Putin Claims Russia Proposed a Cyber War Treaty In 2015 But the Obama Admin Ignored Them (qz.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Russian president Vladimir Putin (who denies any Russian part in the hacking) claims the Obama administration ignored a proposal in 2015 that might have avoided all of this. His administration suggested working out a cyber treaty with the US but was ignored by Obama officials, Putin told film director Oliver Stone in Showtime's four-part series broadcast this week. "A year and a half ago, in fall 2015, we made proposal to our American partners that we work through these issues and conclude a treaty on the rules of behavior in this sphere," he said in Stone's documentary The Putin Interviews. "The American side was silent, they didn't reply to us."

Comments

Really?

[Dru Nemeton]

Given the environment of this admission I can't be the only one who doubts this.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else remember the hack that recently crippled a bunch of countries?

The one developed by the USA?

HERPaDERRRRRRRRP

Re:Really?

[dunkindave]

Given the environment of this admission I can't be the only one who doubts this.

I don't doubt it, but I think he is spinning it. Think about the problem of attribution in the cyber realm, then think about what good such an agreement would be? All it would do is become something for groups to use to try and attack others in public while doing absolutely nothing to stop any of the cyber attacks. The administration probably "ignored it" (meaning told them to take a hike) because they saw it as a nothing-burger proposed solely for propaganda reasons.

Re:Really?

[phayes]

Treaties need to be verifiable and respected to be of any use. No possible good could have come of signing such a treaty with someone who claims that his military is just on vacation when they invade another country and that his hackers are just unemployed patriots.

Re:Really?

[alvinrod]

I think the more realistic explanation is that it was ignored because it means the U.S. would have to knock-off (or obfuscate behind a third party for purposes of deniability, because lets face it we're not going to stop doing it) a lot of the stuff it's doing. Everyone likes to think that they're the good guys, but the U.S. has a long history of interfering in foreign countries so it's laughable to suggest that not carrying out our own operations. But as you point out, there isn't much point in a meaningless treaty when both sides know that both they and the other side won't actually uphold it.

Re: Really?

[UnknowingFool]

I don't doubt that Putin may have proposed it and that the Obama administration turned it down. After all who here really believes that Putin would honor such a treaty?

Re:Really?

[hazardPPP]

I think the more realistic explanation is that it was ignored because it means the U.S. would have to knock-off (or obfuscate behind a third party for purposes of deniability, because lets face it we're not going to stop doing it) a lot of the stuff it's doing.

Exactly. Russia doesn't have the NSA, it doesn't have a direct point of access to the world's biggest Internet companies...Russia can't do 10% of what the US does in the "cyber sphere". The biggest cyber warfare nation on the Earth is the USA. They are ahead of everyone else combined by light years.

So of course Obama ignored it, Obama was a big fan of the NSA. As is the entire federal government. Any cyber treaty would severely limit what the US can do NOW, while only theoretically limiting what other countries MIGHT do.

Re:Really?

[Sarten-X]

Oh dear...

If it was 'pure propaganda' why wouldn't Putin/Russia simply announce it to the world back in 2015?

Mostly because it'd be laughed at. Russia's been the poster child for psyops (including data manipulation and exfiltration) since WWII. If they unilaterally promise that they won't do nasty psyops things, there's no reason to believe them.

...assuming the Russian's wouldn't make such a proposal assumes that we are ALWAYS better than 'them'.

That's a false equivalence. Assuming the Russians wouldn't make such a proposal assumes that the Russians wouldn't make such a proposal. It would also be a safe assumption that the Americans would make such a proposal, but only with enough exceptions that it wouldn't prevent the CIA or NSA from doing their respective nasty things. Each country still does what they want; they just have their own preferred method of getting there.

Sure, it may be very difficult to come up with a treaty in this space that would have real impact but to not even try is just not reasonable.

Without the right political climate, such a proposal could do more harm than good. If Russia proposed a treaty and the US supported it, that leaves China as the major rogue hacking state. If China is pressured to join, then the Russian and American influence on the proposal could be spun as having an impact on the Great Firewall, which would be an affront to China's sovereignty. That in turn causes the other vocal anti-American countries like North Korea to push against the new allied threat, leading to even more aggressive acts.

Politics are difficult. It's not just "us vs. them", it's more "us against them and them against those guys and those guys against those other guys, but they're our friends because they owe us from last time and we want them to return the favor by convincing that other guy to stop pushing those guys to attack those guys who we still owe from that one thing they did fifty years ago". In that perspective, a treaty is as much a weapon as a missile.

Look, when will people understand that even in the West the '3-letter agencies' AND our governments do not really have the "people's" best interests at heart. They are doing things daily that should get them locked up & we just ignore it.

Yeah... I've worked for those three-letter agencies. The most amazing fact about them is that the people who work there are actually human people in disguise! It's true! They have families and friends, and watch football drink beer... or watch other-football and drink wine... or drink soda and wear a hijab. They're regular, normal, diverse people, and the most unusual thing (by American standards) about them is that they usually do in fact have the people's best interests at heart.

Now, even with "the people's best interests at heart", there is also diversity in opinions on how to serve those interests. There are certain branches of leadership who hold privacy as a vital human right. There are others who feel that as long as there are no (prosecution or interruption) consequences, privacy means little. Those opinions are also weighed against the need to catch the "bad guys", who will never hesitate to abuse a bureaucracy to buy themselves some time to operate.

It's wonderfully easy to say "lock them up", while conveniently forgetting that they can't do the same to you without a fair trial, piles of evidence, and a clear accounting of every oversight review and board approval. Sure, there are tons of anti-government websites and Slashdot posts complaining about the government's operations, but very little in the way of legal arguments that would be useful to the privacy-promoting factions on those review boards.

Wake up already.

I already woke up. That happened many years ago, when I realized that bad guys think they're the good guys. Then I got older, and realized that blaming people in groups like "bad guys" or "governments" is a slippery slope towards being one of the "bad guys".

Please, grow up already.

A treaty only makes sense between equal players

[Anonymous Coward]

and the US arrogantly thought that they were better hackers.

Re:A treaty only makes sense between equal players

[Rick Schumann]

I'm beginning to think that cyberwarfare is a negative-sum game for all involved and the only way to 'win' is if NOBODY plays.

Re:A treaty only makes sense between equal players

[alvinrod]

Negative for the government entities perhaps, but as a citizen I'd find it quite refreshing to have the governments dirty laundry aired. I don't know if that requires cyber espionage from other countries as Snowden showed that this can be done internally as well, but governments that can get away with working from the shadows tend to become tyrannical beasts. Even the threat of eventual discovery may be enough to keep some evil at bay.

Re:A treaty only makes sense between equal players

[HornWumpus]

It's bad for groups that keep lots of secrets, that's obvious.

I'm still waiting for the Ds or Rs to be fully triggered and the mutual dirt dump to start. Anybody that's been watching for a few decades, can come up with examples where 'important people' were about to go to prison, when suddenly the dogs backed off. From both sides of the isle.

I recognize MAD when I see it, even if I don't have the actual dirt.

Re:A treaty only makes sense between equal players

[king neckbeard]

Leaking dirty laundry, yes. Leaving the world's infrastructure incredibly vulnerable, not so much. So, probably stop the hacking game, but provide asylum to whistleblowers.

Blaming Obama?

[HangingChad]

You know Putin didn't think that talking point up on his own. The guy who has changed his story three times about Russian hacking now tries out a new strategy.

We can't stay united with people who think it's okay for Russians, or any country, to meddle in our elections...as long as the meddling is working for them. If this was Hillary Clinton working with the Russians the hypocrite right would be burning the country down.

Re: Blaming Obama?

[Mashiki]

Oh here we are. Are you the pro-russian troll, or the teabagger obsessed with the Clintons? It has become so hard to tell these days.

See that ID? Yeah. So what are you? A paid shareblue poster trying to cover up for the Clintons. Maybe you can explain why when Clinton lost the election that the international arm of the clinton foundation shut down almost right away as the donation stream abruptly stopped. Would you like to explain why when people wanted to talk with the Obama administration they'd be stonewalled, then suddenly when they made large contributions to it they had access. And they used it to directly gain access to special favors at the state department.

Why talk about the topic at hand when we can talk about a completely different topic?

Maybe you should ask the parent poster.

It's getting old and us moderates are tired of the idiots on both sides. Before you go there (I know you will), no, I ddidnt vote for the candidate you likely call Killary.

If you're an actual moderate, then you wouldn't be lashing out when someone points out that she was the worse candidate and likely the one that would have caused another world war. You were the one who said that not me.

Re:Blaming Obama?

[nucrash]

At this point, if you want to point out all the flaws of Hillary Clinton and the radical Democrats who assaulted or shot at Trump Supporters or GOP members, feel free to also point out the racists who were incensed about the removal of Confederate statues or Samuel Houston's statue which is even more entertaining because he despised the Confederacy. Feel free to also point out the Trump supporters who shot and killed various people for "looking" Muslim. I own the fact that yes there was Bernie Supporter who shot up a GOP team. That's sad and I don't know where he managed to get the message that violently attacking GOP officials was okay. Violently attacking anyone is not okay. Yet the GOP needs to own their own extremist and that's something they don't care to do. Most of the time they don't acknowledge this happening. I think the most we managed to get out of Trump was a, "Stop It" and that was after he was questioned and begged. Bernie has apologized time and again over this single individual.

Re:Blaming Obama?

[butzwonker]

How do you say 'fake news' in Russian?

Prawda - now known as "Russia Today".

Re:Blaming Obama?

[Mashiki]

So you support the removal of historical statues and scrubbing of history? That's what you're talking about when you're saying that. Would you like me to point out all those fake hate crimes that Clinton and Bernie supporters claimed in order to get in the news and try making the "look at all this violence" that isn't actually happening and several of those people were criminally charged for false police reports. How about those muslims that were filing false police reports against Trump supporters. You want to talk about Loretta Lynch calling for people to violently attack people in the streets. How about when Tim Caine and Hillary did too.

Here I'll even help you for your next reply. Maybe you would like to toss in a claim that the kid in Quebec was a Trump supporter? Except he only like Trump because he holds a "US First" stance, much like LePen and several others. Want to know what's interesting on that one? He was a freverant leftist, who supported groups like the PQ(a leftist nationalist pro-separation Quebec group). You know there was another group like that in the past too, it was called the FLQ. They were marxist leftists with a pro-nationalist, pro-quebec separation stance. Just think if they were around today. How would you argue the marxist organization that just bombed downtown montreal, or kidnapped a politican and murdered him. Would that be a pro-Trump organization in your book?

How about groups like BAMN? That are far-leftist violent marxists, who believe that they're "fighting for free speech" by violently assaulting people.

Re:Blaming Obama?

[Rakarra]

So you support the removal of historical statues and scrubbing of history?

Scrubbing of history? I support the removal of statues of people who fought a war to preserve the institution of slavery. I know it's very chic now to try to whitewash the history of the Civil War and pretend it's just local state control over the big bad feds, but at least in the 1860s the Southerners were a bit more honest about what they were actually fighting for.

The Confederacy is one of the greatest symbols of our shameful past, where we thought it was fine for a man to keep another man like property. It neither needs to or deserves to be honored, and those statues were a casual, everyday "fuck you" to non-whites, a constant reminder that for many, they are not welcome even after 150 years.

Re: Blaming Obama?

[nine-times]

Maybe you can explain why when Clinton lost the election that the international arm of the clinton foundation [observer.com] shut down almost right away as the donation stream abruptly stopped.

The Clinton Foundation isn't shutting down. They started shutting down parts of it as long ago as last summer. One of the explanations at the time was that they were actually trying to get rid of some of the international programs that would represent conflicts of interest if she were to be elected president.

The other stories you cited, about Clinton Foundation donors getting access to the State Department, have already been investigated. Basically, it appears that some donors seemed to be trying to use their donations to the Clinton Foundation in order to get access to talk to Clinton about State department business. The investigations showed that it didn't work. Even the article you cited says, "The emails show that, in these and similar cases, the donors did not always get what they wanted, particularly when they sought anything more than a meeting."

Not that I particularly like Clinton anyway. If you can prove she committed a crime, lock her up. If there's proof that Trump committed any crimes, lock him up too. Bad acts by one political party doesn't excuse bad acts by the other.

So what?

[chispito]

Putin right now: We do not hack other nations, those are independent patriotic Russians.

Putin if he signed a treaty: We do not hack other nations, those are independent patriotic Russians.

Re:So what?

[mugurel]

This. How quiet (and efficient) would politics become if one could filter out all of this bullshit.

Re:So what?

[mugurel]

Do you think so? Did he have a hard time explaining why Russia bombed the Free Syrian Army after they stated their intention of combating ISIS in Syria?

There's not much explaining going on most of the time, just plain denial.

Flagged as Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely it came from a .ru domain, got flagged as spam, and ended up in Obama's junk folder.

Even if he could find the email, the link will have been sanitized with a [Malware Domain] marker.

Contradiction?

[Edward Nardella]

So, Russia was not involved but if there was a treaty they would not have been involved and they would not have done the hacking they did not do.

Putin statement suggests contradiction

[evolutionary]

Putin denies any involvement in hacking (which the FBI says is nonsense) while publicly declaring he proposed in essence, a cyberwar treaty that "might have avoided all this". How could what is going with the question of Russian interference with our voting system be avoided if there wasn't any in the first place. This suggests what we all suspect: that we have actions (call it retaliation if you like) on both side. Who started it, well, that question probably goes back to the cold war.

Re:Thank goodness we have Trump now

[Mashiki]

So how are the republicans "putin-friendly" when they not only maintain sanctions, but are following Obama's same playbook. You do realize that Russia's main concern was Hillary would do something that would trigger WWIII because she was so incredibly hawkish that it made neocons blush. You can even see that in her emails, where she wanted to directly bomb russians in Syria, and start seizing assets from them. Pretty easy to figure out why the Kremlin was cheering when Trump was elected, it might just have something to do with that non-war. And if you don't think it wouldn't be nuclear? Look at it this way, the US has double the tonnage in the ocean of Russia and China combined. Plus better and closer force projection for troops. That means the only option would be a first strike using nuclear or limited nuclear exchange in the hopes of winning.

That's a really nice Internet you have there...

[phayes]

I'm sure you wouldn't want anything to happen to it...

Putin proposing a "cyber war treaty" is like the Mob proposing that they will "protect you".

Re:That's a really nice Internet you have there...

[HornWumpus]

Do you realize how big the NSA is?

American three letter agencies spend more money 'cyber spying' on each other than the total Russian cyber budget. Which isn't to say the Russians don't have talent or that any amount of money will turn a paper pusher into a hacker.

The Americans didn't respond because they thought they were miles ahead. Recent releases show they _could_ just own anyone with any connected consumer device (e.g. router, PC, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux based etc etc).

I'm thinking the OpenBSD guys are acting kind of smug, but where they owned too? I can't keep up.

Re:That's a really nice Internet you have there...

[phayes]

The 3 letter agencies do more than just spy on Russia... Besides which, as I stated elsewhere, there is no point in signing a treaty with anyone who claims that his Military is just on vacation when they invaded a neighbor and that his hackers are merely unemployed patriots.

Re: Thank goodness we have Trump now

[bestweasel]

The Senate are serious about it, voting 98-2 for more sanctions on Russia; the House will probably follow suit. Trump would like to be buddies with Putin. The investigations should eventually find out how much sympathy and influence Russia has in the various other factions in Trump's Administration.

Re:Thank goodness we have Trump now

[Mashiki]

Russia's primary concern is oil exports. She was going around the world promoting fracking technology as a means for countries to be more energy independent

Actually this is utter bullshit. Russia's primary concern is natural gas exports. She was going around the world trying to undercut Russia's ability to apply pressure on the EU because Russia supplies ~30% of their natural gas...via a pipeline through Syria. Now ask yourself why this was so important, that the US decided to involve itself in Syria and back the opposing side to overthrow Assad. While Russia supported Assad. Remember that part where the US was funneling weapons to terrorists because they were fighting Assad? How about because they supported a different NG pipeline that would be from Qatar. The same country that's now under pressure by the rest of the middle east for funding terrorists and directly interfering in Egypt.

Or are you going to argue that Russia shouldn't support it's allies like the US does in the middle east? Are you figuring out just how much of a clusterfuck this really is yet.

Re:Sooo....

[HornWumpus]

I don't doubt we had something to do with Stuxnet. But the Israelis took a victory lap over it. Credit where it's due.