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Russian hackers targeted Clinton's email before the elections
US intelligence agents are pretty sure the Russian government authorized the DNC hacks and leaked Hillary Clinton's emails. While the country continues to deny its involvement, security firm SecureWorks found evidence that it has been targeting Clinton even before the elections began. Apparently, a group of hackers (known by the names APT28, Sofacy and Fancy Bear) working for Russian military intelligence sent 19,315 malicious links to 6,730 people from March 2015 to May 2016. Their targets included Clinton, her campaign chairman John Podesta, her staff, known critics of the Russian government, members of the US military and diplomats around the world.
Obama opens investigation into cyber attacks on US election
President Barack Obama has ordered an investigation into cyber attacks and foreign influence during the 2016 US presidential election, Reuters reports. He's asking intelligence agencies to provide a report on the issue before he leaves office on January 20th, and the review will be shared with lawmakers and other stakeholders, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco reportedly said. Monaco added that cyber attacks may have crossed a "new threshold" this year.
Clickbait, fake news and the power of feeling
Fake news has dominated post-election headlines, and important questions have been asked: Would Hillary have won had almost a million people not read that Pope Francis had endorsed Trump? (Probably not). Did Facebook take enough action to prevent fake news proliferating on its network? (Definitely not). But few have asked why these articles were so popular in the first place. Why were so many people duped into clicking these stories? Earlier this month, BuzzFeed News' Craig Silverman analyzed engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc.) across Facebook and identified the most popular real and fake articles across three distinct periods: February to April, May to July and August to Election Day. With this analysis, Silverman was able to show that the 20 most popular fake posts were "engaged with" (Facebook's term for likes, shares and so on) 8.71 million times in the lead up to the election, compared to just 2.97 million times in February to April. Mainstream news showed the opposite pattern: Starting at 12.4 million, and falling to 7.37 million in the final period -- 1.34 million less than the fake news. The overall number of engagements is fairly steady, too, suggesting that, at least to some extent, Facebook users were sharing fake news instead of real stories.
Twitter bots were rampant during the US election
If you believe one study, it's not just fake news that polluted the internet during the US election... it's bogus accounts, too. Researchers at the international Project on Computational Propaganda report that the use of politically minded Twitter bots reached an "all-time high" during the 2016 presidential campaign. Out of 18.9 million studied tweets using political hashtags, 17.9 percent of them came from "highly automated" accounts that post 50 or more tweets per day. That ratio only grew higher during the debates, peaking at over 27 percent during the final Clinton/Trump showdown -- and it conveniently tanked after the election was over.
Trump website flaw allowed anyone to 'hack' it
There are only a few more hours until the polls close, but that doesn't mean election fever has died just yet. A few clever folks on the internet have discovered that there's a flaw on Donald Trump's campaign website where you can just drop whatever words you like in the latter half of the URL, and, well, the page will just display it. Here are a few examples that we've seen on the internet.
Climate change took a backseat to scandal at the presidential debates
While the third and final debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton covered national debt, gun control -- and whether or not to accept the results come election day -- climate change barely got a look in. In fact, environment was hardly on the radar across the span of all three debates. As we summarized in our election guide, the majority of scientists are convinced that human activity is responsible for rising levels of CO2 and mean temperature increases. This will have powerful effects on crops, sea levels and weather patterns -- and our lives. Political policy, when it comes to climate change, is very important.
Amazon Alexa can answer your debate and election questions
Since your racist uncle is not a reliable source, many Americans have turned to Alexa for information about the presidential election. It's hard to say whether that's good or bad, but Amazon has taken notice and released new commands for its AI assistant ahead of the next debate. You can now ask questions about the time and channel of the debate, where it's happening, and afterwards, who won.
How to watch the second US presidential debate
The second US presidential debate promises to draw even more attention than the first. On top of giving Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump a chance to adjust their strategies, there's a switch to a town hall format based on public questions. And then there's both Trump's video apology and Clinton's leaked comments to banks -- how will the candidates deal with these curveballs? Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to follow the drama online. We've aggregated many of the internet viewing options so that you won't have to miss a moment when the debate kicks off at 9PM Eastern.
Wanted: One 400-lb hacker (or maybe five tiny ones)
This week the topic of cybersecurity made its first-ever appearance at a presidential debate. This was thanks to moderator Lester Holt, who asked candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump how to fight cyberattacks. Both were heavy on emphasizing the importance of "the cyber," were scant on policy details and, worryingly, omitted critical cybersecurity issues (like ransomware and breaches).
Facebook co-founder donates $20 million to elect Hillary Clinton
Mark Zuckerberg's other half, Dustin Moskovitz, has pledged to donate $20 million to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign and other Democratic efforts this election year. Moskovitz, a co-creator of Facebook and founder of Asana, outlines his intentions in a Medium post that criticizes Republican candidate Donald Trump and praises Clinton.
Read the FBI's Clinton Investigation documents for yourself
The FBI released documents today about its investigation into presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a home email server during her time as Secretary of State. After the investigation, the Department of Justice decided not to file charges. Clinton was found to have not deleted sensitive emails, but the State Department called her actions "extremely careless."
Judge orders the release of additional Clinton emails
The FBI recently discovered an additional 15,000 emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. Though a vast majority of those communications appear to be innocuous, a federal judge has ordered their release beginning on September 13th.
Reuters: Congressional leaders were briefed on DNC hack last year
As new details emerge on the hacks of the Democratic Party, we've yet to learn the scope of the damage. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported the people behind the DNC hack had much larger aspirations that included NATO and top security officials. Reuters now reports that Congressional leaders were briefed on Russian cyberattacks that targeted the Democrats last year. Sources tell the news outlet that due to the top secret nature of the information, those officials weren't able to inform the targets about the issue. The FBI confirmed publicly that it was looking into Russia's involvement in the ordeal in late July after Wikileaks published thousands of DNC emails.
ICYMI: Eye exams go DIY and smartfeeding your pets
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A new device can calculate people's eyeglass prescriptions without needing to see an optometrist, though whether that's actually responsible or not is up to you. Meanwhile a cloud-connected smart petfeeder that suffered from downed servers had to send a notice to owners to feed their pets manually, since the machines lost all connection and didn't release food. There's a lot to talk about this week but we recommend reading up on NOAA's three month weather outlook, since everyone will be talking about the DNC this weekend anyway. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Clinton's campaign was also hacked in breach of Democratic Party
The most recent cyberattacks against the Democratic Party, revealed today, also included attacks on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Reuters reports. Sources tell the news agency that the Justice Department's national security division is investigating all of the recent hacks against the Democratic Party, and they note that's a sign that the Obama administration believe the attacks are state sponsored.
Audit shows Hillary Clinton's private emails broke federal rules
Hillary Clinton's email woes are far from over. Earlier this morning, the State Department's inspector general delivered a report to Congress stating the Democratic presidential candidate violated federal rules by using a private email server for official business during her tenure as secretary of state. "At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service," the report reads. "Because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act."
Google built tech to support the Syrian uprising, Clinton email says
Google built a tool in 2012 designed to help organize Syrian dissidents opposed to President Bashar Assad, according to a new batch of emails released from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private server. Jared Cohen, once the head of the Google Ideas division, sent a message to top Clinton officials in July 2012 outlining a tool that would publicly track and map defections in Syria.
House Science panel opens new investigation into Clinton emails
Hillary Clinton already has the FBI and a Senate judiciary committee on her tail about her private emails possibly containing classified info, but now it looks like she has to face yet another inquiry on the matter. Two days ago, House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) opened a second congressional committee to investigate the security of those emails.
FBI broadens investigation into Clinton emails
A few months ago, presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed over her email servers to the FBI. Since then, the federal agency found out that at least a couple of her own personal correspondence could have been classified as "top secret," which isn't the sort of thing that should've been sent with an unsecured private account. Now it seems Clinton could be in hot water again. According to Fox News, the FBI is now looking into her emails to see if Clinton had violated public corruption laws.
Latest batch of Clinton emails may contain classified intel
The State Department announced on Monday that it will release an email from former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server that, according to members of the intelligence community, may contain classified information. The email is part of a nearly 8,000-page document dump scheduled for Monday. The State Department has already unveiled around 30,000 pages (of an estimated 54,000) since the scandal erupted in March.