Slashdot Mirror
US Intel Officially Blames the Russian Government For Hacking DNC (theverge.com)
It's official, the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security has blamed Russia for stealing and publishing archived emails from the Democratic National Committee in July. Wikileaks released over 19,000 emails and more than 8,000 attachments from the DNC in what was "part one of [their] new Hillary Leaks series." The Verge reports: "The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts," the statement reads. "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." The release also mentions recent reports of attempted intrusions into voting systems in 20 different states, but says there is not yet enough evidence to attribute those attacks to the Russian government. Despite the acknowledged threat, the DNI says digital attacks are unlikely to directly alter election results. "It would be extremely difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion," the statement reads. "This assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in this country and the number of protections state and local election officials have in place." "Nevertheless," it continues, "DHS continues to urge state and local election officials to be vigilant."
I remember seeing this 80s, 90s. Ooooo it was the Russians. Reports say Russians deny speculation. More of the same media baloney.
When I'm president, the Russians won't hack us any more. They won't have to.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Whatever happened to "Blame Canada"?
I feel slighted!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
If the Russians had cracked the RNC instead of the DNC, you'd never hear the end of it. Communist infiltration and all that. FOX News would be yammering about it 24 hours a day.
Instead, most of the posters on Slashdot are going to be falling all over each other denying the Russians had anything to do with it.
This is part of why things like Stuxnet are potentially bad. Even if you use a weapon for a cause that is just or good, each new introduction ups the ante. It is pretty clear that the US and its allies use of hacking and similar tools (I refuse to say "cyberweapons" because we're not yet in a dystopian scifi novel) has emboldened other actors to use them also. If the US instead put in nearly as much resources into making things secure as it does into breaking into things, the situation would look very different, and everyone would benefit.
What if it's just people inside the DNC who are sick of the corruption? What if there are people inside the DNC who wanted Bernie to win and were angry when the DNC conspired to steal the primary election from him?
What if the Russians aren't hacking the FBI, the NSA the DNC etc and it's all just people who are disgusted with the corruption? If the Russians were stealing secrets from these groups, you'd expect them to keep quiet rather than causing a ruckus that would result in increased scrutiny and heightened security.
Knowing Hillary's dirty secrets and holding them would be terrific for blackmail. Leaking them to the public weakens her as a candidate and removes the material from future usefulness. My guess is that it's good samaritans rather than foreign spies.
If it weren't for the Russians, the DNC and the Clinton camp would have gotten away with voter fraud in the primary! Oh, no one cares. Nevermind.
...said pretty much every country in South America and the middle east that have had the U.S. government interfering in their elections for decades.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's a tradition. For almost 25 years we were looking for a new enemy, but why bother when the old one works so well? Never change a running system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In front of a PC coding in C?
Wow it's almost as if you had all these references waiting for an article like this. Who does that? ... he asked knowingly
How dare the Russians expose the fact that the DNC rigged its elections, funneled all the money to Hillary, is using papers like the Washington Post as sockpuppets, or holding clandestine fundraisers their own lawyers forbade! This is the most transparent administration ever!
It's all Russia's fault that people believe the DNC is corrupt! You can't trust those damn Rooskies. I watch out for Rooskies every day, I can see Russia from my back yard.
like the dumb sheep they are. The government can just point and hiss at any country or group now, and the people will believe it, no matter what.
tl;dr: Putin is an asshole.
Seriously, you need a LOT of words for saying something so simple.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Holy fucking autism, batman!
Just like no one cares we are loosing billions of billions of dollars to tax evasion. We have the proof, Panama papers anyone?.. Only thing that matters in the US anymore is corruption.
This is pretty strong evidence that the Obama regime is blaming Russia for everything regardless of whether or not there are any facts to support their claim.
This assessment is a trememdous disaster. I'm pretty sure it was somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I don't care if they blame bigfoot. The information released was still damning of the corruption inside the DNC. Fuck the DNC. They don't deserve any votes for burning Bernie.
More like a "Russian Reset"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to post these links.
If it is even true it is interesting to see that the Russians are doing more for transparency then the pop media, the DNC and the alphabet mafia.
Wait, the US Government is accusing another government of attempting to influence an election by exposing wrongdoing?
That's bizarre.
I suppose if the press was doing its job instead of being Democratic spear-carriers we wouldn't need some other country to do the press' work for them.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
There's not a whole lot of evidence there. It would be interesting to know what sort of things Russia has done in Europe and Asia.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Instead, most of the posters on Slashdot are going to be falling all over each other denying the Russians had anything to do with it.
See, what really happened was that the Catholic church ordered Trump to have his buddy Putin order his guys into hacking into the DNC to discredit Clinton. But that's not the end game.
See, ignorant people don't realize that Trump's wife is from Slovenia and that it's mostly Catholic. And there's a lot of resentment towards the Russians for their rule during the Cold War and for having been forced to live in a country that was then called Yugoslavia - (ICK!)
What's a girl to do?
Well, she marries Trump to get her green card - and to plan her revenge on the Russians. See, why do you think that Trump has that bromance with Putin? To get close to him! D'uh.
But although Melania thinks she's playing everyone, it's really the Catholic Church is playing everyone and she's just a pawn in their game.
But that's not all, see within the Catholic Church there is a Protestant secret faction who's game is for control. But what they don't know is that they are being manipulated by Presbyterians in NY that is controlled - Yep! You got it! Donald John Trump JUNIOR!
But little does he know that he's being controlled by Ivanka. See, Ivanka want's control of everything and what she doesn't know is that Bill Clinton wants to get into her pants. And the only way to do that is for his wife to lose and he "advises" the Trump Presidency.
So, to make this end a little quicker, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.
Yes, there couldn't be any other reason for anyone to collect such articles...
Foiled again!
I have a theory that Russia is trying to get Trump elected because it's a surefire way to destroy the USA.
It's always Russia, because we still haven't definitively settled the dick-measuring contest left over from World War II. It's hard to measure while the two main contestants (and new challenger China) keep simultaneously participating in pissing contests and counting notches after fucking other countries.
The metaphor's getting a bit strained, but the bottom line is that it's a mess that hasn't been resolved in the last century. America was doing great in the 20's, horribly in the 30's, then somewhat stabilized after WWII. Meanwhile, Russia was doing decently in the 20s, badly oppressed in the 30s, then pretty unstable (but pretending otherwise) after WWII until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. After that, there have been several factions fighting for power, and one of the more aggressive factions has taken control, now looking to solidify Russia as the main superpower of the world.
Then, of course, there are all of Russia's allies that have caches of Soviet weapons, and the ongoing corruption that allows them to get more. Even if "hurt America" weren't Russia's intent, there's enough belligerence in Russia's government that most conflicts can be traced back to some Russian office.
On the American side, we've done little to discourage such saber-rattling. In a burst of benevolence, we've helped overthrow oppressive government regimes, only to be pulled back by our own isolationist factions, leaving a power vacuum that attracts more oppressive dictators. We also tend to be vindictive, highlighting the Russian connections when a bad guy gets a delivery of shiny new weapons.
It's all very complicated, and has several symptoms of an ongoing cold war. Russia makes a public affair about our insecure elections, we make a public affair about their corrupt government. We build new weapons that could threaten Russia, they steal designs and threaten us. It's a stupid dance, and this is just another turn.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Now I dont like Putin or the rest of his cleptocracy either, but always pointing to Russia as the bad guys when it is convenient, instead of when it has been proven (or at least shown beyond reasonable doubt) will and already does lead to a desensitivization effect.
The more often it is claimed "Russia did X" without reasonable evidence, the less believeable it will become, until the day when they really do something monstrous and no one will belive it. See the myth about Germanys extermination camps in WWI vs. their actual extermination camps in WWII which were at first disbelieved by many when the first reports appeared.
Already here in Europe we see the first effects of this: Most people are more inclined to believe whatever RT (aka. the Ministry of RussianTruths) tells them instead of facts. Particularly when it comes to anything refugee or Ukraine related.
I think there's three parts to the case:
1) There are multiple attacks against many targets, meaning multiple talented individuals working together, suggestive of a state actor.
2) A lot of the tools had been used in other hacks, hacks which had a clear strategic benefit to Russia. (It's not clear how easy it would have been for other groups to have obtained these tools)
3) The half-hearted denials from Russia are kinda Putin's MO. Officially Russia has nothing to do with them, but he wants to make sure people know Russia has the capability.
There's one big doubt for me, and that's Guccifer 2.0. Putin having his intelligence service claim to be a guy from Romania who is carrying the mantle of a guy best known for guessing password reset questions... it's not exactly something that inspires awe. I'd expect the front to be something more bad-ass like a Russian equivalent to Anonymous.
Then again if Guccifer 2.0 was real he has some real technical chops. When looking at the original Guccifer I'd sooner expect him to spit in contempt and say "Ha! This is what a real hacker does!", not to pay homage by becoming his successor.
I stole this Sig
That's rich. With all the whining and hand-wringing about not trusting electronic voting machines since the Bush administration, we already know many cannot be audited and leave no paper trail of ballots cast by voters.
Yeah, they can't because we simply won't know if they did.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Trump will build a firewall and get the Russians to pay for it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
So, Trump is controlled by Russia, Hillary is controlled by China... By control I mean funded by. How come the US populace hasn't decided to elect anyone else?
...investigations will continue to the exact degree Trump either makes it close or leads the race...
-Styopa
Loyal Democrats are urged to not read them and deny their authenticity to Republicans.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Panama papers were 99% eurotaxevaders. American law requires an additional 'cutoff' (corporate shell), very few Americans were using that evasion method.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's a tradition. For almost 25 years we were looking for a new enemy, but why bother when the old one works so well? Never change a running system.
Putin has been pretty vocal that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the worst political disaster the world experience in the 20th century, and he has been trying to rebuild Russia back into Superpower dominance.
But your vote does matter. You vote for the electors. The electoral college was set up to protect the power of the states. If you get a large percentage of the vote in certain states but narrowly lose in many others it is possible to lose the election even with a clear majority of votes nationally. States count more than total votes.
Just makes the Democrats look like whiners on top of being idiots. They should never have put what leaked in writing let alone email. Now they are complaining Russia took advantage of their incompetence.
Having a corrupt administration is bad
Having an incompetent corrupt administration is worse
Having an incompetent corrupt administration that that blames everyone else is Venezuela
There's one big doubt for me, and that's Guccifer 2.0. Putin having his intelligence service claim to be a guy from Romania who is carrying the mantle of a guy best known for guessing password reset questions... it's not exactly something that inspires awe.
On the other hand I think that's exactly the sort of title that a middle manager government bureaucrat would consider to be a "cool cyber name" rather than one an actual elite lone hacker would choose.
"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."
This phrasing seems weasely. It's like there's missing part of the sentence - "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities if, in fact, the Russian government was responsible.
Not a single iota of hard evidence has been presented by the government. There's just been lots and lots of speculation by the media and innuendo by US government officials.
Whether the Russians had anything to do with it is irrelevant until people start acknowledging the appalling corruption that the hacks revealed. That should be first and foremost in the discussion. Whether it was the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, or Klingons doesn't really matter. That piece of information takes second priority to that fact that our elections are rigged.
The corruption in the DNC is a problem, and I hope that the registered Democrats will look at it seriously and bring reforms to their own party.
However, it doesn't make the origin of the hack irrelevant. We are now in the general elections and it should be a worrying fact to the American people, both Republicans and Democrats, that a foreign power is trying to influence our elections.
Good God, why is this so hard to understand?
We get it, and God has nothing to do with it.
If there are any voting machines running on PCs, it is essential that they disconnect public-facing USB ports from the motherboard. Because if your goal is to shut down or slow down a polling place, then you don't need a sophisticated hacking device, just a power spike that disables one of your machines.
If we had time, we could design a USB port with an alarm in it so that we could catch tamperers in the act.
They've dumped more money and evidence into shifting attention to the Russians over this than the crimes and deceit unearthed by the hacks. And there's still no definitive proof the hack was state-sponsored. In the end they are just butt-hurt and want to distract you from the real problem.
While I'm not comfortable with them hacking US organizations, I'm not comfortable with the fact we've been hacking Russian systems for ages and influencing politics in their puppet states either. In the end, I'm more inclined to thank the Russians and spend all the money and effort to remove Clinton than to engage in butt-hurt sabre rattling over this.
If there weren't disgusting things committed in the first place, there would be nothing for them to attempt to influence an election with. I'm far more concerned about Clinton's BS than the fact the Russians exposed it.
They're all from the Washington Post too. Didn't we read about the WaPo in the email leaks? Why yes, yes we did -
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emai...
I do post that one link a lot, but mostly because it's gotten no real attention, everyone is looking at Russian boogeymen and getting distracted from the up-front corruption.
Not being able to prove "why" she did it is not the same as proving "that" she did it. "Why" requires a bit of character investigation which was completely ignored. Literally a trail of such "luck" follows both Clinton criminals^Wpoliticians (yes, both of them), mainly because the media has covered for them since Clinton was Governor.
Hillary claimed she had no classified emails on her server. FBI director claimed she "did in fact" have classified emails on her server. Clinton claimed "none marked classified" and again the FBI director stated "there were emails _marked_ classified. Read Trey Gowdy's questions if you have doubts, but I'm guessing that you find facts inconvenient. You can find his portion of the hearing on Youtube if you are too lazy to read.
Clinton and her staff can't even tell the truth about her being ill, which perfectly demonstrates the character of the person. Being responsible and not coughing pneumonia carrying bacteria over at least the dozens of people that heard her speaking was not as important as her lust for power. And go ahead and ask your doctor about that so called "non contagious" variety which amazingly does not exist. I guess this was the great diagnosis from the amazing medical institute called "Chelsea's apartment". Whew, I feel so much better now!
Sadly I don't see Johnson as Libertarian at all. He Governed his State that way from what I hear, but during his Presidential campaign he looks very much like a Democrat. That "could" just be that he's a bad spokesperson for himself, but considering the way this election cycle has gone I'm skeptical of everything and everyone in politics.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
with worse acting and more explosions.
Come to think of it, MacGuyver is back on TV. I'm sure that fits the description perfectly.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Is that really the reality, the EU hardly comes across as a lackey, except for the U.K. which thru all the changes of the guard and politicians continues to act likely a colony
Richard Nixon had the decency to not blame the Russians for Watergate. We are going down a dark path.
He isn't that wrong. The breakup caused several bloody wars and drastically lowered the standard of living and personal freedom for millions of former soviet citizens.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Meanwhile, Russia was doing decently in the 20s...
LOLWHUT??
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
He's also former KGB. I'm sure he'd love to return to the days of executing political dissidents rather than having them speak out vocally against his leadership. Wait, perhaps I should rephrase that. He'd like to return to the days of doing that openly rather than doing it quietly like he does now.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I'd agree with the basic premise here, but I'd argue that the current state is not due isolationism. It's in large part due to our currently policies of placation. We apologize for our indiscretions, we appease with kind words, we pretend that its possible to just hug it all out and everyone will go home with giant smiles about how much we've evolved. But the reality is that the Russian culture respects strength. They reject the kid-gloves approach as weakness and see it as an invitation to aggression.
This is why they were emboldened to retake Crimea as a test-bed to the world's reaction to rebuilding the former Soviet dominance of the region. The message they received, even after providing weapons that took a passenger airliner out of the sky and killing all on board (if the Russian military wasnt directly responsible themselves) resulting in absolutely no repercussions. Nothing. No one did a damn thing about any of it. They retook an a economically and militarily important area by force and the world didnt seem to care. They are simply continuing what appears to be a military campaign to gain power in more regions through proxy, as they did in Crimea, thumbing their nose at a global political movement that doesnt like their actions but wont do shit to stop it because the necessary action is to put a foot down as say it wont be tolerated.
This extends to their "meddling" in our elections through even more proxies. They dont even seem too concerned that we have noted it, pointed it out, and many are complaining about it, because they know that the weak administration and even many of the Republicans in Congress dont have the stones to push back.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
He was raised on movies like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... where spies mostly were engaged in talking enemies into total boredom with main character only doing a single kill in course of entire series. Compare that to James Bond whose body count is in thousands..
The problem is that with great cost to everyone in 1990s Russia pretty much caved in to all demands of all nations on earth are that were even remotely western-like no matter how silly those demands were. But US and other morons still keep treating Russia like threat and tend to plot death of everyone who is even tangentially related to Russia or former Soviet Union which makes all this cave-in absolutely worthless in the first place. So no matter who will be in power in Russia, it will be becoming more and more hostile to US and other clowns like them in the future.
What does the one have to do with the other? Besides, he wasn't even born when political dissidents were actually executed instead of imprisoned or exiled.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
And Hitler wasnt born when people were being put in gas chambers. To turn a phrase, what does one have to do with the other?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Are you honestly suggesting that the entertainment industry in the Soviet Union and the United States in the 70's accurately depicts the clandestine operations of their respective regions? Or any nationstate for that matter, in any era? You do realize is fiction, right?
That aside, are you suggesting that the state-run entertainment industry in the Soviet Union would have accurately reflected the barbarism of it's own operations?
It takes a pretty distorted sense of reality to propose either.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Entertainment reflects dominant cultural attitude to killing, given that this TV series even got popular in Russia means that populace is less prone to enjoy mass killings than that of US. And Putin is member of this populace.
Entertainment that is state-run does not. It is a propaganda tool by which the state defines the message it means to portray. And in a state in which the people have little to say on how things operate the message might have little to do with the predominant attitude toward killing. I use the word predominant specifically rather than dominant to illustrate that the dominant force (the state, and the minority) in the region might have very little to do with the predominant attitude (the people, and the majority) of the populace. No one claims that Soviet Russia was a cute cuddly regime. And if you believe it to be so based on state-operated entertainment industry, then you perfectly illustrate the very thing I'm pointing out.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
State operated propaganda doesn't become a cult classic. All-in-all that was just a movie, and it reflects local culture as much as James Bond works do. And it was as much of a propaganda as James Bond works either, that is it was honest opinion of authors that happened to align with party line. The art expresses what people are made of in reality, there is no reason to lie, since insincere work can't become a cult classic.
Well, he was gassed himself, here is your connection.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Their proof of "Russia" being the hacker, is that well Russia would be motivated to hack and affect the U.S. election, and therefore we have a potential motivation. Russia also has the capabilities.
Okay, yes, you have the motive, the tool and the opportunity. That can incriminate a suspect. But it utterly fails when a million others ALL have those same things.