The Fake News Problem at 1301 K Street NW

The Original Hed

Friday night, the US State Security Apparatus' favorite outlet for fake news, the Washington Post unleashed a bombshell, that Russia had hacked into Vermont's power grid.

It was a real bombshell.

The only problem was that it was not even remotely true, and within 48 hours, the Post issued a mealy mouthed retraction:

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

They also changed the headline to read, "Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say."

Malware was found on a single laptop, and the malware is publicly available, and written by Ukrainians.  (It's also an old version of the software.

The Post wrote a followup article, which led with, "As federal officials investigate suspicious Internet activity found last week on a Vermont utility computer, they are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort to target or hack the utility, according to experts and officials close to the investigation."

Forbes unleashed a can of whup ass on the WaPo as well.

I've not looked at the physical paper, but my guess is that it was not on the front page.

Someone's laptop was surfing with its shields down, and it got hacked.

Some people in Congress and/or the White House then sold it as the end of the world.

As Marcy Wheeler pithily notes, "Some of these security professionals are the same ones who’ve been saying for months that the DNC hack can be reliably attributed to the Russian state.

This sort of hysteria undercuts the credibility of our cyber experts and the narrative that they are pushing.