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Comment by dlp211 | Hacker News Reader

Except, you know, they were wrong. It's absolutely fine to talk about these things, but it is also absolutely pertinent that we take a measured approach. There was a lot of down voting of people that took the measured response in that thread and that is NOT healthy for this or any online community.

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Wrong about what exactly? There are hundreds of aspects to this story. There is no monolithic "right" or "wrong".

>Wrong about what exactly?

Unfounded reactionary conspiracies, at least that's the context to this thread. I don't think anyone is appealing to a universal morality of "right" or "wrong".

Just yesterday someone implied that the FBI was colluding with the Clintons to falsely blame the Podesta hacks on Russia, and I was downvoted for saying that without proof it's absurd.

Maybe the downvotes were because the burden of proof still lies with the FBI or Clintons to show it was indeed Russia.

Conversely, how can you prove that a state did not participate in a cyber attack?

Why do you specifically limit the burden of proof with the FBI and the Clintons?

Numerous independent cybersecurity firms and experts have already said Guccifer 2.0 is linked to two Russian intelligence agencies

> Why do you specifically limit the burden of proof with the FBI and the Clintons?

I don't understand the "and", I specifically wrote "FBI or Clintons".

> Numerous independent cybersecurity firms and experts have already said Guccifer 2.0 is linked to two Russian intelligence agencies

Many of them refer to [1], a post that I wasn't aware of (seriously, I just read claims from politicians whereever I went)

[1] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...

And by saying "or" you're limiting it to either of those two parties, even though numerous other people have already weighed in on the situation.

OK, so I think this was a misunderstanding. I just "Clinton or the FBI" because those two were mentioned earlier but by no means it was meant to be an exclusive list.

Since they are the "plaintiffs" I was (and am) assuming it's their duty to come up with evidence but this doesn't at all exclude evidence from third parties.

Honestly, I would like to see a thorough discussion about what is probably true and what not. In the media I only hear "It's them", "No, it wasn't us", "Yes, it was!", ...

Apart from that there is always a grain of doubt when it comes to enemies of the state (Putin, Assad, Hussein, Gaddafi, ...) because more often than not "Our sources confirm that ..." don't come with any evidence at all.

Yet you are taking Clinton's conspiracy theories at face value?

No, I'm taking the FBI's suspicion at face value, because they're in charge of protecting the U.S. from foreign intelligence threats.

And I'm also taking CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica at face value as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0

This prevalence of your reactionary conspiracy witch-hunt is precisely what this thread is about.

Please link to where the FBI said the Russians are conspiring to rig the election for Trump.

The FBI said the Podesta Email hack was related to Russia: http://bfy.tw/8Fq5

Just to confirm though, nothing about the Russians conspiring to rig the election for Trump.

>Russians conspiring to rig the election for Trump.

Well, that's your straw man. The evidence shows that Russian intelligence is meddling in the 2016 U.S. Election, and it's focused solely on attacking Trump's competition.

There's no publicly available evidence that shows collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, other than Trump publicly calling for the Russians to hack Hillary's email accounts.

No, that's what Clinton has repeatedly said throughout the debates.

Well, she probably has a different burden of proof for conspiracy than you do, but I'm still not sure what that has to do with my statement about what the FBI is doing with the Russian hacker(s) Guccifer 2.0

Are you talking about this thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12725427 What downvoted comments are you referring to exactly?

I agree with you. Even when it's negative news about things I don't like, I always wait to get all the facts before throwing out random theories or excuses.

Like that whole Trump sexual assault video. When it first came out, I thought it was terrible, but I waited for Trump to respond.

I wish more people would `take a measured approach` as you suggested.

And "measured" response is probably the code word for opinion that you agree with.

Everyone has to decide for him or herself what to up/down-vote.

No, measured means exactly what it means. Measured. I have no problems with dissenting opinions on a matter and arguing against their merits. But anyone even slightly critical of wikileaks in that thread were downvoted. There was no measured response, it was a lot of reactionary hypothesis that turned out to be mostly wrong.

So the others are reactionary, spin hypothesis and are mostly wrong. It's no wonder that few will engage with measured responses to that.

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