European Elections 2017

Originally Posted by nomadking

So what.
1) There would be no guarantee it would work
2) there would be no guarantee of finding anything.
3) It would take time to find anything
4) It is too late for the French press to report on it anyway.

Any attempt would have had to be made long before now.

I think the impact of it being released now is that they've entered a period where the Macron team can't really respond and the press can't verify the release. Instead it's been disseminated largely on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook where they're most likely to have an impact and where they can spread unchallenged. If you look on Twitter it's just a barrage of it. It appears he has done very crime imaginable and confessed it via e-mail to campaign staff for some reason.

I doubt it's going to have a big effect but is this the new normal? One-sided hacking attempts against whomever the centrist / anti-Russian / pro-NATO candidate is?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

I doubt it's going to have a big effect but is this the new normal? One-sided hacking attempts against whomever the centrist / anti-Russian / pro-NATO candidate is?

That's certainly my concern and it's why I'm keen that the Republican establishment stops standing in the way of the investigations in the US.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Damien

I think the impact of it being released now is that they've entered a period where the Macron team can't really respond and the press can't verify the release. Instead it's been disseminated largely on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook where they're most likely to have an impact and where they can spread unchallenged. If you look on Twitter it's just a barrage of it. It appears he has done very crime imaginable and confessed it via e-mail to campaign staff for some reason.

I doubt it's going to have a big effect but is this the new normal? One-sided hacking attempts against whomever the centrist / anti-Russian / pro-NATO candidate is?

So how many French voters are looking out for whatever is supposed to be out there? Millions?

Originally Posted by nomadking

So how many French voters are looking out for whatever is supposed to be out there? Millions?

It just needs to be enough to swing the vote - Trump won by 10,704 in Michigan, 22,177 in Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by 49,000, which were in total worth 46 Electoral College votes.

So under just over 82,000 votes can change the result of an election - you don't need millions.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Hugh

It just needs to be enough to swing the vote - Trump won by 10,704 in Michigan, 22,177 in Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by 49,000, which were in total worth 46 Electoral College votes.

So under just over 82,000 votes can change the result of an election - you don't need millions.

That assumes that otherwise they would have been level pegging.

Given the difference in the polls, the impact would need to be several million votes.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

I doubt it's going to have a big effect but is this the new normal? One-sided hacking attempts against whomever the centrist / anti-Russian / pro-NATO candidate is?

Originally Posted by nomadking

So how many French voters are looking out for whatever is supposed to be out there? Millions?

The way I've read it, Damien doesn't seem to be talking millions but more about the principle of hacking occurring against the candidates least favoured by Russia.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

The way I've read it, Damien doesn't seem to be talking millions but more about the principle of hacking occurring against the candidates least favoured by Russia.

But why bother unless you can be sure of having any necessary impact?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by nomadking

But why bother unless you can be sure of having any necessary impact?

1. What's the downside? Very little. What's the upside? Potentially high.
2. The polls may be wrong. If you could have influenced an election but didn't you might regret it.
3. Increase your knowledge of the dark arts of news management. Is it better to mix genuine content with fake news? Which bloggers are best to tip off?

Pretty cool.

Macron's team knew they would be, and were, the target of hackers after what happened in the States and intentionally clicked pishing e-mails only to insert rubbish credentials and data. http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...mpaign-hackers

“You can flood these [phishing] addresses with multiple passwords and log-ins, true ones, false ones, so the people behind them use up a lot of time trying to figure them out,” Mounir Mahjoubi, the head of Macron’s digital team, told The Daily Beast for its earlier article on this subject.

In the end, whoever made the dump may not have known what is real and what is false, which would explain in part the odd timing. After the disruptive revelations of the Democratic National Committee hacks in the United States, the public is conditioned to think that if there’s a document dump like this, it has to be incriminating. By putting it out just before the news blackout, when Macron cannot respond in detail, the dump becomes both the medium and the message.

This is how the Macron team were so quick to know some of the data was fake, they put it there.

---------- Post added at 16:27 ---------- Previous post was at 14:37 ----------

Turn out is at 'historic lows' which bodes well for Le Pen.

Landslide for Macron.

65% to 35%. Bigger margin than the poll suggested.

If that is the final result it means the poll was off more than it was for Brexit and more than Trump.

They are saying turnout is low, around 65%, lower than last election.

Still, Le Pen, beat her Father's attempt back in 2002, not just beat it but doubled it.

Hollande should have just re-ran, if all the French wanted was another EU puppet.

It's been on the news, Macron has already had a cosy warm chat with Angela Merkel.

Le Pen might not be able to hold onto the leadership of the NF now, she was expected to do better and people in the party were not happy with her attempts to revamp the party.

[1andrew1]

Credit to the outsider who only set up his party 13 months ago. He'll be no walkover for the EU. As Kursk has said, he is a skilled negotiator.

---------- Post added at 21:43 ---------- Previous post was at 21:42 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

Le Pen might not be able to hold onto the leadership of the NF now, she was expected to do better and people in the party were not happy with her attempts to revamp the party.

Has she rejoined the Party then?

Final tally 66% to 34%.

[Mr K]

At least one country isn't bonkers.