Saturday, December 10, 2016

Russians Hacked Republican Emails Too But Chose Not to Leak Them

The New York Times reports:
Russian President Vladimir Putin


It is possible that in hacking into the Republican committee, Russian agents were simply hedging their bets. The attack took place in the spring, the senior officials said, about the same time that a group of hackers believed to be linked to the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence agency, stole the emails of senior officials of the Democratic National Committee. Intelligence agencies believe that the Republican committee hack was carried out by the same Russians who penetrated the Democratic committee and other Democratic groups. 
 The finding about the Republican committee is expected to be included in a detailed report of “lessons learned” that Mr. Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to assemble before he leaves office on Jan. 20. That report is intended, in part, to create a comprehensive history of the Russian effort to influence the election, and to solidify the intelligence findings before Mr. Trump is sworn in. 
 The New York Times article goes on to provides details on the DNC hacking:
 Intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies believe that the Democratic National Committee was hacked by two different Russian cyberunits. One, called “Cozy Bear” or “A.P.T. 29” by some Western security experts, is believed to have spent months inside the D.N.C. computer network, as well as other government and political institutions, but never made public any of the documents it took. (A.P.T. stands for “Advanced Persistent Threat,” which usually describes a sophisticated state-sponsored cyberintruder.)
 The other, the G.R.U.-controlled unit known as “Fancy Bear,” or “A.P.T. 28,” is believed to have created two outlets on the internet, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to make Democratic documents public. Many of the documents were also provided to WikiLeaks, which released them over many weeks before the Nov. 8 election.
Unfortunately, I doubt the intelligence agencies' review ordered by President Obama will include a comparison of the paper ballots in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois versus the computer tallies in those states. Computer hackers have shown how easy it is to insert malicious code into a computer software program and flip a number of votes to change an outcome. Did it happen in 2016? Highly unlikely. But those of us concerned about the integrity of the ballot should always welcome review of the paper trail in states and localities that use computer generated tallies sans any sort of review to ensure those tallies reflect actual votes cast.

While some Republicans unbelievably welcome foreign interference with an American election to get a result - the defeat of Hillary Clinton - they wanted, several Congressional Republicans, include Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) recognize the extraordinary danger of such interference and have joined Democrats in calling for hearings into the Russian role in the 2016 election.


Anonymous said... In which questions are raised about this false flag operation. In addition, NYT is not a credible source. Wiki Leaks has exposed a number of journalists who aren't journalists as we would understand the term. The poor snowflakes are melting over the fact that the leakers have become the journalists and the "journalists" have become the hacks. Ann Coulter's recent column clearly identifies what these scribblers are up to but she did not mention how easily Paul could be gulled.

Anonymous said... This source also buries nuts and has a conservative bent. It does not really matter because NO ONE IS DENYING THE TRUTH OF THE LEAKED EMAILS. All the rest of it is DIVERSION AND DIS INFORMATION. Tell us again why HEARSAY is not admissible as EVIDENCE? No one is denying these primary source documents or claiming distortion or being taken out of context or even that they know what they all mean. A vast dump of information that "historians" will have to write better history than heretofore.
The Phd in political science who writes his dissertation on the influence of the Ogden Blog will, of course, wonder why Paul's mouth so easily fit a fish hook, and thus was so easily hooked.

Anonymous said... So Is this so called alt right media? WAPO all of a sudden has red?

I'm looking around Indiana looking for dem dere rooskies but I didn't spot any of them. Do I need another eye check or is Paul seeing things what don't exist?

Did any reader of this blog have any information to help Paul out? Surely we have communists in Indiana and they all had to be helping Trump....right along with Rex Early....

Eric Morris said...

There may be two sides to every story, and I am no Trumpkin. Don't fall into the trap where just because you (rightly) believe someone is bad that they are always wrong.

Anonymous said...

High confidence = "we really don't know"

Pete Boggs said...

There are no hacks; only DNC leaks.

Veterans for Peace Indianapolis said...

If the United States were not encircling Russia with its NATO satraps, would Russia be concerned with the election of a government official separated by both a continent and an ocean?

Nicolas Martin said...

Sharyl Atkisson interview with David Shedd, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Sharyl: Is it possible to make it look as though a hack came from one country, when, in fact, it came from somewhere else? \Or was set up by somebody else in that country?

David Shedd: I think you're, you're, you're going right to the core of why this is so difficult to detect. I think our, our adversaries are keenly aware of our generic capabilities to detect the, the source of origin unless, and of course, what the intelligence community would call these cutouts, that is, being able to bounce it off of other servers, out of other countries, who, by the way, to be very clear, would be unwitting that their servers are being used for this. So, the appearances are far less straightforward and this is what the American people need to know.

