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>Julian already stated that Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks. That's wrong, and is spreading misinformation: - Julian Assange said that his source

>Julian already stated that Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks. That's wrong, and is spreading misinformation: - Julian Assange said that his source was not Russian Intelligence. - Julian Assange did not say that the hacks were not Russian. It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU.

AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
> Julian Assange did not say that the hacks were not Russian. Julian Assange has also never stated that a "hack" took place to obtain this data.
- three_seagrass 7y ago
  Which doesn't matter because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
  - AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
    What is this evidence you bring up, and where can we find it? If you have evidence - especially evidence that Assange himself doesn't have - by all means, share it. I am sure this would really help a lot of people understand an issue, about which the cyber-security industry has apparently reached a consensus.
    - three_seagrass 7y ago
      Sure - more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 >The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that some of the genuine leaks from "Guccifer 2.0" were part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian military intelligence groups, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is actually a persona created by Russian intelligence services to cover for their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This conclusion is based on analyses conducted by various private sector cybersecurity individuals and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica.
      - ryanlol 7y ago
        > including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica. Some of these are not like the others.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        crunchatized 7y ago
        The Ars article is at least very transparent about its conclusions and what evidence they're based on. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc-trump-research-has-a-russians-fingerprints-on-it/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci... "We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0—the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it—left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era."
        monocasa 7y ago
        I never really got this argument. If someone embedded the username "J Edgar Hoover" in some documents, would we make the assumption that they pined for a return to cold war era FBI control over politics, or that they were just trolling? Dzerzhinsky was basically J Edgar's counterpoint in the east.
        pandaman 7y ago
        For the complete analogy, it should be the pinning of CIA control over politics based on Edgar Hoover's name because the GRU, which is accused of this operation is the military intelligence and Dzerzhinsky is the founder of NKVD/KGB/FSB - an FBI+DHS equivalent.
      - einpoklum 7y ago
    - ccaleb 7y ago
      Direct quote from Mueller Report: "GRU officers used both the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas to communicate with WikiLeaks through Twitter private messaging and through encrypted channels, including possibly through WikiLeaks's private communication system.”
      - einpoklum 7y ago
        Mueller claimed this was the case, but - his report, as released to the public, did not present evidence to establish these claims (nor, in fact, most claims in the report regarding Russian interference). Also, "including possibly through Wikileaks" means nothing. "Including possibly through my second cousin's DIY basement mail server."
        dangoor 7y ago
        There was an indictment: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download I don’t know if there was further evidence not made public to protect sources and methods.
        crunchatized 7y ago
        Of all the things that aren't evidence, an indictment is possibly among the most not-evidence things. A judge famously said you could indict a ham sandwich. In practice, grand juries say whatever a prosecutor wants them to say. And as Russian nationals, it's also unlikely they'll ever have to actually stand trial, which is when evidence would be required to enter the public record to convict them.
        einpoklum 7y ago
        I also very much doubt the US government will want to go through a discovery phase with these people, so I'm not sure the DoJ really wants a trial to actually take place.
        einpoklum 7y ago
stefantalpalaru 7y ago
> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU. That piece of disinformation was thoroughly debunked: http://www.g-2.space/ http://www.g-2.space/
- three_seagrass 7y ago
  That seems credible...
einpoklum 7y ago
> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU. You mean, it is repeatedly claimed without solid (or any?) evidence.
Bendingo 7y ago
> did not say that the hacks were not Russian He also did not say that the hacks were not leaks. There are many things he also did not say. Are all of these things therefore true, or only the things you believe to be "well known" ? > It's well known [...] were Russian GRU Any Russian state or GRU involvement is completely unsubstantiated.
- three_seagrass 7y ago
  Any conspiracies saying the DNC emails were leaked have been debunked.
harry8 7y ago
"It is well known that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." This Russia link is stated so often without a shred of evidence on the authority of known liars I think we're safe to say it's less likely than 50:50 at this point. I'll change my mind for credible evidence of which nobody has that they can share. Evidence. Put up or shut up. The motive for spreading that lie, if it is a lie as seems more than plausible is as as big as the WMD lie are obvious. Or at least be honest enough to say you still believe WMD as i did before evidence.
- meowface 7y ago
  There's a fair bit of evidence in Mueller's report: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf. But probably the most damning evidence is still highly classified. There's evidence released by private firms, including ThreatConnect, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Fidelis, and Dell SecureWorks, who have been tracking Russian intelligence groups, including the ones that they allege hacked the DNC, for many years prior: * https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recent-claims/ https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recen... * https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28.html https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28... * https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ... * https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-analysis-dnc-intrusion-malware/ https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-... * https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe... (There are varying degrees of technical details in each report, but I recommend reading them all to get a full picture.) Dutch intelligence says they hacked GRU computers and cameras and observed the hacks as they were happening: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch-intelligence-hacked-video-cameras-in-office-of-russians-who-hacked-dnc/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch.... They contacted NSA, and this may have been the first time US intelligence became aware of this. The evidence is so comprehensive, Mueller was able to name 12 of the GRU officers who conducted the breaches: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download. This indictment gets extremely specific, to the point of what software they were running and when, what they were searching for, how they got the funding to buy the VPN access they used to register the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account, exactly what they said and sent to Wikileaks, etc. This goes into very granular detail. Here's an excerpt: >Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server. 30. >On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS software on the server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers. There is essentially a global consensus among intelligence and security organizations, governmental and private, that Russian intelligence was behind the DNC hack and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. By contrast, not a single entity other than the US government backed the Iraq WMD claims, and there wasn't any sort of specific public claims made beyond "they have WMDs". Here, Mueller's reports make hundreds of very specific, narrow claims. If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch gave them). As for whether Assange was aware of any of this or suspected it; who knows. It's very likely "Guccifer 2.0" / GRU would have maintained their cover while sending him information. Doesn't really make sense for them to be like "hey, Russia here, here's some stuff you might want". He's smart, though, and surely was (or at least is now) aware of the possibility.
afiori 7y ago
> Assange, said Rohrabacher, “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, is the only U.S. congressman to have visited the controversial figure. https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabacher.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rohrabacher-assange-says-russia-not-behind-dnc-email-leak https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach... My understanding here is that "Russians" here means Russian government intelligence, it does not necessarily exclude Russian citizens.

AndrewUnmuted 7y ago

> Julian Assange did not say that the hacks were not Russian. Julian Assange has also never stated that a "hack" took place to obtain this data.

three_seagrass 7y ago
Which doesn't matter because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
  What is this evidence you bring up, and where can we find it? If you have evidence - especially evidence that Assange himself doesn't have - by all means, share it. I am sure this would really help a lot of people understand an issue, about which the cyber-security industry has apparently reached a consensus.
  - three_seagrass 7y ago
    Sure - more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0 >The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that some of the genuine leaks from "Guccifer 2.0" were part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian military intelligence groups, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is actually a persona created by Russian intelligence services to cover for their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This conclusion is based on analyses conducted by various private sector cybersecurity individuals and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      > including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica. Some of these are not like the others.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - crunchatized 7y ago
        The Ars article is at least very transparent about its conclusions and what evidence they're based on. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/guccifer-leak-of-dnc-trump-research-has-a-russians-fingerprints-on-it/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci... "We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0—the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it—left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era."
        monocasa 7y ago
        I never really got this argument. If someone embedded the username "J Edgar Hoover" in some documents, would we make the assumption that they pined for a return to cold war era FBI control over politics, or that they were just trolling? Dzerzhinsky was basically J Edgar's counterpoint in the east.
        pandaman 7y ago
        For the complete analogy, it should be the pinning of CIA control over politics based on Edgar Hoover's name because the GRU, which is accused of this operation is the military intelligence and Dzerzhinsky is the founder of NKVD/KGB/FSB - an FBI+DHS equivalent.
    - einpoklum 7y ago
  - ccaleb 7y ago
    Direct quote from Mueller Report: "GRU officers used both the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas to communicate with WikiLeaks through Twitter private messaging and through encrypted channels, including possibly through WikiLeaks's private communication system.”
    - einpoklum 7y ago
      Mueller claimed this was the case, but - his report, as released to the public, did not present evidence to establish these claims (nor, in fact, most claims in the report regarding Russian interference). Also, "including possibly through Wikileaks" means nothing. "Including possibly through my second cousin's DIY basement mail server."
      - dangoor 7y ago
        There was an indictment: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download I don’t know if there was further evidence not made public to protect sources and methods.
        crunchatized 7y ago
        Of all the things that aren't evidence, an indictment is possibly among the most not-evidence things. A judge famously said you could indict a ham sandwich. In practice, grand juries say whatever a prosecutor wants them to say. And as Russian nationals, it's also unlikely they'll ever have to actually stand trial, which is when evidence would be required to enter the public record to convict them.
        einpoklum 7y ago
        I also very much doubt the US government will want to go through a discovery phase with these people, so I'm not sure the DoJ really wants a trial to actually take place.
        einpoklum 7y ago

stefantalpalaru 7y ago

> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU. That piece of disinformation was thoroughly debunked: http://www.g-2.space/ http://www.g-2.space/

three_seagrass 7y ago
That seems credible...

einpoklum 7y ago

> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU. You mean, it is repeatedly claimed without solid (or any?) evidence.

Bendingo 7y ago

> did not say that the hacks were not Russian He also did not say that the hacks were not leaks. There are many things he also did not say. Are all of these things therefore true, or only the things you believe to be "well known" ? > It's well known [...] were Russian GRU Any Russian state or GRU involvement is completely unsubstantiated.

three_seagrass 7y ago
Any conspiracies saying the DNC emails were leaked have been debunked.

harry8 7y ago

"It is well known that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." This Russia link is stated so often without a shred of evidence on the authority of known liars I think we're safe to say it's less likely than 50:50 at this point. I'll change my mind for credible evidence of which nobody has that they can share. Evidence. Put up or shut up. The motive for spreading that lie, if it is a lie as seems more than plausible is as as big as the WMD lie are obvious. Or at least be honest enough to say you still believe WMD as i did before evidence.

meowface 7y ago
There's a fair bit of evidence in Mueller's report: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf. But probably the most damning evidence is still highly classified. There's evidence released by private firms, including ThreatConnect, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Fidelis, and Dell SecureWorks, who have been tracking Russian intelligence groups, including the ones that they allege hacked the DNC, for many years prior: * https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recent-claims/ https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recen... * https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28.html https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28... * https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ... * https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-analysis-dnc-intrusion-malware/ https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-... * https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe... (There are varying degrees of technical details in each report, but I recommend reading them all to get a full picture.) Dutch intelligence says they hacked GRU computers and cameras and observed the hacks as they were happening: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch-intelligence-hacked-video-cameras-in-office-of-russians-who-hacked-dnc/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch.... They contacted NSA, and this may have been the first time US intelligence became aware of this. The evidence is so comprehensive, Mueller was able to name 12 of the GRU officers who conducted the breaches: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download. This indictment gets extremely specific, to the point of what software they were running and when, what they were searching for, how they got the funding to buy the VPN access they used to register the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account, exactly what they said and sent to Wikileaks, etc. This goes into very granular detail. Here's an excerpt: >Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server. 30. >On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS software on the server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers. There is essentially a global consensus among intelligence and security organizations, governmental and private, that Russian intelligence was behind the DNC hack and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. By contrast, not a single entity other than the US government backed the Iraq WMD claims, and there wasn't any sort of specific public claims made beyond "they have WMDs". Here, Mueller's reports make hundreds of very specific, narrow claims. If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch gave them). As for whether Assange was aware of any of this or suspected it; who knows. It's very likely "Guccifer 2.0" / GRU would have maintained their cover while sending him information. Doesn't really make sense for them to be like "hey, Russia here, here's some stuff you might want". He's smart, though, and surely was (or at least is now) aware of the possibility.

afiori 7y ago

> Assange, said Rohrabacher, “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, is the only U.S. congressman to have visited the controversial figure. https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabacher.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rohrabacher-assange-says-russia-not-behind-dnc-email-leak https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach... My understanding here is that "Russians" here means Russian government intelligence, it does not necessarily exclude Russian citizens.