The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Hacks & Facts

I Guess you didn't see the part where the CIA has lied and been caught before doing so. I get they probably don't want to show their hand of how the acquired the Information. To take hearsay from an agency that has lied before isn't exactly hard facts.

The other thing is with all the bullshit Wikileaks has put out there how much of it has been proven wrong? From what I can recall nobody has proven anything wrong or that they have lied before. Which tells me they are telling the truth because you have NO reason otherwise not to believe them. I think some of the stuff was hacked and some of it could have came from sources inside another country.

I think it's just as likely that an insider of the DNC is leaking information as well. You can't rule that out. I think it's the DNC trying to do damage countrol. Can you image what will happen if they came out and said someone inside had been leaking all of this before the elections?

I agree with this.

Just because this is Trump, doesn't mean he is automatically wrong.

People might be more willing to take the administration at their word if they hadn't lied to us for months on end that the Benghazi attacks were the result of a Youtube video.

That's what happens when you demonstrate you are a liar. Anything you say afterwards, people ask, "You were lying then. Are you lying now? Why should anyone trust you?"

The answer to that questions is, we can't.

About the US intelligence agencies: remember the fuckers lied to get the Iraq war going. They also hacked the Senate because they did not like being under scrutiny.

Interesting blogs on this topic:

Schneier

Kerbs

Both are trustworthy InfoSec gurus and they think Russia did it.

Schneier is legit, and he hits the nail on the head when he points out the difficulties brought about by secrecy and the real problems regarding disclosure of human intelligence that might positively corroborate a hypothesis based on the overall 'feel' of an attack. (that is, bits of pieces of information put together)

I still think there are two core problems with putting it firmly on Putin.

One, being that my understanding, though not perfect, is that the Russian/Eastern Euro hack scene is rather nebulous. Both firms, and private groups might work with the Russian govt one day, the Russian mob the next, and run their own ops on the side for their own profit and entertainment. It might have been Putin ordering something, or it might have been some guy who'd worked on malware for the GRU in the past running his own phishing scam that hit paydirt, or even some GOP-minded or anarchist type that fed them target email lists and bitcoin.

Second, the untrustworthyness of our own intelligence agencies. Did the CIA say it was the Russian govt because they have real sources, or because CrowdStrike wrote a report that made it politically expedient to do so, and the CIA analysts just went with the expedient groupthink? Which, unfortunately, the CIA has a long, storied habit of doing.

Plus, I even doubt their motives. I really think that the upper echelons of the intel community think of themselves as the real Masters of the Universe, capable of twisting facts and slanting reports, and demagogueing politicians into dancing on their puppet strings. Theres a reason our elected leaders change, and our policies dont. And it isn't because we have sane, intelligent policies.

How big of a carrot would it be, for the CIA and their ilk to see billions in new funding for digital surveillance teams and tools, if only the US political class can be convinced that we need a new war - a cyber war - with our old Ruskie frenemies.

Sadly, our own intelligence services are less trustworthy than foreign governments, even bad ones that dont like us. Which is sad, and unfortunate, but it is what it is. And probably wont change. In fact, if Trump has the possibility of doing one truly great thing, it would be to clean house in the intelligence community - even if he does it for the wrong reasons.

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side note: previously I had somehow thought I was typing CrowdStrike, and ended up with CounterStrike, and didn't even notice. Misfired auto-correct, or mental lapse? Not sure, but oops. Lulz.

There are 16 or 17 US intelligence agencies that have said the Russians had a hand in the hacking. Are you saying they are all lying?

In the US/UK Intel arena, much like the US MSM, one outlet will publish something, and the rest will pick it up and repeat it without so much as a cursory fact check. How do you think Iraq was baking that 'yellowcake'? Or how the same lying Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, resulted in so many "independent" analysis pointing the finger at Iraq WMD capabilities? Same guy, same deposition, yet how many agencies on both sides of the Atlantic "independently verified" Iraq's WMD program and intent?

It was interesting, just last night I was reading an article in the Washington Post (a link is actually in Sini's Schneier blog link) about how happy the Russians were that Trump won. Even though, buried in the article, it still did remind the reader that the Russians being happy wasn't technically proof - it was still obvious that the intent was to support the going narrative. Thus, how it ends up being linked by pro-Ruskies-did-it security bloggers. How disingenuous. Seriously.

I still find it laughable that providing true information, that is in-context (yes, it would be different if the emails were incomplete and out of context) is now, somehow, 'interference' in the democratic process. But hey, when even the WashPost will bend itself over backwards to push a narrative, and ignore the basic, fundamental premise - what can we expect?