In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization’s computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation’s top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, … information, even voice mails.
Soon after, the remainder of the Democratic Party machine, the congressional campaign, the Clinton campaign, and their friends and allies in the media were also hacked. Credit cards numbers, phone numbers, and contacts were stolen. In short order, the FBI found that more than twenty-five state election offices had their voter registration systems probed or attacked by the same hackers.
Western intelligence agencies tracked the hack to Russian spy agencies and dubbed them the CYBER BEARS. The media was soon flooded with the stolen information channeled through Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. It was a massive attack on America but the Russian hacks appeared to have a singular goal–elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.
New York Times bestselling author and career intelligence officer Malcolm Nance’s fast paced real-life spy thriller takes you from Vladimir Putin’s rise through the KGB from junior officer to spymaster-in-chief and spells out the story of how he performed the ultimate political manipulation–convincing Donald Trump to abandon seventy years of American foreign policy including the destruction of NATO, cheering the end of the European Union, allowing Russian domination of Eastern Europe, and destroying the existing global order with America at its lead.
The Plot to Hack America is the thrilling true story of how Putin’s spy agency, run by the Russian billionaire class, used the promise of power and influence to cultivate Trump as well as his closest aides, the Kremlin Crew, to become unwitting assets of the Russian government. The goal? To put an end to 240 years of free and fair American democratic elections.
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Everyone should read this book. Our democracy may or perhaps will depend on our knowledge of what is happening in and to our country. Malcolm Nance has the knowledge and expertise to help us understand. Very important to read his book, The Plot to Hack America.
This book by Malcolm Nance outlines how our intelligence agencies figured out that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election in hopes of seeing Trump become President. It also outlines how Trump is their perfect “unwitting” asset; how Putin uses bots and social media to spread disinformation and misinformation in target countries to confuse the public; and how easily the public can be misled into divisiveness and mistrust of their government institutions. It is truly scary and a must read for anyone who cares about the future of our Democratic Republic which may not last much longer.
Pretty scary stuff.
An informative read, but a bit too much historical background for a casual read. Factually correct.
Thoroughly researched and informative book. Highly recommended
Right about now, you might be asking yourself ‘why, on earth, would anyone want to relive the election of 2016?’ I really don’t want to relive it, but I do want to understand it. I’ve watched Malcolm Nance state, with the assurance of an expert, how Trump was groomed as an agent (witting or not) for Russia. His public, verbal statements, although short, were extremely compelling. THE PLOT TO HACK AMERICA is equally compelling and more readable than one might expect. The only caveat to readability is whether you are up to reading about IP addresses and Denial of Service attacks. Full disclosure, I spent 20+ years as a PC/Mac support specialist, so none of this was Greek to me. If tech isn’t your thing, you can probably gloss over the specifics, but be sure to read what their impact means. To his credit, Mr. Nance does provide clear definitions for the geekspeak.
The broad strokes of THE PLOT TO HACK AMERICA have been covered extensively in newspapers, magazines, on the internet, and in broadcast media. However, to learn some of the finer points, it is necessary to go beyond the quotable quotes and soundbites. For example, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are discrete entities that don’t appear to be working together. Even the names do not identify a specific group of people; they identify the hacking tools used. These names are not used universally by cyber security companies. Each firm has its own designation for the set of hacker tools used.
The book is not as long as it might appear. Actually, about two thirds is Malcolm Nance’s book, and the remainder is given over to the public reports from the Intelligence Community. Malcolm Nance, a former member of said Intelligence Community, feels vindicated in his personal assessment of Russian involvement in the 2016 election by these reports.
Knowledge is power. Understanding that the roots of what happened in 2016 date back to the tsars, that spying and worse is part of the Russian DNA, will help us all be more vigilant. Their methods rely on a digitally unsophisticated technology user who is easily fooled into giving away their most personal information. During the Cold War, it was dead drops and break-ins, today it is hacking. The results are the same.
A must read for anyone with the right to vote in America.
A great account of how Donald Trump was recruited and played by the Russian KGB and Putin and elected as President with the Russians help.
It would be nice if it had a link to get current updates as more is discovered.
Anybody who has not been asleep for the last 50 years has realized that everybody is hacking everybody else while trying to influence public attitudes and government decisions. The real question is what did WE do defensively or in response to the threat when detected? We should assume that our intelligence agencies were effective and quite wisely would not choose to disclose the countermeasures taken.
The book is a polemic and does not shed any light on the problem of securing our information. Who cares about the office gossip disclosed in the hacked e-mails?