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US Believes Hackers Are Shielded By Russia To Hide Its Role In Cyberintrusions: WSJ (newsmax.com)
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warining: may be paywalled), U.S. officials are all but certain that the hacker Guccifer 2.0, who hacked the Democratic National Committee in June, is connected to a network of individuals and groups who are being shielded by the Russian government to mask its involvement in cyberintrusions. Even though the hacker denies working for the Russian government, the hacker is thought to be working with the hacking groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, which have ties to the Russian government. The Wall Street Journal reports: Following successful breaches, the stolen data are apparently transferred to three different websites for publication, these people say. The websites -- WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com and a blog run by Guccifer 2.0 -- have posted batches of stolen data at least 42 times from April to last week. Cybersecurity experts believe that DCLeaks.com and Guccifer 2.0 often work together and have direct ties to Russian hackers. Guccifer 2.0 said in a Twitter direct message sent to The Wall Street Journal that he wants to expose corruption in politics and shine light on how companies influence policy. The hacker said he also hopes to expose "global electronization." "I think I won't have a better opportunity to promote my ideas than this year," Guccifer 2.0 added in a long exchange with a Journal reporter. The Journal cannot verify the identity of the person sending messages on behalf of Guccifer 2.0, but the account is the same one that was used to publish personal information about Democrats. A posting on a blog run by Guccifer 2.0 says he is a man who was born in Eastern Europe, has been a hacker for years and fears for his safety. "I think u've never felt that feeling when u r crazy eager to shout: look everyone, this is me, this is me who'd done it," the hacker wrote to the Journal. "but u can't." WikiLeaks officials didn't respond to requests for comment on whether Russia fed them the stolen files published by WikiLeaks in July. A representative for DCLeaks.com asked the Journal to submit questions via email but hasn't responded to them. Last week, U.S. intelligence chielf James Clapper said it "shouldn't come as a big shock to people" that Russia is behind the hacking operation. While Russia has tried to interfere in U.S. elections since at least the 1960s by spying and funneling money to particular political groups, "I think it's more dramatic maybe because now they have the cyber tools," he said.
Nothing but PR=B$, news at eleven all citizens of a country have ties to their government. They have ties to the government at Federal level, ties to the government at state level and ties to their government at municipal level. Look a whole article about immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... So US spies have immunity when they break other countries laws and are safe from extradition, not just computer crimes but even rape and mass murder and no matter how public those crimes have been those American criminals are still be protected. Even an entire war based on lies, the criminals behind that, are still being protected, hence the desperate bid to corruptly elect another guaranteed not to prosecute high crimes, criminal is being elected. Remember those hacking stories about hacking of state electoral roles and patches to security, now were those patches to fix or to break security and is the electronic fix in. I'd bet a substantial amount of the Russian hacking is actually the CIA and it's private for profit contractors pretending to be Russian, keeps the NSA and FBI off the backs and drives more CIA contractor revenue (NATO command is screwing about in there as well, separate from the US government, collusion between US/UK/German/French corrupt players).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Given that Clapper directly lied to Congress before, how can anyone accept anything he says at face value now?
It seems that in the U.S. everything is being blamed on Russia right now, and U.S. media consistently fails to mention all of the aggressive actions that the U.S. is performing against Russia. So Russia may or may not be behind some of the things that have been happening, but you definitely can't trust the U.S. government to tell the truth about things they know let alone the things that are really just speculation.
So, I think a lesson must be taught to Russia:
That interfering with the voting processes of a democracy is close to a declaration of war. (and no Mr. Trump I don't think, and neither do the various three letter agencies, think that the hacking of the DNC and voting machines was done by a 400 lb. woman sitting in her basement).
I am hoping that the tens of billions of dollars spent yearly on the NSA and it's being the largest supercomputer and employer of mathematicians in the world hasn't been to waste. I'm hoping that the fact that Americans (or their close allies) having INVENTED and OWNING most of the basic technologies that run our technological world (the internet, Microsoft OS, Mac OS, Android, iOS, Facebook, Google, Twitter, SAP, Amazon, Cisco, Intel, AMD, ARM, MS Office, Exchange, telephone switching networks. trans-oceanic cable companies) gives the American security agencies an incredible advantage when it comes to planting backdoors/exploiting vulnerabilities that other nations don't have. That's not to mention American establishment (and control?) of some of the key financial networks which govern them movement of money around the world.
So I'm hoping that in no uncertain terms the U.S. is sending/has sent a clear warning to Putin and his barbaric regime. Perhaps some of his overseas banking account just "disappears". Perhaps some of his most intimate e-mails (or even recorded telephone calls) are sent to his (few remaining) opponents. Otherwise I'll begin to think that the U.S.is just a overpaid, bloated, toothless cyber-tiger. Unfortunately, the only way us average citizens will probably ever know if our government has hit back effectively is if the Russian attacks cease. Then we'll know they got the message.
I hope we send it.
This is why I run an IP filter list that includes all of Russia and most of Ukraine on the sites that I manage. Sure there are a couple of honest Russians that just want some information, but 99% of their traffic is attacks.
When 90+% of an entire nation is hack attempts and attacks, it's just easier and better for me and my clients to deny them access.
This is also why I run an IP filter list that blocks all of Russia and most of Ukraine from every site I maintain. 99.9% of their traffic is hack attempts and attacks. If 95+% of a nation's users are up to no good, then it is in my and my client's best interest to ban the entire nation. Nothing personal, and nothing against the Russian people, but 99.9% of their internet traffic is shit.