Yeah I'm not convinced Assange would recognize or care to look hard enough to figure out if his source was a simple cut out.

1. Maybe not. WikiLeaks is a leaks publication outfit, not a counter-intelligence outfit.

2. Suppose it had been a "cut-out" (though I'm incredulous of that). Do you believe they should have refused to publish in that case?

No to 2, I'm just saying I have doubts that Asange/WikiLeaks would reliably know who was actually behind the hacks.

You honestly can't fathom a situation where Assange would know for sure Russia wasn't involved?

Is everyone in America to be considered a suspected Russian agent now?

Because there is a scenario: Assange got the DNC leaks directly from someone in authority in the DNC, itself, knows the person, and knows they don't work for Russia (because the person already has high-level clearances/was rigorously vetted/etc.)

Where did I say I can't fathom that situation for starters? From all indications from the DNC to the US Intelligence community it wasn't someone inside the DNC so absent any information from Assange/Wikileaks I have no reason to believe it's anyone else. Also we know from the War files that Wikileaks doesn't go through the documents provided to remove things like personal names to protect locals who did simple things like working as translators etc. so I'm not too convinced they'd look particular hard at exactly who was sending them the info.

DNC wouldn't know. US Intelligence community wouldn't know.

Only Assange knows where he got the data. Why is it so easy for you to trust entities that were not involved in the leak so easily, yet disregard Assange's own agency over knowing/understanding where he got the data?

Is it because you maybe just don't like Assange as a person?

I mean, not vetting documents is one thing. But, actively engaging in election interference all over the world is another thing. Assange did the former - your beloved intelligence agency, are currently doing the latter. Its reasonable to assume that US Intelligence agencies are lying, utterly, to give themselves yet more budget for nefarious deeds - i.e. the "Ma' Russkies" narrative, which serves only to foment more hatred...

They can definitely examine the access logs, method of intrusion, etc to determine who actually took the information from the servers... They're not 100% incompetent.

I think Assange isn't particularly careful or picky about what he releases and by extension particular inclined to thoroughly examine who's giving him that info. Additionally from all appearances he scheduled and coordinated (at the very least indicated he had something) to affect the US election.

As for my feelings about the various TLAs in the US they're mixed but I definitely think they're more likely to be able to tell who was actually involved than Assange.

[0] Wikileaks isn't a huge organization with massive investigatory prowess and resources, it wouldn't be terribly hard to believably fake non-association for a nation state.

>As for my feelings about the various TLAs in the US they're mixed but I definitely think they're more likely to be able to tell who was actually involved than Assange.

The same agencies that said, with certainty, that there were WMD's in Iraq .. and then, after a few million innocent people have been murdered, can't find them?

I think Americans put too much faith in their TLA's. These organisations are as corruptible as any other, and - as we have learned - could just as easily be controlled by Russia as anyone else.

They can't examine anything, because AFAIK the servers were physically destroyed before official US authorities got to them. They relied on CrowdStrike's analysis.

Yeah, Comey did say in 2017 that they could only get CrowdStrike to hand over their analysis, and never got direct access to the machines.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03...

But I can't find anything about physical destruction, CrowdStrike claims to only have ever had images of the systems.

https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...

In 2018, the DNC said “The FBI was given images of servers, forensic copies, as well as a host of other forensic information we collected from our systems.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-missing-dnc-server-is-n...

Maybe they were overwritten rather than literally destroyed. i.e. any VMs were destroyed and so on. Thanks for the links.

> You honestly can't fathom a situation where Assange would know for sure Russia wasn't involved?

I can certainly imagine situation s where Assange would know this, but Assange hasn't claimed that Russia wasn't involved, by his own claims even when a pardon that would erase the risk he has been fleeing desperately from for years was dangled in front of him as an incentive, so I think it's pretty clear that either that situation does not exist or he has an undisclosed reason to preserve the image that Russia may have been involved. The former seems to be the simplest explanation.

> knows they don't work for Russia (because the person already has high-level clearances/was rigorously vetted/etc.)

World powers have had highly placed agents in foreign governments and political parties, etc., with high-level clearances that require rigorous vetting numerous times in the past. So, no, the person being in such a position does not establish that they are not a Russian agent or that Russia was not involved in their actions.

I mean, being vetted doesn't mean you aren't working for a foreign country. Need I say more?

So, everyone in America is a potential Russian agent now?

That sounds like something a foreign agent would want me to think.

The theory I've heard is Seth Rich stole the emails via USB and sent them to WikiLeaks after the nomination was stolen from Bernie in 2016 and he recognized the corruption inside the DNC. Reports from the investigation into the hack suggest the data transfer rate matches USB transfer speeds. Seth Rich was later murdered in what was deemed a robbery, but neither his wallet nor watch were removed from his body

Is there any evidence suggesting this Seth Rich story is believable? There's certainly ample evidence suggesting it is not. The (FOX) article that peddled this story has been retracted and Seth Rich's family is suing the network over it.

This conspiracy has been debunked. The VIPS statement you linked to doesn't name their "independent cybersecurity" source, which was later proven to be the work of UK trolls:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180802/07182740351/as-dn...

How is that a debunking? Sure, it points out an asinine argument but it's certainly not disproving anything.

It's proving their source was false, which was the premise of their entire argument, effectively debunking it.

Here's more information in another comment in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22369830

I don't mean to be condescending but perhaps you should continue your research. All of the stuff you're posting has been widely and thoroughly debunked. Additionally, you should think about which sources pushed this debunked information upon you. Are those trustworthy news sources?

I thought Hacker News had higher quality commenters than reddit, but lately I've been getting more and more disappointed.

(Not with you but with the likes of Seth Rich-conspiracy-theory spreading idiots).

I keep seeing people say it's debunked but their source for that is a news article that looks no different than my sources that doesn't provide convincing evidence in my opinion. Maybe you should continue your research on your debunking sources and think who pushed that theory onto you

That HN comment was debunked as well. See the response in the thread.

Again, this has been debunked, multiple times. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170814/11490537992/stori...

There is evidence from the leaks it was an inside job - basically the time stamps indicate the files were copied at USB2 speeds.

Imagine the lack of thought that goes into saying something like that. Not just saying it but also believing it.

You’re getting this data from a third party. One that may well have used a USB stick to copy the data AFTER exfiltrating it using some other method, but BEFORE handing it to wiki leaks.

Some shoddy timestamp correlations don’t mean that the data was stolen via USB in any way. They are inherently mutable and could well have been modified by an adversary to spread FUD.

Everything in the leak could be faked and nothing about it makes it definitionally due to a Russian hack either.

But the evidence certainly seems to indicate a local copy done by somebody who wasn't trying to cover their tracks:

https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-met...

The only evidence pointing to Russians is the CIA says so. The NSA gave it about a 50% chance before joining the other agencies to parrot what the CIA said.

Yeah a guy working for an organization who would outright murder you for leaking sensitive information sure wouldn’t bother covering his tracks while leaking sensitive information.

Or, you know, this data was copied to a USB by Wikileaks at some point before publishing.

That doesn't make any sense. The source of the archive isn't wikileaks and the timestamps originate a couple months before publishing in the EDT timezone, before being organized and packaged for release.

Wikileaks source giving it to them via USB makes a lot of sense, then the timestamps where altered after delivery if they were not placed there as a red herring

What does it make sense is the evil DNC murdering one of their own employees on US soil after a very public data breach.

If only we could think of a country that would profit from promoting this conspiracy theory! Then we might get closer to the truth.

Fox didn't create the highly suspicious facts. What Fox does or doesn't report is not relevant. Also, anybody can sue anybody for anything, so that means nothing either.

Here we have an email recently obtained via FOIA, from Peter Strzok, showing he "squashed" the investigation:

https://imgur.com/a/9r44Qf4

That adds to the pile of suspicion. Seth had the means and the motive. Random killings are not so likely, even in DC. The attacker didn't take anything of value.

Podesta's emails also have very chilling comments about dealing with leakers.

> after the nomination was stolen from Bernie in 2016

I personally helped steal it, by casting one of the 3.7 million votes Hillary had over Bernie.

Did you also hide thousand of ballot boxes or conspired with DNC officials?

Yes. I'm also the one who leaked CNN debate questions, like: "here we are in Flint, MI – tell us what you think about the Flint water crisis."

Also, I sent John Podesta that risotto recipe.

BernieBro conspiracies haven't changed much in the last few years, I guess.

I was a Sanders supporter in 2016 (and am in 2020); while the system was in many ways rigged in advance to favor Clinton over any rival, there is no sense in which it is accurate to say that it was “stolen from” Sanders. I know this is a narrative that the Fox/Trump camp likes to push to exacerbate divisions within the anti-Trump opposition, but it's not at all accurate.