"The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don’t appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website."
That's the conclusion anyone working in the security/network area was bound to arrive at.
It's really interesting FBI/DHS would make those claims publicly when the chance of having any hard evidence of that would be minimal. But they still did it. Why?
To me the ongoing 'Russia rigged elections' smells like propaganda from the other side. And maybe russia did release the DNC emails, but Assange said that wasn't the case and I feel he's more likely to be telling the truth than state players. And even if they did release these emails it's hardly rigging an election. Comneys email announcement at the 11th hour about reopening email investigation was probably a deciding variable and that was hardly Russian lead.
Your question of 'why' seems to be the scariest. US lead activities have been encircling Russia and pressing influence right to their borders for some time. For me I feel its too far and they are cornering the bear. Probably there is too much resource in the 'spy' world and they have to do something to justify their position, hence the older generation keep the pressure on Russia from their cold war agenda or they are looking to pick a fight. The latter being very scary.
...but really I'm no expert and just wonder why countries can put more effort to looking after their own populations needs. All this spy/military expenditure seems so wasteful.
If there were security holes in such a high profile organization, I would assume multiple intelligence agencies may have made interceptions of the data.
The US intercepts communications of even friendly foreign governments, it certainly should be expected that a hostile government is going to try to intercept communications of the US government and related private organizations.
If Julian Assange is to be believed, which I think is fair, my guess is Russia hacked the DNC and RNC, yet the DNC dump came from someone else, internal or external.
Everything about the Russia stories are reminding me of a few years ago when ever hack was caused by China. Of course, because hackers are routing traffic through China and thats where the trail ended!
I've written this here before, but while there is the appearance that the United States Government is unified and trying to do one thing, this is not the case. There are specific individuals, within places such as the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, who have very intentional strategies and agendas which in some cases are totally at odds with the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice. They have done enough to keep long, multi-Presidential administration careers and gain influence in those organizations while avoid being ousted, but they are wielding outsized influence on US foreign policy.
If one tries to explain what the US is doing without acknowledging or understanding the strong opposing forces within the US government, things start sounding really wacky. Most certainly others within the US government including elected officials are guilty of this too, at least in their public statements (which like propaganda can have long term destructive counter-effect of eventually causing the majority of your supporters to fight for made up stories rather than what you were originally intending to do.)
> but Assange said that wasn't the case and I feel he's more likely to be telling the truth than state players.
Why? He already has a distain against the US and Clinton. He has no more reason to tell the truth the the state players do.
> Comneys email announcement at the 11th hour about reopening email investigation was probably a deciding variable and that was hardly Russian lead.
This I completely agree with. I think the DNC leaks may have impacted a hundredth of a percent, but Comney contributed in a tenth of a precent. Why would he not intervene? He was almost certainly aware that he would have been job hunting shortly after a Clinton win. He already has shown us his true nature in the whole Apple phone mess which really was more a litmus test then trying to gather real intelligence.
Still at the same time if indeed we had foreign actors engaged in election manipulation that is something we, nor any nation, should not tolerate. And yes we should also look inward as I am fairly certain that we have been guilty of this in the past.
Maybe, although I doubt this is enough, we and others can quit this ongoing manipulation. The US has proved it backfires multiple times in the middle east. Other nations can hopefully learn from our mistakes. I almost hate to bring it up, but.. "Why can't we all just get along". The answer is simple in that folks want to keep jobs and power.
> I'm no expert and just wonder why countries can put more effort to looking after their own populations needs.
If they did then that reduces the fear of those against us. That fear seems to be the driving force of politics in 2016 globally.
Using Mind Control to make Donna Brazile get fired from CNN for giving HRC Debate Questions was genius hacking.
Using Mind Control to make Debbie Wasserman Schultz quit as DNC chair for rigging thr Primaries and then same day get a new job with HRC was genius hacking.
It's like poeple think the only thing shady was Comey the Weasel!
This is too sinple. Russia is actively pushing an agenda as well - the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea were not a response to US/NATO aggression. A new cold war has also been pushed domestically for the political benefit of Putin et al.
If Trump had done basic things like released his tax returns (to show no massive conflict of interest with Russian loans etc) or stopped praising Putin on a regular basis then it would be a lot easier to dismiss concerns about his relationship with Putin and whether they stand to benefit by Trump's election.
Russia/Putin has a history of crushing domestic political dissent (including assassinations) and exploiting xenophobia for political gain. There is NOTHING for the US or any NATO member to admire about Putin or the Russian political system.
Edit. I forgot to mention the proxy war in Syria! Russia has everything to gain by tipping the scales in favour of a politician that upsets that status quo in the US.
It's a weird game of cat and mouse you describe but lets be clear, the annexation of Crimea, was, in Russias eyes a direct counter to the US backed revolution in Ukraine.
The US has wanted Ukraine in NATO for as long as I've been alive if not longer, having forces on the front door of Russia along the European border is something they deeply desire.. US Government's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs even admitted to pouring billions into the effort.[0]
So lets not pretend that the US government is in a morally unquestionable position either.
>A new cold war has also been pushed domestically for the political benefit of Putin et al.
I don't think so, but I really lack the historical knowledge of the previous Cold War. However, Trump's remarks on starting an arms race are really troubling in light of all of this.
Currently this appears to be a tit-for-tat propaganda campaign. Maybe even some blatantly vengeful actions by a departing administration. We already know governments hack each other regularly, so what distinguishes that from some kind of Cold War mobilization of government hackers? A recruitment surge, less activity devoted to China or European nations, mysterious sudden problems in Russia cropping up?
When someone writes a story about a very good malware suite suddenly wrecking Russian infrastructure or collapsing businesses crucial to the Russian economy, then it'll obviously have started.
There were some stories about a Russian bank being hacked and money stolen, as well as a (related?) story saying that Russia had stopped a hack. I don't know how true any of that was and they vanished off the radar soon afterwards.
The invasion of Crimea was a direct response to US/NATO aggression.
1) The US helped plot to overthrow the Ukranian government in 2014.
2) Russia was not keen on NATO pushing for Ukraine to become a member, which would literally put the Russians major warm naval port under NATO hands.
3) Crimea has been a part of Russia for centuries, the only reason Crimea became a part of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union is because the SSR transferred Crimea from the Russian state to the Ukraine state in 1954 to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the Ukraine as part of Russia.
4) The vast majority of the population of Crimea has been for hundreds of years of Russian ethnicity and language.
5) Crimea voted to rejoin Russia
The State of Politics are much deeper than you seem to admit.
Edit: Russia's support for Syria has more to do with the strategic location of Syria and the transportation of Russia's Natural Resources through that territory.
The Crimean invasion had many reasons. First, it is an attempt to keep Ukraine as a Russian vassal state. Ukraine is essential for Russia to rebuild its empire and restore its power. Ukraine served as a big agricultural and industrial resource for Russia for long time. Also many prominent Ukrainians made significant input into building the tzar Russian empire and later, the USSR.
In order to keep Ukraine in its orbit, Russia systematically undermined Ukrainian government and security using corruption (which was extremely effective). However, when a significant number of Ukrainians became more and more convinced with democracy (and here the strong political and cultural Western influence is apparent, nothing secret about it) they finally protested against corrupted politics provided by then-president Yanukovich supported (and controlled) by V.Putin.
With the occupation of Crimea and Donbass (Eastern Ukraine), Russia tries to keep influencing Ukraine in a military way, since the old way through corruption is no longer possible. It also played well internally and ensured electoral support for Putin as Russia economy started declining following the fall of oil prices. The occupation also intentionally demonstrated that the existing international law has no power it claims to have which implies that the global security system should be redesigned.
Is there any credible evidence that the US/NATO was behind a coup in Ukraine? Google doesn't reveal anything substantial.
Ukraine is/was a sovereign nation. Why should Russia stop them from joining NATO if that is what they want? The invasion of their country seems to suggest that a desire for NATO protection was warranted?
Annexing another sovereign nation based upon historical claims and access to a military port is blatant aggression and a return to the cold war mentality (sending unmarked military units over the border? Supplying arms and equipment?).
"[Nuland's] strong statement of preference for how Ukraine's government should be formed – and apparent confidence that the US has major influence over that – is a reminder of the disconnect between US government assurances that it doesn't meddle in nations' internal politics and its actual behavior (White House spokesman Jay Carney repeats this canard in his comment on the tape.) This was not a conversation analyzing unfolding events and how to respond to what comes next. This was about molding a situation according to US interests."
> Mr. Putin made this decision around Crimea and Ukraine - not because of some grand strategy, but essentially because he was caught off-balance by the protests in the Maidan and Yanukovych then fleeing after we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine
The second link is specifically about a US general going behind Obama's back in an attempt to escalate the conflict and the third even talks about how Russia is probably having similar conversations.
I don't disagree that the US/EU/NATO hasn't played games in the conflict. I do however think that there is a difference between political games and sending tanks across a border.
Many of your points are valid. However pointing to an "election" with no real choice while occupied by a foreign power undermines your position significantly.
3)>"Gifted" because Khrushchev's transfer was ostensibly to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's merger with the Russian empire. And he probably didn't think the Soviet Union would be gone less than 40 years later.
How would Assange know who released the DNC emails? They were publicly released by Guccifer 2.0. Assange merely downloaded the public dump and indexed it on WikiLeaks.
Nobody said Russia rigged the election. The issue was the attempts to influence the election which Russia has a long, documented history of doing so. And the US had an obligation to respond which they did with minimal effect. So claiming all of this was about propaganda really makes no sense given the facts on the ground.
And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) and allowed soldiers and weapons to flood into Ukraine which then resulted in Flight 117 being shot down.
Nobody is looking for a fight with Russia but capitulating and doing nothing is not an answer either. Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Obama and Josh Earnest have not gone as far as using the word "rigged" but they have essentially implied as much. Other large media outlets have done the same and yes, some have used the word "rigged" directly [1] (and if I dug through CNN / MSNBC / ABC reels I am positive I could find many more examples). Lesser known media outlets and internet commentators have been using the word "rigged" profusely, so it's not "nobody".
> Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Hillary Clinton herself is on video calling for an escalation of that in the form of a military response, shortly after some saber-rattling about the US nuclear arsenal [2].
> And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation)
And you should remember the unprecedented actions that have caused the United States' relations with almost all the world to deteriorate. Claims of influencing foreign elections (c.f. the entire history of the CIA) and widespread hacking (c.f. the NSA essentially pwning the world) are particularly hypocritical.
The election was rigged by Russian intelligence, which was almost surely behind the hacking of Democratic emails, which WikiLeaks then released with great fanfare.
The most ironic part of the Clinton camp using the term "rigged" is that the original use of the term was by Bernie Sanders against Clinton during the primaries. His claims were proved by the emails that were released by Wikileaks. But somehow this has become a discussion of whether the Russians were behind it, rather than the uncontested content of the emails showing the Clinton campaign's malfeasance.
It has also morphed into a large percentage of the population believing that Russia hacked voting machines and vote tallies, for which there is absolutely no evidence. This furthers the agenda of deligitimizing the election results.
Classic distraction strategy. It's sad watching people on facebook/twitter even believe one word from the White House and the MSM about Russian hacking. Putin isn't a nice person, but even so the facts simply don't support the government's claims. If you ask me, they went with the Russian angle because of how ruthless Putin seems to be, and they thought it would be easy to sell. It was with a lot of people, it seems, that or they were all too eager to believe a lie.
And now we look petty and they look magnanimous for not opting for an in-kind response. I don't know how long it will take us to rebuild our humint network but I'm assuming it won't be easy to identify all of the new spies coming in with new and improved methods.
I didn't follow the Sanders campaign closely enough to be able to identify the more relevant items, but looking at the Wikileaks data gave me the impression that he was a token candidate who they controlled with various bits of leverage (e.g. when they cut him out of the DNC voter systems). There was also that time when they staged violence at the Trump rallies and blamed it on Bernie supporters. Refer to the controversy regarding Zulema Rodriguez & co.; she was also later tied to the 'Trump Ducks' thing via a photo credit, which was said to come straight from Hillary.
Here's a list of some of the findings from the leaks, though not all are relevant to this -
How was Sanders a token candidate controlled by the DNC? My memory of the primaries is far different, with Sanders suing the DNC over access to NGP VAN (which the DNC had cut off until the Sanders campaign showed they had deleted their copies of Clinton's data), loudly complaining about the DNC following the existing rules at the Nevada Convention (http://www.politifact.com/nevada/statements/2016/may/18/jeff...), and generally loudly making unfounded allegations of rigging. If Sanders was a token candidate, whom would you consider a big name Democrat worthy of challenging Clinton not as a token opponent?
> There was also that time when they staged violence at the Trump rallies and blamed it on Bernie supporters.
The DNC did not stage violence at Trump rallies and blame it on Bernie supporters. You're probably thinking about http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/project-veritas-actio..., who incited Trump supporters to violence, which is different from pretending to be a violent Sanders supporter. Zulema Rodriguez also had nothing to do with "rigging the primaries."
Elizabeth Warren is probably the top of the list. I also remember various questionable vote counting during the caucuses, but I'm basing this on what Bernie supporters were saying at the time, so you might be right about it being inaccurate. I wasn't personally paying much attention yet, as I'd already assumed Clinton had the nomination in the bag.
I am thinking of that incident and there's a lot going on in that one. You can see Bernie supporters getting blamed here, though:
> I also remember various questionable vote counting during the caucuses.
The caucuses were heavily skewed in Sanders's favor. Caucusing requires a large time commitment, which favored Sanders supporters over the poor minority Clinton voters. You're probably thinking about the Nevada Convention, which I explained in my previous comment.
> I wasn't personally paying much attention yet, as I'd already assumed Clinton had the nomination in the bag.
She certainly had it in the bag, which makes the claim that she would resort to rigging the primaries even more ludicrous. She got almost 30% more of the popular vote than Sanders. Despite the media wanting to make the race seem close and interesting, it was obvious to even a casual observer like you that it was a landslide.
> You can see Bernie supporters getting blamed here, though:
The people quoted in that article are actual Bernie supporters.
As a non-American, the long history of the US meddling in elections may make the claims hypocritical, but it makes me very open to suggestions that Russia would do it too.
Are you European by chance? If so, don't worry, your country also likely has a long history of meddling on local affairs either through colonialism or parts of the cold war, especially if you are British!
Yes, the US has meddled in international affairs but let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so or that Russia is some benign country that has no history of actively working against the interests of Europe/US/NATO or that Russia doesn't have its own agenda.
For all of the faults of the US/Europe I'm glad I grew up in the "west" rather than behind the Iron curtain. I also don't see millions of people who fled western nations to Russian states - the single direction of political and economic migrants over the last 70 years speaks for itself.
Who said anything about slavery? We are talking about meddling in the political affairs of other countries and espionage. That's been going on ever since lines were drawn on a map.
First there are many countries in Western Europe with no significant colonial history. Greece for example. Italy's colonial history is insignificant.
As to being glad that we grew up in Western Europe during the cold war, I have an Albanian friend who is now a professor of economics in the USA. He said that, although living in communism as an adult (Albania had the worst communist, btw) would have sucked, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anything.
I've never met tougher mofos than my Albanian friends or my wife. They know how to have fun, how to behave in groups and nothing scares them. By comparison how many of my peers (or myself) suffer from anxiety, are anti-social (being on your phone in public is very anti-social) or just weird?
Most do have a colonial history though, a history often partly responsible for much of the strife we see today - was Italy not involved in Ethiopia/Eritrea/Somalia? And Greece certainly had political strife during the Cold war and world wars.
Nobody sensible said that, but I've seen more than a few comments along those lines on various sites, enough to believe that general sentiment is commonplace.
Comey claimed not to have charged Clinton because there was a lack of intent. Gowdy is calling him on that, saying that this makes zero sense and going over all the ways they have to prove intent. His point at the end about "negligence" underscores the fact that the entire line of reasoning is nonsensical: intentional negligence is a contradiction in terms. That which is intentional cannot be negligent and vice versa. The law in question is against negligence (which does not require any intent whatsoever).
"However, there is a real danger. If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it [is] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and be subject to the law. Reading about the President's BB rules this morning, it sounds like it won't be as useful as it used to be. Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."
I don't think it's reasonable to let our politicians get away with this. Inasmuch as people are worried about Russian influence, it seems strange to me that there's no worry about the very leaders to jeopardize our OPSEC with their hubris. Here is Colin Powell, again, saying things that should make HN readers cringe:
"Now, the real issue had to do with PDAs, as we called them a few years ago before BlackBerry became a noun. And the issue was DS would not allow them into the secure spaces, especially up your way. When I asked why not they gave me all kinds of nonsense about how they gave out signals that could be read by spies, etc. Same reason they tried to keep mobile phones out of the suite. I had numerous meetings with them. We even opened one up for them to try to explain to me why it was more dangerous than say, a remote control for one of the many tvs in the suite. Or something embedded in my shoe heel. They never satisfied me and NSA/CIA wouldn't back off. So, we just went about our business and stopped asking. I had an ancient version of a PDA and used it. In general, the suite was so sealed that it is hard to get signals in or out wirelessly."
If the law is so toothless that high ranking people of either party (Powell is a Republican) can deliberately subvert them, then we're always going to be at the mercy of every country with half-decent spies. This is a problem in its own right, independent from whatever partisan considerations we have here.
===
Note: The square brackets in the quote are me fixing typos in the original.
You don't understand what intent means as it relates to the law. The particular law you are referring to is the Espionage Act. The case law (in particular, Gorin v. United States) establishes a bright line of scienter for application of this law, highlighting the text that says the defendant must have "intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation" in order to be in violation of the law. Intending to use a private email server with a Blackberry is not enough. She must intend to circumvent the security of the email system in order to harm the United States or help a foreign nation.
That's part (a), though and the talk I remember centered around 18 USC 793(f), which does not appear to depend on (a) as some of the other sections do, like (b) and (c).
The email between her & Powell would also make it interesting to see whether (g) applies.
You don't understand the difference between case law and statutory law. You are citing statutory law. The law as it stands is statutory law (how the law is written) amended by case law (how the courts have interpreted it). As I stated, case law as of Gorin v. United States invalidates the sections you cited and requires scienter.
"Kim had a reason to believe that this information could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation"
There was a TS picture of NK on there. Huma Abadeen had access to her device (someone who was born in the USA, but raised in Saudi Arabia) as evidenced by signatures on some emails "from" Hillary. And even if there wasn't that, they should have the ability to prosecute her for all of the false statements made during the investigation (which would be under a completely different statute).
For all the worry about foreign powers influencing the USA, it's undeniable that she and Colin Powell schemed in such a way that jeopardized OPSEC. That will remain an issue as long as people can get away with it.
> They should have the ability to prosecute her for all of the false statements made during the investigation (which would be under a completely different statute).
> There was a TS picture of NK on there. Huma Abadeen [sic] had access to her device (someone who was born in the USA, but raised in Saudi Arabia) as evidenced by signatures on some emails "from" Hillary.
Why mention that she was raised in Saudi Arabia? She is a US citizen who obtained security clearance in 2009, during which the FBI would have thoroughly checked her background. Before you go even further off the reservation, she doesn't have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood either. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...
Let's look at the Kim case because the indictment so clearly draws out the difference with the Clinton case. From the indictment:
"The indictment charges that
Kim had a reason to believe that this information could be used to the injury of the United States
and to the advantage of a foreign nation and that Kim knowingly and willfully communicated,
delivered or transmitted that information to a reporter for a national news organization, who was
not entitled to receive that information."
It continues:
"Count Two of the indictment charges that on or about September 24, 2009, Kim denied to
agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had had any contact with a named reporter
for a national news organization since meeting the reporter in or about March 2009. The
indictment alleges that Kim actually had repeated contact with the reporter in the months
following the March 2009 meeting. The indictment charges that Kim knowingly and willfully made a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation to the FBI in
violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)."
Kim knew that giving the national security information to a reporter would get that information seen by a foreign nation to its benefit (violation of the Espionage Act). Then he lied about it to the FBI (violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)). Clinton did neither.
> Why mention that she was raised in Saudi Arabia?
Because it shows how easily the information could escape the US to other countries, even inadvertently. I haven't claimed anything regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, nor was I aware it had been claimed regarding her.
> Kim knew that giving the national security information to a reporter would get that information seen by a foreign nation to its benefit (violation of the Espionage Act). Then he lied about it to the FBI (violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)). Clinton did neither.
That North Korean photo we're talking about was discussed with one of her press guys and none of these people who accessed this were cleared for TS information other than Hillary herself. Huma was found emailing Wiener from Hillary's device in at least one case (probably how his laptop got roped into that).
> Gowdy discusses quite a few such statements with Comey here:
Again, none of those statements were made to the investigators or under oath.
> Because it shows how easily the information could escape the US to other countries, even inadvertently.
Again, that is the FBI's job to determine when doing the security clearance background check.
> That North Korean photo we're talking about was discussed with one of her press guys and none of these people who accessed this were cleared for TS information other than Hillary herself.
What North Korean photo are we talking about? This is the first time you've mentioned it. I suspect you are talking about http://www.wptv.com/news/political/clinton-email-on-north-ko..., which was neither Top Secret nor sent to a news reporter. If it wasn't sent to a news reporter, why do you think this email is anything at all like Kim's case?
"The rumor was not that ODNI had completed the review and determined only one was not TS and the other was, but rather that they had only reached a definitive conclusion on the one (we think the North Korea email that supposedly relied on satellite imagery) and were still deciding on the other."
Intent to harm the United States (or another nation) was not the intent Comey was looking for. It was intent to share national security information with people not authorized to receive it.
And what law would that be a violation of? The only law requiring intent that was under investigation was the Espionage Act, and I have given you the text that describes what intent is required.
The statute - 18 U.S.C. Section 793(f) - says nothing about intent. Comey read it in as a requirement for launching a prosecution. The intent he thought was required was as I described, not intent to harm the United States.
> The intent he thought was required was as I described
Again, cite the law. It doesn't exist.
> The statute - 18 U.S.C. Section 793(f) - says nothing about intent.
Again, that section was anulled by case law, in particular Gorin v. United States, which establishes the bright line of scienter for applying this law. That is why Comey said that no prosecutor would bring this charge.
> So claiming all of this was about propaganda really makes no sense given the facts on the ground.
Where are those facts? please show hard evidence. So far I haven't seen any hard evidence that proves it was the state of Russia who orchestrated the hacks.
> And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) and allowed soldiers and weapons to flood into Ukraine which then resulted in Flight 117 being shot down.
If you believe that Russia is absolutely bad and the US and Ukraine are infinitely good and righteous, then you might want to look at what the other side says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHCNk9BYy4
The fact that the majority of the Crimean population is Russian, should give you a hint that maybe there is more to this story than what the Western media says.
I have yet to see Putin making an aggressive announcement, however US officials continuously keep making threats and sanctions.
> Nobody is looking for a fight with Russia but capitulating and doing nothing is not an answer either. Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Destroying diplomatic relations and throwing sanctions sound like looking for a fight to me. I fail to see anything good coming out of this.
"You don't understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us." Said by Putin in 2008, Boekarest -> 2014, Crimea annexation and Ukraine in war.
Polish president in 2008 was saying "Today Gorgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after Baltic States and then maybe even Poland". He died in Russia in airplane accident in 2010 when going for anniversary of the Katyn massacre, a mass murder of Polish intellectuals, politicians, and military officers by the Soviets during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible. Last Russian tanks left Poland in 1993 and I don't want to see them back. Not in my life time nor after I'm gone. I'm happy to go with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush or whoever will be elected by the American nation, just to stay as far as possible from Russians. And it's not that we are that big fans of Americans, we just know the history way too well - we are affected by it till this day.
If you want to see what happens when a person like Putin starts to say that the last peace agreements are bad and borders need to be changed then look at the second world war and the Polish history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement
> If you want to see what happens when a person like Putin starts to say that the last peace agreements are bad and borders need to be changed then look at the second world war and the Polish history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement
So is that a fear in Poland? That peace with russia would involve handing over parts of your country to Russia?
More likely that a war with or annexation by Russia would begin by handing over parts of your country to Russia.
Which is largely how World War II started in Europe: Stalin and Hitler agreed on a partition of the lands in between, and together started a war to implement that agreement, so that their armies could shake hands in the middle of Poland.
"The agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 (but dated 29 September) after being negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, excluding the Soviet Union."
The German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in August 1939, almost a year later.
I'm very well aware of that history, thank you. But the two guys with mustache were the ones actually going ahead with big time conquest in Europe.
Sure, Chamberlain was wrong with that peace in our time and handing Bohemia to Hitler. But obviously he had difficulty in going to war over it, as well.
And Arthur Harris would have hung as a war criminal if Britain had been on the losing side against Germany. But that's a different story. The two dictators and systems in their countries were the ones most responsible for bloodshed.
That would be "Bucharest" and the whole quote is actually a rumour published by Kommersant who cited a NATO delegation source. Not exactly reliable.
> I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible.
Don't you realize that the US is looking for a conflict and a future proxy war may be waged in your country exactly because of those bases?
> If you believe that Russia is absolutely bad and the US and Ukraine are infinitely good and righteous, then you might want to look at what the other side says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHCNk9BYy4
No one is absolutely bad or good but Putin and the Russian government is responsible for the situation in Ukraine.
Ukraine was doing badly enough on its own, it didn't need Russia fucking it over. And its such a stupid panic it's not like Ukraine would have been admitted into EU or Nato, next election or 2 (with a mildly less corrupt/nasty candidate) things would have swung back to Russia friendly candidates.
Video is incorrect. Russian is South Slavic language. It's much closer to language used in Montenegro (which is South Slavic) than to Ukrainian or Belorusian languages. Russians have troubles with understanding of something written or spoken in East or West Slavic languages, while they have much less trouble with South Slavic languages. It's because Russian language is based on Church Slavonic language[1][2], which was develop by Saints Cyril and Methodius[3] using South Slavonic dialect spoken in (now) North Greece.
Also, samples of history are incorrect, causing multiple LOL's.
You obviously know a lot more about this than I do. I don't think we are arguing about anything. The Langfocus video mentions the 2 saints and Church Slavonic.
There are many debates on youtube about how much of 1 slavic language a speaker of a different slavic language can understand.
I was listening to an episode of This American Life recently, the interview subject, who sounded Greek to me, was repeating the Old Slavonic liturgies he sang in his youth during Byzantine Orthodox services.
I'll have to read and find out if Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic are different or the same thing.
Please note, that video supports my point: between 500BC and 1600BC, Russian language was non-existing. It's why video jumps from 500BC (proto-Slavic language) to 1400BC straight, skipping 1K years, 2/3 of history of Slavs.
It's all over the place. There's no subtlety or nuance in how this issue is reported in the media.
DNC and Podesta email hacks have been turned into Russian hacking of the entire election, and (not accidentally) many are inferring that Russia likely hacked actual voting machines.
Many people seem to be looking for a fight with Russia. Look around on twitter. See the desire for escalation in Syria. Remember the desire for a no fly zone in Syria supported by Hillary Clinton. As General Dunford testified, this would have required war with Russia.
>It's really interesting FBI/DHS would make those claims publicly when the chance of having any hard evidence of that would be minimal. But they still did it. Why?
Occam's razor says it's what the DNC wanted them to say. Politically it's a lot easier cop to being penetrated by a state actor than a group like Anonymous, and it allows the Democrats to deflect the conversation from the content of the emails. Well, to make the attempt, anyway.
I'll be curious to see what Trump does with this once he takes office. If there's no compelling evidence of Russian state involvement I suspect he'll direct the relevant agencies to release everything. If he doesn't do that it's going to be difficult for him to cast doubt on the Russian angle.
Just an observation: I don't recall until very recently the DNC or the RNC to refer to the parties, as opposed to the Democratic Party or Republican Party. I wonder why the shift? The focus on the Podesta/DNC emails? Makes sense during the election, and now it seems to have transferred over to referring to the party as part of the government (e.g., in reference to the FBI or DHS). Last time I remember the DNC being mentioned so much by name was during the Bill Clinton campaigns, in contrast to the Democratic Leadership Council. My memory can be faulty and selective, so I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this as well. (Anyone else remember Sinbad in Shazam?)
a) Anyone who thinks this document is the sole source of evidence is deluding themselves. The intelligence agencies are not going to document their capabilities to the world. Which I am sure would include compromised Tor nodes and DPI (including SSL/encrypted traffic) across many of the key sites/switches/cables.
b) It has been claimed that this document is more a guide for other companies and government agencies about the type of techniques that Russia allegedly used. General education about security is still pretty low and the US government et al are going to need to more in this area.
The problem with a line of reasoning that includes secret evidence we'll never get to see is that it can be used to support any conclusion whatsoever.
Inasmuch as it's a guide for other agencies, they'd be better served by OWASP recommendations. It's not clear what anyone could do with a report like this. I don't see any great takeaways that one could add to the next revision of their STIG. There are no 0-days for an IAVA.
As long as we're going for pure speculation, I think that Kim Dotcom hired Ukranian hackers and I could potentially find weak circumstantial evidence by going through a timeline of his Tweets. I seem to remember that he had foreknowledge of some of the items to be leaked, though that could've been pure BS and I didn't really investigate it at the time. He also has motive based on this administration's treatment of him.
Interesting theory about Dotcom. He knew something. I also think that Wikileaks has more material than they released and that Dotcom knows it. His tweets during October suggest that he was expecting something more to drop. It could have been BS, as you say, but I think he knew something.
Before "those" conclusions, I find of most interest the previous "Malware Conclusions":
"The PHP malware sample they have provided appears to be P.A.S. version 3.1.0 which is commonly available and the website that claims to have authored it says they are Ukrainian. It is also several versions behind the most current version of P.A.S which is 4.1.1b. One might reasonably expect Russian intelligence operatives to develop their own tools or at least use current malicious tools from outside sources."
I don't know how much of the HN community is old enough to remember Colin Powell just prior to the first Iraq war, getting up in front of the UN and the whole world for that matter, and asserting that there was ironclad proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (which we came to know as WMD). Different parts of the government had the same talking points and it was all presented as irrefutable facts. But the evidence General Powell laid out was not convincing to me at all, or to many other people. Grainy photos, reports of known arms dealers appearing in coffee shops or hotel lobbies at the same time as other key people.. it was all circumstantial and ended up being utter and complete bullshit.
This wave of claims with "incontrovertible" (but secret!) evidence that "Russia hacked the US" seems like the same kind of thing. I doubt they have proof, even if they say they do... even if their claims are made in good faith, they could be dead wrong. And more importantly I doubt the underlying premise, that Russia would even be so stupid as to try such a thing. The American people are stupid enough to vote ourselves into this situation; we didn't need any help from the outside for it to happen. There may have been hacks, but I doubt they were orchestrated by the Russian government and I REALLY doubt the credibility of the US government making claims about this kind of thing after their past record with things like the Iraq WMD.
I think it is reasonable to be skeptical of government claims but it is also important to clearly distinguish between these two cases. In the WMD situation the government was analyzing the actions of two third parties (the Hussein government and arms dealers) engaged in activities outside of the US. In this hacking situation these are actions being taken against US entities.
I don't believe anyone disputes that the DNC and other agencies "were compromised" (I'm sure John Podesta did not release all of his email voluntarily for example). So unlike the WMD scenario it seems incontrovertibly clear that some actor did do this.
A number of non-government people have identified the servers, malware, and techniques as originating either in Russia or the Ukraine. Krebs has written several times on gangs that have stolen credentials this way.
Finally people have signatures in their actions, they learn things in one way and they do things in that way. That has been true since the beginning of time. I remember identifying other Amateur Radio operators by the way in which they keyed code.
As a result, unlike the alleged WMD development efforts, I don't think anyone disagrees that various people were hacked, or that the groups that hacked them are associated with Russian and Ukrainian interests. The only question is whether or not they did so at the behest of their government or just for the lulz.
If anonymous were still around I expect they could get away with what ever pranks they wanted to play on Russian interests at the moment. The interesting question is whether the government would shield them from any Russian retaliation.
The level of gullibility displayed here is stunning. I completely agree that the fact of a hack existing is undisputed. However, electronic records, perhaps more than any records, lend themselves to being faked.
It's amusing that you would cite the example of the style of code keying of amateur radio operators. In WWII this was know as the "fist" of the operator. I refer you to appendix one of Leo Marks' excellent book "Between Silk and Cyanide" for just one account of how the opposing sides were able to study and fake each others' styles to create subterfuge. (You can thank me later for turning you on to a fantastic read.)
There may not be actual "fists" involved here but the point is more general: if an MO can be studied and understood, it can also be faked. For whatever reason. It could be part of a false flag operation. Alternatively, maybe it's not fake, but is done by rogue actors who carry their signature activities with them whether they are working for one interest or another.
Even with direct access to all the actual purported evidence, which we do not have, I still doubt we would know. And without seeing the evidence, I have to fall back on what I have learned about people in the US government, which is that they are often interested in saving face and finding scapegoats, even if it means inflicting collateral damage.
Hmm, I don't nominally think of my self as "stunningly gullible."
lets unpack this statement though: However, electronic records, perhaps more than any records, lend themselves to being faked.
It is certainly true that someone can edit and change electronic records and the tampering of such records, unless explicitly protected against, can be made indistinguishable from untampered records. But what is much more difficult is to tamper with records from a wide variety of unrelated sources to show the same thing.
For example, it is certainly possible for me to construct a record that says my "source IP" is KREMVAX[1] and to even have the source IP "logged" at the destination site as the origination point. But it is not possible for me to easily alter the s-flow records at Cogent which shows that the packet originated on a port on a router which is sitting in California. Yes, I can by a VPS in the Ukraine using bitcoin that has gone through several mixers but I cannot completely erase all of the packet sources that lead to that VPS. Yes, I can build an "IP over DNS" tunnel to disguise my traffic to the VPS as "harmless" DNS traffic but I cannot disguise how those DNS packets are propagated in the larger web.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you are a state actor (like the 17 intelligence agencies of the US) and the events leave traces (which they do), it is entirely feasible to unwind packet traces, money paths, and network events to the exact origin point. I was at Google when they Chinese did it to Google and got to watch on the sidelines the amazing amount of resource that could be brought to bear on the problem. And what it more, that incident and others less well publicized have lead to still more infrastructure which is completely passive and observational and captures all packet flows and meta data.
As a result, I find it completely believable that the origin of those attacks can be identified with certainty.
I believe it is reasonable to be skeptical about motivations and or command chain that lead to the attacks.
[1] A stand in for some IP Block allocated to Russia
I wasn't just thinking of records tampered after the fact. There is also the problem of genuine records created by the orchestrated actions of an imposter conducting a ruse. This would be the false flag possibility. I'm not saying I believe this is a likely scenario; just that it's a possible one.
And yes it would be hard for an imposter to leave all the right evidence. But if there is a hunt for a scapegoat and easy evidence is left in plain sight, there's a great temptation to just cherry pick that evidence, even if it's incomplete.
I don't know that the US isn't cherry picking and distorting whatever evidence they have. Sometimes the interests of multiple entities in government all align such that they put all their weight behind promoting one particular scapegoat. What you saw at Google must have been fascinating... is there a writeup? I was in the courtroom for the Wen Ho Lee hearings and got to watch (and privy to some behind the scenes stuff) the amazing amount of resources that could be brought to bear against an innocent scapegoat, and the contortions government actors would bend to in order to omit countervailing evidence and advance their false narrative.
>As a result, I find it completely believable that the origin of those attacks can be identified with certainty.
Strong statement. I was under the impression that TAO had tools which allowed them to hack many routers (potentially then rewriting the logs you speak of?) And I would expect they would not be alone in this. But even if you're right that they (on the inside of the investigation) can know with certainty, and even if going a step farther they DO know with certainty, we (on the outside) probably never will know. Too bad, because it would be nice to be able to trust our own government.
Edit:
>have lead to still more infrastructure which is completely passive and observational and captures all packet flows and meta data.
OK that is kind of cool... or scary... depending on whether you are a black hat or not in whatever realm you're living under.
Except that in the context of the discussion it impeaches the WMD example. Specifically 'natch' presents the argument that the government had bad data about WMD development and presented it as fact, so this action presented as fact might be just as fabricated. And my response was (and still is) that unlike the WMD allegations where no WMDs were ever discovered nor precursor laboratories, that some 'actor' (and again could be an individual, could be a group, could be a state actor) "meddled", and that term is imprecise but adequately conveys the difficulty of quantification, in the 2016 presidential elections of the United States.
My claim was simply that the two assertions, WMD development and election interference, had fundamental differences in terms of the factual basis. Which for me makes it an invalid comparison.
Now, had their actually been a WMD of some type and we got wrong whether it had been Iraq, Iran, or Saudi Arabia that had done the development. That would make it more similar to documented interference in an election by one or more actors.
Interesting to come back to this now as even the President Elect agrees with the Assessment that it was Russia that ordered the interference.
In the US at least, it's usually referred to as the Gulf War. While I've never personally heard the "first" Gulf War referred to as the first Iraq War I've heard of the current conflict called the second Gulf War. Is that not the norm?
Sure, the Wikipedia entry lists a number of different names:
The war is also known under other names, such as the Persian Gulf War, First Gulf War, Gulf War I, Kuwait War, First Iraq War, or Iraq War before the term "Iraq War" became identified instead with the 2003 Iraq War
The point is the 2003 coalition invasion isn't referred to as the First Iraq War; if using that term, it's commonly understood to mean the events of 1991. I could have phrased it better as "What's commonly referred to by the first Iraq War would be following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990."
I'm more intrigued by the goals behind all of this public discoveries. Public proof of Iraq having chemical weapons had clear goals, government needed to justify his upcoming war actions. But what precisely it trying to justify now? Or it has some more obscure plan?
Anyone who has run a wordpress or vbulletin site has probably seen this at some point in time. Got tonnes of logs from IPs in Ukraine, Russian, China, etc that crawl for holes and if they find one you will find something like this somewhere. VBulletin is the worst - executable code is stored in the database so that's where you'll likely find it.
I find it hard to believe this is what a state sponsored attack would look like - in business, we see this all the time.
I would love to see some action taken on this, there's probably tonnes of time and post business spent on these attacks. I just don't want to see that solution in the form of slanderous claims that paint it as more than it is.
It is ridiculous to think that the Russkies planed and executed these hacks as a deliberate operation with a clear objective to derail the election or whatever it might me.
Some guys routinely spreading primitive phishing spam got lucky and got a password or two and gained the access to emails. Just this. No super spy hacking operations. It does not even work that way - chance is the main factor.
How the emails turned up on Wikileaks is another questions, but, again, they have been published because they have been already hacked by some primitive phishing gang, not super-intelligent top-tier mega-hackers paid by the evil KGB.
The whole idea of deliberate planed KGB operation is an utter nonsense. It were kids with PHP crap. One should look for the brokers. They could have been among the 35 kicked out guys.
This is the type of amateur analysis I would expect from a "Wordpress security" professional, certainly not front page worthy.
He completely ignored what this malware was used for. The attack was a spearphishing campaign by APT29 that used hosts compromised with this malware to send emails from legitimate government domains to targeted individuals in the DNC and the US Government. The emails themselves contained malware that has only ever been used by APT29.
Separately, APT28 ran a spearphishing campaign that directed recipients to a webmail domain hosted on APT28 operational infrastructure to change their passwords.
This Joint Analysis Report is telling the government agencies whose infrastructure was used to send the spearphishing emails to secure their Wordpress installations to help reduce the risk of government infrastructure being used to send legitimate-looking spearphishing emails.
The php malware is the least interesting piece of all the alleged activity. Being a version behind isnt significant. Its a simple common hacker tool. My postgresql is a few versions behind. So what ? If RIS had used obvious elite tools with impressive functionality then it would point straight to them. Its much smarter to look amateur.
The JAR should have declassified something juicy. They put out this weak report, revealed nothing and now critics will attack and win. Maybe its the US that are a bunch of amateurs.
The USA puts "hackers" in jail, and the ones they hire might not even get a job if they admit to smoking weed in college. This is a country where you can get prison time for using someone's open wireless network. There's hostility towards hackers here from ignorant judges and lawmakers who come down hard on things they don't understand.
They win by pressuring US companies with incentives/contracts (Juniper) or jail time (Qwest) to weaken or backdoor their products for US and foreign buyers.
Their own citizens are kept in the dark with secret court orders with dubious constitutionality. "Amateur" is being generous.
Based on the conclusions the authors of the article don't seem to understand the purpose of these IoCs. Individually they aren't all intended to be 100% solid indicators that you were targetted in this campaign, but to be used as a whole.
This website has no political affiliation; completely unbiased research. Their conclusion:
"The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don’t appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website."
If we're going to speculate, I'd say Kim Dotcom is more suspicious based on his tweets. I thought he tweeted some statements indicating foreknowledge of certain leaks, but I never investigated it carefully.
EDIT: I'm certainly not claiming he did anything, I read this as just sour grapes, but look for yourself at a sample - http://imgur.com/a/zv174
I don't know why OP is being down voted. Kim Dotcom tweeted he had early access to the leaks. It feels like a more plausible theory to me than the one the Obama administration is pushing. He announced his attention to be "an Internet Freedom fighter" and "Hillary's worse nightmare in 2016" back in 2014.
There's always heavy downvoting in these threads. Look for interesting discussion to upvote to counter.
Thanks for those tweets, yes, he has done a lot of things that make him at least suspicious. I wouldn't take him seriously at all if not for the fact that he predicted some of this.
Incidentally, for those mentioning McAfee, I see no reason to take that guy seriously, nor am I presently aware of him displaying any foreknowledge of any of this.
That is, indeed, quite probable. But he did predict that Wikileaks would be a problem for her. That's non-specific enough that he could've been lucky.
But as long as we're wondering who might've leaked what, you have to admit that he's at least suspicious. He has had a longstanding grudge against them and I can totally imagine him hiring some hacker group.
"The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don’t appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website."