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posted by on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the putin-his-nose-where-it-doesn't-belong dept.

A new declassified report released by US intelligence officials says Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered" a campaign to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

The 25-page public version of the report was released on Friday after the officials briefed President-elect Donald Trump and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill on a longer, classified version.

The report said Russian efforts to meddle in vote represent the most recent expression of Moscow's long-standing desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.

[...] After his briefing, Trump stopped short of embracing the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential campaign, saying only that any hacking attempts had "absolutely no effect" on the outcome of the election.

Having hours earlier dismissed the hacking controversy as a "political witch hunt," Trump later issued a statement whose main aim appeared to be to deflect questions about the legitimacy of his November 8 victory over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

Full text of report available in many places, including at scribd.

Ironically, Wikileaks, an organization usually in favor of information sharing, was upset about dissemination of this report.

In a Friday tweet, WikiLeaks slammed the CIA for leaking information to NBC.

"The Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET//COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it," the tweet read.

An NBC report last night touted "an exclusive, inside look" at the report connecting the Russian government to breaches of the Democratic National Convention and other groups and individuals during election season sourced to two intelligence community sources.

WikiLeaks and Assange have championed the dissemination of sensitive or classified in the past, publishing United States diplomatic cables and military information, emails from the 2014 Sony hack and internal documents from multiple other governments and political parties.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/313002-wikileaks-opposed-to-cia-leaking-report-info-to-nbc

Previously on SoylentNews: Reactions to Russian Hacking Activity


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:09AM (#450689)

    Randall said I'm With Her and Randall is always right. Now we have proof the election was rigged. Invalidate the results. Remove the PEOTUS and inaugurate Her because She Won.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:56AM (#450699)

    So Putin influenced the election results. He could have had the RNC hacked and leaked, but chose not to. Then the media, alt and mainstream alike, interpreted and hyped those leaks. No matter what happened, it was still up to the citizens to vote. They deserve the President they elected, Donald Trump, and all the good or bad that comes from that.

    As for the rest of the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdOPBP9vuZA [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday January 07 2017, @01:31PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Saturday January 07 2017, @01:31PM (#450713)

      Here's the thing: Regardless of who is the president of the US, we seem to be heading more towards this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls [youtube.com] And that has consequences for lots of people who weren't able to vote in the US. I'm still of the opinion that Trump could very easily get us into that kind of scenario by accident. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, could have done the same thing on purpose.

      I also don't think Putin did what the Democrats are claiming he did. A lot of Democrats right now firmly believe that Vlad somehow changed the votes so that Trump would win, but there's no evidence being presented that says that. A lot more Democrats believe Vlad was responsible for the DNCLeaks. There's no hard evidence of that either that's been presented so far, and Craig Murray provides a very plausible alternative explanation for how those got from the DNC's servers to Wikileaks.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:00PM (#450732)

        > A lot more Democrats believe Vlad was responsible for the DNCLeaks. There's no hard evidence of that either

        And there will never be "hard" evidence. But either some other group has been running a really long con - using identical methods, tools and infrastructure for attacks against targets that russia has strong motive to attack (like the german parliament and ukraine) going back for more than a year before the DNC breach. Or russia did it.

        So on one hand you have a some "insider" going all cloak-and-dagger in the park at midnight to personally hand off a bunch of rather bland emails. Or you have russia which has been openly operating a disinformation campaign via rt and sputnik of which the dnc leaks were a coordinated part.

        At this point denying russia's involvement is like denying that hans reiser is guilty.

        Yeah, reiser admitted it.
        So did a highly placed russian: [ibtimes.co.uk] "Maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks."

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:32PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:32PM (#450742) Homepage Journal

          But either some other group has been running a really long con - using identical methods, tools and infrastructure for attacks against targets that russia has strong motive to attack...

          Or there are tens of thousands of hacking groups that could have pulled off the exact same phishing attack that got the DNC emails. Odds are extremely good that at least some of them weren't Hillary supporters. Hell, for all you know it could have been any one of the admins here at SN. We all had means and opportunity. I certainly had motive.

          Podesta's emails by contrast were hacked because he had a shit password. To which he added a 1 at the end after the hack and was promptly hacked again.

          Seriously, there is no evidence whatsoever that Russia had anything to do with the emails. And even if they did, what matters is the contents of the emails not how they were attained. Unless, do you think politicians should be able to hide their corruption and shady dealings, by chance?

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @04:31PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @04:31PM (#450758)

            > Or there are tens of thousands of hacking groups that could have pulled off the exact same phishing attack that got the DNC emails.

            You are filtering facts to suit your worldview. It isn't just the exact same phishing attack. Its what they did after they got in. All of the work after the initial penetration used the same methods and tools (including identical encryption keys for communicating with the command-and-control infrastructure) as other previous hacks that had already been connected to russia. So either someone went to an enormous amount of work to frame russia because they could see the future and know it would get tons of news coverage 6+ months down the line or ... it was russia.

            > Podesta's emails by contrast were hacked because he had a shit password.

            No. The fact you would say that shows you have not been paying attention at all. He was not hacked because he had a bad password, he was spear-phished and conned into handing over his password to a fake change-your-password page. [cyberscoop.com]

            If you can't even get that basic fact right, why should anyone believe you when you say "there is no evidence whatsoever?" You just proved you haven't even been looking for evidence.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:29PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:29PM (#450792)

              or ... it was russia.

              So fucking what? Not that anybody is buying it.

              The leaked emails themselves show it was the DNC, not Russia that were guilty of using dubious means to influence the primaries. It's fine if Obama thinks US election systems are critical infrastructure, could he therefore explain why the recounts revealed initial miscounts in favor of Clinton? The entire "Russian Hackers" narrative collapses in on itself under the weight of it's own bullshit!

              • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:44PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:44PM (#450797)

                The leaked emails themselves show it was the DNC, not Russia that were guilty of using dubious means to influence the primaries.

                No they don't. All they show is that some DNC staffers talked shit about Bernie and that Donna Brazille sent Clinton's team a debate question that was never even used.
                You got something else? Let's see it. Links to sources, not bullshit like:

                therefore explain why the recounts revealed initial miscounts in favor of Clinton?

                Yeah, a whole 131 votes out of nearly 3 million. [madison.com] The only thing noteworthy about that is the difference was so small, that's an incredibly low error rate for such a complex and disparate process.

                The entire state of Michigan

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:55PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:55PM (#450801)

                  You got something else? Let's see it.

                  Nope, we've read the emails and know what they say. I am calling you, now where is your evidence?

                  Yeah, a whole 131 votes out of nearly 3 million. The only thing noteworthy about that is the difference was so small, that's an incredibly low error rate for such a complex and disparate process.

                  My point exactly. To the extent there were irregularities, they contradict this direct tampering of a foreign power narrative that some individuals would have us believe.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:24PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:24PM (#450804)

                    Nope, we've read the emails and know what they say. I am calling you, now where is your evidence?

                    You want me to provide evidence that the emails do not contain any terrible secrets?
                    Okay, here you go, here's every single heinous revelation from the emails: “ ”

                    To the extent there were irregularities, they contradict this direct tampering of a foreign power narrative that some individuals would have us believe.

                    Nobody serious is saying that the voting machines were tampered with. Just more mendacity from you.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:57PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:57PM (#450817)

                      You want me to provide evidence that the emails do not contain any terrible secrets?

                      No, I want you to provide evidence that Russian state actors were responsible for Hilary Clinton losing the election.

                      Okay, here you go, here's every single heinous revelation from the emails: “ ”

                      "Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region". [wikileaks.org] Also note the phrase "restructure the Sunni resistance in Syria", ie: ISIS.

                      That's enough about Hillary Clintons terrorist supporting donors and her own endorsement of head-choppers in Syria. Now sir, your evidence?

                      Nobody serious is saying that the voting machines were tampered with. Just more mendacity from you.

                      What is being said and what is being implied are different. Both are clearly a complete joke. [youtube.com] Perhaps not so much of a joke as accusing somebody of lying for refusing to accept blatant lies and insinuation? Are we going to have a "Mendacity^3" whereby you describe the content of your own comments in the subject line?

                      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @09:21PM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @09:21PM (#450841)

                        > No, I want you to provide evidence that Russian state actors were responsible for Hilary Clinton losing the election.

                        Since I never said that, its weird you want me to prove it.
                        Tell you what, you prove that the CIA killed kennedy and then I'll give you what you want.

                        > Also note the phrase "restructure the Sunni resistance in Syria", ie: ISIS.

                        Hello, McFly that paragraph begins with talk of attacking ISIS, it literally says "once we engage ISIL, as we have now done in a limited manner, we and our allies should carry on until they are driven back suffering a tangible defeat." The email says attacking ISIS and you read that as supporting ISIS. Could you be any more of a dumbass?

                        > What is being said and what is being implied are different

                        I am not going to argue with random bullshit you make up in your own head. You are beyond dumbassery at this point.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:04PM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:04PM (#450872)

                          No, I want you to provide evidence that Russian state actors were responsible for Hilary Clinton losing the election.

                          Since I never said that, its weird you want me to prove it.

                          Is this even the same AC I was talking to? Let's assume it is and remind them that this is the nexus of the story we're discussing here. I am however delighted you agree with myself and former CIA and counter-terrorist operatives on the issue of the report in question. [noquarterusa.net]

                          Hello, McFly that paragraph begins with talk of attacking ISIS, it literally says "once we engage ISIL, as we have now done in a limited manner, we and our allies should carry on until they are driven back suffering a tangible defeat." The email says attacking ISIS and you read that as supporting ISIS. Could you be any more of a dumbass?

                          Is your contention that the Sunni resistance in Syria is not ISIS? Clinton was careful with her words but we know the truth. She was openly admitting the US strategy: Fight ISIS in Iraq, support ISIS in Syria. It is right there if you care to read HRC's own words with a basic understanding of who is who. If you do not understand who the "Sunni resistance" in Syria was, let me help you. [wikipedia.org]

                          What is being said and what is being implied are different

                          I am not going to argue with random bullshit you make up in your own head. You are beyond dumbassery at this point.

                          Once again, we are discussing a US intelligence report that has been roundly dismissed as lacking in evidence by just about everyone. You present no evidence to support your claims, you accuse me of lying twice and then resort to calling me a "dumbass" whilst presenting no evidence to support your claims. Do you actually want to argue your case or are you just getting off on your butthurt?

                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:44PM

                            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @11:44PM (#450889)

                            > Is your contention that the Sunni resistance in Syria is not ISIS?

                            It wasn't originally. The reason it eventually became ISIS is because they were backed into a corner and no one else stepped up to help them out.

                            > Once again, we are discussing a US intelligence report that has been roundly dismissed as lacking in evidence by just about everyone.

                            Everyone in your head. Actual people in the real world? No, just the opposite.
                            But you can't even keep your arguments straight from one post to another, so no one wonder you've got these delusions.

                            Still waiting on that proof about the Kennedy assassination.

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @12:29AM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @12:29AM (#450905)

                              Everyone in your head. Actual people in the real world? No, just the opposite.

                              Where are these people that are being mislead by #FAKENEWS ???

                              But you can't even keep your arguments straight from one post to another, so no one wonder you've got these delusions.

                              You challenged my assertion about the Clinton campaign and I provided you with evidence from HRC herself, but look here:

                              And particularly with Syria which has everyone quite worried, Jordan because it's on their border and they have hundreds of thousands of refugees and they can't possibly vet all those refugees so they don't know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.
                              - HRC - Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago Vanguard - October 2013

                              Interesting that she later announces [politifact.com] the US can somehow vet 65,000. Why would an individual with any knowledge or awareness of the situation make such a claim? [wikileaks.org]

                              Still waiting on that proof about the Kennedy assassination.

                              That's your job, it's your claim so knock yourself out!

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @01:20AM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @01:20AM (#450911)

                              While I'm here:

                              Is your contention that the Sunni resistance in Syria is not ISIS?

                              It wasn't originally. The reason it eventually became ISIS is because they were backed into a corner and no one else stepped up to help them out.

                              Half truth. [wikipedia.org] I suspect you know this already.

                              Syria was not only the birthplace of civilisation but also a truly beautiful country and the Assad regime was equally brutal both to those who would challenge the regime and the countries long enshrined secular values. Even in a state of "civil war", it is safer than many nations. [independent.co.uk] Are you not ashamed of what we've done? [twitter.com] Are you not ashamed of the virtue signalling celebrity retards who support the pro-salafist PR groups? The rest of us in the West are and we voted accordingly!

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @02:25AM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @02:25AM (#450917)

                              It wasn't originally. The reason it eventually became ISIS is because they were backed into a corner and no one else stepped up to help them out.

                              Missing your insults, I keep checking for replies but none are forthcoming. Get some facts [theantimedia.org] and come at me bro; I want to see you attempt to justify HRC supporting ISIS in Syria.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:21PM

            by Thexalon (636) on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:21PM (#450787)

            Podesta's emails by contrast were hacked because he had a shit password. To which he added a 1 at the end after the hack and was promptly hacked again.

            It's worse than that:
            1. He gave away his bad password to a phishing attack.
            2. Even if the bad guys had his password, they shouldn't have been able to get in, because they should have used multi-factor authentication. Either IT was incompetent, or Podesta refused to listen to them.

            The Podesta emails were hacked because the Total Cost of Pwnership was very low, and the perceived value of the target was very high. No matter how you slice it, busting in didn't require a state-level actor, and the Democrats are flat-out lying when they imply that it did. And I write that as somebody who is in no way a supporter of Trump or the Republicans.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:35PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:35PM (#450795)

              > No matter how you slice it, busting in didn't require a state-level actor, and the Democrats are flat-out lying when they imply that it did.

              That's deflection of the worst sort.
              The intelligence agencies and private security companies are saying that they believe it was russia because the tools used to effect the phishing attack were identical to those used by other Russian-connected phishing attacks. Same phishing template, same squirrely domain registration hosted on the same server. Whatever the democrats, or any other group, are implying does not change those facts. Your argument is nothing more than attacking a strawman.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @06:32PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @06:32PM (#451121)

            tens of thousands of hacking groups?

            I take it you have nothing to do with infosec professionally. There are far far fewer groups that are competent enough to be called a hacking group.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:05PM (#450781)

        Right, first thing you need to realize is that life is not a movie or a video game. Your weird idea that either party would jeopardize the socioeconomic position of the upper class is childish fantasy.

        Secondly, enjoy having shitty or no health insurance, paying for social security and medicare benefits for the baby boomers while not being entitled to any of your own, and paying more to visit your favorite websites, because you feel like both sides are the same.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @06:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @06:09PM (#451106)

        I don't know any people, friends or co-workers that all voted democratic -- that think with any degree of certainty that Russia hacked the vote and caused Trump to win, and that Russia is entirely to blame because it is unpossible that the deep south could have voted for a non-Clinton.

        I see people like you writing that democrats all think this is the reason--that Russia is totally the scapegoat no doubts about it -- and that on the news there are people called experts that have an opinion on it -- but it seems more like this has to do with people believing what they read without thinking about it; and repeating what they've seen if it meshes with their bubble.

        Our information age has turned into an ad filled tabloid, customized for our own preferences. and we as a country got what we deserved for allowing it to happen like this. Our new president will very likely roll back many privacy protections because of the FCC being in the way, and it will be very hard to close the barn door now.

        I expect propaganda to reach into the home with the new amazon Winston whatever its called, just as it fills the schools already...

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by oregonjohn on Saturday January 07 2017, @10:06PM

      by oregonjohn (6105) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 07 2017, @10:06PM (#450852)

      Hillary Clinton won the election by almost 3 million votes. What she lost was the electoral college.

      There is a clear distinction between the two. The people (remember "of the people, by the people and for the people"?) elected Hillary.

      Hillary lost the electoral college vote because her strategy failed to influence three states. Of those three states at least two of them had clear signs of manipulation.

      50 of the people at the electoral college were not qualified to vote. Wouldn't make any difference in the final outcome because clearly the Republican congress would just vote Trump in anyway.

      It's mess, Wall Street would win in either case. Trump will disenfranchise his base (real workers on the streets, in the factories and in the homes) because he doesn't know any of them, doesn't care about them, and already got what he wants (their money).

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @08:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @08:24PM (#450824)

    Hillary didn't need help losing the election. She (and the DNC) did that all by themselves.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Saturday January 07 2017, @09:02PM

      by vux984 (5045) on Saturday January 07 2017, @09:02PM (#450829)

      The DNC had a poor candidate and their heads were pretty far up their asses. On the other hand, that's how I'd describe the republicans too. As a result, two shit parties, two shit candidates to choose from... the election was very close. No matter which side won you could easily and rightfully blame the party that lost for torpedoing their own chances. IF H had won the election we could very easily have said "Trump didn't need help losing the election, he and the RNC, did that all by them selves." because they were BOTH lousy candidates with lousy campaigns for 'broken' out-of-touch parties. Neither Trump nor Hillary had broad support of the people... other than a small core nobody was excited about either of them.

      That doesn't change the fact that the Russian's were 'campaigning' for Trump; and given how close the election was, the impact of a Russian campaign could well have tilted the balance.

      The closeness of the election, and lousy candidates may have enabled them to the tilt the balance... or perhaps it would have gone Trump anyway. Who knows. But we should be looking to mitigate any such interference in the future, you should agree to that no matter what party you support.