"It is well known that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction."

This Russia link is stated so often without a shred of evidence on the authority of known liars I think we're safe to say it's less likely than 50:50 at this point. I'll change my mind for credible evidence of which nobody has that they can share.

Evidence. Put up or shut up. The motive for spreading that lie, if it is a lie as seems more than plausible is as as big as the WMD lie are obvious.

Or at least be honest enough to say you still believe WMD as i did before evidence.

There's a fair bit of evidence in Mueller's report: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf. But probably the most damning evidence is still highly classified.

There's evidence released by private firms, including ThreatConnect, FireEye, CrowdStrike, Fidelis, and Dell SecureWorks, who have been tracking Russian intelligence groups, including the ones that they allege hacked the DNC, for many years prior:

* https://threatconnect.com/blog/reassesing-guccifer-2-0-recen...

* https://www.fireeye.com/current-threats/apt-groups/rpt-apt28...

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

* https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-...

* https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...

(There are varying degrees of technical details in each report, but I recommend reading them all to get a full picture.)

Dutch intelligence says they hacked GRU computers and cameras and observed the hacks as they were happening: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch.... They contacted NSA, and this may have been the first time US intelligence became aware of this.

The evidence is so comprehensive, Mueller was able to name 12 of the GRU officers who conducted the breaches: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download. This indictment gets extremely specific, to the point of what software they were running and when, what they were searching for, how they got the funding to buy the VPN access they used to register the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account, exactly what they said and sent to Wikileaks, etc. This goes into very granular detail. Here's an excerpt:

>Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server. 30.

>On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS software on the server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers.

There is essentially a global consensus among intelligence and security organizations, governmental and private, that Russian intelligence was behind the DNC hack and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. By contrast, not a single entity other than the US government backed the Iraq WMD claims, and there wasn't any sort of specific public claims made beyond "they have WMDs". Here, Mueller's reports make hundreds of very specific, narrow claims.

If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch gave them).

As for whether Assange was aware of any of this or suspected it; who knows. It's very likely "Guccifer 2.0" / GRU would have maintained their cover while sending him information. Doesn't really make sense for them to be like "hey, Russia here, here's some stuff you might want". He's smart, though, and surely was (or at least is now) aware of the possibility.

> If you like, I could write a 30+ page summary of all of the credible evidence in all of these documents, in addition to hints at what sort of classified evidence US intelligence may have (likely through compromised GRU and Russian government systems, and perhaps also moles, in combination with what the Dutch gave them).

If you're offering... yes please.

I've seen some good RAND Corp write ups, and others on security blogs, to include one of those you listed, but a reasonably concise omnibus would be nice.

I want to and may get around to it eventually, but my infosec day job is occupying quite a bit of my time at the moment. If there's still contention around this in this sub-thread, that'll increase the odds I'll try to do it. (If most repliers are in agreement with the conclusion, not too much point of it.)

And just an aside unrelated to your post: I know the WMD error/lie/both depending on who was saying it has severely tarnished the credibility of the US intelligence community, as it should have, but it'd also be unempirical to disregard everything they ever say afterwards no matter how many decades later, especially when there seems to be near-universal independent agreement.

Purely speculatively, I suspect this was all very intentional of Russian intelligence, and perhaps Putin himself (if reports of his personal involvement are accurate; given his past field experience in intelligence, it seems plausible).

For example, that's one reason they began sending phishing emails the same day Trump gave his "Russia, if you're listening" comment/joke. They knew what kind of look that would create. They knew that whatever they did would be vehemently denied by Trump and his supporters and aggressively pounced on by his detractors and drive a huge wedge through the country and create wild disagreement about the integrity of this and future elections. The "metagame" (interpretation, backlash, and other butterfly effects) may have been much more of the goal than the game itself (releasing the compromised emails, which really weren't that juicy beyond things we already knew like bias against Bernie, the only exception being the Donna Brazile thing; though the perception and theories may have done much more damage than the actual facts). The mere appearance of Russian manipulation and the debates over whether it's ruining us or is a conspiracy theory achieves a significant objective without having to do hardly anything at all.

Maybe I'll write a big blog post about this whole thing, since I've ranted about this kind of meta-manipulation idea at length before (not that it's a novel proposition, or anything) in addition to debates about the evidence. First I'd need to make a blog, though.

The evidence is so comprehensive, and yet we can't see it.

Pages 36 to 51 of volume one of the Mueller report concern the hacking and dissemination of DNC emails. It has many detailed claims and conclusions, but what's notably missing:

The actual evidence on which Mueller bases his conclusion that both DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 are cutouts for the GRU. He doesn't even indirectly allude to specific evidence, let alone include it in the report. It just isn't there.

Funny thing: on page 46 it cites a 9/15/16 Twitter DM, @guccifer_2 to @dcleaks. If they're both false identities for the GRU, it seems odd for Russian state coworkers to be communicating with each other over cleartext DMs on Twitter, an American company. (Unless that's just to deviously throw us off their trail.)

>(Unless that's just to deviously throw us off their trail.)

This seems fairly probable.

But, yes, those are all valid points. The Mueller report does not contain the actual hard evidence of the attribution. It contains the full names of the people who registered the account and a lot of the things they did, but it doesn't state the proof of this. I suspect if we all had Top Secret clearances we would probably all be satisfied with the evidence they have, but that's blind speculation of course. A large percentage of it may be Dutch intelligence's findings, which have been widely reported on, but of course you still have to take Dutch intelligence's word for it that they really did compromise GRU computers and observe them.

There is some real evidence (especially released by private security firms) of GRU and SVR hacking the DNC et al., and Guccifer 2.0 is the only one who ever claimed to have the documents discovered during the hack. There's probably a lot of other circumstantial evidence, too. If I get around to writing a long post about all of this, I'll cover everything I can find.

> Julian Assange did not say that the hacks were not Russian.

Julian Assange has also never stated that a "hack" took place to obtain this data.

Which doesn't matter because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

What is this evidence you bring up, and where can we find it?

If you have evidence - especially evidence that Assange himself doesn't have - by all means, share it. I am sure this would really help a lot of people understand an issue, about which the cyber-security industry has apparently reached a consensus.

Sure - more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0

>The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that some of the genuine leaks from "Guccifer 2.0" were part of a series of cyberattacks on the DNC committed by two Russian military intelligence groups, and that "Guccifer 2.0" is actually a persona created by Russian intelligence services to cover for their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This conclusion is based on analyses conducted by various private sector cybersecurity individuals and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica.

> The U.S. Intelligence Community concluded

"Conculded"? It's nice that they concluded. If they want _us_ to conclude, then let them bring evidence.

I remember when the US concluded Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction". That did not turn out to be quite accurate.

In the case of WMDs in Iraq, it was based loosely off single and misused British intelligence.

There is overwhelming evidence with the DNC hack from the cybersecurity industry and intelligence communities.

Evidence cannot be "from the cybersecurity industry and intelligence communities"; it can only be from the affected machines. I believe you are conflating there being assertions by those communities with there being evidence.

If I am mistaken - please provide a link to such evidence.

I also remember that there was a report by many US intelligence agencies "confirming" the assessment - but they were all basing their opinion on the opinions by other agencies and/or CrowdStrike, the DNC-associated cyber-security firm which had actual access to the servers.

> DNC-associated cyber-security firm which had actual access to the servers.

Why use the wording "DNC-associated firm" instead of "firm hired by DNC"?

They're working with the GOP too https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cyb...

That's stronger than a mere association actually, at least w.r.t. this issue. The DNC was interested in deflecting criticism regarding the leaked information, and arguing "We're under attack by Russia!" is very useful to that end. So, the firm they hired reaches this conclusion, opaquely, and based on exclusive access to the machines, which are then not examined by any other party.

That's literally standard practice.

It really sounds like you're accusing CrowdStrike of lying with zero evidence to back that up.

I'm not accusing them of lying, I'm just saying that CrowdStrike claims are not uninterested third-party claims. On this matter they are not much more trustworthy than their contractors; and they need to present evidence to make their case to the public.

None of your sources are evidence; they are just unsubstantiated opinions.

The era when an authority could simply issue a conclusion, and expect the great unwashed public to just believe it without question, are long gone.

We all have access to much more information than in the past and if we wish, can perform our own analysis and reach our own conclusions, independent of old media, private sector experts, assorted propaganda sources etc.

You're certainly welcome to disprove the findings from the individual cybersecurity firms if you think they're wrong.

Here, start with Fidelis:

https://www.fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/archive/findings-...

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. That link contains zero evidence.

That's your best? Really? How gullible do you think we are? Colin Powell had satellite photos of trains! That was something, not evidence he said it was, sure, but something at least. This is nothing.

If you won't address the evidence in the article then you have confirmation bias.

Let me spell it out even more clearly. I have addressed the article in its entirety by pointing out it is NOT evidence or even close to being evidence.

It is an unsubstantiated claim on the internet from a very dubiuos source with clear ulterior motvie.

The bias comes in when one is determined to believe something it can be confusing as to whether some item or other in support of it is evidence or not. This isn't. When there's evidence I may change my mind but it's kind of idiotic to believe this stuff when we've been so roundly lied to before and by Colin Powell with so much more credibility, with so much more to lose. Anyway he did lose it all and on behalf of all such "trust me" claims and this kind of unsubstantiated claim can only work once when it turned out to be lies. Bet your life that this is not just another lie? The last one cost into 6 figures of deaths just spell out the stakes. (But obviously also a huge funding boost to the military industrial complex. Rising tides lift all ships and most probably believed the lie that incidentally was good for their careers etc.)

Demand evidence for incendiary claims. For me, I owe it my own self-respect. I owe it out of support for this "democracy experiment". We can't rule this out as a total and utter lie. We really can't. Maybe it isn't but damn. That kind of lie worked so well before. Colin took me in totally, I believed the hell out of that guy.

That's actually not a claim you could make. You don't know why the poster has, thus far, not addressed "the evidence in the article."

That said, I am also seeking out this "evidence," of which you write. The Fidelis article you linked to did nothing but show some similarity in naming schemes, binary packaging conventions, and code style. And, it's building a case upon the precedent of prior "evidence," which we cannot see for ourselves either.

We all know that the FBI could put all of its evidence in a GitHub repo, along with a README.md that explains how to run the code that offers the substantiated proof of their claims. The problem is, they don't have any.

CrowdStrike, lol.

user: zmoreira created: July 8, 2013 karma: 49

Mostly posts on "hot button" political topics that can wielded as wedge issues, aka chelsea manning, iranian airstrikes, and DHS. I'm guessing this is someone's alt account.

What's wrong with CrowdStrike? It's perhaps the most respected shop in that list.

> including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, FireEye's Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, Trend Micro, and the security editor for Ars Technica.

Some of these are not like the others.

The Ars article is at least very transparent about its conclusions and what evidence they're based on.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci...

"We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0—the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it—left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era."

I never really got this argument. If someone embedded the username "J Edgar Hoover" in some documents, would we make the assumption that they pined for a return to cold war era FBI control over politics, or that they were just trolling? Dzerzhinsky was basically J Edgar's counterpoint in the east.

For the complete analogy, it should be the pinning of CIA control over politics based on Edgar Hoover's name because the GRU, which is accused of this operation is the military intelligence and Dzerzhinsky is the founder of NKVD/KGB/FSB - an FBI+DHS equivalent.

Direct quote from Mueller Report: "GRU officers used both the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas to communicate with WikiLeaks through Twitter private messaging and through encrypted channels, including possibly through WikiLeaks's private communication system.”

Mueller claimed this was the case, but - his report, as released to the public, did not present evidence to establish these claims (nor, in fact, most claims in the report regarding Russian interference).

Also, "including possibly through Wikileaks" means nothing. "Including possibly through my second cousin's DIY basement mail server."

There was an indictment: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download

I don’t know if there was further evidence not made public to protect sources and methods.

Of all the things that aren't evidence, an indictment is possibly among the most not-evidence things.

A judge famously said you could indict a ham sandwich. In practice, grand juries say whatever a prosecutor wants them to say.

And as Russian nationals, it's also unlikely they'll ever have to actually stand trial, which is when evidence would be required to enter the public record to convict them.

I also very much doubt the US government will want to go through a discovery phase with these people, so I'm not sure the DoJ really wants a trial to actually take place.

> to protect sources and methods.

Either you "protect sources and methods", and not make strong public accusations, or you make accusations and disclose evidence.

Doing one but not the other is indistinguishable from just making false claims - which the US is known to have done repeatedly in the past (another example - Gulf of Tonkin).

It's true, the Mueller report is light on actual evidence and in places rather heavy on hedging language.

But it seems not an unreasonable guess in this case that there was possible use of "WikiLeaks's private communication system" based on a Twitter DM that was quoted in the Mueller report:

On September 15, 2016, @dcleaks wrote to @WikiLeaks, “hi there! I'm from DC Leaks. How could we discuss some submission-related issues? Am trying to reach out to you via your secured chat but getting no response. I’ve got something that might interest you. You won't be disappointed, I promise.”

> did not say that the hacks were not Russian

He also did not say that the hacks were not leaks. There are many things he also did not say. Are all of these things therefore true, or only the things you believe to be "well known" ?

> It's well known [...] were Russian GRU

Any Russian state or GRU involvement is completely unsubstantiated.

Any conspiracies saying the DNC emails were leaked have been debunked.

> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU.

You mean, it is repeatedly claimed without solid (or any?) evidence.

> Assange, said Rohrabacher, “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.” Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, is the only U.S. congressman to have visited the controversial figure.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170817205448/https://rohrabach...

My understanding here is that "Russians" here means Russian government intelligence, it does not necessarily exclude Russian citizens.

> It's well known in the cybersecurity industry that the DNC email hacks performed by Guccifer 2.0 were Russian GRU.

That piece of disinformation was thoroughly debunked: http://www.g-2.space/

That seems credible...