Russia 'live testing' cyberattacks; cyber deterrence; Russia's newest U.S. propaganda effort, and more

Paul Manafort = evidence of collusion(Ryan Goodman, Just Security)
I will keep this simple. Here are the facts about Paul Manafort, whose history with President Donald Trump dates back decades and who served as chairman of the Trump Campaign and remained something of an informal adviser after resigning. The following facts essentially speak for themselves. Simply put, any fair reading of the public record would surely come to the conclusion that there is significant evidence of collusion–or, to put it more precisely, evidence of a conspiracy with Russians and violations of federal campaign finance law.

At site of U.K. poisoning, doubts about case creep in(Ellen Barry, New York Times)
As the British authorities went silent on the progress of their investigation, English-language Russian outlets flooded social media with more than a dozen alternative theories: The United States had poisoned Mr. Skripal to deflect attention from Russia’s geopolitical successes; Britain did it to deflect attention from Brexit; the nerve agent had been accidentally released from a chemical weapons laboratory nearby; a drone did it; Yulia Skripal’s future mother-in-law did it. This blitz of skepticism came to dominate social media conversations. In early April, the Atlantic Council found that four of the six most-shared English-language articles on the case came from Kremlin media outlets. The theories are seeding doubt, even in Salisbury. Analysts say it is nearly impossible to measure the effect of Russia’s campaign to discredit the British explanation in the case. Britons’ trust in their institutions is already declining, in some cases as a result of other events such as Britain’s support of flawed intelligence ahead of the war in Iraq or last year’s devastating fire in Grenfell Towers. Russia’s campaign in the Skripal case aims to further undermine trust in the authorities, said Ben Nimmo, a fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Just as it did after the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the Kremlin targeted aggrieved social groups — not difficult to find in the years since the 2008 financial crisis — and capitalized on the disciplined silence of the Western investigators, filling the vacuum with alternative theories. “It doesn’t have to follow the dictates of the news cycle; it follows the dictates of the Kremlin,” Mr. Nimmo said. “If nobody else is talking about it and the Kremlin is, there will be this drip-feed effect; it will gradually erode public confidence in whatever the target is.”

Can Russian hackers be stopped? Here’s why it might take 20 years(Steve Ranger, TechRepublic)
Deterring cyberattacks by state-backed hackers is complicated, and why the stakes keep getting higher. In the spring of 2015, faced with external cyberattacks on the U.S. of increasing frequency and severity, President Obama made a dramatic announcement. The level of hacking and cyber-espionage against the U.S. had created an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy” of the country, said the president, who declared a national emergency to deal with the threat. This executive order allowed the administration to pursue sanctions against those who attacked US critical infrastructure or stole secrets. Since then the national emergency has been extended three times (it must be reconfirmed every year), but the attacks against the US and its allies continue. Indeed, the ongoing state of emergency did little to deter the most spectacular anti-US hacking campaign in recent years: Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Despite years of sanctions, indictments, and other attempts to combat hackers, the attacks have continued. And experts have warned it could be 20 years before the situation is brought under control. So why can’t the hackers be stopped?

AI startup Clarifai hacked by Russian operatives during Pentagon Maven project, lawsuit claims (Teri Robinson, SC Magazine)
Artificial intelligence startup Clarifai failed to report that it had been hacked by Russian operatives while it was working on the Defense Department’s Maven project, according to a lawsuit filed by former Clarifai employee and Air Force Capt. Amy Liu. Liu said that when she asked the company to report the incident, she was fired, according to a report by Wired.