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FBI and Homeland Security Detail Russian Hacking Campaign In New Report (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI have released an analysis of the allegedly Russian government-sponsored hacking groups blamed for breaching several different parts of the Democratic party during the 2016 elections. The 13-page document, released on Thursday and meant for information technology professionals, came as Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2016 elections. The report was criticized by security experts, who said it lacked depth and came too late. "The activity by [Russian intelligence services] is part of an ongoing campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens," wrote the authors of the government report. "This [joint analysis report] provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations, suggested actions to take in response to the indicators provided, and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. government." The government report follows several from the private sector, notably a lengthy section in a Microsoft report from 2015 on a hacking team referred to as "advanced persistent threat 28" (APT 28), which the company's internal nomenclature calls Strontium and others have called Fancy Bear. Also mentioned in the government document is another group called APT 29 or Cozy Bear. The Microsoft report contains a history of the groups' operation; a report by security analysts ThreatConnect describes the team's modus operandi; and competing firm CrowdStrike detailed the attack on the Democratic National Committee shortly before subsequent breaches of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign were discovered.
Not so fast, comrades! We'll teach you to inform our electorate!
meanwhile, the DNC is name-calling because that's all that's left to do.
"What... Trump says the election is rigged? Calm down folks, it's not like anyone could HACK us or anything, sheesh"
-after election-
"the russians!"
* too busy LMAO *
summary : pure bullshit
they do mention a yara signature linked to some group but thats about it,
is that, when you really need folks to believe you, it just doesn't happen.
Maybe if the US Government understood this fact, we might actually care what they have to say.
The US intelligence hacking center is documented enough. I understand what it is and I'm not part of that community.
Let me state the publicly unknown... the equivalent of deep blue can diagnose the location of hackers. Yes is is 1% error prone.
Actually it's more proficient that deep blue and it can program it's own viruses in real time. But... just like people it can be wrong.
What people/companies need is meta alerts.. with details!!! for reanalysis.
Difficult when the conclusion is a hunch from a recursive intelligent neural net.
Please look at what they provided. There is literally no evidence given in the document, not even an attempt. They make up some names, put them in a diagram and say that is proof. They didn't even try.
This document is one of those DNC talking points that isn't valid. Now the DNC supporters will be screaming that the FBI released proof of the attack, but not one of them will even look at it to see that the document doesn't contain anything even attempting to prove it. Its just a placeholder to give DNC supporters talking points to use. Watch over the next week how many of them cite this document is unquestionable proof and will refuse to hear anyone question it.
"The FBI and DHS have shown proof that the Russians did it."
"Are you questioning the integrity of the FBI by saying the document is lying?"
Mark my words, you will hear the above non-stop now.
Crap article. Doesn't seem to have any links to the actual report itself. Can anyone throw me a bone here?
that we, the united states, have worked to skew elections and overthrow governments for nearly fifty years as though it were nothing more than another element of common foreign policy. However, whenever a foreign nation tries to influence our elections, its somehow a capital offence the world must take seriously.
If sanctions didnt work for Ukrane, they wont work here. Although they do an amazing job of allowing you to avoid the fact of the matter which is that Hillary Clinton was a turd of a candidate who rigged the parties primary, and enjoyed limited popularity outside major metropolitan areas. She never set foot in places like Wisconsin, took a gamble that LA was somehow bigger than all the midwest, and lost.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Did you borrow your foreign policy from the 80's?
DNC hacks - perks for the rich, perks for the poor, make the working class pay for it all.
This is why you lost the election.
The report in no was alleges "foreign influence." It simply describe a cyber intrusion of Democratic Party assets and individuals in technical detail, ascribes the techniques and tools used in the intrusion to entities believed to be (or affiliated with) the Russians, and recommends sensible, albeit completely standard, countermeasures to similar future such attacks. The report in no way addresses, suggests, or concludes how any information gained in the attack was used to “interfere” with the recent election. Critically, there report does not ascribe any of the damaging Wikileak documents, which were the documents that most appear to have had a damaging effect on Clinton, to the attacks that were subject of the report. The report is what it is. It isn't what it isn't, a report addressing election "interference."
I bet the rest of the World can pause and find this amusing, since we Americans probably sought to influence more elections the last century than any nation... looking at you Central & South America.
I'm as bewildered as the next fellow as to how we ended up our newest Commander-in-Chief, but I also believe it's time he and the former administration started working together like big boys.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
An article talking about Russia trying to influence American politics, but not mentioning George Soros or foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation...
That is propaganda.
This report was ripped to shreds yesterday.
It's mostly OWASP copypasta with recommended mitigations and a few interesting tidbits.
I'm also not clear on why this submission linked to a copy of the report. Best compare it with the original report in case there are any differences..
The DNC is not the US Government. Voting machines weren't hacked. While hacking the DNC might be against the law, influencing elections is not. I just want some one to tell me how the Russians releasing emails is not unlike the Koch brothers buying advertising? At least the emails were truthful. As long as business can set up their super-PACs to influence elections can we really object to a foreign government doing the same?
Pages 1-3: overview of recent activities of some hacking groups
Page 4: list of these groups
Pages 5-12: suggested security measures (copied from "Cybersecurity for dummies"?)
Page 13: contacts
Again, no evidence of Russian involvement. Or anything that can be called a detailed analysis.
HRC for internet security czar 2017!
I am really appalled at how many people don't take the Russian interference seriously and blame it on some kind of Democrat/Obama conspiracy. This has been happening in eastern European countries for decades and Russia has now been targeting also western Europe since the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine. Russia is funding right-wing populist parties and helping them out with propaganda all across the western hemisphere in an attempt to discredit our democracies and our free press.
Don't believe it? Google "russia populist funding". Here are the top three links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
http://www.economist.com/news/...
It's really scary how much success they are having in sowing distrust in our institutions and our free press. Every time I read someone here decrying some mayor western news outlet as "Fake News" I am reminded of the effectiveness of Putins troll army.
Do note the same Guardian had to retract earlier statements.
Oh, they had to edit the ODNI statement too.
Best keep watching for more revisionist history.
Full Stop. This was not "Trump Winning" or "Russia Hacking" it was the DNC being so completely out of touch with parts of the country they knew they would win than they still don't accept that they lost there. Michael Moore nailed it in 5 Reasons Trump Will Win.
The whole election loss can come down to a few swing states. A few extra thousand voters one way or another in a state that is solid Red or Blue isn't what got Trump elected. (Just like Clinton getting massive numbers in California didn't win her the election, that's not how the rules were set before the game)
I'll just point out the 2 states I'm most familiar with, Wisconsin and Michigan. Not coincidentally both of those states they had completely wrong in the Primary as well. Both states were "Sure" Clinton states and Sanders proved them wrong. Clinton didn't visit Wisconsin once for the general election. She sent a bunch of proxies. She did hit Michigan late but more or less completely ignored it prior to their number crunchers going "eh maybe we're wrong". The Russians didn't tell her not to go to Wisconsin. The Russians didn't push Sanders over the top in the Primaries. The Russians didn't collude to keep Sanders out of the nomination. [And even IF they did, I don't think 'Those guys did something illegal to illustrate something I was doing illegal" is a justifiable defense in court]
Stein and Johnson ran in both 2012 and 2016 so you can use them as a 'control' between the candidates. Personally Michigan's Green bump in 2012 and the corresponding Democrat drop should have been an indication 4 years ago that something was up.
Wisconsin's numbers:
Republican Presidential votes:
Democratic Presidential votes:
Libertarian Presidential votes:
Green Presidential votes:
Michigan's numbers look similar.
Republican Presidential votes:
Democratic Presidential votes:
Libertarian Presidential votes:
Green Presidential votes:
If the degree of "russian hacking" can be so easily foiled, it doesn't sound much like they were using master criminals or IT experts - just script-kiddie stuff that follows people around the internet every day. One would hope that if they have solid evidence that this originated ONLY from the russian intelligence services that they are a lot more certain of it than they appear to make out here. If that was the case, it seems like the fix is easy and well known.
One also assumes that the US intelligence services are doing exactly the same to the "bad guys" and are getting similar sorts of results.
Of course the more interesting question would be: If this is what they discovered what about all the advanced hacking that they haven't uncovered - both in techniques and targets? If an election can be hacked so easily, what are the REAL experts influencing and stealing?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
It's getting bloody difficult to distinguish between the astroturfers and the real morons, isn't it?
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
On Jan 19th, Obama says... Because we wuz hacked, the election results cannot be allowed to stand. And since Russia has shown that it can hack our elections, we can't trust any future American elections. Therefore I am suspending the electoral process, and proclaiming myself president-for-life
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Trump's doing a decent job of making himself look like a thundering idiot. Also, I'm not sure when it happened, but at least when I was a kid, the idea that "the Rooskies" might have interfered with a U.S. election would not be so casually dismissed by the party of Reagan.
Except that they're really not the party of Reagan any more, are they? I mean, I know why McConnell isn't rocking the boat. He got paid with his wife being offered a Cabinet position. And Ryan is too busy thinking of ways to shit on poor people to actually give a fuck (in that way, he is still part of the party of Reagan, because he's continuing with all that "welfare queen" folderol). But the rest of the party? Where's the indignation?
Oh right, they're too busy celebrating that they're going to be back in power to actually give a fuck about how they got there or the consequences. (You can also see that in the "repeal and replace" plan they have for the ACA.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
What happened that we truly know of:
1. In the summer of 2015, someone (evidence points to Russian) spear-phished passwords from unsavvy staffers on the DNC email server
2. Almost a year later, Wikileaks publishes a dump of DNC emails. It is assumed by many to have come from the previous infiltration, though there are other ways Wikileaks could have obtained the data, and no definitive link connecting the two events have so far been presented.
3. Through the email dump, the American public is able to see the DNC's inner workings, including:
- party officials colluding to hinder Bernie Sanders
- party insider helping the Clinton campaign to cheat during debate
- astroturf campaign to create illusion of spontaneous public protest against opponent
- journalists coordinating with party officials to ensure party messaging is on track
4. Some voters may have reconsidered their voting decisions, or even the decision to participate in this cycle, due to the above information.
5. Critical states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania which were assumed to be safe states for Clinton (and who as a result did not campaign aggressively there), instead fall to Trump during the general election, ensuring a GOP win.
What the press & defeated party instead want you to think:
1. Russia hacked America
2. Trump is now the President
3. "... we're not saying Trump administration is a creation of the Russian state... *wink wink nudge nudge* but the Trump administration is obviously a creation and stupid dumb puppet of the Russian state... for realz tho... also, don't listen to fake news"
There is an immense effort right now to make us take mental shortcuts, to skip certain events in our memories, to forget that certain misdeeds were done not by Russians but by Americans.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Lets see...
No evidence of a break in, WikiLeaks says it was an insider instead. FBI "proof" doesn't show any.
No evidence of collaboration, just a joke Trump made in the debate publically.
No evidence of a coverup from anyone.
So in the fact it is NOTHING like Watergate, it is exactly like Watergate.
Since you like Watergate so much, I'll give you a bonus. Article 2 of the Impeachment documents for Nixon described how he had asked about using the IRS to go after political opponents, he didn't do it and no one said he did, he just asked. Obama on the other hand actually DID use the IRS on political opponents, and still is to this day over 4 years later.
So if you want to impeach someone based on what happened in Watergate, you will have to go after Obama for doing FAR WORSE than Nixon did in getting Article 2 in his impeachment documents.
I'm betting you didn't expect a response like this and are upset and confused.
Exactly. Oh, I think there's a list of TOR exit nodes in there, too.
Why do our mighty Russian hackers rely on pathetic phishing scams instead of putting in hardware backdoors by intercepting new hardware in the mail? Why can't they park a TEMPEST van a few miles away and read the passwords from the keyboard? They have Snowden, who revealed the NSA's TAO programs and things like how we're tapping Merkel's phone in Germany.
Are we seriously to believe that these Russian boogeymen are on the same level as your average 419 scammer and the poor, hapless DNC couldn't defend themselves?
I also note that a lot of places talk about "election hacking." That's not at all the same thing as someone in the DNC losing their email to a common scam, there's no evidence of vote tampering and even 538 pointed out how silly that was.
is that people cast votes, and our elections are won or lost, on whether or not a candidate comes to their state and tells them what they want to hear.
It boggles my mind that it still works. We live in an age where information - real, massaged, and fabricated - is available 24/7. Yet politics is still just politics, where you don't have to be a good candidate to win. You just have to be a better shyster.
We should have a "neither" option, and if neither wins, we go back and start over.
I know why that won't work, because the entire system has been built by those who gain the most from it. And it is not the American people. It just makes me sad that as "the greatest nation" we still can't get the basics right.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It shows just how massive the partisan divide is. It seems to have completely slipped peoples' minds that "breaking into the DNC to look for dirt to use against the Democratic Presidential Candidate" is EXACTLY what started a little controversy called "Watergate." But, because it's politically advantageous, a number of people seem to be dead set on ignoring or dismissing any evidence about what happened this time.
Let's be _absolutely_ clear: This isn't about sour grapes because the Democrats lost. This isn't about attacking Trump (though he and his supporters treat it as such, which is disturbing in its own way). This _is_ about what happens next time, because if you establish a precedent that it's basically okay for foreign governments to hack and dox political campaigns in the USA, they're going to keep doing it. Worse, others like China or Iran might just decide to join in. Worse still, candidates might preemptively cozy up to Russia or whomever in hopes of getting assistance against their opponent(s).
An alternate reading of this news produces the following news:
* Government agencies and political parties have continued the discussion without a modicum of doubt on document authenticity.
* Agencies have successfully dominated news cycles on this topic and zero discussion has been made regarding DNC primaries tampering.
* No mass media has mentioned, let alone considered why, Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Communications Director Luis Miranda, Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall and Chief Executive Amy Dacey all resigned from DNC.
That is the real news in my opinion.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Hacking the Democrats to expose how they planned to breach election ethics, lie to the American people, and steal the election via illegal means, is not the same thing as "Hacking the Election."
They did not hack the election in any way. There is zero evidence of vote tampering of any kind by the Russians. There is only evidence that Democrats planned to enlist illegals to vote (a crime), enlist dead people to vote (a crime), and commit other criminal acts in order to truly exert illegal influence on the election.
More people rejected Trump. He lost. That's how democracy works. Putin voted for him and Trump defends Putin hacks but that just confirms Trumps anti US stance . GOP needs you fix their problem and save us from Russian control.
Quoting this for the blatant grammar errors of someone trying to pose as a progressive libtard or whatever. Thanks for the input buddy, I hope you can buy your girlfriend a nice dinner with all the rubles this earned you before Trump realizes what's been going on and turns your little dacha into a pile of smoldering radioactive ash.
> I am really appalled at how many people don't take the Russian interference seriously and blame it on some kind of Democrat/Obama conspiracy.
Even if we believe the claims being made without any real evidence, at worst they're alleged to have revealed the truth to us, the same way the Pentagon Papers did a generation back. Remember, for all the talk of "election" hacks, there have been no credible allegations that any voting machines were tampered with by anyone.
Inasmuch as we are to worry about foreign influence on our elections, why is there no concern over the funding of Clinton by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, places with a terrible human rights record where abuses like modern day slavery can still be found? Places that fund terrorists like ISIS? You know, the people who do this sort of thing? (NSFW - graphic content)
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...
If you're having trouble making out the context, look here for a more digestable form.
I dunno about you, but I'd rather temporarily work with Russia and take out ISIS than to attempt the reverse.
Your links about Russia basically say that they might be trying to fund people they agree with--so if you don't think the above is also harmful, that's literally hypocritical. I'd personally take a more nuanced view that it matters what they have the politicians in question do with that money, whether they follow the relevant laws, etc.
And it's not like elections can be straight up bought. Let's not forget that Hillary spent twice as much as Trump on this election and lost badly where it counted. It's doubly ironic that it's exactly the same kind of loss she suffered to Obama in the DNC primaries in 2008, where he was focused on delegates and she was focused elsewhere as anyone who watched 538's coverage back in 2008 should remember.
> the idea that "the Rooskies" might have interfered with a U.S. election would not be so casually dismissed by the party of Reagan.
The cold war's been over for 20 years. The 1980s are calling, they want their foreign policy back.
The problem is that Russian gov didn't in fact try to influence elections in US, it's obvious given that it has nothing to gain by doing so. Especially not against Clintons who have long history of cooperation with Russian oligarchs. DNC just got pwn'd by script kiddies, and they shared recovered info with wikileaks in order to achieve maximum lulz.
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> Please tell me again why Russia has fallen back to kiddie level phishing scams?
Because it works. We know that Podesta got phished, phishing worked on him EVEN THOUGH HE DOUBLED CHECKED WITH HELPDESK. Someone might have been trying Tempest too, but phishing actually worked. I work for a security company, we're all security professionals. Corporate security regularly sends out test "phishing" emails to employees and lets them know if they fell for it - we fall for it all too often.
I would expect Russian intelligence to use techniques that work, and phishing worked. Tempest is fun to talk about, it's clever and technically interesting, but phishing actually got his emails.
That said, I haven't seen any evidence that the Russian government was responsible for this phishing, or that they were *not* responsible. Of course I haven't looked that hard.
If I had to guess, my guess would be that it was done be hackers who are Russian, and who are friendly with some of the Russian politicians. I would also guess that they tried a lot of approaches, including sending reasonably well-written phish emails to a lot of people in Washington. Due to an unfortunate typo by Charles Delavan saying the email was "legitimate" instead of "illegitimate", they got into Podesta's email. They didn't NEED Podesta's email, there are a dozen other targets they'd have preferred (such as HRC), but by chance Podesta is the one who fell for it. As I said, that's my guess based on 20 years in the field seeing how this stuff normally works, I don't know for sure about this instance.
The problem is that we're conflating the two. The answer to the first one is pretty much certainly yes. The answer to the second is a lot less clear and, given that the attack didn't require anything like the capabilities of a state-level adversary, the response is a problem. The evidence that we have for the hack shows that a script kiddie, probably in Russia, hacked the DNC. Russia might have done it as a state-sanctioned operation, but so might one of hundreds of individuals (including a load of bored teenagers).
The real story with regard to the emails is that the DNC (and, most likely, the GOP) has really crappy infosec and is basically wide open and many parts of the US government are probably in a similar situation. The NSA has been tasked with a dual mission of attack and defence and has prioritised attack the point that it has completely failed at defence.
Blaming Russia and kicking our Russian diplomats led to retaliation and made the US look stupid. Everyone knows that attribution for cyber attacks is incredibly hard and all that this has done is shown that the relevant agencies in the USA doesn't know how incompetent they are because they don't even understand the problem properly.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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Don't worry, I covered Saudi Arabia & Qatar's influence in a comment up here with links to some of the relevant emails.
If anyone wants bonus points, start reading the bylines of all these stories and compare them to the reporters who were working for the DNC, coordinating messaging with them, having their articles reviewed and approved, etc. and feel free to tag the relevant authors as #fakenews on Twitter with a link back to Wikileaks.
I suggest starting with Glenn "I have become a hack" Thrush.
So the MSM and the DNC collude to elect a specific candidate of their choice and you want to go off on Russia for something a DNC insider leaked? You are OK with the sitting President and his party make every effort to delegitimize the incoming President? Meanwhile if there truly was a concern with Russia interfering in our elections the focus would need to be on preventing future interference. Also the DNC leadership should have been notified that their security was weak when it actually mattered. Doing it now only gives every appearance of a temper tantrum by a party in denial.
The point is that you wouldn't normally even try something like that first because it's big and obvious and noisy. It tips them off to the fact that you're in their network. The real spies are using sophisticated tools that give them long-lived access that are custom tailored to specific targets, not email blasts reminiscent of a 419 scammer.
But of course you believe that these unsophisticated, low level attacks are a sign of a nation state because a big scary enemy gives you someone to rally against, lest people instead look at the corrupt DNC establishment that sabotaged themselves by sending all the state-level campaign money to Hillary, spending twice as much as Trump, and causing all Democrats to lose one of the most important elections for them in decades.
The party would scatter if they didn't have a Russian boogeyman to rail against, after being shown to have such massive incompetence on a political level and not just a technological one.
There is still not one shred of proof the Russian government had anything to do with these typical and script-kiddie tier phishing attacks
Just go back to paper ballots. Problem solved forever.
That's not the issue at hand. The Russian's did the Internet equivalent of the Nixon White House trying to bug the DNC offices in the Watergate building.
There is still not one shred of proof the Russian government had anything to do with these typical and script-kiddie tier phishing attacks
Maybe, maybe not. But you can't deny the fact that Trump downplays the Putin connection at every opportunity, most of his appointees have some kind of relationship with Putin, and the Republican Party will conveniently look the other way to stay in power.
Why did this only come to light after Clinton the Wildebeest "Hildebeast Clinton lost election, its far more likely likely all Crap!
If you were paying attention, this issue came up in October 2016, a month before the election.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/us-formally-accuses-russia-of-stealing-dnc-emails.html
[...] NRA, AARP (two very large lobbyist groups) [...]
I don't think any gives a damn about lobbyists being hacked.
[...] the RNC, do you think Obama would have reacted with the same measures?
The RNC was targeted but their IT guy was on the ball. If the RNC was compromised instead of the DNC, I fully expect Obama to do what he has done so far.
Trump has had some connection with several major world leaders, you're just fixated on Putin.
Reminder the USA is the one war mongering and destabilizing countries, and that included the Ukraine
Trump has had some connection with several major world leaders, you're just fixated on Putin.
I grew up during the Cold War. That's a good reason to be fixated on the Russians in general and Putin in particular.
Reminder the USA is the one war mongering and destabilizing countries, and that included the Ukraine
If you say so, comrade.
I too am appalled at how many people don't take Russian interference seriously. The KGB spent a half century working to undermine the democratic institutions of the free West, and in many cases they succeeded spectacularly. When the Berlin wall fell and the USSR dissolved, all of the disinformation, subterfuge, misdirection, and methods of internal destruction were left in place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Did the current Russian government actively work to influence the US election? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm skeptical of the claim. Why would they work to get Hillary defeated when they would have had so much material with which to blackmail her? But former Russian (USSR) governments definitely acted to undermine future US governments, and we're still suffering the effects of those efforts today. Take the time to watch the video and listen to the efforts and plans the KGB implemented against the West, and how successful they were.
Y'know what's really ironic? Trump is actually colluding with Putin and the Ruskies, but the NSA and the rest of US Intelligence haven't been able to find and/or prove it.
Russia's response to Obama's persona non grata move is one giant red flag, as was the article about one of Trump's servers connecting 24/7 to a Russian bank server.
But the DNC hack? That was a DNC insider phishing a freakin' password. Not that I don't believe the Russians didn't have full access to DNC emails, US Intelligence just can't prove it.
> But of course you believe that these unsophisticated, low level attacks are a sign of a nation state
Pretty sure I just said the exact fucking opposite. I said I've seen no evidence that the Russian government was responsible, and my guess is that most likely it was a non-government group who is friendly with some politicians.
> It tips them off to the fact that you're in their network.
Really? When you receive a phishing email saying "click here to reset your Gmail password", your first thought is "OMG the Russians are in my network!"? Really? What the hell does "tips them off to the fact that you're in their network" even mean in this case - he gave them his GMAIL password.
> corrupt DNC ... campaign money to Hillary, spending twice as much as Trump, ... all Democrats ... The party would scatter if they didn't have a Russian boogeyman
Oh I see, you're an uber fan rooting against the other team. You're not interested in paying any attention whatsoever to what's going on, you're just cheerleading. Carry on, then.
I have no problem with foreign governments hacking into political parties and releasing all of their nasty secrets. Politicians are supposed to be honest people serving their country. It's much easier to vote for the right candidate when all of their dirty secrets have been revealed for all to see.
Then why isn't Soros in jail?! That fucker has had his hand in everything from BLM, riots, to funding members in Houston, TX durring last election.
I'll make a deal with the DNC. I'll accept that the Russians had as much influence on the General election as the DNC had on the Primary. Please indicate on a scale from 1-10 how much influence that was.
Look at all these fucking Russian Anonymous Cowards posting their propaganda all over the /. As soon as the report is publish, their FUD campaign is on it, full force.
- Anonymous Coward.
The incoming president has spent weeks making a fool of himself on Twitter. Trump has never needed any help in that department.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your premise in denouncing the report is that the methodology employed is not as sophisticated as you expect Russia to be capable of. You should consider and acknowledge a couple of espionage realities:
The spearphishing employed against Podesta worked and was trackable. The report is not going to talk about the hacking attempts that did not work and were not trackable. As in the case of the Tempest vans you reference. Because the report does not mention Tempest vans does not mean they are not driving around.
Intelligence agencies will only release info that does not compromise their capabilities of collecting intelligence. If they were to release a transcript of a private office conversation between Putin and Paul Manafort containing details of the hacking, then Putin would realize there is a bug in his office and clear it out. The confidence of these US intelligence agencies that Russia was meddling in the recent election is buttressed by information collected that can't be released without divulging the source mechanism for its collection. What you see in the report is safe information to release.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
A -1 Vote is not a "comment being taken down". It's still there. Everyone can still read and comment on it.
> Really? When you receive a phishing email saying "click here to reset your Gmail password", your first thought is "OMG the Russians are in my network!"? Really? What the hell does "tips them off to the fact that you're in their network" even mean in this case - he gave them his GMAIL password.
You're confusing leaks, which is just sad because I wrote a guide to help people keep the three different leaks clear. This report is related to the DNC leaks which alleged the presence of RATs, etc. being found after an investigation caused by the emails being leaked to Wikileaks. Podesta was phished in a completely separate incident.
Those are two completely separate items, and there were reports of phishing leading to a malware download in some of the reports on the DNC leak, which is the incident I was talking about. I can see why you conflated that with the more famous phishing in the Podesta dump. It's really easy to conflate all this information (by design).
Ironically, even if we go to just the Podesta dump, the actual phishing email specifically claimed that Podesta should worry about Ukrainian hackers from 134.249.139.239. Quoting from the thread in relevant part:
(emphasis added)
You're also confused here:
> Due to an unfortunate typo by Charles Delavan
It's more than just a "typo" and we covered that on Slashdot when it came up (including yours truly). He also told him to do a password reset--something completely unnecessary for a fake attack. This also ignores the words of Sara Latham in that thread saying: "The gmail one is REAL" This was discussed extensively in the Slashdot story's comments.
Hackers don't normally want a target to realize they're hacked at all. And they were surely tipped off by these sloppy, noisy attacks. Podesta also had other passwords in his email that got used, including someone from 4chan messing with his Twitter account. They're probably sloppy enough to reuse passwords if they fall for this, too. Usually once they own your email they do password resets and leverage the access against other systems.
> Oh I see, you're an uber fan rooting against the other team.
I'm independent. Go check my Slashdot history for me supporting Obama back in 2008 if you like. I'm more than happy to give Colin Powell (and other Republicans, including that member of Trump's staff) their share of blame for bad OPSEC, too, as can be seen from my Slashdot history. I discussed that back here along with the entire email where Hillary & Colin discuss how to break every rule of operational security and worm their ways around the Presidential Records Act in ways that would make Nixon jealous.
Inasmuch as I am partisan, it's because I hate lying.
I hated it when Bush lied. I hate when Hillary & co. lie. Watching Obama trying to sabotage Israel and keep us from working with Russia to crush Isis murderers in Syria is perhaps the most disappointed I've been with him in his entire tenure. When Islamic militants are murdering Russian diplomats, not to mention this other murder by Isis, you have to quest
Look, we all know that getting proof of who did what is close to impossible. To demand absolute proof is close to impossible with clued up actors. What all Americans should agree on is that if their security services agree that a foreign country has been attempting to influence their election by illegal means, they should be outraged, no matter what their political persuasion.
Wake the hell up. The political poles shifted. The enemy is now within, and Russia is not now a force for evil.
You wake the hell up. The Russian gangsters that ran the Soviet Union didn't leave after the Communists fell. They're still in power and Trump is their useful idiot.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3738302/Is-Trump-Russian-agent-Kremlinologist-presents-tantalising-disturbing-dossier-presidential-hopeful-closer-links-Kremlin-appear.html
Only a fool would expect the Kenyan communist to ever behave in any way except the destruction of the Republic.
Sorry, I don't watch Fox News.
My point was that, for the party of Reagan, it's a huge shift. Hell, up until a couple years ago, they wouldn't have rolled over as much as they have. Hell, earlier this month, McConnell did say that "the Russians are not our friends". But he's not actually interested in doing any investigating into the matter,
And that's the thing. Let's say that there was no Russian involvement in the election. That everything we've seen has been misinterpreted and at no point did the Russians try and influence the election.
Wouldn't you want to prove that? Wouldn't you want to investigate it so it doesn't cast that shadow over Trump's presidency?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
A DNC insider wouldn't have had to use a phishing attack. They could have just copied the inbox file and put it on a thumb drive.
Do you honestly believe we'd be hearing all this Russia crap if Hillary had won? Answer that question honestly, and you'll have the truth.
it's a trap for Donald Trump. It was only done to force him to repeal the sanctions (and thus reinforce his status as a pro-Soviet operator). It's a political move. The kind the Republicans have been doing successfully for decades. If the American Left want to get anything done this is the sort of thing we need to do. As the saying goes, this is how the sausage is made. Or put another way, Dems have been bringing a knife to a gun fight. Obama finally got his gun. Sad it took 'em 8 years.
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There's no evidence yet that anyone hacked into the DNC. Or if there is, it still hasn't been presented. The simplest answer is that an insider who supported Bernie Sanders copied the inbox file to a thumb drive and gave it to wikileaks.
and meddling. Meddling is spreading misinformation and breaking into computer systems to use leaks to spread fear and confusion. That's what the Soviets did.
Not that we're blameless, but a) two wrongs don't make a right and b) our meddling in foreign affairs has largely been at the behest of large corporations to protect their interests. Especially in regards to crushing Socialism wherever it took root. The phrase "Banana Republic" comes from us screwing over their working class to keep Banana's cheap for Dole. It always comes down to money and being able to pay people like shit. The Trump presidency will be the same way. He'll give away billions to the top and protect their interests. Everyone else'll be left holding the bag.
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They were full of platitudes and bull shit. Hilary took their money and gave them a shit sandwich in return. Meanwhile you're guy is about to hand the Crimera over to Russia without a peep.
Maybe the world is a little more complex than you want it to be? Maybe your anti-Clinton straw men are full of shit instead of straw?
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not anyone that anyone really cared about except a few right wingers who already hated Clinton more than Satan. The point was to create an air of distrust around Clinton so her supporters would stay home. It was part of a 20 year long multi-billion dollar smear campaign that begun when it became Clear that a) Hilary was a progressive and b) she was gonna run for president. And we Americans fell for it. Hook. Line. Sinker.
That's the trouble with right wingers like yourself. You want simple answers to complex problems. Destroying a woman as talented and intelligent as Hilary was a complex, difficult and expensive process. There's no one answer. I know you don't like to hear that. You and 60 million other Americans who just drove us over a cliff...
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13 pages... more like 3 pages followed by nonsense and boiler plate security "advice".
The pages offer only assertions unsupported by any provided evidence and describe techniques that are widely used by everyone. They don't even bother to explain linkages between APT xx and the Russian government.
I don't trust TLA's. They have a long history of being weasels and publically selling lies to support themselves and their masters political agendas. My view the government should either provide actual evidence to support its assertions or STFU.
Actually, before the election, they were saying the election couldn't be hacked.
Actually, before the election, they were saying the election couldn't be hacked.
That was in reference to the polling machines.
Hollywood notions? I've been talking about tailored access program of the NSA here and things like TEMPEST that are well known, actual spying tools. Here's the kind of actual Russian spying we discovered back in the 50s. Can you tell me where Hollywood plays into any of this?
The burden of proof to say "it's Russia" is on you. Pray tell what special knowledge do you have, when you're apparently not even familiar with this stuff? Go on, please tell me about your deep knowledge of nation state hacking. It's sad when I have more classified info than you guys (linked above) and your side is claiming we can rely on assurances they won't prove. Oh, don't get me wrong--they will come out with some document next month, but I expect more BS based on their poor track record so far.
Looking at actual nation state hacks, actual nation states try for durable compromise of their targets,. The statue lasted 7 years. We can also see that because the TAO hardware with backdoors that survive being wiped and the stealthy exfiltration mechanisms. Getting 2 days worth of access to something (as with Podesta's Gmail) is not worth much to a nation state. They'd rather compromise an insider at Google or something and get access to Gmail in its entirety (the NSA likely has that access, incidentally). Hacks are most often caught inserting or exfiltrating the data, which is why they try to minimize the time they have to spend doing that.
Frankly only a complete moron would think that Russia has to stoop to 419-style phishing to hack a target (see elsewhere in this story for abundant evidence of this). Nation states target things like ISPs and large providers so they don't have to do silly one-off hacks most of the time. Inasmuch as you can convince us the DNC is completely incompetent for falling for this (perhaps the only thing I can agree on), I'm glad they're not running the country.
With the facts so badly against you, I can only wonder why you refuse to reconsider your biases here.
No one says they affected the national vote. And if they did hack the DNC, they did it DURING THE PRIMARY.
Why would the Russians attempt to defeat Hillary when it has been so well established that she can simply be bought off?
After all, it didn't take much $$ to get her to sell them our uranium.
I don't have any actual reply, but I just wanted to let you know I read your post.
Big deal, I'm older than you, youngster.
You are so ill-informed you think the Cold War is still on and that the CIA didn't work destabilize Ukraine government?
Maybe you think the USA is leading the fight against ISIS too?
You think the USA didn't destabilize the middle east and cause the creation of ISIS with its ham-fisted pointless invasion of Iraq and its aftermath?
You think the USA didn't destabilize the middle east and cause the creation of ISIS with its ham-fisted pointless invasion of Iraq and its aftermath?
George W. left office eight years ago. It's time to move on.
Obama has done a great job of carrying on the Bush/Cheney agenda
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. All you're providing are three links to liberal rags.
Obama has done a great job of carrying on the Bush/Cheney agenda
As a moderate conservative, I absolutely agree.
It is entirely possible to hold multiple parties in the wrong in complex situations, it doesn't have to be one bad guy and one good guy. Yes, it was wrong for the DNC to collude to nominate an insider. It was also wrong if Russian hackers released hacked info to undermine our electoral system and help Trump win the election, even if the hackers were only exposing truth. It is wrong because Russia, if the are associated with the hacks, has an agenda in this matter which is not friendly to the USA. Foreign interference that helps your team is not the kind of help that you should want, especially coming from Russia.
President Obama is not delegitimizing President-elect Trump. Trump won by the rules of the election. Obama is simply pursuing investigations and sanctions for what appears to be overseas election interference, and it is deplorable that Trump is brushing aside even a possibility that a foreign power was involved in the hacks. Congress, including the President-elect's own party, are taking the possible role of Russia in this hack very seriously.
Meanwhile you're guy is about to hand the Crimera over to Russia without a peep.
Krushchev handed it to Ukraine in 1954...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and Putin took it back.
The USA can fight this from the moral high ground after it hands back territory it grabbed from around its own borders.
USB, USB, USB!
Show me actual proof that no Russian was involved.
Not having access to the raw data, I myself cannot show proof of Russians inferring with the election to get Trump in the White House. However, that is totally irrelevant. Had they preferred to see Hillary elected and had they therefor sabotaged Trump, my opinion of the matter would be exactly the same as it is now.
Let me spell it out: Putin doesn't care about Trump and even less about making America great again. Putin cares about himself, about his power, and how he can make Russia Great Again. If he considers that Trump gives him the better chance of doing that, he';ll support him, If he considers that somebody else is better suited, he'll change camp in less than a second. If he needs strong allies, he'll support them. If he rather needs a weak opponent, he'll support those.
Anyone who does not understand that hacking into computers is both a matter of national security and a way to achieve an objective without openly saying what that objective is - whoever is at the helm in Washington - is a dangerous fool. Trump for sure will get access to the data - assuming he's not selectively blind to things that he doesn't like. The big question is what he will do with it. Or actually, it is not a big question, because he's right now. busy undermining the security services that he'll come to depend on; the country, and his ability to react appropriately the next time something like this happens. The man is therefore incompetent for the job.
And no, I'm absolutely not a DNC voter.
Linux user since early January 1992.
Nobody got punished when Watergate happened, so why should I give a shit about this? The American government obviously condones this behavior.
if you establish a precedent that it's basically okay for foreign governments to hack and dox political campaigns in the USA, they're going to keep doing it.
It wasn't just the political campaign that was doxed, but who Clinton is, the foreign money she was getting and laundering, her weapon sales to terrorist supporters, etc.
But the really bad precedent being set is that many Americans decided that it is wrong if foreigners expose American corruption. To the point of the people ignoring said corruption and the government sanctioning whomever they are accusing of doing the exposing.
It should always be OK for anyone to expose your politicians corruption. That's what gets them accountable, or at least off of the office like in this case.
The "meddling" that the Democrats are complaining here is the exposure of the truth to the voters. That's very different from JTRIG's psyops (from the USA's five eyes partner) were deceiving is one of the tactics. If Americans see that the American media is colluding with one of the candidates, and proceed to find unacceptable that foreign publishers tell the truth, what are America's chances of having a fair election or being a democracy?
Worse still, candidates might preemptively cozy up to Russia or whomever in hopes of getting assistance against their opponent(s).
Yes, that's exactly what she did. She cozied up to George Soros, the Saudis, Qatar, WP, CNN, etc in hopes of getting assistance against her opponents, both by taking Bernie out and by first pushing Trump up (the pied piper candidates strategy) and then trying to bring him down (by the media largely ignoring the content of the leaks).
BTW, I'm calling it foreign "meddling" because Wikileaks is a foreign publisher. This report and previous official claims gave no indication that there is any proof or indication that the Russians leaked whatever they hacked. Since Wikileaks did the exceptional step of saying it wasn't the Russians, they have a perfect track record, and it doesn't even contradict what the officials are reporting (that is different from the claims being made by politicians, POTUS and the press), I'll believe them.
Dipshit, Watergate was bigger deal that Nixon tried to shut down the investigations into the bugging. Last time I checked that was the Obama shutting down the DOJ and FBI's investigations into the Clinton email server and Clinton Foundation. The Obama administration has flew right past Nixon in levels of corruption. Obama has basically shut down any negative press by looking for possible classified information in the negative stories, then prosecuting whistle blowers for leaking classified information. No administration has prosecuted more whistle blowers.
Dipshit, Watergate was bigger deal that Nixon tried to shut down the investigations into the bugging.
I'm not a dipshit, I'm an asshole. Otherwise, I wouldn't be working in IT if I wasn't.
Last time I checked that was the Obama shutting down the DOJ and FBI's investigations into the Clinton email server and Clinton Foundation.
If the was so, Obama did a piss poor job in keeping the FBI director on a short leash. The FBI announcements in the two weeks prior to the election about the Weiner laptop contributed nothing to the email server investigation. The only thing the announcements did was put a crony capitalist into the White House.
No administration has prosecuted more whistle blowers.
People who deliberately leak classified information should go to jail. In this regard, Obama ran a tight ship.
I read the report. It's extremely vague; mostly quotes a Microsoft document on generally securing your shit. It doesn't actually put forth ANY hard evidence of ANY hack, Russian or otherwise -- closest it comes is citing a snippet of source code of unverified origin.
I hate to cite McAfee since he's such a nutjob, but I think he's completely correct here:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/...
====
"Any hacker capable of breaking into something is extraordinarily capable of hiding their tracks. If I were the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it I would use Russian language within the code. I would use Russian techniques of breaking into organisations so there is simply no way to assign a source for any attack -- this is a fallacy." He argued the report was part of a ploy to "manipulate our opinions".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Putin is working with Turkey to crush Isis.
Exactly what part of that are you against?
Has anyone else noted a strange thing with Windows Defender updates lately?
It seems that there are a rash of individual updates from MS for Defender lately.
Would this be actual beneficial updates to the detection abilities?
Or, state-sponsored (i.e. government OR corporate) tweaks to spy on us subjects?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
That post was interesting, thanks. One of the co-founders of the company I work for is a Russian-speaking gentleman who came to the US from Ukraine, I think. We had offices in Ukraine until recently. It would be interesting to hear what Misha thinks of all this.
My take on this is that 99% of the posters are paid Russian trolls. Well, maybe not 99%, but who else would have time to obsess over this for so long...
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
I've seriously struggled to understand this. How are you actually trying to point to some DNC "conspiracy". To be clear, I was a Bernie Supporter, I voted for him, I wanted him to win. Thus, I should be filled with angst and bile for the violation here.
But, I'm not. Know why?
Because I understand that politics is a game. Bernie was awesome because he went against the grain. Why then is it so hard to believe that the DNC was nervous and threatened by him? Why is it surprising to anyone that they might have a preference for Hillary given her husband's popularity as a president? And most importantly, Bernie lost the primary fair and square.
This talk of "conspiracy" is just garbage and noise. You're trying to move the argument to that storyline so we move away from the hacking aspect. That's a sad diversion attempt.