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A “nation-state” used Wikileaks to influence US election, the head of NSA says
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago“Maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks.” — Sergei Markov, 9 November: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin-applauds-trump-win-and-hails-new-era-of-positive-ties-with-us https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/putin-applau... (I don't know if him having said that means anything, but it's interesting nonetheless.)
- mywittyname 10y agoCurious that the article quotes Assange but fails to mention that he's not been seen since his internet has been cut off back in October.
- leeleelee 10y agoWhat evidence exists to suggest that this was a deliberate attempt by Russia to influence the results of the US election in a way that would benefit them?
- TwoNineA 10y agoUkraine related economic sanctions would be probably cancelled by Trump, while Clinton would have maintained the status quo.
- leeleelee 10y agoI'm not asking only how Trump would benefit Russia, but what evidence exists to suggest that this entire ordeal was some elaborate scheme concocted by the Russian government? EDIT: If this claim was such a stark truth, surely there must exist a smoking gun somewhere? So, where is the evidence?
- metalliqaz 10y agoI don't know if you've ever heard of the NSA before, but they deal in secrets. They don't publish their methods and they don't reveal sources. Remember that whole Edward Snowden thing?
- alva 10y agoThey have also been caught telling rather big fibs for political purposes before.
- mtgx 10y ago> while Clinton would have maintained the status quo. Much more likely to increase tensions between US and Russia (perhaps even to dangerous levels). Not saying Russia wasn't "looking for it", but Hillary's anti-Russia rhetoric to help her own campaign wasn't helping.
- dragonwriter 10y agoIt was clearly intended to weaken Clinton's public standing whether or not she was elected; it's also arguable that it wasn't really designed to be hard to trace, so it may well have been designed to do the same thing to Trump.
- scarmig 10y agoThe NSA kept a real, meaningful scandal--and not a blowjob scandal, but one material to how the President will govern and look out for American interests--buried until after the election. While the FBI released a pseudo-update on a scandal of IT incompetence the week before the election after dragging it out for months. It's hard not to be bitter about how politicized both these agencies are. I can see arguments either way about how and when things should be released, but there should be consistency. The fact that they're inconsistent and always happen to come up anti-Democrat is pretty telling. ETA: As misja111 points out below, the NSA and CIA did announce this before the election. So, my ding against the NSA's political integrity was uncalled for. Leaving this comment here so no one is confused by all the replies.
- joshuaheard 10y agoBill Clinton was not impeached for a blow job. Bill Clinton was impeached for committing perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former employee, and trying to convince other witnesses to commit perjury as well, obstructing justice. In addition to the House of Representatives impeaching him, he was found in contempt of court by the judge presiding over the lawsuit and had his license to practice law suspended for violating ethics rules.
- scarmig 10y agoThat's all well and good, but the scandal part of it that captured the public's interest was certainly because of the blowjob/where'd the cigar go aspect of it. And I wasn't even referencing Clinton in particular--I'd put things like Anthony Weiner's sexts and Larry Craig's foot tapping in the same category. In the sense, they're on the trivial side of things and mostly get the public attention because of prurience, not salience for good governance.
- tptacek 10y agoThe public was so interested in the "blowjob/cigar" aspect of the story that the Republican party suffered a historic defeat in the midterms that were seen as a rebuke to the GOP's attempt to make hay out of the story, and ended Newt Gingrich's career.
- draw_down 10y agoMore beating of the drum for war with Russia.
- tptacek 10y agoCan you draw up a set of guidelines for what facts we are and are not allowed to discuss here in the US for fear that we might be encouraging a war with Russia?
- draw_down 10y agoFirst of all, I didn't say anything about what we are "allowed" to discuss here. I just think we should be honest with ourselves about what we're doing (by "we" I mean America, not HN). I remember what it was like when we were leading up to war with Iraq and all the intimations about Russia of late feel the same way to me. Lots of big accusations that are baseless but sound truthy. As far as this particular piece of news, I would push back by suggesting that the Democrats blew the election by running a crappy campaign with a charisma-less DC insider that Americans mostly dislike. Do I then get to accuse the DNC and everyone who pushed for Clinton against her primary opponents of colluding with Russia? I expect not.
- pyvpx 10y agobaseless? a current, active Russian politician (whose name and position escape me) publicly said 'we might have helped with Wikileaks' it's far from baseless -- no matter how (correctly) suspicious one is of anything the NSA says.
- qb45 10y agoReportedly it was said by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexandrovich_Markov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Alexandrovich_Markov Seems legit ;)
- mladenkovacevic 10y agoThey've never lied before to protect their own interests before so why start doubting them now right?
- josho 10y agoFor those that downvoted the parent, the NSA denied doing many of the activities that Snowden exposed. The US misled the public building their case to invade Iraq. Just two recent examples of where the government lied for their own interests. So, I think the OP makes a fair point. Further, the gov. hasn't exactly offered substantial evidence to show that it was Russian government as opposed to hackers working alone. Maybe they don't need to provide the general public with all the details, but showing the evidence to a third party would go a long way to building trust.
- mladenkovacevic 10y agoIt's interesting to note that the hack that likely got access to Podesta emails and subsequently handed those emails over to Wikileaks is recorded in the leaked emails themselves. It was a typical phishing email scheme easy to recognize and ignore by anyone who's used a internet connected computer for more than a year, but for some reason not by their own IT guy who tells Podesta to click on the link! EDIT: Actually he does send the correct password reset link as well, but still identifies the original email as authentic. The link in that original email is a bitly one - clearly an email from Google themselves lol https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899 I don't know much about FSB's hacking abilities but I would guess they are a little more sophisticated than this.
- ryanx435 10y agoMaybe the democratics shouldn't have cheated, stolen the nomination from bernie, or coordinated illegally with their super pacs.
- TorKlingberg 10y agoBernie Sanders lost because he didn't have nearly as much support from voters.
- tptacek 10y agoThe "Democrats" didn't "steal" the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders got crushed in the Democratic primaries, by a margin almost ten times that of what Obama achieved over Hillary Clinton in 2008. Even if leaked emails had shown material support for Clinton over Sanders, let alone before the nomination had become a foregone conclusion, there's nothing the DNC could do to explain the extent to which Sanders lost. He lost decisively, both by the same pledged delegate count margin Obama achieved and for which his team was praised as delegate counting geniuses, and by a massive gulf in the popular vote.
- rudolf0 10y agoThat doesn't make their favoritism any more right.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoUh, I would count that media companies shown to be colluding with Hillary ran delegate counts with superdelegates included to be a massive propaganda campaign to influence voters for Hillary by making them feel there's no viable alternative. It's hard to estimate the impact of that, and I dont recall it happening as much in 2008.
- tptacek 10y agoYou think some media somewhere about "superdelegates" accounts 3.7 million additional votes for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders? I agree to disagree with you about that. Want to know the popular vote margin in 2008, where the superdelegates were also a huge part of the narrative? -273,000.
- fixxer 10y agoSo, the issue is not the content of the emails, but the fact that they were leaked?
- philk10 10y agounless you were interested in risotto recipes, yes
- yolesaber 10y agoOr widespread and obvious collusion and corruption? Don't be thick, these emails revealed just how sleazy and inept the DNC is. The establishment left needs a serious overhaul if they want to do anything of substance in the next four years
- josho 10y agoHas the NSA ever offered evidence for these allegations? The WSJ article linked says "this action originated from servers operated by a Russian company". That's rather weak evidence to offer up. Further, why is there no backlash against the DNC or the government themselves for failing to secure their systems. This entire election cycle just seems like everyone has been acting irrationally.
- scarmig 10y agoWhat evidence would you accept? Short of an admission of guilt signed using the SVR's public key, everything will be circumstantial. And if the NSA has any assets that can give a more direct confirmation, do you really want the NSA to give them up just so that the people who disbelieve the NSA can say "well they're lying anyway"? As it stands, the public evidence I've seen is 1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies 2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials 3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia 4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments. True, this is all circumstantial. The NSA certainly has more. If the NSA released it, the people who disbelieve the NSA would rightly point out that any really hard evidence could have been planted by the NSA anyway, so it can't be taken as certain that the NSA didn't plant it. So why should the NSA sacrifice any assets to satisfy them?
- josho 10y agoI agree with all points. But, when the mistakes of Iraq (remember Powell's evidence for WMD?) are so recent, I have to ask haven't we learned anything? The solution is for the NSA to share their evidence to a third party and the third party to come forward saying, "yup, I've seen the evidence and it is clear and irrefutable". I believe congress/senate are usually that third party, but for something technical like this I think they would benefit from inviting someone like Bruce Schneier to those sessions. Will it happen. No. But, should it happen? Yes. Especially if there are to be escalations.
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- mi100hael 10y agoIf the DNC & the Clinton campaign weren't so dirty, the leaks wouldn't have made a difference. Sure, the messenger had an agenda, but they're still just a messenger.
- mrgordon 10y agoI certainly agree with you to a certain extent, but if we're honest there were just as many things to leak about Trump if they had wanted to do so. If you smear one side to put the other side in power and undermine American democracy on the world stage, then you are influencing the election for the benefit of other countries.
- dleslie 10y agoAh, whataboutism; a great way to shrug one's shoulders.
- grandalf 10y agoSo you are accusing Wikileaks of sitting on a trove of data that was highly unflattering to Trump?
- GVIrish 10y agoNo, there is no evidence of that. What is clear is that 'someone' provided illegally obtained materials to Wikileaks, and all indications are that it was Russia. Russia chose to provide information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, and not Donald Trump. Wikileaks just ran with what it got.
- mtgx 10y agoSo suddenly it's not Russia anymore, but a "nation-state"?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fatdog 10y agoIt is in the interest of every state to discredit Wikileaks, hence Russia "letting slip," they were behind the DNC leaks right after the election. The intelligence community doesn't get an opinion. Arguably, any comment from them about domestic elections only reduces the legitimacy of their mandate.
- alexandercrohde 10y agoI don't understand this critique. Though "influence election" sounds ominous, in this case it really refers to "influencing" voters by revealing true things, does it not? One can argue that the means of obtaining the information (hacking) is relevant, but I'm not sure if that's something I'd accept without examination.
- ascagnel_ 10y agoSomething can be true and be misrepresented at the same time. For example, the DNC email leaks showed that the DNC was working with Clinton. However, when those emails were sent, it was mathematically impossible for Sanders to overtake Clinton when only counting primary/caucus-assigned delegates (not counting super-delegates at all). The emails were in response to Sanders (mostly his supporters) pushing super-delegates to change their pledged vote. The emails were accurate, in that they showed the DNC supporting Clinton directly. But they were from a time where Clinton had just become the presumptive nominee, and it is reasonable to expect the party to offer support to the presumptive nominee in preparation for the general election. They were misrepresented as showing the DNC supporting Clinton while Sanders was still a viable candidate with a reasonable chance of winning the nomination. I say all of this as a disappointed Sanders supporter who knew that he was running a tough race in a party he had just joined without much support from the party's rank-and-file members.
- alexandercrohde 10y agoOf course people can draw incorrect conclusions from true facts. But since neither you nor I know the exact truth, we'll never know for sure which party is the one drawing the incorrect conclusions. In this case it sounds like the NSA has several assumptions: A. That Trump winning was worse than Clinton B. That what Russian state-actors do is somehow more "bad" than what American state-actors do C. That the people of America should be prevented from knowing certain things that "us smarter people in power" can handle, so that they vote for the person "We know is best." C is pretty scary when you think about it. And I for one, certainly don't trust the militaristically-minded never-tried-marijuana lets-do-polygraph tap-everything-and-ask-questions-later people at our acronym agencies to be more objective judges of long-term good than the average citizen. Let's (humans) work on stopping asteroids and climate change rather than fight over lines on maps.
- phy6 10y agoI have [potentially unfounded] assumptions that groups within the NSA/CIA had a hand in the leaks. I'm sure the corruption of selling government positions and influence of foreign money/bribes happens in both establishment parties. Bringing this kind of corruption to the public's eye rings of the 'patriotic' motives of Snowden, etc.
- TycusNycton 10y agoThe NSA clearly has motives for rallying people against Wikileaks. Do they have any evidence for this or should a sane person really take them at their word?
- g8oz 10y agoJulian Assange is the modern "useful idiot". http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Useful_idiot http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
- vonklaus 10y agoI believe that a nation state did use wikileaks to influence the election. I just think it was the U.S. Also, Assange hasn't been seen publicly in ~42 days. You can see the timeline on assange.net (not Julians personal site). It doesn't speculate, just provides facts. Very concerning.
- notahacker 10y agoUm... he's just completed a two day interview over rape allegations and issued statements about it. I doubt that the Ecuadorean embassy, Swedish prosecutors, Assange's legal team and the @Wikileaks Twitter account are working together on this one...
- vonklaus 10y agono. his last confirmed public appearance was early october. The checksums of the evidence files don't match post his internet going down. The questions were relayed to him and his lawyer was not present. Do your own research, don't take my word for it, however the "wikileakstaskforce" account was made in October. There is significant skepticism he is alive and the embassy has a bay window which his cat was seen at yesterday. He could simply pull back the curtain or sign a document with the private key to quell skeptics who have become increasingly vocal since his internet was severed over a month ago. edit: it is nearly 7pm local time in London. Do you not find it odd wikileaks has been rather silent that it's founder has likely completed giving a full days deposition to exonerate him of the crime he is seeking asylum for...in that vbery embassy. A half-decade or greater ordeal. They posted an infographic yesterday, an NEA Bill Clinton leak, and appeal for pardoing Chelsea Manning. No mention that this is day 2 of a major fight for Assange. edit 2: In fact, according to google[0] there has been NO news about it. There are ~5 stories and none of them relating to todays depo. [0]https://www.google.com/#q=assange+sweden+interview&tbm=nws&tbs=qdr:d https://www.google.com/#q=assange+sweden+interview&tbm=nws&t...
- notahacker 10y agoHe could simply pull back the curtain or sign a document with the private key to quell skeptics who have become increasingly vocal since his internet was severed over a month ago. But that assumes that calming paranoid people down is high on Assange's list of priorities, and that assumption alone is pretty heroic. If your conspiracy theory involves Swedish prosecutors, Ecuadorean embassy staff and Assange's legal team all conspiring not to notice that he's not around to take their interviews or phone calls and doesn't involve public statements released in Assange's name looking any different to his usual output, it's not a very good one
- pasbesoin 10y ago"Divided we fall." And by far, the biggest source of that division has been internal. If some "nation state" (the catchphrase of the month, apparently) found a crack and applied a bit of leverage -- well, look to yourselves for blame -- and for the solution. Democrats as well as Republicans. The high side of both parties outsourced, and basically told the dispossessed to "get over it". Divided we fall.
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago>since we have (I may say) all the naval Stores of the Nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas, and then the united force of all Europe, will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves, is to disunite Us. Divide et impera. Keep us in distinct Colonies, and then, some great men, in each Colony, desiring the Monarchy of the Whole, they will destroy each others influence and keep the Country in Equilibrio. -John Adams http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0003#PJA01d005n1 http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0003#P...
- vaadu 10y agoHow is this any different than what the CIA has done in the past to other countries? Are the emails legitimate and do the American people have a right to know what's in them?
- api 10y agoThere's a good summary post on Reddit on evidence for Russian infiltration or influence of Wikileaks: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/d9uwctp/?context=10 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik... The timeline suggests that Wikileaks was about to try to dump something damaging to Russia and/or Putin (is there a difference at this point?) and then was threatened, backed off, and now may have been folded into Russian intelligence as some kind of asset. I wouldn't be surprised. It's naive to believe that a small volunteer outfit can take on an entire world of pro intelligence agencies. The USA is not the only country that does these things, and many countries such as Russia do so with a much more "gloves off" approach than we do... especially when dealing with civilians. In any case I now see stuff about Trump and Putin communicating prior to Trump taking office, etc., and Putin's politics certainly aligns to some extent with elements of the 'alt-right.' Of course the Bushes have their Saudi "investors" and the Clintons have their Chinese pals, so overseas enmeshment with nations of questionable allegiance to the US is not out of the ordinary in US politics. One of the consequences of empire is that an empire's national politics become everyone else's business too. DC is a world capital, and our elections are world elections.
- nyolfen 10y agowho could discount such pressing corroboration as "There are Phillip Agee vibes from Assange/Wikileaks/Snowden"? maybe make extremely serious and specific allegations when there's actual evidence for it
- qb45 10y ago"We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen," Mr. Assange told the pro-government daily Izvestia. "But not as much as we'd like... We will publish these materials soon." He then dropped a hint that's likely to be nervously parsed in Russia's corridors of power: "We are helped by the Americans, who pass on a lot of material about Russia," to WikiLeaks, he said. Really? Is it likely that Americans would pass dirt on Russian government to Assange and let him disclose the source? If they wanted to be so open they could as well announce it themselves, I think.
- pnathan 10y agoNo kidding; this was obvious from way back. I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated as significantly less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media than the Clinton emails. It also needs to be brought out in painful clarity: disinformation campaigns are real; they are not always lies; sometimes they are carefully pruning the truth to ensure the chosen outcome comes out to play. It also needs to be brought out: the cypherpunk model (anonymous hackers sourcing anonymous data) has exploded messily under the presence of coordinated group of actors come out to subvert the hackers. Makes me wonder how to get involved with public policy, to be honest.
- hackuser 10y ago> I'd be very interested to learn the back alley reasons why this was treated as significantly less important a drum to bang in the bulk of the media than the Clinton emails. IMHO, a large segment of the media is not really journalism, but ideological promotion. This includes Fox properties (Fox News, the WSJ - at least their editorial page, NY Post, various UK publications, etc.), Rush Limbaugh and most talk radio, right-wing blogs, and many others. Therefore a large segment of the news media doesn't cover scandals on the right, while everyone covers them on the left: * An unsubstantiated hint of scandal on the left gets blanket coverage from the ideological sources. Consider the fake Planned Parenthood emails, or the fake investigation of the Clinton Foundation. * A substantiated scandal on the left is covered by everyone, the ideological right as well as the real journalists. For example, the NY Times broke the Clinton email server story and covered the Russian/Wikileaks emails extensively. Of course, Fox et al. covered and promoted these stories to maximum extent. * A substantiated scandal on the right is covered only by real journalists, and ignored (or used as fodder for spin and attacks against accusers) by the ideological right. * An unsubstantiated scandal on the right is ignored by everyone.
- philovivero 10y agoNot to disagree with one half of your assertion (that media leaning right is corrupt and broken), but you appear completely blind to the media that leans left being equally corrupt and broken. Many scandals about the left were covered up and hidden away. You just didn't look for them. I struggle to find any mass media that hasn't been rendered completely useless during this election cycle. To contrast your Fox/WSJ/WaPo list of egregious terrible media, consider BBC, CNN, TYT, HuffPo, Slate (I'll stop there, but I could list 50 more). Honestly, the best coverage I could find in this last election cycle came from dreary underground groups. All major media had clearly picked a side and was uninterested in providing useful, factual information.
- benevol 10y agoAlso, here's Oliver Stone's "Snowden" movie (open with Transmission or similar): magnet:?xt=urn:btih:beb9b342be059a38a54bd1b3ec0cb6448ee07740&dn=Snowden.2016.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fzer0day.ch%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%3A6969
- wu-ikkyu 10y agoIs there any practicality to claiming the hack originated from a "nation-state"? Any time news worthy hacks are ambiguously attributed to massive geographical regions (i.e. CN, RU) which can easily be proxied through from anywhere in the world, how is it any different from saying "we're certain the hack originated from somewhere on this planet, trust us."?
- rurban 10y agoSure, the USA. High members of the USA will for sure like to prove everybody of corrupt and criminal actions by members in government offices.
- mjmsmith 10y agoDoes anyone seriously think this isn't at least worth a congressional investigation?