Russian hacking
- Thread starter tetley
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Truthy
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I haven't read it or read much about it, but I did read the previous report Homeland Security and the FBI released. In case you didn't read it, it had some general indicators of compromise and a bunch of cyber security advice. So it was kinda bs and didn't provide any real evidence Russia was responsible, but I don’t think that was the intention to begin with. For example, it includes the code for a piece of malware (a shell), but the code is both somewhat outdated and is publicly available. So anyone could use it, which means it wouldn’t work well for narrowing down attribution to APT28. I'm left to speculate they deliberately included this old and public code in the report because they didn’t want to burn the YARA rule they used to detect the real malware on the DNC servers. Their logic was probably something like "we can either release actual evidence and expose our methodologies or we can release some bs and no one will know the difference anyway."
That would be a bad idea in the age of information ^^
Truthy
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Sure, the age of information is why I even know that that PHP shell is publicly available and is known to be used by hundreds of Russian and Eastern European hackers. Sources have covered this, but unless you work for the IC or one of the private companies the DNC hired, you don't know one way or the other what malware they actually found on the DNC servers. What we can say with certainty is that the indicators of compromise they released in that report (and probably the newer report) constitute anything but conclusive evidence of Russian government responsibility. Yet somehow the IC is super confident, meaning that either they have a cache of evidence they're not ready to release or the Trumpian thesis is correct and the IC is deliberately lying at Obama's behest. The latter would be scandalous. I believe the former (or something similar) and would guess that publicly releasing some vague indicators of compromise, an older version of the malware they found on the DNC sever, and a bunch of filler wouldn't be scandalous. I'll note that it's an arcane topic and I already admitted to speculating, but I don't think my speculations are unreasonable or imply that the IC will face public outcry over their selective release of information.
Meanwhile, after being officially informed about the investigation into his own supposed Russian connections, the soon-to-be-president was quick to tweet 'false news' and 'political witch hunt'. Which basically doesn't tell anybody anything either.
A summary of the findings so far was put online by Buzzfeed: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html
A summary of the findings so far was put online by Buzzfeed: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Wha, "opposition research" paid by political adversaries and put together by an english consultant is supposed to be taken serious now? Then Hillary must be a criminal and an traitor too.
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Voice of reason:
"Distinguished historian Marc Trachtenberg, professor emeritus at UCLA, thinks all this outrage is naive, and evidence of a clear double standard. In the following guest column, he provides some historical perspective that might temper our collective outrage just a bit. His point is not that Americans should be complacent or unconcerned by these activities, but rather that we should be neither surprised by them nor quick to see them as evidence of newfound Russian hostility. Instead, he suggests, this interference is a type of behavior that the United States helped establish; indeed, meddling in other countries’ politics has been an American specialty for a long time.
One might even go a step further: This sort of thing is just “business as usual” in the competitive world of international politics: It’s not like states didn’t interfere in one another’s internal politics in ancient Greece, in the Renaissance, or in the first half of the 20th century. If so, then the real lesson is to fix our own system so that such interventions won’t matter, instead of focusing solely on what Putin did or not do."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/10/stealing-elections-is-all-in-the-game-russia-trump/
"Distinguished historian Marc Trachtenberg, professor emeritus at UCLA, thinks all this outrage is naive, and evidence of a clear double standard. In the following guest column, he provides some historical perspective that might temper our collective outrage just a bit. His point is not that Americans should be complacent or unconcerned by these activities, but rather that we should be neither surprised by them nor quick to see them as evidence of newfound Russian hostility. Instead, he suggests, this interference is a type of behavior that the United States helped establish; indeed, meddling in other countries’ politics has been an American specialty for a long time.
One might even go a step further: This sort of thing is just “business as usual” in the competitive world of international politics: It’s not like states didn’t interfere in one another’s internal politics in ancient Greece, in the Renaissance, or in the first half of the 20th century. If so, then the real lesson is to fix our own system so that such interventions won’t matter, instead of focusing solely on what Putin did or not do."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/10/stealing-elections-is-all-in-the-game-russia-trump/
A first fix to our system would be to not let the Russian puppet assume our Presidency.
Not getting your brain hacked is a priority though...
kudos
No worries. Donald is a well instructed and programmed tool. He knows how to eliminate any threaths to Russian takeover.
Ferocitus
Deity
He was educated at Cambridge, so he must be taken seriously. It's where all the best British spies are recruited
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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All the best soviet spies were recruited there also, I read 
Neonanocyborgasm
Deity
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If?
Catharsis
catch u on the flip scythe
Cracked passwords are passed ('whispered') between servers, with slightly more distortion added at each pass, until by the time the passwords reach the hacker's own machine they are completely unintelligible.
It's not much of a hacking technique but it is a fun party game.
MRM
Prince
Actually I was already referring to the discussion in Germany ( you already posted in the post I quoted ) - and you totally missed the point
I don't buy the claim that Fake News, hacking or RT decided the election, and it will not decide the election in Germany. But for politician it is a perfect excuse - now they can claim, oh no, it wasn't our decisions or our position or our terrible campaign that cost use votes/ it was the hackers. Blame deflected, problem solved.( at least for those in leadership who want to keep their jobs ). For example, why do you blame "hackers" for Trump, but not ask the question who had the "brilliant" idea in the DNC to (ab)use their influence on the mass media to elevate Trump ( see piped piper strategy ) in the first place? No, the leaks where not the problem - the leaks revealed the problem.
BTW - the hacking report suggest that they may not even have evidence.
One interesting sentence in Annex B
"Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be fact"
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