21 ms·

U.S. government accuses Russia of hacking campaign to influence elections

168 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

grandalf 10y ago
This is certainly one of the more peculiar incidents of late. It's been my impression that the US and Russia conduct various sorts of covert mischief such as this, but it's usually under the radar. "Hacking" an insecure email server configured by campaign volunteers or other non-technical people is not exactly what would qualify as a "state sponsored attack". (edit: if you disagree please explain why rather than simply downvoting)
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Actually this is a pretty clear sign of a state sponsored attack, most attacks including the ones that the US does are not technically sophisticated but they are executed near flawlessly with a very good operational methodology, the other aspect of state sponsored attacks is protection; even the criminal elements of the security/hacking community stays out of military and government networks usually unless they have a pretty strong patron they can run to, no one wants to experience rendition or a drone strike both of which are very real threats hackers that attack government networks face.
  - eloff 10y ago
    Really? Can you name one hacker targeted in a drone strike? I'm pretty sure that only happens in your mind.
    - X86BSD 10y ago
      Hillary wanted to drone Snowden. I don't think it's too far off you're going to see these batshit crazy political elities start droning anyone that opposes them.
      - ak4g 10y ago
        Snowden did no hacking.
    - WallowC_33 10y ago
      ISIS hackers were taken out with a drone strike last year.
    - devy 10y ago
      Assange, for one. Of course she declined (did not recall) and suggested it might have been a "joke". https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782906224937410562 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782906224937410562
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      http://www.wsj.com/articles/hacker-killed-by-drone-was-secret-weapon-1440718560 http://www.wsj.com/articles/hacker-killed-by-drone-was-secre...
      - eloff 10y ago
        Obviously ISIS hackers will get killed in drone strikes, that's a war. But nobody is going to drone strike a hacker in Russia, Germany, or the USA. Let's get real here.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > Actually this is a pretty clear sign of a state sponsored attack So are you saying that the Russian government either unintentionally left a trail (IOCs) on the server, or intentionally left a trail because it wanted to be detected? Or are you simply claiming that "Guccifer 2" is on the payroll of the Russian government? (or some combination of the above)...
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      I'm not saying it was Russia, I'm saying that anyone these days that hacks such a high profile target and then parades around and does show and tells has a sponsor. The fact that some of the leaked emails/information of from the "Guccifer" et al. hacks have also been tampered with in order to achieve a specific political goal also hints at a higher objective which isn't something one usually associates with cybercrime or even hacktivism. Criminals would steal, sell and run and hide (not that you could hide these days if you break into a US government network), hacktivists would not usually tamper with the information they release as it goes against their own philosophy.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        > have also been tampered with What tampering has occurred?
        dogma1138 10y ago
        The documents were edited, to what extent/purpose it is unknown. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36913000 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36913000 http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc-trump-research-has-a-russians-fingerprints-on-it/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc... The emails released in 2013 also show some signs of tampering, there were incidents of duplicate headers and the times of some of the emails were strange (mostly related to Benghazi ironically) this was a copy paste error but again no one knows to what extent the "content" if and was tampered with.
        10y ago
fingar 10y ago
Smaller countries are on the receiving end of advanced hacking for a long time. This one is about some old private server...
- empath75 10y ago
  I don't think it would be a major international incident or even be particularly unexpected for them to hack the rnc and dns and anything else they could get their hands on. In fact, they'd be failing at their jobs if they weren't trying their hardest to do that. The problem is that they released the data. And they are fairly blatantly attempting to tip the scales in an ongoing election. That's not something that the US can politely ignore. It threatens the entire political system of the US.
dogma1138 10y ago
The US tampers with elections openly all over the world including in the election of so called allies. This isn't a jab at the US just a simple fact, swaying the local political opinions of both your allies and your enemies is a pretty standard practice in geopolitics and diplomacy.
- empath75 10y ago
  Right. We shouldn't pretend that the US doesn't do this to other countries. What happened in the Ukraine, for example, almost certainly wasn't an organically grown domestic insurrection. That was nurtured by NGOs and foreign intelligence agencies. Nonetheless-- it's one thing when the superpowers do that to smaller countries, and another, far more dangerous thing when they start doing it to each other. We're in uncharted territory here. As you saw in the Ukraine (and Syria, and Egypt, and so on and so forth), when the political system fails, you have violence, and the US isn't going to stand by and watch Russia destroy the integrity of our elections. And our means for retaliating are untested, and the risk of escalation is pretty high.
  - Mikeb85 10y ago
    > What happened in the Ukraine, for example, almost certainly wasn't an organically grown domestic insurrection. That was nurtured by NGOs and foreign intelligence agencies. And it happened twice I might add... > and the US isn't going to stand by and watch Russia destroy the integrity of our elections To be fair, exposing the corruption of one of the major parties isn't exactly going to 'destroy the integrity' of your political system. If anything he's doing you guys a favour. Also, the US has been trying to manipulate elections in Russia for years. It hasn't worked yet because all the opposition to Putin are a bunch of clowns, and because enough Russians still remember the 90's.
    - empath75 10y ago
      They're hacking into election systems as well, not just the DNC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-investigating-foreign-hacks-of-state-election-systems/2016/08/29/6e758ff4-6e00-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-i...
api 10y ago
Russia has a fairly well known "troll brigade" as well. Search a bit about Russia's army of Internet trolls and propagandists. It's interesting. Of course I'm sure the USA does a fair bit of this stuff as well. Every major nation does propaganda.
empath75 10y ago
It's not news that Russia is doing this. It is news that the government is officially accusing them of it. There are going to be geopolitical and diplomatic repercussions from this.
- joering2 10y ago
  okay but but whom? geopolitical and diplomatic repercussions by Russians or Americans? In case Americans... is there anything America can do to them to make them feel the heat? I mean you talking about the country that was in a deep poverty for decades but still praised and loved their dictator... That mentality won't change.
  - empath75 10y ago
    If we're going to move toward open cyberwarfare, we could do a lot to their network infrastructure.
    - rfrank 10y ago
      And they could do a lot with our power grid. Probably not a wise path to move down.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    Without nukes I'm fairly confident that the US and Russian governments have their own hackers buried so deep in eachothers SCADA style systems they could wreak havoc if ordered to do so. Think things like energy grids, dams, financial markets, etc.
  - redwards510 10y ago
    It would be counter-productive to escalate this issue in the cyberwarfare arena. We'd just do what we always do, punish them financially with sanctions and by continuing to push fracking so that the price of oil stays low.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
runesoerensen 10y ago
Press release (with the joint DHS and ODNI statement referenced in the article): https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...
jwtadvice 10y ago
The US itself has become slightly less shy recently about it's efforts to manipulate elections. With high likelihood, direct criticism back and forth between these two superpowers is likely to inform those in smaller countries that their votes are subject - as they have been for a long time - both domestic and foreign manipulation, some of it very clever and very deniable. In this case it should be introduced as a concept in civics courses that as an individual your vote is not 'your own' and an expression of your personal thoughts, but that your vote is a commodity that other people are trying, covertly, to convince you to spend certain ways. Civics courses would do well to train citizens not to believe their own states, not to believe major news outlets, and to otherwise vote when they feel they've come to be able to identify the discrete manipulative narratives coming from various political information warfare centers.
- zekevermillion 10y ago
  Even if attribution of these attacks to Russia is correct, I think it is fair to say that such poorly concealed covert efforts would be Keystone Kops compared to the color revolutions. And no doubt were the US to promote a color revolution somewhere in the world today, cracking local systems would be part of that effort.
- micaksica 10y ago
  An aside: I've come to the conclusion that 1) we end up in the same threads, and 2) we almost consistently agree on these issues. > Civics courses would do well to train citizens not to believe their own states, not to believe major news outlets, and to otherwise vote when they feel they've come to be able to identify the discrete manipulative narratives coming from various political information warfare centers. Never will this happen in public educational institutions. There is too much risk, and Civics courses generally glorify American history and then explain that the current electoral system works just the same as it did with the founding fathers, and that it has scaled miraculously with the country's population, demographics and wealth. A "realistic" Civics class would likely serve to alienate young voters, lead to yet more political apathy, or, in the case of the really angsty, lead to situations of civil unrest.
aaron-lebo 10y ago
This is silly. Check out the two major "targets": Clinton's emails and the DNC. Read about how the Clinton server was "secured" (hint: comically). Read about how the DNC has been getting hacked: very simple phishing scams. Everything about the DNC screams shoddy. Why haven't the Republicans been hacked? This isn't a question about politics, its that the DNC clearly has some operational problems. No, what this really is is an information campaign that both countries are playing against each other. You've got Crimea, Syria, other hotspots. Check out Trump's rhetoric: he admires Putin, he clearly doesn't want war. Check out Clinton's rhetoric: conflict. Donald Trump being a racist Neville Chamberlain should make no one excited, but the neoliberal part of the Democratic party (which is clearly ascendant and has been for some time like the neoconservatives) doesn't like getting bullied in retaliation for being a bully.
- ak4g 10y ago
  What's silly is saying oh, since I read some stuff online about how crappy the DNC security is, I should probably chalk it up to some unknown actor for some vauge hand-wavy reasons instead of taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value. Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? Why would you do anything other than take allegations of yet another Kremlin attempt to interfere in fair elections as seriously as the people of Europe and Ukraine have learned, the hard way, that they must?
  - dxhdr 10y ago
    > taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value Frankly, it's hard to do that in a post-Snowden, post-Comey world.
    - ak4g 10y ago
      Then use your critical thinking. I'll repeat the question: > Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?
timetoswitch 10y ago
Hillary trying to start World War 3.
shireboy 10y ago
Am I the only one who would like to see cold hard evidence for these claims? I want server logs, ip traces, intercepts, or some proof besides just "intelligence says".
- X86BSD 10y ago
  You will never see it. The US never provides proof. Only "Intel sources say" and rumors.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > You will never see it. The US never provides proof. Only "Intel sources say" and rumors. That's not entirely true, though the only time the US Executive Branch will provide the backing for its intelligence conclusions is if it needs to in order to convince some other entity in order to motivate that entity to take action; the public is rarely an entity which it must approach this way (and, when it must approach Congress or US Courts, there are procedures to keep intelligence material from the public, which are often, but not always, used; some information may come out this way, though), and occasionally the public will also receive some of the evidence incidentally to the US government presentation to some other entity, like the UN Security Council.
- redwards510 10y ago
  I would too, but consider what you are asking for. Text logs. Easily fakeable text logs. If they provided an excel spreadsheet with a bunch of Russian IPs on it, what do you really do with that? In this case they are just saying "look, you'll just have to trust us on this one.." I firmly believe that in many of these attribution cases there is a lot of top secret source discovery methods they cannot mention, like sniffers on routers, or implants on the actual computer used to send the message. EDIT: Additionally, it's pretty unlikely that you'd see a Russian IP address and be like "Oh Russia did it". Instead, NSA would have a list of IPs known to be compromised by Russian actors. If they shared that list with the public, it would not help clear things up for us, because we don't know the history of the traffic coming from that compromised box, it could be in another country and idiots would point and say "See! Not Russia!". And it would reveal to the Russians that we knew they owned that box. All bad things.
X86BSD 10y ago
The US? Seriously is this some kind of joke? The same US that has been assassinating leaders and overthrowing dictators for over 100 years is accusing someone else of interfering with an election? That's really a sign of mental illness on the part of the US.
- ommunist 10y ago
  Quite the contrary. This is superficial sanity, planting necessary ideas into mass consciousness. You cannot touch China, they are important trading partners, despite facts that chinese intelligence is writing files at US defence contractors at speed of hard drives there. You cannot touch Germany, otherwise this will jeopardise transatlantic treaties. Blame Russia, it cannot do anything, anyway.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > You cannot touch China [...] Blame Russia, it cannot do anything, anyway. Except, you know, the US government has not only also blamed China for state-sponsored cyberattacks, but actually gone further and indicted specific members of the PLA for those attacks.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    Russia can do plenty. Like fuckup the US's overthrow of Assad so they can build their precious nat gas line through Syria that Assad won't allow. Russia put a stop to that. Now it's down to how much blood is the US willing to spill in order to ensure Europe gets free of Russia's natgas hold on them.
    - ommunist 10y ago
      No one forces the EU to buy gas from Russia. Besides, the US successfully completed huge liquid gas terminal facility at its EU satellite - Lithuania, so there is an alternative supply since 2014.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
What's the evidence? Personally, I think the Russians were involved. But for consequences to follow, we as a culture need to be certain based the preponderance of the evidence.
andrewla 10y ago
From the underlying statement: > The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts I really hope that we have better evidence than this. The US intelligence community has made errors before, even in circumstances where they released considerably more information than this. Given that the attacks have been directed at a particular party, and that party is the one currently in power in the executive branch, establishing that the results of the investigation are truly objective should be a critical goal here, to prevent this press release itself being seen as an attempt to influence the election.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Exactly. I hope that additional detail is released. It's a pretty serious accusation to make. Also, I think it's worthwhile to draw the distinction between a state sponsored attack (as in Project Sauron) and state sponsored mischief (as in launching script kiddie style pen tests on unsecured systems). Obviously Russia is doing the first kind of attack, but what would be the strategic benefit of doing the latter but not covering up the tracks well enough to prevent this sort of accusation?
  - spiderxxxx 10y ago
    You're probably not going to see any additional details. If you have an intelligence asset on the inside, revealing the source can jeopardize that asset. For example, if they say that the CIA is funding a vpn provider in Moldova that revealed in its logs that the source is Russia, well that wouldn't be appropriate to the continued monitoring effort. You've burned your asset.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Ok, I don't dispute that, but why would the following happen: - The campaign led by a former secretary of state decides to essentially go rogue and start accusing a foreign government of election tampering. - The USG stays silent for a while and then rather than simply having a direct communication with Russia decides to issue an extremely vague public statement about the alleged cyber attacks.
ommunist 10y ago
Да, мы единственно не смогли хакнуть трансгуманистов.
gorbachev 10y ago
What sort of evidence do they have to back this? I've seen nothing discussed about that, anywhere. The only thing they seem to go with is that Guccifer2.0 links to Russia. To me this whole thing is based on nothing more than an educated guess.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > What sort of evidence do they have to back this? I've seen nothing discussed about that, anywhere. The attribution by CrowdStrike was discussed in the news (and on HN) previously. While the government may have additional evidence from intelligence sources beyond what CrowdStrike was looking at, it probably includes the same things at a minimum.
woodandsteel 10y ago
Seem plausible Russia would be doing this. Russian media, which is controlled by the Kremlin, has made clear it is completely against Clinton, and for Trump. We've got some Russian trollers here. Putin would like everyone to think he is just great, but he knows he can't do that. So he has his trollers tell everyone that all the Western countries are awful, so people will give up supporting anyone, and he will be free to go ahead unopposed. The reality is that the West, for all its many faults, is 10 times better than Putin's Russia. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.
- mlvljr 10y ago
  ..and not a critical-thinker! :D
andriesm 10y ago
Those evil Russians, and poor poor Debbie who dun notting wrong.... Except illegally conspiring against Bernie and thus having to step down. The article say she was "embarrassed" into stepping down. This article is clearly not biased at all.
rdtsc 10y ago
Are news like this a sign everyone is worried Trump might win so they are pulling all stops? What's next, Trump is a Russian agent planted years ago and now taking over the country. > The denunciation, made by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, Don't know about others, but I don't really have much faith in the "Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security". Somehow they let the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... hack happen, they are obviously incompetent even to protect our govt's data. I simply don't trust their "expert" opinion. It is also funny how there is not much talk about the things discovered in the email. All attention is drawn to the boogeyman. It mentions how Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign. I think it could have gotten a bit more in depth into what was embarrassing there... but that would not be playing according to the script probably.
- bsder 10y ago
  > What's next, Trump is a Russian agent planted years ago and now taking over the country. I suspect it's more a warning to Russia that the NSA are now watching the election systems and stand ready to intervene if they see something strange going on.
sounds 10y ago
No Diebold statement? They're still widely used and just as hackable. No need to sway the public opinion by releasing troves of party emails if you can just directly hack the vote itself!
andriesm 10y ago
"However, officials said those attempts could not be directly linked to the Russian government." Clearly this article is a hit job. But why?
- grandalf 10y ago
  It's very bizarre. My take so far is: - Russia's actual "state sponsored" capability would allow it to have hacked the server without being traced. - Thus if Russia did it, the trail was left intentionally. - Only if the "missing" emails contain a major smoking gun would it make sense for the HRC campaign to use this finger pointing as misdirection. - Only if some PR aim was beneficial would HRC's campaign have turned the hack's alleged origin into a campaign rallying cry, rather than letting the officials currently in office handle it through official channels. This point is strengthened by HRC's status as a former sec-of-state. Hypothesis 1: The HRC team is fully expecting an email to surface containing a smoking gun, and this is part of a preemptive misdirection strategy. Hypothesis 2: This is part of an ongoing misdirection strategy with the full knowledge that no smoking gun will emerge from any of the hacked/leaked information, intended to keep everyone occupied with intrigue and speculation to avoid settling on any other focal point that might harm the campaign. Hypothesis 3: Russia is doing a low-sophistication mischief campaign and has ineptly made itself a scapegoat and fomented outrage over this hacking which has become a rallying cry for HRC's campaign.
- adventured 10y ago
  They're upping the accusations now for at least two reasons that are convenient. The growing conflict between the US and Russia in Syria and the embarrassingly weak, flailing campaign of Hillary Clinton.
  - empath75 10y ago
    I'm not remotely a fan of hillary clinton, but she's currently blowing out Donald Trump in the polls (538 currently has her as a 4-1 favorite to win)
    - dmix 10y ago
ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
If the problem is people getting access to voter databases, it's really much ado about nothing, since many of those databases are already public, and besides you can pay a data warehousing company a few bucks and get much more data about any American than what exists in any election database. If the problem is actually the voting machines, then maybe we should go back to all paper ballots like many other western countries like Canada. Funny how the proven, reliable and simple solutions are never proposed...
- krapp 10y ago
  >If the problem is actually the voting machines, then maybe we should go back to all paper ballots like many other western countries like Canada. Problems with paper ballots in the 2000 election are a big reason the US no longer trusts them. No one wants to go back to the days of scrutinizing hanging chads and indistinct pencil marks. Electronic voting has obvious problems but at least you know what a vote is or isn't.
  - eric_the_read 10y ago
    If it's DRE, you don't actually have any idea what the vote is or isn't. With a paper trail in theory you can at least recount.
  - ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
    Ahh, right. A few old people misread those poorly designed ballots, therefore let's use a poorly secured system that is hackable by foreign governments. Or, we could design the ballots to not be confusing? It's funny how other western countries using paper ballots don't have these problems.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Yes, the actual solution is to have a /computer/ make the markings on a ballot, which is then reviewed by human eye, and turned in. Or mail in ballots and trusting that end users know how to fill out 'scantron' like forms from years of testing in public schools.
no_protocol 10y ago
> The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises Strong claim. What kind of evidence would an investigator need to see to make such a claim against a foreign nation? Would it be different than what is needed to make a claim against an individual citizen? I'm having a hard time taking this entire message seriously. It just feels like empty reassurance.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  tptacek addresses this elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663930
hackuser 10y ago
An important point in understanding Russia: Russia is not a superpower; it's a new situation, not the cold war. They are a sinking regional power with nuclear weapons, trying to find a cost-effective way to have some influence. In the cold war, the Soviet Union was far larger than Russia today: It included Ukraine, Belarus, the Central Asian states, Armenia and many others. And the states it dominated (part of the the Warsaw Pact) were much of Eastern and Central Europe, including half of Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, and more. Russia no longer controls those countries and many of the largest ones changed sides to NATO, greatly shifting the balance of power. Power flows from money and population: --- GDP/population 1977 (best I could find in a quick search):[0] * Warsaw Pact: $1.2 trillion / 366 million * NATO: $3.4 trillion / 563 million (I think that includes France, which was allied but not part of NATO). --- ~2016 [1] * Russia: $1.1 trillion / 144 million (and shrinking, afaik) * NATO (2014): $37.5 trillion / 906 million (and growing) * Spain: $1.7 trillion / 46 million * Germany: $3.8 trillion / 82 million * Canada: $1.4 trillion / 36 million * U.S.: $18.5 trillion / 325 million --- Russia cannot compete with NATO. Their economy is significantly smaller than Spain's and than Canada's - those nations could afford more powerful militaries than Russia's if they chose. [0] (PDF) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/cbo/77doc579.pdf http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/cbo/77... [1] Wikipedia
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  The size of Russia's military (especially the number of nuclear weapons) says that Russia is considerably more than a regional power. Sinking (that is, declining in influence/power)? I can go with that. Others (Canada/Spain) could have larger militaries than Russia if they choose? Great, but they don't choose to do that. Russia does. When the shooting starts, how much you could have spent on our military doesn't matter.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > When the shooting starts, how much you could have spent on our military doesn't matter. Agreed. However, NATO, and the U.S. in particular, still outspend Russia by a very wide margin. > The size of Russia's military From what I've read, they lack the capability or money to deploy more than small forces beyond their borders. Russia is poor, has serious economic problems, and wars are very expensive. Iraq cost the U.S. over a trillion dollars, IIRC. Everything they do is on the cheap, designed to maximize the appearance of strength: In Syria Russia sticks to the air, and we don't know how many missions (or at least I don't), how much it costs or for how long they can afford it. In Ukraine they used small amounts of special forces to seize Ukraine's southern peninsula, Crimea, and support insurgents mostly with equipment. They hide deaths of the any Russian troops in Ukraine, indicating that there may not be much public support for foreign deployments. > especially the number of nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons make a strong impression but are status symbols; in practice, they are almost unusable. They do prevent the invasion of Russia, but nobody was going to do that anyway except, as a long shot, China in the far east. Probably they do make the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria keep a distance from each other, to avoid unintentional conflict. Otherwise, they provide no influence; nobody worries that Russia will nuke them.
binarray2000 10y ago
Is WaPo still a credible medium after their "no pardon for Snowden"? Also, when will the US Oligarchy stop blaming everything on Russia. Sloppy server security? It's Russia. Private e-mail server used for government business? It's Russia.... Nearly 20 trillion dollar debt? It's Russia. OK, US Oligarchy needs an enemy for a new war. A war that would hide the fact that this neoliberal system is about to hit the wall. A war that would fill the troves of the military industrial complex. Says a "conspiracy theorist" George F. Kennan, former US ambassador to Moscow and distinguished Council on Foreign Relations member: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy." Good Night, and Good Luck.
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  >Is WaPo still a credible medium ... No but notice how even otherwise highly intelligent Americans collapse under the spell of 3-lette-agency propsganda. Its amazing!
  - binarray2000 10y ago
    This is why I sympathise with regular US American citizens, they are equally a victim as the rest of the world. Their soldiers are not bringing "freedom, democracy and human rights" but death and destruction. And they themselves come back home - some dead, many destroyed. And for what? Regarding US media being influenced by three-letter-agencies: Operation Mockingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird is alive and well.
tptacek 10y ago
I don't have anything to say about the geopolitical or moral importance of Russia hacking the US to influence elections. But I do have something to say about the attribution here: A very common sentiment on HN is that the US intelligence community has decided that Russia has a motive to hack the US, and spends money on offensive security, ergo "it was probably Russia". That is not how attribution works. Officials (and the firms they hire) are working with vastly more specific fact patterns than the news stories about these incidents convey. They are matching Russian means, motive, and opportunity at a far more precise level of detail than is commonly reported. The major attribution firms --- FireEye/Mandiant, Crowdstrike, &c --- have for years prior to these breaches been collecting huge volumes of information from a pretty significant fraction of the Global 2000, who deploy their tools as part of their anti-malware strategy. That's the entire idea behind Crowdstrike†: you deploy their agents, and they hoover up IOCs and malware samples from around the world and analyze them. These firms have been involved in thousands of compromises we've never heard of, and have staffed large teams of experts (both FireEye and Crowdstrike have gold-plated reputations in the infosec community) to analyze and develop signatures from that information. The DNC compromise is analyzed in terms of IOCs --- network traces of command and control channels, captured backdoor and malware samples, vulnerabilities employed, IP addresses of staging servers --- and those IOCs are matched to previous compromises. When DHS says they're working with a "high degree of certainty" about who's behind the compromise, they're saying that they've matched the compromise to a set of IOCs --- many of which are not public --- that are tied to previous known Russian compromises. That doesn't mean everyone involved here --- multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US --- couldn't be lying. It could all be a conspiracy. If it was, it would be the largest conspiracy ever carried out by the US government. But I guess that could be what happened! † Crowdstrike, by the way, is run by a conservative Republican.
- alasdair_ 10y ago
  >That doesn't mean everyone involved here --- multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US --- couldn't be lying. It could all be a conspiracy. If it was, it would be the largest conspiracy ever carried out by the US government. But I guess that could be what happened! I don't think it's as simple as that. When the case for war against Iraq was made, "multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US" all seemed to be in agreement that Iraq definitely had weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, they did not, what happened is that certain facts were overstated and repeated and certain other facts were ignored or downplayed. There is no reason to believe that this is any different because, again, there is a strong political gain for the current administration to have these facts be so. I agree completely that Russia may well be behind the attacks but given the fact that the people making the announcement also have the most to gain from the announcement, I am happy to remain unconvinced until I see more evidence.
whybroke 10y ago
An even more interesting problem is how HN will deal with 55 Savushkina Street
jwtadvice 10y ago
There are three superpower poles in the world. 1. The United States, as the primary hegemon. 2. Russia, which is still powerful but in 'wane' after containment and the costs of the Cold War. 3. China, the preliminary rising power on the world stage. These three powers have found cybertreaties between China and the US and China and Russia. But Russia and the United States have not yet found a good framework for cyberagreement. Is there a candidate or administration today in the United States that considers finding a cyber treaty between the US and Russia a priority? It seems to me, based on the past few decades of cyber war and the conversations and priorities inside of the beltway that the US considers it's cyberwar activities against the Russians more important than a cyber arms armistice. Given the US's superiority in cyberwarfare, total as it may not be, this recent surge in Russian modernization and activity looks a little bit like "complaining" and less like "moral acumen". The United States should consider drawing up stronger garuntees for Russia about it's cyberweaponization. Handled correctly, the results from superpower agreements could percolate down to Middle Powers, regional powers and third world nations to become a basis for global cyber norms and eventually a basis for international law. It seems to me that complaining and upping the ante, while it might theoretically lead to "peace through conquer", will work to undo any concept of cyber norms or international law.
- grandalf 10y ago
  This comment seems to assume you think Russia was responsible for the hacks/leaks... ?
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    I think the comment makes sense on its own, as it is a response not specifically about the specific recent accusations, but about the trends in both American and Russian cyberproliferation. I don't think the comment assumes that Russia was responsible for these specific hacks/leaks. I think it makes sense either way.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > I don't think the comment assumes that Russia was responsible for these specific hacks/leaks. I think it makes sense either way. Well, it does make sense as is, but I'm glad you clarified that it isn't intended to entail that you are convinced of the origin of the hacks/leaks.
micaksica 10y ago
I guess I don't see how dumping DNC databases as "Guccifer 2.0" is really doing much negative influencing if it is actually providing legitimate information and making the process more transparent to American voters. Isn't transparency into the political process a core part of what makes a democracy? The parties should want to be as open as possible, ideally. This feels like a deflection and a way to point the finger politically. If they're causing a denial of service on election day by taking out voter registration databases, rooting those shitty Diebold machines, etc., well, that's really influencing the election. If the Obama administration is going to complain to the public about Russia fucking with American elections, they should be just as willing to retaliate for it in some public manner; if that's diplomatic, so be it in the realm of the UN/ICJ. IMO the foreign policy strategy against Russia is spineless, and Russia/Putin takes advantage of it; see Crimean aggression, the Syrian "ceasefire", this Guccifer nonsense. I don't personally have a solution, but showing teeth at Putin doesn't really seem to hinder him. Sometimes you need to bite so people know you can and will make good on your threats.
- ZoF 10y ago
  I see a _lot_ of comments here describing these email leaks as 'facts' or 'not necessarily Russian propaganda'; you've completely missed the narrative here, allow me to correct the record. These emails were _illegally_ hacked! If you had a _shred_ of dignity you wouldn't even look at them. It should be illegal. If you take any of the information contained in those emails as 'evidence of wrong-doing' you're only playing right into Russia hands. This kind of deplorable meddling in another nation's election by leaking 'actual emails' is exactly what we need to be vigilant of. Such blatant targeting of the most transparent administration in history demands recourse!
  - zo1 10y ago
    With such heated topics, I struggle to detect sarcasm.
  - bsder 10y ago
    > These emails were _illegally_ hacked! If you had a _shred_ of dignity you wouldn't even look at them. It should be illegal. The bigger point is that you shouldn't regard them as credible without corroboration. It's very easy to make things up. We accept the truth of the Snowden documents because every time we can cross-check the information, it proves correct.
buckbova 10y ago
>"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities Perhaps. Russia and China have been "cyber attacking" my servers for years. Last server I set up for a friend I blocked both countries by IP range. I can imagine because the intensity of what's going on with this election, it has drawn out a more concerted effort from your typical misanthrope probing servers.
hackuser 10y ago
A big question is why government stays on the sidelines of cybercrime (and espionage). They said something here, but it's not usual, and what have they done about it? They don't seem to feel responsible for protecting IT assets like they do for older infrastructure: If someone was blowing up pipelines, it would be shocking if the U.S. government was so passive about it. The government needs to step forward and do its job of protecting citizens, including in cyberspace - hardly a minor consideration at this point. I've been thinking about it recently after reading this article: http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/10/04/risky-business-when-governments-dont-attribute-state-sponsored-cyberattacks/ http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/10/04/risky-business-when-go...
happytrails 10y ago
Trump reminds me of Kaiser Wilhelm.. Good luck America!
ge96 10y ago
They're trying to make sure Trump is the one so he brings down the country without Russia or other powers haha. - ignorant person speaking
saintwind 10y ago
But Clinton IS batshit insane, have you not been paying attention to wikileaks? CTR pls go.
- dmix 10y ago
  Clinton might be a war hawk but hardly 'insane'. She wouldn't have made it as far as she has without being smart. That being said, intelligence doesn't automatically translate to good decision making.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    She sure is smart in being a hypocrite : https://youtu.be/qcqh0gRy-og https://youtu.be/qcqh0gRy-og
    - jrockway 10y ago
      Your argument against her being President is that she laughed after deciding she didn't trust polygraphs?
      - ZoF 10y ago
        Well, that's a bit disingenuous. She's laughing about not trusting polygraphs anymore; ever since her client, who raped a 12 year old, took one and passed. Not saying I think it's a rational argument against her being president(it was her job after all), but it is an emotional one that speaks to her character.
        hackinthebochs 10y ago
        No it doesn't, but thanks for playing.
        ZoF 10y ago
        Stay delusional, I'll keep sharing the video :)
doener 10y ago
Joint DHS and ODNI Election Security Statement https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.scribblelive.com/2016/10/7/1416970_3941564435a2d4e5-8e38-47c0-9c21-346a56b59865.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.scribblelive.com/2016/10/7/14...
guelo 10y ago
It's so annoying how journalists refuse to link to the source documents they are reporting on. Here it is, https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-pr... Not that it contains that much information. I would have liked to see a more technical breakdown of their reasoning.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It saddens me that this is the meat of the story and it's halfway down the page right now. Have an upvote.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
I like to trust things my government says, but I have doubts about this for two reasons. The administration is pulling out all the stops to help Clinton get elected and she is a hawk vs. Russia and Trump is probably less so. Also, I do't really know for sure, but I think the Russia and China are most interested in growing the Eurasia economy in the direction they want, and in the USA we are putting most effort into maintaining our sole super power status. Maybe I am not critical enough, but I think that USA, Russia, and China are all doing the right things to look out for their own self interest. It all seems to make sense.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I like to trust things my government says, but I have doubts about this for two reasons. The administration is pulling out all the stops to help Clinton get elected and she is a hawk vs. Russia and Trump is probably less so. The first of these reasons is arguably a statement of a reason to be skeptical about this statement, but the second is simply a statement of one plausible motivation for the Russians to do exactly what the government is alleging that they have done.
- NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  I agree most countries do what is in their own interest, at least as they perceive it. I'm sure they considered whether they should wait a month for the election to be over, but this is serious business. I don't think the us govt hacked the dnc. We need to do something to discourage this. I don't think we can do much or anything though.
droithomme 10y ago
This is as credible and evidence based from reliable sources as the statements that Iraq had WMDs and was connected to 9/11.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
Although I'm a citizen and resident of the US, I can't help but smirk when government officials are outraged and shocked that another nation state is trying to influence our electoral process. Question for someone more informed than I: With the Citizens United ruling, what's to stop another country from pumping money into US elections?
- int_19h 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...
maxander 10y ago
> Jason Healey, a senior research scholar on cyber issues at Columbia University, said the Pentagon’s Cyber Command should disrupt Russian hacking operations. “Go after their command and control,” he said. “ ‘Counteroffensive’ is the key word here.” Oh lovely- get back at them with their own medicine, normalizing a continuous cyberwar in nominal peacetime. Its great- as fun and lucrative as regular warfare, except without all those issues with optics because no one understands all this cyberbusiness regardless. Want to be rich in ten years? Throw a pile of CS grads together to start up a cyberwarfare consulting company, and you can still carve out your slice of the new military-industrial complex.
knodi 10y ago
I can't believe i'm read so many commenters here say that the government is lying that is Russia. Think about it why would Americans officials lie about this and its not just the US government (now) saying its Russia but independent security groups have been saying this too. I know its hard to believe in post Snowden America that everything the government says is a lie but it just doesn't make sense for use to point the finger at another country for this. Depending on the out come of this election Russia could be in a world of hurt.
mbfg 10y ago
translate: US government diverts attention away from new wikileaks dump of clinton emails.
skolos 10y ago
Discussion of any topic that mentions Russia (everywhere, including HN) is, unfortunately, dominated by Russian propaganda trolls.
- ting_bu_dung 10y ago
  easy, hacker news should block IPs originating from Russia and China. they're mostly just state sponsored posters anyways
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sctb 10y ago
    Please don't make baseless accusations like this on HN.
barpet 10y ago
Whoever glorifies Russia has obviously never lived in its shadows.
malandrew 10y ago
What I don't get is how the Obama administration thinks it can point a finger at Russia and claim interference in the democratic process yet not look hypocritical for not also pointing the finger at Rep. Debbie Wasserman and claiming the same. Do they realize how absurd their position sounds right now?
- akhilcacharya 10y ago
  If you're familiar with the DNC leaks I have no idea how you could claim equivalence in good faith.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
oyebenny 10y ago
Do you blame them? Russia is only trying to protect themselves from gettimg dragged into unnecessary aggression and war with Trump as Commander.
pasbesoin 10y ago
I accuse the government, and the political parties, of gross incompetence.
agape77 10y ago
Is there really anyone who isn't trying to influence the U.S. elections? Why single out Russia for criticism? President Obama himself is trying to sway voters to vote for Hillary Clinton. The New York Times recently released Donald Trumps's 1995 Tax returns in an attempt to influence voters to vote for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. Then just a few days ago, the Washington Post released a video of Trump's 2005 crude sexual comments which provoked outrage among the public and resulted in the plummeting of his poll numbers. All these media organizations are, in one way or the other, attempting to influence the U.S. elections. So why blame Russia when others are doing exactly the same thing?

168 points by runesoerensen 10y ago

This is certainly one of the more peculiar incidents of late. It's been my impression that the US and Russia conduct various sorts of covert mischief such as this, but it's usually under the radar. "Hacking" an insecure email server configured by campaign volunteers or other non-technical people is not exactly what would qualify as a "state sponsored attack". (edit: if you disagree please explain why rather than simply downvoting)

dogma1138 10y ago
Actually this is a pretty clear sign of a state sponsored attack, most attacks including the ones that the US does are not technically sophisticated but they are executed near flawlessly with a very good operational methodology, the other aspect of state sponsored attacks is protection; even the criminal elements of the security/hacking community stays out of military and government networks usually unless they have a pretty strong patron they can run to, no one wants to experience rendition or a drone strike both of which are very real threats hackers that attack government networks face.
- eloff 10y ago
  Really? Can you name one hacker targeted in a drone strike? I'm pretty sure that only happens in your mind.
  - X86BSD 10y ago
    Hillary wanted to drone Snowden. I don't think it's too far off you're going to see these batshit crazy political elities start droning anyone that opposes them.
    - ak4g 10y ago
      Snowden did no hacking.
  - WallowC_33 10y ago
    ISIS hackers were taken out with a drone strike last year.
  - devy 10y ago
    Assange, for one. Of course she declined (did not recall) and suggested it might have been a "joke". https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782906224937410562 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782906224937410562
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/hacker-killed-by-drone-was-secret-weapon-1440718560 http://www.wsj.com/articles/hacker-killed-by-drone-was-secre...
    - eloff 10y ago
      Obviously ISIS hackers will get killed in drone strikes, that's a war. But nobody is going to drone strike a hacker in Russia, Germany, or the USA. Let's get real here.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > Actually this is a pretty clear sign of a state sponsored attack So are you saying that the Russian government either unintentionally left a trail (IOCs) on the server, or intentionally left a trail because it wanted to be detected? Or are you simply claiming that "Guccifer 2" is on the payroll of the Russian government? (or some combination of the above)...
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    I'm not saying it was Russia, I'm saying that anyone these days that hacks such a high profile target and then parades around and does show and tells has a sponsor. The fact that some of the leaked emails/information of from the "Guccifer" et al. hacks have also been tampered with in order to achieve a specific political goal also hints at a higher objective which isn't something one usually associates with cybercrime or even hacktivism. Criminals would steal, sell and run and hide (not that you could hide these days if you break into a US government network), hacktivists would not usually tamper with the information they release as it goes against their own philosophy.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > have also been tampered with What tampering has occurred?
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        The documents were edited, to what extent/purpose it is unknown. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36913000 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36913000 http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc-trump-research-has-a-russians-fingerprints-on-it/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc... The emails released in 2013 also show some signs of tampering, there were incidents of duplicate headers and the times of some of the emails were strange (mostly related to Benghazi ironically) this was a copy paste error but again no one knows to what extent the "content" if and was tampered with.
        10y ago

fingar 10y ago

Smaller countries are on the receiving end of advanced hacking for a long time. This one is about some old private server...

empath75 10y ago
I don't think it would be a major international incident or even be particularly unexpected for them to hack the rnc and dns and anything else they could get their hands on. In fact, they'd be failing at their jobs if they weren't trying their hardest to do that. The problem is that they released the data. And they are fairly blatantly attempting to tip the scales in an ongoing election. That's not something that the US can politely ignore. It threatens the entire political system of the US.

dogma1138 10y ago

The US tampers with elections openly all over the world including in the election of so called allies. This isn't a jab at the US just a simple fact, swaying the local political opinions of both your allies and your enemies is a pretty standard practice in geopolitics and diplomacy.

empath75 10y ago
Right. We shouldn't pretend that the US doesn't do this to other countries. What happened in the Ukraine, for example, almost certainly wasn't an organically grown domestic insurrection. That was nurtured by NGOs and foreign intelligence agencies. Nonetheless-- it's one thing when the superpowers do that to smaller countries, and another, far more dangerous thing when they start doing it to each other. We're in uncharted territory here. As you saw in the Ukraine (and Syria, and Egypt, and so on and so forth), when the political system fails, you have violence, and the US isn't going to stand by and watch Russia destroy the integrity of our elections. And our means for retaliating are untested, and the risk of escalation is pretty high.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  > What happened in the Ukraine, for example, almost certainly wasn't an organically grown domestic insurrection. That was nurtured by NGOs and foreign intelligence agencies. And it happened twice I might add... > and the US isn't going to stand by and watch Russia destroy the integrity of our elections To be fair, exposing the corruption of one of the major parties isn't exactly going to 'destroy the integrity' of your political system. If anything he's doing you guys a favour. Also, the US has been trying to manipulate elections in Russia for years. It hasn't worked yet because all the opposition to Putin are a bunch of clowns, and because enough Russians still remember the 90's.
  - empath75 10y ago
    They're hacking into election systems as well, not just the DNC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-is-investigating-foreign-hacks-of-state-election-systems/2016/08/29/6e758ff4-6e00-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-i...

api 10y ago

Russia has a fairly well known "troll brigade" as well. Search a bit about Russia's army of Internet trolls and propagandists. It's interesting. Of course I'm sure the USA does a fair bit of this stuff as well. Every major nation does propaganda.

empath75 10y ago

It's not news that Russia is doing this. It is news that the government is officially accusing them of it. There are going to be geopolitical and diplomatic repercussions from this.

joering2 10y ago
okay but but whom? geopolitical and diplomatic repercussions by Russians or Americans? In case Americans... is there anything America can do to them to make them feel the heat? I mean you talking about the country that was in a deep poverty for decades but still praised and loved their dictator... That mentality won't change.
- empath75 10y ago
  If we're going to move toward open cyberwarfare, we could do a lot to their network infrastructure.
  - rfrank 10y ago
    And they could do a lot with our power grid. Probably not a wise path to move down.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Without nukes I'm fairly confident that the US and Russian governments have their own hackers buried so deep in eachothers SCADA style systems they could wreak havoc if ordered to do so. Think things like energy grids, dams, financial markets, etc.
- redwards510 10y ago
  It would be counter-productive to escalate this issue in the cyberwarfare arena. We'd just do what we always do, punish them financially with sanctions and by continuing to push fracking so that the price of oil stays low.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

runesoerensen 10y ago

Press release (with the joint DHS and ODNI statement referenced in the article): https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...

jwtadvice 10y ago

The US itself has become slightly less shy recently about it's efforts to manipulate elections. With high likelihood, direct criticism back and forth between these two superpowers is likely to inform those in smaller countries that their votes are subject - as they have been for a long time - both domestic and foreign manipulation, some of it very clever and very deniable. In this case it should be introduced as a concept in civics courses that as an individual your vote is not 'your own' and an expression of your personal thoughts, but that your vote is a commodity that other people are trying, covertly, to convince you to spend certain ways. Civics courses would do well to train citizens not to believe their own states, not to believe major news outlets, and to otherwise vote when they feel they've come to be able to identify the discrete manipulative narratives coming from various political information warfare centers.

zekevermillion 10y ago
Even if attribution of these attacks to Russia is correct, I think it is fair to say that such poorly concealed covert efforts would be Keystone Kops compared to the color revolutions. And no doubt were the US to promote a color revolution somewhere in the world today, cracking local systems would be part of that effort.
micaksica 10y ago
An aside: I've come to the conclusion that 1) we end up in the same threads, and 2) we almost consistently agree on these issues. > Civics courses would do well to train citizens not to believe their own states, not to believe major news outlets, and to otherwise vote when they feel they've come to be able to identify the discrete manipulative narratives coming from various political information warfare centers. Never will this happen in public educational institutions. There is too much risk, and Civics courses generally glorify American history and then explain that the current electoral system works just the same as it did with the founding fathers, and that it has scaled miraculously with the country's population, demographics and wealth. A "realistic" Civics class would likely serve to alienate young voters, lead to yet more political apathy, or, in the case of the really angsty, lead to situations of civil unrest.

aaron-lebo 10y ago

This is silly. Check out the two major "targets": Clinton's emails and the DNC. Read about how the Clinton server was "secured" (hint: comically). Read about how the DNC has been getting hacked: very simple phishing scams. Everything about the DNC screams shoddy. Why haven't the Republicans been hacked? This isn't a question about politics, its that the DNC clearly has some operational problems. No, what this really is is an information campaign that both countries are playing against each other. You've got Crimea, Syria, other hotspots. Check out Trump's rhetoric: he admires Putin, he clearly doesn't want war. Check out Clinton's rhetoric: conflict. Donald Trump being a racist Neville Chamberlain should make no one excited, but the neoliberal part of the Democratic party (which is clearly ascendant and has been for some time like the neoconservatives) doesn't like getting bullied in retaliation for being a bully.

ak4g 10y ago
What's silly is saying oh, since I read some stuff online about how crappy the DNC security is, I should probably chalk it up to some unknown actor for some vauge hand-wavy reasons instead of taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value. Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? Why would you do anything other than take allegations of yet another Kremlin attempt to interfere in fair elections as seriously as the people of Europe and Ukraine have learned, the hard way, that they must?
- dxhdr 10y ago
  > taking the statements of the the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security at face value Frankly, it's hard to do that in a post-Snowden, post-Comey world.
  - ak4g 10y ago
    Then use your critical thinking. I'll repeat the question: > Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?

timetoswitch 10y ago

Hillary trying to start World War 3.

shireboy 10y ago

Am I the only one who would like to see cold hard evidence for these claims? I want server logs, ip traces, intercepts, or some proof besides just "intelligence says".

X86BSD 10y ago
You will never see it. The US never provides proof. Only "Intel sources say" and rumors.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > You will never see it. The US never provides proof. Only "Intel sources say" and rumors. That's not entirely true, though the only time the US Executive Branch will provide the backing for its intelligence conclusions is if it needs to in order to convince some other entity in order to motivate that entity to take action; the public is rarely an entity which it must approach this way (and, when it must approach Congress or US Courts, there are procedures to keep intelligence material from the public, which are often, but not always, used; some information may come out this way, though), and occasionally the public will also receive some of the evidence incidentally to the US government presentation to some other entity, like the UN Security Council.
redwards510 10y ago
I would too, but consider what you are asking for. Text logs. Easily fakeable text logs. If they provided an excel spreadsheet with a bunch of Russian IPs on it, what do you really do with that? In this case they are just saying "look, you'll just have to trust us on this one.." I firmly believe that in many of these attribution cases there is a lot of top secret source discovery methods they cannot mention, like sniffers on routers, or implants on the actual computer used to send the message. EDIT: Additionally, it's pretty unlikely that you'd see a Russian IP address and be like "Oh Russia did it". Instead, NSA would have a list of IPs known to be compromised by Russian actors. If they shared that list with the public, it would not help clear things up for us, because we don't know the history of the traffic coming from that compromised box, it could be in another country and idiots would point and say "See! Not Russia!". And it would reveal to the Russians that we knew they owned that box. All bad things.

X86BSD 10y ago

The US? Seriously is this some kind of joke? The same US that has been assassinating leaders and overthrowing dictators for over 100 years is accusing someone else of interfering with an election? That's really a sign of mental illness on the part of the US.

ommunist 10y ago
Quite the contrary. This is superficial sanity, planting necessary ideas into mass consciousness. You cannot touch China, they are important trading partners, despite facts that chinese intelligence is writing files at US defence contractors at speed of hard drives there. You cannot touch Germany, otherwise this will jeopardise transatlantic treaties. Blame Russia, it cannot do anything, anyway.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > You cannot touch China [...] Blame Russia, it cannot do anything, anyway. Except, you know, the US government has not only also blamed China for state-sponsored cyberattacks, but actually gone further and indicted specific members of the PLA for those attacks.
- X86BSD 10y ago
  Russia can do plenty. Like fuckup the US's overthrow of Assad so they can build their precious nat gas line through Syria that Assad won't allow. Russia put a stop to that. Now it's down to how much blood is the US willing to spill in order to ensure Europe gets free of Russia's natgas hold on them.
  - ommunist 10y ago
    No one forces the EU to buy gas from Russia. Besides, the US successfully completed huge liquid gas terminal facility at its EU satellite - Lithuania, so there is an alternative supply since 2014.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

What's the evidence? Personally, I think the Russians were involved. But for consequences to follow, we as a culture need to be certain based the preponderance of the evidence.

andrewla 10y ago

From the underlying statement: > The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts I really hope that we have better evidence than this. The US intelligence community has made errors before, even in circumstances where they released considerably more information than this. Given that the attacks have been directed at a particular party, and that party is the one currently in power in the executive branch, establishing that the results of the investigation are truly objective should be a critical goal here, to prevent this press release itself being seen as an attempt to influence the election.

grandalf 10y ago
Exactly. I hope that additional detail is released. It's a pretty serious accusation to make. Also, I think it's worthwhile to draw the distinction between a state sponsored attack (as in Project Sauron) and state sponsored mischief (as in launching script kiddie style pen tests on unsecured systems). Obviously Russia is doing the first kind of attack, but what would be the strategic benefit of doing the latter but not covering up the tracks well enough to prevent this sort of accusation?
- spiderxxxx 10y ago
  You're probably not going to see any additional details. If you have an intelligence asset on the inside, revealing the source can jeopardize that asset. For example, if they say that the CIA is funding a vpn provider in Moldova that revealed in its logs that the source is Russia, well that wouldn't be appropriate to the continued monitoring effort. You've burned your asset.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Ok, I don't dispute that, but why would the following happen: - The campaign led by a former secretary of state decides to essentially go rogue and start accusing a foreign government of election tampering. - The USG stays silent for a while and then rather than simply having a direct communication with Russia decides to issue an extremely vague public statement about the alleged cyber attacks.

ommunist 10y ago

Да, мы единственно не смогли хакнуть трансгуманистов.

gorbachev 10y ago

What sort of evidence do they have to back this? I've seen nothing discussed about that, anywhere. The only thing they seem to go with is that Guccifer2.0 links to Russia. To me this whole thing is based on nothing more than an educated guess.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> What sort of evidence do they have to back this? I've seen nothing discussed about that, anywhere. The attribution by CrowdStrike was discussed in the news (and on HN) previously. While the government may have additional evidence from intelligence sources beyond what CrowdStrike was looking at, it probably includes the same things at a minimum.

woodandsteel 10y ago

Seem plausible Russia would be doing this. Russian media, which is controlled by the Kremlin, has made clear it is completely against Clinton, and for Trump. We've got some Russian trollers here. Putin would like everyone to think he is just great, but he knows he can't do that. So he has his trollers tell everyone that all the Western countries are awful, so people will give up supporting anyone, and he will be free to go ahead unopposed. The reality is that the West, for all its many faults, is 10 times better than Putin's Russia. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.

mlvljr 10y ago
..and not a critical-thinker! :D

andriesm 10y ago

Those evil Russians, and poor poor Debbie who dun notting wrong.... Except illegally conspiring against Bernie and thus having to step down. The article say she was "embarrassed" into stepping down. This article is clearly not biased at all.

rdtsc 10y ago

Are news like this a sign everyone is worried Trump might win so they are pulling all stops? What's next, Trump is a Russian agent planted years ago and now taking over the country. > The denunciation, made by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, Don't know about others, but I don't really have much faith in the "Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security". Somehow they let the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... hack happen, they are obviously incompetent even to protect our govt's data. I simply don't trust their "expert" opinion. It is also funny how there is not much talk about the things discovered in the email. All attention is drawn to the boogeyman. It mentions how Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign. I think it could have gotten a bit more in depth into what was embarrassing there... but that would not be playing according to the script probably.

bsder 10y ago
> What's next, Trump is a Russian agent planted years ago and now taking over the country. I suspect it's more a warning to Russia that the NSA are now watching the election systems and stand ready to intervene if they see something strange going on.

sounds 10y ago

No Diebold statement? They're still widely used and just as hackable. No need to sway the public opinion by releasing troves of party emails if you can just directly hack the vote itself!

andriesm 10y ago

"However, officials said those attempts could not be directly linked to the Russian government." Clearly this article is a hit job. But why?

grandalf 10y ago
It's very bizarre. My take so far is: - Russia's actual "state sponsored" capability would allow it to have hacked the server without being traced. - Thus if Russia did it, the trail was left intentionally. - Only if the "missing" emails contain a major smoking gun would it make sense for the HRC campaign to use this finger pointing as misdirection. - Only if some PR aim was beneficial would HRC's campaign have turned the hack's alleged origin into a campaign rallying cry, rather than letting the officials currently in office handle it through official channels. This point is strengthened by HRC's status as a former sec-of-state. Hypothesis 1: The HRC team is fully expecting an email to surface containing a smoking gun, and this is part of a preemptive misdirection strategy. Hypothesis 2: This is part of an ongoing misdirection strategy with the full knowledge that no smoking gun will emerge from any of the hacked/leaked information, intended to keep everyone occupied with intrigue and speculation to avoid settling on any other focal point that might harm the campaign. Hypothesis 3: Russia is doing a low-sophistication mischief campaign and has ineptly made itself a scapegoat and fomented outrage over this hacking which has become a rallying cry for HRC's campaign.
adventured 10y ago
They're upping the accusations now for at least two reasons that are convenient. The growing conflict between the US and Russia in Syria and the embarrassingly weak, flailing campaign of Hillary Clinton.
- empath75 10y ago
  I'm not remotely a fan of hillary clinton, but she's currently blowing out Donald Trump in the polls (538 currently has her as a 4-1 favorite to win)
  - dmix 10y ago

ConfuciusSay02 10y ago

If the problem is people getting access to voter databases, it's really much ado about nothing, since many of those databases are already public, and besides you can pay a data warehousing company a few bucks and get much more data about any American than what exists in any election database. If the problem is actually the voting machines, then maybe we should go back to all paper ballots like many other western countries like Canada. Funny how the proven, reliable and simple solutions are never proposed...

krapp 10y ago
>If the problem is actually the voting machines, then maybe we should go back to all paper ballots like many other western countries like Canada. Problems with paper ballots in the 2000 election are a big reason the US no longer trusts them. No one wants to go back to the days of scrutinizing hanging chads and indistinct pencil marks. Electronic voting has obvious problems but at least you know what a vote is or isn't.
- eric_the_read 10y ago
  If it's DRE, you don't actually have any idea what the vote is or isn't. With a paper trail in theory you can at least recount.
- ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
  Ahh, right. A few old people misread those poorly designed ballots, therefore let's use a poorly secured system that is hackable by foreign governments. Or, we could design the ballots to not be confusing? It's funny how other western countries using paper ballots don't have these problems.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Yes, the actual solution is to have a /computer/ make the markings on a ballot, which is then reviewed by human eye, and turned in. Or mail in ballots and trusting that end users know how to fill out 'scantron' like forms from years of testing in public schools.

no_protocol 10y ago

> The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises Strong claim. What kind of evidence would an investigator need to see to make such a claim against a foreign nation? Would it be different than what is needed to make a claim against an individual citizen? I'm having a hard time taking this entire message seriously. It just feels like empty reassurance.

dragonwriter 10y ago
tptacek addresses this elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663930

hackuser 10y ago

An important point in understanding Russia: Russia is not a superpower; it's a new situation, not the cold war. They are a sinking regional power with nuclear weapons, trying to find a cost-effective way to have some influence. In the cold war, the Soviet Union was far larger than Russia today: It included Ukraine, Belarus, the Central Asian states, Armenia and many others. And the states it dominated (part of the the Warsaw Pact) were much of Eastern and Central Europe, including half of Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, and more. Russia no longer controls those countries and many of the largest ones changed sides to NATO, greatly shifting the balance of power. Power flows from money and population: --- GDP/population 1977 (best I could find in a quick search):[0] * Warsaw Pact: $1.2 trillion / 366 million * NATO: $3.4 trillion / 563 million (I think that includes France, which was allied but not part of NATO). --- ~2016 [1] * Russia: $1.1 trillion / 144 million (and shrinking, afaik) * NATO (2014): $37.5 trillion / 906 million (and growing) * Spain: $1.7 trillion / 46 million * Germany: $3.8 trillion / 82 million * Canada: $1.4 trillion / 36 million * U.S.: $18.5 trillion / 325 million --- Russia cannot compete with NATO. Their economy is significantly smaller than Spain's and than Canada's - those nations could afford more powerful militaries than Russia's if they chose. [0] (PDF) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/cbo/77doc579.pdf http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/cbo/77... [1] Wikipedia

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
The size of Russia's military (especially the number of nuclear weapons) says that Russia is considerably more than a regional power. Sinking (that is, declining in influence/power)? I can go with that. Others (Canada/Spain) could have larger militaries than Russia if they choose? Great, but they don't choose to do that. Russia does. When the shooting starts, how much you could have spent on our military doesn't matter.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > When the shooting starts, how much you could have spent on our military doesn't matter. Agreed. However, NATO, and the U.S. in particular, still outspend Russia by a very wide margin. > The size of Russia's military From what I've read, they lack the capability or money to deploy more than small forces beyond their borders. Russia is poor, has serious economic problems, and wars are very expensive. Iraq cost the U.S. over a trillion dollars, IIRC. Everything they do is on the cheap, designed to maximize the appearance of strength: In Syria Russia sticks to the air, and we don't know how many missions (or at least I don't), how much it costs or for how long they can afford it. In Ukraine they used small amounts of special forces to seize Ukraine's southern peninsula, Crimea, and support insurgents mostly with equipment. They hide deaths of the any Russian troops in Ukraine, indicating that there may not be much public support for foreign deployments. > especially the number of nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons make a strong impression but are status symbols; in practice, they are almost unusable. They do prevent the invasion of Russia, but nobody was going to do that anyway except, as a long shot, China in the far east. Probably they do make the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria keep a distance from each other, to avoid unintentional conflict. Otherwise, they provide no influence; nobody worries that Russia will nuke them.

binarray2000 10y ago

Is WaPo still a credible medium after their "no pardon for Snowden"? Also, when will the US Oligarchy stop blaming everything on Russia. Sloppy server security? It's Russia. Private e-mail server used for government business? It's Russia.... Nearly 20 trillion dollar debt? It's Russia. OK, US Oligarchy needs an enemy for a new war. A war that would hide the fact that this neoliberal system is about to hit the wall. A war that would fill the troves of the military industrial complex. Says a "conspiracy theorist" George F. Kennan, former US ambassador to Moscow and distinguished Council on Foreign Relations member: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy." Good Night, and Good Luck.

Lordarminius 10y ago
>Is WaPo still a credible medium ... No but notice how even otherwise highly intelligent Americans collapse under the spell of 3-lette-agency propsganda. Its amazing!
- binarray2000 10y ago
  This is why I sympathise with regular US American citizens, they are equally a victim as the rest of the world. Their soldiers are not bringing "freedom, democracy and human rights" but death and destruction. And they themselves come back home - some dead, many destroyed. And for what? Regarding US media being influenced by three-letter-agencies: Operation Mockingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird is alive and well.

tptacek 10y ago

I don't have anything to say about the geopolitical or moral importance of Russia hacking the US to influence elections. But I do have something to say about the attribution here: A very common sentiment on HN is that the US intelligence community has decided that Russia has a motive to hack the US, and spends money on offensive security, ergo "it was probably Russia". That is not how attribution works. Officials (and the firms they hire) are working with vastly more specific fact patterns than the news stories about these incidents convey. They are matching Russian means, motive, and opportunity at a far more precise level of detail than is commonly reported. The major attribution firms --- FireEye/Mandiant, Crowdstrike, &c --- have for years prior to these breaches been collecting huge volumes of information from a pretty significant fraction of the Global 2000, who deploy their tools as part of their anti-malware strategy. That's the entire idea behind Crowdstrike†: you deploy their agents, and they hoover up IOCs and malware samples from around the world and analyze them. These firms have been involved in thousands of compromises we've never heard of, and have staffed large teams of experts (both FireEye and Crowdstrike have gold-plated reputations in the infosec community) to analyze and develop signatures from that information. The DNC compromise is analyzed in terms of IOCs --- network traces of command and control channels, captured backdoor and malware samples, vulnerabilities employed, IP addresses of staging servers --- and those IOCs are matched to previous compromises. When DHS says they're working with a "high degree of certainty" about who's behind the compromise, they're saying that they've matched the compromise to a set of IOCs --- many of which are not public --- that are tied to previous known Russian compromises. That doesn't mean everyone involved here --- multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US --- couldn't be lying. It could all be a conspiracy. If it was, it would be the largest conspiracy ever carried out by the US government. But I guess that could be what happened! † Crowdstrike, by the way, is run by a conservative Republican.

alasdair_ 10y ago
>That doesn't mean everyone involved here --- multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US --- couldn't be lying. It could all be a conspiracy. If it was, it would be the largest conspiracy ever carried out by the US government. But I guess that could be what happened! I don't think it's as simple as that. When the case for war against Iraq was made, "multiple departments of the US Government, the executive branch of the government at the very highest level, and several of the largest security firms in the US" all seemed to be in agreement that Iraq definitely had weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, they did not, what happened is that certain facts were overstated and repeated and certain other facts were ignored or downplayed. There is no reason to believe that this is any different because, again, there is a strong political gain for the current administration to have these facts be so. I agree completely that Russia may well be behind the attacks but given the fact that the people making the announcement also have the most to gain from the announcement, I am happy to remain unconvinced until I see more evidence.

whybroke 10y ago

An even more interesting problem is how HN will deal with 55 Savushkina Street

jwtadvice 10y ago

There are three superpower poles in the world. 1. The United States, as the primary hegemon. 2. Russia, which is still powerful but in 'wane' after containment and the costs of the Cold War. 3. China, the preliminary rising power on the world stage. These three powers have found cybertreaties between China and the US and China and Russia. But Russia and the United States have not yet found a good framework for cyberagreement. Is there a candidate or administration today in the United States that considers finding a cyber treaty between the US and Russia a priority? It seems to me, based on the past few decades of cyber war and the conversations and priorities inside of the beltway that the US considers it's cyberwar activities against the Russians more important than a cyber arms armistice. Given the US's superiority in cyberwarfare, total as it may not be, this recent surge in Russian modernization and activity looks a little bit like "complaining" and less like "moral acumen". The United States should consider drawing up stronger garuntees for Russia about it's cyberweaponization. Handled correctly, the results from superpower agreements could percolate down to Middle Powers, regional powers and third world nations to become a basis for global cyber norms and eventually a basis for international law. It seems to me that complaining and upping the ante, while it might theoretically lead to "peace through conquer", will work to undo any concept of cyber norms or international law.

grandalf 10y ago
This comment seems to assume you think Russia was responsible for the hacks/leaks... ?
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  I think the comment makes sense on its own, as it is a response not specifically about the specific recent accusations, but about the trends in both American and Russian cyberproliferation. I don't think the comment assumes that Russia was responsible for these specific hacks/leaks. I think it makes sense either way.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > I don't think the comment assumes that Russia was responsible for these specific hacks/leaks. I think it makes sense either way. Well, it does make sense as is, but I'm glad you clarified that it isn't intended to entail that you are convinced of the origin of the hacks/leaks.

micaksica 10y ago

I guess I don't see how dumping DNC databases as "Guccifer 2.0" is really doing much negative influencing if it is actually providing legitimate information and making the process more transparent to American voters. Isn't transparency into the political process a core part of what makes a democracy? The parties should want to be as open as possible, ideally. This feels like a deflection and a way to point the finger politically. If they're causing a denial of service on election day by taking out voter registration databases, rooting those shitty Diebold machines, etc., well, that's really influencing the election. If the Obama administration is going to complain to the public about Russia fucking with American elections, they should be just as willing to retaliate for it in some public manner; if that's diplomatic, so be it in the realm of the UN/ICJ. IMO the foreign policy strategy against Russia is spineless, and Russia/Putin takes advantage of it; see Crimean aggression, the Syrian "ceasefire", this Guccifer nonsense. I don't personally have a solution, but showing teeth at Putin doesn't really seem to hinder him. Sometimes you need to bite so people know you can and will make good on your threats.

ZoF 10y ago
I see a _lot_ of comments here describing these email leaks as 'facts' or 'not necessarily Russian propaganda'; you've completely missed the narrative here, allow me to correct the record. These emails were _illegally_ hacked! If you had a _shred_ of dignity you wouldn't even look at them. It should be illegal. If you take any of the information contained in those emails as 'evidence of wrong-doing' you're only playing right into Russia hands. This kind of deplorable meddling in another nation's election by leaking 'actual emails' is exactly what we need to be vigilant of. Such blatant targeting of the most transparent administration in history demands recourse!
- zo1 10y ago
  With such heated topics, I struggle to detect sarcasm.
- bsder 10y ago
  > These emails were _illegally_ hacked! If you had a _shred_ of dignity you wouldn't even look at them. It should be illegal. The bigger point is that you shouldn't regard them as credible without corroboration. It's very easy to make things up. We accept the truth of the Snowden documents because every time we can cross-check the information, it proves correct.

buckbova 10y ago

>"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities Perhaps. Russia and China have been "cyber attacking" my servers for years. Last server I set up for a friend I blocked both countries by IP range. I can imagine because the intensity of what's going on with this election, it has drawn out a more concerted effort from your typical misanthrope probing servers.

hackuser 10y ago

A big question is why government stays on the sidelines of cybercrime (and espionage). They said something here, but it's not usual, and what have they done about it? They don't seem to feel responsible for protecting IT assets like they do for older infrastructure: If someone was blowing up pipelines, it would be shocking if the U.S. government was so passive about it. The government needs to step forward and do its job of protecting citizens, including in cyberspace - hardly a minor consideration at this point. I've been thinking about it recently after reading this article: http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/10/04/risky-business-when-governments-dont-attribute-state-sponsored-cyberattacks/ http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/10/04/risky-business-when-go...

happytrails 10y ago

Trump reminds me of Kaiser Wilhelm.. Good luck America!

ge96 10y ago

They're trying to make sure Trump is the one so he brings down the country without Russia or other powers haha. - ignorant person speaking

saintwind 10y ago

But Clinton IS batshit insane, have you not been paying attention to wikileaks? CTR pls go.

dmix 10y ago
Clinton might be a war hawk but hardly 'insane'. She wouldn't have made it as far as she has without being smart. That being said, intelligence doesn't automatically translate to good decision making.
- tdkl 10y ago
  She sure is smart in being a hypocrite : https://youtu.be/qcqh0gRy-og https://youtu.be/qcqh0gRy-og
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Your argument against her being President is that she laughed after deciding she didn't trust polygraphs?
    - ZoF 10y ago
      Well, that's a bit disingenuous. She's laughing about not trusting polygraphs anymore; ever since her client, who raped a 12 year old, took one and passed. Not saying I think it's a rational argument against her being president(it was her job after all), but it is an emotional one that speaks to her character.
      - hackinthebochs 10y ago
        No it doesn't, but thanks for playing.
        ZoF 10y ago
        Stay delusional, I'll keep sharing the video :)

doener 10y ago

Joint DHS and ODNI Election Security Statement https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.scribblelive.com/2016/10/7/1416970_3941564435a2d4e5-8e38-47c0-9c21-346a56b59865.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.scribblelive.com/2016/10/7/14...

guelo 10y ago

It's so annoying how journalists refuse to link to the source documents they are reporting on. Here it is, https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-pr... Not that it contains that much information. I would have liked to see a more technical breakdown of their reasoning.

Natsu 10y ago
It saddens me that this is the meat of the story and it's halfway down the page right now. Have an upvote.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

I like to trust things my government says, but I have doubts about this for two reasons. The administration is pulling out all the stops to help Clinton get elected and she is a hawk vs. Russia and Trump is probably less so. Also, I do't really know for sure, but I think the Russia and China are most interested in growing the Eurasia economy in the direction they want, and in the USA we are putting most effort into maintaining our sole super power status. Maybe I am not critical enough, but I think that USA, Russia, and China are all doing the right things to look out for their own self interest. It all seems to make sense.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I like to trust things my government says, but I have doubts about this for two reasons. The administration is pulling out all the stops to help Clinton get elected and she is a hawk vs. Russia and Trump is probably less so. The first of these reasons is arguably a statement of a reason to be skeptical about this statement, but the second is simply a statement of one plausible motivation for the Russians to do exactly what the government is alleging that they have done.
NotSammyHagar 10y ago
I agree most countries do what is in their own interest, at least as they perceive it. I'm sure they considered whether they should wait a month for the election to be over, but this is serious business. I don't think the us govt hacked the dnc. We need to do something to discourage this. I don't think we can do much or anything though.

droithomme 10y ago

This is as credible and evidence based from reliable sources as the statements that Iraq had WMDs and was connected to 9/11.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

Although I'm a citizen and resident of the US, I can't help but smirk when government officials are outraged and shocked that another nation state is trying to influence our electoral process. Question for someone more informed than I: With the Citizens United ruling, what's to stop another country from pumping money into US elections?

int_19h 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Ac...

maxander 10y ago

> Jason Healey, a senior research scholar on cyber issues at Columbia University, said the Pentagon’s Cyber Command should disrupt Russian hacking operations. “Go after their command and control,” he said. “ ‘Counteroffensive’ is the key word here.” Oh lovely- get back at them with their own medicine, normalizing a continuous cyberwar in nominal peacetime. Its great- as fun and lucrative as regular warfare, except without all those issues with optics because no one understands all this cyberbusiness regardless. Want to be rich in ten years? Throw a pile of CS grads together to start up a cyberwarfare consulting company, and you can still carve out your slice of the new military-industrial complex.

knodi 10y ago

I can't believe i'm read so many commenters here say that the government is lying that is Russia. Think about it why would Americans officials lie about this and its not just the US government (now) saying its Russia but independent security groups have been saying this too. I know its hard to believe in post Snowden America that everything the government says is a lie but it just doesn't make sense for use to point the finger at another country for this. Depending on the out come of this election Russia could be in a world of hurt.

mbfg 10y ago

translate: US government diverts attention away from new wikileaks dump of clinton emails.

skolos 10y ago

Discussion of any topic that mentions Russia (everywhere, including HN) is, unfortunately, dominated by Russian propaganda trolls.

ting_bu_dung 10y ago
easy, hacker news should block IPs originating from Russia and China. they're mostly just state sponsored posters anyways
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sctb 10y ago
  Please don't make baseless accusations like this on HN.

barpet 10y ago

Whoever glorifies Russia has obviously never lived in its shadows.

malandrew 10y ago

What I don't get is how the Obama administration thinks it can point a finger at Russia and claim interference in the democratic process yet not look hypocritical for not also pointing the finger at Rep. Debbie Wasserman and claiming the same. Do they realize how absurd their position sounds right now?

akhilcacharya 10y ago
If you're familiar with the DNC leaks I have no idea how you could claim equivalence in good faith.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

oyebenny 10y ago

Do you blame them? Russia is only trying to protect themselves from gettimg dragged into unnecessary aggression and war with Trump as Commander.

pasbesoin 10y ago

I accuse the government, and the political parties, of gross incompetence.

agape77 10y ago

Is there really anyone who isn't trying to influence the U.S. elections? Why single out Russia for criticism? President Obama himself is trying to sway voters to vote for Hillary Clinton. The New York Times recently released Donald Trumps's 1995 Tax returns in an attempt to influence voters to vote for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. Then just a few days ago, the Washington Post released a video of Trump's 2005 crude sexual comments which provoked outrage among the public and resulted in the plummeting of his poll numbers. All these media organizations are, in one way or the other, attempting to influence the U.S. elections. So why blame Russia when others are doing exactly the same thing?