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The bloomberg article I read (http://archive.is/j5wRd http://archive.is/j5wRd) presented it as evidence. Maybe other publications are doing the same. >As part

The bloomberg article I read (http://archive.is/j5wRd http://archive.is/j5wRd) presented it as evidence. Maybe other publications are doing the same. >As part of the administration’s response, the FBI and Homeland Security Department also released a report with technical evidence intended to prove Russia’s military and civilian intelligence services were behind the hacking and to expose some of their most sensitive hacking infrastructure.

grandalf 10y ago
> presented it as evidence Quite predictable, since they also considered the wild accusations of various politicians of a high level Russian conspiracy to be evidence.
- gipp 10y ago
  If you rephrase your hysterical wording as "major bipartisan concern across every intelligence agency and nearly all ranking members of both houses of Congress, including the heads of both Intelligence Committees," then I'm not really sure what more evidence you or I could hope for from such an obviously sensitive, active topic for the time being.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    By mentioning that they are "ranking members" you make an argument from authority that is predicated on the legitimacy of the government alone, effectively saying "kneel and take whatever they say at face value". In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has cost trillions of dollars and many lives, among many other bad decisions that they all agree on.
    - gipp 10y ago
      Fine. But (assuming you extend this attitude to "the mainstream media" as well) you've created for yourself an ontology of the world in which it is impossible to claim any knowledge of anything outside your direct field of view. I'm not really sure how you intend us to accomplish much of anything without _some_ ability to trust _someone_ else. And bipartisan agreement from bitter enemies who have little or nothing to gain personally from such statements is about the lowest bar of trust I can imagine.
      - hueving 10y ago
        Politicians stand to gain government expansion when they scare the population. So it's not nearly as low of a bar as you think. It's like you're claiming we must trust pharmaceutical representatives from competing companies when they both agree that we all need more pills.
        gipp 10y ago
        Who's expanding what part of government here?
        voxic11 10y ago
        Every Democrat and most Republicans?
      - grandalf 10y ago
        The issue is not so much authority, the issue is urgency. Why is there urgency to rush to judgment about alleged Russian election meddling? If it happened, then unless anyone thinks the outcome of the election should be reversed, we have four years to get to the bottom of it, take action, and prevent it from happening again. It's very much reminiscent of the blind urgency to invade Iraq on shaky evidence. Note that one tactic used to get people to act is to create urgency. The simplest example is "this offer expires in 5 minutes..." It's not so much that I give no credit to any officials as having authority, it's that they all agree on the knee-jerk urgency when there is no apparent need to do so, and none feel obligated to offer a point by point probability assessment of whatever information, inference, or intelligence has them 100% convinced, since the information disclosed so far paints a vague, circumstantial picture. This sort of elitist disregard for the basic rationality of the public is not something I can stomach, so I simply can't take their assurances at face value.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That's not what "ranking members" communicates; rather, it suggests that the conclusion transcends partisan politics. That doesn't mean it doesn't succumb to other biases (though I don't think so), but it is a meaningful statement to make.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        I think there is a coalition of peculiarly anti-Russian hawks who have been the most vocal in their opposition to Russia's behavior in Crimea, etc. This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.
        tptacek 10y ago
        So, that's what I'm saying: that the "ranking members" support the conclusion doesn't dispose of all bias, but it does dispose of the Trump vs. Clinton bias. It's up to you how to weight [Trump vs. Clinton] vs. [Russia vs. US]. But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now.
        grandalf 10y ago
        > But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now. I think this is correct, and largely why the Russia meddling has become more an article of faith than a highly concerning possibility.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Was it any different with Iraq WMD?
    - gipp 10y ago
      Yes. Many, many parts of the intelligence community produced reports contradicting any claims of WMD evidence, and were summarily ignored by a very not-bipartisan administration. There is basically total consensus among every intelligence agency that the evidence points to Russia.
      - rogerthis 10y ago
        Basic sources on the total consensus?
        gipp 10y ago
        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... > The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...
        grandalf 10y ago
        My understanding was that they had agreed on the likely Russian origin of at least one system from which emails were obtained, but that they had disagreed on the motivation for the leaks.
        Natsu 10y ago
        That report presents no evidence, comes from political appointees, and generally only says that it might be consistent with something Russia would like to do without explaining why. Also, not sure how the agency count helps anything. Exactly what did agencies like the NRO and Coast Guard contribute here?
mundo 10y ago
The "evidence" cited is not the handful of unclassified details included, it's the fact that the FBI and DHS are willing to go on record publicly accusing Russia. There are no asterisks or weasel-words or "allegedly"s. Just a clear "Russia did it." There are only two possible explanations for that: 1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months 2) There is clear and damning evidence that Russia did it, but it's classified
- naturally2014 10y ago
  I'd guess a third option, actually: It's just a best guess, but they don't like being questioned. If they had damning evidence it'd be in their interest to release it.
  - walshemj 10y ago
    Not if it would give any humint sources away and they may have kicked out people to allow a source to step into their shoes - as the UK did to put there man in as the Resident in London
    - porpoisemonkey 10y ago
      It's somewhat obvious from the context but for anyone not familiar with military jargon I think the parent post meant to say "humint" instead of "humit" which is short hand for "human intelligence" or in layman's terms "spies".
      - walshemj 10y ago
        oops my bad
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  Of course, Iraq and WMD do little to build confidence. Not that I don't believe you -- motive and opportunity for Russia are crystal clear here, and given that the results of the election are not going to be overturned, I see little gain for the current administration to lie about this.

grandalf 10y ago

> presented it as evidence Quite predictable, since they also considered the wild accusations of various politicians of a high level Russian conspiracy to be evidence.

gipp 10y ago
If you rephrase your hysterical wording as "major bipartisan concern across every intelligence agency and nearly all ranking members of both houses of Congress, including the heads of both Intelligence Committees," then I'm not really sure what more evidence you or I could hope for from such an obviously sensitive, active topic for the time being.
- grandalf 10y ago
  By mentioning that they are "ranking members" you make an argument from authority that is predicated on the legitimacy of the government alone, effectively saying "kneel and take whatever they say at face value". In my view, they are all self-serving career politicians and none have shown any particular reason they should be trusted or respected. They were the ones who urged the knee-jerk reaction in Iraq which has cost trillions of dollars and many lives, among many other bad decisions that they all agree on.
  - gipp 10y ago
    Fine. But (assuming you extend this attitude to "the mainstream media" as well) you've created for yourself an ontology of the world in which it is impossible to claim any knowledge of anything outside your direct field of view. I'm not really sure how you intend us to accomplish much of anything without _some_ ability to trust _someone_ else. And bipartisan agreement from bitter enemies who have little or nothing to gain personally from such statements is about the lowest bar of trust I can imagine.
    - hueving 10y ago
      Politicians stand to gain government expansion when they scare the population. So it's not nearly as low of a bar as you think. It's like you're claiming we must trust pharmaceutical representatives from competing companies when they both agree that we all need more pills.
      - gipp 10y ago
        Who's expanding what part of government here?
        voxic11 10y ago
        Every Democrat and most Republicans?
    - grandalf 10y ago
      The issue is not so much authority, the issue is urgency. Why is there urgency to rush to judgment about alleged Russian election meddling? If it happened, then unless anyone thinks the outcome of the election should be reversed, we have four years to get to the bottom of it, take action, and prevent it from happening again. It's very much reminiscent of the blind urgency to invade Iraq on shaky evidence. Note that one tactic used to get people to act is to create urgency. The simplest example is "this offer expires in 5 minutes..." It's not so much that I give no credit to any officials as having authority, it's that they all agree on the knee-jerk urgency when there is no apparent need to do so, and none feel obligated to offer a point by point probability assessment of whatever information, inference, or intelligence has them 100% convinced, since the information disclosed so far paints a vague, circumstantial picture. This sort of elitist disregard for the basic rationality of the public is not something I can stomach, so I simply can't take their assurances at face value.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That's not what "ranking members" communicates; rather, it suggests that the conclusion transcends partisan politics. That doesn't mean it doesn't succumb to other biases (though I don't think so), but it is a meaningful statement to make.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      I think there is a coalition of peculiarly anti-Russian hawks who have been the most vocal in their opposition to Russia's behavior in Crimea, etc. This likely transcends party lines in the same way that support for wall street or the oil industry transcends party lines.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        So, that's what I'm saying: that the "ranking members" support the conclusion doesn't dispose of all bias, but it does dispose of the Trump vs. Clinton bias. It's up to you how to weight [Trump vs. Clinton] vs. [Russia vs. US]. But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now.
        grandalf 10y ago
        > But my impression is that [Trump vs. Clinton] is way more powerful than any other bias right now. I think this is correct, and largely why the Russia meddling has become more an article of faith than a highly concerning possibility.
- tomp 10y ago
  Was it any different with Iraq WMD?
  - gipp 10y ago
    Yes. Many, many parts of the intelligence community produced reports contradicting any claims of WMD evidence, and were summarily ignored by a very not-bipartisan administration. There is basically total consensus among every intelligence agency that the evidence points to Russia.
    - rogerthis 10y ago
      Basic sources on the total consensus?
      - gipp 10y ago
        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... > The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. This is an official joint statement from the USIC, which is an official body composed of 16 different intelligence organizations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...
        grandalf 10y ago
        My understanding was that they had agreed on the likely Russian origin of at least one system from which emails were obtained, but that they had disagreed on the motivation for the leaks.
        Natsu 10y ago
        That report presents no evidence, comes from political appointees, and generally only says that it might be consistent with something Russia would like to do without explaining why. Also, not sure how the agency count helps anything. Exactly what did agencies like the NRO and Coast Guard contribute here?

mundo 10y ago

The "evidence" cited is not the handful of unclassified details included, it's the fact that the FBI and DHS are willing to go on record publicly accusing Russia. There are no asterisks or weasel-words or "allegedly"s. Just a clear "Russia did it." There are only two possible explanations for that: 1) A massive conspiracy in which the leaders of practically the entirety of the US military/intelligence community are willing to go on record with a hoax that will easily be unraveled by the incoming administration in a few months 2) There is clear and damning evidence that Russia did it, but it's classified

naturally2014 10y ago
I'd guess a third option, actually: It's just a best guess, but they don't like being questioned. If they had damning evidence it'd be in their interest to release it.
- walshemj 10y ago
  Not if it would give any humint sources away and they may have kicked out people to allow a source to step into their shoes - as the UK did to put there man in as the Resident in London
  - porpoisemonkey 10y ago
    It's somewhat obvious from the context but for anyone not familiar with military jargon I think the parent post meant to say "humint" instead of "humit" which is short hand for "human intelligence" or in layman's terms "spies".
    - walshemj 10y ago
      oops my bad
acjohnson55 10y ago
Of course, Iraq and WMD do little to build confidence. Not that I don't believe you -- motive and opportunity for Russia are crystal clear here, and given that the results of the election are not going to be overturned, I see little gain for the current administration to lie about this.