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I don't want to bandy words -- what they say is that the attacks "... are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts". This seems

I don't want to bandy words -- what they say is that the attacks "... are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts". This seems to be an extremely weak statement -- that they are "consistent with", rather than "can be unambiguously traced to". Assuming good faith in the intelligence community, we can only assume that these "consistencies" would be difficult or impossible for another actor (a different state or a rogue agent) to mimic. The statement is phrased so weakly that it is difficult to say this with confidence. Because of the political situation, government agencies should be extremely careful to avoid making statements like this unless there can be concrete assurances that the conclusions are fully supported by the evidence, without any political agenda attached.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Again the attribution by private security firms, and it's (general, at least, but more specific than the government statement had specified) basis had been public for some time. And, in any case, even if government agencies are as careful as you suggest, you are unlikely to be able to distinguish that, because the kind of evidence that works fully support it us not the kind of evidence that could be fully disclosed without compromising future intelligence activities.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  I've read those reports, and I did not find the evidence particularly convincing. Much of it was of the type "if you want to make it look like Russia did this, what metadata should we conveniently leave lying around?" IIRC the major points of evidence were a Cyrillic character set attached to an SSH session, and Russian IP addresses connecting to a VPN website. This is hardly substantial evidence. And don't fool yourself - these "private firms" have no interest in biting the hand that feeds them. They want the next contract too.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Again the attribution by private security firms, and it's (general, at least, but more specific than the government statement had specified) basis had been public for some time. And, in any case, even if government agencies are as careful as you suggest, you are unlikely to be able to distinguish that, because the kind of evidence that works fully support it us not the kind of evidence that could be fully disclosed without compromising future intelligence activities.

chatmasta 10y ago
I've read those reports, and I did not find the evidence particularly convincing. Much of it was of the type "if you want to make it look like Russia did this, what metadata should we conveniently leave lying around?" IIRC the major points of evidence were a Cyrillic character set attached to an SSH session, and Russian IP addresses connecting to a VPN website. This is hardly substantial evidence. And don't fool yourself - these "private firms" have no interest in biting the hand that feeds them. They want the next contract too.