Your views on Putin, Trump and the hack

I write to you from Heathrow airport, on my way to Baltimore to meet one of the most powerful – and controversial – central bankers of all time. Can’t say any more than that right now. But expect more information on that as the week goes on. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I thought I’d return to the theme we discussed last week. The biggest geopolitical story in town right now: the cyberwar and Russian/American relations. Specifically, I thought I’d share a handful of your responses about it.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in

I don’t think I’ve ever received such a large amount of lengthy, well-informed and interesting correspondence.

For instance, this note:

Nick

False flag events and propaganda have been tools to Governments for centuries, and whilst they remain useful to control public opinion and further their agendas, they will continue to be used.

Every Government spies on its global rivals, so it’s no surprise that Russia may be engaged in espionage and cyberwarfare. Want to know what Merkel had for breakfast? Ask Obama, who has eyes on her, and almost everyone else of interest to the security services. He can’t deny that, because he got caught doing it. So to suggest that Russia is spying on the USSA is not news. They may well have hacked the DNC [Democratic National Committee], but so what? Did they rig the election? The CIA hacking report could provide no evidence, other than repeated conjecture… as if constantly repeating the unprovable could somehow make it true.

What Obama is doing here is two things. The first is diverting attention from the content of the data released by Wikileaks, which is damaging for him, Clinton, the DNC, the Clinton pay to play Foundation, and the legacy of his administration.

Assange has confirmed that it was not a hack, but a leak from within the DNC itself. To draw attention away from material confirming serial wrongdoing, they blame the Russians. Obama and Clinton have tried to start a hot war with Russia for years, and amongst other reasons, are using Putin as a bogeyman du jour for getting their butts kicked in Syria. A war they started, funded, in which they created ISIS … it goes on and on.

The second is to discredit Trump, and make the transition of power as difficult as possible. Rather than look at themselves for reasons they lost the election, the Democrats need to de-legitimise Trump any way they can. Every trick they themselves used to steal the election (it’s a long list) has failed. Post election, the staged demonstrations, the attempted rigging of the electoral college vote, and the constant baiting of Trump through “fake news” in the MSM has also failed. And worse still for them, the electorate can see through it.

Government, always and everywhere, will use bogeymen, false flag events and manipulated “news” to protect itself from accountability. Thanks to the rise of credible alternative media, it is becoming more difficult to manipulate public opinion and bury the scandals, waste, war crimes and self serving manipulation – all of which is done at the expense of the wealth creating private sector. Government itself is usually the core issue, and the quicker we recognise the need to cut it back drastically, the better off we will all be. 

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

For what it’s worth, I think there’s a reasonable chance that the Russians did hack the DNC and subsequently leaked that information. I don’t consider Julian Assange to be any more or less honest than any other public figure. He certainly has an agenda.

Whoever it was, did the hack change the result of the election? I don’t think so.

The hacks in part exposed the hypocrisy at the very heart of the Democratic Party (ask a Bernie Sanders supporter). That hypocrisy may have demoralised Democrat supporters – the hacks just revealed it for what it was. Had that information been released by a newspaper as a form of investigative journalism it would have been celebrated as a victory for the free press – the very opposite of “fake news”!

Moving on.

Not everyone agrees with me

Like this reader:

Nick. 

I believe that President Putin has done as the US security institutions indicate. 

Vlad believes he will be able to play Trump far more effectively than he would a Clinton administration. For 3 reasons: Clinton is experienced in international game rules, Clinton is wired up to the US intelligence industry, Trump is an inexperienced egotist who is more likely to be out manoeuvred.

To have Trump win the Presidency would appear to strengthen Putin’s hand….But. 

As is all sports, it is very difficult to play against an opponent who does not know the rules.  So expect his policy to become derailed, and for the game to risk loss of control.  Remember there are no referees likely to be called on to adjudicate as both players think the world of themselves – but Putin definitely has the advantage.

There’s certainly logic to that argument, too. In particular, the unpredictability of Donald Trump’s actions. As I showed you on Friday, I think it’s more likely Trump will play tough with China rather than Russia. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he used his cyber-forces in the vanguard. It’d be an effective PR stunt to divert attention from Vladimir Putin.

More from the mailbag:

Hi Nick,

I read the declassified report, there was no evidence of hacking in there. Not even a credible scenario. Much of the report was devoted to RT, the TV channel. Why put irrelevant material about a TV channel in there when it had nothing to do with election hacking?

So was the US election hacked? Not in the way the Obama regime makes out. And not in a way that would have changed the outcome.

Having said that I am sure that hacking between US, Russia, China etc is going on constantly.

The worrying thing is that there are no guarantees of security on the internet. I keep being surprised that so much information is just out there and available to clever and sometimes not so clever hackers.

Your final point is a good one. It is worrying. I have my own experience of being hacked online. It was deeply unpleasant. A story for another day perhaps.

One point to consider is the greater the threat, the more valuable the work of cybersecurity firms. Any defensive or offensive capabilities they can offer are getting more valuable by the day. One of the cyber-firms Eoin Treacy recommended last year smashed his two-year price target in a matter of months!

Look out for more on that later in the week. Also, look out for a couple of special reports I’ve put together with insights from genuine cybersecurity insiders.

More on that tomorrow!

Until then,

Nick O’Connor
Associate Publisher, Capital & Conflict

Category: Geopolitics, Investing in Technology