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Crickets from all of the "news" outlets that pointed to this incident as more "proof" of a Russia-Wikileaks partership. Very much like the Sony hack, which was

Crickets from all of the "news" outlets that pointed to this incident as more "proof" of a Russia-Wikileaks partership. Very much like the Sony hack, which was widely attributed to North Korea (again, without a shred of evidence), you can be sure that there will be very few, if any, mea-culpas issued by those media organizations that uncritically swallowed DC/CIA misinformation and reported that misinformation as fact. Hopefully this episode will serve as an important reminder to everyone that they should always remains skeptical, of everything, until presented with proof they can independently verify, instead of mindlessly accepting basless claims that happen to agree with popular narratives.

rubbingalcohol 8y ago
I researched your claim. For the Sony hack, no actual evidence was ever provided implicating North Korea - just unsupported allegations. [Independent researchers](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/30/sony-hack-researchers-claim-sacked-employees-could-be-to-blame https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/30/sony-hack-resea...) found it was much more likely to have been disgruntled employees. However, for the Vault 7 leak, almost no major news organizations cited Russia as a likely culprit for this. I agree with your sentiment that basically any official information that comes out of the IC is suspect, but in this case, unless you can cite specific examples, I'm pretty sure the IC never publicly blamed Russia.
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-cia-documents-us-russia-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-cia-... >no actual evidence was ever provided implicating North Korea - just unsupported allegations. No actual evidence has been provided implicating Wikileaks received anything from Russia either - just unsupported allegations. If you disagree, I welcome you to link below actual evidence that has been provided. Despite the exhorations of many, claims made by spooks, spies, employees of think tanks and 3-letter agencies is not proof of anything, in any context, ever. Its extremely troubling, and very revealing, that this simple fact is an anathema to so many.
  - notveryrational 8y ago
    That's because Wikileaks is not in any way a Russian operation. Wikileaks is globally important as a whistleblowing operation. If you go back to the 1990s you can find the US government applauding Wikileaks' publications. When Wikileaks distributed several large caches of US documents, and would not negotiate with the US Justice Department on disclosure, censorship and propaganda agreements common with most other news providers - this more friendly relationship curdled. The US became increasingly hostile with Wikileaks, tried to get its operators extradited, even shopped around for internet sock puppets and social media campaigns to damage their reputations. Wikileaks in turn became distasteful of the US, and happily publishes damaging materials on the United States. These documents also happen to cover many of the details associated with unsavory activity of the world's sole superpower, which makes the reporting rather important. US media characterizations of Wikileaks as a Russian operation are, and have been, a (successful?) domestic propaganda campaign. The way the IG talks in internal documents (go find them) about Wikileaks is that it is an independent information organization that "punches above its weight" and has geopolitical capabilities as a non-state actor. That's much closer to the truth.
notveryrational 8y ago
North Korea was very likely the culprit behind the SONY hacks. If you read the leaked emails, you will find that SONY had worked with the US Department of State and the CIA to add American propaganda into "The Interview" with a plan to distribute it across the Korean Peninsula. Seth Rogan also did several interviews about CIA and State Department working on the set. The group attributed for hacking SONY was "DarkSeoul" within "Bureau 121". This group is known for actively retaliating against companies that use propaganda to attack North Korean national security as a form of deterrence. Additionally, the group posted, along with the SONY leaks, criticisms of what they called "the movie of terrorism" ("The Interview"). Of course, American media turned it all around and pretended that they said something about blowing up movie theaters, and caused a public panic. Nobody in the IC attributed Vault7 to Russia. Wikileaks themselves suggested that it was a CIA contractor. US media did domestically propagandize the public via IC partnerships to "infer" and "suggest" that it was Russia, but no public statements that I'm aware of were made.

rubbingalcohol 8y ago

I researched your claim. For the Sony hack, no actual evidence was ever provided implicating North Korea - just unsupported allegations. [Independent researchers](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/30/sony-hack-researchers-claim-sacked-employees-could-be-to-blame https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/30/sony-hack-resea...) found it was much more likely to have been disgruntled employees. However, for the Vault 7 leak, almost no major news organizations cited Russia as a likely culprit for this. I agree with your sentiment that basically any official information that comes out of the IC is suspect, but in this case, unless you can cite specific examples, I'm pretty sure the IC never publicly blamed Russia.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-cia-documents-us-russia-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-cia-... >no actual evidence was ever provided implicating North Korea - just unsupported allegations. No actual evidence has been provided implicating Wikileaks received anything from Russia either - just unsupported allegations. If you disagree, I welcome you to link below actual evidence that has been provided. Despite the exhorations of many, claims made by spooks, spies, employees of think tanks and 3-letter agencies is not proof of anything, in any context, ever. Its extremely troubling, and very revealing, that this simple fact is an anathema to so many.
- notveryrational 8y ago
  That's because Wikileaks is not in any way a Russian operation. Wikileaks is globally important as a whistleblowing operation. If you go back to the 1990s you can find the US government applauding Wikileaks' publications. When Wikileaks distributed several large caches of US documents, and would not negotiate with the US Justice Department on disclosure, censorship and propaganda agreements common with most other news providers - this more friendly relationship curdled. The US became increasingly hostile with Wikileaks, tried to get its operators extradited, even shopped around for internet sock puppets and social media campaigns to damage their reputations. Wikileaks in turn became distasteful of the US, and happily publishes damaging materials on the United States. These documents also happen to cover many of the details associated with unsavory activity of the world's sole superpower, which makes the reporting rather important. US media characterizations of Wikileaks as a Russian operation are, and have been, a (successful?) domestic propaganda campaign. The way the IG talks in internal documents (go find them) about Wikileaks is that it is an independent information organization that "punches above its weight" and has geopolitical capabilities as a non-state actor. That's much closer to the truth.

notveryrational 8y ago

North Korea was very likely the culprit behind the SONY hacks. If you read the leaked emails, you will find that SONY had worked with the US Department of State and the CIA to add American propaganda into "The Interview" with a plan to distribute it across the Korean Peninsula. Seth Rogan also did several interviews about CIA and State Department working on the set. The group attributed for hacking SONY was "DarkSeoul" within "Bureau 121". This group is known for actively retaliating against companies that use propaganda to attack North Korean national security as a form of deterrence. Additionally, the group posted, along with the SONY leaks, criticisms of what they called "the movie of terrorism" ("The Interview"). Of course, American media turned it all around and pretended that they said something about blowing up movie theaters, and caused a public panic. Nobody in the IC attributed Vault7 to Russia. Wikileaks themselves suggested that it was a CIA contractor. US media did domestically propagandize the public via IC partnerships to "infer" and "suggest" that it was Russia, but no public statements that I'm aware of were made.