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

Posted by msmash on from the truth-is-out-there dept.

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.

37 of 704 comments (clear)

  1. oh well by Torvac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    lets blame russia

    1. Re:oh well by Torvac · · Score: 5, Interesting

      totally not north korea this time

    2. Re:oh well by jstroebe · · Score: 5, Funny

      Blame Canada they're not even a real country anyway.

    3. Re:oh well by wyHunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed. Nobody cares that they've subverted Democracy. But by golly how terrible those Russians caught them doing it!

  2. So that makes it OK then by Script+Cat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing to see here. These crimes were exposed by someone we don't like so much. That makes it OK.

    1. Re:So that makes it OK then by jratcliffe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What crimes would those be? Seriously, I'm curious. What crimes have been revealed by the DNC emails that were released? Staffers at the DNC didn't much like a number of members of Sanders's staff. Some of them preferred Clinton. Good policy? Maybe, maybe not, but not a crime by any definition of the term.

    2. Re:So that makes it OK then by laie_techie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What crimes would those be? Seriously, I'm curious. What crimes have been revealed by the DNC emails that were released? Staffers at the DNC didn't much like a number of members of Sanders's staff. Some of them preferred Clinton. Good policy? Maybe, maybe not, but not a crime by any definition of the term.

      I haven't read the emails, but I don't believe they expose any crimes committed by the DNC; instead it shows that they did not want to play by their own rules when determining their candidate. It's dirty pool which may disenfranchise some Democrats.

    3. Re:So that makes it OK then by PPH · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How so? Politicians lying is protected speech.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:So that makes it OK then by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What crimes would those be? Seriously, I'm curious.

      Among other things, the emails show direct discussions surrounding the promising of high profile government positions to generous campaign supporters and contributors. A direct violation of 18 U.S.C./599. That's a crime.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    5. Re:So that makes it OK then by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Informative

      I haven't read the emails, but I don't believe they expose any crimes committed by the DNC

      Conspiring to violate 18 USC/599 is a federal crime. The rest is just typical liberal crap on display (hey! nobody's looking! let's use disparaging references to ethnic groups and make fun of a black woman's name!), but that's simply them displaying their hypocrisy. It's the whole caught-in-the-act of offering quid pro quo on promising government appointments to high profile supporters that actually breaks the law.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    6. Re:So that makes it OK then by TykeClone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's all good - the FBI will never find intent.

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
    7. Re:So that makes it OK then by rwyoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What crimes would those be? Seriously, I'm curious. What crimes have been revealed by the DNC emails that were released?

      Violations of campaign finance law: http://www.rollingstone.com/po...

    8. Re:So that makes it OK then by Notorious+G · · Score: 5, Informative

      What crimes would those be? Seriously, I'm curious. What crimes have been revealed by the DNC emails that were released? Staffers at the DNC didn't much like a number of members of Sanders's staff. Some of them preferred Clinton. Good policy? Maybe, maybe not, but not a crime by any definition of the term.

      The crime exposed by the DNC emails is money laundering. In those, they discuss how to move money from very wealthy donors making big deposits through a DNC fund for "down ticket" candidates (like state and local races). Huge donors with money, adhering to campaign finance laws, make deposits into the Clinton campaign (HFA). But they want more money to go to her so they direct the majority of it into something called the Hillary Victory Fund which is operated by the DNC. From there it's split again between state level party operations and the DNC, also to avoid limits. However, it's not at the state party accounts long, in fact, it's often there so briefly that the state level treasurers managing don't even have time to see it hit the account before it's gone and it's "donated" back to the DNC, essentially having been 'washed' through the sate accounts. The DNC then used the money to support the Clinton campaign.

      tl:dr - the DNC laundered money to circumvent campaign finance law and support Hillary.

    9. Re:So that makes it OK then by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Informative

      The faux laziness of Hillary supporters who want to maintain the ability to pretend they're unaware of her and her campaign's corruption never ceases to amaze. I know, that whole google searching thing is laborious, isn't it?

      http://dailycaller.com/2016/07...

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  3. Russian VPN != "Works for Russia" by mveloso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure the press is smart enough to understand that use of a Russian VPN means they're working for the Russian government...but I'd expect /. editors to understand at least the basics of, you know, connectivity.

    1. Re:Russian VPN != "Works for Russia" by kqs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who did the hacking is irrelevant. It's just a distraction.

      I only partly agree with this. If a foreign country is trying to affect our elections, that's something worth considering. Especially because if they'll do something minor like this they may do something major and less-easily-traced later.

      The inner workings of both major US political parties as it relates to rewarding large donors, choosing party candidates, and dealing with "disruptive" candidates is very ugly. This could have easily happened to the RNC (if it hasn't already) and a similar pile of shit would likely be unearthed.

      This is very true. The DNC was unhappy with Sanders, but never thought he had a chance of winning and didn't do much against him. Some talk, but no action.

      The RNC, OTOH, has been in an existential fight with Trump for the past year. They probably had a LOT more talk and probably more action. (Totally ineffective action, true, but action nonetheless.)

      I really don't know how primaries should work. As you say, primaries currently give too much power to those with strong and vocal opinions. Caucuses are even worse. Open primaries let people outside the party have a say, which may or may not be a good idea. The old method of "smoke filled backroom deals" doesn't seem an improvement.

      The disapproval ratings for the DNC and RNC candidates are at record high levels and speak for themselves

      That's a red herring. The DNC candidate has been under near-constant "investigations" (which have produced close to zero evidence or crimes) for more than two decades and has little charisma; that's gonna cause disapproval from those who like investigations but dislike evidence. The RNC candidates have insulted just about every cultural, ethnic, and gender-based group in the country. It's a perfect storm, but neither one seems tied to the parties.

  4. Yea Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the same people who said...
    "No classified email on my server"
    "No material on my email that was classified at the time"
    "No material marked classified on my server"
    "I handed over all work related emails"
    "The DNC did not collude to keep Sanders from winning"
    "The DNC doesn't work with news media to plant stories against Sanders"

    If they ever got caught telling the truth once, this might be believable. Who hacked the DNC server doesn't matter, what matters is how corrupt the DNC is from the content of the emails. They did their best to disenfranchise their base. Your vote doesn't mean anything to them, only their power and they are willing to lie, cheat and steal to keep that power and extend it over you.

    What a joke the DNC is. How long till Debbie Waserman Schultz gets another high paid job thanks to Clinton? Oops, already happened, so corrupt she had to be fired from the DNC but is still truthful enough to work for Clinton.

    1. Re:Yea Sure by Yunzil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So you're saying that somehow the DNC generated 3.7 million more votes for Clinton than Sanders?

      How, exactly?

    2. Re:Yea Sure by smugfunt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you're saying that somehow the DNC generated 3.7 million more votes for Clinton than Sanders?

      We often discuss voting machines here. We don't like them.
      Smoking gun?

  5. Why does this matter? by kwiecmmm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The real issue is the fact that DNC tried to stop Bernie with a few underhanded tactics.

    The DNC is now trying to redirect the focus everyone to say the Russians did this rather than asking why Bernie didn't get a fair shot or why Hilary was basically given a free pass. I am more worried about why these emails were written in the first place and why the people at the DNC were stupid enough to think their email server couldn't be hacked.

    1. Re:Why does this matter? by CaptainLard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And the OTHER real issue is that we have as close to proof that makes no difference that Russia, a country who's leader is trying his best to restore the glory days of the cold war, is actively screwing with our general election.

      Sure the DNC should be impartial but to suggest we ignore Russia's attempt to influence our democratic process (however flawed it may be) is asinine, especially given they seem to have chosen a side. There two big problems here and both should be addressed!

    2. Re:Why does this matter? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Even Sanders realizes that the bias of DNC is not the reason he lost. If he thinks the election was stolen from him, he would not have endorsed HRC as strongly as he did. The email shows the normal palace intrigue, backstabbing and gossip. It is not even as embarrassing as the Sony leak. No ethnic jokes, no racist jokes being forwarded.

      If you put a secret microphone near the watercooler of any American company and release raw audio and transcript of all the talk, you would find lot more sleazy things than what you find in the DNC email dump.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  6. If you can't attack the message... by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ....attack the messenger.

    Isn't that pretty much Lawyer Response 101?

    Dovetails nicely with the purported "vast Right Wing conspiracy", doesn't it?

    If a hacker reveals illegal conduct, is it "less illegal" if the hacker is Russian?
    I haven't noticed anyone asserting the emails are not genuine.

    --
    -Styopa
  7. And still people won't vote for Gary Johnson by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One party nominated a racist. The other party nominated a serial liar. And still, I bet the Libertarian and Green parties won't get 5% of the vote. I suspect that Hillary and Trump could beat American children in public while shouting "America sucks" and we still wouldn't get a third-party into office.

    My favorite is the guy attending the RNC, wearing the "STOP TRUMP" t-shirt, who said he would vote for Trump. **NUCLEAR FACEPALM**

  8. "What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Who cares who hacked them. This is just a deflection.

    It's what's IN THEM that is the story behind the curtain nobody wants you to see

    1. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who cares who hacked them. This is just a deflection.

      This is spot on.

      I'm likely still going to vote for Hillary (as opposed to not voting) because the alternative is President Trump - but I really don't care who brought the emails to light, since it's obvious they're not phony.

      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.
       

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Voting for the lesser of two evils still means you;re voting for evil.

      Seriously - it's like saying "Oh, I'm voting for Stalin because that Hitler guy is just nasty..."

      Given the current state of dissatisfaction with the current duopoly, I'm amazed that folks aren't moving to 3rd parties more often these days. I mean, seriously, if there were ever a time when it could really make a difference...

      But then, most people who claim to have an ideology are driven more by fear than by their own conscience these days...

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On an evil scale, hillary is somewhere north of the coyote. She's a wonk and a bureaucrat with a ton of government experience. The most likely negative outcome of her term is more of the same.

      Trump is actually dangerous.

      So sure.. voting for 36 vs 48 on the evil scale is still voting for evil.

      But voting for 11 vs 48 on the evil scale is not the same thing.

      Trump is a sociopath and a narcissist. He's an idiot too and Putin will own him repeatedly. Just having Trump as a candidate has weakened our standing with almost all of our allies which means harder to get treaties, harder to build coalitions, harder to oppose hostiles.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not surprising. Dig into some of the emails and you will find discussions among DNC staffers about various articles they have received from journalists for approval before they are submitted to their editors! The media is complicit and circling the wagons around their own.

    5. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    6. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is no such person that could 'soundly beat him' because most people just vote party line with little more concern than the D or R.

      If only the Democrats had a candidate who could energize a young, large field of first-time voters in a way that no other Democrat can.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    7. Re:"What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who got caught? Did you read the article? Did you actually visit ThreatConnect's website and read their best guess? Based on the evidence they presented, it only suggests that a Russian VPN provider was involved in the obfuscation of the originating network. The rest of the analysis is click-bait speculation and should be disregarded.

    8. Re: "What Difference Does It Make?!?!?!" by bestweasel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Trump's ghostwriter spent 18 months with him and thinks he's a sociopath.

      If he were writing âoeThe Art of the Dealâ today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, âoeThe Sociopath.â

      http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

  9. Quite possibly bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To my knowledge, ThreatConnect was paid by the DNC to do this investigation, and the company that owns the news source used as a reference here (The Daily Beast is owned by IAC) has Chelsea Clinton on their board of directors.

    I would not draw any conclusions until this is independently confirmed.

  10. Re:Who cares..?? by blue+trane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Vote for divided govt so Trump can't get anything done. A blocked Trump is better than President Hillary.

  11. Re:Who cares..?? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No conspiracy necessary. His campaign is over, he didn't get the nomination, now he's recommending that his supporters make the best of a bad situation and elect a ho-hum stay-the-course centrist, the only candidate who can realistically win enough votes to keep a bigoted, inept and childish protofascist from winning the presidency.

    If you have to step in a dog turd to dodge a bullet, you do it. It's the smart and sensible choice.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  12. We DID vote for Stalin... by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Voting for the lesser of two evils still means you;re voting for evil.

    Seriously - it's like saying "Oh, I'm voting for Stalin because that Hitler guy is just nasty...

    You realize we sent Stalin a massive infusion of arms and armaments to help him keep fighting Hitler, and supported him despite his evil, right through V-E day? That we really preferred having Russian soldiers dying to having Americans dying, so we gave him all the help we could?

    Yes, there was a strong feeling in certain circles that when the eastern front met the western front, the fighting would continue and we'd wind up in a war with the Russians. But still, we absolutely supported evil when it was fighting another evil.

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++