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Relevant post by Troy Hunt which debunks the claim that Anonymous "hacked" the Minneapolis Police Department: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382427 http

Relevant post by Troy Hunt which debunks the claim that Anonymous "hacked" the Minneapolis Police Department: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382427

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Hacking attribution in the US is a total crap show. Really it's terrible. I have no idea why we ever trust government attribution. For example, the "Trump private back channel to Alfa bank": a hacked payment TOS in the lobby sending spam. You can't make it up, it's really is this dumb. How about the attribution of the DNC "hack" in light of Crowdstrike's declassified congressional testimony? Is there a reason nobody from our government has asked Assange? I mean, he's been pretty easy to find.
- codezero 6y ago
  It's not clear if you're missing some context. Nobody mentioned the government, and Troy Hunt is the owner of Have I Been Pwned - he's pretty authoritative and trustworthy when it comes to breaches, mainly because he has the largest dataset (as far as I am aware) of known breached accounts, so can connect dots that others cannot.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  For those interested (or thinking a citation is needed), here is a summary from Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to-russian-bank/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to-russi... They conclude that the claim of the "Trump private back channel to Alfa bank" is "Unproven", as of 2017 at least: "In March 2017, CNN reported that the issue was still under investigation by the FBI, but nothing substantive had yet been turned up"
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    Since most of hacker news is technically advanced, I'd encourage you all to take a look at the data and determine exactly "what" the back channel was (maybe a secret IRC server??). First you have to find it, since it's buried in MSM reports and "maaaaybe it's true but who knows??" articles.
- meowface 6y ago
  Can you elaborate, regarding your last paragraph?
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    The narrative spread far and wide is that Russia hacked the DNC and passed the emails to wikileaks, who distributed them in order to hurt HRC in the election and boost Trump. This was the premises for the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which took approximately 2 years and cost 26 million dollars and included "2,800 subpoenas, executed almost 500 search warrants, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses." But nobody thought to go England (the FBI has a field office there, so no "going" necessary), where Julian Assange was under house arrest in Ecuador's embassy, and ask "Hey, where did you get those emails?" Oops!
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Are you saying that Assange would just volunteer this information to the FBI? Even if they offered some sort of deal involving immunity from US prosecution, it's unlikely that Assange would have had any proof that the source of the emails was the Russian government. (Also, incriminating the Russian government in a crime can have negative effects on your life expectancy). As for your statistics, it's worth noting that Mueller's investigation probably made a profit by uncovering millions of dollars worth of tax fraud[0], and it lead to indictments of or guilty pleas from 34 people and 3 companies.[1] That doesn't seem like it was a complete waste of time or money. [0] https://www.inquisitr.com/5213408/robert-mueller-investigation-profit-tax-fraud-cost/ https://www.inquisitr.com/5213408/robert-mueller-investigati... [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m...
      - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
        > Are you saying that Assange would just volunteer this information to the FBI? I'm just wondering why they never bothered to ask? I mean, he committed the crime, why not interview him?
- wafn 6y ago
  But but but... there was Cyrillic in the metadata of an attached Word document, and the timestamp matched working hours in Moscow! That's all you need for years of investigation, isn't it?
floatingatoll 6y ago
Quote: "What we almost certainly have here is the result of someone selecting every http://ci.minneapolis.mn.us http://ci.minneapolis.mn.us email address from old breaches or credential stuffing lists and passing it off as something it isn't. There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest this is legitimate."

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

Hacking attribution in the US is a total crap show. Really it's terrible. I have no idea why we ever trust government attribution. For example, the "Trump private back channel to Alfa bank": a hacked payment TOS in the lobby sending spam. You can't make it up, it's really is this dumb. How about the attribution of the DNC "hack" in light of Crowdstrike's declassified congressional testimony? Is there a reason nobody from our government has asked Assange? I mean, he's been pretty easy to find.

codezero 6y ago
It's not clear if you're missing some context. Nobody mentioned the government, and Troy Hunt is the owner of Have I Been Pwned - he's pretty authoritative and trustworthy when it comes to breaches, mainly because he has the largest dataset (as far as I am aware) of known breached accounts, so can connect dots that others cannot.
dane-pgp 6y ago
For those interested (or thinking a citation is needed), here is a summary from Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to-russian-bank/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-server-tied-to-russi... They conclude that the claim of the "Trump private back channel to Alfa bank" is "Unproven", as of 2017 at least: "In March 2017, CNN reported that the issue was still under investigation by the FBI, but nothing substantive had yet been turned up"
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Since most of hacker news is technically advanced, I'd encourage you all to take a look at the data and determine exactly "what" the back channel was (maybe a secret IRC server??). First you have to find it, since it's buried in MSM reports and "maaaaybe it's true but who knows??" articles.
meowface 6y ago
Can you elaborate, regarding your last paragraph?
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  The narrative spread far and wide is that Russia hacked the DNC and passed the emails to wikileaks, who distributed them in order to hurt HRC in the election and boost Trump. This was the premises for the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which took approximately 2 years and cost 26 million dollars and included "2,800 subpoenas, executed almost 500 search warrants, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses." But nobody thought to go England (the FBI has a field office there, so no "going" necessary), where Julian Assange was under house arrest in Ecuador's embassy, and ask "Hey, where did you get those emails?" Oops!
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Are you saying that Assange would just volunteer this information to the FBI? Even if they offered some sort of deal involving immunity from US prosecution, it's unlikely that Assange would have had any proof that the source of the emails was the Russian government. (Also, incriminating the Russian government in a crime can have negative effects on your life expectancy). As for your statistics, it's worth noting that Mueller's investigation probably made a profit by uncovering millions of dollars worth of tax fraud[0], and it lead to indictments of or guilty pleas from 34 people and 3 companies.[1] That doesn't seem like it was a complete waste of time or money. [0] https://www.inquisitr.com/5213408/robert-mueller-investigation-profit-tax-fraud-cost/ https://www.inquisitr.com/5213408/robert-mueller-investigati... [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m...
    - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
      > Are you saying that Assange would just volunteer this information to the FBI? I'm just wondering why they never bothered to ask? I mean, he committed the crime, why not interview him?
wafn 6y ago
But but but... there was Cyrillic in the metadata of an attached Word document, and the timestamp matched working hours in Moscow! That's all you need for years of investigation, isn't it?

floatingatoll 6y ago

Quote: "What we almost certainly have here is the result of someone selecting every http://ci.minneapolis.mn.us http://ci.minneapolis.mn.us email address from old breaches or credential stuffing lists and passing it off as something it isn't. There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest this is legitimate."