So far, the only evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 election has indicated that the hacking and ratfcking was one step removed from the actual balloting. The theft and release of e-mails from the Democratic National Committee, and the spreading of invented news and slander over social media platforms, were both aimed at influencing people to vote a certain way. If it could be proven that the Russians actively hacked into the election process itself—which people have been warning for years is a genuine vulnerability—that would pretty much set the world on fire.

Now, though, The Intercept has a report that indicates that the National Security Agency considered this sort of sabotage very seriously in the days before the election.

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light. While the document provides a rare window into the NSA's understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying "raw" intelligence on which the analysis is based. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

This is authentically terrifying and, at the same time, it seems horribly inevitable. If you could ratfck the election on a second-hand basis, why wouldn't you try simply to ratfck the results as well?

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

Because of the piecemeal way we run national elections, it would be harder to hack a national election generally here than it would be elsewhere. However, so many states have signed on to paperless computerized voting, as PBS noted in its November report.

Five states — New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — will cast votes on digital systems without leaving a paper trail. The same applies to several jurisdictions in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Cyber vulnerabilities exist in all of these locations. Most revolve around the age of the machines and their software. The Brennan Center report estimated 43 states will use voting machines in 2016 that are more than 10 years old. Many of these devices contain outdated software — think Microsoft Windows XP or older — without security updates. Meanwhile, the mainframes of other machines are guarded by easy-to-pick padlocks or by no barrier at all. "With the kind of stealth and sophistication that's already out there, why wouldn't a nation-state, cyber-criminal gang or activist group go into election systems that are completely vulnerable?" Scott said.

Returning to the Intercept report, we find that the NSA is warning more of capabilities than anything else, but that the NSA also is warning the government that an assault on the credibility of election results themselves is a very real possibility, even if the assault consists of cyber-attacks on several critical districts in which the voting technology is outdated and/or vulnerable.

The NSA analysis does not draw conclusions about whether the interference had any effect on the election's outcome and concedes that much remains unknown about the extent of the hackers' accomplishments. However, the report raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results.

I'd feel a lot better if I thought any elected officials were taking this kind of thing seriously enough actually to do something about it. But we're turning ourselves inside out over the obvious reality that Russian ratfcking played a role in the election at all. Why do I think, somehow, this is all going to turn out to be Hillary Rodham Clinton's fault?

Update (6:09 PM): Within an hour of The Intercept's posting the document, NBC News reported that the FBI arrested a 25-year-old contractor from Georgia named Reality Leigh Winner for mailing the NSA report to The Intercept. The whole thing, as with so many events since last November, now has lurched into the absurd. Of course, by arresting Winner, the NSA implicitly admits the authenticity of the report.

Reality Leigh Winner.

No kidding.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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