I wasn't just thinking of records tampered after the fact. There is also the problem of genuine records created by the orchestrated actions of an imposter condu

I wasn't just thinking of records tampered after the fact. There is also the problem of genuine records created by the orchestrated actions of an imposter conducting a ruse. This would be the false flag possibility. I'm not saying I believe this is a likely scenario; just that it's a possible one. And yes it would be hard for an imposter to leave all the right evidence. But if there is a hunt for a scapegoat and easy evidence is left in plain sight, there's a great temptation to just cherry pick that evidence, even if it's incomplete. I don't know that the US isn't cherry picking and distorting whatever evidence they have. Sometimes the interests of multiple entities in government all align such that they put all their weight behind promoting one particular scapegoat. What you saw at Google must have been fascinating... is there a writeup? I was in the courtroom for the Wen Ho Lee hearings and got to watch (and privy to some behind the scenes stuff) the amazing amount of resources that could be brought to bear against an innocent scapegoat, and the contortions government actors would bend to in order to omit countervailing evidence and advance their false narrative. False narratives have happened in other cases too... example, compare the New Yorker account of the killing of Osama bin Laden: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-lad... with Seymour Hersh's revisiting of the same episode, which tells a completely different story: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-... -- sometimes political expediency drives the investigation, more so than analysis of real facts. >As a result, I find it completely believable that the origin of those attacks can be identified with certainty. Strong statement. I was under the impression that TAO had tools which allowed them to hack many routers (potentially then rewriting the logs you speak of?) And I would expect they would not be alone in this. But even if you're right that they (on the inside of the investigation) can know with certainty, and even if going a step farther they DO know with certainty, we (on the outside) probably never will know. Too bad, because it would be nice to be able to trust our own government. Edit: >have lead to still more infrastructure which is completely passive and observational and captures all packet flows and meta data. OK that is kind of cool... or scary... depending on whether you are a black hat or not in whatever realm you're living under.