I know some of you are repeating the same thing about the supposed Russian hacks. Here's a few interesting things about that. Still NO evidence has been presented.

Not that I really care one way or the other but What "proof" could be presented that would make you believe Russians hacked the DNC?

Should the CIA release how they detect these hacks and tip Russians off on how to better not be detected in the future?

I am not saying the Russians did hack the DNC, I am just wondering what proof people want that would make them happy.

It isn't proof, but the CIA would have to emphatically say that they had human intelligence of a traditional nature that the Russian govt was involved. Not proof, considering the CIA's general record, but at least worth considering.

But they didn't do that, and only ever said "they thought" or "it looked" like Russian hacking. Which means nothing. Even worse, attributing a hack to an entity without human intelligence is setting oneself up for a bigger mistake than the Iraq war. There is no way to positively identify the perpetrator of a digital hack through digital means. Period. Even if you have access to all the routers via backdoors, as the NSA is rumored to have, and you do manage a high degree of confidence in the resulting physical origin (which still isn't 100%) you still don't know who was behind the keyboard, or even if someone didn't just load the attack on a USB stick and get it plugged in to a machine at that location.

With a bit of effort, it is also possible to copy another entity's MO, and even make the attack origin fit.

The attack was perpetrated via email phishing. I don't doubt that the malware payload was of Russian origin, and possibly even was hosted in Russian territory. It is even likely that entities that are affiliated with, and at times work with the Russian govt were involved.

The problem: Anyone with a few grand, and knowledge of certain darknet message boards could pull off the same thing. A bit of bitcoin or prepaid cards can get you access to pretty much any malware, hack, or botnet.

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I'd say that there is still about a 50/50 chance that Putin was involved. After all, he blamed Hillary for meddling in Russian elections a few years ago. So the idea that Putin would order it, or at the least look the other way, is pretty high. But it isn't proof.

Also, in this case, the accusation mainly seems to have stemmed from the security firm Counter Strike and not US agencies, and never a word from NSA. Counterstrike was brought in by the DNC, and were the ones to point the finger.

This doesn't seem good enough to start impacting relations with powerful countries, and in fact would, and has, set a dangerous precedent.

Of course, the root problem in all of this is the fact that our intelligence agencies have, by their own incompetence and dishonesty over the years, made their musings and pronunciations suspect.

Any agency that can say "yep, looks like Iraq is building nukes" can say, "yep, those contractors (that we also use/work with) who say that hack looks like Russians have a good case. it's probably Russians"

Ok actually watch the video, which was pretty good. Interesting that now theres a UK ambassador vouching for Assange's version. Maybe Podesta getting hit by a random email phishing malware scam (that we all get, I see tons of that crap in my work email quarantine) had nothing to do with the leak at all even.

Glad to see Swann is back, he tried to go it alone for a while but it didn't work out well - wasn't able to generate enough money. Which is unfortunate, since he is the closest thing to a real TV reporter we have these days.

I just think people are totally writing off that it was an inside job. There are still some good old Democrats out there that can't stand the direction their party has been going the last 30-35 years. Now there's a bunch of hypersensitive progressive liberals claiming to be Democrats hijacking their party and they are getting fed up with it and some are probably leaking Information.

Regardless of the source of the successful phishing operation, a couple of things are true.

Democrats do not dispute the content of the leaked emails. To the extent that those emails damaged Democratic candidates, both at the top of the ticket and in lower level races, that is due to voters objecting to corruption and malfeasance within the Democratic party. I see no move afoot among Democrats to correct those flaws.

Second, it is not the responsibility of the federal government to secure private email systems, particularly when the fault is due to stupidity and negligence, in this case on the part of those in the DNC.

I think it is a joke that conservatives write off consensus amoung US intel agencies. Can you even imagine if Obama had done what Trump is doing. Simply amazing.

Can you imagine that conservatives hate democrats more than Russian intelligence?

Democrats are just as bad for thinking that the purported ends justify the means.

Plus, arguing from the position of defending the veracity of CIA is a very weak platform. The top dogs at the security agencies are known liars, perjurers, and political hacks. Especially Clapper. Though you would be correct to say that GOP is mostly arguing against them for their own gain. Case in point being Wikileaks. Wikileaks gets info they can verify as legit, they post it. When they post info harmful to GOP, the Democrats love them, and GOP calls them traitors/terrorists. When the info being leaked is harmful to Democrats, they get called Russian tools.

But, Owain did bring up a very valid point earlier: the info posted was true. This is actually the most important point of the entire issue.

Since when does it matter who brings the truth to light? Is it any less true? If you don't like the message, just kill the messenger?

Just remember, the people whose consensus is being questioned are the same ones that claim that the US Govt needs to keep extensive records on the emails and other activities of Mr and Mrs Smith in Iowa, because, Al Qaeda. Then they will lie to congress about it.

This partisanship that ignore principles, and focuses on short-term political gain is toxic and corrosive.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...hacking/512309/

So the big reveal at the hearing was...... absolutely nothing. Oh, there will be a forthcoming report.

Here is the most telling tidbit. Keep in mind that Michael Sulmeyer is the director of the Belfer Center's Cyber Security Project at Harvard Kennedy School. He, and thus Harvard, like so many 'liberal' institutions epitomize our post-truth society.



What he is saying, is that journalism should be defended against by the Federal Govt. That it should be an "Administration Priority" to make sure information on the doings and workings of our political parties don't seethe light of day.

It is even referred to as "hacking the voters"

If this insanity prevails, maintaining any semblance of a democratically oriented Republic will not be feasible in the long term.

How dare anyone "hack the voters" by letting the public know what their overlords really think and plan!

The FBI requested access to the computers in question, and was denied, as the DNC thought it would be too intrusive.

I guess the intel community consensus was achieved using a Ouija board.

Hat tip: The Hill

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?