Posted on 09/07/2017 9:05:43 PM PDT by Olog-hai
In recent weeks, officials inside Germany’s security agencies have been fondly circulating an article from the website of Foreign Policy magazine that was published on Aug. 3 with the headline, “Russian Hackers Can’t Beat German Democracy.”
The article speculates about what Russia could do to disrupt the German federal election, which takes place on Sept. 24, and argues that the Russians will certainly attempt to interfere. Notably, though, the magazine concludes that the Kremlin is unlikely to succeed. Germany, the article argues, is excellently prepared for dealing with any attack because politicians and voters alike have been sensitized to the threat — and because the country’s media system provides a protective shield against disinformation campaigns. […]
But it seems premature for complacency. A new, little-discussed scenario has recently come into focus — one which envisions certain people attempting to sow doubt about the election results. Similar to other concerns regarding election tampering, the U.S. presidential elections provide insight into this scenario as well. Following Donald Trump’s surprising victory, Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s objections reinforced people’s already considerable doubts about the election results.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which is responsible for election security, believes that similar efforts will be undertaken in Germany. The German electoral system’s reliance on paper and pen votes, to be sure, makes it less vulnerable to the kinds of problems experienced with electronic ballot systems in some US states. But BSI President Arne Schönbohm told Der Spiegel that hacking attacks on sensitive candidate data and parties remains the greatest threat to the election process and that “perpetrators could attempt to attack IT systems used for the election.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Not sure what the Russians could hope to accomplish. I guess they could try to throw the election from the Social Democrats to the Christian Democrats, but it’s difficult to see what would be accomplished by that, considering the positions of the two major parties:
CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS: Loves Muslims, Loves Immigration, Wants to repopulate Germany with Middle Easterners, Loves Welfare, Hates Free Speech.
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS: Loves Muslims, Loves Immigration, Wants to repopulate Germany with Middle Easterners, Loves Welfare, Hates Free Speech.
Not sure there’s much for Russia to gain here.
The Hillary effect.
Why the heck would Russia want to interfere in Germany’s elections? The German politicians & citizens are well on course to destroy their own country all by themselves. All Russia needs to do is sit back & enjoy the show.
Typical Bertelsmann FUD.
It takes a special kind of arrogance for either us here in the USA, or for the Germans to whine that someone is trying to influence our internal politics.
It’s so unapologetically hypocritical that there is something almost fine about it.....almost.
His Comeyness, Bad Bobby Mueller and Hillary have all assured us the Russians threw the US election. Be afraid Frau Merkel, be very afraid.
Oh no, now it’s going to be “Russland, Russland, Russland”.
German media: “Don’t look for Chinese meddling! They’re our friends! Russia- look at them!”
Same meme the US media had. And for the same reason- money.
Fake news mentality by the German leadership to explain last minute shocks to the general public.
I think the two shocks that will appear in two weeks for the election will be: (1) AfD rises above the expected 9-percent standing....to roughly 13-percent. (2) that with both the CDU and SPD combined...they barely get 55-percent of the vote (likely lowest combined number since WW II).
I would challenge any German using the phrase ‘Russian meddling’ to explain in precise details what this involves...in a factual way. They can’t do it without making up some bogus story.
The same people are communicating the following:
Russians: Bad.
Merkel: Good
Open borders allowing hordes of homicidal savages in: Good.
Reinbold’s claim here that “the country’s media system provides a protective shield against disinformation campaigns” has to be the most disingenuous claim ever made by a fake news merchant.
Some of the Germans are as stupid as our Leftists.
The Leftist movement is global, so that shouldn’t surprise me.
Well, they are the home country of Marx and Engels, never mind the leftism out of the city of Jena that inspired all of that. The level of stupidity associated with that movement has to be higher at its source.
Wouldn’t argue the “stupider” point, but anyone buying into it is definitely historically challenged.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose, unless it comes around to bite you and the ass, just as it did others about 60-70-80-100 years ago.
Back in early spring, I came to note the public TV effort to create ARD’s ‘Faktenfinder’. They begged upon the public to please come and use their fact-finding service, and that they would be the absolute place to put down disinformation campaigns.
No one cites statistics....but I doubt if more than 500 Germans a day hit on Faktenfinder. If you brought this up with any German under the age of twenty-five....probably less than a thousand have used it since day one.
The issue is that German public TV needs to be continually fact-checked every single day. I sat last night and watched a Hamburg story unfold...some ‘poor’ Italian kid left over from the Hamburg Summit on charges of violence. Fabio...the ‘poor’ 18 year old. His mother weeping and German public TV telling a woeful story of his unfair arrest. All slanted in creation. Then I kinda asked the magic question....who paid for Fabio to travel from Italy to Hamburg? It’s obvious that the German news folks weren’t going to ever ask that question. Hired teenage protest-thug. They just wanted to make you feel sorry for the poor Italian kid and his mother.
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