Perhaps. If that's the case, maybe they'll solve the problem using similar cloak-and-dagger methods, like retaliating by arranging to have a Russian government official assassinated or something.

Isn't that kind of obvious to everyone at this point? It's just not out in the explicit open with the right kind of language. By giving such meager evidence of a "certainty", they're essentially giving away that they determined this via other means.

So, right now, let's assume it was a Russian spy agency that hacked the DNC. They're sitting there, thinking, "wow, these FBI folks somehow figured out it was us.". Then after reading this paper, "hmm, that's not a whole lot of evidence, they must have some proof that they're hiding. They must have a mole in our office. Find him, now."

The DNC has to keep their voters mad at an external entity, lest they realize how the DNC sabotaged itself in this election with the "pied piper" strategy to promote Trump, as well as funneling all the money from state-level campaigns into Hillary and making the losses even worse.

Wasn't the NSA spying on the whole Internet or something? Are you telling me the NSA saw no evidence of Russia hacking the DNC servers? They wouldn't necessarily have to reveal their "methods" that it was the Russians if it was the NSA catching them and not some Kremlin CIA spy.

But who knows, maybe they are too busy spying on hundreds of millions of Regular Joes to watch out for all of the Russian attacks.

Haven't the NSA already said they believe it was the Russians? As you suggest, they would be the ones to know.

The NSA doesn't, in general, publicly announce anything. They exist to supply analysis to other branches of government, and only very rarely to the public directly. So the absence of commentary from them in public doesn't indicate that they haven't drawn conclusions and passed them along.

Source? I googled it and only found articles suggested the opposite.

ex.https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/top-secret-snowden-docum...

If they're not going to publish their (hypothetical, ostensible, theoretical, possibly entirely imaginary) evidence, then why would we put much faith into their claim? It's not like all major US intelligence agencies haven't led deception campaigns against the public before.

There is a fair amount of public evidence lying around tying the hacks to Russia or at minimum Russians, including CrowdStrike's recent report about Ukrainian artillery. Considering that, it seems more likely that US intelligence has their own evidence, as they claim, than that they're simply making things up (at the risk of substantial embarrassment).