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The Russians are coming!! Also the Iranians and Chinese. Woe be to all of us from those evil furiners…<br class="">
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<div class="">On Oct 22, 2020, at 9:26 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div dir="auto" class="">Thus, it's the NYT that's doing the conspiring, or the USG intells, take your pick. Thus, QAnon is more of a conspiracy of elites to get people to believe that it's a thing, rather than an actual thing on the so-called right.</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 8:15 AM David Johnson via Peace-discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:<br class="">
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span class="m_6751656702191183043d2edcug0"><span style="font-size:14.0pt" class="">Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the New York Times. Look over there it's the
Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many )
like they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ????</span></span><b class=""><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><b class=""><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><b class=""><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes
themselves had been altered.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">By
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/julian-e-barnes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">Julian E. Barnes</span></a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-e-sanger" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">David E. Sanger</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Oct. 21, 2020<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="margin-left:1.0in;text-align:left"><u class=""></u><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol" class=""><span class="">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"" class="">
</span></span></span><u class=""></u><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></p>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></span></li></ul>
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Symbol" class="">·</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">
</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Symbol" class="">·</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">
</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Symbol" class="">·</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""> WASHINGTON — Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, top national security
officials announced late on Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran used the information
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/florida-alaska-trump-emails.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">to send threatening, faked emails</span></a> to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from the bureau’s headquarters. Intelligence
agencies had collected information that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further action by Tehran.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote
was altered, either of which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked into voter registration systems — leaving open the possibility that the data was available
to anyone who knew where to look.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting
it as a political campaign might. Voters’ names, party registrations and some contact information are publicly available. That information may have been merged with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other databases, according
to intelligence officials, including some sold by criminal hacking networks on the “dark web.”<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope
will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,” Mr. Ratcliffe said.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">The Trump administration’s announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating
emails was both a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may also play into President Trump’s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on
Nov. 3 will be “rigged,” that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/register?application=Free_Experience&asset=InlineMessage&campaignId=7QF7X&client_id=freex&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fsubscription%2Fmultiproduct%2Flp8KQUS.html%3FEXIT_URI%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F10%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Firan-russia-election-interference.html%26campaignID%3D7QF7X&response_type=cookie" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Create
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances,
even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters,
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/florida-alaska-trump-emails.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">purported to be</span></a> from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi
insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary threat to the election. But the new information, both
Republican and Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a force in the election.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. Trump’s re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited
the Iran nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee,
by angering voters about the president’s apparent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/proud-boys-trump.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">embrace of the Proud Boys</span></a> in the first debate.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><b class=""><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Keep up with Election 2020<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns
to obeying the limits on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and calling them an attempt by the American government
to undermine its own voters’ confidence in the election.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries’ elections,” Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian
Mission to the United Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.’s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome,” he added.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to influence the election for months. At one time,
officials thought that the country’s military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/us/politics/us-iran-election.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">intended to hurt Mr. Trump</span></a>. Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday’s announcement suggested that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia’s — and one less likely to provoke an American military
response.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">The fact that Iran — which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically over the past decade, after its nuclear program
was attacked with American and Israeli cyberweapons — was involved demonstrates how fast other nations have learned from Russia’s influence operations in 2016.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine,
who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets.”<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 election.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Mr. Ratcliffe
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/us/politics/john-ratcliffe-intelligence.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">has drawn criticism</span></a> for embracing Mr. Trump’s political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the president’s ire over his refusal to do so, according
to people briefed on the president’s private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the F.B.I. director after the election, the people said.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/2020-election?name=styln-elections-2020®ion=inline&label=undefined&module=undefined&block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=d8a94110-1467-11eb-8656-fd31e5977e22&variant=1_Show&index=0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Election
2020 ›</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><b class=""><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/22/us/trump-biden-debate-tonight?name=styln-elections-2020®ion=inline&label=undefined&module=undefined&block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=d8a94111-1467-11eb-8656-fd31e5977e22&variant=1_Show&index=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Latest
Updates</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Updated <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">32 minutes ago<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<ul type="disc" class="">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/22/us/trump-biden-debate-tonight?name=styln-elections-2020®ion=inline&label=undefined&module=undefined&block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=d8a94112-1467-11eb-8656-fd31e5977e22&variant=1_Show&index=2#under-pressure-to-take-a-stand-on-court-packing-biden-says-hell-take-cues-from-scholars" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Under
pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he’ll take cues from scholars.</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/22/us/trump-biden-debate-tonight?name=styln-elections-2020®ion=inline&label=undefined&module=undefined&block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=d8a94113-1467-11eb-8656-fd31e5977e22&variant=1_Show&index=2#six-former-commerce-secretaries-endorse-biden" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Six
former commerce secretaries endorse Biden.</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class=""><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/22/us/trump-biden-debate-tonight?name=styln-elections-2020®ion=inline&label=undefined&module=undefined&block=storyline_latest_updates_recirc&action=click&pgtype=Article&impression_id=d8a94114-1467-11eb-8656-fd31e5977e22&variant=1_Show&index=2#trumps-cash-crunch-is-constraining-his-campaign-in-the-homestretch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class=""><span style="color:blue" class="">Trump’s
cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch.</span></a><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Is this helpful?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader;
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s top Democrat. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more information about the threat,
but officials said they had to limit what information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Later,
<a href="https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1319089565848788993?s=20" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">on “The Rachel Maddow Show”</span></a> on MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. “From the briefing, I had the strong impression it
was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure,” he said.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily
accessible data to create the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake confidence in the integrity of the vote — exactly what Russia has been seeking to do since
its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and Illinois, even if it did not change any votes.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation,” Mr. King said. “They don’t have to do anything; they just have
to make people think they are doing something.”<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped
up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major
adversaries in the Middle East.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election,” John Hultquist, the senior director of
FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday’s announcement.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears
of voter intimidation,” he said.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it simply may have bought the information. In recent
days, Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm, <a href="https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/massive-us-voters-and-consumers-databases-circulate-among-hackers/" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">discovered voter databases</span></a> for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be “highly desirable to U.S. adversaries,” said Mark Whitehead, a global vice president at the firm. Hackers, he said,
are merging public information with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">“The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry
for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns,” Mr. Whitehead said.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern
of the National Security Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military,
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/election-hacking-trump-microsoft-cyber-command.html" title="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" class="">
<span style="color:blue" class="">helped paralyze a complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers</span></a> and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing
the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be used to lock up voter registration systems.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. — one of the successors to
the Soviet Union’s K.G.B. — appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public
utilities.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity
experts is that once inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into voter registration databases.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last
days of the election campaign, if at all.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Iran’s efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links
to a false and deceptive video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to fraud.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on
Wednesday night that it had moved “quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of accounts and limit the sharing of media” in the Iran-led campaign, but it gave no specifics.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="text-align:left"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" class="">Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the platform or reached a widespread audience, though its
investigation is still open.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></p>
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