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Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

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Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#351

Post by steamer25 »

mundo wrote: post #259
wyager wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI has a history of political activism, to put it lightly. Here's a fun one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter You're being foolish if you trust a word the FBI says without solid evidence.

I don't! Dammit, read the post! No one on god's green earth trusts the FBI at their word, but that doesn't mean you can assume the opposite of what they said is true without evidence!

I suppose that depends on the expected reaction to either believing or not believing. In this case, from my perspective, I see two intended reactions to the claims of Russian subversion:

1) To delegitimize the President-elect 2) To foment war with Russia

I didn't vote for the guy but I don't think he's near so bad as his political opponents try to paint him. I'd like to at least give him a chance and to whatever degree he turns out to suck, I'll still blame the Clinton campaign for promoting controlled opposition 'pied pipers' rather than promoting a robust debate in the interest of the American people.

Wrt #2, I will certainly demand very strong evidence before yielding any resistance to that notion.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#352

Post by codedokode »

ryanlol wrote: post #139
15155 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would IP addresses _in Russia_ automatically make attacks attributable to Russia?

They wouldn't?

They would not. Most probably found IP addresses will be either some cheap VPS bought by anonymous person or a Tor exit node (or maybe some infected machine). It is unlikely that government hackers would use stolen passwords at a computer in Kremlin or Capitol or Beijing or whereever they are.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#353

Post by gipp »

rogerthis wrote: post #282
gipp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Many, many parts of the intelligence community produced reports contradicting any claims of WMD evidence, and were summarily ignored by a very not-bipartisan administration. There is basically total consensus among every intelligence agency that the evidence points to Russia.

Basic sources on the total consensus?

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...

> The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.

This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#354

Post by grandalf »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #128
grandalf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Obama just created a National Anti-Propaganda Center to keep watch over American news organizations. An elaborate surveillance/police state combined with a propaganda system is scary indeed, no matter which president or political party controls it.

>National Anti-Propaganda Center to keep watch over American news organizations. I googled this term and all I got were conspiracy theory websites. Here's the actual law: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/327...

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/27/headlines/obama_sign...

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#355

Post by burkaman »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #263
mundo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "evidence" cited is not the handful of unclassified details included, it's the fact that the FBI and DHS are willing to go on record publicly accusing Russia. There are no asterisks or weasel-words or "allegedly"s. Just a clear "Russia did it." There are only two possible explanations for that: 1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are w…

>1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months Unless the actual perpetrators were the US intelligence community and/or the incoming administration. Then they could both hide their tracks or have no reason to unravel this. But why sus…

What does the intelligence community have to gain by perpetrating this hack?

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#356

Post by grandalf »

gipp wrote: post #84
grandalf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By mentioning that they are "ranking members" you make an argument from authority that is predicated on the legitimacy of the government alone, effectively saying "kneel and take whatever they say at face value". In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has c…

Fine. But (assuming you extend this attitude to "the mainstream media" as well) you've created for yourself an ontology of the world in which it is impossible to claim any knowledge of anything outside your direct field of view. I'm not really sure how you intend us to accomplish much of anything without _some_ ability to trust _someone_ else. And bipartisan agreement from bitter enemies who have little or nothing to…

The issue is not so much authority, the issue is urgency.

Why is there urgency to rush to judgment about alleged Russian election meddling?

If it happened, then unless anyone thinks the outcome of the election should be reversed, we have four years to get to the bottom of it, take action, and prevent it from happening again.

It's very much reminiscent of the blind urgency to invade Iraq on shaky evidence. Note that one tactic used to get people to act is to create urgency. The simplest example is "this offer expires in 5 minutes..."

It's not so much that I give no credit to any officials as having authority, it's that they all agree on the knee-jerk urgency when there is no apparent need to do so, and none feel obligated to offer a point by point probability assessment of whatever information, inference, or intelligence has them 100% convinced, since the information disclosed so far paints a vague, circumstantial picture.

This sort of elitist disregard for the basic rationality of the public is not something I can stomach, so I simply can't take their assurances at face value.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#357

Post by grandalf »

tptacek wrote: post #125
grandalf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By mentioning that they are "ranking members" you make an argument from authority that is predicated on the legitimacy of the government alone, effectively saying "kneel and take whatever they say at face value". In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has c…

That's not what "ranking members" communicates; rather, it suggests that the conclusion transcends partisan politics. That doesn't mean it doesn't succumb to other biases (though I don't think so), but it is a meaningful statement to make.

I think there is a coalition of peculiarly anti-Russian hawks who have been the most vocal in their opposition to Russia's behavior in Crimea, etc.

This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#358

Post by middleclick »

khrakhen wrote: post #83
downandout wrote: post #46

It seems unlikely that email hacking will stop in the future. If the leaked emails actually influenced the elections, it was because of their content. I've heard exactly zero credible claims that the leaked emails were falsified in any way. Perhaps if political candidates/party executives are going to do unethical/illegal things, they shouldn't discuss them over email. Edit: changed "zero claims" to "zero credible cl…

> I've heard exactly zero claims that the leaked emails were falsified in any way. Podesta and high-ranking Dems have leveled this very charge. The extent of the DKIM signatures all being true makes this very unlikely. RSA1024 and SHA-1 can be beaten, but not easily and not in this volume. It is not E2E from the people authoring the e-mails, so the server maintainer (often Google) could be forging and signing e-mails…

Hey, another 6 hour old account.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#359

Post by grandalf »

gipp wrote: post #353
rogerthis wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic sources on the total consensus?

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme... > The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations: https://en.wikipedia.org…

My understanding was that they had agreed on the likely Russian origin of at least one system from which emails were obtained, but that they had disagreed on the motivation for the leaks.

Re: Technical report on DNC hack [pdf]

#360

Post by tptacek »

grandalf wrote: post #357
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what "ranking members" communicates; rather, it suggests that the conclusion transcends partisan politics. That doesn't mean it doesn't succumb to other biases (though I don't think so), but it is a meaningful statement to make.

I think there is a coalition of peculiarly anti-Russian hawks who have been the most vocal in their opposition to Russia's behavior in Crimea, etc. This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.

So, that's what I'm saying: that the "ranking members" support the conclusion doesn't dispose of all bias, but it does dispose of the Trump vs. Clinton bias. It's up to you how to weight [Trump vs. Clinton] vs. [Russia vs. US].

But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now.

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