Anatomy of a single Question & Answer from Trump

[_MeDotOrg]

From Trump's Press Conference:

QUESTION: On that intelligence report, the second part of their conclusion was that Vladimir Putin ordered it because he aspired to help you in the election.

Do you accept that part of the finding? And will you undo what President Obama did to punish the Russians for this or will you keep it in place?

TRUMP: Well, if — if Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. Russia can help us fight ISIS, which, by the way, is, number one, tricky. I mean if you look, this administration created ISIS by leaving at the wrong time. The void was created, ISIS was formed.

If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That’s called an asset, not a liability.

Now, I don’t know that I’m gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t. And if I don’t, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Give me a break.

Trump's answer to the question is worth examining.

I have said before that I think Donald Trump will be a transactional President, by which I mean his first thought is not strategic, it is transactional: What is best in this situation? This is a pragmatic way to look at the world in business. But how does this translate in politics?

Look at Trump's answer: Well, if — if Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. That's a pragmatic, transactional answer. If Putin likes me, that's a good thing because if will be mean we can get along.

But he conflates his relationship with Putin with Russia's relationship with the United States.

Imagine if China had interfered for Clinton, and she said, "Well, we'll have a better relationship with China'? Hopefully not, but you get the point. He's looking at a foreign power interfering in our election, and all he can see is that because they want him, his relationship with that country will be better. So foreign government interference is in an election is no big deal, because if the candidate the foreign nation wants [Trump] wins, ergo relations with that country will improve.

He then slides into a sideways segue into better relations with Putin will help in the fight against ISIS, and that ISIS exists because Obama left at the wrong time. Just to be clear, Obama left on the timetable set by George Bush. The Iraqi Government did not wish to be the recipient of our continued largesse.

I'm pretty sure Vladimir Putin did not want to be best buds with Donald so they could fight ISIS together, and he just didn't want to fight alongside Obama because he didn't like him. But Trump paints the situation as a clash of personalities rather than national interests. And transactional thinking is Trump's preferred mode of operation.

He closes by emphasizing: Now, I don’t know that I’m gonna get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t. And if I don’t, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Give me a break.

Again, the entire relationship of the United States rests on how the leaders get along personally.

So Trump says if Putin wanted him as President, that's not a bad thing, but if things go bad, he's tougher than Hillary. Tougher and friendlier, I guess. But he cannot see around his massive ego to observe that not all politics are transactional. There are strategic interests that go beyond your ability to schmooze.

And because he sees the Russian influence as a transaction that will relate in better relations with Vladimir Putin, how could it possibly be bad? He cannot or will not see the strategic implications that stretch beyond his ego.

[_Dr. Shades]

Again, the entire relationship of the United States rests on how the leaders get along personally.

He didn't say that. He only said it was an asset.

[_MeDotOrg]

Again, the entire relationship of the United States rests on how the leaders get along personally.

He didn't say that. He only said it was an asset.

But he's ignoring the entire point: Is it good for a foreign nation to use political espionage in United States democratic elections on behalf of one candidate because they like that candidate more than the other candidate, regardless of the reason?

That's why this is a big issue, and his unwillingness or inability to see or admit that shows that he is focused solely on the transactional side of the relationship.

[_Jersey Girl]

But he's ignoring the entire point: Is it good for a foreign nation to use political espionage in United States democratic elections on behalf of one candidate because they like that candidate more than the other candidate, regardless of the reason?

That's why this is a big issue, and his unwillingness or inability to see or admit that shows that he is focused solely on the transactional side of the relationship.

What did he say about preventing hackings?

[_MeDotOrg]

What did he say about preventing hackings?

On thursday Trump announced Rudy Giuliani will be forming a cybersecurity team for the President-elect.

The website of America's new cyberczar — former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani— is running on outdated, unprotected software that even the most basic attacker could breach, said security researchers.

The person or people who set up Giulianisecurity.com — which as of Friday afternoon is offline — made no effort to fortify the site from hackers and had not updated the software since it was downloaded in 2012, said Dan Tentler founder of security company Phobos Group. (This problem was first reported by Gizmodo.)

While on a plane from his mobile device, Tentler was able to pull up a browser and quickly see "read me" files that even the most basic web administrator would remove from view to make it harder for an attacker to compromise a website, he said.

"This is really, really, really basic — it barely even qualifies as security," he said. "Those files give you all the information you need to do nefarious things."

With such lax security, someone could easily compromise the site and set up a backdoor to infect visitors, or use this vulnerability to get access to Giuliani himself or his clients, said Tenter. (Giuliani Security could not immediately be reached for comment.)

"This is horrifying," he said. "This organization that bills itself as a security company has taken zero time to harden its own website." Others agreed. "The list of vulnerabilities associated with Mr. Giuliani's website shows that he's got a bit of an uphill battle when it comes to convincing this community that he's the real deal," wrote Eric O'Neill, national security strategist for Carbon Black.

As the news spread following the announcement of Giuliani's new role on Thursday, #cybergrandpa trended on Twitter and software experts piled on the criticism of the website and Giuliani's cybersecurity credentials.

Yeah, they took Rudy's website off line, but you can still see it on the wayback machine. After all he said about Clinton's email server, it will be interesting to hear what he says about the fact his own security server has no security.

I'm not sure that a cure for hacking is possible. You want something that is impenetrable, but the government always wants a back door. You can't have it both ways. In order to live in a world where the government could not be hacked, the government would have to live in a world where it could not hack anyone else.

Recently a group called the Shadow Hackers released a bunch of hacking tools that they stole from the NSA. So now all the hackers in the world have many of the NSA hacking tools.

At this point, I don't think anybody knows what that will mean. But the first thing I think about is any financial transaction is now a potential target of NSA tracking tools. Not a warm fuzzy feeling.

It's weird, but if you look at the history of computers, the urge to hack has always been there. I remember an anecdote in Steven Levy's book Hackers about the designers of an early multi-user operating system. Anytime anyone put out a new Operating System the geeks would try to crash it. So the designers put in a simple command kill system that would bring the system down instantly. In essence they advertised the existence of an open back door: Here it is folks. If you want to bring the system down, just type kill system. In so doing, they removed the challenge of killing the system. It was no longer a hacker challenge.

But in the limited hacker universe of M.I.T., the object was not to read the files, the game was in picking the locks. The data was just the points on the scoreboard. Remove the locks and there's no game to play.

In today's World Wide Web, the command kill system given to a billion human beings? I'm guessing the honor system is probably not going to work.

I'll say one thing about Donald Trump: his technical luddism has kept him much less vulnerable to hacking. He has a healthy fear of computers. I don't know that he has a great understanding of hacking, but to be fair, I'm not I do either.

I think one thing we have to do is start thinking outside the box. Biometrics is a start. You want to have some sort of unique analog verification to okay the transfer of certain digital material. But all of the freedom, mobility and accessibility of the Internet comes as a cost. And in the digital world the cost is a binary choice: Security versus Privacy. People have to get smart about what they say on the internet, and we need to develop strategies about having firewalls between our personal and financial data on the internet.

And if you have anything to do with politics, you just have to assume that someone is trying to hack your computer. I would never transmit anything digitally with respect to security that could wait and be said in person.

One thing that came out of the whole FBI sidecar Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop investigation is the need to have strict rules about what information can be accessed on what computer.

But as far as what Trump has said so far, not much. His choice of Giuliani feels more like a reward for a guy who's been shut out of the cabinet.