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Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by Eridrus on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:32PM (#13830939)
I think it's pretty clear that they're opportunists, rather than hardcore ideologues.

Assange probably has no love for Trump, but certainly hates Hillary and was willing to get in bed with whoever was necessary to hurt her.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:45PM (#13831090)
If he had had some "goods" on Trump (e.g. a video in which Trump had said some rude things) I'm sure he would have released that too. Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:02PM (#13831297)
>Top intelligence officials indicated on Tuesday that the GOP was also a Russian hacking target but that none of the information obtained was leaked.

Source - http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hac...

I think you are being naive if you believe that everything that has been hacked has been leaked or that the leaks are motivated be an ideology of transparency rather than political objectives.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:20PM (#13831512)
At your link, we hear Comey say: "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked."

I probably am naive, but at least I'm not so naive as to hear anything from Comey other than CYA over his own "election-affecting" but now-forgotten Clintonian email releases.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:25PM (#13831584)
He uses the terms "old" and "current" to describe the hacks. The "old" RNC was hacked. The "current" RNC was not. We have no idea what those terms mean or why the data collected from the "old" RNC wasn't leaked.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:38PM (#13831725)
In my ignorance, I assumed those words meant the same thing they mean in everyday English language conversation. If one had to guess, the "old" RNC might have been the one that never imagined Trump would kick their asses to the curb, while the "current" one might be the one that Trump hired after he did that? Which would be more likely to have dirt on Trump?

As I said above, however, we're really in the dark when we're reading tea leaves of nuance in testimony about an open investigation, by an effectively independent civil servant who has given directly-misleading testimony within the last year.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:07PM (#13831351)
I think you're missing a key part, there's a difference between being a target and actually losing valuable information.

It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in or that they failed to get any significant information.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:22PM (#13831555)
>It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in

Comey disputes that in the linked article.

>or that they failed to get any significant information.

Or maybe it is possible that they got more significant information and it was never leaked because it is more valuable as blackmail material. Neither of us know which one of those theories is right.

What we do know is that both sides were hacked, probably by the Russians, and data from only one side was released. By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:26PM (#13831588)
> Comey disputes that in the linked article.

>> "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked." - Linked Article

Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one...

Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless. They use the same tactics to identify malware sources that they use to thwart their own identification as a malware source. I wouldn't believe anything they say about the source of malware - or anything anyone says. It's far too easy to make it look like someone else did it - use their or nearby providers, use their malware or slightly modified versions of it, copy their strings, etc. It's pretty easy stuff to do if you've got a bit of assembly skill too.

> By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.

Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have? and if you would have, would you honestly say that your actions weren't politically motivated?

I think _not_ releasing in this case or avoiding impact would have been more clearly politically motivated.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:45PM (#13831800)
>Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one

I mentioned this in my other post. The RNC was hacked, but we don't know the timeline due to Comey's vague terminology.

>Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless.

This is incredibly patronizing. They have a much greater expertise on these things than two doofuses like us debating on the Internet.

>Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have?

It isn't just the timing of the leaks, go back and read what they were saying about them. They stoked the flames of Pizzagate. Assange was quoted as saying the leaks would guarantee Clinton's arrest. Those aren't the actions of someone who is politically neutral.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by dragonwriter on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:49PM (#13831134)
> Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.

While there was no similar mass disclosure (most likely because of the political goals of those conducting the operation), Republican groups, not just Democrats, were compromised by the same actors behind the DNC attack.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:55PM (#13831201)
Assume I believe that... what horrible skulduggery did such compromises uncover? What did we not know about Trump that these anonymous hackers decided not to release, which had it been released would have thrown the election the other way?
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:58PM (#13831230)
Is there even any evidence for that? If I recall correctly the claims said they attempted but failed to get anywhere at least with Trump's RNC.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by smitherfield on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:18PM (#13831497)
> Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough

Not so much that — we have ample evidence to the contrary — but more conventional media outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CNN and so on are more than happy to publish unredacted leaks themselves, if they embarrass Trump. Wikileaks is whom you bring your story to when nobody else will publish it.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by scarmig on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:19PM (#13831508)
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Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:24PM (#13831575)
I don't think that's true - many companies have stricter policies about this or simply block it via technical means. No outside emails with attachments or links for example, screening phone calls and strict training.

You don't see leaks from 3-letter agencies because someone phished them - while it's definitely possible to contact them.

You can do a lot with training - simply frequently attempting phishing on your own employees can do a lot.