Back in November, a few days before the US election, German Chancellor Merkel publicly stated her worry that Russian hackers could influence the elections in her country's and other Western countries' elections.
In the face of the never ending tennis ball machine (h/t Bob Cesca) of awfulness that was the Trump campaign, this was largely overlooked at the time. But as the New York Times reports:
After hackers infiltrated the German Parliament’s computer network in May 2015, it took nearly a year before the country’s intelligence agency concluded that the attack was most likely the work of their Russian counterparts.
Last week, when 900,000 Germans lost access to internet and telephone services, it took a matter of hours before politicians began pointing fingers at Moscow.
Berlin is now concerned that Germany will become the next focus of Moscow’s campaign to destabilize Western democracies as national elections approach next year.
Those fears intensified after the Obama administration accused the Russian government of attacking Democratic Party emails during the American presidential campaign.
The increasing dissemination of false news, disinformation and propaganda during the American campaign and before Italy’s referendum last weekend has added a related layer of worry about the potential to corrupt public debate and democratic processes.
Putin isn't stopping with Trump. He's making sure he has allies in all of the large global economies.
Whatever comes of this will not be good.
Whatever comes of this will not be good.
