I.e, your sleuthing…(Not the actual perps)…

(Having said that, I would be wary of allowing this gruesome episode to divert attention, and blame, from Democrat Party EVIL to Iranian hackers—though maybe the point is that there was collusion there, too? (As in, “Peacocks of a feather”?) To be sure, the Mullahs may have overthrown the Pahlavis, but they’ve been acting far more reprehensively…as a great many Iranians themselves have discovered…)

Anyway, thanks much….

https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/01/while-fearmongering-about-voter-intimidation-the-left-promises-to-revolt-if-trump-wins/

It seems like threats of “creating serious disruption,” as one Resistance group expressed plans to do if Trump wins, might be a worrisome voter intimidation tactic. (If someone told me he would bring mass chaos to the streets if I voted for a particular candidate, I’d feel intimidated.) But the media and Twitter establishments are a lot more interested in a narrative where voter intimidation comes from the right.

Much was made of emails circulating, allegedly from the extremist group “Proud Boys,” threatening to “come after” people unless they cast their votes for Trump.

Here’s a threatening email my friend, a retired fed prosecutor, just received (she notified the FBI) telling her to vote for Trump. I find it ABSURD that Ratcliffe just said the voter intimidation campaign is designed to HURT Trump. By its very terms, it’s designed to HURT Biden! pic.twitter.com/lGN2apvEwN

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) October 21, 2020

The Proud Boys denied sending the emails, and government officials eventually deemed the emails to be from Iranian hackers. John Ratcliffe, U.S. director of national intelligence, suggested that the emails may have been actually a plot to “damage President Trump,” possibly by associating him with the Proud Boys or with voter intimidation tactics. Still, the “right-wing voter intimidation” narrative continued.
…

The Washington Post engaged in a hand-wringing exercise over “jeering sign-wavers” and “caravans of honking trucks.” [NOTE – I’m waving my Canadian flag]
….
And after the Trump campaign captured on camera what appeared to be voters dropping off multiple ballots, not just their own, Pennsylvania’s attorney general (and the New York Times) were more concerned that the videotaping might be intimidating voters than about the apparent voter fraud.
…
Of course, this doesn’t mean that every incident of voter intimidation is imaginary. Incidents like one posted by Ajay Rochester, in which demonstrators took down her license plate number and told her “we got your plates, we got you,” are indefensible.
…
However, for every legitimate concern of voter intimidation, there appear to be a host of examples of the media crying “intimidation!” at either a false or exaggerated story.

After all, the “Proud Boys” email wasn’t from the Proud Boys. Trump never told his listeners to act violently at the polls, but to watch for instances of potential fraud. There is nothing inherently aggressive about legal and responsible concealed carry. Wearing a mask is hardly a threat to someone’s safety, and neither is videotaping to reveal sincere concerns about ballot integrity.

One looming threat the media doesn’t want to talk about, though, is that of anti-Trump “Resistance” and what they plan to do if Biden doesn’t win on election night.

Copious factual details of the Resistance, as opposed to baseless allegations about MAGA country.

https://fox8.com/news/10-million-reward-offered-for-iranian-nationals-accused-of-interfering-with-2020-u-s-presidential-election/

Authorities said sanctions were planned against Kazemi, Kashian, the company, and its leaders, who are not in custody.
A reward of up to $10 million is available for information on Kazemi and Kashian’s activities.

Iran didn’t like the mean tweets, er, indictments.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/19/iran-condemns-us-sanctions-over-meddling-in-presidential-vote

The US recently renewed the call for information, so I guess this group didn’t make it into Malley’s negotiation give-aways to Iran.
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2022/02/03/US-re-offers-10-mln-for-information-on-Iran-hackers-accused-of-election-interference

This list by Noronha of terrorists that Biden intends to send off with his blessing doesn’t include the hackers, but they might still make the final cut – if there is one.
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/perfidy-in-vienna?s=r

https://inside.com/campaigns/inside-security-2022-02-01-31178/sections/268705

The FBI warned that hackers with ties to Iranian cyber group Emennett Pasargad are increasing efforts to target U.S. businesses. Last October, two Emennett Pasargad employees were charged with interfering in the 2020 presidential elections by impersonating far-right group the Proud Boys.
More:
The FBI says Emennett Pasargad impersonated the “Yemen Cyber Army” in 2018 to spread anti-Saudi Arabia rhetoric.
The FBI says Emennett uses VPNs and web searches to find vulnerabilities against U.S. companies.
The company has also targeted the travel, news, and telecommunications industries in Europe and the Middle East.
It was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control last November.

That article links back to (1) a Bloomberg post from November 2021, which was very short and uninformative; and (2) an analysis by a group that wants to sell VPN services, from January 2022.
Computer nerds may find some of the omitted text of interest.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/doj-charges-iranian-hackers-who-posed-as-pro-trump-proud-boys-1.1684075
November 18, 2020

https://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-warns-over-iranian-cyber-group-tells-organizations-to-up-their-defenses/
January 27, 2022

The FBI has issued an alert detailing the tools, techniques and tactics of an Iranian group, giving US organizations tips to defend against its malicious cyber activities.
Back in October 2021, a grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York indicted two Iranian nationals employed by Emennet Pasargad for computer intrusion, computer fraud, voter intimidation, interstate threats, and conspiracy offenses for their alleged participation in a campaign aimed at influencing and interfering with the 2020 US Presidential Election.
The Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Emennet along with four members of the company’s management and the two indicted employees for attempting to influence the election. The Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program also offered up to $10 million for information on the two indicted actors.
But the FBI information indicates Emennet poses a broader cybersecurity threat outside of information operations.
“Since 2018, Emennet has conducted traditional cyber exploitation activity targeting several sectors, including news, shipping, travel (hotels and airlines), oil and petrochemical, financial, and telecommunications, in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East,” it said.
Emennet is known to use virtual private network (VPN) services TorGuard, CyberGhost, NordVPN, and Private Internet Access. The group also uses web search to identify leading US business brands and then scans their websites for vulnerabilities to exploit. In some but not all cases, the exploit attempts were targeted and the group would also try to identify hosting and shared hosting services.
…
It said the group has attempted to leverage cyber intrusions conducted by other actors for their own benefit, for example searching for data hacked and leaked by other actors, and attempting to identify webshells that may have been placed or used by other cyber actors.
…

The Proud Boys hoax, mentioned in the preceding comment, is on page 3 of the indictment.
Briefly, the hackers emailed Democrats whose data they had obtained and threatened them with physical harm if they voted for Trump. They had the voters’ addresses, of course, and said that the voters were to change registration to Republican as a signal they would comply.
The implication (as I read the text; I can’t cut&paste from it) is that the senders would somehow know what the voters put on their ballots.
Most Americans (clearly, now, no longer all) would understand (or at least assume) that was a false claim, so this threat may be one of the things that tipped the FBI it was a false-flag op.

Solomon linked to the DOJ post, from which he got most of his information, and which identified the hackers with Emennett Pasargad, although Solomon omitted that detail.
I’m excerpting it instead of the DOJ press release, because it also has other interesting information about the election, and some commentary.

(FWIW JustTheNews renamed the document)
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2022-03/IranianHackerVoterDatabaseIndictment.pdf
* * *
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/new-federal-indictment-further-erodes-narrative-immaculate-2020-election
John Solomon November 19, 2021

The indictment stated that two Iranian hackers successfully hacked into a state computer election system, stole voter registration data and used it to carry out a cyber-intimidation campaign that targeted GOP members of Congress, Trump campaign officials and Democratic voters in the November 2020 election.
…
[more news about election irregularities – to state it mildly]
…
Now, the discomforting reality that hackers tied to a foreign power penetrated and stole voter data is certain to raise new questions about election integrity.
Thursday’s federal indictment charged Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, with obtaining confidential U.S. voter information from at least one state election website, sending threatening email messages to intimidate and interfere with voters, and disseminating a video containing disinformation about purported election infrastructure vulnerabilities.
The victimized state was not identified, though prosecutors said at least 100,000 voters’ information was stolen in the scheme. Prosecutors did not allege direct Iranian government involvement but said at least one of the defendants had done work for Tehran’s government.
U.S. officials said the case was an example of “malign foreign influence” in a U.S. election.
…
The indictment alleged a plot that began in August 2020 that included:
– Attempts to compromise approximately 11 state voter websites, including state voter registration websites and state voter information websites. Those efforts resulted in the successful exploitation of a misconfigured computer system in one state in which data for more than 100,000 voters was stolen.
– The hackers posing as members of a “group of Proud Boys volunteers” and then sending Facebook messages and emails to Republican senators, Republican members of Congress, individuals associated with the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, White House advisers, and members of the media.
– Bogus messages claiming the Democratic Party was planning to exploit “serious security vulnerabilities” in state voter registration websites to “edit mail-in ballots or even register non-existent voters.”

[NOTE: that turned out to be not so bogus, as it was later discovered that the Dems did some things very similar.]

– The production of a false video carrying the Proud Boys logo, which purported to depict an individual hacking into state voter websites and using stolen voter information to create fraudulent absentee ballots.
– An online voter intimidation campaign involving the dissemination of a threatening message purporting to be from the Proud Boys, to tens of thousands of registered voters. The emails were sent to registered Democrats and threatened the recipients with physical injury if they did not change their party affiliation and vote for Trump.
– An unsuccessful effort to hack into a news media company’s computers to further disseminate false claims concerning the election. The effort failed, prosecutors said.

https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/01/28/there-was-no-russian-collusion-in-2016-but-definitely-iranian-collusion-in-the-2020-us-presidential-elections/

Iranian hacker group interfered in 2020 polls
‘Proud Boys’ regularly make news for their illegal and violent activities. The group has been de-platformed by major tech platforms for its “racist” views.

However, in a big surprise, the FBI has released a briefing, according to which a group of Iranian hackers supposedly posed as ‘Proud Boys’ members as a part of a cyber misinformation campaign intended to interfere in the 2020 polls.

The Iranian hacker group, identified as Emennett Pasargad, was the one that interfered in the Presidential polls. Members of the group reportedly mask their activity by attacking through VPNs. Websites that use certain software programs like WordPress were particularly vulnerable to the Iranian hacker group as hackers can easily exploit such programs to carry out their attacks.

“Multi-faceted campaign” by Iranian hackers

As per the FBI, Emennett Pasargad has conducted “traditional cyber exploitation activity” since 2018. It has targeted news, shipping, oil, finance and telecom companies not just in the US, but also in Europe and other parts of the world. In 2020, Emennet also conducted cyber disinformation campaigns against Saudi Arabia, by masquerading as the “Yemen Cyber Army”.

In 2020, the Iranian hackers carried out a “multi-faceted campaign to interfere in the US election”. And the Iranian interference was way too deep. The hackers obtained confidential voter information from at least one state election website and even threatened voters with intimidating e-mails. Also, it used tools like videos containing “disinformation” and unauthorised attempts at accessing voting-related websites of several states.

Why Iran may have interfered in the 2020 polls

Tehran had every reason to interfere and possibly dethrone Trump. After all, Iran hates Trump. The former US President is the one who got the top Iranian military official, Soleimani killed. Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran, he was killed by the US under Trump’s watch and Tehran simply couldn’t do anything.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/trump%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98maximum-pressure%E2%80%99-iran-policy-getting-results-152676
May 10, 2020
Author Tallha Abdulrazaq is an award-winning academic and columnist specialising in counterterrorism and military history at the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute in England.

Far from liberal opprobrium being heaped on Trump’s Iran policy, it is now more important than ever for Washington to maintain pressure on the Islamic Republic and for European allies to step up to the plate and support its American ally. There can be no doubt that present U.S. policy to robustly tackle Iran’s ambitions that threaten American interests and those of its allies is having a tangible effect. Iranian generals are now too afraid to do what they were doing up until the beginning of this year and are outsourcing their command to terrorist proxies, further weakening Iranian control.

Should Joe Biden win the election and reverse the Trump administration’s Iran policy in favour of those of his former running mate President Barack Obama, it will only embolden the Iranian regime, enriching and rewarding it for its bellicose activities and for its unparalleled support for terrorist organisations around the world. For the sake of global security and regional stability, this must not be allowed to happen and the United States needs to leverage its alliances to ensure Iran is compelled to behave responsibly.

Well, he got that right.
This is what the Iranians did to help make sure they got Biden back on the other side of the negotiation table. Speaking metaphorically, of course.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/ballot-bombshells-20-episodes-exposing-fraud-illegalities-and
John Solomon, March 10, 2022

Illegal rule changes, ballot harvesting, Iranian voter hack are among the many now-confirmed serious irregularities, putting the lie to the “perfect election” narrative.
After the 2020 election ended with Joe Biden declared the winner, the federal cybersecurity agency declared it was a perfectly secure vote. Months later, federal prosecutors admitted two Iranian nationals hacked into a state’s database and stole the identities of 100,000 voters in an effort to influence the election.
…
Here are 20 of the most important revelations uncovered by Just the News over the last 15 months of reporting, complete with substantiating evidence and links”

A Foreign Intrusion.
Federal authorities have confirmed that two Iranian nationals successfully hacked into a state computer election system, stole 100,000 voter registrations and used the data to carry out a cyber-intimidation campaign that targeted GOP members of Congress, Trump campaign officials and Democratic voters in the November 2020 election in one of the largest foreign intrusions in U.S. election history. The defendants “were part of a coordinated conspiracy in which Iranian hackers sought to undermine faith and confidence in the U.S. presidential election,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams declared in an indictment.
…

This is actually old news.
By following a series of links and doing some searching, I filled out the Iranian Hacker story, which I will put in a second comment.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1502947716908912644.html

Off to church.