"The Washington Post and NBC News have confirmed that the Intercept has published the material allegedly leaked by Winner. Very recently, in fact: On Monday, the digital organization published a rather eventful exclusive under the headline, “Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election.” The piece detailed a complicated and industrious effort by Russian military intelligence to hack into a company that supports voting systems in various states. “The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood,” write Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito, Sam Biddle and Ryan Grim." Washpost
————–
OK. It is mildly interesting that the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) experimented with electronic penetration of US companies connected to the electoral process.
It is also annoying that this particular air head decided to launch her own campaign of "resistance" to the Trump Administration by e-mailing Glenn Greenwald's publication an NSA document that she was sworn to protect from public view. "But, I have to have clean water and air to breathe." This is a typical talking point that such people babble when all else fails.
But, pilgrims, none of that is important when compared to the massive intelligence defeat suffered by the US in that the GRU now know that US SIGINT has been reading their internal communications traffic for years. Given this revelation and the earlier CNN "scoop" given to Dana Bash by US spies concerning US penetration of Russian diplomatic communications I would think it likely that the Russian government will conclude that ALL their communications are compromised. Having reached that conclusion they will set out to build completely new systems for the whole Russian government.
It will take billions of dollars and years of work to break into these new systems, Until that is achieved US intelligence will be rather close to blind. Some of you will rejoice in that, but you should not. The insight provided by SIGINT into potentially hostile acts and motives have often kept the world from nuclear war. pl
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/politics/russians-trump-campaign-information/
Sir
Considering the severity of the disclosure of our ability to intercept and decrypt Russian secure communications by a NeverTrump high IC official, do you think the US government will identify and prosecute this person?
Or will the emphasis always be to get some low level flunky, like this young lady acting out her dislike of Trump?
It seems there is a protected class of traitors at the highest levels of our government.
This rot goes deep.
Can we ask how these people got into positions of access to such classified material?
As b at MoonofAlabama asks, how did a language specialist get access to that kind of data?
I posted this quote once before here….and I’m going with it again:
“An ant climbs a blade of grass, over and over, seemingly without purpose, seeking neither nourishment nor home. It persists in its futile climb, explains Daniel C. Dennett at the opening of his new book, “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” (Viking), because its brain has been taken over by a parasite, a lancet fluke, which, over the course of evolution, has found this to be a particularly efficient way to get into the stomach of a grazing sheep or cow where it can flourish and reproduce. The ant is controlled by the worm, which, equally unconscious of purpose, maneuvers the ant into place”..
I have no idea whether the information this person is alleged to have “leaked” is accurate, or, simply another part of a false narrative being painstakingly created, leak by leak. This person, this “ant”, this poster of the term, ‘being white is terrorism’ is “unconscious of purpose”.
This something, even larger and more significant going on here, than the lost of SIGINT information, as significant as that is. We are collectively losing our minds. How many more of these automatons are out there, and active?
shargash
“b”‘s comment indicates that he, like you, knows nothing of how an entity like this contractor company works. We are talking about industrial scale circulation of classified information and while it is true that this Arabic and Urdu linguist had no need to know but NSA SIGINT analysis requires the use of such linguists and it is very difficult to prevent a determined person within the organization gaining access. The same thing was true of Jonathan Pollard. He worked for naval intelligence and had no “need to know” for most of the documents he stole for Israel but was still able to gain access to them. pl
John Minnerath
The IC and its contractors are far too large and the machine demands a labor force. This woman would have received exactly the same interviews and an extended scope background investigation. the system failed to identify her as other than a dissident politically. the system does not weed out political dissidents. pl
jack
I think that ranks will close at the top and the formerly high and mighty will not be prosecuted. the trial and conviction of Jeffrey Sterling convinced me of that. pl
Colonel:
It appears that the Russian armed forces were suspicious of possible hacking, for it was announced on Rt some moths ago that the armed forces are building an independent hack-proof [they propose] network {Minister of Defence’announcement]
jonst,
What is the lancet fluke inside the mind of these leakers? Or perhaps one could think of it as: what is the piece of malware inside the computer-brain of these leakers? How did it originate?
How much of this is pure “Clinton Restorationism” on the part of these leakers? Do they think they can “remove” Trump in such a way that they can then remove Pence and then install Queen Hillary or Princess Chelsea into the Presidency?
I don’t think they think about their damage to American safety and survival prospects. I think they think that America is Invincible and Eternal and the issue of protecting safety and survival through following rules and laws about protecting the secrets doesn’t even occur to them.
I wonder if the “Headwaters” originators of the leaks are DC FedRegime Borgists or Borgist loyalists protecting their Cold War 2.0 and their Free Trade Conspiracy from Trumpian threats?
Can I ask what makes you so sure that the NSA assessment is correct or even truthful?
Being as far as any common person from the world of security and intelligence agencies (and a foreigner on top of that), I am somewhat diffident when it comes to these kind of reports. Especially the ones that get leaked.
On october the 7th, DHS released a statement where the USIC declared its confidence in the Russian sponsored hack of the DNC.
Yet there are many reasons to believe that Guccifer 2.0 was actually a fraud, meant to imply a Russian hand behind the operation, while the other evidence is so blatant that some experts have a hard time believing that the Russians could be so sloppy, unless they were actually trying to “sign” the operation for whatever reason.
The software that was used was based on an open source project from the ’90s. Not exactly something that can be considered a signature.
In this big “maze” of misdirection and rushed accusations I really have no means to guess what I can actually trust and what I should be skeptical about.
Yes, the “acceptable” leaks from the top is just another confirmation of pervasive institutional rot. One set of laws for the well-connected, another for everyone else. She thought she could get away with what the insiders also did? After all, the leak of the Kushner-Kisylak events disclosed US surveillance of presumed secure Russian diplomatic channels. What naivete!
Even if this woman knew something about the leaks that have plagued the Trump administration from day one which I doubt she does, I don’t think any plea deal in exchange for her testimony would be forthcoming.
“But, pilgrims, none of that is important when compared to the massive intelligence defeat suffered by the US in that the GRU now know that US SIGINT has been reading their internal communications traffic for years.” PL
I think you make a very important point, and one that needs to made to people (like me) who think that any release of secret info is good for the public in the name of transparency.
But if you are right (and I assume you are) then don’t you think the NSA higher-ups should have done more to stop the story from being published?
The Intercept apparently allowed the NSA to edit the piece, so maybe they allowed some of this info to be published because it helped to support the “Russia did it” story which has been very weak on proof so far.
In other words, maybe they sacrificed important top secret info for some greater purpose like blaming Russia and Trump (which seems to be their main objective)
Leonardo
The Russians s know what was in their communications in both cases and they would know they have been penetrated. there would be no point in destroying our sources to satisfy your desire for conspiracy. pl
NMS
SIGINT collection is not hacking. It is collection of the signal and its analysis. The last thing you want to do is “hack.” Thus would leave marks on the target. You want the target to be unable to establish whether or not you can read their traffic. pl
Colonel,
The rubble is starting to bounce. It is more important to remove Donald J Trump than leak classified information that documents that Russian Encryption has been broken.
“Obama administration said that they do not have any evidence that Russia hacked voting”. The only reason for the GRU penetration would be to determine if they could hack the electronic voting systems. Since this was kept silent, it indicates that the systems are hackable and likely have been from the get-go by design by the corporations who built them. The only counter is paper ballots counted in public.
There was a reason why the Civil Service was implemented. Corruption. If paid a living salary with health care and a pension, there is no incentive to be corrupt and a person has to be an ideologue to give everything up including their family for a belief. On the other hand, contractors are disposable by design.
Who is giving out TS clearances – like so much candy?
And, even bigger, why do so many people have access to all this supposedly “classified” information?
Snowden?
Did anyone lose their job and their fat benefits and pension for that?
Manning?
How did an E-4 in Iraq get acccess to so much info – including diplomatic cables?
Who lost their job there?
The government, by all appearances, is a collection of inept dimwits and traitors – but that’s not actually surprising.
All
The “Intercept” had the gall to call NSA and ask for a comment. They DID NOT offer to let them edit the piece. Not surprisingly NSA declined to comment. pl
TV
We have been over these questions of yours before. Before 9/11it was a long, tedious process to get a security clearance at any level and the higher the longer it took. After 9/11 there was a howl that “the dots were not connected” because there were barriers between information streams. As a result the barriers were taken down and vast numbers of people were cleared and given massive access so that the dots would be connected in the future. the information flow was made very wide and that is how a little shit like Manning could log on to a Secret level network and download all that stuff. Before 9/11 he would never, never have had that kind of access. With regard to the Russian diplomatic and MI cipher systems, don’t kid yourself for a minute. This the real deal. We have lost our hat, ass and overcoat in this one. the stuff manning stole was mostly trivia. this is really bad. pl
The whole thing seems fake to me. Some sort of op. I mean – “Reality Winner”? We’re supposed to take this seriously in this forum?
Mr. Lang (or anyone knowledgeable),
A few days ago, you had a general summation of the Al-Tanf stadoff: “It would seem that the idea is to retain control of SE Syria for the purpose of training local forces to use against the Syrian government.”
This morning, I found this specific description of U.S. intent:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/06/05/5-jun-17-world-view-us-and-iran-backed-troops-head-for-confrontation-at-al-tanf-on-iraq-syria-border/
“Al-Tanf is on the strategically important Route 1 highway that connects Baghdad to Damascus. Iran’s objective is for Shia forces from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and the Syrian regime to control the entire length of Route 1, so that Iran can easily supply weapons and transfer militias to the Syrian regime and to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US administration under President Trump is opposed to allowing Iran to expand its military presence in this way.”
Will the R+6 accept us acting as a “U.S. Customs and Border Protection” force in this area?
Do they have any choices? I ask because I notice in this SouthFront map, the “Al-Zquf” facility seems designed to prevent any alternative route from developing. So that means war or acquiescence from the R+6:
https://southfront.org/us-led-coalition-air-force-bombed-government-troops-southern-syria/
1664RM
Yes. She IS a useful idiot. the country is now filled with over-educated and propagandized people, unfortunately mostly women who are incapable of rational thought. I, sir, am an American soldier. This is my country and I will seek to defend it to the end. pl
AshTheLightningFan
It is summer and I do not have the help here that I usually do. I will look at Syria tomorrow. pl
From cnn.com, 2017-05-30
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/politics/russians-trump-campaign-information/index.html
From the Washington Post, 2017-01-05 (Thursday)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intercepts-capture-senior-russian-officials-celebrating-trump-win/2017/01/05/d7099406-d355-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html
That release looks fake to me (date is wrong, title is formatted differently to other releases and it isn’t here: http://www.inherentresolve.mil/News/Strike-Releases/). SouthFront may have got it from @airwars, where I saw it. I just commented to this effect on the last al-tanf post. I’ve yet to see any confirmation that this actually happened.
I agree with your conclusion assuming that the assessment is in fact correct or at least honest even if flawed.
What I was wondering was if it might have been purposefully a lie.
Now I know, from your answer to Hinderburg, that is not the case.
I didn’t mean to sound conspiratorial or to say something outrageous. I was just asking, right because I – too – have no actual knowledge of the intelligence structure, so I was basically relying on the opinion of a person whose experience I respect.
Thanks for your reply.
Sir; Somewhat tangental, but what unit or directorate is that coat of arms representing? I see a Romanoff double headed eagle, Saint George slaying the dragon, and what looks like a grenadiers grenade. Or maybe a proof mark on a rifle breech. I’m sorry to send you so brainless a question, but I am intrigued.
Thank you.
Another short sighted leak aimed at damaging the President without any thought to the enormous SIGINT implications. A great boon for the Russians, despite the pain of having to remake the communications encryption, and I can only assume that the Chinese and Iranians etc are looking at their respective communications channels also. Those doing these leaks must be well aware of the consequences of these leaks, despite the fact that there is no guarantee that they will sufficiently damage the President (to force him from office). Stinks of political appointees rather than careerists. Either way…FUBAR
Leonardo,
One way to know if this leak was real and disclosed real ability to read RussiaGov internal messages would be if the RussiaGov quietly changes its whole messaging system to blind and exclude our message readers. If that happens, it would show that either this or other leaks or maybe all of them were real enough to concern the RussiaGov into spending the big money and man hours to re-do its whole messaging system.
If they don’t change their system, then the leaks weren’t real. But if they do change their whole system, our system-breakers might keep quiet about it in order to not upset confidence. So I don’t know how we of the Great Uncleared would necessarily find out for sure anyway. If current or former Intelligence people with sources and contacts and an established record of independent analysis go as far as they can without going too far to say the leaks are real and we have lost our window into Russian messaging, then I will take their word for it.
But your question certainly raises proper questions about the bone-deep dishonesty of the Borgists and the Clintonites. Making up fake news based on leaks that never happened to advance their anti-Russianitic narrative against Trump is just exactly what they would do if they could think it up and thought they could get away with it.
Leonardo,
If I had read all the way down, I would see that Colonel Lang had already answered your question. So I don’t know what value my speculation just before this this comment would have beyond being a sort of thinkxcercise.
All, I just saw the useful idiot’s mother & step dad on tv. They looked like
humble country folk. The mom was crying so hard, almost totally incoherent. So
sad. The media keeps flashing a photo of Reality Winner, looking all of 16 years old,
kissing a horse. It would be more fitting if she had smooched a donkey rather
than a horse. I suggest the IC get their younger contractors to chant, “Country over party” several times before each shift.
Sir;
My apologies for excessive denseness. The superscription above the “shield” in the inset clearly says GRU1.
Sorry for wasting your time.
Wow, just wow.
Col, I’d be curious to get your take on the Qatar / Saudi, UAE blow up whenever you can.
I’ve read different thoughts theories on this.
1. CNN’s theory: CNN is in ecstasy, tying it all to a fake news story planted on Al Jazeera in May where the Emir allegedly praised Iran and Israel. Qatar denied this, took the story down within hours, and said they were hacked. This delights CNN because the Russians are the evil hackers and Trump their fool. I find it hard to believe that this would put the Saudis over the edge but I don’t understand the Arabs.
2. I’ve read others basically say that Trump’s endorsement of the Saudis in his recent trip gave them the green light to go after Qatar which is something that they have wanted to do for a long time for various reasons. In this scenario, the terror financing angle would give them good cover.
What is the probability that she acted alone in this? Given Manning and Snowden, I would guess it is pretty high.
Steve
> [Pollard] worked for naval intelligence and had no “need to know” for most of the documents he stole for Israel but was still able to gain access to them.
This is something that often goes overlooked. Despite the doctrine of “need to know”, stuff gets out of compartments and channels. I had authorized access to a fair number of compartments, but also picked up a considerable amount of information for which I definitely wasn’t authorized just in the course of doing business. People are people, they like to talk, and often don’t quite remember what piece of information came from which compartment.
And even the standard channels, like TS/SI/TK/G, contain a broad range of information for which a given person might not have a need to know but still has access.
Col.,
an interesting test of your hypothesis that leaks are originating with high level Obama administration holdovers. In this case that doesn’t seem to be the case.
freudenschade
This woman’s crime proves nothing about the crimes of others. pl
raven,
I had a college professor say the same damned thing you just did when I made comments similar to the Cols back in mid-November. The prof’s got lots of company nationwide. They are busying purging free thinking and free speech from college campus.
jonst,
She’s one of Generation Snowflake who believes she is going to free the Republic from the clutches of the Donald. This is religion to people like her. They are the “real Americans” and they will damn well make America in their own image even if they have to shred the Constitution and bring in a replacement demographic to do it. I believe they would actually prefer that.
Col, Reading peoples mail gives us insight into intent in addition to capability. Without SIGINT we’re a lot dumber about opponents. Its loss hurts operationally too, as the WWII Bulge demonstrated. You’ve long known that and much more, scary the people who have put political tantrums above national interest and security.
What they did to Sterling was a disgrace, Kiriakou too, I’m reading his prison book now.
Thank you for your straight-up take. You keep me coming back.
The intel agencies can never fully protect the U.S. election system as it now exists. Only sound changes to election policy will do that. The election system should not be digitized. Therefore, this information needs to be public. The election of a man in hock to a powerful adversary may also lead to nuclear war.
She was an Air Force linguist for four years who visited Fort Meade which suggests to me she probably worked for the NSA as a translator for some if not all of that time. Depending on the material she was handling, she might have had high-level clearance.
Coloenl,
It’d be interesting if the leaker of the U.S. SIGINT capability turned out to be a Russian agent who used this opportunity to disclose what he couldn’t have transmitted directly to Moscow, fearing too few on the distro list in the U.S., and an American agent among the recipients of his report.
Too Le Carre, but one can daydream.
I find your post actually interesting. So it added something, at least for me. Thanks for addressing my points!
Norbert,
“It appears that the Russian armed forces were suspicious of possible hacking”
It may not be that easy. Was it Russians? Perhaps it was someone who wanted it to look as if it was Russians?
I recently read a comment from a US info-security/hacking expert who just laughed and said that if it looks as if it was done by Russians and there would be code or texts in russian in the evidence, it reather likely wasn’t Russians but somebody else.
Here is ‘Tyler Durden’s take’:
“And while those Russian military hackers were smart enough to launch a coup of the most advanced democracy on the face of the planet, luckily they were also dumb enough to leave plenty of clues behind to allow the NSA to track their digital footprints all the way back to the Kremlin.
”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-06/nsa-leaks-seemingly-contradict-obamas-public-promises-russian-election-hacking
He has a point. That is no invitation to look away but to be sceptic and calm about the story.
There’s a lot of follks out there who probably habitually blame Russia for about anything. Logic, pogic is not neccesary. Just recently US folks have, entertainingly, accused Russia to be behind a hacking in Quatar. Yes. Of course. Super clear. Obviously. Who else.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/336638-us-suspects-russia-planted-fake-news-in-qatar-report
It isn’t as if there are players from, say, Saudi Arabia, UAE or Omar around, or that they may have capability for or, say, any interests in such things happening. Well. Here is nothing to see, move on, right now!
Or think about the hacking against Macron in France in the recent election there – another clear case of Russia being behind it, again? Well, I dunno. Perhaps its just: ‘Fake news? So sad, so sad?’
“The head of the French government’s cyber security agency, which investigated leaks from President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign, says they found no trace of a notorious Russian hacking group behind the attack.
In an interview in his office Thursday with The Associated Press, Guillaume Poupard said the Macron campaign hack “was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone.”
He said they found no trace that the Russian hacking group known as APT28, blamed for other attacks including on the U.S. presidential campaign, was responsible.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/06/02/oh-so-russian-hackers-didnt-mess-with-the-french-election-n2335248
That said, it may not be just a ‘So it was Russia, again, end of story’.
Any supper power, even minion like East Germany (DDR), built spying organization. In most cases it grows beyond its intended purpose. In East Germany for example it success in “acquiring” West Germen industrial secrets paralyzed own, East German scientific research. In US, spying follows capitalistic pass, by using subcontractors, where private profit is a main goal and security is secondary. If any organization, private or governmental, employs large number of people, secrecy is lost. No security clearance will help. There always will be some people who for one of anothre reasons develop hatred of the immediate or remote bosses or have mental problems, or ideological or religious conflict with the organization goals. One has to remember that in any nation there is about 1% or more schizophrenics. Some of them can function undetected and even became national leaders. Probably nation leaders has to accept the naked truth, that they may spy on one another, or on the own people, but such spying will never be secret for a long time.
Chris Chuba
The Qataris have a reputation for making trouble in the Gulf. they have harbored Wahhabi dissidents who go to other statelets to agitate against the local rulers. They also have not easily accepted Saudi overlordship in the Gulf. DJT swore allegiance tohis Saudi pals when in Riyadh. Therefore SA feels empowered to lean on Qatar to modify Qatar’s behavior. pl
johnek
“that they may spy on one another, or on the own people, but such spying will never be secret for a long time.” I suppose you are from the former DDR. It is simply untrue that the major powers cannot guard their secrets in the intelligence world. the US has a long record (invisible to you) of safeguarding its secrets. Secrets of this quality and nature are protected by threat of draconian punishment for disclosure. for such secrets to be disclosed is unheard of. pl
Ghostship
She was a cryptologic service enlisted person. Of course she had a lot of access. pl
Thanks for the explanation.
Keith,
Do you have a point to posting portions of these WAPO and CNN articles?
Yes, those damn academics are all so damn stupid. Thank goodness we have the business genius in charge now.
The Govt. needs many people with IT skills and exotic language skills. They’d like to be picky about who they give clearances too, but there aren’t enough “ideologically pure” people out there and the Octopus needs many bodies and can’t afford to cull the herd.
They ran into the same problem in the Manhattan project. The brains behind the nuclear physics involved were almost all Eastern European and beyond “Pink”. Oppenheimer was American but a Socialist, what the Soviets called a “rootless cosmopolitan”. Groves had them all scrutinized and the results gave him Hives, but they couldn’t build the bomb without those guys. Teller was about the only one who wasn’t a leftie with Soviet sympathies.
Chemists, Hydrodynamics experts, and explosives experts were mostly Americans, but the physicists leaked..
And so we have what we have today.
Colonel, I’ve long considered you one of my “go to” sources for informed commentary on current events in an era wherein the major media increasingly braids factual news with biased opinions, plus selected omissions of important information. It’s also an era of increasing divorce of “causes” from “effects” (and, often–coverage and labeling of effects as if they were causes…) It’s pretty obvious from today’s politics what disastrous results an uninformed public precipitates.
Thus, it so saddens me to read your comment “The country is now filled with over-educated and propagandized people, unfortunately mostly women who are incapable of rational thought.” UNFORTUNATELY MOSTLY WOMEN WHO ARE INCAPABLE OF RATIONAL THOUGHT is an attitude that, at 73, I’d hoped most of my fellow citizens were past. Many women have had a lot of damage and struggle in our careers as a result of that attitude. I need not elaborate on the issues in science, and in management, with which I have experience…and suspect other of your readers could also put together long lists.
Blessings to you.
Margaret
I guess I know more women than men. pl
Leonardo,
Thank you for the kind words.
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg
A name like Reality Winner could be found in public records if it is a real name. School records, other records. If a diligent search reveals the absence of any such name anywhere findable by even the best funded most-time-on-their-hands name tracers; then there might be a story about how “no such person exists”.
If we don’t see that story somewhere, I think we can default-assume that Reality Winner is the real name of a real person.
GALLANTRY! CHARITY???!! How to differentiate the scruple deficiency disorders from rational thought-challenged?
The business genius certainly had good relations to, say, building business work material corporations, or he wouldn’t have finished building bis innumerable houses.
It would have been hard without concrete, contractors or with, say, fires.
Love is the Nature of woman, and not that of man.
So women would err on the side of compassion and love.
They might be right, after all, since per the Muslim (and Christian) mystics, Love permeates the Universe.
Ms. Winner was denied bail.
Among other things, we learned that she supports the Taliban and wanted to burn the White House down.
Prosecutors: Contractor wanted to ‘burn the White House down’ http://2wsb.tv/2rRIz8k pic.twitter.com/gccgUunCVr