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Dear Obama, from Infosec

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Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#61

Post by unclebucknasty »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #32
nl wrote: post #12

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("W…

> were trying to throw the election to Trump (rather than just to sow chaos). It could be argued that both of those are the same. I doubt they would be reckless enough to gamble on the former to be honest, when almost everybody thought HRC had it in the bag.

>I doubt they would be reckless enough to gamble on the former

I'm not sure how it would look any different if they did.

>when almost everybody thought HRC had it in the bag.

Wouldn't that be the only reason to try throwing it to him? If he had it in the bag, it would be unneccessary, right?

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#62

Post by 3131s »

badlucklottery wrote: post #55
3131s wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange strongly implied that the emails were leaked by Seth Rich. Not sure if I believe that though, since it seems that Assange would have proved it by now if it were true. Maybe he's withholding the proof as leverage, or maybe he's lying. I do trust Assange much more than the CIA though.

>I do trust Assange much more than the CIA though. But do you trust Assange more than the 17 US intelligence agencies? And the actual president? And members of congress (including many Republicans who would directly benefit from any intelligence pointing another way)? At this point it's getting close to Assange vs the world. Even Trump won't directly say the Russians weren't involved anymore, he's just muddying the w…

> But do you trust Assange more than the 17 US intelligence agencies? And the actual president?

Yes, probably. I find Barack Obama to be a deeply evil person. Assange I'm not sure what to think about. It's plausible to me that the Russian government hacked the DNC and/or Podesta, but it also seems plausible that many state and individual actors may have done the same.

I need to see proof that the Russian government did the hacking, then I need to see proof that the Russian government in particular passed the data along to Wikileaks, and once those two conditions are satisfied, then I will offer my sincere gratitude to the Russian government for exposing illegal behavior on the part of the Clinton campaign and the Clintons themselves :)

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#63

Post by stefantalpalaru »

dragonwriter wrote: post #5
rkcf wrote: post #2

Before the GRIZZLY STEPPE report I found myself asking where the proof for the insinuations of a Russian hack to influence the US elections was. I still ask that question after the report was released. I find it completely plausible. However, given the turbulence and hyper-partisanship of this election cycle, I need a bit more than 'It was the Russians because we say so'.

It was first attributed to the Russians by CrowdStrike. I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership.

> I have yet to see any even remote indication of partisanship, especially pro-Democratic partisanship by CrowdStrike or its ownership.

Maybe you missed the part where they were hired by the DNC or the part where the ownership is not from the reality-based community: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/dmitri-alp...

But the biggest indicator is their attribution based on internally coherent narratives instead of facts - that's not how actual digital forensic experts operate.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#64

Post by unclebucknasty »

sergers wrote: post #11
cyberpunk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this whole thing kind of baffling... We (UK+US) have been doing this shit for years and much, much more obviously.. It's clearly an outrage though. Influencing the outcome of another countries election is america's job! How dare those pesky russians have an interest in getting a pro-ru govt installed in the US.... I mean, it's totally different to what we've been doing for decades elsewhere... Right...

Exactly what I was thinking... While I know it's leaning to one side and highly opinionated, I was watching Oliver Stone's untold history of the United states, right after the election. I actually felt some anger and disgust into how US has influenced other nations and their own "democratic process" since it's beginning...

Not sure why that means we should be OK with the current situation though. That logic is along the lines of "The U.S. has done some imperialistic stuff. Nazi Germany did some imperialistic stuff. Let's call it a draw."

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#65

Post by thomasdub »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #16
dragonwriter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democrats lost everything in this elections, they could just blame Russia, why not? It was attributed to Russians first before the election, and by a private cybersecurity that has never, AFAIK -- even since the attribution -- been accused of Democratic partisanship. So the idea that the Russians are being blamed by the Democrats because the Democrats lost everything in the election, while a convenient political na…

Did that private security publish any proof?

What sort of proof are you looking for?

If you're looking for firewall logs or hard drives with definitive proof that malware on certain machines was linking back to particular servers then you're out of luck. However Crowdstrike, the firm that the DNC used to investigate the intrusion, published a report that shows some of the code used and other IOCs from the attack [0].

A security firm like Crowdstrike would have lots of familiarity with these APT groups from previous investigations, so when they identify these groups they have evidence (i.e. they found specific malware or tools that are known to have been used in previous attacks, connections to or from known bad domains, IP addresses etc.) that links the attacks to these groups.

This, however, doesn't prove that APT 28 and 29 are Russian, but if you search for information about these groups, their Tools Techniques and Procedures (TTPs), who they have targeted etc. you can draw your own conclusions.

Note, this was long before the election and before there was politics surrounding the attribution. However this data is only about the intrusion into the DNC's network, and not necessarily linked to the release of personal emails of Podesta & co.

[0] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#66

Post by extra88 »

nailer wrote: post #58
extra88 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "just like" that because people in the Bush administration were pressuring the CIA to say the thinnest of evidence proved he had WMDs and was trying to get nukes then repeated the claim again and again. Cut to 2016 where none of the intelligence branches claim Russians "hacked the election," they claim they hacked the DNC and other political organizations for political ends. There's no evidence that anyone i…

It's being used as a shield for the DNC leaks (eg, make the issue that the leak happened, rather than e.g. that the government deliberately played down the Benghazi attacks, DNC had already chosen Hillary as the nominee and was working to undermine Sanders), and to delegitamise the new administration, in the same way Iraq WMD was being used as an excuse to build the US's position in the Middle East.

Those are not analogous at all.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#67

Post by curt15 »

Inconel wrote: post #38
akhilcacharya wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party Because the crime of breaking in is far more disturbing than what was found, given that even the "victim" brushed it off? If you ask people what the worst part of the emails was, they point to out-of-context blurbs that are either common practices or misleading. I have legitimate cause for concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intellig…

>concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary I dislike Trump for many reasons but, based on the track record of the US intelligence community over the course of the last 10-15 years, if he approaches the intelligence briefings that are fed to him with the same skepticism that he has displayed for climate science, I can only see that as a positive.

Do we want him to brush off the next "Bin Laden determined to strike US" intelligence reports? Let's not forget that the Iraq WMD fiasco was due in large part to Bush being fixated on hitting Iraq even before 9/11 happened and putting his thumb on the whole intelligence process. Obama on the other hand has demonstrated no such predispositions toward confronting Russia and was even criticized by the GOP earlier in his presidency for being too friendly toward them (the US already tried a "reset" with Russia not too long ago).

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#68

Post by manquer »

santoriv wrote: post #24
hartator wrote: post #18

Assange repeatably - and again tonight - said he was sure it wasn't Russia. I think it's worth something to consider the main visible actor opinion.

I have the same level of skepticism towards Assange that I do for the US intelligence community, but for different reasons. If Assange received a email dump from a source, how could he possibly know with absolute certainty that the Russian government didn't have any involvement? The only thing I can think of is if he or one of his very trusted associates executed the attacks themselves. Isn't it possible that the Rus…

well if it was say leaked by an insider , he will know it is definitely not russian ? Ofcourse there maybe "russians" in the DNC ...

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#69

Post by krapp »

Inconel wrote: post #38
akhilcacharya wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while ignoring the wide spread corruption in their party Because the crime of breaking in is far more disturbing than what was found, given that even the "victim" brushed it off? If you ask people what the worst part of the emails was, they point to out-of-context blurbs that are either common practices or misleading. I have legitimate cause for concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intellig…

>concern when the President to be inaugurated does not believe intelligence about an American adversary I dislike Trump for many reasons but, based on the track record of the US intelligence community over the course of the last 10-15 years, if he approaches the intelligence briefings that are fed to him with the same skepticism that he has displayed for climate science, I can only see that as a positive.

> if he approaches the intelligence briefings that are fed to him with the same skepticism that he has displayed for climate science, I can only see that as a positive.

A skeptic would at least concede the possibility that there is some truth to climate science, despite the political machinations around it, and actually consider the evidence on its own terms. Trump appears to believe the entire thing is a Chinese conspiracy to harm American business. That's not skepticism, it's just denial.

Re: Dear Obama, from Infosec

#70

Post by edblarney »

santoriv wrote: post #22
nl wrote: post #12

Bloody Hell. I find it very frustrating that intelligent people don't seem to follow through their thought process here. The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("W…

> The intelligence community will never be able to release enough information to satisfy people. The information will either be so non-specific as to be useless ("we had spies who told us" - would anyone here believe that anymore than they do now?), or so specific it will damage ongoing interests ("We have communication intercepts between the hacking groups and the GRU/FSB, and there they are, and here is how we got…

"To a large degree, this comes down to an issue of trust."

The other major issue was that it was in the context of a political campaign, and one side could claim the other was doing whatever for political reasons.

I think outside of Trump v. Clinton, it might have had more credibility in terms of perception.

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