“It's the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow, oblivious to the implications. One year later, from the AIVD headquarters in Zoetermeer, he and his colleagues witness Russian hackers launching an attack on the Democratic Party in the United States. The AIVD hackers had not infiltrated just any building; they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything.”
“That's how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won't be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.”
“The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous. It's also grounds for the FBI to start an investigation into the influence of the Russian interference on the election race between the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Donald Trump.” (Volkskrant)
*************************
The events behind this story have been alluded to in various accounts of digital penetrations of US computer systems over the last few years. Rick Ledgett described the Department of State hack in November 2014 as intense “hand-to-hand combat within a network” against an aggressive and tenacious foe known as Cozy Bear or APT29. The fight to rid the Pentagon and JCS networks of an uncharacteristically aggressive foe in August 2015 was also attributed to Cozy Bear and the Russian government. The same person who led the NSA team in the JCS fight, Captain Johnston, USMC, faced this foe again as a CrowdStrike employee when he responded to a call from the DNC in April 2016. When the FBI first warned the DNC in September 2015 that hackers were in the DNC network, Special Agent Adrian Hawkins referred to the intruders as the Dukes, another name for Cozy Bear or APT29.
In each of these cases we knew who the intruders were because of the digital and visual surveillance of those intruders and their SVR handlers by the Dutch. Information from that surveillance let USI identify the SVR officers involved. USI subsequently bugged the SVR officers’ phones and monitored their communications. This is a major reason why the CIA, NSA and FBI were able to assess with high confidence that Moscow made a concerted effort to influence the 2016 election.
There are still many who find it inconceivable that the Russian government attempted to influence the election much less pull off the DNC and Podesta hacks. They also find it inconceivable that a concerted, long term intelligence operation could ever prove attribution. It can and it does. I’ve done it myself. I see plenty of room for doubt concerning the effects of such a Russian influence operation or whether anyone in the Trump camp knew about this or took part in it. That’s a whole different story requiring its own concerted, long term investigation. l’m more than willing to wait for this investigation to run its course. It's just a damned shame that more sources and methods will inevitably be burnt in the process.
TTG
http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2017/04/nsa-engaged-massive-battle-russian-hackers-2014/136683/
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/incident_respon_1.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html
Inconceivable? Ah! Another intelligence service says they saw it happen! I’m afraid I don’t believe it.
Really? Who did AIVD alert in the USA? So, you’re now stating as fact that foreigners saw this happening before it happened and warned US authorities who chose to ignore the warnings?
And your evidence is?
Further to my previous post, I call BS after reading the self congratulatory Dutch article.
“The Americans were taken completely by surprise by the Russian aggression, says Chris Painter in Washington. For years, Painter was responsible for America’s cyber policy. He resigned last August. ‘We’d never expected that the Russians would do this, attacking our vital infrastructure and undermining our democracy.’
The American intelligence services were unprepared for that, he says. That is one of the reasons the Dutch access is so appreciated. The Americans even sent ‘cake’ and ‘flowers’ to Zoetermeer, sources tell. And not just that. Intelligence is a commodity: it can be traded. In 2016, the heads of the AIVD and MIVD, Rob Bertholee and Pieter Bindt, personally discuss the access to the Russian hacker group with James Clapper, then the highest ranking official of the American intelligence services, and Michael Rogers, head of the NSA.
In return, the Dutch are given knowledge, technology and intelligence. According to one American source, in late 2015, the NSA hackers manage to penetrate the mobile devices of several high ranking Russian intelligence officers. They learn that right before a hacking attack, the Russians search the internet for any news about the oncoming attack. According to the Americans, this indirectly proves that the Russian government is involved in the hacks. Another source says it’s ‘highly likely’ that in return for the intelligence, the Dutch were given access to this specific American information. Whether any intelligence about MH17 was exchanged, is unknown.”
I refer to the Snowden leaks regarding the sophistication of Americas own cyber warfare capabilities. It is inconceivable to me that, as the story states: that the U.S. government was ‘taken by surprise” or “unprepared” by any cyber warfare ploy by anyone. That statement undermines the credibility of the entire article.
Yes, I know. The plucky Poles first broke the Enigma machine that the Germans thought was inconceivably too sophisticated to be penetrated.
To me, this article looks like a “hail Mary” attemmpt by the IC to deflect attention
TTG,
Russian intelligence operations should be investigated and countered. Just as we would expect the Russians would attempt to prevent and investigate and counter our intelligence operations. This game of Spy vs Spy is something we have both been playing for some time. Neither side, the Russians nor the US are innocent parties in this game. We try to fuck them over all the time and they do the same to us.
However, the attempt to frame Donald Trump for colluding with the Russians to steal a presidential election and then attempting to delegitimize his presidency is another matter. That too needs to be investigated and sunshine applied. Clearly, law enforcement & the IC can’t do this investigation as they would likely hide much malfeasance under the rug of “sources & methods”.
The question an old intel hand like you should be asking and attempting to answer is who are leaking stories like the Dutch IC penetration and why?
Netherlands and Australia have much dirty laundry from the latter half of 2014 to keep hidden from their public. Trump not being a Russia hater may not care about keeping their dirty laundry covered.
I should have added my respectful thanks to TTG for posting this but I bit too soon. I am sure TTG’s credentials in this field are way better than mine. My concern is that the whole article reads like the resolution scene at the end of a movie; the one where the real villain is unmasked and the hero (James Clapper, the FBI, etc) is vindicated.
What possible domestic motive could the Dutch have for exposing this story?
The Russians must be very disorganized or schizophrenic. The left hand not wired to the right hand. Too much vodka consumption/wet brain syndrome?? Or maybe they are merely pranksters that like to mess with elections just for fun because they have nothing better to do than risk pissing off the USA?
They “hack” the election in favor of Trump while, simultaneously, passing to Steele all kinds of damaging anti-Trump intel.
Or just maybe the Russians – like the US – just likes to gather intel on US politicians because they want to have a good understanding of the people, games, etc regardless of who wins. Isn’t that conceivable?
I have no problem with the idea of Russians hacking and gathering intel.
What is absolutely a giant leap across the chasm dividing reason and faith is the belief that the Russians hacked the DNC for the purpose of assisting Trump.
Isn’t it conceivable that the Russians also figured that Clinton would likely defeat Trump and that wanted to know Clinton and her world more intimately in preparation for dealing with her?
As they say in Syria before believing any claim where are the pictures?
That the Dutch are supposed to have them is public knowledge so why haven’t the pictures been made public?
The alleged influence campaign used RT.COM, Sputnik News, a few Facebook and Twitter accounts and some trolls working out of 55 Savushkina Street and was entirely public.
The alleged hacking of the DNC and Podesta e-mails were straight forward phishing attacks that were quickly in and out.
What other attempts to influence the election were there?
So Dutch intelligence were conducting cyber attacks most likely at the behest of some part of the US IC on the Russians and then Dutch intelligence and some part of the US IC get all huffy and whiny because the Russians carry out a cyber attack on something in the United States. Excuse me while I go and have a good yawn.
The rest of the claims, I’ll ascribe to someone either watching too many Hollywood movies or suffering an extended bout of projection. And if the Department of State, Pentagon and JCS can’t secure their networks, they shouldn’t be allowed to have computers.
Bravo TTG! I saw the same story and i was desperate to discuss it. So i am on the other side on this one so far. The problem i have is the sourcing is unattributable and its mighty convenient. Consider the writing. “Rick Ledgett described the Department of State hack in November 2014 as intense “hand-to-hand combat within a network” against an aggressive and tenacious foe known as Cozy Bear or APT29.”. I cant help but detect some of the melodrama i would associate with a propagandist. It certainly isnt dispassionate reporting.
And they have pictures too, which sadly they cant show us! And its not the first time the Trump admin has to deal with unattributed leaks.
This does not mean i dismiss. They told us civilians they had troubling evidence of Russian “meddling” and who am i to say they are flat out lying. But no one ever seems to want to leak proof. Funny right?
Maybe they dont have proof but they want him out? Maybe they have proof but they would rather keep a traitor in the job? Which of these scenarios am i meant to admire?
I know Red Square. Im very curious about the university which has facilities near there. The nearest is which one?
And you have to be impressed with the willingness to burn sources and methods. Did team Trump irritate someone too much? Nunes? Does that mean Nunes has a point?
I think Im still on Trump’s side even if its true. Who elected the other guys and who is really in charge here? Normally you dont threaten the boss.
TTG,
One of your sentences truly delights me especially as it comes from one of the leading members of this committee of correspondence. I quote it with its context and bolded:
I see plenty of room for doubt concerning the effects of such a Russian influence operation or whether anyone in the Trump camp knew about this or took part in it. That’s a whole different story requiring its own concerted, long term investigation. I’m more than willing to wait for this investigation to run its course.
I believe there is a problem with the chronology of events detailed via Johnson in the Buzzfeed article: Johnson at Crowdstrike was contacted by the DNC in April 2016, but When Wikileaks published the DNC emails, the last dates of the emails were from late May 2016.
So, Johnson was either unsuccessful in cleaning the DNC’s system of the Russian malware in April, the DNC continued to be compromised by the Russians or something else after Johnson’s assistance.
All
A while back I asked why people kept talking about the FSB. pl
All,
Oh, the Dutch. The people who played right along, and were not at all constrained about the charges that the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down over Ukraine was a deed traceable to those Evul Rooskies? Those guys? The ones who mumbled and evaded any disclosures about their sources for all of those great, thumping words of condemnation of said Evul Rooskies? The ones who couldn’t be arsed to say word one about how hinky it seemed that the Ukronazis forbade any release of the air traffic control recordings on that fateful day?
It seems to me that perhaps the Dutch government has a lot to lose if their citizens found out that they had been lied to and propagandized…by them. That they knew that The Narrative concerning this event was a crock of shit all along, and being compliant little compradors of uni-polar hegemony they did as they were told? Maybe even now the thought of the personal and societal consequences of their actions worries them enough to get with The Program. Maybe they have been helped along in these reflections by, oh, I don’t know, some parties with a vested interest? How very coincidental that this story gets floated just now when the investigations of the dirty dealings by “our” IC are getting more traction.
This smells really, really bad to me.
DC’s point regarding emails is very interesting. Also why havnt the FBI still not inspected the servers even to this day? Does that mean the NSA has all the data already? Or they are happy to take their word for it? Regarding CrowdStrike, who apparently nailed the attribution but couldn’t prevent repeat penetrations, I just don’t buy that it was purely happenstance that that was the security firm the DNC chose.
In the Dutch article it mentioned the original security breach was with the State Dept. How did they get access to the State dept? Is that a gentle hint that the security breach was the Secretary of States own servers?
Forgive what appear to be set ideas. I don’t mean to give that impression. I am just trying to make sense of the fact set.
FAPSI or SVR would indeed be better. Maybe even better would be to find the real customers?
It is very convenient to blame the agressive
Soviets that want to spread the dictatorship of the proletariatRussia that wantsworld domination.euh, something.This strikes me as TS if not TS/SCI stuff. Why is it being broadcast all over the press?
That’ll be the same Dutch Intelligence service which has cleared up beyond reasonable doubt (!) the downing of flight MH17 in, er, summer 2014?
Colour me sceptical.
I doubt this was hacking in the accepted sense, it was more likely using a backdoor implemented at the request of the NSA, CIA, etc. into some piece of commercial hardware such as a router. So why didn’t the NSA, CIA, etc. use their backdoor? Because nobody trusts them anymore so they asked the Dutch to do it after all their BFFs in GCHQ and MI6 are just as compromised as the CIA, NSA, etc.
What to make of this, then?
https://t.co/mngBXZBdw4
This appears to be a rather thorough debunking of this Dutch coming to the rescue of the FBI/CIA/NSA story.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@suzi3d/10-reasons-the-dutch-russia-hacking-story-is-fake-news
And yet the DNC would not give the FBI access to their actual servers…..
Just reading Walrus’s post after mine. Reminded me of the story of the Aussie ambassador not long back – Downing, passing on ‘information’ to US intel on Trump collusion or whatever. Now the Dutch come up with a ‘smoking gun’.
This seems like Maxwell Smart style operation. Actually, the US story line for what Russia is up to could have come straight from Maxwell Smart and Chaos.
Ukraine for the Dossier, Australia chipping in with a bit of ‘evidence’, and now the Dutch. Wonder who has who by the balls over MH17.
Publius Tacitus,
AIVD would most likely have passed their info to the NSA. During the 2014 DOS hack, the Dutch passed info to the NSA in near real time. Those warning were instrumental to fighting that attack. It was probably a combination of NSA network surveillance and info from this Dutch op that lead to the first FBI warning to the DNC that their network was breached in September 2015. Neither the DNC nor the FBI realized the significance of that penetration until months later. You want evidence? I and probably you do not have the clearances or need to know to have access to the full evidence. We’ll get it in bits and pieces due to leaks and good investigative reporting.
How convenient!
We are on the cusp of discovering that the FBI, CIA, & NSA colluded with the Clinton
campaign to deny Trump the presidency.
So, 6 anonymous unknowns from Holland?? Really?? After all this time!!!
Come forth with the “smoking gun”?????
Anyone who believes this….. see me privately.. I have a bridge for sale….
And …. how do you account for the proven fact that the Kremlin preferred Clinton,
because they believed Trump to be a “loose cannon”?????
INDY
DC,
Or the Russians were not involved at all.
Walrus,
During the decade I worked this field, the Russians were known to operate in a stealthy manner and would quickly vanish if discovered. The Chinese, on the other hand, tended to be noisy and far less stealthy. The 2014 DOS attack was a drastic change. The Russians stayed in the system and fought back hard. Even the Chinese didn’t fight back when discovered. Concerning the DNC hack, this was the first time the Russians released the information they stole. That was also a surprise.
My small DIA operation worked with an equally small German BND operation. The BND was able to do things that no USI operation could attempt. Capabilities among all the players in this field were ever changing and sometimes very surprising. Sheer luck also played a part.
As to why this info came out now I think it is primarily due to the aggressive investigative reporting of the Dutch reporters. That Dutch access to Cozy Bear has vanished prior to this reporting so the sources were probably emboldened to talk about it. The Dutch authorities were obviously none too pleased. I offer the example of an an FBI colleague and friend who spent three years conducting a wild undercover online operation. His operation was finally blown and publicized by an industrious German reporter.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/158005/article.html
https://www.cnet.com/news/q-a-fbi-agent-looks-back-on-time-posing-as-a-cybercriminal/
Eric Newhill,
The Russians, quite appropriately, care no more for Trump than they do for Clinton. What they do care about is ensuring that the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way. They initially aimed for a weak and damaged Clinton presidency. For an example of how Russia sought to sow discord is their creation of online groups advocating for both sides of an issue. They actually created two sites which organized opposing protests in Texas.
The idea of Russia passing damaging anti-Trump to Steele is a pro-Trump supposition. Perhaps it happened, but there is no proof of that. As far as attempting to influence the outcomes of elections both the US ands Russia have a rich tradition of doing this since shortly after the end of WWII. Between the two of us, there were 117 attempts between 1947 and 2000 according to Wikipedia. It might be shameful, but certainly not a shocking idea.
Richard,
“This strikes me as TS if not TS/SCI stuff.”
It probably was. Even though the operation was over, it was probably still classified. It came out as the result of some enterprising Dutch investigative reporters.
pl,
Yes, I remember all the talk was about the FSB and GRU. I believe it was you who suggested that the SVR would be the more likely perpetrator of this kind of operation. The DNI paper points to the GRU as being behind the Guccifer 2.0 activities. CrowdStrike said it was either the FSB or SVR but didn’t know which. I don’t know how they could have known who was behind it other than through institutional knowledge of former USI members now working for CrowdStrike. APT28 or Fancy Bear is widely attributed to the GRU.
I presume Putin is a chess player, not a checkers player. So, why would he go beyond normal spying and attempt to throw an election when his hand prints would be all over it? Why would he give the all presumed winner Clinton a causus belli?
All
Who leaked this and why is what I’d like to know. Who are the six American and Dutch sources? It would seem to me that they are high officials in the Dutch and US IC. They are quite happy to disclose sources and methods. But if their lawless activities are discovered they then hide behind sources & methods to prevent disclosure.
I’ve got to say I don’t trust anything our IC say. The first thing I will always do is question their motives.
Colonel, PT, TTG,
Stephen Cohen [Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History and Politics Princeton and NYU] had it right when he said “What’s the number one threat to the U.S. today? Today I would say it’s this assault on President Trump. It is beyond belief now and has become a national security threat to us in itself.”
See:
https://www.thenation.com/article/russia-is-not-the-no-1-threat-or-even-among-the-top-5/
WJ,
“And yet the DNC would not give the FBI access to their actual servers”
This is often trotted out as evidence of a vast Borg conspiracy. The FBI and NSA knew of APT29 activity by at least September 2015. That’s when the FBI first warned the DNC of the penetration. They also told the DNC of the APT29 intruders calling home some months later. When CrowdStrike was finally called in, they did not physically examine the DNC servers. They passed a digital tool to the DNC IT staff and had them install it. CrowdStrike then remotely monitored the flow of information from that digital tool to determine the intruders were APT29. They only had to physically touch the servers when they set about ridding the system of the intruders. The FBI would not be interested in that. They would need the months of monitored traffic and the remotely acquired results of the CrowdStrike examination. Once the systems were cleaned and rebuilt by CrowdStrike, FBI physical access to the servers was no longer useful. Binney says NSA probably has all the traffic from the DNC systems. I believe him.
A rather thorough debunking of the Dutch came riding to the rescue – https://steemit.com/steemit/@suzi3d/10-reasons-the-dutch-russia-hacking-story-is-fake-news
pj,
Why assume this would be a causus belli. I can assure you Russia has done things far more egregious to us on the digital battlefield and we did not go to war. Quite a while ago I wrote that this Russian influence op was elegant and bloodless. Hell, most of was not even illegal. Nor did it destroy our country, its system of governance or our way of life. Sure we should take measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again, but beyond that it is just an opportunity for wailing, caterwauling and getting a lot of panties in a bunch.
Have the intelligence agencies discovered any evidence of Israeli Jews or Israeli/USA duel nationals influencing USA elections? Until the IC puts America First, rather than Israel First I don’t believe one word coming from their mouths. I will assume any words from the IC are a psychological operation designed to subvert the mind of the American electorate, to further the agenda of apartheid Israel.
TTG
Would you say that the US wants Russia to be rife with doubt and internal discord? This whole “interfering in our elections” idea seems semantically underdetermined to me. If the SVR discovered that the DNC leadership was tilting the scales to help Clinton win over Bernie and released that information to the American people, I think this action could just as fairly be characterized as “promoting democracy” as “interfering in our elections”.
I think that coming up with international norms for how countries should respect other countries elections would be a good thing. But I think the Borg won’t go for that – the Borg wants to interfere in other countries elections while stopping any actors outside of the Borg from being able to interfere with the Borg “rigging” US elections.
TTG, mind if I ask what era you worked in this field? Russia of the 90’s and early 2000 was a mess. PJ’s comment “I presume Putin is a chess player, not a checkers player”..
Russia in this decade seems to have become very professional yet much of what is coming out reads like KAOS in the old Get Smart show.
On the Anti Russia/Russia dunit front we now have the same group from July 2014.
US IC would have the goods on Ukraine, Australia, Netherlands over MH17.
After a publicly disclosed investment (not to mention undisclosed) of 5 billion in regime change in Ukraine, it is inconceivable US intel was not monitoring the battlefield They would have Ukie radar emissions mapped same as Russia, launch flare most likely pinpointed to a few square meters, plus most likely humit and other intel on who was responsible if they did not plan it themselves.
Anything coming from this band of forty or more thieves and liars must have solid publicly released evidence , as in where are the pictures, what is the address of the building ect ect. Otherwise it is no more than a little vial of Colin Powell
bulldust.
Why indeed….seems too sloppy for a Putin (Russian Government) operation.
The longer this goes on, the more we continue to loose sources and methods that we can’t get back.
“What they do care about is ensuring that the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way.”
If need be, I’m sure we can confront Russia in many many meaningful ways. Let’s get the Nunes memo out and then make up our minds.
I don’t think there’s any shred of doubt that all manner of intelligence (and other) agencies the world over, as well as corporate, criminal, and other organizations are hacking into (or trying to, at least) computers of every agency and organization that may have something to do with their interests some time or somewhere somehow. This has been going on before the computer age, even: ever since cable wires and radio waves were used for communication, everyone has been trying to listen in on everyone’s communication, some more successfully some not so successfully. If the successes were really big, e.g. the Allies’ decryption of German and Japanese encrypted communications during World War 2, no one would know about them for decades. While hardly conclusive, that we are hearing so much about these things makes me wonder if what took place is “big deal,” a meaningful departure from fairly everyday operations of this sort. I don’t think it would be any surprise that Russian intel people or their proxies broke into somehow, or at least tried to, Democratic Party computers. If the Dutch intel people somehow caught them in the act while breaking into the Russians’ network, if true, would be at best vaguely amusing in irony, I think.
But it is a huge and gigantic leap of argument to suggest that Russians hacked “the election,” as many of us have maintained for months. We know from numerous accounts now that the Democratic National Committee was sorely incompetent and corrupt, HRC campaign was inept and overconfident, and Trump, for all his problems, did have a good read on where an important but neglected segment of the American electorate was disenchanted with politics as usual. At worst, that Trump was elected is a sign that there are things seriously wrong with the American politics and society, not necessarily a sign of Russian dirty tricks being so powerful. What I see in all the attempts at directing the public attention to focus attention on allegations or even reality of Russian dirty tricks (which I don’t think could have been any more than barely marginal in its impact, if that much) is a dangerous attempt to force everyone’s heads into sand, to ignore the serious problems that 2016 revealed. If some Russian hackers messing with some computers at DNC, even if it actually took place, is enough to fundamentally subvert American democracy, then it’s the American democracy that was in trouble to begin with, not the Russians. It’d be the democracy that we need to do something about if we want to save it, for if it’s not Russian hackers, it might as well be alien space bats or some other random trivial event from nowhere in particular that could knock it off the path if its illnesses are not addressed soon.
I quit following the all the bread crumbs in this:
RUSSIA HACKED THE US ELECTION !
Because it is so stupid. How did they ‘hack the election’?…did they get inside our voting machines and skew vote numbers for Trump?
So what if they put out info on facebook or placed ads or revealed emails or had nerds flaming Hillary, they had plenty of company in that by political PACs and dozens of hired PR firms planting media stories and wikileaks reveals and ordinary Americans and people everywhere flaming both Hilary and Trump on the net.
Unless someone can prove they MINIPULATED ACTUAL VOTES ….its a non story.
Why would Russia give a damn who the US elected anyway…Congress is going to keep Russia as their no. 1 boogie man and Iran as their no.2 no matter who is elected.
pj,
@37
thanks for the link – it speaks volumes that the MH17 topic is avoided in the MSM like the pest. It must be a very very very inconvenient truth behind the mystery of MH17. It is in to the benefit of the perpetrators of this crime to keep it out of sight and out of mind, until the families of the victims get older, die out and the collective memory dies with them. Kind of like the story of the “Liberty”- the less one talks the better it is for the perpetrators.
Peter AU
I first targeted East European and Soviet hackers from 1991 to 1995. I found Russian hackers breaking into US computers from Moscow. This was in the era of Hayes modems and FIDONet. My next stint was from 1999 to 2011. That was at the national level primarily targeting Russia and China. All I can say about it is that those governments are very much involved. The Russians have always been very good, but not infallible. They sometimes made mistakes and got sloppy, even at the highest levels. None of us are immune from human foibles and frailties.
I share your frustrations about MH17. My guess is that a lot of people including the US and Russians know exactly what happened. No one has provided convincing evidence for their accusations. I have no explanation for that.
kao_hsien_chih and catherine,
Check my response to pj at #38.
I get that the DOS attacks in 2014 takes serious hardware but what I have never understood is why the Russians didn’t take any efforts to hide their phishing operations. The exposure of the Russians via the Bitly account for the bitly links embedded in the phishing emails was a careless setup mistake on their part but the bigger question is why have any exposure at all? The phishing operation would take minor resources and could be setup anywhere in the world, completely anonymous, and untraceable.
You could take the opportunity in all the “Get Russia’ caterwauling to reveal it for what it is.
Hint…its about Israel and Iran.
”The U.S. Senate passed bipartisan legislation Thursday to sanction Russia and Iran for their destabilizing activities worldwide.
U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote much of the comprehensive package and worked as a chief negotiator to help his colleagues reach bipartisan consensus on the path to final passage today.
“Iran and Russia need to see more than rhetoric from the United States. The action the Senate has taken today sends a clear message to Moscow and Tehran that there will be economic, diplomatic and material consequences for their aggression toward U.S. interests, values and allies,” Senator Cardin said.
“I am pleased to have worked so closely with Senate leadership and my colleagues to craft a strong package of measures to hold Iran and Russia accountable.
The Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 contains the following key provisions:
Mandatory Ballistic Missile Sanctions: Imposes mandatory sanctions on persons involved with Iran’s ballistic missile program and those that transact with them.
Terrorism Sanctions: Applies terrorism sanctions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and officials, agents, or affiliates of the IRGC.
Enforcement of Arms Embargo: Requires the president to block the property of any person or entity involved in specific activities related to the supply, sale, or transfer of prohibited arms and related material to or from Iran.
The Russia sanctions amendment would:
Provide for congressional review if sanctions are relaxed, suspended or terminated.
Codify and strengthen existing sanctions contained in executive orders on Russia, including the sanctions’ impact on certain Russian energy projects and on debt financing in key economic sectors.
Impose new sanctions on: corrupt Russian actors; those seeking to evade sanctions; those involved in serious human rights abuses; those supplying weapons to the Assad regime; those conducting malicious cyber activity on behalf of the Russian government; those involved in corrupt privatization of state-owned assets; and those doing business with the Russian intelligence and defense sectors.
Allow broad new sanctions on key sectors of Russia’s economy, including mining, metals, shipping and railways.
Authorize robust assistance to strengthen democratic institutions and counter disinformation across Central and Eastern European countries that are vulnerable to Russian aggression and interference.
Require a study on the flow of illicit finance involving Russia and a formal assessment of U.S. economic exposure to Russian state-owned entities.
Cardin also wrote a provision included in the amendment that would prevent the Trump Administration from returning the compound on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to Russia without first seeking Congressional review. The Russians were accused of using the facility for spying purposes when it was shuttered by the U.S. government late last year.
The Russia sanctions amendment is based on various legislation written by Senator Cardin.
TTG, The issue is not what we, you, or I think would be a causus belli, but what Putin would think would be a causus belli to Hillary, in light of her serial interventions on thin to non-existent grounds of US national security. How would she react to an actual assault on our election?
Thank you pj for that link. What I notice about all these IC leaks are there are a lot of assertions and very little evidence. It is all about “Trust Us”.
This analysis by Sundance shows how the IC and the media maintain a symbiotic relationship to launder leaks to further info ops agendas.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/26/questioning-assumptions-revelations-of-key-fbi-officials-leaking-to-wapo-should-cause-review-of-underlying-media-narratives/
My question in all these IC information operations is always the same. Who leaked and why?
Is this leak to keep the story on Russiagate as attention is being diverted to the Nunes memo and it’s possibly explosive accusations of a massive conspiracy at the highest levels of law enforcement & the IC?
Thanks TTG
Reply to catherine’s comment (#47).
Yes it is stupid. From what I have read the only ‘election hacking’ was of a few voter registration databases. A money making opportunity for a 3rd world hacker but of little to no value to a foreign intelligence service. It’s a campaign of deception.
Gut feeling, (I have no evidence) this is a political disinformation campaign to prevent 4 more years of Trump, supported by the DC (global) establishment and their financiers (aka the Borg).
BTW, It looks to me like Russia and Iran are a close tie for the #1 spot.
A few thoughts. Under the circumstances in which it occurred – Russia being banned from the Olympics, I strongly suspect official Russia was behind the WADA hack, which simply gave information to the public. Same with Shadow Brokers – happened at a time when US were bragging of their total superiority in cyber warfare. A comeback for Morrel on the Charlie Rose interview. Very noticeable the Russia dunit crowd did not try and blame this on Russian hacking. Vault seven went to wikileaks so most likely a CIA whistle blower.
Assange.. His information has mostly been from leakers, whistle blowers rather than anonymous hackers.
The DNC hack narrative, and Steele dossier, on the other have been designed for an audience that avidly watches reality tv shows and takes their news in soundbites.
TTG: Here is the problem with your piece. Like so many others here and just about everywhere else there is no evidence presented.
“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
1845 – Edgar Allan Poe
(courtesy of The Quote Investigator)
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/23/half-see/
A leak not a hack.
Yes. Thank you.
“It’s the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow”
One question immediately springs to mind: is there a Russian University building next to Red Square?
Because if there isn’t then this story falls at the very first hurdle….
TTG,
‘What they do care about is ensuring that the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way.’
Do you have credible evidence to support this analysis of Putin’s objectives?
The consequences of a ‘rush to judgement’ on a matter like this might turn somewhat serious, as Philip Giraldi brought out yesterday, in a discussion of the recently released declassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy report, and the prepared remarks by the Secretary of Defense about that document:
‘At times Mattis’ supplementary “remarks” were more bombastic than reassuring, as when he warned “…those who would threaten America’s experiment in democracy: if you challenge us, it will be your longest and worst day.” He did not exactly go into what the military response to hacking a politician’s emails might be and one can only speculate, which is precisely the problem.’
(See https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/01/26/america-national-defense-really-offense.html .)
So the Ukrainian Crowdstrike called up the Pakistani DNC IT specialists the Awan brothers and had them install a “digital tool”. My guess is that there would have been IP conflicts with the hundreds of Pakistani ISI “digital tools” already bogging down the CPU’s of every laptop, server and smart phone used by the entire Democrat party.
LOL…
This doesn’t get much exposure, even the BBC is quiet about it, the Russiagate nutcases may have ruined their credibility beyond repair if the BBC get wary of such “news”!
Former NSA engineer William Binney has publicly noted that the lifting of National Democrat Committee files was an inside job. This is because the transfer of data from the National Democrat Committee server was 10x faster than could be managed over the web, probably 20x faster given internet links to Moscow.
So the statement of Julian Assange that Wikileaks received the material from a ‘non-govermental’ actor is confirmed.
mikee
The “problem” as you call it is that you want SST to be a platform for academic papers replete with footnotes everywhere, but that is not what it is. I want it to be a platform for various kinds of opinion pieces many of which represent the wisdom of writers rather than the pedantry of professors. pl
pj #53,
It’s not just risking the potential for war. It is also the very real potential for sanctions and other non-shooting, but damaging reactions.
RC,
Binney’s theory relied on the work of “the forensicator” who relied on the metadata of the last transfer of the DNC files released by Guccifer 2.0. That July transfer date is well after the arrival of CrowdStrike and well after the FBI told the DNC the intruders were calling home (transferring data out of the DNC servers). Some debunkers of the forensicator theory point out that the date transfer speed is quite possible over commercial networks. Others point out the most plausible theory is that the files were copied multiple times after they were transferred out of the DNC network. The metadata only captures data from the last transfer. I would note that I have never seen a hacker transfer large amounts of data directly from a network without first tarballing the files into a more manageable bundle. Also the date, time zone, character set and language of a computer is highly changeable. That’s hacker/trickster 101. I’m surprised Binney, who I admire, went all in on the forensicator theory.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346468-why-the-latest-theory-about-the-dnc-not-being-a-hack-is-probably-wrong
TTG,
I don’t mean this to be insulting to any correspondents who have – or are – working in the IC, but, as someone up-thread noted, the IC is simply not be trusted. Nothing they release can be taken at face value.
They have been caught lying far too many times.Everyone knows about “yellow cake from Niger” and so much more. And then there is the nature of the work even when the intentions are pure and noble. So it’s always, “Well yes, that was a deception as part of an operation, but this time it’s the truth. Really! Trust us!”
Thus, at the end of the day, someone like me has no idea what to make of the Dutch story or any other story around Russian hacking and the conclusion we draw is more akin to making a story out of an ink blot test than a rational conclusion.
If it could be clearly proven that Russians got into voting machines and altered the counts, I would be an activated citizen. Otherwise, I shrug and have better things to worry about, like an investigation into the FBI’s possible involvement in altering the outcome of the election. There seems to be actionable evidence on that one that is worth pursuing.
I remain curious about how the hacking of the DNC is a matter of influencing the election, as many consider various examples of ads described as amounting to propaganda and disinformation on social media. If either or both ops are the work of the Russians, they seem to be separate initiatives to me.
Eric Newhill,
I can’t argue with having a healthy dose of skepticism. However, why do so many swallow the words of politicians and pundits with obvious political agendas as God-sent truth?
Even the DCI report says there is no evidence of vote tampering and I have seen no legitimate claims of that happening. Have you seen any legitimate claims that the FBI altered votes? I certainly haven’t.
TTG,
Just in time, a post comes along to point out just how right all the people are about just how bad the Colluder in Chief is; and to think I was worrying about the statement by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman on election night: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.” while listening to a radio news report of yet another company, because of the Trump tax cuts, giving bonuses to employees and, shockingly, putting a billion dollars into its employee pension plan. Thank goodness for the reality-based community. I am grateful that (according to Buzzfeed) “in the middle of a white-knuckle presidential campaign” … “ former Marine Corps cyberwarrior Robert Johnston left the hallowed Halls
of MontezumaCrowdstrike to report to the FBI head of counterintelligence Peter, what’s that guys name, it was on the tip of my tongue, Peterbuilt, Peter Pan, Peter Principle; ah it’ll come to me eventually, he was in the news for something to do with investigations and evidence. It’s not like he’d want any evidence to disappear, that would be inconceivable. Then the bravecorporate employeecyber-warrior went the DNC to give the leadership of the non-profit 501C4 corporation the bad news.https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4221nc.pdf
I wonder who the head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, might have talked to about confirmation.? Surely the head of her own IT staff would be such an expert. It’s not like he’s some guy whose family is from a foreign country and he has for years been busy hiring his relatives at inflated salaries, lining his pockets and getting ready to skedaddle because someone has found out he’s used his position and skills for nefarious reasons. That would be – inconceivable!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4730382/House-aide-arrested-fraud.html
Perhaps the Honorable Congresswoman could talk to the head of security for the House of Representatives, one of the three equal branches of government established by the Constitution, rather than employees of a department of the Executive Branch (even if it is currently headed by a member of her own political party). I wonder what he would have to say:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/19/wasserman-schultz-to-allow-laptop-scan-after-months-stonewalling-in-it-probe.html
To quote Achemed “holy crap” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4x9NAINBbo
Next thing you know somebody will be trying to tell me the Clinton campaign tried to rig the Democratic Primary.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/controversy-rigging-democratic-national-committee-donna-brazile/
Oh no, that’s – inconceivable! How on Earth did
mommapapababycozy bear hackers manage that? Maybe we should hire those guys, really.A question for the espionage professionals. What is the possibility of recruiting an asset who has a deep seated emotional need that you (can at least promise) to fulfil? What could you get from such an asset in the short and long term? Shouldn’t we have a counter-intelligence effort in place in say, Human Resources, so that we could screen out applicants with potential vulnerabilities? Maybe we should put the head of FBI counter intelligence on that for a while. I seem to recall his name was in the news lately for some reason……
“What possible domestic motive could the Dutch have for exposing this story?”
The current stories are just not gaining much traction and stubbornly suffer from lack of proof. The Mueller “investigation” drags on an on, with nothing but rumor and a few convictions for totally unrelated issues. So the Borg drags up a few anonymous Dutch folks with yet another “blockbuster revelation” from unnamed sources and the media promptly jumps through its own asshole in “pursuit of the truth.”
Peter AU – this hits the spot:-
“After a publicly disclosed investment (not to mention undisclosed) of 5 billion in regime change in Ukraine, it is inconceivable US intel was not monitoring the battlefield. They would have Ukie radar emissions mapped same as Russia, launch flare most likely pinpointed to a few square meters, plus most likely humint and other intel on who was responsible …”
The Maidan shootings, MH17, who authorised Steele, Khan Shaykhun – the list of events that are only a mystery to the public is endless.
That’s not to say one is not grateful to TTG and the many others who minutely dissect what evidence is available and seek to penetrate the fog. Nor that one doesn’t accept that there are security considerations that prevent full disclosure. But the dance of the seven veils that now follows all such events makes not just the politicians but also the IC ridiculous.
I’m one of the diminishing number of those who get the print version of our national newspapers. A local shop gives the broadsheets away for free and the broader the better for me because I always take one for lighting the stove. The best is the Daily Telegraph. Good paper and lots of it. Here’s the big headline from the 26th January –
‘RUSSIA IS READY TO KILL US BY THE THOUSANDS’
It seems they’ve been hacking our power infrastructure and can meddle with it if they want to. So now the Russians know that we know that, and can probably glean a few indications as to how we know that. Great security.
Time and time again we see the politicians prepared to throw security to the winds to make a political point or to reinforce the PR. Yet never to allow us to see a little further through the fog. We accept it all, most of us, as meekly as ever. I don’t know who the greater fools are, them or us.
So what you’re basically saying is that the (alleged) facts of this case of hacking are largely inconsistent with the FSB’s usual modus operandi. Doesn’t that strike you as just a little bit odd?
Good points all. And please also note that neither Clinton nor her campaign ever disputed the *contents* of those “hacked” emails, which are quite damning.
Personally, I am weary of all the people who say, essentially, ‘if you could only see–fully–what I have seen you would know……..”. Along the lines of…’war is too serious an event to be left to Generals’, these kinds of allegations are too serious to keep the evidence secret or even semi secret (redacted). ALL cards face up on the table and damn the consequences.
Second, I can personally state that this sentence is 100% bullshit: “. For years, Painter was responsible for America’s cyber policy. He resigned last August. ‘We’d never expected that the Russians would do this, attacking our vital infrastructure and undermining our democracy.”. I have sat, more than once, with Painter in the Speakers Room at the RSA Conference, had relatively long conversations with him on these subjects, and he is not telling the truth here based upon his own words. In fact, this is just the opposite of his general attitude. All this stuff, running both ways, has long, long, been assumed. And Painter knows it. Unless he has experienced , in Nietzsche’s words, ‘a metamorphosis only slightly less startling than Saul’s on the Road to Damascus.
This I know for myself. To the extent it is of any relevance.
With respect, none of that proves diddly. Words in the press. Even Schneier has only conjecture.
OTH, OF COURSE the Russians spy on America. duh. We are the most unstable, treacherous and backstabbing people in the world. You’d have to be a fool not to watch us closely, with a great deal of circumspection.
TTG #71,
Really?!!??!
It would seem that the FBI may have kept Clinton in the race as a contender by deciding to not bring her up on charges that “anyone else” who did the same thing would have faced.
It would also appear that the FBI attempted to subvert Trump before and after he was elected by accusing him of collusion.
Evidence has been produced. More is promised. Now, the verdict isn’t in. Not even in my mind (and I really like Trump). However, there is obviously smoke. Now we need to investigate and determine if there’s fire. More over, the smoke is arising from critical load bearing structures of our house and it looks like there may be a fire set by arsonists from within our own family.
The alleged Russian hacking is much less smokey to my mind, but I know very little about the entire topic of cyber security and hacking and have no experience with cyber espionage. I’m just a citizen taking in the news, trying to understand. And I’m telling you that even at my most self-imposed objectivity, I’m just not that excited about the whole proposition. If someone is trying to pique my interest and convince me of something, they are failing. What is the point? That Trump should be kicked out of office? No? Then what? That Russians cyber spy? Anyone who’s read a Tom Clancy novel or watched a recent James Bond movie “knows” that. See what I mean? I can appreciate your professional interest in the topic. It must be a great puzzle for you to try to solve. Keeps the old brain gears turning. I can also appreciate that as a patriot, you’d be concerned if, in your professional judgment, the Russians were attacking and damaging our country. Yet there are others with a background similar to yours that totally disagree with your line of thinking. So, again, a citizen like me doesn’t know what to make of it. Thus, I fall back on what most of do; did I vote for Trump because Russians influenced me? No. No way. Did the wikileaks cause me to switch my vote to Trump? No. I despised Clinton and everything she stands for and I liked what Trump was saying in terms of economics (where I do have a professional background), on immigration (where I have seen w/ my own eyes the issues involved), on foreign wars (which had already cost me my only son, cost the country $trillions and achieved nothing positive).
However, investigate away; albeit quietly and professionally. I object to the public pronouncements, with certainty, that Russians did it and that they did it to assist Trump and that Trump was in on it.
Assange has said that his policy is first confirm the identity of the leaker before publishing anything. That’s why the Borg want to capture him so bad: so they can find out the real sources of all these leaks.
This is Democrat’s payback for Whitewater, no?
A little off topic, but all this APT28, APT29 stuff made me wonder why we never hear much about APT1 to APT27…
Googling found this list of “most active” APTs – https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups.html so mostly seems China, Russia, Vietnam, Iran.
Raises two questions:
a) Aren’t there other countries that are similarly “active?”
b) If you look at definition of what an APT is (actors, characteristics, targets, methods, etc.) how come there are no APT designations for the U.S.? Israel? Germany? NATO? And many others? Even if we exempt ourselves don’t these countries also target us?
I’m not surprised that TTG swallowed this obvious disinformation story whole hog. I’m also sure he’s really disappointed that hardly anyone here is buying into it as he did.
Read the Steemit piece referenced by others above. It’s pretty good.
I’ll limit my comment to say this whole Dutch story is absolute garbage obviously intended to bolster Russiagate.
It does emphasize my point, however, that without the alleged DNC “hack” – which was a disinformation operation to distract attention from a LEAK – the Russiagate story and the Steele dossier would not have gotten as much traction as it did.
The fact that the FBI never investigated the alleged “hack” but relied on a thoroughly compromised third party to do so is clearly directly connected to the now obvious FBI operation to disrupt the Trump election campaign and subvert the US election.
And thus the alleged “hack” still needs to be investigated by independent investigators familiar with the real issues of attribution and who can investigate the actual actions of *everyone* involved at the time, such as DNC officials and DNC operatives – including Seth Rich – not just the alleged “Russian hackers”.
I’m with Ray McGovern on this. Inside job.
FWIW the buildings “next to Red Square” are a museum, a mall and a cathedral. The closest university building is probably the journalism faculty of Moscow State University, about a kilometer away on the other side of Kremlin.
Tosk59 #82,
Right. Additionally, we have organizations like Soros obviously interfering/influencing in US politics in big ways and not a peep out of the MSM or elected reps. Soros is involved in very provable influence ops; ops that are, IMO, very damaging to US culture. The money is easily traced and has been. Soros, himself, brags about it openly. Compare Soros’ influence to whatever the Russians are/were doing.
It’s too bad that the DNC was hacked by someone and the hack revealed them to be election rigging scumbags. If the Russians were indeed behind it, I’d say that the Russians are friends of the USA/western civ. and they should be thanked, at least in that instance. And isn’t that what this is largely all about? Someone pulled the smiley mask off the Borg and the Borg is having a tantrum that their true ugly mean old face is revealed. Someone is going to have to pay for that.
I didnt expect so many to be skeptical of the dutch story even though i am myself. It seems convenient in so many ways for the IC when the IC is fighting with the Executive. However one should remain open minded – the IC is playing with way more cards visible than the rest of us.
That said lets be clear that the dutch story is currently unattributed and unverified. Im in no hurry so i will wait for corroboration. What i do know is that on its own this tells us on its face that the russians got copies of the emails. It hints that HRCs servers may have let them into the State Dept. Which may be why no one wanted to clarify everything they had. But it does not tell us the Russians gave them to wikileaks. The IC may have that step too but they havnt shown us.
Most of all, why did they start FISA investigating Trump? This would not explain it and the other things i have seen seem like weak tea. Papadopolous?
Im getting some popcorn and waiting for the next installment.
Thanks, TTG.
Although I think most of Russiagate is partisan hooey, I appreciate reading alternative views.
Eric Newhill,
“However, investigate away; albeit quietly and professionally. I object to the public pronouncements, with certainty, that Russians did it and that they did it to assist Trump and that Trump was in on it.”
I think this is the most important thing. That Russians engage in cyberspying or that they are trying to influence domestic affairs in US should come as no surprise to us. I am certain that we do the same and I don’t see problem with either in principle, other than that I hope we are advancing our interests with ours and that we can thwart what Russians or others do before they do much harm. But the meme of “Russians cyberspy, therefore Trump” being screamed loudly in public sphere, quite frankly, stinks of crass political opportunism and denialism. If the Democrats don’t like the fact that Trump won, they should actually start listening to the American people, especially those whom they don’t seem to like, not insist that they can’t “really” exist but for Russian cyberspying.
“What possible domestic motive could the Dutch have for exposing this story?”
Walrus,
To try and protect their exposed hides from the eventual truth emerging that they were part of the cover -up in the shooting down MH-17.
“CrowdStrike said it was either the FSB or SVR but didn’t know which.”
Do you seriously trust the Russophobic Alperovitch? — a Jewish “feature” at the Atlantic Council? My major Q to you: How come that the classified documents on the US Congress’ computers had been at mercy of Awan family for years? Who needs FSB when the US security apparatus has been criminally negligent and spectacularly incompetent? https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-26/anti-trump-fbi-official-identified-leaker-wsj-wapo-reporter
The whole dossier story is suited for cancan production. Time to clean the Augean stables instead of quetching about pernicious Russians.
What had been Kagans’ clan representative doing in Ukraine in 2014? — teaching the Ukrainians “democracy on the march” by supporting and collaborating with neo-Nazis? Or as you write, “Russia sought to sow discord is their creation of online groups advocating for both sides of an issue…” Hilarious.
No, not really. This kind of thing has become a standard tool to: at a minimum, tie down, and distract, and wound, your opponent. Better yet, in the long run, take him down. See Watergate. Bert Lance et al with Carter. Iran Contra with Reagan/Bush. Whitewater, et al, with Clinton. Katrina et al, with Bush, Fast and Furious/IRS stuff, with Obama. (Throw in Birther as a personal swipe.) Now it is Trump’s turn. This is done now because it CAN BE DONE. starndard marketing tool now.
Well, I do hold the clearances and I’m calling bullshit.
Well you might find this interesting:
The Alfa Bank server pinged Trump’s server 2300 times during the campaign…spam or something else?
Alfa is owned by three Jewish Russians- Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/fbi-investigation-continues-into-odd-computer-link-between-russian-bank-and-trump-organization/index.html
Jared Kushner is the only person in the Trump ‘family’ I can find who ever met any Alfa bankers.
https://thesternfacts.com/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-invested-money-with-a-russian-oligarch-d31dfecc0a2d
The Kushners attended a charity event with Abramovich in early 2014 that included representatives from Russia’s Alfa Bank who is under FBI investigation, and the Russian Foreign Minister’s daughter along with numerous Russian oligarchs.
Last week, Bloomberg exposed that event along with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s years long relationship with Kremlin-linked oligarch, Roman Abramovich, and to his family.
Kushner and Abramovich even invested money together in one of his family funds, until he joined the White House staff. Kushner-owned venture capital firm Thrive invests in startup businesses .Thrive accepted investment cash for Artsy.net from Roman Abramovich’s wife. Bloomberg reports:
The couple attended a charity event with Abramovich in early 2014 that included representatives from Russia’s Alfa Bank who is under FBI investigation, and the Russian Foreign Minister’s daughter along with numerous Russian oligarchs”
Per usual–”Three Russian businessmen, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan have sued Washington investigations firm Fusion GPS and its founder, Glenn Simpson, with allegations that they were libeled in Steele’s dossier.
Read more: undefined/fast-forward/384556/russian-jewish-businessmen-sue-after-being-named-in-spys-trump-dossier/
TTG – Thanks for this post. Your quite relevant personal experience is yet another example of why SST is always interesting and has become a primary source of learning for me.
A couple of questions:
1. If the scenario you describe is accurate, I am curious about your views on whether the hackers were a clear part of a Russian government’s cyber-intelliigence entity or were they possibly “free agents” with a “hunting license” from Russian government to look for “interesting information” along with the hacker’s own interests in stealing funds, selling business intelligence etc.?
2. In either case, would approval by high-level Russian officials likely have been necessary to allow release of the DNC emails?
Regarding the AVID story (whether true or not), it has the benefit of being potentially plausible, given your knowledge of their previous capabilities, which would make it have the appearance of plausibility if it turns out to be just a play by elements under pressure from ten Congressional and DOJ IG investigations.
I must admit that the convenient release timing and John Helmer’s excellent investigative work about the Dutch and Australian government behaviors in the MH-17 “investigation” leave me a bit skeptical about this story.
In any case, it remains important to eventually get clear evidence of what did happen – wherever the blame falls.
Thanks TTG for reporting this story and gave us your take on this.
Regarding your #68 comment. I am also disappointed to see William Binney went all in with the “forensicator” analysis. We, techies in this field, saw immediately that the forensicator’s analysis was full of holes and seem to be written with a siginificant bias, i.e. trying to prove the DNC hack was a leak.
Yes, but in my conspritual Middle Eastern mind, this US internal political events, including this Russiagate election hacking, is more for distracting the electorate from demanding and making better choices in their governance than revenge and taking advantage from opponents. Easily one can ask himself what if any and how much political change we have seen or can feel ever since all the political events you listed, including watergate, iran contra etc. IMO, none that matters to us the electorates, or any that can help us to choose better electeds.
jonst
I agree with you that this “believe us, if only you could see what we see” line from our IC has passed its sell date. Especially after all the lies for so long. At least 50-60 years. Considering this lack of trust in the IC they should be presenting all the evidence. This “sources & methods” guise no longer holds any water as they routinely disclose it to further their info ops on the public.
Even if one assumes that the Russians intruded and collected the DNC and Podesta’s emails, they only disclosed the TRUTH. They didn’t deceive the American people. Then there is this Trump collusion with Russia to steal the election narrative that has been sold hard by the IC, the media and of course Hillary and the Democrats. Again there has been no evidence presented yet after nearly 18 months of investigation. Considering how quickly they leak even incorrect information like Don Jr. receiving the data from Wikileaks before they were published, as long as it furthers the collusion narrative, doesn’t anyone find it odd that there have been no leaks of any collusion by Trump and the Russians with respect to the election.
On the other hand there is more and more evidence of a conspiracy at the highest levels of the IC and law enforcement to exonerate Hillary and to frame Trump.
”What they do care about is ensuring that the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront any meaningful way. ….. For an example of how Russia sought to sow discord is their creation of online groups advocating for both sides of an issue. They actually created two sites which organized opposing protests in Texas”
So the Russians dusted off their old Protocols of the Elders and are using the internal discord tactic? So many plots, so many plotters!….In all this spider webby confusion I think I will just keep asking myself who benefits and which one the plotters will benefit the most.
Protocol V.
”In Order To Put Public Opinion into our hands we must bring it into a state of bewilderment by giving expression from all sides to so many contradictory opinions and for such length of time as will suffice to make them lose their heads in the labyrinth and come to see that the best thing is to have no opinion of any kind in matter political, which it is not given to the public to understand, because they are understood only by him who guides the public. This is the first secret.
11. The second secret requisite for the success of our government is comprised in the following: To multiply to such an extent national failings, habits, passions, conditions of civil life that it will be impossible for anyone to know where he is in the resulting chaos, so that the people in consequence will fail to understand one another. This measure will also serve us in another way, namely, to sow discord in all parties, to dislocate all collective forces which are still unwilling to submit to us, and to discourage any kind of personal initiative which might in any degree hinder our affair. THERE IS NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS THAN PERSONAL INITIATIVE: if it has genius behind it, such initiative can do more than can be done by millions of people among whom we have sown discord”
kao_hsien_chih,
Your comment at #89 makes a very important point and one with which I fully agree. The question of Russian interference in the election along with the DNC/Podesta hacks is totally separate from the question of “collusion” by Trump and/or some of his minions. The Russians can be 100% guilty with absolutely no collusion. I am pretty damned sure the Russians did it, but I’m not at all convinced there was any collusion. I also don’t see Trump himself getting personally involved based on his temperament and management style. Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. Those who think it is inconceivable that the Russians would ever interfere with our election are as guilty of crass political opportunism and denialism as those who claim that Trump is without a doubt 100% guilty of collusion.
Anna,
“Do you seriously trust the Russophobic Alperovitch? — a Jewish “feature” at the Atlantic Council?”
Your animosity towards Jews comes through in a lot of your comments. I find it repulsive.
Joe100,
I am intimately familiar with the frequent use of independent hackers by both Chinese and Russian governments. It’s been going on a long time and many of us secretly admired that approach. It’s something we don’t do. In this case, the hackers appear to act more like Russian government contractors than hackers operating with a “letter of marque.” The release of the DNC material appears to be an integral part of the Russian influence op. I am far more convinced the Russian government controlled this than the release of NSA tools. That could be the work of any group of hackers/hactivists and not necessarily Russian.
Jack,
The IC has not claimed any collusion by Trump or his people. The IC also made no claim as to the effectiveness of the Russian interference with the election.
Eric, respectfully we should begin with the first question. What prove that actually DNC servers where hacked ?
The wikileaks mails can came from others sources, isn’t it ?
Walrus.
If you read this piece you will see that it’s not the Dutch, but only a journalist citing ” anonymous ” sources.So the Dutch gvt may not be involved.
No domestic motive probably, just an attempt bye the Borg to make the russian gate staying alive by spreading fake news.
The story about the camera is just out a James Bond film or a Monthy Pythons one.
TTG
I could very well be wrong but I was under the impression that Clapper and Brennan claimed that Trump colluded with the Russians. The Mueller probe was launched to investigate just that. Didn’t the IC play a role in the launching of the probe by Mueller?
I agree with you however that there are three different aspects. One is did Russia hack the DNC and Podesta emails? Two, did Trump collude with the Russians to steal the election? Three, Did law enforcement attempt to frame Trump and also exonerate Hillary for partisan reasons?
TTG
You are an expert. There is no doubt that there is hacking ongoing and intelligence gathering. What messes everything up is the corporate propaganda campaign. Plus, there is a bloodless counter coup to install Mike Pence as President and get rid of Donald Trump.
Russia is the Democrat’s scapegoat for the grief and pain of the 80% of Americans who have been thrown under the bus since 1980. A new Cold War has restarted for no good reason. There is a huge cone of silence around the MH-17 shoot down. It is extremely weird that it is mentioned at all except as a Dutch click bait. This is the Internet.
The prospects for a world war keep ratchetting up in the absence of the truth.
The Dutch article reminds me of the better written, exciting post I read yesterday about the false flag nuclear missile attack on Hawaii that was thwarted by the US Space Force or Aliens. Except, it failed to mention that Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard had tweeted that it was a false alarm after 12 minutes (before the launch submarine was sunk).
Jack,
I don’t remember Clapper or Brennan ever claiming collusion. They may very well believe it privately, but the DNI assessment never addressed the possibility of any collusion and specifically said it could not and would not make a determination about the effectiveness of Russian interference. The Mueller probe authorized the SC to investigate Russian interference and related matters. It sure seems to be focused on collusion and obstruction rather than Russian interference. I assume it’s because they already have the Russian interference part covered. That part was more IC than DOJ anyways.
I was disappointed when Clinton wasn’t indicted for obstruction for sanitizing the email servers. I thought that would be a sure thing. The classified info was problematic because it was no more authorized on the DOS IT system than it was on Clinton’s private server. They would have had to indict a buttload of DOS personnel. My guess is that there is a lot of classified info on unclassified government systems. I don’t know if anybody is doing anything about it. I never had an unclassified government account and never wanted one for just that reason.
I also think the FBI’s public reopening of Clinton’s email investigation did just as much if not more than any Russian interference to damage Clinton’s already damaged campaign. I wonder what a public acknowledgement of the opened Russian interference investigation would have done if it came out prior to the election. But this is all just idle speculation and matters for naught.
It’s hard to keep the actors straight in the last act of “The Game of Oligarchs”.
Israel Shamir’s drool humor and some history on the Alpha Bank Jews lightens the evening entertainment. The clip mentions Ruth Bader Ginsberg who broke protocol in the last election to endorse the government by experts, rather than government of the people, by the people, and for the people. HaHaHa
“Direct and generous beneficiaries of their lobbying are the Three Alpha Jews, Peter Aven, Michael Friedman and Herman Khan. They are owners of the Alpha Bank, a very big Russian bank , and they are Old Money oligarchs from Yeltsin’s days when their kin ruled the land.
Michael Friedman, the fat guy with a jolly piglet face, rose to his eminence from being a ticket tout selling illegally obtained opera tickets to Western tourists near Bolshoi Theatre; afterwards he became The Mind behind all ticket mafias in Moscow, and then proceeded to banking and so many other things.
Like many Old Money guys, Friedman earns money in Russia, but siphons it off for Jewish causes. He is a co-founder of a “Jewish Nobel Prize”, also called Genesis Prize, a cool million dollars being given annually to a deserving Jew, the most recent one being the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg who called Donald Trump, “the faker”. This is not a coincidence; the Russian Old Money is solidly in bed with the Clinton camp. If Friedman succeeds in escaping the sanctions, it will be an additional proof that the Bankers still have the upper hand in the US Administration.”
http://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-rich-also-cry/
Having read that Dutch article several times it seems clear to me that the only thing the AIVD managed to compromise is the IP-based security cameras in that building.
Indeed, I think it is pretty obvious from the article that it was only one camera that was compromised – the camera that was pointing down that “curved” entry hall.
I’d put good money on the idea that the original IP camera in that corridor failed, and some slack technician just pulled another unit out of the box without changing the default admin password on it. Hence it was just waiting to be hacked.
If that’s the case then the infiltration would have gone no further than that one camera, and everything – and I mean everything – else in that article is pure conjecture based on entirely on who the Dutch could see coming ‘n’ going down that corridor.
Colour me sceptical, but I am firmly of the opinion that the Dutch story is a big pile of hokum mixed in with a mashup of self-delusion.
Yeah, Right,
How do you figure the Dutch were able to repeatedly relay the identity of APT29 command and control servers to the NSA over a 24 hour period during the 2014 DOS attack with access only to the IP-based security camera in the hall? It seems obvious to me that they got access to the university network prior to accessing the security camera. That was just icing on the cake.
https://steemit.com/trump/@caitlinjohnstone/russiagate-isn-t-about-trump-and-it-isn-t-even-ultimately-about-russia
Do you have the clearances for this specific subject?
And if you don’t, do you have the type of clearance or needs to know about all intelligent operations?
TTG
I DO remember Clapper strongly implying on TV treasonous conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians. pl
” BTW, It looks to me like Russia and Iran are a close tie for the #1 spot”
Yes you are right–I wanted to rephrase it but had no edit function. I think though maybe they cant get Iran without side lining Russia somewhat.
pl,
When you mentioned that I remember seeing a recent photo of that sour, old SOB. I looked for it and found this quote from a CNN interview on 19 Dec 2017.
“I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president … You have to remember Putin’s background. He’s a KGB officer. That’s what they do. They recruit assets. And I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him, if I could use that term, with our president.”
The interview went on to say, ” When pressed about what exactly he was saying, Clapper explained that he meant his words “figuratively,” but that barely mitigates the shock value of what he said.”
Someone in his position should not be saying the President is a recruited asset even if he’s speaking figuratively and even though he’s no longer in the IC. Once again, Clapper’s being too clever by half. First he doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground when talks about HUMINT assets. Second, he’s conflating business interests (even if shady) with asset recruitment. Third, Trump is what I consider uncontrollable and unsuitable for recruitment.
I remember a time when Russia was caught doing something to us far worse than an election influence op. I was not involved in the response, but everyone I knew who was involved was seriously riled up and driven to exact bloody, albeit digital, vengeance. It was a reaction I seldom saw from a bunch of intel wienies. If the IC at the level I knew is sure of the Russian influence op and even just strongly suspicious of some kind of conspiracy, the Russians and the Trump administration are in trouble.
TTG,
I agree that the IC report did not claim collusion. Just interference in our election. And you are right they never made any assesment of how effective the Rusdian interference was in swaying the result of the election. However, I recall Brennan and Clapper going on TV and making inflammatory accusations and through innuendo for sure, asserting that Trump’s election win was not legitimate. I am sure at their behest Obama then made similar accusations and added to the sanctions and expelled Russian diplomats. I’m sure you’d agree with me that Obama, Clapper, Brennan and the Clinton campaign and pretty much the entire media fanned the flames of the narrative that the election was not legitimate and Clinton lost because the election was stolen. Now months later no one has produced any tangible evidence that the narrative they sold was based on anything factual.
Assume that the Russians did hack the emails. First, they did not deceive the American public by publishing false content. It was the actual email content of the DNC and Podesta. Second, if the IC can’t make any assessment of its effectiveness then they should not be a party to the selling of the narrative that the election was stolen. Clapper and Brennan were not circumspect. They actively pitched the narrative and fed the hysteria.
The Mueller probe was launched on the basis of false pretenses, IMO, because there seems to be no factual basis at least until now anyway, that Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the election. The hysteria leading up to it and then the firing of Comey, a perfectly legitimate act by a POTUS, created the media and political firestorm for the appointment. We are finding out slowly that the FBI/DOJ probe of Clinton and the Trump campaign has not been on the up and up. Infact both probes have been run on the basis of partisan bias at the highest levels of these organizations. That is a substantially bigger story as it points to deep corruption in law enforcement investigations. This is what Nunes, Goodlatte, and Grassley are investigating.
I think many are conflating several different issues. There is no evidence yet that the alleged Russian intelligence operation materially changed the outcome of the rlection. Then, there is no evidence yet that Trump colluded with the Russian government. There is mounting evidence however that top officials in law enforcement attempted to delegitimize a duly elected POTUS.
” Second, he’s conflating business interests (even if shady) with asset recruitment. Third, Trump is what I consider uncontrollable and unsuitable for recruitment. ”
I know absolutely nothing about Clapper and am ignorant about all the digital intel world capabilities….But the ”(even if shady) business interest” is what I would pay attention to.
It is well known that Trump, coming off his fourth bankruptcy and US banks not willing to make loans to him any longer, was saved only by an avalanche of rich Russians(with funny money and a growing list of the now charged with money laundering)- buying his properties thru shell companies. Russian money is all over Trump like white on rice—same goes for Kushner who was desperate for the money to cover his 1.2 billion bank debt that comes due Jan 2019.
Soooo….my thinking is that ‘if’ Putin or the Jewish/Israeli Russian oligarchs have something on Trump it is connected to money laundering. All either of those two would have to do is have someone come forward to say Trump knew he was laundering dirty money thru his real estate sales to them.
That’s a huge sword over Trumps head and his achilles heel imo.
Are you also disappointed by the untimely death of Seth Rich?
Well, your animosity towards Russians is obvious in your comments. As one of the commenters has noticed, the ongoing bru-ha-ha of Russiagate (which exposed the highest echelon of the US security apparatus as a bunch incompetent opportunists) is also related to a special attitude towards Russia and Iran, and attitude that reflects the interests of our “most trusted friend and the only democracy in the Middle East.” Was not the Kagans’ clan of ziocons heavily involved in the Maidan revolution that led to liberation of Ukraine from decency? — See the triumph of neo-Nazi in Ukrainian government and the concurrent unprecedented rise of anti-semitism in Ukraine. The “triumph” has been accomplished next to Russian border. Russia has lost her citizens in the millions during the WWII and Russians do remember and revere the fallen. Do the US politicians revere those American soldiers that perished during the WWII? If yes, then how come that the US has been supporting and collaborating with Ukrainian neo-Nazis? And where are the prudes from the Lobby?
As for CrowdStrike and Atlantic Council (the latter is a home to such important expert as Mr. Eliot Higgins the Ignoramus), their pronouncements worth nothing next to the analysis of real experts — who also happened to be the true patriots, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: http://warisacrime.org/vips/
It would be interesting to know your opinion of Awan affair and its consequences for the US national security.
Volkkrant wrote the article in cooperation with TV show Nieuwsuur. Which you can see here https://www.bvn.tv/programma/Nieuwsuur/VPWON_1282907 .It is sadly not subtitled but it does show the location of the Russians on a satellite image.
All the important Dutch parties are very Atlanticist so not surprising anti-Russian and very left socially (outside migration maybe) and rightwing economical so they loved Hillary. One of the big, totally not state controlled, lotteries(the Left one) even gave tens of millions to the Clinton foundations.
‘There are still many who find it inconceivable that the Russian government attempted to influence the election’
May I insert the word ‘Americans’ between ‘many’ and ‘who’? There are still many Americans who find it inconconceivable. Call it for what it is. Schismogenesis. Shows how easy it is to get the citizens of a literate, well educated country to tear eachother apart, amply evidenced by the partisan though restrained arguments here. Some of us watched the same method undermining the Australia polity as partisan politics representing different value sets fought over refugee boats. Entropy indeed.
With all due respect, if you go back and re-read the 2nd linked article in your own post you will see that it says exactly what I am claiming.
The claim that the Dutch had compromised some IP camera(s) is not new – it was first revealed in early 2017.
The claim that “the Dutch were able to repeatedly relay the identity of APT29 command and control servers to the NSA over a 24 hour period during the 2014 DOS” is completely new and, to my mind, gives off more than a little whiff of embellishment.
You clearly believe it, and maybe you are right.
I don’t believe it, and maybe I am wrong.
Buuuuuuut, then again……..
The US throughout its history has sought to influence the course of politics in countless countries. Recent examples include Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile; and was involved or trained those involved in the assassinations of foreign leaders. It periodically issues “report cards” meant to influence electoral outcomes. Yet the hysterics in the US act so precious when anything similar is done in the US. Does the US not have a free and independent press? A free electoral process, with well informed people precisely to obviate these very pedestrian type of interferences? As V Putin asked: Is the US a banana republic? After having observed the level of misdirection, the intensity of hatred for the Russians, the clutching at straws, all my years of observing the US political process leads me to conclude that as many have regrettably concluded, we would not be seeing this level of distortion, widely diffused through all the modern propaganda channels, were it not for the outsized influence of some Jews who get their hatred of the Russians from their mothers’ milk.
TTG,
I asked you a question, to which I have not had an answer. Since it seems to me critical to assessing the credibility of any claims you make in relation to matters to do with Russia, I will repeat it.
You wrote:
‘What they do care about is ensuring that the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way.’
I asked: ‘Do you have credible evidence to support this analysis of Putin’s objectives?’
In the light of your quotation from Clapper, I will ask a supplementary.
You wrote: ‘Once again, Clapper’s being too clever by half.’
Do you think anything the former DNI says about anything deserves to be taken seriously at all?
TTG #116. That last sentence is very troubling. If that’s true, your intel associates are in need of a comeuppance. Maybe they should be forced to watch The Caine Mutiny (after work, for a week, minimum).
“Collusion” is not a defined crime. Suppose Trump sent campaign people to meet with Russians. Then the campaign people come back to Trump with knowledge that DNC emails were hacked. Trump does not report this to law enforcement. (This would fit right into Trump’s temperament and management style.) What is the crime? Hacking the emails may or may not be a crime. Not reporting the knowledge that emails were hacked by someone else? — may or may not be a crime. But it would stink to high heaven. If Mueller comes back with a public report like this, even without an indictable crime, impeachment becomes Issue #1 for the midterm election campaigns. Impeachment doesn’t need an indictable crime. All the Koch money in the world won’t prevent the Democrats from retaking the House.
People in “denial” would just like more evidence and less supposition.
Democrats believe Hillary would have won if not for Russian interference? Not many of them. I think Democrats and Republicans are equally stupid, although in different ways. And the Democrats sure got emotional when Clinton lost. But this idea that most Democrats BELIEVE Hillary would have won if not for Russian interference? Forget it. That is nonsense. This seems to be anti-Democratic baloney cooked up by Fox News.
It sounds to me like most Democrats recognize that Hillary was a terrible campaigner. And the defeat of Sanders put a lot of Democrats on the sidelines. And the ridiculous Abedin email story acknowledged by Comey just before Election Day (possibly in response to the fear that anti-Hillary agents in the NY FBI office were going to leak it anyway) seems to have put Trump over the finish line, according to detailed analyses of swing-district polling data (if so, this was a very good dirty trick). So in reality, there were lots of likely reasons why Hillary lost.
Still, there’s a legitimate case to be made, just by the numbers: Clinton won the popular vote by 2.7 million votes, but lost the Electoral College by only 60,000 votes — spread over a handful of districts in 4 states. Facebook estimates that 128 million users were exposed to Russian-linked propaganda during the 2016 campaign season. I haven’t seen the data for Twitter. And a LOT of people use these social media sites. This would have been more than enough to swing the election.
A few months ago it was reported that Mueller was talking to Cambridge Analytics, the Trump campaign’s voter-targeting data firm. The question for them might be something like: Did you pass swing-district polling data to unknown people who were spreading the Russian propaganda onto social media by geographically-targeted ad buys, thus making it look legit? … Again, maybe there is nothing to this. And if there is something to it, it might not be illegal! But it would stink to high heaven.
“There’s a reason the AIVD writes in its annual report about 2014 that many Russian government officials, including president Putin, use secret services to obtain information.”
This single sentence make the whole article a sham.
‘government officials, including president Putin’ – shit even in a democracy the leader of an organization comes first, knows the most isn’t he/she?
‘use secret services to obtain information.’ – Damned, secret services ARE created for this!
The writer is a lunatic or is big time BS-ting.
Fake news, fake news! Who have spoken about fake news?
Thanks TTG. Your comments make a lot of sense.
Ivan
Training people who later assassinate someone is not the same thing as training someone to assassinate. pl
TTG
Clapper knows nothing of clandestine HUMINT operations. He is altogether a staff intelligence type. I tried to teach him the most basic sort of things. It was like talking to a wall. All he could think about was that if an operation was revealed in the press, his career would be damaged. pl
TTG
What does “DIP” mean? pl
pl,
DIP means “die in place”
TTG,
Since the time of Commander Crabb (yes, that long ago) one has always taken it for granted that it’s no holds barred when it comes to one country conducting intelligence operations against another.
Electioneering is another no holds barred activity. Very much so in the States last time round.
Mix ’em up and I don’t envy you or the commenters here when it comes to disentangling the results. I do envy you in the States when it comes to the openness with which these matters can be discussed publicly, but that’s another story.
That said, it’s broken record time for me again I’m afraid. Whatever the intelligence component of Mr Steele’s activities, there was past doubt a political component as well. He was interfering in a US Presidential election. He was explicitly backed by the UK authorities when that interference became public. His interference was partisan and was explicitly directed against Trump.
Someone in the UK had to authorise that. Whoever that was could only have taken that risk after clearing it with someone in the US. Who were these “someones”?
Dear TTG,
I’ve been hoping to get your reaction to the work by Suzie Dawson referenced above many times. It appears to be a rather thorough and damning debunking of the Dutch intelligence story. You clearly believe the Dutch story, so could you respond to Dawson’s points. here they are again – https://steemit.com/steemit/@suzi3d/10-reasons-the-dutch-russia-hacking-story-is-fake-news
All
Recall this from January 2017!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-04/did-chuck-schumer-just-threaten-donald-trump
In light of what we have learned from Peter Strzok’s and Lisa Page’s text messages, from the declassified FISC ruling, from Admiral Rogers compliance review at NSA and meeting with Trump a week after the elections, and Clapper calling Trump a Manchurian Candidate, this statement by Sen. Chuck Schumer on Rachel Maddow’s show makes a lot of sense.
It also makes perfect sense in light of this why so many, especially folks like Schumer and Feinstein and Schiff and of course the media, are doing everything to undermine Nunes, Goodlatte & Grassley. This conspiracy if fully exposed will likely show that the collusion was really among the highest levels of the Obama administration. What none of them expected and could believe is that the voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin saw through their propaganda to elect Donald Trump. Their expectation was that Hillary would sail through and this conspiracy could have been neatly buried. Knowing what we know now, can you imagine the scale of corruption and partisanship at these agencies under a Hillary Clinton presidency? Maybe the country did dodge a bullet by electing Donald Trump as now there is a possibility of exposure of the Deep State!
Col. Lang, TTG, Publius Tacitus, is Chuckie right? Has the IC and law enforcement become a law unto itself? Does it need to be disbanded and rebuilt from scratch? How can it be reformed?
Thank you.
TTG:
In the absence of strategic leverage against the Russian Federation, how do you envision the United States confronting her?
TTG –
A few more questions and a comment:
1. Can you speculate on the probability of Russian intelligence having accessed SOS HRC’s private email server? It seems this would have been a prime target and based on Guccifer’s (the one in US jail) release (after HRC left SOS, but before the election) through RT of four Sid Blumenthal/HRC emails during her SOS tenure this would not seem to have been difficult.
2. And if Russian intelligence had acquired HRC’s private server emails and/or HRC/Clinton Foundation (anther obvious target) emails would the possible (I think probable) corruption they could have revealed have been a less dangerous path to making “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way”?
3. Is it plausible that Russia’s high-level “US watchers” would not have seen the risks of releasing the DNC emails, which were directly linked to the election process?
My view is that the DNC email release could eventually strengthen the US by exposing the deep corruption within the democratic party that would not likely have ever seen the light of day if HRC had been elected. There is now at least a chance that the democratic part can reform the process of selecting presidential candidates. I am also seeing many thoughtful members of “then left” recognizing how damaging the banking and trade systems actions taken by Bill Clinton and continued through Obama have been to our country. Breaking the Clinton/Obama/Clinton leadership chains is at least providing areal opportunity to begin addressing these challenges as we have seen with Trump walking away from the deeply flawed pending Asia and EU trade agreements.
Lee A. Arnold,
Assume the Mueller report is as you say. Let us then assume that the IG report and the Congressional Republicans report a conspiracy at the Obama administration and that the Mueller probe was launched on false pretenses and that the attorneys on Mueller’s team are partisans. How do you think that plays out in the mid-terms?
“Did you pass swing-district polling data to unknown people who were spreading the Russian propaganda onto social media by geographically-targeted ad buys,..”
Why would the Trump campaign need the Russians to do that, when they had the ability to do exactly this type of social media campaign? Trump campaign had a big social media operation in San Antonio to do precisely that. In any case the so called analysis by Facebook is laughable.
More abut Atlantic Council and the Crowdstrike’ star Alperovitch: https://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=219560
January 27, 2018, “Unmasking Propornot- Exposing Deep State Crimes,” by George Eliason
“The obvious takeaway is that a lawsuit is a bare minimum that needs to happen. People need to be investigated for crimes against the state. When we take a closer look at who had potential access to top-secret servers, that will become painfully obvious. These people have tried and are trying to rip the fabric of society in pieces. At the very least, they have earned a good tarring…and feathering. When you look at the financial end of this a lawsuit in the billions would barely touch it.”
The Twisted Genius,
( reply to comment 108),
Clinton lost the election by losing several midwestern ex-industrial states. Noted liberal filmmaker Michael Moore predicted these states would vote for Trump in advance of the election taking place. He called these states the “Brexit states”. He made that prediction before the election, which means it was a real prediction and not just an after-the-fact false claim of credit for predicting.
And Clinton lost the Brexit states entirely on her own. When she said that she would put her husband Bill in charge of the “economic recovery plans”, she revealed that she supported all the past and future Trade Treason Agreements that Bill supported and supports. She thereby revealed herself to be a Social Class Enemy of the Midwestern People. She lost my vote right there. If she lost the other “margin-of-victory” votes at the same time, that goes to show that she was the most important scuttler of her own election, not “Russia” or anyone else.
After that, she went further by restating her support for Assad-Must-Go and her support for the NaziNazi Banderazi coup regime in Kiev. This indicated her support for jihaddery and for war with Russia. That may have lost her some more votes.
Also, her Clintonite Party and the MSM colluded to give Trump billions of dollars of free and favorable publicity all through the primaries. This strategy, the “pied piper strategy” as revealed in the Podesta e-mails, ended up picking what turned out to be her STRONGest opponent, not her WEAKest one the way she and the MSM had hoped.
So in a very real way, Trump is Clinton’s fault and Clinton’s gift to the nation. Clinton’s gift which keeps on giving . . . for the next four or maybe eight years. Naturally Clinton would like to claim that the Putin ate her homework or stole her election or whatever. She typically refuses to accept that she lost the election all on her own.
David Habakkuk,
My comment about Russia trying to ensure “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” echoes the finding in the DNI intelligence assessment on Russian efforts to interfere in our election.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump… Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.“
That DNI assessment relied heavily on two documents obtained by USI from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. The first paper, written in June 2016,
“recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-russia-election-exclusive/exclusive-putin-linked-think-tank-drew-up-plan-to-sway-2016-u-s-election-documents-idUKKBN17L2N5
All this can be easily discounted without evidence. In this case, as in any, actions speak louder than words, even Putin’s.The evidence I pay attention to is the elements of the Russian information operation that played on divisive issues within the US. One example, I alluded to earlier in this thread was the dueling Russian Facebook pages that organized both the protest and counter-protest outside an Islamic center in Houston, Texas in May 2016. Both pages masqueraded as US-based groups. There are many news stories of this kind of activity. House and Senate hearings with Twitter and Facebook execs offered more evidence. I found this Washington University research paper for a more academic approach.
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/
http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf
None of this means that we have to be full-blown enemies with Russia. I’d rather see us cooperate on as many issues as possible. I’d even like to see military exchanges restart. At the same time, we should take all necessary measures to thwart the effectiveness of any future Russian influence ops targeting us.
As far as Clapper goes, I think he’s a self-serving SOB, but I don’t just discount anything he says, just take his utterances with a healthy dose of salt.
David Habakkuk,
My comment about Russia trying to ensure “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” echoes the finding in the DNI intelligence assessment on Russian efforts to interfere in our election.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump… Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.“
That DNI assessment relied heavily on two documents obtained by USI from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. The first paper, written in June 2016,
“recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-russia-election-exclusive/exclusive-putin-linked-think-tank-drew-up-plan-to-sway-2016-u-s-election-documents-idUKKBN17L2N5
All this can be easily discounted without evidence. In this case, as in any, actions speak louder than words, even Putin’s.The evidence I pay attention to is the elements of the Russian information operation that played on divisive issues within the US. One example, I alluded to earlier in this thread was the dueling Russian Facebook pages that organized both the protest and counter-protest outside an Islamic center in Houston, Texas in May 2016. Both pages masqueraded as US-based groups. There are many news stories of this kind of activity. House and Senate hearings with Twitter and Facebook execs offered more evidence. I found this Washington University research paper for a more academic approach.
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/
http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf
None of this means that we have to be full-blown enemies with Russia. I’d rather see us cooperate on as many issues as possible. I’d even like to see military exchanges restart. At the same time, we should take all necessary measures to thwart the effectiveness of any future Russian influence ops targeting us.
As far as Clapper goes, I think he’s a self-serving SOB, but I don’t just discount anything he says, just take his utterances with a healthy dose of salt.
All:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases
I would be very interested on precisely where “next to Red Square” Moscow State university has a “building”.
My understanding of MGU is that this would require a rather expansive definition of “next”.
pj,
Okay. Lets look at the steemit article “10 Reasons The Dutch-Russia Hacking Story Is Fake News” by suzi3d. The first reason cited is that the Russians would never hack from a university because they knew from the 2013 Snowden documents the NSA looks at university networks in enemy countries. The author assumes the university location of the APT29 hackers was established in 2014 because that’s when the Dutch penetrated them. Yet APT29 was active several years earlier. Maybe the APT29 hackers did move into those offices in 2014, but there is no evidence of that. Hackers have used university networks since the dawn of the internet, even before that. It will always be so. USI wishes it could use those networks, but it is prohibited.
Reason two states that the US ignored Dutch warnings of the DNC hack. The author probably doesn’t realize the FBI warned the DNC of the APT29 intruders in September 2016. In hindsight, it was a serious FBI and DNC mistake that they did not take these warnings as seriously as they should. Neither the FBI or DNC were too concerned until the hacked emails were publicly released by DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks. Before that it was just another unfortunate hack of a private entity.
Reason three tries to make an issue of the dual nature of Mueller’s investigation. Is it collusion or hacking? Well it’s both. Mueller was appointed “to investigate Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election and related matters.” How is this a reason to discount the Dutch hacking story?
Reason four is the only logical argument made by the author. The sources for the story are anonymous. That should be a caveat for any story. Unfortunately this reason then states that the article “devolves into outright, easily disprovable disinformation” and then fails to identify or disprove any of that “disinformation.”
Reason five is “techno-bable.” The author goes on a diatribe about the difference between CNA and CNE. Why the author then cites a TS document released by Snowden that supports the existence, organization and function of the Dutch cyber outfit is beyond me. That document supports the article the author tries to pass off as fake news.
Reason six states that we will never see the alleged evidence. Well, that’s the nature of classified intelligence.
Reason seven calls the mention of the MH17 shoot down a dog whistle. What?
Reason eight and nine deal with the 2014 DOS attack and tries to point out inconsistencies in a rather straight forward story.
Reason nine tries to say Russian hackers wouldn’t make mistakes. Well, guess what, all hackers make mistakes and the longer they hack, the more likely one of these mistakes will trip them up. The author also claims no real hacker would use spear phishing attacks. That’s bullshit. They do because it works and will continue to do so as long as these methods remain effective.
The final reason is that the article avoids the obvious credible narrative like the plague” and then fails to state that narrative. The author just goes off on tangent that spies spy on each other and then adds reasons for the CIA and NSA being flat evil.
All in all, I find the steemit article wholly unconvincing and not at all thought provoking. At least the forensicator research and ensuing VIPS article were thought provoking and worthy of serious consideration.
Anna,
Reference your comment at #120
“Well, your animosity towards Russians is obvious in your comments.”
You should review my past posts from those covering Novorossiya and Ukraine, Syria and, yes, even the infamous reflexive control post. I speak very highly of Russians and Putin. I found the Russian information operation targeting the 2016 US election to be an elegant hack and bloodless to boot. I saluted the magnificent bastards
Babak,
Reference #140
“In the absence of strategic leverage against the Russian Federation, how do you envision the United States confronting her?”
Why confront when we don’t have to? We should protect ourselves and our institutions and seek to cooperate whenever we can. I’m pretty sure we’ll find a willing partner. The biggest obstacle is our foolish and misguided desire for full spectrum dominance.
That is what you yourself stated, “…confront Russia” earlier on this thread.
Dear TTG,
I posted your response on a forum that Suzie Dawson the author of that article should notice. I look forward to following her and your interaction.
Best,
pj
Babak,
Russia seeks to weaken our resolve so that we are not in a united position to confront her. I never said it was a bad Russian plan.
We have lost Robert Parry, a great Mensch and true patriot: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/28/robert-parrys-legacy-and-the-future-of-consortiumnews/
From the readers of Consortiumnews.com:
“Common sense and integrity are the hallmarks of Robert Parry’s journalism.”
“We need free will thinkers like you who value the truth based on the evidence and look past the group think in Washington to report on the real reasons for our government’s and our media’s actions which attempt to deceive us all.”
His was a dignified life of a principled and courageous person.
“…the DNC email release could eventually strengthen the US by exposing the deep corruption within the democratic party…”
– Agree. Fresh air and sunshine kill mold
Seems to me like a bit of circular reasoning.
TTG,
The troubling part to me is that the description “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” is already true, with or without Russians. It does not strike me that Russia did much, if anything, to add to this meaningfully. What bugs me, and I suspect, many others here, is that much of the loud outcry over “Russian interference” seems to be a ploy to blame Russia for this problem and imply that, but for the Russians, the doubts and internal discord would not exist. Even if it is true, it’d be best off if the talk about Russian cyperspying should be kept quiet, away from public attention, while some meaningful steps are taken to address the deeper, domestic causes of the doubts and internal discord. What saddens me is that nobody is doing this, on either side. Instead, the dispute over the Russians has become yet another cause for doubt and internal discord. This is most troubling to me.
TTG wrote: “It’s just a damned shame that more sources and methods will inevitably be burnt in the process.”
I wonder how much the Russians were able to learn from this and all the similar stories that these so called unauthorized leaks have revealed. During the Flynn affair, weren’t there leaks of the content of Russian diplomatic communications? Which are, of course, encrypted. Maybe they should thank us for all the free COMSEC support we are providing.
TTG, I fully agree with you and other SST’lers, the mixing up of several different unrelated matters is highly unfortunate. As much as the partisan way, that sometimes feels a bit hysterical to me.
To complicate matters this is “cyberwar”, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t nitwits like me expect a bit of disinformation mixed in for good measure? Irony alert: To leave out other “communicative issues” like, e.g., that this is a perfect advertisement for CrowdStrike et al. Maybe not for all parties digging admiringly into the issue, but surely for the larger rest of security concerned out there? 😉
I found the Dutch article linked below more interesting. Maybe they will translated that one too? Although, I doubt. They had their hype.
The Dutch article helps to explain why flight MT17 surfaces in the narrative. Which surely drew a bit of attention here and elsewhere. If you look into the slightly more technical context, you’ll realize they mention a persistent intrusion into the Belgian Foreign Ministry in 2013. Apparently it took quite a bit of time to get the “Snake” out of the system. … It was attributed to Russia at the time, and we are told the intruding party was interested in NATO matters related to the Ukraine.
Here is a minor trace from Belgium:
http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2053207
I could imagine that number 5 in the Dutch article is interesting related to the larger leak vs hack DNC hack debate. As you, I didn’t find the argument very convincing at the time. …
They suggest how the ex filtration of the documents the NL group watched worked. The infiltrators first encrypted then sent the packages to an existent IP address. Here care is taken that the shortest distance to that IP address is a satellite connection. The IP address since it does not recognize the packets sends them back to the satellite and are harvested there. … I do not fully understand if there or on their way. Might be the latter.
Sounds pretty sophisticated. 😉 But yes, I would need to ask people with a lot more knowledge then me.
*******
But basically this has also been discussed there is a larger national context too. The NL are in the process of debating an update to their security laws. That might be more relevant then MT17. And basically, that’s from the top of my head with a hat tip to the partisans here, the NL also belongs into the group of European tax heavens, Amsterdam has exquisite schemes to save taxes for multinationals. The Dutch may not like the heightened competition Trump’s tax laws bring in this context. 😉
oops forgot the link, while babbling on:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/unieke-inkijk-in-werkwijze-zo-halen-russische-hackers-gestolen-data-binnen~a4562176/
Jack asks, “How do you think that plays out in the mid-terms?”
I don’t think it would matter much. Even Trey Gowdy is on record supporting Mueller, twice in the last week.
Russia seeks to weaken our resolve so that we are not in a united position to confront her. I never said it was a bad Russian plan.
I didn’t want to comment on this whole affair, but I might as well.
1. Russians are aware of the United States on several orders of magnitude more than it is vice-versa. It is not a theorem–it is an axiom, US “Russia Studies” field from top to bottom is a joke, including “expertise” from IC. It cannot be fixed–it is the in the ideological DNA of US current “elites”. The clock work of decision making is not working right–it can’t. As this article so well demonstrates.
2. This whole discussion becomes absolutely pointless and amateurish once one takes a balance sheet of the events starting from 2008 till today and sees a testimony to an utter sheer failure of the much vaunted US IC and political institutions to answer just about anything Russia presents to the US by a mere fact of her existence.
In conclusion: Russia is not interested in US collapse or departure from the international arena–why it is so is a separate affair, I am not sure that many people are ready to talk about it with facts in the US, see reasons above. But Russia sure as hell sees no reason the United States should get its “resolve” (whatever that is in US strategy-mongering lingo)into the areas of Russia’s historic habitat. This is in a few sentences. When my book published this year you may try reading it to understand why US failure to get into the OODA loop of strategic decisions, as well as lack of any knowledge of Russia’s history played a crucial role in the American strategic failure globally in the 21st century. In the end, “We saw the enemy and it is us.” (c)
Every country – barring Switzerland – is rife with doubt and internal discord. It does not help the discussion.
I agree, SmoothieX12. The failures in US strategic policy and decision making is self-inflicted. The quality of decision making by our “elites” clearly have declined if taken from a national interest perspective. Yes, they as a group and as individuals have done well by amassing even more wealth as reflected in the unprecedented wealth inequality even rivaling the 1920s. The whole revolving door system of political appointees wherein only the foxes are put in charge of the government henhouse. A simple fact is concentration of both economic and political power over the past several decades. The political duopoly with a singular set of policies yet the bread & circuses of partisan conflict. For example, there were some 50 media companies in the late 70s, now we have consolidated it to 5 major media businesses. They are now in a complete symbiotic relationship with the political establishment and the governmental elite.
We are no longer at least from a national perspective getting into anyones OODA loop since we are spiraling out of control internally. Who could have imagined even just a few decades ago that the entire national security apparatus would be weaponized for partisan purposes against a national presidential candidate and then a duly elected president? The attention of the leadership of these agencies is focused on that, not getting into the OODA loop of any adversary.
The elites want big government in a symbiotic relationship with big business. They propagandize the American people to voluntarily give up their liberty to ostensibly seek greater security, just as they sold the American people to voluntarily ship their industrial base overseas and financialize the US economy.
As David Habakkuk noted here, the west and the US in particular at least from a leadership perspective has devolved into idiocy. The time line if seen from charts of total systemic debt, which is a good proxy for financialization, is from the late 70s on with acceleration since the Bill Clinton era.
Is the ball gonna start to roll? McCabe leaving FBI early by taking extended vacation so that he still gets his pension. Taxpayers will pay him for the rest of his life even though he has to leave for potential malfeasance and criminal acts while playing an important role in the FISA abuse. This is exactly what is wrong in DC. No accountability if you are high up on the totem pole.
Jack,
“…even though he has to leave for potential malfeasance and criminal acts …”
Got some evidence of that Jack? How long does it take to earn pension benefits in the civil service? Does McCabe qualify? How about acrued vactation and comp time; does he have any of that or didn’t you ask him?
TTG,
I think you protest too much. The Forensicator stuff made no sense on practically every level. As did the “physically examine the server” thing you were discussing above. Not to mention the “lost messages” conspiracy theory of last week, which was just plain silly.
A lot of these conspiracy theories rely on utter technological BS, but if you say “metadata,” everyone thinks you know what you’re talking about.
If anyone is curious, “metadata” is information a server appends to a file, largely to help manage it (it’s actually a separate file). When you get an email, the server takes things like the date it arrived, and name of sender, and so on, and creates a metadata file. Your email program uses that to, among other things, populate the information in your email inbox, manage the attachments, and so on. When you forward the email, you often see some of the metadata in the upper portion of your email. However, the program that receives the email creates its own metadata file, which is different from yours. As a result, the inbox entries look entirely different. This is the same thing that happens on a server.
The Forensicator’s entire premise is simply goofy. Once the file had changed hands a few times, the relevant Clinton metadata was long gone because it doesn’t stay with the file. And if, as TTG suggests, it was bundled and unbundled, then it would be completely lost, since you would be creating new and different files.
Not to mention that he doesn’t even get it right in the first place. The email server he’s talking about was well capable of the transfer speeds he says are too much. It would be hard to pack more BS in a single document, but not only did he do it, he apparently tricked some pretty good people at it.
“My comment about Russia trying to ensure “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” echoes the finding in the DNI intelligence assessment on Russian efforts to interfere in our election.”
Which was thoroughly debunked by Scott Ritter and others.
The notion that anyone with a brain in Russia would believe that any “propaganda” effort they could mount would have any significant influence on the election is ludicrous at best. So Reuters comes up with some “think tank with connections to Putin” – which on the face of it is nonsense. Putin is not an idiot.
Really, the only gullible one here is you.
TTG,
They also have my full-throated professional admiration, although with a big reservation. They seem to be making the mistake of focusing too short term, while allowing the big picture to erode. This chart illustrates my point:
http://news.gallup.com/poll/1642/russia.aspx
Gallup’s selection set skews liberal, but it’s the trend line you want to look at.
So Reuters comes up with some “think tank with connections to Putin” – which on the face of it is nonsense. Putin is not an idiot.
“Think tanks” with connection to Putin are well known, they are:
1. FSB
2. General Staff with its GRU analytical structures;
3. Security Council of Russian Federation.
4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
These are the real deal think tanks, not some hired for money collection of BSers which push the agendas of anyone who pays more. There are NO any other “think tanks” with “connection” to Putin.
P.S. Putin is not an idiot, but there are institutions which work hard 24-7 to help him in his not being an idiot.
As David Habakkuk noted here, the west and the US in particular at least from a leadership perspective has devolved into idiocy.
The tragedy of the West is that it completely lost any ability to produce real statesmen. If one seriously begins to look at the time when the United States had what could be defined as a statesmen of both truly global and national proportions–this has to be Ike. After him the quality started to decline seriously and with the coming of Bill Clinton dropped precipitously.
The whole revolving door system of political appointees wherein only the foxes are put in charge of the government henhouse.
Absolutely true. It is especially startling for anyone with even rudimentary understanding of military.
Smoothiex12
George Marshall above all. pl
George Marshall above all. pl
Agree 150%.
This is an alliance-wide phenomenon and not only confined to the United States.
Patience Fred.
Are you saying that pension should be payable even if malfeasance occurred during time in office?
https://saraacarter.com/mccabe-resigns-fbi-director-wray-reviews-house-fisa-abuse-memo/
Jack,
Has McCabe been convicted of a crime the punishment of which would include forfeiture of any pension earned?
@TTG
Even if I would buy the interference narrative, Russia basically backed everyone who did not happen to be Hillary Clinton. Given Hillaries position on no Fly zones in Syria, which basically meant that she wanted to launch a fully unprovoked war of aggression upon Syria and her Russian allies, they had legitimate reasons to oppose her.
As a matter of fact, just war theory would obligate the Russian to try every mean short of war first. Backing first Sanders and then Trump could also be seen as a Russian statement along the lines of “the USAs internal affairs are none of our business, as long as a major candidate does not openly campaign on a platform of effectively global thermonuclear war with our nation. We do have a right to oppose such a candidate by airing his/her dirty laundry.”
Now, my associates in Moscow have the following opinion:
1: “Fancy Bear” is not the SVR, or the GRU, or Spezsvyaz etc. it is a fairly group of hackers with some Krysha that uses shotgun approaches to get something, and then offers this something to various interested customers. They are on decent relations with the Russian authorities, and may have, by now, a Kurator among them who actually is Russian intel.
2: If you are a hacker in the CIS region, you do strive for one of 2 scenarios, either you try to get decent relations with the authorities, or you try to stay under their radar. Word is that the authorities are actually fairly chill unless you do something stupid (like shitting where you live in criminal terms), so most prefer option one.
3: Hacking the DNC was something this mid tier cyber crime group did, and it wasnt exactly difficult.
4: Crowdstrike was basically hired to turn this into “we were hacked by Russian super Cyber Ninjas which is an act of god, so our keystone cops cyber defenses totally arent at fault etc. .”
5: GRU was mildly displeased by considerable parts of the western world thinking that fancy bear represents their hacking skill level. Spy organizations do have a reputation to protect. The awnswer was the pretty epic hack of the equation group by the “Shadow Brokers” (heard 3 version about them, either they are just another somewhat higher tier cyber group with somewaht better relations with the authorities, which basically let the GRU smurf as them while GRU was hacking the hell out of the NSA, or that they are the SVRs equation group equivalent and the SVR was trolling the GRU by taking care of things for them, or that they were the GRUs equation group equivalent all along), this was specifically intended to be a “warning shot” by Russian intel.
6: That the Americans send the Dutch, who are not exactly an independent actor, in front is seen as a hedge to make the next “warning shot”, by this time the SVR, hit the Dutch and not the USA. That the USA hacks all Russian universities, and anything associated with Moscow state University in particular, is common knowledge in Russia. Heck, my brother studied kryptography there for a year and they basically got a “Every meaningfull Intel agencies is trying to hack us, and has probably hacked us because we dont have money, so dont enter dumb search queries or develop malware on university PCs.” talk during his introductory week.
A.I.Schmelzer,
Excellent comment. I appreciate your insights and those of SmoothieX12 very much. I pretty much agree with your assessment. In my opinion it would have been negligent for the Russian government not to try to influence our 2016 presidential election for the reasons you outlined. That’s the main point of my argument.
Your associates in Moscow also confirm my experiences with Russian hackers and Russian intelligence/government operatives as well as the complicated relationship between these two groups. The assessment of the DNC penetration as not a particularly impressive hack is right. I doubt the goal was to pull off an elegant hack. Its purpose was to obtain useful raw material for the ensuing IO campaign. There was no need for elite tools or skills, just whatever got the job done.
The story of the Shadow Brokers and the Equation Group is, indeed, an epic hack. It shows how sloppy and careless groups like NSA’s TAO can be over time. As I said earlier in this discussion, even the best of hackers make mistakes and eventually one of these mistakes will lead to their downfall. I attribute much of this to NSA’s and CYBERCOM’s push to expand too quickly into industrial level programs. Hacking should be left to small guilds of dedicated, patient artists and craftsmen.
Re the Volksrant extract that starts off this thread.
I see the following in today’s Foreign Policy Sitrep: Reading between the lines of the Nieuwsuur and de Volkskrant expose, there’s good reason to be skeptical of this story….
If this reasonably well-regarded US magazine (by no means pro-Russian) says this about the Dutch story, one wonders what was the point of quoting this and building a post on it.
Brigadier Ali,
Foreign Policy never says what those good reasons for skepticism are. I would expect at least a hint if that statement is anything more than a journalistic device.
This is a Foreign Policy Sitrep, a short report on important news items. I presume they have good reasons for their skepticism.
I’m afraid if I have to choose between your version and Foreign Policy’s, I’d much rather go with Foreign Policy. On the face of it, Volksrant’s tale sounds totally fanciful. In fact, a typical “journalistic device”.
I’ve been speculating for some time that the Nunes memo will be the first of many memos. The leaks so far about the contents of the memo say it is about FISA abuse. That makes sense since it would help bring to the fore several elements.
The FISA violations detected by Admiral Rogers and the subsequent compliance review at the NSA. The contents of the FISA applications including why they were rejected earlier and why they were approved in October 2016. Who were the FISC judges that rejected and approved? Why did FISC Judge Contreras recuse himself subsequently? What incidental information on US persons were collected? Who was the raw information shared with? Who made the unmasking requests? Who was that shared with? What role did the FBI, Clinton campaign, DNC play in the Fusion GPS dossier? Who paid what to whom and why? Why was Christopher Steele hired and what role did he play? Was GCHQ involved? Did Fusion GPS pay media outlets to launder the dossier?
So it opens up many avenues of questioning. And that is even before we get to the Clinton mishandling of classified information investigation at the FBI or the backstory to the appointment of Mueller and the staffing of his team and of course the roles played by Clapper & Brennan.
The Democrats and the media are being true to form here and exactly what Nunes wants. The more the push that this initial memo does not accurately reflect the underlying evidence, the more they play into the hands of declassification of the evidence and the appointment of another special counsel. The next big shoe to drop is the IG report expected sometime this Spring. The declassification of the Nunes memo, IMO, is just the first step. The momentum will continue to build and there is a decent probability that over the course of the next several months it will lead directly into the Obama White House and Obama himself.
Dutch folk magically got gold around the same time frame:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-24/122-tonnes-gold-secretly-repatriated-netherlands
also note magic disappearance of gold from Ukraine previously:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/ukraine-admits-its-gold-gone
just sayin’.
Scott Humor advances various evidence Kremlin Trolls/Internet Research group was a CIA initiative, which casts a whole new light on the matter:
http://sakerprod.live/a-brief-history-of-the-kremlin-trolls/
Imagine this:
One of the key figures in the FBI’s investigation of both HRC and DTJ,
in fact the intermediate between McCabe and Strzok in the FBI’s chain of command,
was/is married to a rich Jewish woman whose father was an executive at Goldman Sachs.
Further, the woman is a donor to HRC.
Too hard to believe?
See
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/30/oh-lordy-fbi-director-wray-sent-counterintelligence-official-to-review-memo-prior-to-committee-vote/
and Google turns up this interesting, if a trifle non-PC, page:
http://podblanc.guru/sabina-menschel-jewess-202-545-3000-wife-of-peter-strzok-boss-bill-priestap-just-below-mccabe-is-coo-of-nardello-co-spook-firm_9dee98d12.html
I’m not familiar with Nardello & Co., but it sure sounds like something closely related to what spooks do.
(Colonel Lang, if you are reading this,
do you have any comments on them?)
From her bio at Nardellos & Co.
http://www.nardelloandco.com/executive-leadership-senior-staff/sabina-menschel/
we find this, which may explain how she met her husband:
TTG, Here is the response from Suzie Dawson to your critique of her 10 points debunking the Dutch/NSA story – “Re 1: his proposition would require that the russian hackers didn’t alter their choice of home network in several years of operation of HVT’s. bizarre. including post-snowden revelations. even more bizarre. it is far more likely that they would continually change both location and host network as a basic opsec practice. but then, none of the behaviours alleged by the intelligence agencies match up with the most basic of opsec practices so… either someone is mindlessly incompetent for years on end, or someone is lying. pretty sure its the latter. especially given the later lies about both offensive and defensive methodologies.
2: the FBI is a customer of the NSA. the NSA is who the Dutch have their partnership with. The FBI warning the DNC in 2016 does not excuse the inaction between 2014-2016, given that the Dutch claim to have kept the US in the loop the entire time.
3. *my* point 3 was in reference to tweet I cited by Eric Garland – who was indeed trying to spin from the ‘collusion’ narrative back to just ‘Russian hacking’ – an attitude that was being mimicked by Western media. Which is why I correctly referenced it in my article as a ‘bait and switch’ tactic. It is very common.
4. anonymity is routinely utilised by intelligence sources as cover for their media psyops
5. the Snowden document I cited shows how deep and intrinsic the relationship between the Dutch and NSA already was, as of 2013. Six Dutch intelligence officers had visited NSA headquarters – the same number of sources cited in the article. Also that the Dutch were already looking into allowing “full-take” collection for NSA at cable level. This legislation the Dutch are facing is the same that has been implemented elsewhere, to enable mass surveillance of the kind that Snowden leaked to try to alert the world about the dangers of.
6. Actually, in cases of extreme public interest, information has been declasified… such as Reagan. The NSA even complains about this in the leaked documents.
7. it was a dog whistle. It was them saying ‘we are getting you back and this is why’. The claim that the hack must have taken place before was completely erroneous and unfounded.
8 & 9 are both relevant points and stand, they outline further lies, improbabilities and inconsistencies, whereas this person trying to debunk my post earlier claims I didn’t demonstrate any. Wrong.
10. I clearly stated that the credible narrative would be that all intelligence agencies try to undermine other intelligence agencies. And then gave clear examples of actual documented evidence of US interference in the French Presidential election, utilising its FVEY partners to do so, a fact conveniently ignored by the person trying to debunk my debunking. Even Snowden has pointed out that the Russians probably *did* take some action to interfere with the election purely because all intelligence agencies do such things by default. But to make the allegation requires actual evidence, ie. documents, photographs, video etc etc, none of which either the Dutch nor the USA has produced.”
Interesting take on the Dutch Joint Sigint Cyber Unit (JSCU) in FP magazine. Written by Mark Galeotti, who is author of several books on the Russian military. The article mirrors TTGs point that a small dedicated team of smart & professional hackers can do as good or better work than a project with a ton of manpower.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/31/size-doesnt-matter-for-spies-anymore/
Mark Galeotti, who is author of several books on the Russian military
Most what Galeotti writes on Russia in general or her military in particular is rubbish. It is expected from the man with degree in “history” and political “science”. In general Galeotti is precisely the type which contributed enormously to the US utter failure with Russia across the whole spectrum of activities from economy to military. His investigation of organized crime, however, could be of some interest.
pj,
Thanks for your effort in getting a response from Suzie Dawson. Her response leaves me even less convinced of debunking, although I have no doubt of her sincerity.
1. I’ve spent 10+ years dealing with USG and allied cyber units. There is nothing unusual about these units remaining in the same physical location for several years. What is changed out is the operational network between the operator and the target. During the discussion of the DOS hack, the Dutch article and other articles explain that the APT29 group changed operational midpoints several times over a 24 hour period in an effort to remain in the DOS network.
2. What inaction? The Dutch were instrumental in defeating the 2014 DOS attack. They apparently relayed info about the DNC intrusion sometime prior to September 2015 when the FBI first notified the DNC of the APT29 intrusion. It was an FBI/DNC screw up in not reacting more aggressively to this first warning, not any delay by the Dutch. The article only covers these two APT29 intrusions so we don’t know what else was shared. My guess they were also helpful during the 2015 JCS intrusion.
3. I don’t follow Eric Garland. I’ll take a look to see what’s the source of his egregiousness.
4. As I said anonymity is used by many, not just intelligence sources. Hell, I use light anonymity. Hence the pseudonym TTG.
5. With the access developed by the Dutch, I’m not at all surprised by the close relationship between the NSA and their Dutch counterpart. That’s the norm post-9/11 across the IC.
6. I predict that a lot more will be declassified when more indictments are made public and the investigation wraps up.
7. I have severe tinnitus. Perhaps that’s why I can’t hear the dog whistle. Seriously, I see the connection between the AIVD and MH17 made by the author to be unsubstantiated assumptions adopted to support the desired narrative.
8 & 9. Based on my experience and familiarity with these operations, I fail to see the improbabilities and inconsistencies in the Dutch account of the 2014 DOS intrusion. It is consistent will all other descriptions of that attack that i have read.
10. So, Snowden said “the Russians probably *did* take some action to interfere with the election.” That’s not helpful to “Russia did nothing” narrative. I have no doubt the US spied on the French election. I remember the brouhaha over US spying on Merkel’s phone. That’s the nature of intelligence on the national level. So the credible narrative is that Russia could have hacked the DNC because all intel agencies do it. I rest my case.
All,
I’m closing the comments to this posting. The discussion has been remarkably on topic, professional and useful, but it’s gone on long enough for now. I guarantee I will offer more opportunities to discuss these things in the future.