Based on recent statements about the Russian intervention into the 2016 United States elections, President Elect Donald Trump has raised questions among technical experts as to his level of understanding of how computers actually work. Commenting on the hacking of DNC emails by Russia and proposed punitive sanctions, he said, “We ought to get on with our lives” because “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.”
“The whole age of computer” should be everyone’s first clue as to Donald Trump’s expertise in all things technical. But his ignorance goes much deeper than that. In virtually all of his public statements leading up to and following the election, Trump has remained willfully ignorant about the sources of electronic espionage carried out by foreign interests going so far as to blame it on overweight Americans in one debate.
Trump’s resistance to believing domestic and foreign intelligence demonstrating Russia’s attempt to help elect him to the presidency has roots in several areas (the least of which is his financial and surrogate ties with the former Soviet country). One of the more important points among those is Trump’s apparent inability to distinguish between fake news/propaganda and actual intelligence American men and women risk their lives daily to obtain.
As of December 16, 2016, every U.S. intelligence agency is in agreement that Russia worked with Wikileaks to influence the U.S. presidential election in order to install Trump as President. The CIA collected enough hard evidence to present this conclusion to major stakeholders in the White House and Congress before the election. Trump – having access to the same classified materials now (as President Elect) that President Obama views – should be able to come to the same conclusion the majority of Congress has in calling out Russia’s violation of U.S. sovereignty.
But he can’t and won’t.
Additional statements made during the same press conference about Russian sanctions offer a glimpse into Trump’s mindset when it comes to the technical aspects of hacking and the repercussions of attacking the United States at the electronic level.
“We have speed. We have a lot of other things but I’m not sure you have the kind of security that you need. But I have not spoken with the senators and I certainly will be over a period of time,” he said.
Trump admitted he was unaware the majority of Senators in Congress are in agreement about Russia’s hacking and their intentions to institute sanctions as punishment despite comments made by Senator Lindsey Graham (R) that same day to press.
This isn’t the first time Trump has demonstrated a deep misunderstanding of cyber security and the need to safeguard the nation’s sensitive information from foreign interests. During the presidential debates this fall he flopped on a question asked by Lester Holt about safeguarding against cyber attacks.
During that discussion the only expert he could cite was his 10-year-old son.
It was during this debate he demonstrated he doesn’t understand the basics of computers, the internet, or the word ‘cyber’ (as he used it as a noun rather than an adjective):
As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don’t—maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?
He added:
So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyberwarfare. It is—it is a huge problem. I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable.
The New York Times also touched on his tech-phobia in a 2015 article analyzing a deposition Trump once gave:
For a candidate who says he is an authority on modern business, Mr. Trump is slow to adopt technology. In 2007, he said he had no home or office computer.
“Does your secretary send emails on your behalf?” he was asked.
His secretary generally typed letters, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t do the email thing.”
By 2013, Mr. Trump was still not sold on email. “Very rarely, but I use it,” he said under questioning.
Whether Trump is ignoring fact-based intelligence because it doesn’t stroke his fragile ego or because he has little to no understanding of technology is a distinction without a difference at this point since the end result will ultimately remain the same. If Trump fights congressional Republican attempts to issue sanctions against Russia, the U.S. will have allowed a blatant violation of its sovereignty over it’s sitting leader’s vanity and/or ignorance.
[SOURCE:-Deacock Panache]
