), previously, but I'll keep my comments here relatively brief. An employee at Burlington Electric Department came into contact with one of the 876 IPs flagged as "suspicious" by the FBI—DHS Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russian hacking—nearly half of which are just Tor exit nodes—while checking their email, but the traffic was by all appearances benign. Burlington Electric asked the U.S. government to investigate, and, sure enough, government officials almost immediately leaked a garbled description of the incident to Wash Post. Without contacting either of Vermont's two major utilities, as proven via cached versions of the article available on the Internet Archive and confirmed by Burlington Electric itself (and contrary to Wash Post's disingenous denials), Wash Post then ran a sensational story claiming that "Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through utility in Vermont, officials say"—based entirely on unnamed intelligence officers and with no corroborating evidence. Furious, Burlington Electric refuted the Wash Post account in a mere hour and a half, but it still spread like wildfire on social media. Wash Post changed the headline to "Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say" and grudgingly conceded: "An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid." However, Wash Post refused to issue a formal retraction for another two days, and it seems that BullRangifer has managed to remain blissfully unaware of it for the past nine months. Without further ado, what follows are some choice excerpts from "Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation," The Washington Post, January 2, 2017:

Extended content:

As federal officials investigate suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer, they are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility, according to experts and officials close to the investigation. An employee at Burlington Electric Department was checking his Yahoo email account Friday and triggered an alert indicating that his computer had connected to a suspicious IP address associated by authorities with the Russian hacking operation that infiltrated the Democratic Party. Officials told the company that traffic with this particular address is found elsewhere in the country and is not unique to Burlington Electric, suggesting the company wasn't being targeted by the Russians. Indeed, officials say it is possible that the traffic is benign, since this particular IP address is not always connected to malicious activity. ... Experts say the situation was made worse by a recent government report, which they described as a genuine effort to share information with the industry but criticized as rushed and prone to causing confusion. Authorities also were leaking information about the utility without having all the facts and before law enforcement officials were able to investigate further. ... "It's not descriptive of anything in particular," said Robert M. Lee, chief executive of Dragos, a cybersecurity firm. ... Some in the administration are concerned that this episode with the Vermont utility will cause industry officials to avoid sharing information with the government, for fear that it will be leaked. ... Experts also expressed concerns regarding the report released by DHS and the FBI on the Russian hacking operation. ... At least 30 percent of the IP addresses listed were commonly used sites such as public proxy servers used to mask a user's location, and servers run by Amazon.com and Yahoo. ... The IP address information alone is not useful, experts noted. Moreover, a server that is used by Russian spies one year might be used by "granny's bake shop" the next, Lee said. "No one should be making any attribution conclusions purely from the indicators in the [government] report," tweeted Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, which investigated the DNC hack and attributed it to the Russian government. "It was all a jumbled mess."

To be blunt, it would be laughable to include any of this in an encyclopedia article on Cyberwarfare by Russia.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Unbelievably, SPECIFICO reinstated this long-retracted false information without participating on the talk page or addressing any of the issues raised above. Her typically vague edit summary states: "Undo removal of well-sourced content. The edit summary is a straw man. This article content gives context and detail. use talk if you wish to see this removed." In other words, because Wash Post is nominally a WP:RS, it can't be removed. But wait!—Wash Post later issued a separate retraction, admitting "Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation." In sum: While checking his personal email, a Burlington Electric employee clicked on possible spam sent by an IP address that almost certainly does not geolocate to Russia, and nothing happened—the traffic may well have been benign. There was no connection to "Russian government hackers." Why would anyone think this belongs in Cyberwarfare by Russia?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:14, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

BTW, SPECIFICO recently offered these words of wisdom in a discussion at Dismissal of James Comey: "In fact, the use of stale sources is one of the most widespread devices of POV-pushing and non-policy compliant editing on Wikipedia." Would that include continuing to cite a Wash Post article nine months after it was retracted?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:24, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Also pinging Thucydides411, who has previously offered much insightful commentary on Wash Post's contemporary Russia reportage (e.g., here).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Considering that Cyberwarfare by Russia has been largely inactive of late—with the last non-minor edit by a named user occurring six months prior to BullRangifer's recent efforts to revitalize the page—I have asked everyone watching Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, not just Thucydides411, to participate here. That said, I consider it almost unbelievable that SPECIFICO is clinging to this story nine months after it was formally retracted. Perhaps BullRangifer will admit his mistake so that we can all move on to more productive endeavors?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:16, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Continued discussion

• This section reads more like a rant than the opening of a discussion. If you want discussion, you might want to refrain from vitriolic condemnation of others' edits and over-the-top hyperbole. Seriously; you're using WaPo articles to "fact-check" a WaPo article that opens with a correction to claim that WaPo is not a reliable source. That line of reasoning makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I'm not intimately familiar with this incident, but what I do know about it from other reliable sources lines up perfectly with the article you claim has been debunked. So when I came here and read this, the only thing I saw was butthurt, and there's no room on WP for butthurt. If you're trying to make a concerted case that the story by WaPo is fake news, then provide reliably sourced information that actually contradicts what is claimed in the article, and try to leave other editors out of it. Whether you're right or wrong about this article, the actions of other editors are completely irrelevant. In fact, whether you're right or wrong doesn't really matter at all without impeccable sourcing, because we can't rely on your own original research to determine whether this information is true or false. We need sources. Reliable sources, not op-eds, blogs or this strange "WaPo admitted to getting something wrong, therefore WaPo is unreliable" line of reasoning. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:26, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

• "This section reads more like a rant than the opening of a discussion." Yes, it does, but that's because I've left five comments, and no-one besides me is participating: It looks like I'm talking to myself. It may also look like I'm repeating myself: To reiterate, according to Wash Post and all RS, "Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation." Why would you or anyone else think that this belongs in Cyberwarfare by Russia?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:39, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

No, the thing that makes it look like a rant is the vitriol and hyperbole, and the poor logic behind your claim of the story being "debunked". Wrt your repetition that, according to all the relevant experts, Vermont Utility doesn't appear to be targeted, I can only say this: Crimes of opportunity are a thing. They don't have to have been targeted for the claim "Russia hacked Vermont Utility" to be true. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:38, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Nice strawman hypothetical word-game. Get back to me once you've actually read the source, which says 1. The "utility" was not "hacked"; 2. "It is possible that the [IP] traffic is benign"; and 3. There is nothing to support the attribution to "Russia"—let alone the Russian government!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:47, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

That's not what a strawman is, and if you want to accuse someone of making one then I suggest you at least make a small effort to actually correct the misstatement instead of just running off with more hyperbolic rhetoric. Ironically (and yes; this is what "ironic" actually means, lord knows 90% of the internet doesn't seem to grock irony), you seem to have presumed that I'm arguing that "Russia hacked Vermont Utility" is true, instead of understanding that the point I made concerned the argument you were attempting to use. I made it rather clear in my first comment that I've not stated a position on the truth of that, and done nothing to imply that I have since.

Now that fact is something I could argue makes your last argument a straw man, except that I'm given to assuming you merely didn't read or remember reading the not-so-subtle statement in my first comment about you being right or wrong. Hence the utility of explaining what could be a mistaken understanding rather than jumping on "strawman!" as if it were a weapon that could help you win an argument. If you're here to win arguments, you're in the wrong place. I suggest the youtube comment section would be a better place for that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, MjolnirPants, are you saying you don't think the original hacking story has been debunked? I didn't think there was any disagreement over this point. I thought it was clear to everyone at this point that there was no evidence whatsoever of a Russian hack of the Vermont utility, and that the original story was based on an employee accessing one of the many benign IP addresses listed in the December 29th Joint Analysis Report. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Thucydides411, you have proven time and time again that absolutely nothing I could possibly say will ever make any argument I make clear to you, no matter how simple or obvious an argument it is. I have no intention of trying to explain or clarify anything to you. Now please, go run off to whine at another admin that they should block me for being so mean to you until you're asked to go away again. At least that way, it will be entirely your own time that you're wasting. :) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@MjolnirPants: I asked you a straightforward question in response to your comment, and instead of answering it, you chose to try to bait me. Why you haven't been banned from editing Wikipedia long ago is a mystery to me. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

We should not use a retracted story as a source. However, we can use sources that reported on the story and its retraction. It is still part of the story. In true crime writing, it is customary to mention all the roads of investigation, including dead ends. TFD (talk) 02:36, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, the story hasn't been retracted, but rather corrected. That being said, you seem to be following much the same line of thinking as I. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging, has the Washington Post retraction article ""Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted..." ever been brought up here before, or used in the article? I wasn't aware of it. I was new to this article and made a few relatively minor edits and then tried to fix some confusion based on the existing sources. I was not aware of that retraction article. Mere mention of it in the edit summary was enough for me to resolve this matter, without this long polemic, attacks, and discussion. You could have saved yourself a lot of effort. The edit summary was enough for me to find the article, read it, and see that deletion was the best thing to do. RS, not vitriol, work best.

Calling it "fake news" in your edit summary was itself enough to raise concerns of a POV deletion by you, and thus your initial deletion was discounted as an unserious attempt to whitewash Russia without a RS justification. (Later you mentioned the retraction article to justify your deletion. For me that was serious and worked.)

WaPo doesn't write fake news (like the unreliable sources Breitbart, Daily Caller, Drudge Report, Infowars, etc. do so often), so don't misuse the term. Using the term the way Trump misuses it lessens your credibility. RS do make mistakes based on lack of information and the resulting confusion. Once things became clear, they wrote the type of proper retraction which fake news sources never publish. Such a retraction clears matters up enough for us to see that we shouldn't include that story. Keep in mind that it has no bearing on other stories about Russian cyberwarfare and interference.

This should be enough for us to close this thread. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:49, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

"I was not aware of that retraction article. Mere mention of it in the edit summary was enough for me to resolve this matter, without this long polemic, attacks, and discussion. You could have saved yourself a lot of effort. The edit summary was enough for me to find the article, read it, and see that deletion was the best thing to do." Thanks, BullRangifer, and noted: I realize that I made a number of unforced errors today. I hope that SPECIFICO and MjolnirPants will follow your example and WP:DROPTHESTICK.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:03, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't accuse others of tendentious editing when they make straightforward statements that prompt you to respond, for whatever reason, to launch into nonsensical and pointless tirades. SPECIFICO talk

Indeed. Your statements are -yet again- hyperbolic. I would even say "hysterical" seeing as at the time you wrote this, I'd commented exactly twice in this thread, for a total of 2286 characters, compared to your 14 edits of 11,921 characters. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:26, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

MP, I note that while you have barely participated here, I made no comment at all prior to TTAC's stick thing. It's like the US politicians who have learned that folks tend to learn by repetition and that repeating false and defamatory accusations, if done persistently and often enough, will end up disparaging and weakening the victims. WP policy and guidelines recognize this, which is why we are and should be vigilant to reject WP:ASPERSIONS and other such tactics on talk pages. SPECIFICO talk 18:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

[5]TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:09, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

What's that? A floating link? Not very informative. At any rate it's certainly not a talk page comment, and we already knew there was consensus against removing the content. SPECIFICO talk 22:51, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Spec, my comment was directed at TTAC. Check the indentation. I even started with "Indeed", indicating agreement with your comment directly above mine. Hell, the concrete numbers I provided should have been enough to demonstrate that I wasn't referring to you when I posted this four months ago. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:52, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi MP Sorry I was unclear. Yes I knew what you meant. I think I added the MP part at the beginning after I wrote the post and meant it to tell you that I agreed with your observation. Now I see why it reads the opposite. Anyway, you do good work here, and I am naturally attracted to irascible and the curmudgeonly men in any venue! Keep up your fine contributions. SPECIFICO talk 22:22, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay. I misread your comment as defending your own participation, not as giving another example of how over-the-top TTAC's comment was. Apologies for the mix up. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:53, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

• If something relevant to the subject has been prominently reported, but then refined, retracted or disputed, that something should be included on the page, but be properly described as a disputed claim per most recent sources. My very best wishes (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, that was false alert [6], but unproved or disproved reports on the subject of page do belong to the page. Consider something like 2018 Hawaii missile alert. We do include such incidents, and for a good reason. And no, that was not a "hoax" My very best wishes (talk) 15:36, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
• @TTAAC (my 3rd comment here). Your argument above was that the incident is a "false alarm". Yes, I agree with that point. But false alarms need to be included on this page if they received significant coverage in RS (i.e. they were notable). Of course they should be clearly marked as "false alarms". That is what I did. You did not respond to that. My very best wishes (talk) 17:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
• TheTimesAreAChanging The edit of yours I just reverted is entirely unacceptable; it shifts the focus from the event to the WaPo story about it, misdates the WaPo article, and serves almost entirely as criticism of the WaPo source, instead of actually discussing the event in question. In light of mvbw's recent resumption of discussion here, your assertion that consensus was against inclusion of this material, and that your version represented some sort of compromise is screams "bad faith!" at the top of its lungs. Please make an effort to actually read and absorb what has been said in this thread before making such an edit again. The consensus is to change the section so that it is clear that this was very unlikely to be (or simply not) the work of Russia, not to distort the purpose of that part of the article into an attack on the WaPo source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:41, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, your latest profanity-laced blind revert is only the latest evidence that you are WP:NOTHERE and lack the WP:COMPETENCE required to edit this encyclopedia. The following text, which you reverted, is sourced to The Washington Post itself:

On December 30, 2016, The Washington Post erroneously reported that the U.S. electric grid had been penetrated by Russian hackers through an unnamed Vermont utility. In fact, the laptop of a single Burlington Electric Department employee, which was not connected to the electric grid, came into contact with one of many IP addresses listed in a joint Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report as having at one point been used by Russian hackers, although the traffic may have been benign. The FBI-DHS report was widely dismissed by cybersecurity professionals, including Robert M. Lee of Dragos and Dmitri Alperovitch of CrowdStrike, because IP addresses alone are not useful indicators of Russian activity.

All of the above statements are completely uncontroversial matters of fact, disputed by no-one, and which satisfy your stated condition that "The consensus is to change the section so that it is clear that this was very unlikely to be (or simply not) the work of Russia." While your profanity-laced blind reverts offer no indication that you are even vaguely familiar with the sources under discussion, if you are at all susceptible to sources or reason you should self-revert. It's surreal that after months of demanding that an erroneous report by The Washington Post be included, you would turn around and insist that the Post's retraction is unreliable and/or UNDUE.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:02, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

So when you give up on trying to win by edit warring, you have to resort to childish personal attacks? If you don't like adult language, don't associate with adults.

You have re-written the section to be about the WaPo story, instead of about the events. Your version is as blatantly obvious a POV push as I've ever seen, especially considering that your entire participation in this discussion has been about trash talking WaPo. You have been reverted now by three different editors over the past several days, all of whom have explicitly told you that your preferred content is not at all representative of any consensus here. If you cannot establish an actual consensus for your preferred state of the article here, then go away and edit something else. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:37, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

What "events"??? An employee clicked on a link, and nothing happened: The only story here is the Post's yellow journalism!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:42, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

1. You've taken partisan accusations by Greenwald, and tried to claim they were "uncontroversial matters of fact" wrt to whether or not WaPo made efforts to contact the utility company before running the story. They aren't.
2. You've completely left out the much wider reporting on this, focusing entirely upon the single WaPo story to a level that would be amazingly WP:UNDUE, even for the WaPo article (which this is not).
3. You have managed to imply that the accusations of this being Russian were coming entirely WaPo, when in fact, they were made by numerous sources, including the governor of Vermont and Sen. Patrick Leahy.
4. You've neglected to mention the fact that it was the utility company who announced this event, not WaPo.
5. You intentionally used an archived version of the WaPo source from before they issued the corrections that still stand in the live version of the story.
6. You've now admitted that you're rewriting this part of the article to be about something other than the subject of this article.
7. If you really don't know what "events" I'm referring to, then I'm afraid you have no business editing about them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 05:54, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

You're embarrassing yourself.

• "You've taken partisan accusations by Greenwald, and tried to claim they were "uncontroversial matters of fact" wrt to whether or not WaPo made efforts to contact the utility company before running the story. They aren't."
  • Wrong on all counts. A.) That the Wash Post failed to contact either of Vermont's two major utilities was not included in the "uncontroversial matters of fact" I listed above. In fact, I dropped that material in response to your first revert, although it did not deter you from additional blind reverts. B). That the Wash Post failed to contact either of Vermont's two major utilities was not sourced to Greenwald, but rather Kalev Leetaru, who reached out to Burlington Electric directly:

As I noted yesterday, it seemed odd that Burlington Electric issued a formal response refuting the Post's claims just an hour and a half after the Post's publication. This would suggest that the Post would have gotten a response from Burlington if only it had just contacted the utility prior to publication, as is required by standard journalistic practice.

In fact, when I asked the Post why it had not contacted the utilities prior to publication, in her emailed response to me, Ms. Coratti asserted that the Post had indeed contacted both utilities for comment prior to publication and had not received a reply from either and so proceeded with publication. In fact, she went as far as to state "we had contacted the state’s two major power suppliers, as these sentences from the first version of the story attest: 'It is unclear which utility reported the incident. Officials from two major Vermont utilities, Green Mountain Power and Burlington Electric, could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.'"

If this statement was present in the very first version of the story published at 7:55PM, that would mean that the Post had reached out to the companies for comment prior to publication and received no response.

However, as the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows, this is actually false. Archived snapshots of the story at 8:16PM and 8:46PM make no claims about having contacted either utility and state instead only that "While it is unclear which utility reported the incident, there are just two major utilities in Vermont, Green Mountain Power and Burlington Electric." No claim is made anywhere in the article about the Post having contacted the utilities for comment.

In fact, it was not until an hour after publication, somewhere between 8:47PM and 9:24PM that the Post finally updated its story to include the statement above that it had contacted the two utilities for comment.

I reached out to Mike Kanarick, Director of Customer Care, Community Engagement and Communications for Burlington Electric Department for comment on why his company had not responded to the Post's prepublication request for comment.

It turns out that the reason that Burlington Electric did not respond to the Post's prepublication request for comment is that the Post actually did not reach out for comment until after it had already run its story. The Post's article went live on its website at 7:55PM EST, but according to Mr. Kanarick, the first contact from the Post was a phone call from reporter Adam Entous at 8:05PM, 10 minutes after the Post's story had been published.

It is simply astounding that any newspaper, let alone one of the Post's reputation and stature, would run a story and then ten minutes after publication, turn around and finally ask the central focus of the article for comment.

• "You have managed to imply that the accusations of this being Russian were coming entirely WaPo, when in fact, they were made by numerous sources, including the governor of Vermont and Sen. Patrick Leahy."
  • Politicians such as Leahy et al. are not independent sources, but were commenting on what the Post reported.

• "You've neglected to mention the fact that it was the utility company who announced this event, not WaPo."
  • That's because that is blatantly false information that you edit warred into Wikipedia and are now citing as gospel truth. Burlington Electric made no such announcement; in fact, the Wash Post's initial report attributed the malware claims solely to "U.S. officials" and included the caveat "It is unclear which utility reported the incident." Moreover, Burlington Electric went on to publicly dispute the Post's reporting only an hour and a half after the story went to print. What you mean is that Burlington Electric reported the IP traffic to the U.S. government for further investigation, and then some anonymous U.S. official within the intelligence community leaked a wildly inaccurate version of what had occurred to the Post.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:24, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not going to engage with someone acting like a child. Suffice it to say that your long-winded rants, vitriolic hatred of WaPo and pointless personal attacks aren't even remotely convincing, so unless you can convince one or more of the other editors who've been reverting you to support this version, you're pretty much stuck without a consensus for it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:34, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• I think here is the essence of the disagreement: TTAAC is trying to incorrectly paint the incident as a "hoax" or "fake news" ("The Washington Post erroneously reported"), while that was in fact a false alert. That was not something fabricated by irresponsible journalists, but something incorrectly officially announced by authorities (just as in the case of 2018 Hawaii false missile alert). Things like that are important and should be included. Current version seems to be OK in this regard. My very best wishes (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Article seems thin

This article covers only a small part of the subject. We need to add manipulation of social media, fake news, and other recent innovations of the Russian approach. To outline the structure, I suggest we repurpose some of the content already developed for other related articles. SPECIFICO talk 02:19, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

At present it is just a list of attacks or alleged attacks. We need sources that talk about the subject in general: when and why did they start doing this, who is in charge of the program, how effective has it been in meeting goals, how does it compare with what other nations do, how do they choose countries to target etc. TFD (talk) 03:29, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm with TFD. If we can't find analysis and more general information (I'm pretty sure we can), then we don't even need this article. [7] [8] and [9] might be of use. Less so the last one. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:37, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, I disagree. A lack is not an argument for deletion, rather it's an argument for more content. We have many articles which are lacking, but that's the nature of the beast. Maybe it won't happen right now or with the current editors, but anyone may add such content at any time. It's the available RS which drive the content, not the imagined ideal article format and wished content which drive it. We can only work with the RS we have, and anyone is welcome to turn what we have into better prose or a nicer format, all the while keeping WP:PRESERVE in mind, ergo no RS or content should be lost. We want to build (add content) not break down (delete content) the encyclopedia. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:42, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Channeling Comey: "Lordie I hope so" -- I meant to say we need to beef this up. We still have active editors within WP who have no idea the nature of cyber-warfare and how it's evolved in the age of self-published social media, peer-to-peer communications and targeted online advertisements. The power of new media to shape the thought and actions of micro-demographic groups and even individuals is a stunning recent development. The Russians, who have a long historical fascination with intrigue, counter-plots and mind games, are expert practitioners. We need to expand this article. I was only suggesting that there's already content that can be used for a first-pass upgrade. SPECIFICO talk 00:53, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

BullRangifer I don't get what you're saying. How can a lack of sources mean we need more content? This is sort of hypothetical, because I didn't actually say I wanted to delete this article. I said we should delete it if we can't find sources that do more than list suspected attacks, after saying I was pretty sure we could find such sources and before giving two or three such sources. I didn't say that I felt we should then create List of suspected Russian cyberwarfare attacks, but I do feel that we should if we delete this, because that's an article we certainly have plenty of sourcing for. I agree for now that we should keep this article, but your argument doesn't make sense to me. As for what we should be doing on WP; I'm fairly confident that the rather broad consensus isn't that we should be constantly adding to the project, but constantly improving the project. That's why we have guidelines like WP:NOTABILITY and WP:DUE, because there are plenty of times when removing or excluding information improves the project.

SPECIFICO, I'm pretty much entirely on board with what you just said there. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:39, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Then we shall roll up our cybersleeves and make it so. SPECIFICO talk 01:48, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Like Rosie the riveter, but uglier. Except for the eyes. I have gorgeous eyes, or at least my wife thinks so. Mostly when she's drunk. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:00, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces: Are you in? We need help. All hands on deck. SPECIFICO talk 02:07, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

If others will help, I will chip in. Neutrality^talk 03:08, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, I think you have it bass ackwards. We should not pick a topic and find notability, we should choose notable topics and write about them. I take it you hate Trump, but let's follow policy. TFD (talk) 05:30, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Gee, I guess I misread your comment above. You seemed to be suggesting a constructive approach to fleshing out and updating the article. This is a notable subject, right? I don't know why you're mentioning Trump. This is a chance to research something different. SPECIFICO talk 12:52, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, it was BullRangifer who (apparently) suggested that sources should follow content above, not Spec, and I'm not sure that's what they meant to imply. Spec is asking for editors willing to look for the sources you suggested we need more of, and add information based on them. And I believe the point of asking for confirmation is to foster a sense of camaraderie that the political articles seem to be suffering from a lack of, these days. If we've all explicitly agreed to work together, that's something that we're going to remember every time we find something to disagree on. I know you're one of the good ones; trying to improve the article without pushing a POV or personalizing things. The fact that we all have different political views doesn't need to be a dealbreaker.

SPECIFICO be nice now. We can't foster a sense of camaraderie with sarcasm. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:58, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually, TFD knows I always welcome his participation because it's (almost) always based on policy, thoughtful analysis, and a wealth of knowledge. Also he knows I have a little crush on him 🙄. SPECIFICO talk 17:23, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, I didn't suggest "that sources should follow content". Quite the opposite. Here's what I wrote: "It's the available RS which drive the content". Content is based on RS. If we don't have very many RS, we can't have much content. If we find more RS, we can add more content. That's all. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with that. Indeed, that is pretty much exactly what I was saying in my first comment (only I was being more specific to this page). I was confused by you saying "MjolnirPants, I disagree. A lack is not an argument for deletion, rather it's an argument for more content." That part, the opening of your reply, made in response to me saying that if we can't find sources, we should delete the article, strongly suggests that you were arguing the opposite. I'm content to drop it if you like, I'm just telling you that, all things considered, I couldn't make heads nor tails of that comment in the context of this discussion, and am seeking some clarification. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants, I agree that there is some confusion here. I don't recall ever suggesting that we should delete the article. On the contrary. I even admonished that we should remember WP:PRESERVE, add more content, etc. I believe we should keep it, even if it were a stub. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, this should be significantly expanded. Welcome to contribute. My very best wishes (talk) 21:30, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Thoughts on title

I can see there's previously been some discussion about changing the title. I note that the corresponding article for the United States is title Cyberwarfare in the United States, would it make sense to change the title here into the same format? Specifically, using 'in the' instead of 'by'. Gabriel syme (talk) 20:29, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

They have nearly the opposite meaning, so I have my doubts about this suggestion. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

While I'm not sure I agree, following that I'd say then that the article on the US should be renamed, as it is about cyberwarfare performed by the US govt.Gabriel syme (talk) 00:03, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Okay.....without examining that article, if it covers both aspects, then Cyberwarfare and the United States should cover both aspects. Maybe someone has a better suggestion. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:22, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

That's just the thing, it doesn't cover both aspects, it only covers operations carried out by the US government, which prompted me to discuss the name change here to match that. Gabriel syme (talk) 00:53, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• I think that Cyberwarfare in the United States should have its name changed, as it's about cyberwarfare by the US. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• That makes sense. A discussion should be started there. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:13, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• "Cyberwarfare in" and "Cyberwarfare by" are very different subjects. Anyone is welcome to create another page ("Cyberwarfare in Russia") if there are significant published materials that other countries conduct cyberwarfare in Russia. There are obviously significant published materials that other countries conduct cyberwarfare in the USA. My very best wishes (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:POINTy edits

Factual information as to the British investigation has been removed with an edit summary that asserts a false equivalence with the UNDUE ratification of self-serving facebook statement by an academic source. This doesn't speak to the issues identified in previous edits, and the Brit bit stands on its merits. SPECIFICO talk 04:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, the Oxford Internet Institute and The New York Times are reliable sources, period, while grandstanding politicians are not. Your constantly shifting arguments and abusively biased editing are so far beyond the pale that there really are no words that could adequately convey the scale of the damage you have done to this encyclopedia.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Top Takes

• Top Takes: Suspected Russian Intelligence Operation. --Jamez42 (talk) 16:28, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Nonsense paragraph removed

I have removed the following paragraph, which was added by User:Fyeahadrianax in April, and reflects that user's only edits:

October 2016 the US officially accused Russia of involvement in hacking into distributive numerical control computers also known as DNC to interfere with the network in the great attempt to obstruct the presidential elections. , “US Officially Accuses Russia of Hacking DNC and Interfering with Election,” The Guardian, October 8, 2016, accessed August 13, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/07/us-russia-dnc-hack- interfering-presidential-electionNot only was it confirmed that there was proof of medaling with the elections there was evidence that the one who ordered for the election to be tampered with was by the Russian President Vladimir Putin so that the chances of Donald Trump becoming the next president would be much higher, “Putin Ordered ‘Influence Campaign’ Aimed at U.S. Election, Report Says,” The New York Times, January 6, 2017, accessed July 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russia-hack-report.html Cyber warfare can instill discord, confusion even mayhem in certain instances.

Obviously, this is at best ignorant, and at worst a hoax, since the "DNC" referred to in the article has nothing to do with "distributive numerical control". bd2412 T 03:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)