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They traced it back to the IRA and named the specific people involved on the Russian side and the method (email phish of Podesta). The Mueller report goes into

They traced it back to the IRA and named the specific people involved on the Russian side and the method (email phish of Podesta). The Mueller report goes into specific detail or you can listen to the lawfare blog podcast that goes through it. “Collusion” is a poorly defined term, the report found their actions didn’t rise to the level of criminal conspiracy, but there was plenty of evidence that the campaign was interested in support and responded to it (“collusion”). Donald Trump Jr. just didn’t realize Russia was interested in getting the Magnitsky act revoked when he took the meeting and he was disappointed when the Russians didn’t have the “emails” (from the private server, not the DNC emails). The Russians thought they could manipulate their self-imposed orphan adoption ban issue, but DTJ didn’t care about orphans. American intelligence agencies (or any intelligence agency) are not going to provide you with the precise methods they use to determine where the attack came from. I suspect no evidence will meet your extraordinary standard because you’re only looking for evidence that supports an existing position based primarily on political motivated reasoning and cognitive bias.

rendall 5y ago
> I suspect no evidence will meet your extraordinary standard because you’re only looking for evidence that supports an existing position based primarily Let's s start with even minimal evidence before we get to worrying about my cognitive biases. Read #8 in this article: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official... "Shawn Henry of Crowdstrike, testifying in secret to congress, ... saying there was not “concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC,”"
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  You've already been provided and discarded more than minimal evidence. For example, in the muller report, a more extensive investigation, the specific hacking unit is identified. Whether or not crowdstrike knew in 2017 doesn't matter. Today we know APT-28 was responsible, and they're members of the GRU.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    For as informed as you claim to be, everything you’ve linked to, claimed, and insinuated is vague, indirect, unsubstantiated, and disappears into a cloud of boring political talking points.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > For example, in the muller report, a more extensive investigation, the specific hacking unit is identified. How exactly did they arrive at that attribution? > Today we know APT-28 was responsible, and they're members of the GRU. How do we know that? No offense, but out of all the places I thought at least people on HN should be aware about the massive caveats that modern-day cyber attribution comes with. The vast majority of times it's just "educated guesses" based on identifiers that any smart adversary will know how to spoof and thus utilize as false leads. It's something that feels like was generally recognized and agreed on circa a decade ago, but somehow got lost in the flood of sensationalist headlines trying to sell any nmap scan or somewhat noteworthy ransomware infestation as Russia/China/Iran starting cyber world war 3.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      I'd suggest reading the relevant portions of the muller report and the related indictments of the GRU agents. > The vast majority of times it's just "educated guesses" based on identifiers that any smart adversary will know how to spoof and thus utilize as false leads. No, I'd say people on hn often vastly overstate the lengths people are willing to go to to create these false flag attacks. If we believed hn, no attacks are done, every cyber attack is actually spoofed by an even more formidable spy ring. Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. The attack, carried out with many technical signifiers of a Russian state backed attack, that was used to geopolitically help Russia was Russian. The alternative is that someone (who?) was capable enough to infiltrate Russian cyber intelligence resources to then launch an attack on the us, which they then used to geopolitically assist Russia. I'm not sure I can think of any attack where someone tried to successfully frame another nation. This doesn't mean they don't happen, but that they're rare. It also means that if they do happen, they're always successful, which seems unlikely. Far more likely is that successfully impersonating a state cyber attack is actually really really difficult, because doing so successfully would in general require persistent access to the state actor you're impersonating.
the_optimist 5y ago
Reference Lawfare as a source of unbiased truth in an article about Assange being framed by the intel agencies? The irony could hardly be higher. Ben Wittes, Lawfare editor (Brookings sponsored), claimed counsel status to the head of the FBI in legal proceedings. The streets of Russiagate are paved with agency partisans.

rendall 5y ago

> I suspect no evidence will meet your extraordinary standard because you’re only looking for evidence that supports an existing position based primarily Let's s start with even minimal evidence before we get to worrying about my cognitive biases. Read #8 in this article: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia https://taibbi.substack.com/p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official... "Shawn Henry of Crowdstrike, testifying in secret to congress, ... saying there was not “concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC,”"

joshuamorton 5y ago
You've already been provided and discarded more than minimal evidence. For example, in the muller report, a more extensive investigation, the specific hacking unit is identified. Whether or not crowdstrike knew in 2017 doesn't matter. Today we know APT-28 was responsible, and they're members of the GRU.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  For as informed as you claim to be, everything you’ve linked to, claimed, and insinuated is vague, indirect, unsubstantiated, and disappears into a cloud of boring political talking points.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > For example, in the muller report, a more extensive investigation, the specific hacking unit is identified. How exactly did they arrive at that attribution? > Today we know APT-28 was responsible, and they're members of the GRU. How do we know that? No offense, but out of all the places I thought at least people on HN should be aware about the massive caveats that modern-day cyber attribution comes with. The vast majority of times it's just "educated guesses" based on identifiers that any smart adversary will know how to spoof and thus utilize as false leads. It's something that feels like was generally recognized and agreed on circa a decade ago, but somehow got lost in the flood of sensationalist headlines trying to sell any nmap scan or somewhat noteworthy ransomware infestation as Russia/China/Iran starting cyber world war 3.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    I'd suggest reading the relevant portions of the muller report and the related indictments of the GRU agents. > The vast majority of times it's just "educated guesses" based on identifiers that any smart adversary will know how to spoof and thus utilize as false leads. No, I'd say people on hn often vastly overstate the lengths people are willing to go to to create these false flag attacks. If we believed hn, no attacks are done, every cyber attack is actually spoofed by an even more formidable spy ring. Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. The attack, carried out with many technical signifiers of a Russian state backed attack, that was used to geopolitically help Russia was Russian. The alternative is that someone (who?) was capable enough to infiltrate Russian cyber intelligence resources to then launch an attack on the us, which they then used to geopolitically assist Russia. I'm not sure I can think of any attack where someone tried to successfully frame another nation. This doesn't mean they don't happen, but that they're rare. It also means that if they do happen, they're always successful, which seems unlikely. Far more likely is that successfully impersonating a state cyber attack is actually really really difficult, because doing so successfully would in general require persistent access to the state actor you're impersonating.

the_optimist 5y ago

Reference Lawfare as a source of unbiased truth in an article about Assange being framed by the intel agencies? The irony could hardly be higher. Ben Wittes, Lawfare editor (Brookings sponsored), claimed counsel status to the head of the FBI in legal proceedings. The streets of Russiagate are paved with agency partisans.