August 29, 2024
Hacking and the 2024 Election
By Julio Rivera
In the grand, chaotic spectacle of global politics, election meddling has become the hit show that no one asked for but everyone is watching. Imagine it: a world where manipulating an election is as easy as hacking your friend's Netflix account (not that I'm suggesting you should). Gone are the days when meddling in foreign elections required the subtle art of bribery, backroom deals, or -- if you were particularly ambitious -- staging a coup. No, in this glorious cyber age, all you need is a Wi-Fi connection, a basement, and a healthy disregard for international law.
Let’s start with a bit of history. Meddling in elections isn’t new; it’s practically a geopolitical tradition, as old as the phrase "I didn’t do it, but if I did, I had a good reason." Take the United States' involvement in the 2015 Israeli elections. A Senate probe found that under former President Barack Obama, U.S. funds were used to support a campaign aimed at unseating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Just a bit of digital democracy promotion, right? Fast forward a bit, and we have the 2016 U.S. elections, where the all the headlines noted Russia’s mix of fake news, social media manipulation to the tune of about 100k worth of ad buys, and email hacking to marginally, if at all, affect results.
More recently, in the plot twist of all plot twists, the U.S. concluded that Iran had tried its hand at hacking into the emails of key figures in the Trump-Biden-Harris trifecta. The goal here? To create chaos, sow discord, and watch from afar as their enemies turn on each other in a frenzy of conspiracy theories and mistrust. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of tossing a stink bomb into a crowded room and locking the door -- except this room is the global political arena, and the bomb is digital disinformation.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/hacking_and_the_2024_election.html
