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Dear Obama, from Infosec

144 points by rkcf 10y ago

rkcf 10y ago
Before the GRIZZLY STEPPE report I found myself asking where the proof for the insinuations of a Russian hack to influence the US elections was. I still ask that question after the report was released. I find it completely plausible. However, given the turbulence and hyper-partisanship of this election cycle, I need a bit more than 'It was the Russians because we say so'.
- lossolo 10y ago
  Exactly. Democrats lost everything in this elections, they could just blame Russia, why not? But then what does it say about USA democracy if couple of hackers can change who will be the next POTUS ? This is double edged sword. Until I see evidence of Russia involvement I don't want to make any judgments. I am just tired of constant narration "you know it was Russia, you don't need proofs". It would be great to see some real proofs this time.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Democrats lost everything in this elections, they could just blame Russia, why not? It was attributed to Russians first before the election, and by a private cybersecurity that has never, AFAIK -- even since the attribution -- been accused of Democratic partisanship. So the idea that the Russians are being blamed by the Democrats because the Democrats lost everything in the election, while a convenient political narrative for Republicans, isn't consistent with the facts.
    - lossolo 10y ago
      > So the idea that the Russians are being blamed by the Democrats because the Democrats lost everything in the election, while a convenient political narrative for Republicans, isn't consistent with the facts. Sure, this can be one side of the coin but attributing something to someone without proofs will not make it a fact, doesn't it? I don't recall seeing any proofs. Maybe it was just convenient to democrats to just flow with that tide, they benefit from that for sure in current situation. But then there is second side of the coin, that Russia indeed was behind that hack and then what you wrote would be true. That's why I am not making any judgments.
    - ivan_gammel 10y ago
      Did that private security publish any proof?
      - thomasdub 10y ago
        What sort of proof are you looking for? If you're looking for firewall logs or hard drives with definitive proof that malware on certain machines was linking back to particular servers then you're out of luck. However Crowdstrike, the firm that the DNC used to investigate the intrusion, published a report that shows some of the code used and other IOCs from the attack [0]. A security firm like Crowdstrike would have lots of familiarity with these APT groups from previous investigations, so when they identify these groups they have evidence (i.e. they found specific malware or tools that are known to have been used in previous attacks, connections to or from known bad domains, IP addresses etc.) that links the attacks to these groups. This, however, doesn't prove that APT 28 and 29 are Russian, but if you search for information about these groups, their Tools Techniques and Procedures (TTPs), who they have targeted etc. you can draw your own conclusions. Note, this was long before the election and before there was politics surrounding the attribution. However this data is only about the intrusion into the DNC's network, and not necessarily linked to the release of personal emails of Podesta & co. [0] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
        ivan_gammel 10y ago
        Proof of any damage or an apparently hostile action that could cause damage, that was confirmed to be done by Russian state actors. Crowdstrike report shows only signs of intrusion, but you would not expel 35 diplomats for a radar touching your airplanes, right?
        thomasdub 10y ago
        The report shows far more than signs of intrusion - modules for credential theft, data transmission, persistence mechanisms, keylogging etc. were all discovered. I'd call that hostile. I'm not sure I get your analogy, but no, I wouldn't expel anyone for "radar touching my planes", but in this case that's the equivalent of browsing the DNC website. If someone had broken into my airforce base, stolen security badges to get into other airforce bases, was photographing planes and stealing and leaking blueprints then you better believe I'd take action
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  It was first attributed to the Russians by CrowdStrike. I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership.
  - bcoates 10y ago
    CrowdStrike's partisanship is like the news media's: bias towards spectacle, unwarranted certainty, and producing a coherent narrative facts be damned.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Seems if that were true that they'd be pretty ineffective at their job as a cybersecurity firm and easily outcompeted in the market.
      - bcoates 10y ago
        They don't get paid for the accuracy of their public pronouncements, it's just a marketing tool to raise their profile. It doesn't prevent them from being competent and maintaining clients. Also, most clients would be more than happy to have someone proclaim that the reason they got owned was because they were the target of spooky foreign state actors and not because they're bad at security. There's no money in downplaying the sophistication of an attack.
  - stefantalpalaru 10y ago
    > I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership. Maybe you missed the part where they were hired by the DNC or the part where the ownership is not from the reality-based community: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/dmitri-alperovitch http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/dmitri-alp... But the biggest indicator is their attribution based on internally coherent narratives instead of facts - that's not how actual digital forensic experts operate.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  Another big reason it is plausible, and specifically plausible that it's the Russians, is that you can find the full range of cyberwarfare deployed against US allies, for the purpose of weakening transatlantic and european unity. From accusations by GCHQ of hacking to support a yes vote on brexit, to takedowns of infrastructure in Ukraine.
jack9 10y ago
> Russia's involvement is a huge issue Not really. China's been doing much more overt theft and hacking for years. If you think this is huge issue, you aren't paying attention. Russia got information and then released it to the US public (which nobody wants to authenticate or disavow). I consider this more of a good than a harm.
- jjn2009 10y ago
  Having any entity reveal corruption of US government officials is the least of our worries when it comes to the needs of the people, none of the media conglomerates cared when it was bush era leaks. The big issues with cybersecurity lie elsewhere.
- cyberpunk 10y ago
  I find this whole thing kind of baffling... We (UK+US) have been doing this shit for years and much, much more obviously.. It's clearly an outrage though. Influencing the outcome of another countries election is america's job! How dare those pesky russians have an interest in getting a pro-ru govt installed in the US.... I mean, it's totally different to what we've been doing for decades elsewhere... Right...
  - sergers 10y ago
    Exactly what I was thinking... While I know it's leaning to one side and highly opinionated, I was watching Oliver Stone's untold history of the United states, right after the election. I actually felt some anger and disgust into how US has influenced other nations and their own "democratic process" since it's beginning...
    - unclebucknasty 10y ago
      Not sure why that means we should be OK with the current situation though. That logic is along the lines of "The U.S. has done some imperialistic stuff. Nazi Germany did some imperialistic stuff. Let's call it a draw."
nl 10y ago
Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("We have communication intercepts between the hacking groups and the GRU/FSB, and there they are, and here is how we got them" - it's likely there are actual humans involved in that process who will die if they are exposed). It's fair to argue that this issue is so important that burning some resources is worth it, but no one is taking that angle. Don't mistake this for defending the US report though. It was terrible and made the situation much more confused. Before the report it was much clearer that Russian groups (either government or non-government) were involved, and now people are (incorrectly) questioning even that because of the pathetic report that was produced. It's much more interesting to discuss the shared conclusion was formed that "the Russians" were trying to throw the election to Trump (rather than just to sow chaos).
- sergers 10y ago
  I feel I need proof to the fact Russia passed the data to be leaked.... Or was it some other org who had their hands in the same pot and cleaned up better their traces? The focus has been arguments if they were responsible for hacking incidents during election. I am sure US hacks many other governments, but does not release/leak the data. I am sure Russia, UK, Germany, china, and others do the same. So more than highly plausible that they did hack DNC etc during election... Is there any evidence of the data being extracted to Russia/Russia groups specifically..(not just access to the system). Call me a nut, but its easier for govt (to save face, alterior motives) to claim state actors than the guy living in a bsmt suite down the street. Also it was clear Podesta/HRC/US had a vendetta against Julian Assange before specific leaks... Which was confirmed with the leaks. He could have orchestrated it himself or by WikiLeaks (rather than just receiving the info via leak). Maybe WikiLeaks has Republican data and other data and just didn't release it. Julian Assanges goal was to disrupt the democratic election and slap back the DNC Podesta and hrc... This is a fact. And his goal was accomplished.
- ivan_gammel 10y ago
hartator 10y ago
Assange repeatably - and again tonight - said he was sure it wasn't Russia. I think it's worth something to consider the main visible actor opinion.
- santoriv 10y ago
  I have the same level of skepticism towards Assange that I do for the US intelligence community, but for different reasons. If Assange received a email dump from a source, how could he possibly know with absolute certainty that the Russian government didn't have any involvement? The only thing I can think of is if he or one of his very trusted associates executed the attacks themselves. Isn't it possible that the Russian government orchestrated the attacks and then handed the data off to a third party? He has the same burden of proof as the CIA. ...and yes I understand that Wikileaks can't reveal its sources but one should not really make such claims if they can't be backed up with evidence.
  - funoor 10y ago
    > Assange repeatably - and again tonight - said he was sure it wasn't Russia. The very fact that Assange is has so strenuously denied it was the Russians is itself odd and suspicious. He couldn't possibly know if it is or not and yet he's been adamant since day one. He's either a gov agent, liar, or idiot. And I don't think he's an idiot.
  - bcoates 10y ago
    I think he's saying between the lines that his source is a insider, and it's either a leak or an internal hack. That's the only way he could have any reliable information at all about the source.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      Assange strongly implied that the emails were leaked by Seth Rich. Not sure if I believe that though, since it seems that Assange would have proved it by now if it were true. Maybe he's withholding the proof as leverage, or maybe he's lying. I do trust Assange much more than the CIA though.
exabrial 10y ago
Sorry, come again, what part of the election did 'Russia' hack again? I thought it was a private organization.
- akerro 10y ago
  The one that's spelled 'none'. WikiLeaks claimed many times Russia wasn't involved, NYT admitted they faked the story. It's nothing more than liberal tears who can't deal with losing elections in a system they were creating and shaping for years.
  - CN7R 10y ago
    Last sentence was a bit caustic. Should WikiLeaks even be considered as a reliable source after Assange demonstrated his political bias against Hillary? Also, can you provide a link to NYT admitting to publishing a fake story? Thanks.
    - donaldmorganjr 10y ago
      DKIM verification shows that everything from the Podesta leaks is real.
jaboutboul 10y ago
First of all this piece should be lauded and it is this type of transparency that ALL administrations should adhere too. Granted without revealing sensitive sources. Second, the Russians didn't hack the election. As far as we'll all know, no voting machines were compromised. It may have been some email accounts of campaign officials (about which Wikileaks has already publicly stated the leaks didn't come from Russia). So starting off with the propagandist and frankly bullshit headline "Russia hacked the election" is in and of itself already portraying an extremely false narrative. Dangerous. Very dangerous.
xname2 10y ago
Did Russians tell DNC chairwoman to leak debate questions to the HRC team? Did Russians tell DNC to backstab Bernie Sanders? It is so crazy that democrats and liberal main stream media are trying so hard to avoid discussing the real problem. And they truly believe that people are stupid enough to no seeing which problem is more important.
- slowmotiony 10y ago
  ...but you were not supposed to know!
yakcyll 10y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. That, plus, it shouldn't matter who has done it, since (especially if it was Russia) they most likely won't be persecuted for it. What the focus should be put on is making sure this won't happen again - but that the general public isn't very interested in.
- camus2 10y ago
  > Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. There was no "election hacking", a DNC executive failed for a fishing scam, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that it was the Russians. It's interesting how liberals became CIA and FBI shills in less that 2 weeks after the election, while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party. Now maybe Russia did it, it doesn't make the content of the emails less true. There is also an interesting display of anti Russian xenophobia on liberal media, which proves that the party of "progress" is also capable of the worst when it comes to hate speech and warmongering, now labelling anyone who disagree as "traitor".
  - akhilcacharya 10y ago
    > while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party Because the crime of breaking in is far more disturbing than what was found, given that even the "victim" brushed it off? If you ask people what the worst part of the emails was, they point to out-of-context blurbs that are either common practices or misleading. I have legitimate cause for concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary.
    - Inconel 10y ago
      >concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary I dislike Trump for many reasons but, based on the track record of the US intelligence community over the course of the last 10-15 years, if he approaches the intelligence briefings that are fed to him with the same skepticism that he has displayed for climate science, I can only see that as a positive.
kgdinesh 10y ago
Thanks Obama.
tomohawk 10y ago
The following is a a good fact sheet that puts the hacks in context with some others, and contains some details that don't seem to be reported on: https://sharylattkisson.com/eight-facts-on-the-russian-hacks/ https://sharylattkisson.com/eight-facts-on-the-russian-hacks... For example, Wikileaks says that they did not get the info from Russia, and this is corroborated by the former British ambassador.
camperman 10y ago
His name was Seth Rich.
GrumpyNl 10y ago
Its so simple. Know the difference between hacking and leaking.
msimpson 10y ago
I have this argument almost every day. Thanks for writing it down.
wbillingsley 10y ago
Realistically, "Russia tried to access US politicians' emails" isn't news. Surely that has been true every day of every week for at least twenty years. And realistically, the public is not likely to be surprised by it either. It's barely 3 years since we found out the NSA spied on the United Nations, its own allies, and the Pope. And every day the news is full of western governments wanting to legislate back doors into our iPhones so they can read all our emails. Did anyone think notorious bad guy Putin would have his spy agencies twiddling their thumbs thinking "no, we mustn't - it'd be wrong"? "Foreign government tried to influence our election" has probably lost a lot of its sting too, since Obama weighed in on the Brexit referendum, and every world politician and their dog weighed in on what they thought of Trump. Honestly, I don't think much of the public cares how Podesta's emails got released, any more than they care how Trump's open-mike tape got released. And embarrassment aside, I doubt the public thinks any of the leaks had much impact on the result. I imagine much of the public muttering "Trump's a letch, the Democrat higher-ups and parts of the media have a love-in, and politicians think of the public as a mixture of easily-led minions and ignoramuses. Yup, we'd pretty much guessed that already..." I think the "news" in this is why a famously competent, articulate, and measured president (Obama) is being a bit ham-fisted in his response, suddenly upping the reaction quite late in the day. If I can theorise for a mo - The Democrats, and parts of the Republican party, are still coming to terms with the surprise that they didn't win, and therefore believe that surely they will be back in power in four years' time. So they want to make it as hard as possible for Trump to deviate from longstanding policy in the meantime. Moving to taking a hard diplomatic line on China and a soft line on Russia (rather than the other way around) would be a huge strategic shift from past policy, that would be quite hard to unpick. For nearly 40 years, the US strategic position has been to reach out to China, and that the US's chief strategic opponent has been Russia. I wonder if the Democrats and GOP are starting to come to grips with where Trump's views really are a bit of a departure from the recent past: - he's decided many of the things the US and Russia compete on these days aren't especially important to the US's interests, so it's not worth considering them the US's biggest opponent - he's decided that the way to argue/posture with China on points of difference is to use the economy (eg, threat of tariffs) and more belligerent diplomacy (eg, threat of recognising Taiwain), rather than the military (eg, Freedom of navigation operations) - he's decided the US should stop trying to act as an altruistic international arbiter, and instead attach unswerving value to being the US's friend (eg, moving embassy in Israel to Jerusalem) And of course, he seems to think the US is in a position where it can be a bit of a dick about things if it wants to. For most of us, we have to be nice people to work with or people won't work with us. But I guess if you're the US it's quite hard for people to say "well I won't work with the world's biggest economy then".
losvedir 10y ago
This story is so frustrating. I feel like this is my "Gell-Mann Amnesia" moment, and it's turning me off from WaPo, NYTimes, NPR, and all the sources I used to read. It's so bizarre to me how big this story has become only now when the DNC hacks themselves were done back in June. It's certainly hit a fever pitch since Trump's election, but I can't tell if that's from his tweeting and provocation, or from the Democrats angst at losing the election and trying to save face. Regardless, compared to China hacking us and stealing our fighter jet plans or the data breach of 18 million personnel records from OPM, compromising the DNC and releasing some authentic but mildly embarrassing emails seems so... minor, I guess. Every time people say "hacking the election" it makes me so frustrated since it minimizes the very real fear of actual election hacking the more we're moving to electronic voting machines, that Bruce Schneier talks about. It's also no surprise that half[0] of Clinton voters believe "hacking the election" means that Russia actually fucking tampered with the vote tallies now. Surely any impact of the DNC email release months ago was minor compared to say, Comey re-opening the Clinton case right before the election. And I dunno, does an article in the BBC or The Economist count as foreign influence? What about the Snowden leaks to The Guardian? The evidence that APT28/29 were in the DNC servers is moderately compelling, I think. I can't find the data on the connection between APT28/29 and GRU/FSB, though. In any case, it's clear Russia could have not left a trace if they were so inclined. Maybe they didn't think it was such a big deal so they were a little sloppy? Certainly, a priori, it's hard to imagine the amount of attention releasing DNC and Podesta emails would have gotten. [0] https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/ https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies...
peterwwillis 10y ago
Does anyone here think that Russia would not try to influence our elections if they had the chance? I guess i'm confused as to why we should care if they did. Even if Trump didn't win through fair elections, he was still nominated by us. I think that's damning enough to say we deserve him.

144 points by rkcf 10y ago

rkcf 10y ago

Before the GRIZZLY STEPPE report I found myself asking where the proof for the insinuations of a Russian hack to influence the US elections was. I still ask that question after the report was released. I find it completely plausible. However, given the turbulence and hyper-partisanship of this election cycle, I need a bit more than 'It was the Russians because we say so'.

lossolo 10y ago
Exactly. Democrats lost everything in this elections, they could just blame Russia, why not? But then what does it say about USA democracy if couple of hackers can change who will be the next POTUS ? This is double edged sword. Until I see evidence of Russia involvement I don't want to make any judgments. I am just tired of constant narration "you know it was Russia, you don't need proofs". It would be great to see some real proofs this time.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Democrats lost everything in this elections, they could just blame Russia, why not? It was attributed to Russians first before the election, and by a private cybersecurity that has never, AFAIK -- even since the attribution -- been accused of Democratic partisanship. So the idea that the Russians are being blamed by the Democrats because the Democrats lost everything in the election, while a convenient political narrative for Republicans, isn't consistent with the facts.
  - lossolo 10y ago
    > So the idea that the Russians are being blamed by the Democrats because the Democrats lost everything in the election, while a convenient political narrative for Republicans, isn't consistent with the facts. Sure, this can be one side of the coin but attributing something to someone without proofs will not make it a fact, doesn't it? I don't recall seeing any proofs. Maybe it was just convenient to democrats to just flow with that tide, they benefit from that for sure in current situation. But then there is second side of the coin, that Russia indeed was behind that hack and then what you wrote would be true. That's why I am not making any judgments.
  - ivan_gammel 10y ago
    Did that private security publish any proof?
    - thomasdub 10y ago
      What sort of proof are you looking for? If you're looking for firewall logs or hard drives with definitive proof that malware on certain machines was linking back to particular servers then you're out of luck. However Crowdstrike, the firm that the DNC used to investigate the intrusion, published a report that shows some of the code used and other IOCs from the attack [0]. A security firm like Crowdstrike would have lots of familiarity with these APT groups from previous investigations, so when they identify these groups they have evidence (i.e. they found specific malware or tools that are known to have been used in previous attacks, connections to or from known bad domains, IP addresses etc.) that links the attacks to these groups. This, however, doesn't prove that APT 28 and 29 are Russian, but if you search for information about these groups, their Tools Techniques and Procedures (TTPs), who they have targeted etc. you can draw your own conclusions. Note, this was long before the election and before there was politics surrounding the attribution. However this data is only about the intrusion into the DNC's network, and not necessarily linked to the release of personal emails of Podesta & co. [0] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
      - ivan_gammel 10y ago
        Proof of any damage or an apparently hostile action that could cause damage, that was confirmed to be done by Russian state actors. Crowdstrike report shows only signs of intrusion, but you would not expel 35 diplomats for a radar touching your airplanes, right?
        thomasdub 10y ago
        The report shows far more than signs of intrusion - modules for credential theft, data transmission, persistence mechanisms, keylogging etc. were all discovered. I'd call that hostile. I'm not sure I get your analogy, but no, I wouldn't expel anyone for "radar touching my planes", but in this case that's the equivalent of browsing the DNC website. If someone had broken into my airforce base, stolen security badges to get into other airforce bases, was photographing planes and stealing and leaking blueprints then you better believe I'd take action
dragonwriter 10y ago
It was first attributed to the Russians by CrowdStrike. I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership.
- bcoates 10y ago
  CrowdStrike's partisanship is like the news media's: bias towards spectacle, unwarranted certainty, and producing a coherent narrative facts be damned.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Seems if that were true that they'd be pretty ineffective at their job as a cybersecurity firm and easily outcompeted in the market.
    - bcoates 10y ago
      They don't get paid for the accuracy of their public pronouncements, it's just a marketing tool to raise their profile. It doesn't prevent them from being competent and maintaining clients. Also, most clients would be more than happy to have someone proclaim that the reason they got owned was because they were the target of spooky foreign state actors and not because they're bad at security. There's no money in downplaying the sophistication of an attack.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago
  > I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership. Maybe you missed the part where they were hired by the DNC or the part where the ownership is not from the reality-based community: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/dmitri-alperovitch http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/dmitri-alp... But the biggest indicator is their attribution based on internally coherent narratives instead of facts - that's not how actual digital forensic experts operate.
Zigurd 10y ago
Another big reason it is plausible, and specifically plausible that it's the Russians, is that you can find the full range of cyberwarfare deployed against US allies, for the purpose of weakening transatlantic and european unity. From accusations by GCHQ of hacking to support a yes vote on brexit, to takedowns of infrastructure in Ukraine.

jack9 10y ago

> Russia's involvement is a huge issue Not really. China's been doing much more overt theft and hacking for years. If you think this is huge issue, you aren't paying attention. Russia got information and then released it to the US public (which nobody wants to authenticate or disavow). I consider this more of a good than a harm.

jjn2009 10y ago
Having any entity reveal corruption of US government officials is the least of our worries when it comes to the needs of the people, none of the media conglomerates cared when it was bush era leaks. The big issues with cybersecurity lie elsewhere.
cyberpunk 10y ago
I find this whole thing kind of baffling... We (UK+US) have been doing this shit for years and much, much more obviously.. It's clearly an outrage though. Influencing the outcome of another countries election is america's job! How dare those pesky russians have an interest in getting a pro-ru govt installed in the US.... I mean, it's totally different to what we've been doing for decades elsewhere... Right...
- sergers 10y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking... While I know it's leaning to one side and highly opinionated, I was watching Oliver Stone's untold history of the United states, right after the election. I actually felt some anger and disgust into how US has influenced other nations and their own "democratic process" since it's beginning...
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    Not sure why that means we should be OK with the current situation though. That logic is along the lines of "The U.S. has done some imperialistic stuff. Nazi Germany did some imperialistic stuff. Let's call it a draw."

nl 10y ago

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("We have communication intercepts between the hacking groups and the GRU/FSB, and there they are, and here is how we got them" - it's likely there are actual humans involved in that process who will die if they are exposed). It's fair to argue that this issue is so important that burning some resources is worth it, but no one is taking that angle. Don't mistake this for defending the US report though. It was terrible and made the situation much more confused. Before the report it was much clearer that Russian groups (either government or non-government) were involved, and now people are (incorrectly) questioning even that because of the pathetic report that was produced. It's much more interesting to discuss the shared conclusion was formed that "the Russians" were trying to throw the election to Trump (rather than just to sow chaos).

sergers 10y ago
I feel I need proof to the fact Russia passed the data to be leaked.... Or was it some other org who had their hands in the same pot and cleaned up better their traces? The focus has been arguments if they were responsible for hacking incidents during election. I am sure US hacks many other governments, but does not release/leak the data. I am sure Russia, UK, Germany, china, and others do the same. So more than highly plausible that they did hack DNC etc during election... Is there any evidence of the data being extracted to Russia/Russia groups specifically..(not just access to the system). Call me a nut, but its easier for govt (to save face, alterior motives) to claim state actors than the guy living in a bsmt suite down the street. Also it was clear Podesta/HRC/US had a vendetta against Julian Assange before specific leaks... Which was confirmed with the leaks. He could have orchestrated it himself or by WikiLeaks (rather than just receiving the info via leak). Maybe WikiLeaks has Republican data and other data and just didn't release it. Julian Assanges goal was to disrupt the democratic election and slap back the DNC Podesta and hrc... This is a fact. And his goal was accomplished.
ivan_gammel 10y ago

hartator 10y ago

Assange repeatably - and again tonight - said he was sure it wasn't Russia. I think it's worth something to consider the main visible actor opinion.

santoriv 10y ago
I have the same level of skepticism towards Assange that I do for the US intelligence community, but for different reasons. If Assange received a email dump from a source, how could he possibly know with absolute certainty that the Russian government didn't have any involvement? The only thing I can think of is if he or one of his very trusted associates executed the attacks themselves. Isn't it possible that the Russian government orchestrated the attacks and then handed the data off to a third party? He has the same burden of proof as the CIA. ...and yes I understand that Wikileaks can't reveal its sources but one should not really make such claims if they can't be backed up with evidence.
- funoor 10y ago
  > Assange repeatably - and again tonight - said he was sure it wasn't Russia. The very fact that Assange is has so strenuously denied it was the Russians is itself odd and suspicious. He couldn't possibly know if it is or not and yet he's been adamant since day one. He's either a gov agent, liar, or idiot. And I don't think he's an idiot.
- bcoates 10y ago
  I think he's saying between the lines that his source is a insider, and it's either a leak or an internal hack. That's the only way he could have any reliable information at all about the source.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    Assange strongly implied that the emails were leaked by Seth Rich. Not sure if I believe that though, since it seems that Assange would have proved it by now if it were true. Maybe he's withholding the proof as leverage, or maybe he's lying. I do trust Assange much more than the CIA though.

exabrial 10y ago

Sorry, come again, what part of the election did 'Russia' hack again? I thought it was a private organization.

akerro 10y ago
The one that's spelled 'none'. WikiLeaks claimed many times Russia wasn't involved, NYT admitted they faked the story. It's nothing more than liberal tears who can't deal with losing elections in a system they were creating and shaping for years.
- CN7R 10y ago
  Last sentence was a bit caustic. Should WikiLeaks even be considered as a reliable source after Assange demonstrated his political bias against Hillary? Also, can you provide a link to NYT admitting to publishing a fake story? Thanks.
  - donaldmorganjr 10y ago
    DKIM verification shows that everything from the Podesta leaks is real.

jaboutboul 10y ago

First of all this piece should be lauded and it is this type of transparency that ALL administrations should adhere too. Granted without revealing sensitive sources. Second, the Russians didn't hack the election. As far as we'll all know, no voting machines were compromised. It may have been some email accounts of campaign officials (about which Wikileaks has already publicly stated the leaks didn't come from Russia). So starting off with the propagandist and frankly bullshit headline "Russia hacked the election" is in and of itself already portraying an extremely false narrative. Dangerous. Very dangerous.

xname2 10y ago

Did Russians tell DNC chairwoman to leak debate questions to the HRC team? Did Russians tell DNC to backstab Bernie Sanders? It is so crazy that democrats and liberal main stream media are trying so hard to avoid discussing the real problem. And they truly believe that people are stupid enough to no seeing which problem is more important.

slowmotiony 10y ago
...but you were not supposed to know!

yakcyll 10y ago

Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. That, plus, it shouldn't matter who has done it, since (especially if it was Russia) they most likely won't be persecuted for it. What the focus should be put on is making sure this won't happen again - but that the general public isn't very interested in.

camus2 10y ago
> Pardon my ignorance, but as a non-American, I still have no bloody clue what the election hacking was about. There was no "election hacking", a DNC executive failed for a fishing scam, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that it was the Russians. It's interesting how liberals became CIA and FBI shills in less that 2 weeks after the election, while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party. Now maybe Russia did it, it doesn't make the content of the emails less true. There is also an interesting display of anti Russian xenophobia on liberal media, which proves that the party of "progress" is also capable of the worst when it comes to hate speech and warmongering, now labelling anyone who disagree as "traitor".
- akhilcacharya 10y ago
  > while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party Because the crime of breaking in is far more disturbing than what was found, given that even the "victim" brushed it off? If you ask people what the worst part of the emails was, they point to out-of-context blurbs that are either common practices or misleading. I have legitimate cause for concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary.
  - Inconel 10y ago
    >concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary I dislike Trump for many reasons but, based on the track record of the US intelligence community over the course of the last 10-15 years, if he approaches the intelligence briefings that are fed to him with the same skepticism that he has displayed for climate science, I can only see that as a positive.

kgdinesh 10y ago

Thanks Obama.

tomohawk 10y ago

The following is a a good fact sheet that puts the hacks in context with some others, and contains some details that don't seem to be reported on: https://sharylattkisson.com/eight-facts-on-the-russian-hacks/ https://sharylattkisson.com/eight-facts-on-the-russian-hacks... For example, Wikileaks says that they did not get the info from Russia, and this is corroborated by the former British ambassador.

camperman 10y ago

His name was Seth Rich.

GrumpyNl 10y ago

Its so simple. Know the difference between hacking and leaking.

msimpson 10y ago

I have this argument almost every day. Thanks for writing it down.

wbillingsley 10y ago

Realistically, "Russia tried to access US politicians' emails" isn't news. Surely that has been true every day of every week for at least twenty years. And realistically, the public is not likely to be surprised by it either. It's barely 3 years since we found out the NSA spied on the United Nations, its own allies, and the Pope. And every day the news is full of western governments wanting to legislate back doors into our iPhones so they can read all our emails. Did anyone think notorious bad guy Putin would have his spy agencies twiddling their thumbs thinking "no, we mustn't - it'd be wrong"? "Foreign government tried to influence our election" has probably lost a lot of its sting too, since Obama weighed in on the Brexit referendum, and every world politician and their dog weighed in on what they thought of Trump. Honestly, I don't think much of the public cares how Podesta's emails got released, any more than they care how Trump's open-mike tape got released. And embarrassment aside, I doubt the public thinks any of the leaks had much impact on the result. I imagine much of the public muttering "Trump's a letch, the Democrat higher-ups and parts of the media have a love-in, and politicians think of the public as a mixture of easily-led minions and ignoramuses. Yup, we'd pretty much guessed that already..." I think the "news" in this is why a famously competent, articulate, and measured president (Obama) is being a bit ham-fisted in his response, suddenly upping the reaction quite late in the day. If I can theorise for a mo - The Democrats, and parts of the Republican party, are still coming to terms with the surprise that they didn't win, and therefore believe that surely they will be back in power in four years' time. So they want to make it as hard as possible for Trump to deviate from longstanding policy in the meantime. Moving to taking a hard diplomatic line on China and a soft line on Russia (rather than the other way around) would be a huge strategic shift from past policy, that would be quite hard to unpick. For nearly 40 years, the US strategic position has been to reach out to China, and that the US's chief strategic opponent has been Russia. I wonder if the Democrats and GOP are starting to come to grips with where Trump's views really are a bit of a departure from the recent past: - he's decided many of the things the US and Russia compete on these days aren't especially important to the US's interests, so it's not worth considering them the US's biggest opponent - he's decided that the way to argue/posture with China on points of difference is to use the economy (eg, threat of tariffs) and more belligerent diplomacy (eg, threat of recognising Taiwain), rather than the military (eg, Freedom of navigation operations) - he's decided the US should stop trying to act as an altruistic international arbiter, and instead attach unswerving value to being the US's friend (eg, moving embassy in Israel to Jerusalem) And of course, he seems to think the US is in a position where it can be a bit of a dick about things if it wants to. For most of us, we have to be nice people to work with or people won't work with us. But I guess if you're the US it's quite hard for people to say "well I won't work with the world's biggest economy then".

losvedir 10y ago

This story is so frustrating. I feel like this is my "Gell-Mann Amnesia" moment, and it's turning me off from WaPo, NYTimes, NPR, and all the sources I used to read. It's so bizarre to me how big this story has become only now when the DNC hacks themselves were done back in June. It's certainly hit a fever pitch since Trump's election, but I can't tell if that's from his tweeting and provocation, or from the Democrats angst at losing the election and trying to save face. Regardless, compared to China hacking us and stealing our fighter jet plans or the data breach of 18 million personnel records from OPM, compromising the DNC and releasing some authentic but mildly embarrassing emails seems so... minor, I guess. Every time people say "hacking the election" it makes me so frustrated since it minimizes the very real fear of actual election hacking the more we're moving to electronic voting machines, that Bruce Schneier talks about. It's also no surprise that half[0] of Clinton voters believe "hacking the election" means that Russia actually fucking tampered with the vote tallies now. Surely any impact of the DNC email release months ago was minor compared to say, Comey re-opening the Clinton case right before the election. And I dunno, does an article in the BBC or The Economist count as foreign influence? What about the Snowden leaks to The Guardian? The evidence that APT28/29 were in the DNC servers is moderately compelling, I think. I can't find the data on the connection between APT28/29 and GRU/FSB, though. In any case, it's clear Russia could have not left a trace if they were so inclined. Maybe they didn't think it was such a big deal so they were a little sloppy? Certainly, a priori, it's hard to imagine the amount of attention releasing DNC and Podesta emails would have gotten. [0] https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/ https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies...

peterwwillis 10y ago

Does anyone here think that Russia would not try to influence our elections if they had the chance? I guess i'm confused as to why we should care if they did. Even if Trump didn't win through fair elections, he was still nominated by us. I think that's damning enough to say we deserve him.