I didn’t have a conspiracy with that woman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
HRC
Today, while reading Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables ,
I unexpectedly came across a passage which fittingly describes the DNC:
They are practiced politicians, every man of them, and skilled to adjust those
preliminary measures which steal from the people, without its knowledge,
the power of choosing its own rulers…This little knot of subtle schemers
will control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party.
Wikileaks proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Democratic National Committee under Debbie Wasserman
Schultz, in fact, served as the Hillary Clinton Coronation Committee, operating, step by step, to ensure
that the front-runner would become the party’s nominee. There nothing democratic about National Democratic
Committee. It is an elitarian structure dominated by neoliberals (Clinton wing of the party), which
have nothing to do with democracy, but a lot with Wall Street domination in the political life in the
country. They also served as a powerful catalyst of rising far right nationalism.
Essentially Bill Clinton created Trump.
There are strong reasons to believe that DNS email hack was not hack but an internal leak, Here is a twit from Kim dotcom (quoted
from Zero Hedge ):
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who
did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied.
If this is true than Crowdstrike is really sinister and criminal organization which implanted Russian malware into DNC servers in
order to frame Russians in the leak which from now on was presented as hack by Russian intelligence or some group of hackers
connected to the Russian government.
Instantly after the revelations about DNC hack (and later Podesta email breach -- Podesta
essentially gave up his password to people who were behind primitive the fishing attack
on his Gmail account) neocon propaganda machine and major neoliberal MSM like CNN and MCNBC was put in overdrive. They fed the US
lemmings (aka voters) that the diabolical Russian hackers were behind the DNC hack. Everything
they do not like now is the result of Russian hack. Primitive but pretty effective strategy. In
other words this Rove-style "bait and switch" trick to brainwash the public into believing that what the DNC actually did was not reprehensible,
but its exposure was:
For Dem [media] tycoons, it’s habit. They stand behind Hill for Imperial hegemony and Full Spectrum
Dominance wherever money can be extorted, always the case in our squalid, half-assed military debacles.
They get that looting nations and winning wars are not the same, and only one of them matters. For Repub Capos it’s a stickier wicket but not much. For a Conservative to even consider backing a Democrat,
and a Clinton at that, would have been unthinkable last May, but since no Republicans actually are
conservative, they figure why cling to yesterday, and they go with their lack of principles. What
horrifies them in Trump is not his racism, sexism, or crudity: those are their hole cards, beloved
of their Redneck Division. What actually outrages them is that in knocking imperialism, policing
the world and puppeteering NATO and Japan, in shrinking empire and friending Russia, he threatens
directly the War Machine and its limitless sugar tit from Congress.
After Comey testimony some fragments of the picture of DNC hack fall into place and one interesting hypothesis
is that it was a false flag operation performed by the CrowdStrike, the same firm which were later
assigned to investigate the hack. Which would be in best CIA traditions, stemming from JFK murder
investigation and Warren commission.
And I am now not surprised that nobody investigated Comey for outsourcing (or forced to outsource
by threats) the "DNC hack" investigation to the very questionable firm with strong Ukrainian connections.
Which might well be hired to perform the hack and blame it on Russian to hide Seth Rich story.
If Trump would not be such an idiot, he would site this as a reason of firing Comey (gross
unprofessionalism and criminal negligence) and the level of fear in Clinton Mafia after that might
help him to survive.
The truth is that FBI never has any access to DNC computers. None. Unlike in case of Hillary
emailgate, they never were in possession of actual hardware. And they never explored Ukrainian
connection, so to speak. They took all results from Crowdstrike investigation at face value.
So I suspect all opinions of US intelligence agencies about this hack are just a part of color
revolution scenario: the attempt to delegitimize the sitting government and install a new government
via a coup d'état.
The fighting against Russiagate is about the defense of remnants of Democracy in the USA.
Regurgitation of MSM stories, like Fred is doing, does not add much value to this blog. It
is essentially a propaganda exercise. If your urge to share them is too strong, as Mr. Bill mentioned
a simple link would be enough (actually the desire to read on this topic NYT might be considered
as an early sign of dementia, or Alzheimer)
Despite all this "Russians are coming" smoke screen and attempt to divert attention on Russia that
Clinton campaign tried to propagate via subservant MSM, the truth is that the Democratic National Committee
under its Obama-installed leader Wasserman-Schultz (and that means with direct blessing of the Obama,
who put his political weight behind Hillary and shielded Hillary from criminal prosecution) had from
day one
schemed against other primary candidates and first of all Bernie Sanders to get Clinton elected.
Welcome to the USSR comrades: Politburo knows everything and will decide what is best for you. You need
just relax and vote as they say. Everything will be fine (100-Page
Report Shows Staggering Evidence of Election Fraud in Democratic Primary Cosmoso)
A recent report from Election Justice USA shows as many as 184 delegates were stolen from
Bernie Sanders due to election fraud in the Democratic Primary
While it’s unclear
whether the super delegates would have voted for Sanders, the EJUSA report does make one thing clear:
Bernie Sanders won the majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic Primary at 2030 to Hillary
Clinton’s 2021.
These numbers were arrived at by EJUSA’s intensive research and verification into claims of voter
suppression, unintended party affiliation changes, heavy voter purging, and registrations never being
honored by the Board of Elections in various counties throughout the U.S. during the Democratic Primary.
In some cases, signatures were even forged on party affiliation documents and evidence of computer
hacking being involved has come to light.
The fact that the emails exposed a coordinated effort to rob Bernie (which is a criminal offence
in any state that called itself democratic as it interfere with the will of the people) was swiped under
the carpet. The DNC emails released
by WikiLeaks showed that the Democratic National Committee has been implementing a coordinated multi-staged
plan to undermine Bernie Sanders’ campaign. It also reveled an attempt to control media coverage (so
that it benefitted Hillary) and the neoliberal MSM collusion with the DNC. It is now clear that the
democratic presidential primary was rigged from the start and Hillary is an illegitimate candidate.
If nothing else, the crooked primaries process revealed just how much the DNC has become a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the Clinton family, that can't even maintain the pretense of neutrality or impartiality--as
the DNC's charter requires. And it's also exposed just how much the Fourth Estate has abandoned even
the pretense of being the public's watch-dogs for the role of being the Clinton's lapdogs -- fitting
classic definition of the "courtier press". Now they are shamelessly preying on peoples'
lack of understanding of computers trying to hide their criminal behaviour by
"Putin did it" smoke screen. They are also shamelessly
preying on naive peoples' trust in experts, which has serious downstream effects when these "experts"
are debunked. The way that the Russia-Trump storyline has been pounded into our consciousness by the
media and the Democratic Party, including at the convention in prime time, is a calculated effort to
take our eye off the ball and is a classic “shoot the messenger” tactic.
Clinton is trying to market herself as the Serious/Safe candidate, but her campaign is acting
completely hysterical. Instead of welcoming transparency and investigating corrupt DNC officials involved
in the plot against Sanders, they try to "kill the messenger" trick. This whole Putin-hack thing
if a pure anti-Russian hysteria. There is no proof that Russia or Russian hackers were involved.
And if hack was really sophisticated there will be no proof as after certain amount of time evidence
(connection logs on routers and such) disappeared. NSA might still have something but they typically
do not revel what they know.
\Instead this is another demonstration of how corrupt Hillary is as a politician. Like mafia
boss she will stop at nothing at achieving her goals -- in this case the goal is to become the
President of the USA. And this is not the first instance of "Hillary" poisonous effect on anything
she touches. Let's remember that she went into State Department to get the foreign policy experience
and now has a record on it that should have every sane person saying keep her away from sharp objects
and things that go "boom".
Funny though, formally Schultz takes her orders from Obama, as the Chairman of the Party, the DNC
Board of Directors and team Hillary. If any blame should go around, it should splash onto
all individuals in DNC, not just Schultz. Moreover, her boss, "constitutional scholar" Obama,
in this particular case also looks like a regular Chicago Mafiosi: he and his DNC accomplishes
swindle the millions of Americans who donated on average $27 to Bernie's campaign hoping (falsely as
we know now) that it was a fair contest...
Why did "Crooked Hillary" directed her puppets in DNC to sabotage Bernie? She didn't need to, as
she got super delegates in her pocket from the very start. But like many sociopaths she did because
she can. Now many Bernie backers won't vote for her.
This election is about establishment (and
that means that people are not voting for, they're voting against) and Hillary is an establishment candidate.
A female successor of neoliberal "bait and switch" king Obama; who is widely hated because of his support
of TPP. )
I think she lost quit a bit of votes due to this scandal. This election cycle the vote
against establishment politicians might be stronger than the vote for them. That's why Jeb Bush lost.
We shouldn't get roped into discussing allegations about who leaked the emails. That's
what Hillary wants the conversation to be about. It is the content of emails and their authenticity
that matter. The fact is these emails show the DNC fixed the nomination for Hillary. This has
been so downplayed by the mainstream media as it shows them in their true light. Compare
their coverage (or the lack of thereof) to the 24x7 coverage Melania Trump's plagiarized speech
got.
We shouldn't get roped into discussing allegations about who leaked the emails. That's what Hillary
wants the conversation to be about. It is the content of emails and their authenticity that matter.
The fact is these emails show the DNC fixed the nomination for Hillary. This has been so downplayed
by the mainstream media as it shows them in their true light. Compare their coverage (or the lack
of thereof) to the 24x7 coverage Melania Trump's plagiarized speech got.
Clinton, who received 3.1m from Wall Street for speeches last year, and who was "extremely careless"
with national security and who clearly lied under oath to Congress had the entire system rigged in
her favor and millions of mostly younger people who supported Sanders have received a slap in the
face by a corrupt Dem Party.
Clinton has dragged the party into the sewer with her. They should have told her to step down
months ago. This is a shameful Dem convention
Like Clinton foundation and its affiliate entities, the DNC, could be considered a criminal enterprise
or racketing influenced organization. Those who haven’t realized that, or worse, who shill for them
are willfully ignorant, amoral, or unethical. Clinton has dragged the party into the sewer
with her. They should have told her to step down months ago. This is a shameful Dem convention
VietnamVet
The 2016 election cannot be looked at in isolation. The wars for profit are spreading from
Nigeria through Syria to Ukraine. Turkey was just lost to the Islamists and is on the road to
being a failed state. The EU is in an existential crisis due to Brexit, the refugee crisis and
austerity. Western leadership is utterly incompetent and failing to protect its citizens.
Globalization is failing. Its Losers are tipping over the apple cart. Humans are returning
to their tribal roots for safety. The drums for war with Russia are beating. Clinton / Kaine are
100% Status Quo Globalists. Trump / Pence are candidates of change to who knows what. Currently
I am planning on voting for the Green Party in the hope it becomes viable and praying that the
chaos avoids Maryland.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and DNC staff served as part of Clinton campaign and designed and amplified
phony attacks on Sanders. Krugman plays the role of Clinton surrogate, using campaign talking points
and spin to claim that Sanders is “over the edge”. They launched a systematic attack basically
questioning his authenticity. These are mostly cheap swiftboating attacks and straw man arguments coming
from the mainstream media and DNC insiders. The attacks are usually passive-aggressive, as in
the New York Times ignoring him for long stretches and then coming up with the occasional dismissive
"he can't possibly win, because we say so" tripe. They often reek of cheerful condescension. See
this and
this.
Then there was more dangerous theme casting Sanders as a convenient prop for Hillary Clinton,
a supporting actor who exists only for the cosmetic purpose of "pushing her to the left." This trope
is becoming so over-used that people are beginning to notice that it is a dirty trick. These are dangerous
times for non-establishment politicians due to domination of neoliberal Political Correctness and corporate
neoliberal propaganda (The
Swift-boating of Bernie Sanders ):
We had the expected political reaction—the DNC, under the enlightened leadership of Hillary supporter
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has decided
PAC money from lobbyists is OK after all, thus freeing up David Brock’s Hillary PAC to do whatever
the hell it wants. The head of the Democratic party in Iowa, who has a pro-Hillary license plate,
has ruled out any sort of
recount on the voting in Iowa, about which a number of questions had been raised, but the media
appears to have moved on...
Hillary definitely has the 1% vote locked up ... but they are, after all, just 1%.
The best analysis of DNC leak that I have found so far is Peter van Buren article in American
Conservative
Unpacking the DNC Emails The American Conservative (July 26, 2016), His 11 point really cover all
the bases:
... ... ...
The same people on the Clinton team who made enormous efforts to claim her private email server—which
operated unencrypted over the Internet for three months, including during trips to China and Russia,
and which contained top-secret national-security data—was not hacked by the Russians now are certain
that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians.
Many in Camp Clinton and the media labeled Bernie Sanders’ supporters paranoid when they claimed
that the DNC was working against them. The hacked emails confirm that the DNC was in fact working
against them. One official proposed getting “someone,” presumably a reporter, to ask Sanders if
he’s an atheist
to discredit him in religious areas.
Claims of
pro-Clinton media bias were dismissed during the primaries. The hacked emails confirm that
the DNC was working closely with the media to seek negative coverage of Sanders and positive coverage
of Clinton.
Politico now admits it was a “mistake” sending the DNC an article draft
in advance. The writer showed the draft to the DNC even before his own editors saw it.
Facebook admits to
blocking WikiLeaks links to the DNC email hack from its newsfeeds (but blames spam filters).
The DNC appears to have expended significantly more effort against Bernie Sanders than it
did against any of the Republican candidates.
Instead of focusing on the contents of the hacked emails and the dirty tricks they exposed,
many mainstream-media outlets headlined instead the Clinton-campaign talking point that the Russians
hacked the emails and released them in an effort to derail her candidacy in favor of Donald Trump’s.
Many of the same stories suggest Trump is some sort of pro-Putin stooge.
On 60 Minutes, Clinton refused to say that intervention by the DNC to favor one candidate
was “improper.” Her non-answer was
edited out of the broadcast when it ran on Sunday; the network later released it online.
After DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced her
resignation following this week’s Democratic convention, the Clinton campaign announced Wasserman
Schultz would be
hired by them as “honorary chair of Hillary’s campaign’s 50-state program to elect Democrats
in every part of the country, and as a surrogate for her campaign nationally.”
Wasserman Schultz will be replaced as DNC chair by (only now former)
CNN commentator Donna Brazile. Brazile argued the pro-Clinton side of debates on CNN throughout
the primary season.
In the hacked emails, Brazile said “I will
cuss out the Sanders camp!” over complaints by Sanders of inadequate representation by the
DNC. In March, while still employed by CNN, Brazile called Sanders’ decision to run as a Democrat
(rather than an independent) for the additional media exposure “extremely disgraceful.”
Sadly, Bernie Sanders, his campaign sabotaged by the DNC—and what were once “paranoid” accusations
now proved—still endorses Hillary Clinton and will still speak at the Democratic National Convention.
It pains me to say, as his once-supporter, that the man has no courage. Even Ted Cruz stood up for
himself in front of the Republicans in Cleveland. It is a sad day when we learn Ted Cruz has more
guts than Bernie Sanders.
Those who are calling all this a coup of sorts—they’re wrong. It’s a surrender. But in the words
of Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?
All this dirty tricks define the future of Democratic Party. Seriously. Less and less people are
believing that Democrat represents them. I think half of trade union members will vote Trump. That's
a direct result of the sellout by Bill Clinton of Democratic Party to Wall Street. A vote for
Mrs. Clinton means a continuation of the rule of financial oligarchy what we've experienced since Reagan,
and that is not acceptable. Another four years of amoral enrichment of transnational corporations
that Hillary election guarantee is just kicking can down the road.
Seems Putin controls Trump and Clinton! The man is amazing.
Only Jedi Knights can stop him.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that
are missing,”
Donald J. Trump said, referring to messages deemed personal by Hillary Clinton
and deleted from her private email server.
Bullsh**t that MSM are now propagating is essentially a variation of the old theme "The
Russians are Coming". Here is nice satire on the topic (washingtonsblog.com):
MC: President Putin, did the Russian government hack the DNC email server and then publically
release those emails through Wikileaks the day before the Democratic convention?
Putin: Yes.
MC: Yes! Are you serious?
Putin: I’m quite serious.
MC: How can you justify this open meddling in United States politics?
MC: How can you justify this open meddling in United States politics?
Putin: Your question should be what took Russia so long. The US oligarchs and their minions
surround us with military bases and nuclear missiles, damage our trade to Europe, and seek to destabilize
our domestic politics. These emails are nothing in the big picture. But they’re sort of funny,
don’t you agree?
MC: I’m not sure that funny is the right word. What do you mean by that?
Putin: You’ve got Hillary Clinton running as a strong and independent woman.
Of course, nobody would know who she is had she not married Bill Clinton. She’s not independent.
Quite the contrary. She had to marry a philandering redneck to get to where she is. When it comes
to strength, I can say only this. How strong can you be if you have to cheat and create a rigged
game to win the nomination?
MC: Anything else about your leak to cheer us up?
Putin: This situation is the epitome of ironic humor. After the emails were released, the
focus was all on DNC Chair and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. That’s fine for now but what
happens when people start asking why Wasserman-Schultz had the DNC screw Sanders and boost Hillary?
Did she just wake up one day and decide this on her own?. Not likely. She was and remains Hillary’s
agent. It will take people a while to arrive that answer. When enough people hear about
Wasserman-Schultz’s key role in the Clinton campaign, everything will be clear. It’s
adios Hillary. That inevitable conclusion, by the way, is the reason the DNC made such a big deal
about Russia hacking the DNC. That was diversion one right out of the gate.
DNC and Clinton are going to push the Russian card very hard in anticipation of further stories and
revelations of corruption, money laundering, etc. Technical analysis provided is some idiotic,
entry level nonsense. And it should ne complete bulsh*t as those cases are very complex and can used
smokescreen -- deflecting attention from a read source (for example Israel) to Russians (Israel has
large Russian speaking population, that is well represented in security services of the country; CIA
can imitate Russian attack even better then Israel, actually they can imitate attacks from any
country; hacks are a perfect opportunity to stage a false flag operation -- they there is not better
specialists in this area that CIA ).
When the USA opened this can of worm with Stixnet (discovered around mid 2010) and Flame (discovered
around 2012), they did not expect a blowback. Now it start coming: it is simply impossible to secure
"normal" Microsoft-based IT system against any sophisticated adversary. Remember that we live in the
period when developed by NSA and "friends" Flame and Stixnet worm are part of the recorded history.
And technologies used in them are well studied by all major world three letter agencies. They
became a part of their workbook. And the response to their devilishness they generated even more
devilish methods of attack of any IT infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies, to say nothing
about such low hanging fruit as completely corrupt DNC with semi-competent IT staff using
pathetic Microsoft Exchange based email system: (naked
capitalism):
However, in this short post I want to focus on a much narrower question: Can we ever know who
hacked the DNC email? Because if we can't, then clearly we can't know the Russians did. And so I
want to hoist
this by alert reader JacobiteInTraining from comments :
Yup, as a former server admin it is patently absurd to attribute a hack to anyone in particular
until a substantial amount of forensic work has been done. (read, poring over multiple internal
log files…gathering yet more log files of yet more internal devices, poring over them, then –
once the request hops out of your org – requesting logfiles from remote entities, poring over
*those* log files, requesting further log files from yet more upstream entities, wash rinse repeat
ad infinitum).
For example, at its simplest, I would expect a middling-competency hacker to find an open
wifi hub across town to connect to, then VPN to server in, say, Tonga, then VPN from there to
another box in Sweden, then connect to a PC previously compromised in Iowa, then VPN to yet another
anonymous cloud server in Latvia, and (assuming the mountain dew is running low, gotta get cracking)
then RDP to the target server and grab as many docs as possible. RAR those up and encrypt them,
FTP them to a compromised media server in South Korea, email them from there to someones gmail
account previously hacked, xfer them to a P2P file sharing app, and then finally access them later
from a completely different set of servers.
In many cases where I did this sort of analysis I still ended up with a complete dead end:
some sysadmins at remote companies or orgs would be sympathetic and give me actual related log
files. Others would be sympathetic but would not give files, and instead do their own analysis
to give me tips. Many never responded, and most IPs ended up at unknown (compromised) personal
PCs, or devices where the owner could not be found anyway.
If the hacker was sloppy and left other types of circumstantial evidence you might get
lucky – but that demographic mostly points back to script kiddies and/or criminal dweebs – i.e.,
rather then just surreptitiously exfiltrating the goods they instead left messages or altered
things that seemed to indicate their own backgrounds or prejudices, or left a message that was
more easily 'traced'. If, of course, you took that evidence at face value and it was not itself
an attempt at obfuscation.
Short of a state actor such as an NSA who captures it ALL anyway, and/or can access any
log files at any public or private network at its own whim – its completely silly to attribute
a hack to anyone at this point.
So, I guess I am reduced to LOL OMG WTF its fer the LULZ!!!!!
Just to clarify on the "…If the hacker was sloppy and left other types of circumstantial evidence…"
– this is basically what I have seen reported as 'evidence' pointing to Russia: the Cyrillic keyboard
signature, the 'appeared to cease work on Russian holidays' stuff, and the association with 'known
Russian hacking groups'.
That's great and all, but in past work I am sure my own 'research' could easily have gotten
me 'associated' with known hacking groups. Presumably various 'sophisticated' methods and tools
get you closer to possible suspects…but that kind of stuff is cycled and recycled throughout the
community worldwide – as soon as anything like that is known and published, any reasonably competent
hacker (or org of hackers) is learning how to do the same thing and incorporating such things
into their own methods. (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery)
I guess I have a lot more respect for the kinds of people I expect to be getting a paycheck
from foreign Intelligence agencies then to believe that they would leave such obvious clues behind
'accidentally'. But if we are going to be starting wars over this stuff w/Russia, or China, I
guess I would hope the adults in the room don't go all apesh*t and start chanting COMMIES, THE
RUSSIANS ARE COMING!, etc. before the ink is dry on the 'crime'.
The whole episode reminds me of
the Sony hack , for which Obama
also blamed a demonized foreign power. Interestingly - to beg the question here - the blaming
was also based on a foreign character set in the data (though Hangul, not Korean). Look! A clue!
JacobiteInTraining's methodology also reminds me of NC's coverage of Grexit. Symbol manipulators
- like those in the Democrat-leaning creative class - often believe that real economy systems are
as easy to manipulate as symbol systems are. In Greece, for example, it really was a difficult technical
challenge for Greece to reintroduce the drachma, especially given the time-frame, as contributor
Clive remorselessly showed. Similarly, it's really not credible to hire a consultant and get a hacking
report with a turnaround time of less than a week, even leaving aside the idea that the DNC just
might have hired a consultant that would give them the result they wanted (because who among
us, etc.) What JacobiteInTraining shows us is that computer forensics is laborious, takes time, and
is very unlikely to yield results suitable for framing in the narratives proffered by the political
class. Of course, that does confirm all my priors!
There is a problem with those who argue that these are sophisticated Nation State attackers
and then point to the most basic circumstantial evidence to support their case. I'd bet that,
among others, the Israelis have hacked some Russian servers to launch attacks from and have some
of their workers on a Russian holiday schedule. Those things have been written about in attack
analysis so much over the last 15-20 years that they'd be stupid not to.
Now, I'm not saying the Israelis did it. I'm saying that the evidence provided so far by
those arguing it is Russia is so flaky as to prove that the Russia accusers are
blinded or corrupted by their own political agenda.
Update [Yves, courtesy Richard Smith] 7:45 AM. Another Medium piece by Jeffrey
Carr,
Can Facts Slow The DNC Breach Runaway Train? who has been fact-checking this story and comes
away Not Happy. For instance:
Thomas Rid wrote:
One of the strongest pieces of evidence linking GRU to the DNC hack is the equivalent of
identical fingerprints found in two burglarized buildings: a reused command-and-control address - 176.31.112[.]10 - that
was hard coded
in a piece of malware found both in the German parliament as well as on the DNC's servers.
Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic security agency BfV as
the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. The infrastructure behind the fake MIS Department
domain was also linked to the Berlin intrusion through at least one other element, a
shared SSL
certificate.
This paragraph sounds quite damning if you take it at face value, but if you invest a little
time into checking the source material, its carefully constructed narrative falls apart.
Problem #1: The IP address 176.31.112[.]10 used in the Bundestag breach as a Command and
Control server has never been connected to the Russian intelligence services. In fact,
Claudio Guarnieri , a highly regarded security researcher,
whose technical analysis was
referenced by
Rid, stated that "no evidence allows to tie the attacks to governments of any particular country."
Mind you, he has two additional problems with that claim alone.
This piece is a must read if you want to dig further into this topic.
NOTES
[1] More than a talking point but, really, less than a narrative. It's like we need a new word
for these bite-sized, meme-ready, disposable, "throw 'em against the wall and see if they stick"
stories; mini-narrative, or narrativelette, perhaps. "All the crunch of a real narrative, but none
of the nutrition!"
[2] This post is not about today's Trump moral panic, where the political class is frothing
and stamping about The Donald's humorous (or ballbusting, take your pick) statement that he
"hoped" the Russians had hacked the 30,000 emails that Clinton supposedly deleted from the email
server she privatized in her public capacity as Secretary of State before handing the whole flaming
and steaming mess over to investigators. First, who cares? Those emails are all about yoga lessons
and Chelsea's wedding. Right? Second, Clinton didn't secure the server for three months. What did
she expect? Third, Trump's suggestion is just dumb; the NSA has to have that data, so just ask them?
Finally, to be fair, Trump shouldn't have uttered the word "Russia." He should have said "Liechtenstein,"
or "Tonga," because it's hard to believe that there's a country too small to hack as fat a target
as Clinton presented; Trump was being inflammatory. Points off. Bad show.
For those interested, the excellent interviewer Scott Horton just spoke with Jeffrey Carr,
an IT security expert about all this. It's about 30 mins:
Jeffrey Carr, a cyber intelligence expert and CEO of Taia Global, Inc., discusses his fact-checking
of Josh Marshall's TalkingPointsMemo article that claims a close alliance between Trump and
Putin; and why the individuals blaming Russia for the DNC email hack are more motivated by
politics than solid evidence.
Carr makes the point that even supposed clues about Russian involvement ("the default language
is Cyrillic!") are meaningless as all these could be spoofed by another party.
Separately it just shows again Team Clinton's (and DNC's) political deviousness and expertise
how they –with the full support of the MSM of course –have managed to deflect the discussion to
Trump and Russia from how the DNC subverted US democracy.
and again, we see the cavalier attitude about national security from the clinton camp, aggravating
the already tense relationship with russia over this bullshit, all to avoid some political disadvantage.
clinton doesn't care if russia gets the nuclear launch codes seemingly, but impact her chances
to win the race and it's all guns firing.
Well yeah, and I could be a bot, how do you know I'm not?
Absent any other evidence to work with, I can accept it as credible that a clumsy Russian
or Baltic user posted viewed and saved docs instead of the originals; par for the course in public
and private bureaucracies the world over. It would have been useful to see the original Properties
metadata; instead we get crapped up copies. That only tells me the poster is something of a lightweight,
and it at least somewhat suggests that these docs passed through multiple hands.
But that doesn't mean A) the original penetration occurred under state control (or even in
Russia proper), much less B) that Putin Himself ordered the hack attempts, which is the searing
retinal afterimage that the the media name-dropping and photo-illustrating conflation produces.
Unspoofed, the Cyrillic fingerprints still do not closely constrain conclusion to A, and even
less to B.
Another name for the trick DNC used is "Catch a chief" -- a deflection of attention from their own
criminal behaviour. But they should now be really afraid about what can come next from Wikileaks or
elsewhere. I don't think Hillary was capable to understand how easy it is to find corruption, especially
when there's a email trail. And this lack of understanding is a typical feature of a sociopath
(http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/could-hillary-clinton-be-a-sociopath/
)
As Guardian reported (The
Guardian) Clinton campaign tried old "dog eat my homework" trick blaming everything on Putin and
trying to ignore the content of them and the dirty laundry they expose:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 presidential election, saying
its hackers stole Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and released them to foment disunity
in the party and aid Donald Trump.
Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said on Sunday that “experts are telling us that Russian
state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and are] releasing these emails for the purpose
of helping Donald Trump”.
“I don’t think it’s coincidental that these emails are being released on the eve of our convention
here,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, alluding to the party’s four-day exercise in unification
which is set to take place this week in Philadelphia.
“This isn’t my assertion,” Mook said. “This is what experts are telling us.”
In a statement, the Clinton campaign repeated the accusation: “This is further evidence the Russian
government is trying to influence the outcome of the election.”
Classic scapegoating. As Guardian commenter noted "Why is the (potential) perpetrator of the leak
more significant than the content of the leak??
As life exceeds satire, one can imagine that within a week Wikileaks will produce those "missing
e-mails". And later Hillary's Wall Street speeches, following the next appeal from Trump.
In any case a major US establishment party explicitly levied it's resources against a candidate it
didn't like behaviors like a Mafioso clan, and when caught red handed start to deflect attention via
corrupt and subservant MSM, changing focus into Russia and Putin instead. Great journalism!"
The Guardian
I find very I interesting that, somehow, the initial DNC leak story failed to make a headline
position (a day late, at that) on the Guardian, but now that it's blown up on other channels,
the DNC's ridiculous conspiracy theory/distraction attempt gets top billing here. Ridiculous.
Why is the (potential) perpetrator of the leak more significant than the content of the leak??
A major US establishment party explicitly levied it's resources against a candidate it didn't
like, and somehow we're talking about Putin instead. Great journalism.
Chanze Jennings -> atopic
The Guardian has sunk to a new low and has entirely no shame. It's a sad day for journalism
when Twitter has more integrity than most news outlets. And they wonder why newspapers are going
the way of the Dodo. Remember when real journalists presented stories with little bias and tried
hard to stick to the facts?
BTW there are some real experts on this and they have a different opinion. Check comments for the
blog post:
DNC betrayed Bernie Sanders and the rest of America. But at this moment Sanders already folded. In
other words, the Clinton mafia again created a mess. And they are now turning to Sanders — the very
one they betrayed — to come in and clean it up. In effect Clinton mafia wants Sanders persuade
his supporters not to harbor any ill feelings over being stabbed in the back. That gave him perfect
opportunity to reneg of his promised and run as independent or with Green Party
Bernie caved. A pity really, but understandable given the fact that
the collusion between a corrupt Hillary campaign and a mendacious "free" media meant that even getting
to the Convention floor was a struggle.
NYT now is afraid to open comments on this as they will swamped with denunciation of Hillary.
Sanders lied to his supporters that Trump represents bigger danger then Killary. nobody represent bigger
danger then Killary. Bernie Sanders, hypocrite, or canny operator? Is this another hostage situation
and with what Clinton criminal cartel threatened him ? “This campaign is not really about
Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, or any other candidate who sought the presidency,”
Sanders told a New Hampshire crowd Tuesday in a speech endorsing Hillary Clinton. “This campaign
is about the needs of the American people and addressing the very serious crisis that we face.”
Posting under the hashtag #SandersSellsOut, sanders supporters drew parallels with a previous
uncomfortable endorsement of a presidential candidate, labeling it “another hostage situation.” Most
view his endorsement on Monday, as the infidelity in a relationship and a bad break up.
Democratic voters are now splintered over neoliberal globalization, much like Republican supporters.
Most already made decisions whom they will support and Clinton mafia has little chances to move those
who reject their criminality and support of neoliberal globalization. It was actually Bill Clinton who
sold the party to Wall Street making it another wing on neoliberal party of globalist and transnational
corporations.
The Democrats' dirty laundry was aired at a worse possibly time for Hillary and I hope she will pay
for DNC manipulations full price. It is clear after the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the
Republican presidential primaries that voters are revolting against the neoliberal globalization that
dominated the US and Britain economic and foreign policy since the 1970th, if not earlier. The
willingness of people to be intimidated by bought neoliberal economists into supporting cosmopolitan
outcomes appears for the moment to have been exhausted.
ABC and CNN are essentially part of the DNC propaganda wing. They and most other MSM were trying
to reshape this mess to reduce the amount of damage. Stephanopolis worked for Bill Clinton. And
donated $75,000 to Hillary's campaign. And now he is trying to paint Trump as having ties to the Putin
regime.
They try do not touch Hillary connections with Saudi, revive email scandal, touch Clinton cash skandal,
etc. They really behave like they are part of Clinton campaign. And readers noticed that as is evident
from comments (The
4 Most Damaging Emails From the DNC WikiLeaks Dump - ABC News):
You are going to have to do a heck of a lot better than that. A Saudi Prince has admitted to
funding a large portion of Hillary's campaign. That is a tie. All the money she took from those
countries while benefiting them as Secretary of State is a tie.
Know Mei > deanbob
"Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding
of what we do," Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Oh, believe me, Debbie, the American people know what
the Democratic Party and the Republican Party does. Both parties embellish, manipulate, grant
high positions to big donors, plot, backstab and railroad the vote of the American electorate.
However, business as usual did not work well for the Republican Party elitists this primary season.
Donald Trump beat the Republican Party elitists at their game. Bernie Sanders attempted to do
the same to the Democratic Party.
I think they are being short-sighted. Trump will in all likelihood win now and I don't see
him sticking to the script. The media has completely betrayed the American public on this
story. From Facebook and Twitter blocking and deleting stories re: same initially - to now with
the non-articles we are getting from the big news agencies. Finding decent, honest news coverage
shouldn't be so hard.
see more
William Carr > Know Mei •
“Both parties embellish, manipulate, grant high positions to big donors, plot, backstab and
railroad the vote of the American electorate”
In reality Wikileaks exposed the blatant corruption of the primary process for voters. The elephant
was in the room, but the real situation with Democratic Party primary process is now suppressed.
Mysterious assassination of Seth Rich
Seth Conrad Rich, a 27-year-old who worked for the Democratic National Committee as the voter
expansion data director died of multiple gunshot wounds in the 2100 block of Flagler Place on July
10, 2017. The police reported it as a robbery, but nothing on Seth was taken. Seth’s cash, phone,
and belongings were all still on him when he was found.
Before Seth started working at the DNC two years ago, Rich was a research associate for Greenberg
Quinlan Rosner for two years, according to his LinkedIn page. The 2011 Creighton University graduate
also worked for former Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson’s campaign and interned in his office.
There are a lot of rumors going around about his death and if it was a hit job. Below OAN
reported on the murder and below that is a possible explanation of his assassination and all of the
information is documented.
From
/u/MyKettleIsNotBlack:The Clintons have known the Kleebs since at least 2008. Scott Kleeb
started a business the Clinton Global Initiative was found fraudulently
supporting. Seth Rich was deeply entrenched with the Kleebs from their
Nebraska Democratic work. Seth Rich was hired onto a position in the DNC out
of a job from a data consulting firm which had previously worked with
President Clinton, which was opened up because the Clintons pushed for the
Voter Expansion project so that 2008 didn’t happen to Hillary in 2016. Seth
Rich has at least 2 connections to the Clintons. Jane Kleeb is a voracious
environmentalist/Sanders supporter who might’ve prompted Seth Rich to leak
the emails, especially after their business was one month earlier revealed
for fraudulency. The best way to cover their tracks would be to make this
seem like another right-wing conspiracy. His murder was deemed a robbery,
but nothing was missing from his person.
Seth Conrad Rich’s
unsolved murder on a Washington D.C. street was very suspecious because he was a
staffer and self-described data analyst for the Democratic National Committee and has
access to the emails that were leaked.
WikiLeaks is
offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in Rich’s death
(that’s in addition to a previous $25,000 reward being offered in the case).
Most recently, Rod Wheeler, a private investigator recanted claims he made to Fox
5 in Washington D.C. about Rich and WikiLeaks – claims that are disputed by Rich’s
own family.
Newsweek has now reported that the FBI is not investigating the Rich murder, and
is quoting the private investigator as denying he has any firsthand knowledge of
purported Rich/WikiLeaks contact.
According to the New York Times, the Rich family is demanding retractions from
Fox.
The NSA document was very important. It basically proved, according to Scott Ritter, that
the NSA had no real evidence of any Russian involvement, and relied on speculation from a single
source: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, which recently had to retract a similar claim about Russian
hacking of Ukrainian artillery. The real story behind 'Reality Winner' remains, I am sure, unknown.
This might well be a ploy to undermine the anti-Russia hype, though the media cartel has trumpeted
it uncritically for the short-term rush of goosing the Comey spectacle.
This makes the refusal of the DNC to let the FBI examine those servers even more suspect.
OTOH, one can see the thought processes in the DNC: A breach was discovered. If we blame the Russians
not only do we further the neo-con agenda, but we also get to call anyone who publishes or cites
the material taken from the servers a Russian tool.
In fact, if they knew they had internal leakers, it would still be worth claiming to have
been hacked by the Russians, so that internally leaked material could be 'poisoned' as part of
a Russian plot. Talking points to this effect were ubiquitous and apparently well coordinated,
turning virtually every MSM discussion of the content of the leaks into a screed about stolen
documents and Russian hackers. It also put a nice fresh coat of paint on the target painted on
Assange, turning the undiscerning left against a once valuable ally.
Comey was asked again about this curious oversight on June 8 by Senate Intelligence Committee
Chair Richard Burr:
BURR: "And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate – did you ever
have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide
you the data that they had collected?"
COMEY: "In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have
access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class
entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access."
BURR: "But no content?"
COMEY: "Correct."
BURR: "Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?"
COMEY: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks – the people who were my folks at the
time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand
the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
To prove their chops, mainstream media stars can't wait to
go head-to-head with a demonized foreign leader, like Vladimir Putin, and let him have it, even if
their "facts" are wrong, as Megyn Kelly showed
NBC's Megyn Kelly wielded one of Official Washington's most beloved groupthinks to smack Russian
President Vladimir Putin over his denials that he and his government were responsible for hacking
Democratic emails and interfering with the U.S. presidential election.
In her June 2 interview with Putin, Kelly noted that all "17 intelligence agencies" of the US
government concurred in their conclusion of Russian guilt and how could Putin suggest that they all
are "lying." It's an argument that has been used to silence skeptics for months and apparently is
so useful that no one seems to care that it isn't true.
For instance, on May 8, in testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper conceded publicly that the number of intelligence agencies involved
in the assessment was three, not 17, and that the analysts assigned to the project from CIA, FBI
and NSA had been "handpicked."
On May 23, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, former CIA Director John Brennan
confirmed Clapper's account about the three agencies involved. "It wasn't a full interagency community
assessment that was coordinated among the 17 agencies," Brennan acknowledged.
But
those public admissions haven't stopped Democrats and the mainstream media from continuing to
repeat the false claim. In
comments on May 31, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton repeated the canard, with a
flourish, saying: "Seventeen agencies, all in agreement, which I know from my experience as a Senator
and Secretary of State, is hard to get."
A couple of days later, Kelly revived the myth of the consensus among the 17 intelligence agencies
in her interview with the Russian president. But Putin passed up the opportunity to correct her,
replying instead:
"They have been misled and they are not analyzing the information in its entirety. We have
talked about it with former President Obama and with several other officials. No one ever showed
me any direct evidence. When we spoke with President Obama about that, you know, you should probably
better ask him about it – I think he will tell you that he, too, is confident of it. But when he
and I talked I saw that he, too, started having doubts. At any rate, that's how I saw it."
As I noted in a
Jan. 20 article about Obama's news conference two days earlier, "Did President Barack Obama acknowledge
that the extraordinary propaganda campaign to blame Russia for helping Donald Trump become president
has a very big hole in it, i.e., that the US intelligence community has no idea how the Democratic
emails reached WikiLeaks? For weeks, eloquent obfuscation – expressed with 'high confidence' – has
been the name of the game, but inadvertent admissions now are dispelling some of the clouds.
"At President Obama's Jan. 18 press conference, he admitted as much: 'the conclusions of the intelligence
community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting
or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked .'" [Emphasis
added]
Explaining the Technology
More importantly, Putin in his interview with Kelly points out that "today's technology" enables
hacking to be "masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can understand the origin" of the
hack. "And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or any individual that everyone will
think that they are the exact source of that attack. Modern technology is very sophisticated and
subtle and allows this to be done. And when we realize that we will get rid of all the illusions.
"
Later, when Kelly came back to the issue of hacking, Putin expanded on the difficulty in tracing
the source of cyber attacks.
"Hackers may be anywhere," Putin said. "There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States
who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a scenario?
In the middle of an internal political fight, it was convenient for them, whatever the reason, to
put out that information. And put it out they did. And, doing it, they made a reference to Russia.
Can't you imagine it happening? I can.
"Let us recall the assassination of President Kennedy. There is a theory that Kennedy's assassination
was arranged by the United States special services. If this theory is correct, and one cannot rule
it out, so what can be easier in today's context, being able to rely on the entire technical capabilities
available to special services than to organize some kind of attacks in the appropriate manner while
making a reference to Russia in the process. "
Kelly: "Let's move on."
However carefully Megyn Kelly and her NBC colleagues peruse The New York Times, they might well
not know WikiLeaks' disclosure on March 31 of original CIA documents showing that the agency had
created a program allowing it to break into computers and servers and make it look like others did
it by leaving telltale signs (like Cyrillic markings, for example).
The capabilities shown in what WikiLeaks calls the
"Vault 7" trove of CIA documents required
the creation of hundreds of millions of lines of source code. At $25 per line of code, that amounts
to about $2.5 billion for each 100 million code lines. But the Deep State has that kind of money
and would probably consider the expenditure a good return on investment for "proving" the Russians
hacked into Democratic Party emails.
In other words, it is altogether possible that the hacking attributed to Russia was actually
one of several "active measures" undertaken by a cabal consisting of the CIA, FBI, NSA and Clapper
– the same agencies responsible for the lame, evidence-free report of Jan. 6, that Clapper and Brennan
acknowledged last month was not the consensus view of the 17 intelligence agencies.
There is also the issue of the forensics. Former FBI Director James Comey displayed considerable
discomfort on March 20, explaining to the House Intelligence Committee why the FBI did not insist
on getting physical access to the Democratic National Committee's computers in order to do its own
proper forensics, but chose to rely on the examination done by the DNC's private contractor, Crowdstrike.
The firm itself has conflicts of interests in its links to the pro-NATO and anti-Russia think
tank, the Atlantic Council, through Dmitri Alperovitch, who is an Atlantic Council
senior fellow and the
co-founder of Crowdstrike.
Strange Oversight
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – now including a possible impeachment
battle over removing the President of the United States – wouldn't it seem logical for the FBI to
insist on its own forensics for this fundamental predicate of the case? Or could Comey's hesitancy
to demand access to the DNC's computers be explained by a fear that FBI technicians not fully briefed
on CIA/NSA/FBI Deep State programs might uncover a lot more than he wanted?
Comey was asked again about this curious oversight on June 8 by Senate Intelligence Committee
Chair Richard Burr:
BURR: "And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate – did you ever
have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide
you the data that they had collected?"
COMEY: "In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have
access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class
entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access."
BURR: "But no content?"
COMEY: "Correct."
BURR: "Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?"
COMEY: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks – the people who were my folks at the
time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand
the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
Burr demurred on asking Comey to explain what amounts to gross misfeasance, if not worse. Perhaps,
NBC could arrange for Megyn Kelly to interview Burr to ask if he has a clue as to what Putin might
have been referring to when he noted, "There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who
very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia."
Given the congressional intelligence "oversight" committees' obsequiousness and repeated "high
esteem" for the "intelligence community," there seems an even chance that – no doubt because of an
oversight – the CIA/FBI/NSA deep-stage troika failed to brief the Senate "oversight committee" chairman
on WikiLeaks "Vault 7" disclosures – even when WikiLeaks publishes original CIA documents.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour
in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst for a total
of 30 years and now servers on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
(VIPS). Reprinted with permission from Consortium
News .
Everyone that loves America and Freedom
must read this.
None of the Obama Administration's
17 intelligence agencies were allowed to
perform any, and I stress ANY FORENSIC
ANALYSIS of the DNC computers or John
Podesta's computer. The DNC refused access.
They were directed to rely solely on the
cyber security firm that was contracted by
the DNC. That cyber security firm is called
Cloudstrike.
Cloudstrike is a internationally known
cyber security firm. The founders are known
to be some of the best cyber security
specialist in the world. HERE IS WHERE THIS
STORY GETS VERY INTERESTING. One of the
two founders of Cloudstrike is a man named
Dmitri Alperovitch. He was born in Russia
in 1980. He holds dual citizenship in
Russia and the United States. No FISA court
order issued on this matter.
Dmitri Alperovitch worked for McCaffy,
the cyber security firm that provides
millions of computer owners with security.
The founder of McCaffy (John McCaffy) has
stated numerous times that no way Russia
hacked the DNC. He should know. Dmitri
Alperovitch once worked for him.
Back to point. All of the Obama
Adminisration's intelligence agencies were
only allowed to take Dmitri Alperovich's
Cloudstrike's security report as proof of
Russian hacking. It should also be
noted that Alperovitch has deep ties within
Russia and to some degree supports the
political opposition parties against Putin.
Most if not all Cloudstike employees
were Hillary supporters and many were
donors. The Cloudstrike/DNC contract was a
no bid political connection contract. Is it
odd no main stream media has reported on
this? Everything in this comment is public
information.
Irrespective of the fact that Democrat
politicians have deep ties to Russian
politicians, which they deny, but are
materially and factually proven as lies.
Yes the Democrats have intentionally and
with malice mislead the public. ie, Nancy
Pelosi denies meeting with Russian
ambassador. Since her denial photos of her
meeting with and sitting at the table with
the Russian Ambassador have emerged.
Chuck Schumer has harshly criticized
politicians meeting with Russian
politicians. Then photos emerge of him with
the Russian President Vladimir Putin at the
grand opening of a Russian Government owned
service station in Schumer's New York
district. Then also photos emerge of
Schumer with Vladimir Putin at a donut shop
in Schumer's New York district.
Also Senator Clair McCaskell also
tweeted a statement that no Senator has
reason to meet Russian politician's and
"that she never has, NEVER". Then tweets
emerge from her account proving she lied
and intentially mislead the public and has
met with the Russian Ambassador more than
once.
Wikileaks has profoundly stated that
it's published DNC and Podesta emails were
not, and did not in any way originate from
any government backed source. He did
strongly assert however that the
information was leaked, not hacked. He has
vaguely insinuated that the emails
originated from Seth Rich, the mysteriously
murdered DNC employee. It is important to
note that Wikileaks has a 100% accuracy
record on information published. A record
no other news publisher can touch.
All 17 of Obama Administration's
intelligence agencies based their final
reports on assumptions provided to them by
Cloudstrike and Dmitri Alprovitch. It is
very important to note these reports are
not based on a "Proponderence Of Evidence",
nor "Forensic Evidence" and zero "Material
Facts". All 17 of Obama
Administration's intelligence agencies make
it clear in all their reports the reports
themselves are merely assumptions. Note
that 2 weeks before Obama left he signed an
executive order to give access to those 17
agencies.
A former Obama Administration Department
Of Justice attorney told Tucker Carlson of
Fox News that the American people should
"Assume" that the "Assumptions" made by the
intelligence agencies are correct. This
would be the first time in history of the
US Constitution that an American attorney
made a "Final Finding Of Fact" based on an
assumption.
Please keep in mind and remember when
one of Obama's ACA architect's by the name
of Johnathon Gruber said " We depended
on the stupidity of the American people to
pass this bill". Also remember when
Nancy Pelosi said "We must pass this bill
to see what's in it".
There are volumes more to this
story. Read the article by Washingtosblog.
It shows how Cloudstrike is closely tied to
a Ukranian anarchists group promoting an
all out war between the US and Russia. This
is a real danger which should not be taken
lightly. Don't let the volume of
information overwhelm your interest. That
is how they win.
Before I get to the meat of this post, we need to revisit a little history. The cyber security firm
hired to inspect the DNC hack and determine who was responsible is a firm called Crowdstrike. Its
conclusion that Russia was responsible was released last year, but several people began to call its
analysis into question upon further inspection.
The FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report (JAR) "
Grizzly Steppe " was released yesterday as part of the
White House's response to alleged Russian government interference in the 2016 election process.
It adds nothing to the call for evidence that the Russian government was responsible for hacking
the DNC, the DCCC, the email accounts of Democratic party officials, or for delivering the content
of those hacks to Wikileaks.
It merely listed every threat group ever reported on by a commercial cybersecurity company that
is suspected of being Russian-made and lumped them under the heading of Russian Intelligence Services
(RIS) without providing any supporting evidence that such a connection exists.
If ESET could do it, so can others. It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does,
that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to
find and use at will.
If the White House had unclassified evidence that tied officials in the Russian government to
the DNC attack, they would have presented it by now. The fact that they didn't means either that
the evidence doesn't exist or that it is classified.
Nevertheless, countless people, including the entirety of the corporate media, put total faith
in the analysis of Crowdstrike despite the fact that the FBI was denied access to perform its own
analysis. Which makes me wonder, did the U.S. government do any real analysis of its own on the DNC
hack, or did it just copy/paste Crowdstrike?
The FBI requested direct access to the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) hacked computer servers
but was denied, Director James Comey told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The bureau made "multiple requests at different levels," according to Comey, but ultimately struck
an agreement with the DNC that a "highly respected private company" would get access and share what
it found with investigators.
"We'd always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that's possible," Comey said, noting
that he didn't know why the DNC rebuffed the FBI's request.
This is nuts. Are all U.S. government agencies simply listening to what Crowdstike said in coming
to their "independent" conclusions that Russia hacked the DNC? If so, that's a huge problem. Particularly
considering what Voice of America published yesterday in a piece titled,
Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data :
An influential British think tank and Ukraine's military are disputing a report that the U.S.
cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has used to buttress its claims of Russian hacking in the presidential
election.
The
CrowdStrike report, released in December , asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery
app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with Russian-backed separatists.
But the International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed
any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses
and hacking never happened.
The challenges to CrowdStrike's credibility are significant because the firm was the first to
link last year's hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors, and because CrowdStrike co-founder
Dimiti Alperovitch has trumpeted its Ukraine report as more evidence of Russian election tampering.
How is this not the biggest story in America right now?
Yaroslav Sherstyuk, maker of the Ukrainian military app in question, called the company's report
"delusional"
in a Facebook
post . CrowdStrike never contacted him before or after its report was published, he told VOA.
VOA first contacted IISS in February to verify the alleged artillery losses. Officials there initially
were unaware of the CrowdStrike assertions. After investigating, they determined that CrowdStrike
misinterpreted their data and hadn't reached out beforehand for comment or clarification.
In a statement to VOA, the institute flatly rejected the assertion of artillery combat losses.
"The CrowdStrike report uses our data, but the inferences and analysis drawn from that data belong
solely to the report's authors," the IISS said. "The inference they make that reductions in Ukrainian
D-30 artillery holdings between 2013 and 2016 were primarily the result of combat losses is not a
conclusion that we have ever suggested ourselves, nor one we believe to be accurate."
In early January, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying artillery losses
from the ongoing fighting with separatists are "several times smaller than the number reported by
[CrowdStrike] and are not associated with the specified cause" of Russian hacking.
But Ukraine's denial did not get the same attention as CrowdStrike's report. Its release was widely
covered by news media reports as further evidence of Russian hacking in the U.S. election.
In interviews, Alperovitch helped foster that impression by connecting the Ukraine and Democratic
campaign hacks, which CrowdStrike said involved the same Russian-linked hacking group-Fancy Bear-and
versions of X-Agent malware the group was known to use.
"The fact that they would be tracking and helping the Russian military kill Ukrainian army personnel
in eastern Ukraine and also intervening in the U.S. election is quite chilling," Alperovitch said
in a
December 22 story by The Washington Post .
The same day,
Alperovitch told the PBS NewsHour : "And when you think about, well, who would be interested
in targeting Ukraine artillerymen in eastern Ukraine? Who has interest in hacking the Democratic
Party? [The] Russia government comes to mind, but specifically, [it's the] Russian military that
would have operational [control] over forces in the Ukraine and would target these artillerymen."
Alperovitch, a Russian expatriate and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council policy research center
in Washington, co-founded CrowdStrike in 2011. The firm has employed two former FBI heavyweights:
Shawn Henry, who oversaw global cyber investigations at the agency, and Steven Chabinsky, who was
the agency's top cyber lawyer and served on a White House cybersecurity commission. Chabinsky left
CrowdStrike last year.
CrowdStrike declined to answer VOA's written questions about the Ukraine report, and Alperovitch
canceled a March 15 interview on the topic. In a December statement to VOA's Ukrainian Service, spokeswoman
Ilina Dimitrova defended the company's conclusions.
In its report last June attributing the Democratic hacks, CrowdStrike said it was long familiar
with the methods used by Fancy Bear and another group with ties to Russian intelligence nicknamed
Cozy Bear. Soon after, U.S. cybersecurity firms Fidelis and Mandiant endorsed CrowdStrike's conclusions.
The FBI and Homeland Security report reached the same conclusion about the two groups.
If the company's analysis was "delusional" when it came to Ukraine, why should we have any confidence
that its analysis on Russia and the DNC is more sound?
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
FAIR USE NOTICEThis site contains
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available
to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social
issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which
such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free)
site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should
be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
You can use PayPal to make a contribution, supporting development
of this site and speed up access. In case softpanorama.org is down you can use the at softpanorama.info
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or
referenced source) and are
not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the author present and former employers, SDNP or any other organization the author may be associated with.We do not warrant the correctness
of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose.
The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be
tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without
Javascript.
Softpanorama