How to hack an election; cybersecurity and the international order; Russian trolls & the left, and more

State Department’s answer to Russian meddling is about to be funded (Oren Dorell, USA Today)
The State Department is only now getting started to combat Russian meddling in U.S. politics, even as intelligence officials warn of threats to the 2018 midterm elections.

NBC’s Jo Ling Kent explains how #ReleaseTheMemo was part of a Russian social media effort “to manipulate the conversation in American politics” (Media Matters)
Kent: “#ReleaseTheMemo picked up so much momentum that it began capturing the attention of major media organizations, in part because of bots or automated accounts”

Insiders at Facebook admit it took 6 months to discover Russian foreign intelligence attacks (Nora-Grayce Orosz, Complex)
A group of anonymous inside sources from Facebook have recently spoken out about the whirlwind of the past two years at the company. In an in-depth Wired feature, sources explained how the naivete of Mark Zuckerberg in the early stages of Facebook’s manipulation to spread fake news resulted in a lack of proactivity, making the platform, and its users, susceptible to foreign propaganda.

Russia’s clash with the West is about geography, not ideology (Benn Steil, Foreign Policy)
The Marshall Plan recognized the limits of U.S. power in Europe. To be successful, so must diplomacy with Moscow today.

#Electionwatch: RT y Sputnik hablan Español (Donara Barojan, Medium)
Pro-Kremlin media boasts a firm presence ahead of Latin American elections

Malware attacks on Olympics could have come from Russia and North Korea, experts say (Scott Neuman, NPR)
Cybersecurity experts are confirming that a computer malware attack dubbed “Olympic Destroyer” hit select networks and Wi-Fi systems at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang on Friday, but they would not say for sure whether Russia or North Korea are to blame.

Will #Russia interfere in the upcoming 2019 European elections? (Sajjad Karim, EUReporter)
Russia’s alleged meddling in the domestic matters of sovereign states is now common knowledge across the globe, the full extent of which is still unknown. The secretive hand of the Russian state is understood to have had an involvement in an array of cyber-attacks ranging from on national institutions to the headquarters of political parties, with a campaign of disinformation and so-called fake news at the forefront of this operation, writes Sajjad Karim, a British Conservative MEP and member of the President’s Code of Conduct Committee.

Did Russian trolls infect the left? And how much did it matter? (Andrew O’Heir, Salon)
Did Russians plant fake news in lefty media? Maybe — but that’s no excuse for a crackdown on unpopular opinion

Today’s revolution: Cybersecurity and the international order (Kristen Eichensehr, Lawfare)

A review of Lucas Kello’s The Virtual Weapon and International Order (Yale University Press, 2017). Kello combines his theory of three ways technology can be revolutionary with lucid explanations of just how cyber weapons have changed the international order, drawing on examples like Stuxnet and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Former senior FBI official is leading BuzzFeed’s effort to verify Trump dossier (Jana Winter, Foeign Policy)
Anthony Ferrante coordinated the U.S. government’s response to Russian election interference. Now he’s helping a news site defend itself from a Russian billionaire’s lawsuit.