'DNC Hacker' Unmasked: He Really Works for Russia, Researchers Say (thedailybeast.com)

The hacker who claimed to compromise the DNC swore he was Romanian, but new investigation shows he worked directly for Russia President Vladimir Putin's government in Moscow. The Daily Beast reports: The hacker who claims to have stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and provided them to WikiLeaks is actually an agent of the Russian government and part of an orchestrated attempt to influence U.S. media coverage surrounding the presidential election, a security research group concluded on Tuesday. The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a single, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found. ThreatConnect is the first known group of experts to link the self-proclaimed hacker to a Russian operation, amidst an ongoing FBI investigation and a presidential campaign rocked by the release of DNC emails that have embarrassed senior party leaders and inflamed intraparty tensions turning the Democratic National Convention. The emails revealed that party insiders plotted ways to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid. The researchers at the aforementioned security firm are basing their conclusion on three signals: the hacker used Russian computers to edit PDF files, he also used Russian VPN -- and other internet infrastructure from the country, and that he was unable to speak Romanian.

Comments

Re:oh well

[Torvac]

totally not north korea this time

Re:So that makes it OK then

[PPH]

How so? Politicians lying is protected speech.

Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!"

[amicusNYCL]

On a side note - the Republicans had the most winnable presidential race in decades, handed to them on a silver platter. So they decided to nominate just about the most unelectable candidate imaginable. Unbelievable.

Yep, the Democrats parry by nominating a divisive, corrupt politician who is the #2 most disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling. The only person who is more disliked is her opponent. And then they go and find the most vanilla VP pick that no one outside of his state has ever heard of. They are intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

It makes me wonder about all of their justifications. Now the convention is all about "we must defeat Trump!" If defeating Trump was so important to the Democratic party, then why the hell did they nominate the candidate who's untrusted and corrupt and is going to have a serious uphill battle to beat Trump? Why not just nominate the guy who consistently beat Trump in polls? I mean, if their stated goal is to defeat Trump, then why do anything else? Of course that's a trick question; their goal is not to defeat Trump and never has been, their only goal since the primaries started is to elect Hillary. It just so happens that the Republicans managed to nominate the only candidate who is actually more disliked than Hillary, so now the Democrats have a great boogeyman.

There's also the line about, "hey we've got the most progressive platform evar! Like 80% of Bernie's platform is there!" OK, if Bernie's platform is so great then why does Hillary get to be the president and not Bernie? If you really want those platform policies to be implemented and actually worked on, why not elect the guy who has been shouting about them for years? Why shove through a person who only adopted them because it was either adopt or die? Do you really think she's going to stick to that platform once she gets her foot in the door?

Regardless of all of that stuff though, I still can't vote for Hillary, and some people have a hard time understanding why. The major reason I supported Sanders wasn't because of his policy positions, it was because he legitimately wants to see an end to the political corruption caused by very large amounts of money in the political system. In my opinion, Hillary is a perfect example of that kind of corruption, the kind that I want removed from government. Since I see Bernie as the solution to the problem represented by Hillary, if I am not allowed to vote for the solution then I'm not just going to turn around and vote for the problem. I will not vote for the problem. I will cast my vote for a smaller party who will appreciate my vote far more than either Hillary or Trump will (just like I did in the previous election), and vote for someone else who at least is not part of the problem. And if the Democrats want to bitch and moan about that, and try to place any blame on me for them not getting enough votes to beat Trump, I'll be happy to remind them that there was a very easy way to ensure that they would have beaten Trump, but they decided to go with the corrupt one instead.