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Guccifer 2.0: DNC's servers hacked by a lone hacker
- r721 10y agoMedia stories: http://gawker.com/this-looks-like-the-dncs-hacked-trump-oppo-file-1782040426 http://gawker.com/this-looks-like-the-dncs-hacked-trump-oppo... http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/dnc-hacker-leaks-trump-oppo-report-647293 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/dnc-hacker-leak...
- r721 10y agohttps://motherboard.vice.com/read/guccifer-20-is-likely-a-russian-government-attempt-to-cover-up-their-own-hack https://motherboard.vice.com/read/guccifer-20-is-likely-a-ru...
- Jerry2 10y agoThe media (and CrowdStrike) blame Russians for it [0]. Heh... yet this blog and the hacker himself, says he did it alone. I guess it's easier to forgive incompetence if you blame the attack on some huge, powerful, resourceful, state-funded opponent. That's why every hacking report of some big organization or company today lays the blame on APTs, China, Russia, NORKs and so on. Management is off the hook since they don't have to admit that they were hacked by some kid and the security company gets the prestige of 'fighting and outsmarting a state actor'. And everyone's job is more or less safe. Other companies and CIO/CSOs now know that 'Sec Company X' will cover their ass by shifting the blame on some huge entity. Company lawyers are also happy because the liability of such attacks will be less. And the cycle continues. Guccifer, for example, didn't even know how to program and he used his phone to hack [1]. Yes, APTs definitely do happen but I'd bet they happen a lot less frequently than the media and security companies would want us to believe. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer#Computer_hacking_activities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer#Computer_hacking_acti...
- slg 10y agoIf it was China or Russia and they planned to release the information, they wouldn't want anyone to acknowledge their connection to the hacker. Not saying it was them behind this, just that the hacker could have just as much motive to lie about it.
- r721 10y agoThere were also talks recently that "NATO may counter cyber attacks with conventional weapons" [1], so hypothetical nation-state attackers would want to downplay their involvement. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-nato-idUSKCN0Z12NE http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-nato-idUSKCN0Z12NE
- nraynaud 10y agoI am sensing bullshit, I'm pretty sure a lot of countries in NATO wouldn't want to do that, and if a NATO country attacks first (or a country doesn't interprets a cyber attack as an actual attack), the alliance doesn't hold.
- maxerickson 10y agoSimple possible explanation: lots of people hacked the DNC servers.
- fab13n 10y agoIndeed, filthy metaphors about doing semen forensics analysis in a whorehouse come to mind :-)
- akhilcacharya 10y agoI don't see why a state actor (one that ostensibly wants him to become president) would reveal that it was responsible.
- sverige 10y agoAfter the email fkup, it's not hard at all to believe that the DNC's servers are still insecure. I mean, the people that HRC hired to set up her server were introduced via the party machine.
- supergirl 10y agomedia made it sound all but official that Russia hacked them. of course no one ever publishes any proof for these sort of claims.
- 1024core 10y agoWhat's that saying again? Never attribute to malice which can be adequately explained by incompetence?
- snoman 10y agoHanlon's Razor
- r00fus 10y agoI counter with gray's law [1] "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." It's pretty clear that the DNC needs a huge shakeup. DWS is a blathering joke. [1] http://joshuabrauer.com/2007/07/grays-law http://joshuabrauer.com/2007/07/grays-law
- bloaf 10y agoIt is, of course, possible that multiple parties hacked the servers independently of each other.
- akhilcacharya 10y agoOr that this person is lying or a confederate.
- 21 10y agoAnother interesting theory: The Trump campaign alleges that the DNC hacked itself https://twitter.com/JTSantucci/status/743194156739108865/photo/1 https://twitter.com/JTSantucci/status/743194156739108865/pho...
- rhizome 10y agoI'm not sure that's a reasonable interpretation. Is there a such thing as Occam's Taser?
- MichaelGG 10y agoI took a quick read through the so-called "Opposition Playbook". It's just quotes from news articles and stories about Trump. There's no actual guidance or anything internal-looking from what I saw. The huge "CONFIDENTIAL" watermark also seems a bit out of place.
- huac 10y agomost likely answer: DNC sucks at oppo (the best insult they could come up with for trump was 'dangerous donald', i mean seriously)
- venomsnake 10y agoWhen I first heard it - I thought it was a compliment. Or the next spin off from Serious Sam.
- daveguy 10y agoMost likely answer: They don't need anything except Trump's own words and public news segments about what Trump does on a regular basis in order to make him look batshit crazy and unfit to be president.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- huac 10y ago
- 0xCMP 10y agoIf/when wikileaks begins to talk then we'll know if it was a legit leak. The docs listed aren't the full dump, just "proof" that there is more.
- eli 10y agoWikileaks is hardly a reliable and impartial third party.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoCorrect but if it happens it'll likely contain enough data to better verify its origin.
- dr_hooo 10y agoGenuinely curious: have WL released unreliable information in the past?
- jayess 10y agoTheir collateral murder video that claimed to show photographers being killed but ignored or edited out the frames showing someone with an RPG and an AK47 in the same group.
- linkregister 10y agoThis fact is rarely mentioned. Thanks for bringing it up. This editing was not done by Chelsea; she submitted the information as-is. It was indeed WL / Assange who edited the video.
- EdHominem 10y agoNo, the edited video had all the critical details. And, unlike any other journalists, they released the unedited video as well.
- poozer305 10y ago"Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton ... but he certainly wasn't the last."
- exabrial 10y agouh...
- yanilkr 10y agoIf Guccifer 2.0 writes a blog about "My first 10 minutes on a server" It would be a great read and we would know he reads hacker news.
- rhema 10y agoSeems like the DNC does not have a great track record on computer security. The Sanders campaign filed suit on the DNC. Both Sanders and Clinton may have been able to access each others files. According to CNN, Wasserman Schultz said: "[The Sanders staff] not only viewed it, but they exported it and they downloaded it... We don't know the depth of what they actually viewed and downloaded. We have to make sure that they did not manipulate the information... That is just like if you walked into someone's home when the door was unlocked and took things that don't belong to you in order to use them for your own benefit. That's inappropriate. Unacceptable." Maybe you shouldn't leave your front door open. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-dnc-suspension/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/politics/bernie-sanders-campai... .
- oasisbob 10y agoIn that breach, the DNC wasn't the custodian of the data. A shared private vendor used by democratic candidates was. The causes of the two issues are quite different - in one, an application doesn't have sufficient internal controls to ensure isolated multi-tenancy. The other is a breech by a malicious outsider.
- soared 10y agoThe x.wordpress.com domain made me smile, is there a history of hackers using one-off free/hosted blogs for releases like this? It goes against every one of my marketing bones, but it is so dam cool.
- djcapelis 10y agoYes. A deep history. Paying for a blog is a really bad way to drop documents onto the Internet and stay anonymous.
- soared 10y agoI'd seen pastebin and some others, just not wordpress.com Makes sense.
- jsnk 10y agotumblr, wordpress, blogspot and pastebin are frequent spots for hackers to share their findings. This isn't out of ordinary.
- i336_ 10y agoOn that note, I'm quite surprised this hasn't been yanked. Depending on externally-controlled services for info like this is a bit scary. But then there are probably 100 backups of the page and info by now so...
- dinger 10y agoVery interesting thread about this here: https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/743179750064037888 https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/74317975006403788... Looks like it may still be Russia
- ianhawes 10y agoIt is entirely likely that the hacker is Russian, but state sponsored is a huge stretch. I don't think that this was a pro-Trump hack either. Opposition research isn't anything new/groundbreaking. It's merely a writeup for quick reference when planning new content, polling, or debate prep. In 2016, this sort of information would be better suited in a wiki-format, but alas a mega-doc will suffice. Leaking it doesn't put the DNC at a disadvantage since this is all public information.
- peteretep 10y ago> but state sponsored is a > huge stretch Why?
- ianhawes 10y agoI very much doubt that a hacker hired by the Russian government would go and create a WordPress and dump documents.
- ceejayoz 10y agoWouldn't that be a good way to make it look like there wasn't Russian government involvement, then?
- rbanffy 10y agoWhat if the purpose is leaking documents relatively benign on Trump and secret DoS documents that shouldn't ever be on a CNC server that demonstrate Hillary did not safeguard those documents responsibly? What if they want to dissociate the hack from any state-sponsored group? The hack was discovered and the access was cut. Any documents of strategic value has long been read. Why not leak?
- dpweb 10y agoThat playbook is weak. Real research would be a lot more explosive than that. How could one prove it? Describe the hack in detail in a message and sign it with a key?
- jsnk 10y agoI'm thinking the same thing. Is this really all they got against Trump? This way too benign, and none of these are some dark secrets.
- bbarn 10y agoOr, it's all they can admit publicly to having. (which makes sense in a play book)
- spacecowboy_lon 10y agoThe really juciy secrets would be kept offline I think
- meowface 10y agoAfter reading through everything Gawker published, I now realize Trump might actually have a serious chance at winning the election.
- tptacek 10y agoI will reprise a comment from yesterday: The only thing interesting about this story is that whoever did it "got caught". Sort of. Maybe. Is there anyone here who really believes that every major campaign organization since, say, 2004 hasn't been completely owned up? What, you think the people that build the software and IT environments for campaigns --- sites that by design have millions of users with persistent accounts, and thousands of staff members at varying levels of privilege --- are the creme de la creme of software security talent? Because, sure, I mean, everyone I know in software security and pentesting tells me "my first career choice is to go work in IT for the DNC and the GOP", but somehow along the way Google manages after a mighty struggle to outbid the 70k/year cost-center IT organizations offer for security talent. If there was any interesting "oppo research" on McCain in the DNC servers during the '08 election, I will bet all the money in my pocket versus all the money in yours that the Chinese read all of it long before everyone on the official CC list did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903136
- yepnopemaybe 10y agoIt is also interesting because Charles Koch is listed as a donor to Obama... scratching my head there.
- yarou 10y agoA puppeteer can also be a ventriloquist.
- thatseffedup 10y agoDumb ass. The president is not a mouth piece for Charles Koch.
- RankingMember 10y agoSome recent interviews I heard made the Kochs seem less exclusively-Republican than I had previously thought. They're reportedly staying largely out of the 2016 election now that Donald Trump is the nominee. They're now an NPR sponsor too, which definitely caught me off-guard. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/the_koch_brothers_were_supposed_to_buy_the_2016_election_what_happened.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
- SlipperySlope 10y agoI read the convincing CrowdStrike detailed and technical description of how the DNC server got hacked. CrowdStrike saw the tracks of two known Russian groups. The published documents to me look real. The SECRET document from the State Department had the obviously secret item that the USA will not nuke terrorist training camps nor hideouts in Pakistan. Official US policy is that all tools are on the table. Question is how did the SECRET document get on to the DNC server? Regarding Guccifer 2.0, I believe this is Russia's obfuscation of their release of these damaging documents. They want to help Trump, but must not admit it for fear that Obama takes action now, Hillary takes action if she is elected, or even if Trump wins - Russians helping him might actually hurt him given the foreign interference in USA elections.
- capitalsigma 10y agoWhat damage? These are pretty positive documents, they all look like pretty good things to me.
- pejoculant 10y agoThose don't look like actual classification markings, which are required to appear at both the top and bottom of pages. It seems more likely that those are some internal Democratic party markings. Also the fact that the documents seem to be talking about the first 100 days in the future tense would point to them being planning documents produced by people in the party.
- linkregister 10y agoThat isn't a U.S. government classification marking. This is just a document that has the word "secret" in the header. 1. There are no dissemination controls present in the banner, e.g. SECRET//NOFORN. 2. None of the paragraphs are portion-marked e.g. (S) or (U). 3. There is no classification authority or date in the footer.
- jjawssd 10y agoGuccifer 2.0 is a psyop pumped by the DNC
- chollida1 10y agoDid they just out Jim Simmons of Renaissance technologies as donating $5,000,000 to the democrats? Robert Mercer won't be happy:) https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/06/a-hedge-fund-house-divided-renaissance-technologies/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/06/a-hedge-fund-house-... David Shaw of D.E. Shaw fame is there as well.
- fiiiauuush 10y agoBankers love the Democratic party. Why wouldn't they? Bill Clinton ensured derivatives would never get regulated in the same way stocks and bonds are.
- 235337 10y agoI love how easy attribution is now a days! They use multiple Virtual Machines and and English and Russian fonts, must be Russian. I also love how both sides instantly blamed the other. Obviously trump hacked the DNC and then released its oppo research (on him) to hurt Hillary. Either they removed all the bad stuff, or wanted to release it all at once and force the attribution to Hillary. or Obviously Hillary Hacked the DNC and released the oppo research on trump to cause an easy document dump and get media attention on all her weak oppo research No Expert's Opinion or Confirmation Bias going on today. Edit: It is totally possible some extra "secret" attribution is going on by bigger entities.
- yepnopemaybe 10y agoAmong the files made public is one named ‘big-donors-list’/ Under a tab named ‘Not Met With’ and a heading called ‘Obama Billionaires’ appears the name “Charles Koch”. Obviously, this may indicate that Koch raised funds for Obama in some capacity and that Clinton would like to reprise that relationship. Obviously, that makes no sense.
- encoderer 10y agoIs the Koch that gave cash to pbs more liberal?
- exabrial 10y ago2016: Giant meteor hitting the Trump vs Hilary debate and wiping out them and their fervent supporters is our only chance of surviving.
- duiker101 10y agoI am sorry if this is a stupid question but why does anyone care if it's Russia, China or a lone US hacker? What's the point of discussing that over the content of this documents?
- linkregister 10y agoI think it's a good question. Clearly the content of the documents should matter the most. However, whoever leaked it has an agenda. If it's a lone hacker, it's most likely for the lulz. If it's a foreign country actor, we should keep their intentions in context. I personally think it was for the lulz and this was a lone hacker.
- yompers888 10y agoThe understanding of 'why' and 'how' changes entirely depending upon the size of the operation that did this. If it'a a lone hacker, the 'why' is pretty much lost, and the 'how' becomes very embarrassing, because individuals don't have the same access to development resources and zero-days as APT types. On the other hand, if it's an APT, we should assume substantial political scheming (because a for-profit outfit wouldn't do this.) In that case, it would be interesting to know, for example, if this is a Chinese or Russian priority to the extent required for a serious operation to be undertaken. I'm guessing people jumped on that angle because (a) this is a tech-oriented site; and (b) no one commenting has yet taken the considerable time needed to read that huge document.
- ghshephard 10y agoThese documents are 8+ years old. The National Security document is from 2008. Talks about Don't ask, Don't tell. Discusses Reversing a bunch of Bush Doctrine. Repealing don't ask/don't tell. And is focussed on Obama first 100 days, Not hilary.
- vmp 10y agoOT: HN posts are starting to resemble "fake news" in the game Uplink. [1] :) [1] http://i.imgur.com/FeFPcwj.png http://i.imgur.com/FeFPcwj.png
- SixSigma 10y agoFalse flag to offset the email server lies.
- mungoid 10y agoRussia does not have America's best intrest in mind so if they did secretly do this to help Trump, that's more of a reason to NOT vote for him
- pbreit 10y agoSo is there anything interesting here?
- callesgg 10y agoStuff is always hacked by one person. If that person works for some sort of organization does not really alter the "hack".
- yompers888 10y agoThis is a bizarre position. Do you consider all the prep work to be unimportant. Or are you just saying this for the sake of pointing out a misleading technicality?
- callesgg 10y agoBizarre from your perspective apparently. Don't know what "prep work" you are talking about? "Or are you just saying this for the sake of pointing out a misleading technicality?" no.