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Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

180 points by ccnafr 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
silveira 8y ago
Full indictment document: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
- toufka 8y ago
  So GRU, during Moscow work-hours, searched for terms like: "worldwide known", "think twice about", "some hundred sheets", and "company's competence". And those terms happen to all show up later that day in this post: https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/ https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/ We all here talked about that release at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412 Our top comment suggested, "The media (and CrowdStrike) blame Russians for it [0]. Heh... yet this blog and the hacker himself, says he did it alone. // Yes, APTs definitely do happen but I'd bet they happen a lot less frequently than the media and security companies would want us to believe." Those same computers controlled the twitter accounts, @dceaks_ (https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en), @Guccifer_2 (https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2 https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2) and the now-suspended, @BaltimoreIsWhr. Those computers also negotiated bitcoin transactions for VPN services, made numerous encouraging facebook posts, transferred data to WikiLeaks, and registered relevant domain names. And finally those computers communicated with: 1) a candidate for US Congress, 2) a registered state lobbyist, 3) a reporter, 4) a senior member of the Trump campaign. Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, that same day, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."
  - koolba 8y ago
    > Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office." Anyone who has seen the actual video for that blurb that doesn’t take it as a joke should re-evaluate their sense of humor.
    - mozumder 8y ago
      Statements are statements. Obama should have arrested Trump the moment he made this statement.
      - jdanp 8y ago
        For what?
      - freehunter 8y ago
        You'd have to pretty majorly change the US Constitution before that is even remotely legal.
        mozumder 8y ago
        Not really. Criminal conspiracy is already a crime.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        Alone, the comment may have been solicitation, but couldn't be conspiracy. But solicitation is also a crime.
    - ipython 8y ago
      Perhaps that is why other heads of state choose their words carefully... there are places where snark, innuendo and sarcasm are in poor taste. What is the purpose of said “joke”? Did it enhance your life in some way? Did it advance the interests of the USA in some way? What are the limits? Would you consider Strozk’s texts as “jokes” as well? Why or why not? To bring this back to hacker news, would you prefer a language syntax where you could insert meaningless statements that the interpreter or compiler could selectively decide to execute or not based on some non deterministic property? Lord knows we have enough problems with UB in C already ;)
- colinbartlett 8y ago
  The indictment is a reminder of just how much data can be pieced together about a person's online activity, at least with considerable resources and seemingly proper court authorized warrants. From web searches, to emails, twitter posts, block chain transactions, all of it could be correlated together. The searching for specific phrases that then appeared in a text is particularly damning. What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed?
  - civilitty 8y ago
    > What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed? These indictments are the result of a massive counterintelligence operation spanning many agencies from several nations. In this case specifically, the AIVD (Dutch intel) hacked the GRU offices where a large part of the hacking was carried out and managed to exfiltrate significant amounts of evidence including CCTV security footage of GRU officers coming and going [1]. The evidence proving the crimes for the purposes of a conviction will be made public but unless lawyers for the defendants come to challenge the warrants and get them unsealed, the evidence that led to the public stuff will likely stay secret for decades. [1] https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...
    - jrs95 8y ago
      If the evidence used here was obtained via intelligence services partly through hacking, and there is no real "defense" to speak of, why should we take this to be valid? How can we be sure that elements of this evidence haven't been fabricated or tampered with?
      - civilitty 8y ago
        The defendants will have the opportunity to dispute the evidence and challenge the legality of its acquisition before a judge and then several layers of appeals courts. What we know is that the prosecutors have already done their due diligence, that warrants were granted after judicial review, and that the evidence obtained from those warrants was enough to convince a grand jury to indict, regardless of whether the highly classified intel used to get that evidence was genuine or not. More importantly we know that the career Republicans running the office of special counsel, who incidentally all left multi-million dollar a year jobs to be at the center of the most politically charged, controversial, and scrutinized investigations in American history, have staked their reputations and careers on the truth of all of the documents they have filed in court, under oath.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
I wonder what the folks that kept claiming an inside job have to say about this?
- threeseed 8y ago
  In particular Assange and Wikileaks. He publicly supported the claim it was the DNC and every day it looks like Wikileaks was just being used as an information laundering service for the Russians.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - robotrout 8y ago
    I had not been aware the the government had ever obtained access to the DNC server. I assume that will be a key piece of evidence for prosecution and for defense, so they must finally have it. That's good. Would have been better two years ago, but good that they have it now.
- bcoates 8y ago
  I'm going to guess it's the usual reminder that statements in indictments are a description of the story the prosecutor plans to tell, not what they can actually prove. They are allowed to leave out anything that isn't consistent with their story.
- thucydidesofusa 8y ago
  This indictment doesn't seem to rule out the assertion that Wikileaks got their copy of the emails from someone in the DNC. It's possible that the DNC email server was compromised multiple times.
SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake? Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things... Isn't that shooting the messenger? Isn't the larger issue that the DNC, Podesta, and Clinton did and said things that weren't aligned with their public statements? edit: Downvotes for a serious question, hello Reddit, I hadn't seen you come in here. edit2: No, apparently none of the information was wrong or fake - but that doesn't change people's feeling on it apparently.
- chickenfries 8y ago
  So let’s see you publish your inbox then. What are you suggesting, that attempts to hack the Secretary of State go unanswered?
  - fleitz 8y ago
    I don't believe any of the emails came from the secretary of state... or are you saying she was using that account illegally to conduct state business?
  - local_yokel 8y ago
    How should Germany have answered the Obama-sanctioned eavesdropping on Angela Merkel's phone?
    - mkempe 8y ago
      Obviously Germany should sue Obama and a group of his accomplices. [added] I see double, down-voting standards. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We all agree that criminals should be charged, and that someone who organizes and benefits from criminal activity is criminal too. As America charges GRU agents, and thus targets their boss Putin, the same should be done for known actions by NSA agents, and their boss Obama at the time.
      - ssully 8y ago
asdfologist 8y ago
Fake news. Impossible. Putin and Trump both said this didn't happen.
- jabgrabdthrow 8y ago
  The damaging info in the emails is damaging
- jliptzin 8y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted so hard, the sarcasm is obvious.
  - jidsaofjaeojf 8y ago
    One of the HN guidelines is to not be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sctb 8y ago
  Please stop posting unsubstantive comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hanshan 8y ago
>The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways,” >“Together with our law enforcement partners, the Department of Justice is resolute in its commitment to locate, identify and seek to bring to justice anyone who interferes with American elections. Sounds like Don Quixote is fighting the internet now. Unless you just shut it down how is it possible to not have world wide "interference" on the world wide web? Perhaps we need to think about how the instantaneous global communications network is obsolescing the concept of the nation state which was formed as a result of the printing press. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy >Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious, and there will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us. That sounds like a fitting description of mass media/news corporations everywhere.
- RIMR 8y ago
  Wow, when a foreign government tries to influence our elections, you handwave it away, but when American journalists weigh in on politics, suddenly they're being "adversarial". Think long and hard about what you're saying here. You're dismissing foreign interference, but critisizing domestic political involvement. The key difference here is that Russia isn't the United States and has no say in our policies, while American journalists are citizens and voters who have a societal duty to participate the democracy. When the former gets involved in an election, we call it "foreign interference", when the latter gets involved we call it "democracy". So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy?
  - hanshan 8y ago
    >So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy? That's a false dichotomy which implies you missed my point. There is no such thing as sovereign democracy in a globalized world with omnipresence and instantaneous communication.
    - agathocles 8y ago
wyck 8y ago
Hopefully Craig Murray is not on suicide watch.
dylanhassinger 8y ago
Trump is a traitor
pseingatl 8y ago
"Prosecutor in [*] Files Charges against American NSA Officers" Just a question of time, I suppose.
akozak 8y ago
There's been a longstanding struggle between the design principles of cryptocurrency - i.e. private payments - and the public policy goals of monitoring our payments infrastructure for criminal activity. What are cryptocurrency advocates saying now about e.g. FinCEN's jurisdiction over exchanges? Is KYC now standard? Do they submit SARs? Do they agree with the principles, or are they opposed to any sort of oversight?
mkempe 8y ago
Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators, for hacking and interference in their own electoral processes. Reminder: the NSA has been hacking into governments and businesses all over the world.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators. Start? It's hardly as if US intelligence officers have never previously been charged by foreign governments.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    Yes, for torture [1], assassination [2], rendition [3], and war crimes [4][5]. Never merely for propaganda. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bush-six-over-torture/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bus... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-his... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html [4] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-may-be-guilty-of-war-crimes-afghanistan-says-icc https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/08/the-icc-will-investigate-alleged-u-s-war-crimes-in-afghanistan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/0...
    - tw04 8y ago
      Really? And you know this how? Just because the Chinese or Russian government's don't make a public spectacle, doesn't mean they haven't indicted US citizens for espionage. I'm willing to bet there's more than one US government employee who would be arrested the second they cleared customs in one or both of those countries.
      - mkempe 8y ago
        Your argument might have at least some weight if it didn't rely on super-secret, invisible gremlins.
neeksHN 8y ago
> At trial, prosecutors must introduce credible evidence that is sufficient to prove each defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to the unanimous satisfaction of a jury of twelve citizens. > This case was investigated with the help of the FBI’s cyber teams in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and San Francisco and the National Security Division. Assuming this never goes to trial, could the DOJ ever be compelled to release the evidence used to attribute the defendants? Or will it remain "pending arraignment" indefinitely? I'd love to see an in-depth technical analysis of how they were able to substantiate these allegations
- dsr_ 8y ago
  If it never goes to trial? The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years.
  - okmokmz 8y ago
    >The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years. Either that, or they'll send you a bunch of documents that look something like this https://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cc59ba2cadcbbbf5f030000-750.jpg https://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cc59ba2cadcbbbf5f0...
- mkempe 8y ago
  Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence used to charge them?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence use to charge them? If they actually are arrested or surrender themselves to face the charges, yes, mostly. That is, they are entitled to not only what the prosecution will use at trial, but to have any exculpatory evidence in the hands of the government proactively turned over, and to have compulsory means of securing any relevant evidence, physical or testimonial, from any person subject to the court. But that's likely moot in this case; these defendants seem unlikely to be brought before the court, voluntarily or involuntarily.
pwaai 8y ago
What will be America's next move here? They are looking awful weak right now.
maroonmed 8y ago
Great, but how does this accomplish anything. As GRU officers, I highly doubt they would ever travel to the US in the first place, which means they can't be punished in any meaningful way.
dragonwriter 8y ago
Replying to an unfortunately killed comment which raised common, potentially legitimate (given the success of various spin efforts) though naive and poorly informed questions: > Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake? It's the Russian election meddling scandal, the hacking was just one piece of it, and, yes, much of the information fed to the public in the course of that operation was false. Some of that has been covered in the special counsel’s previous indictment of Russian organizations and individuals involved in the propaganda end of the operation. > Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US (that is itself part of a larger operation being conducted not only the US but the entire Western Alliance), that that influence operation was integral to the success of the Presidential campaign, and that the US President (who is, by virtue of that position, also effective head of a major US political party) may, therefore, effectively be an agent of a hostile foreign power working against the interests of the US and her allies.
- mkempe 8y ago
  The claim that President Trump is an anti-American, Russian agent is insane. [added] I will not provide any reply or assistance if you further promote, hypothesize, or engage in crazy conspiracy theories.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - myko 8y ago
    His policies are fairly anti-western alliance, which has defined America for nearly a century. It's unlikely he's a Russian agent but he certainly seems to be influenced by at least one. His son definitely attempted to work with the Russian government to help get Trump elected, even though he knew they were doing something illegal.
    - anfedorov 8y ago
mciak 8y ago
Two things stand out to me here: (1) CrowdStrike, for all intents and purposes, failed. Russia had access to dem servers for four months after they were hired (2) Donors trying to use ActBlue (fairly major way dems raise money) were taken to a spoofed Russian site. Stealing democratic campaign donations feels like a very direct attack on the democratic process
orbitingpluto 8y ago
"On the evening of June 15, 2016 between 4:19PM and 4:56PM, defendants used their Moscow-based server to search for a series of English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0’s first blog post..." That has got to be one of the scarier things I've read in some time as to the depth and breadth of current surveillance.
- frankquist 8y ago
  Depth, certainly. Breadth, not necessarily (though I don't want to have much illusions regarding breadth). It could very well be that this information was gleaned from when the dutch hacked Cozy Bear. If that's the same group. https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-... (link copied from another comment)
cmurf 8y ago
From the indictment with my comments in [] 22. On or about July 27 2016 the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a 3rd party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign. [July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if you're listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find Clinton's 'missing' emails.] 34. In or around Sep 2016 the Conspirators successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on 3rd party cloud-computing services. These computers contained test applications related to the DNC's analytics. After conducting reconnaissance, the Conspirators gathered data by creating backups, or snapshots, of the DNC's cloud-based systems using the cloud provider's own technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based accounts they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the DNC. [Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in the cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic evidence to show how the theft occurred.] 43a. On or about Aug 15 2016, the Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0 recieved a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent. [Let's pretend this candidate didn't know Guccifer 2.0 was the GRU. He still knew he was asking for and receiving illegally obtained documents.] 72. In or around July 2016, KOVALEV and his co-conspirators hacked the website of a state board of elections (SBOE 1) and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters including names, addresses, party affiliation, social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver's license numbers. There are quite a few Americans "involved" either by being affected by ID theft by a crime organization purporting to be a government[1]; an American soliciting a foreign government to commit a crime the proceeds of which would likely benefit his campaign; and at least one American who solicited materials obtained in course of a crime who then received those materials to use against a competing candidate for Congress. So the idea that American's aren't involved is nonsense. There are no Americans indicted for crimes in this particular filing, however. [1] This is diplomatic. The less diplomatic version is that this is one nation attacking another, and is an act of war. That's how spy games get characterized when you get caught and revealed to the public.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Personally I have no doubt that many US persons (R.S. is probably one of them) sought the aid of Russia to elect Trump. They thought that Hillary was corrupt or whatever and Russia could unmask her. The fact that Russia did it, to them is irrelevant, the "truth" was revealed. I am also certain that the end didn't justify the means in this case, USA is right to through the kitchen sink at the people involved...we have elections every 2-4 years and a message should be sent. (USA did the same is not a moral equivalent to me)
cmurf 8y ago
Rod Rosenstein said he briefed the president that this indictment was coming today. The president chose today to attack, from Buckinghamshire, Mueller and the probe as a rigged witch hunt yet again. The White House statement amounts to "it proves we did nothing, Americans weren't involved" but no statement pushing back on Russia at all. No condemnation at all. But this is from a president who has said about Putin: "He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times" "Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that" "And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it." "I think he is very insulted by it." The timing of this indictment is obvious to probably most people, but in particular to people who have studied or are professionals in international relations - it is to give the president the option to cancel the meeting in Helsinki. To give him the option to recalibrate and criticize Putin. But instead what we've got so far is more "witch hunt" paranoid conspiratorial nonsense which is identical to the single public contribution of significance Trump produced before becoming president: five years of the racist lie of birtherism, followed by an admission otherwise while simultaneously lying again by blaming Clinton for having started the conspiracy. This is a man who will make up anything, do anything, lie about anything, and blame anyone for all of it without any reluctance whatsoever. And it will continue that way.
mkempe 8y ago
The storyline behind the charges is self-contradictory -- according to Muller's indictments: a) Russian intelligence tried to hack Hillary's personal email system for the first time on July 27 2016. b) Russian cutout Joseph Mifsud told George Papadopoulos on April 26 2016 that Russia already had thousands of her emails.

180 points by ccnafr 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

silveira 8y ago

Full indictment document: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download

toufka 8y ago
So GRU, during Moscow work-hours, searched for terms like: "worldwide known", "think twice about", "some hundred sheets", and "company's competence". And those terms happen to all show up later that day in this post: https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/ https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/ We all here talked about that release at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412 Our top comment suggested, "The media (and CrowdStrike) blame Russians for it [0]. Heh... yet this blog and the hacker himself, says he did it alone. // Yes, APTs definitely do happen but I'd bet they happen a lot less frequently than the media and security companies would want us to believe." Those same computers controlled the twitter accounts, @dceaks_ (https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en), @Guccifer_2 (https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2 https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2) and the now-suspended, @BaltimoreIsWhr. Those computers also negotiated bitcoin transactions for VPN services, made numerous encouraging facebook posts, transferred data to WikiLeaks, and registered relevant domain names. And finally those computers communicated with: 1) a candidate for US Congress, 2) a registered state lobbyist, 3) a reporter, 4) a senior member of the Trump campaign. Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, that same day, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."
- koolba 8y ago
  > Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office." Anyone who has seen the actual video for that blurb that doesn’t take it as a joke should re-evaluate their sense of humor.
  - mozumder 8y ago
    Statements are statements. Obama should have arrested Trump the moment he made this statement.
    - jdanp 8y ago
      For what?
    - freehunter 8y ago
      You'd have to pretty majorly change the US Constitution before that is even remotely legal.
      - mozumder 8y ago
        Not really. Criminal conspiracy is already a crime.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        Alone, the comment may have been solicitation, but couldn't be conspiracy. But solicitation is also a crime.
  - ipython 8y ago
    Perhaps that is why other heads of state choose their words carefully... there are places where snark, innuendo and sarcasm are in poor taste. What is the purpose of said “joke”? Did it enhance your life in some way? Did it advance the interests of the USA in some way? What are the limits? Would you consider Strozk’s texts as “jokes” as well? Why or why not? To bring this back to hacker news, would you prefer a language syntax where you could insert meaningless statements that the interpreter or compiler could selectively decide to execute or not based on some non deterministic property? Lord knows we have enough problems with UB in C already ;)
colinbartlett 8y ago
The indictment is a reminder of just how much data can be pieced together about a person's online activity, at least with considerable resources and seemingly proper court authorized warrants. From web searches, to emails, twitter posts, block chain transactions, all of it could be correlated together. The searching for specific phrases that then appeared in a text is particularly damning. What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed?
- civilitty 8y ago
  > What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed? These indictments are the result of a massive counterintelligence operation spanning many agencies from several nations. In this case specifically, the AIVD (Dutch intel) hacked the GRU offices where a large part of the hacking was carried out and managed to exfiltrate significant amounts of evidence including CCTV security footage of GRU officers coming and going [1]. The evidence proving the crimes for the purposes of a conviction will be made public but unless lawyers for the defendants come to challenge the warrants and get them unsealed, the evidence that led to the public stuff will likely stay secret for decades. [1] https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...
  - jrs95 8y ago
    If the evidence used here was obtained via intelligence services partly through hacking, and there is no real "defense" to speak of, why should we take this to be valid? How can we be sure that elements of this evidence haven't been fabricated or tampered with?
    - civilitty 8y ago
      The defendants will have the opportunity to dispute the evidence and challenge the legality of its acquisition before a judge and then several layers of appeals courts. What we know is that the prosecutors have already done their due diligence, that warrants were granted after judicial review, and that the evidence obtained from those warrants was enough to convince a grand jury to indict, regardless of whether the highly classified intel used to get that evidence was genuine or not. More importantly we know that the career Republicans running the office of special counsel, who incidentally all left multi-million dollar a year jobs to be at the center of the most politically charged, controversial, and scrutinized investigations in American history, have staked their reputations and careers on the truth of all of the documents they have filed in court, under oath.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

I wonder what the folks that kept claiming an inside job have to say about this?

threeseed 8y ago
In particular Assange and Wikileaks. He publicly supported the claim it was the DNC and every day it looks like Wikileaks was just being used as an information laundering service for the Russians.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- robotrout 8y ago
  I had not been aware the the government had ever obtained access to the DNC server. I assume that will be a key piece of evidence for prosecution and for defense, so they must finally have it. That's good. Would have been better two years ago, but good that they have it now.
bcoates 8y ago
I'm going to guess it's the usual reminder that statements in indictments are a description of the story the prosecutor plans to tell, not what they can actually prove. They are allowed to leave out anything that isn't consistent with their story.
thucydidesofusa 8y ago
This indictment doesn't seem to rule out the assertion that Wikileaks got their copy of the emails from someone in the DNC. It's possible that the DNC email server was compromised multiple times.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake? Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things... Isn't that shooting the messenger? Isn't the larger issue that the DNC, Podesta, and Clinton did and said things that weren't aligned with their public statements? edit: Downvotes for a serious question, hello Reddit, I hadn't seen you come in here. edit2: No, apparently none of the information was wrong or fake - but that doesn't change people's feeling on it apparently.

chickenfries 8y ago
So let’s see you publish your inbox then. What are you suggesting, that attempts to hack the Secretary of State go unanswered?
- fleitz 8y ago
  I don't believe any of the emails came from the secretary of state... or are you saying she was using that account illegally to conduct state business?
- local_yokel 8y ago
  How should Germany have answered the Obama-sanctioned eavesdropping on Angela Merkel's phone?
  - mkempe 8y ago
    Obviously Germany should sue Obama and a group of his accomplices. [added] I see double, down-voting standards. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We all agree that criminals should be charged, and that someone who organizes and benefits from criminal activity is criminal too. As America charges GRU agents, and thus targets their boss Putin, the same should be done for known actions by NSA agents, and their boss Obama at the time.
    - ssully 8y ago

asdfologist 8y ago

Fake news. Impossible. Putin and Trump both said this didn't happen.

jabgrabdthrow 8y ago
The damaging info in the emails is damaging
jliptzin 8y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted so hard, the sarcasm is obvious.
- jidsaofjaeojf 8y ago
  One of the HN guidelines is to not be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
sctb 8y ago
Please stop posting unsubstantive comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hanshan 8y ago

>The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways,” >“Together with our law enforcement partners, the Department of Justice is resolute in its commitment to locate, identify and seek to bring to justice anyone who interferes with American elections. Sounds like Don Quixote is fighting the internet now. Unless you just shut it down how is it possible to not have world wide "interference" on the world wide web? Perhaps we need to think about how the instantaneous global communications network is obsolescing the concept of the nation state which was formed as a result of the printing press. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy >Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious, and there will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us. That sounds like a fitting description of mass media/news corporations everywhere.

RIMR 8y ago
Wow, when a foreign government tries to influence our elections, you handwave it away, but when American journalists weigh in on politics, suddenly they're being "adversarial". Think long and hard about what you're saying here. You're dismissing foreign interference, but critisizing domestic political involvement. The key difference here is that Russia isn't the United States and has no say in our policies, while American journalists are citizens and voters who have a societal duty to participate the democracy. When the former gets involved in an election, we call it "foreign interference", when the latter gets involved we call it "democracy". So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy?
- hanshan 8y ago
  >So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy? That's a false dichotomy which implies you missed my point. There is no such thing as sovereign democracy in a globalized world with omnipresence and instantaneous communication.
  - agathocles 8y ago

wyck 8y ago

Hopefully Craig Murray is not on suicide watch.

dylanhassinger 8y ago

Trump is a traitor

pseingatl 8y ago

"Prosecutor in [*] Files Charges against American NSA Officers" Just a question of time, I suppose.

akozak 8y ago

There's been a longstanding struggle between the design principles of cryptocurrency - i.e. private payments - and the public policy goals of monitoring our payments infrastructure for criminal activity. What are cryptocurrency advocates saying now about e.g. FinCEN's jurisdiction over exchanges? Is KYC now standard? Do they submit SARs? Do they agree with the principles, or are they opposed to any sort of oversight?

mkempe 8y ago

Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators, for hacking and interference in their own electoral processes. Reminder: the NSA has been hacking into governments and businesses all over the world.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators. Start? It's hardly as if US intelligence officers have never previously been charged by foreign governments.
- mkempe 8y ago
  Yes, for torture [1], assassination [2], rendition [3], and war crimes [4][5]. Never merely for propaganda. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bush-six-over-torture/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bus... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-leaders-around-the-world-north-korea https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-his... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html [4] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-may-be-guilty-of-war-crimes-afghanistan-says-icc https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/08/the-icc-will-investigate-alleged-u-s-war-crimes-in-afghanistan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/0...
  - tw04 8y ago
    Really? And you know this how? Just because the Chinese or Russian government's don't make a public spectacle, doesn't mean they haven't indicted US citizens for espionage. I'm willing to bet there's more than one US government employee who would be arrested the second they cleared customs in one or both of those countries.
    - mkempe 8y ago
      Your argument might have at least some weight if it didn't rely on super-secret, invisible gremlins.

neeksHN 8y ago

> At trial, prosecutors must introduce credible evidence that is sufficient to prove each defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to the unanimous satisfaction of a jury of twelve citizens. > This case was investigated with the help of the FBI’s cyber teams in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and San Francisco and the National Security Division. Assuming this never goes to trial, could the DOJ ever be compelled to release the evidence used to attribute the defendants? Or will it remain "pending arraignment" indefinitely? I'd love to see an in-depth technical analysis of how they were able to substantiate these allegations

dsr_ 8y ago
If it never goes to trial? The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years.
- okmokmz 8y ago
  >The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years. Either that, or they'll send you a bunch of documents that look something like this https://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cc59ba2cadcbbbf5f030000-750.jpg https://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cc59ba2cadcbbbf5f0...
mkempe 8y ago
Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence used to charge them?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence use to charge them? If they actually are arrested or surrender themselves to face the charges, yes, mostly. That is, they are entitled to not only what the prosecution will use at trial, but to have any exculpatory evidence in the hands of the government proactively turned over, and to have compulsory means of securing any relevant evidence, physical or testimonial, from any person subject to the court. But that's likely moot in this case; these defendants seem unlikely to be brought before the court, voluntarily or involuntarily.

pwaai 8y ago

What will be America's next move here? They are looking awful weak right now.

maroonmed 8y ago

Great, but how does this accomplish anything. As GRU officers, I highly doubt they would ever travel to the US in the first place, which means they can't be punished in any meaningful way.

dragonwriter 8y ago

Replying to an unfortunately killed comment which raised common, potentially legitimate (given the success of various spin efforts) though naive and poorly informed questions: > Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake? It's the Russian election meddling scandal, the hacking was just one piece of it, and, yes, much of the information fed to the public in the course of that operation was false. Some of that has been covered in the special counsel’s previous indictment of Russian organizations and individuals involved in the propaganda end of the operation. > Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US (that is itself part of a larger operation being conducted not only the US but the entire Western Alliance), that that influence operation was integral to the success of the Presidential campaign, and that the US President (who is, by virtue of that position, also effective head of a major US political party) may, therefore, effectively be an agent of a hostile foreign power working against the interests of the US and her allies.

mkempe 8y ago
The claim that President Trump is an anti-American, Russian agent is insane. [added] I will not provide any reply or assistance if you further promote, hypothesize, or engage in crazy conspiracy theories.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- myko 8y ago
  His policies are fairly anti-western alliance, which has defined America for nearly a century. It's unlikely he's a Russian agent but he certainly seems to be influenced by at least one. His son definitely attempted to work with the Russian government to help get Trump elected, even though he knew they were doing something illegal.
  - anfedorov 8y ago

mciak 8y ago

Two things stand out to me here: (1) CrowdStrike, for all intents and purposes, failed. Russia had access to dem servers for four months after they were hired (2) Donors trying to use ActBlue (fairly major way dems raise money) were taken to a spoofed Russian site. Stealing democratic campaign donations feels like a very direct attack on the democratic process

orbitingpluto 8y ago

"On the evening of June 15, 2016 between 4:19PM and 4:56PM, defendants used their Moscow-based server to search for a series of English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0’s first blog post..." That has got to be one of the scarier things I've read in some time as to the depth and breadth of current surveillance.

frankquist 8y ago
Depth, certainly. Breadth, not necessarily (though I don't want to have much illusions regarding breadth). It could very well be that this information was gleaned from when the dutch hacked Cozy Bear. If that's the same group. https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-... (link copied from another comment)

cmurf 8y ago

From the indictment with my comments in [] 22. On or about July 27 2016 the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a 3rd party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign. [July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if you're listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find Clinton's 'missing' emails.] 34. In or around Sep 2016 the Conspirators successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on 3rd party cloud-computing services. These computers contained test applications related to the DNC's analytics. After conducting reconnaissance, the Conspirators gathered data by creating backups, or snapshots, of the DNC's cloud-based systems using the cloud provider's own technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based accounts they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the DNC. [Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in the cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic evidence to show how the theft occurred.] 43a. On or about Aug 15 2016, the Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0 recieved a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent. [Let's pretend this candidate didn't know Guccifer 2.0 was the GRU. He still knew he was asking for and receiving illegally obtained documents.] 72. In or around July 2016, KOVALEV and his co-conspirators hacked the website of a state board of elections (SBOE 1) and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters including names, addresses, party affiliation, social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver's license numbers. There are quite a few Americans "involved" either by being affected by ID theft by a crime organization purporting to be a government[1]; an American soliciting a foreign government to commit a crime the proceeds of which would likely benefit his campaign; and at least one American who solicited materials obtained in course of a crime who then received those materials to use against a competing candidate for Congress. So the idea that American's aren't involved is nonsense. There are no Americans indicted for crimes in this particular filing, however. [1] This is diplomatic. The less diplomatic version is that this is one nation attacking another, and is an act of war. That's how spy games get characterized when you get caught and revealed to the public.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

onetimemanytime 8y ago

Personally I have no doubt that many US persons (R.S. is probably one of them) sought the aid of Russia to elect Trump. They thought that Hillary was corrupt or whatever and Russia could unmask her. The fact that Russia did it, to them is irrelevant, the "truth" was revealed. I am also certain that the end didn't justify the means in this case, USA is right to through the kitchen sink at the people involved...we have elections every 2-4 years and a message should be sent. (USA did the same is not a moral equivalent to me)

cmurf 8y ago

Rod Rosenstein said he briefed the president that this indictment was coming today. The president chose today to attack, from Buckinghamshire, Mueller and the probe as a rigged witch hunt yet again. The White House statement amounts to "it proves we did nothing, Americans weren't involved" but no statement pushing back on Russia at all. No condemnation at all. But this is from a president who has said about Putin: "He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times" "Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that" "And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it." "I think he is very insulted by it." The timing of this indictment is obvious to probably most people, but in particular to people who have studied or are professionals in international relations - it is to give the president the option to cancel the meeting in Helsinki. To give him the option to recalibrate and criticize Putin. But instead what we've got so far is more "witch hunt" paranoid conspiratorial nonsense which is identical to the single public contribution of significance Trump produced before becoming president: five years of the racist lie of birtherism, followed by an admission otherwise while simultaneously lying again by blaming Clinton for having started the conspiracy. This is a man who will make up anything, do anything, lie about anything, and blame anyone for all of it without any reluctance whatsoever. And it will continue that way.

mkempe 8y ago

The storyline behind the charges is self-contradictory -- according to Muller's indictments: a) Russian intelligence tried to hack Hillary's personal email system for the first time on July 27 2016. b) Russian cutout Joseph Mifsud told George Papadopoulos on April 26 2016 that Russia already had thousands of her emails.