Russians Hacking DNC Computers

The Washington Post is reporting that Russian hackers penetrated the network of the Democratic National Committee and stole opposition research on Donald Trump. The evidence is from CrowdStrike:

The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer. The firm had analyzed other breaches by both groups over the last two years.

One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer and was monitoring the DNC’s email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.

The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff—an average of about several dozen on any given day.

This seems like standard political espionage to me. We certainly don’t want it to happen, but we shouldn’t be surprised when it does.

Slashdot thread.

EDITED TO ADD (6/16): From the Washington Post article, the Republicans were also hacked:

The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.

EDITED TO ADD (6/16): These leaks might be from this hack, or from another unrelated hack. They don’t seem to be related to the Russian government at all.

EDITED TO ADD (6/12): Another view.

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Posted on June 14, 2016 at 12:50 PM • 40 Comments

Comments

Slime Mold with Mustard • June 14, 2016 2:03 PM

The Russian government is essentially “outsourcing” its intelligence work to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)? As good a cost saving measure as that sounds, I would guess that they are actually verifying the reports of their own agents (itself, an audit of both security and expense).

Alternately, they may seek to ensure that “juicy” items either in their possession or plausible manufactured bits make it into the fray. Selecting which staffer to hand it to is an important function in the recruitment process.

Put on your BIC boy pants • June 14, 2016 2:46 PM

For people who want to know how the government actually works, oppo is the mother lode. The most important oppo is the stuff that sinks without a ripple in the media. For instance, the brief revelation that Khalid al-Mansour greased Obama into Harvard. From that you come to understand the meteoric rise of an unqualified nonentity: early grooming of a spook brat by a Safari-Club structure of allied intelligence agencies.

Mitch Hedges • June 14, 2016 5:16 PM

There are three perspectives of note here. All are possible, and may be true in some combination. I think the third is the most likely. Let me explain why.

1.) This is business as usual

2.) This is to get negotiating power over a President Trump

or 3.) This is to assist Donald Trump by providing actionable intelligence on how to strategically position the Trump campaign for anticipating attacks from the opposition.

Case 1.) This must be part true. It is accepted that this is normal for foreign governments to try and access this information. However (and due to some info I present in case 3), this is an unprecedented time of information warfare on the part of the Kremlin. They are acting on a wartime mentality in Russia currently due to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. (See Breedlove’s comments on the matter; and pay a visit to Stopfake.org.)

Case 2.) Ties closely to part 1, and so may be partly true. However, the fact of the matter is, most issues in opposition research will become public in the course of the campaign. The tougher it gets, the more likely unsavory information is to come out. There isn’t really a reason for a foreign government to risk detection of intrusion in order to get negotiating power with information which would have become public anyway; and probably was already in the public domain.

Case 3.) Russia actively pursued this information in order to relay it to Trump is the most likely case. Russia is already exceedingly close to the Trump campaign. Trump’s campaign manager was chief consultant to disposed Ukranian leader Victor Yanukovych for 7 long years until he was unseated in a popular revolution; campaign energy adviser Carter Page is a Gazprom investor with financial conflicts of interest; Trump pals around with organized crime figures tied to Russia (Tefvik Arif) and has had the sons of reputed Russian mob bosses (Felix Sater) as a “Senior Adviser”; he met directly with Russian billionaire oligarchs like Aras Agalarov (who talks of building a Trump Tower in Russia), host of Miss Universe in Russia; and at that same Miss Universe event, he met with one of Putin’s top political surrogates (Vladimir Kozhin). Not to mention his open exchanges of admiration with Putin; which have been reciprocated.

Trump directly emulates the pro-nationalist proto-fascist far right populist authoritarian viewpoints of figures like Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban. He echoes the calls for Brexit. He talks about immigrant rapists and banning Muslims from entering the country. These are all themes which have been proven linked to Russian propaganda with similar themes in Germany, France, and Britain exposed in investigative journalism.

No, I am afraid, the Russians already know the deepest dirt on Trump. I am pretty sure they are doing this to help him. Why not access info on Clinton or Sanders? Those would have been valuable intel points too. Hillary is most likely to be President by all predictive markets afterall.

This story makes no sense unless you consider #3 the most likely scenario.

Nobody • June 14, 2016 5:17 PM

Hacker lesson #123: Route all attack traffic through a scapegoat(China, Russia, and North Korea)

Russia To Reveal Clinton Espionage • June 14, 2016 6:46 PM

Reliable intelligence sources in the West have indicated that warnings had been received that the Russian Government could in the near future release the text of email messages intercepted from U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server from the time she was U.S. Secretary of State. The release would, the messaging indicated, prove that Secretary Clinton had, in fact, laid open U.S. secrets to foreign interception by putting highly-classified Government reports onto a private server in violation of U.S. law, and that, as suspected, the server had been targeted and hacked by foreign intelligence services.

http://www.oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russia-Is-Reportedly-Set-To-Release-Intercepted-Messages-From-Clintons-Private.html

Emissary of the Fanoplanarians • June 14, 2016 7:26 PM

Greetings we come from a small universe where any two points are joined by a line and any two lines meet at a point… We suspect that the RNC is checking their computers as we speak. And it’s anybodies guess how tight the Trump Organization computers are though we suspect their all part of a botnet.

Slime Mold with Mustard • June 14, 2016 9:01 PM

@ Mitch Hedges

You make a pretty good case. Still, I think you’re forgetting a couple of things:
1. Rosatom / Uranium One
2. The Server (bane of the squid thread).

You may recall Secretary Clinton’s “reset” button that actually translated as “overcharged” (overpriced). Putin would know, he paid in advance.

As regards Trump’s “proto-fascism”. Fascism is semi- coherent. I’m not seeing it.

A few weeks ago @Clive Robinson claimed that he feared for the US “in the long and even medium term”. Such wild-eyed optimism is unlike him.

We are sooooo screwed.

AngloAmericanBSMachineAtWork • June 14, 2016 10:26 PM

So from the extract quoted by Bruce

The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government

Considering the anonymous nature of the Internet and the probably hacking skills and secrecy of any hacking groups that actually do work for “the Russian government”, how did the authors of that piece actually verify that the particular hackers in this case were working for the Russian government?

They called Kremlin and double-checked their sources? Like, Здравствуйте, you got a group called [insert name here] and who recently broke into the DNC working for you? Gee thanks for the confirmation guys. Later.

AngloAmericanBSMachineAtWork • June 14, 2016 10:32 PM

The fact is, you cannot tie a hacking incident to a person nor to a group even if so had “analyzed other breaches by both groups over the last two years”

The packets traveling on the internet are apolitical, gender neutral, and for most parts identical regardless of where they come from.

In fact this hacking incident could well have been orchestrated by some folks at DNC as part of their own “remind populace of political threats for fun and profit” program.

Privatized National Security • June 14, 2016 10:37 PM

This seems like standard political espionage to me. We certainly don’t want it to happen, but we shouldn’t be surprised when it does.

While not surprising that it happens, I find it very disappointing how the democratic voting public learns of it. Some security firm? Really? If we lived in a non-totalitarian, honest democracy, with respectable security agencies, the headlines would be about how the NSA was explaining to all of us how the DNC f’d up their best-practices, and what we should all do better. Instead it’s just- the fog of BS.

fajensen • June 15, 2016 2:57 AM

@Mitch Hedges
These are all themes which have been proven linked to Russian propaganda with similar themes in Germany, France, and Britain exposed in investigative journalism.
Really!?

These “themes” could not exist on their own because people are getting increasingly concerned about the corrosive effects on society of mass immigration in general and have nowhere to go due to the “European left” (whatever that is these days) blind support for Islam in all of its many colours – including the woman-hating and gay killing persuasion.

With Le Pen in power we might not have gay marriage until she is kicked out. With islamists in power, the resources of the state will be turned towards murdering all the Jews, LGBT people it can and turn women into chattel.

That will set off an entirely different fight, which we have had many times in Europe and want to avoid. If the cost of this avoidance is Le Pen for some years and/or the breakup of the EU itself – that is considered damn cheap to a lot of people, a mere inconvenience.

I.O.W: Good propaganda grabs something which is already there and expands on it, giving it direction and form. It does not magically create anything new out of thin air.

PS:
The Social Democrats and “European Left” are siding with the neoliberals on using mass immigration to dissolve workers rights and social safety nets – it’s just the more tragic that they are doing it for Humanitarian Reasons, rather than personal gain for their class.

PSS:
We know that Hillary likes islamists a lot too. Maybe so much that NATO just had to bomb a safe space in Libya and a clean path for them into Europe. I’m both angry and embarrassed that my government was stupid/corrupt enough to be part of that.

Mitch Hedges • June 15, 2016 3:27 AM

Trump’s political style is eerily similar to that of other populist movements around the globe which are notably traceable to Russia. For example, the anti-immigrant (rapist myths), anti-Muslim (terrorist myth, or at worst Russian terrorist proxy denial), and closed border fascistic nationalism which portends fracturing of the post WW2 alliance. Marine Le Pen has received money from the Kremlin running on this platform. (http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21643222-who-backs-putin-and-why-kremlins-pocket // https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/blog/2016/2/1/germany-kremlin-far-right-exploit-teenagers-lies-about-migrant-rape // http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/08/why-putin-is-meddling-in-britain-s-brexit-vote.html )

Finally, the missing piece of this is the concept of how disinformation and terror plays into all of it. see http://www.rferl.org/content/soviet-islamist-terrorism-israel-america-disinformation-pacepa/25034290.html ) <– If you read any one link in this please read that one.

The “death by 1000 cuts” on America which is inflicted by the ongoing cultivation of distrust in the American government plays into Donald Trump’s hand. Like how Front Nationale benefited from the effects of terror attacks by ISIS (connected to Russia and possible retribution for denial of Mistral ship delivery / sanctions), Donald Trump will plausibly benefit from any Muslim extremist or immigrant terrorist action which occurs in the lead up to the elections. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/12/07/why_terrorism_fears_benefit_candidates_like_le_pen_and_trump.html // // http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/22103-russian-fsb-defector-reveals-kremlin-supports-isis // http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-strikes-idUSKCN0SF24L20151021 // http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/russia-militants/) .

This is pretty much all you need to read to have the right perspective on what is going on in the world.

Mitch Hedges • June 15, 2016 3:31 AM

The Russians are so obvious in what they are doing, it is almost comical. The real sad thing is that the US is just letting them get away with it (just like JFK (see Operation Dragon) and 9/11 (See Ion Mihai Pacepa and Alexander Litvinenko’s comments on Ayman Al Zawahiri).

Mitch Hedges • June 15, 2016 4:20 AM

@ Slime Mold (dude — btw Slime Molds are awesome, have you seen the research on their ability to “engineer” networks? http://www.wired.com/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-just-like-tokyo-rail-system/ )

To your point on Uranium1 (good journalistic source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0 ), I didn’t know this. I think it shows some lack of judgement on the Clinton’s part (likely over-optimism in good relations with Russia); but there seems to be no evidence of criminal conspiracy. And the world has changed.

This was before Crimea — from the article: “When the Uranium One deal was approved, the geopolitical backdrop was far different from today’s. The Obama administration was seeking to “reset” strained relations with Russia. The deal was strategically important to Mr. Putin, who shortly after the Americans gave their blessing sat down for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko.”

Just a long line of mistakes of understanding public perception and perhaps consequences of actions on the part of the Clintons. Still, that’s what I expect from powerful elites everywhere. It doesn’t really bother me. What bothers me is the concept of Donald Trump being involved in what I would consider a criminal conspiracy with Russia. Unfortunately I worry we are all living out Donald Trump’s midlife crisis played out as some sort of James Bond fantasy. (Maybe I just watched Total Recall too many times hahah)

JG4 • June 15, 2016 7:12 AM

@Mitch

got a great chuckle out of this deadpan

“death by 1000 cuts” on America which is inflicted by the ongoing cultivation of distrust in the American government

from a different illumination angle, it’s fairly obvious that the US government is cultivating distrust pretty much everywhere on your planet by regularly breaching trust and laws at all levels

I don’t have time for the detailed history, and I don’t understand the whole story anyway, but there is an interesting parallel to Watergate here.

I’ve seen the claim made the DNC had done the opposition research and managed to get one or more client lists for local brothels frequented by Republicans. Liddy’s crew were trying to recover the list and whatever else they could find. Various other puzzle pieces include the claim that Liddy was dual-track FBI/CIA, and we may note that the oxygen thief was Director of CIA during the Golden Triangle heroin/opium epidemic in the US.

I am looking forward to natural language processing/artificial intelligence making sense of these historical topics by digesting and cross-correlating the photographs and literature. one problem is that the databases and writings on events like JFK, Watergate and many of the other activities of various deep states are so voluminous as to be well beyond the reach of individuals. Machine intelligence can at least master the material, like the recent discussion of OCR’d documents in discovery, which did not reach the next logical step of artificial intelligence in discovery.

JG4 • June 15, 2016 7:19 AM

more cultivation of distrust

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

CIA Lied about Leaking to Screw David Passaro and Protect Bush and Tenet Emptywheel
https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/06/14/cia-lied-about-leaking-to-screw-david-passaro-and-protect-bush-and-tenet/

Amid Controversy, Public Safety Officials Put Temporary Hold on Using Prepaid Card Readers Oklahoma Watch. Ugly: “According to ERAD’s bid for the state contract, the devices allow DPS officers to determine the amount of money loaded on to a prepaid card and to either freeze the funds or seize them by having the money deposited directly into a Department of Public Safety Account. This can be done during a traffic stop. The funds would then be subject to forfeiture actions in court.”
http://oklahomawatch.org/2016/06/13/highway-patrol-defends-use-of-prepaid-card-readers-blasts-internet-assassinations/?mc_cid=3267cc5fee&mc_eid=2cc81d2440

Under Watchful Eyes Laphams Quarterly (2015). Medieval origins of mass surveillance.
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/spies/under-watchful-eyes

from the usual compendium

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/links-61516.html

Mitch Hedges • June 15, 2016 8:05 AM

@JG4

Some interesting links there, thank you. By no means is the US perfect. There are some real asses in positions of power here and all too often they get their asses covered when they screw up for the sake of national security. However, the overall mission of the USA as enshrined in the Constitution and US Military mission is a positive message. Power is distributed across many interest groups. It is not like in Russia where everything including media is top down controlled by an even smaller group of oligarchs than in America. Like an election, this is about the Lesser of Two Evils. If I was Russian, I’d vote to be American.

By the way, the final site you point to highlights a link: “Russia Is Reportedly Set To Release Clinton’s Intercepted Emails – 06/14/2016 – Yves Smith”

Now ask yourself, doesn’t it seem strange that in this climate, and despite Guccifer being Romanian and plausibly deniably not connected to Russian secret intelligence services that Russia would be the first to release this info? State propaganda organ RT broke the story with some releases too.

The criminal story here is that Clinton was hacked by foreign intelligence apparently and that the same foreign intelligence is likely trying to get a candidate elected (proven by his connections to that very small set of oligarchs who control Russia and are led directly by Putin’s plan) who consistenly projects positions which undermine post WW2 US Leadership, the positive American public diplomatic message, and Constitutional rights?

You don’t need to see everything in black and white. But I think it is easy to see which side history would suggest is “lighter”. Despite colonialism wiping out the warlike native Americans in the US (there has been state genocide here), America has never subjected ITS OWN CITIZENS to the kind of death which Russia did under Stalin — as many as 60 million people died in a combination of war, starvation, prison camps and mass executions. Like under Chinese Stalinists, these were citizens of Russia. America has the capacity for continuous improvement; and the condensation of money in the hands of the elite has undeniably eroded the American dream. But don’t forget that America is still the “good guy” by comparison if we’re looking at this as a binary choice. I think it is important to support America, not tarnish it now.

Mitch Hedges • June 15, 2016 8:12 AM

And I should also point out that unlike in Nazi Germany where the leaders of the regime were brought to justice / hunted down, in Russia, it is the same people just with a different name. I mean, nothing is black and white, but that s*** is darn dark in Russia. Not surprising they have to steal everything, having killed off all the free thinkers (who are a competitive advantage when cultivated, which the US understands, unlike in USSR… er… I mean Russia).

Clive Robinson • June 15, 2016 10:17 AM

@ Paul,

Do we know that material was just going out? Or were some items being placed?

That’s the first “thinking hinky” on this thread 🙂

Ahhh, the joys of CIA thinking.

(For those newish to security it used to be calked “The Information security CIA triad of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability).

You can't tarnish a turd • June 15, 2016 11:04 AM

Nice try no cigar for Mitch, getting us to give a crap about Russia. Russian disclosure of US elite corruption and crime would in fact be consistent with current Russian espionage, which has lately focused on exposure of US state crime.

Russia disclosed US coup planning in Ukraine; threatens to disclose Ukraine’s role in downing a civilian airliner; and disproved false US allegations of chemical weapons as a pretext for aggression in Syria. If America ever was the good guy, it pissed that rep away with a series of crimes of aggression and a crime against humanity of torture. Without firing a shot, Russia has crippled what remains of US standing and soft power. Russia is the world’s best hope to contain what the global majority considers the greatest threat to peace: the USA.

mark • June 15, 2016 12:00 PM

Let me start with ObDisclosure: I really wanted Bernie. I despise Wasserman-Schultz.

Now, tell me why I should have any faith at all in her, and her chosen advisers and IT providers. If they seriously upped their security after Bernie’s folks supposedly broke in, after the IT provider had screwed up, big time, and not for the first time (so his folks were being responsible, trying to see if Hillary’s folks had stolen their data[1])… why is it that they did NOT FIND the Russians, who’ve been doing this long before[2]?

  1. They did. The folks I’ve spoken to about it, on the Bernie side, had exactly the same stuff I did: though I’d never signed anything for Hillary, suddenly, and for about a month after the breach, I started getting 2, 4, sometimes 6 emails a day from Hillary’s campaign (and the message headers agreed).
  2. The one story I read on this said that the Russians had been in there for a year or so. 
     mark

Kiyiyi • June 15, 2016 2:51 PM

@Mark, fascinating. Any screenshots you could put up on pad.riseup.net or somewhere like that? With date/time, headings, and multiple addressee statements, that could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. It would be easy enough to request further gory detail from Cozybear, whose connection to Russian intelligence is tenuous at best.

mark • June 15, 2016 3:42 PM

Kiyiyi • June 15, 2016 2:51 PM – screenshots of what? The headers from those emails? Yes, of course I saved some of them, and viewing the source of the emails, there was, IIRC, only one Received: line, and the source appeared legit.

Unless, of course, they telnetted to her servers’ port 25….

   mark

Dirk Praet • June 15, 2016 5:17 PM

The plot thickens: after the attribution to FSB/GRU by CrowdStrike, an individual calling himself Guccifer 2.0 is now claiming credit for the hack and publishing documents on a WordPress site here. Caveat: the site is said to be serving up malware.

@ You can’t tarnish a turd

Russia is the world’s best hope to contain what the global majority considers the greatest threat to peace: the USA.

I think you have just blown your cover, Richard 😎 DM me if I’m right. I’ll keep your identity to myself.

@ Mitch Hedges

The Russians are so obvious in what they are doing, it is almost comical. The real sad thing is that the US is just letting them get away with it

If indeed the Russians are behind the DNC hack – which I’m all but convinced of at this time -, then that’s exactly what I would expect any serious intelligence agency to do. The US and plenty of others are doing the exact same thing, including spying on their allies and their leaders.

Kiyiyi • June 15, 2016 5:24 PM

Mark, no, the fascinating possibility is that you’ve uncovered evidence that the DNC appropriated Sanders’ list during DWS’ “unauthorized access” ratfuck of the Sanders campaign (remember? BERNIE 2016, INC. v. DNC SERVICES CORPORATION, d/b/a DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE), and used it to spam you and other supporters.

Yoshi2 • June 15, 2016 5:29 PM

I agree with the sentiment of “Nobody”.

I’m so sick of sloppy news and scapegoating of Nations whenever there’s a hack.
It’s such basic computer science knowledge from reputable sources that modern-day spoofing can be so sophisticated that identifying the true end-point sources is nearly impossible in the short run.

And what about when the hacking is done by corporations? Yes, the other C word that you almost never hear in the news on TV. (Besides “Cancer”).

And even if it was Russians, I don’t blame them for wanting to know as much as possible about Donald Trump. Our American newscasters(?!?!) don’t do a very good job of providing anybody with decent objective information. They are busy with the sensationalism and marketing and talking heads “news analysis/news analysts” which are just idiots with opinions.

Hacking to gain knowledge is very different from hacking to disturb or destroy.
I consider most of this recent hack to be pretty much non-hostile.

The only candidate who said anything about wanting to reduce nuclear weapons was Bernie Sanders. And Trump is clearly hot-headed even if he likes complimenting Putin. So in terms of geopolital intel, I think the hack was worthy. However, the instigators probably could’ve gotten much of the same results by merely calling up the DNC and asking them for the info.

There are several billions of people in the world, and plenty of them have internetworked computers and a subset of that can hack or be hacked (and used as a proxy). So it’s quite ridiculous to immediately blame such and such an alleged source. Security holes flow like water. When people are quick to blame, don’t believe it.

But again, even if this was correctly traced, it’s not so hostile when people are snooping for the truth rather than trying to destroy or hide the truth. I hope whoever got the info posted it to WikiLeaks and shared it with several internet news agencies anonymously.

The world needs to know everything of political relevance about Trump, and stop treating him like a performing celebrity when he seems much more like a sociopath. We need to know the existential risks resulting from potential landmark political changes. If Trump wins, the rest of the world needs to know how bad bad can get before it happens.

65535 • June 15, 2016 10:59 PM

@ Slime Mold with Mustard

“The Russian government is essentially “outsourcing” its intelligence work to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)? …Alternately, they may seek to ensure that “juicy” items either in their possession or plausible manufactured bits make it into the fray. Selecting which staffer to hand it to is an important function in the recruitment process.”

That is possible.

I believe since the cold war was over that the NSA has to find a new “customer” for its “product.” That could be law enforcement and political entities.

@ Put on your BIC boy pants

“For people who want to know how the government actually works, oppo is the mother lode… the brief revelation that Khalid al-Mansour greased Obama into Harvard.”

Sounds reasonable.

@ Mitch Hedeges

“There are three perspectives of note here. All are possible, and may be true in some combination.”

Could be.

How about playing both sides against the middle? The money is still green from either side [all sides].

@ Nobody

“Hacker lesson #123: Route all attack traffic through a scapegoat(China, Russia, and North Korea)”

Yes, this tactic seems to work quite well.

@ AngloAmericanBSMachineAtWork

“Considering the anonymous nature of the Internet and the probably hacking skills and secrecy of any hacking groups that actually do work for “the Russian government”, how did the authors of that piece actually verify that the particular hackers in this case were working for the Russian government?”

The average joe doesn’t. Remember, your not supposed to know about “National Security” operations! /

When you use the words “National Security” it is a get out of jail free card. Just ask Clapper [“least untruthful” answer to congress – yet, Clapper is not in jail and retains a nice position and huge pay check].

@ Privatized National Security

“While not surprising that it happens, I find it very disappointing how the democratic voting public learns of it. Some security firm? Really? If we lived in a non-totalitarian, honest democracy, with respectable security agencies, the headlines would be about how the NSA was explaining to all of us how the DNC f’d up their best-practices, and what we should all do better. Instead it’s just- the fog of BS.”

Well, we are talking about “National Security” so the fog of BS is Standard Operating Procedure for the NSA. /

@ JG4

“more cultivation of distrust”

That is the NSA job. /

Besides, grossly huge budges do need to be justified. Yet, even with huge budgets some slip through the “cracks” such at the Boston Bombers and the Orlando Shooter. But, with “bigger” budgets and more “sharing of information from the NSA” I am sure that this will be solved. /

“The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available… A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign referred questions to the Secret Service.” –WaPo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

I notice the clever sentence structure which provides sensational innuendo yet leaves out the “details.” Good luck on getting any information out of the SS.

Returning to my though of the ever expanding customer list of the NSA,s which seems to include, the DEA, FBI, most of local law enforcement and politicians.

1] Cold War Ends and new customers need to be found to justify the Fort Meade crew and their budgets.

2] The NSA finds it enriching to supply the DEA, FBI, and various other agencies including politically connected entities with their Product which is greasly spying information.

3] The never ending “War on Terror” and War on Drugs” seems to require larger spying powers – yet neither of these two wars is never clearly defined – but always need more money.

It is becoming clear that USA spy complex is staying in the money, so to speak, by inventing boogey men or darker scenarios.

These would include possible actually intercoursing with the enemy – I wonder what the call to 911 by Mateen was really about, “I am calling you to say that I am no longer working as an informant for you or the FBI. I have changed sides. Good bye.” Bang, bang, bang.

“[FBI’s] Comey also said the FBI is reevaluating its contacts with Mateen to see whether any clues were missed.” –WaPo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-comes-under-scrutiny-again-after-dropping-investigation-of-orlando-shooter/2016/06/14/21f337f4-3245-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop_b

Vintermann • June 16, 2016 6:03 AM

Bruce Schneier,

I would be very interested if you could do something to prove/disprove that the Russian Noise Machine/Savushkina Street Preachers are active on this thread. Looks like it to me.

Grauhut • June 16, 2016 6:23 AM

@Vintermann: Nice conspiracy theory! 🙂

(An “earnest voice” sockpuppet would answer now that labeling your ct as a ct is evidence that supports your ct.)

@all
Strange coincidence, this hack fits perfectly to the new NATO “bomb on cyber” doctrine.

NATO Stoltenberg: “A severe cyber attack may be classified as a case for the alliance. Then NATO can and must react,… How, that will depend on the severity of the attack.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nato-may-counter-cyber-attacks-conventional-weapons-stoltenberg-213543915.html

Strategy of tension 3.0?

Phil Koenig • June 20, 2016 1:27 AM

@Yoshi2:

I don’t think anyone but a toddler in 2016 thinks that simply
looking at the source IP header of an incoming packet in an
alleged high-level hacking case is enough to make any sort
of claim about the source of the “hack”.

CrowdStrike made other claims, such as the way that the perp
wrote smiley faces being typical of people who write using
a Cyrillic keyboard since it is (allegedly, I have no personal
experience) very difficult on such keyboards to type the “:”
character.

@Vintermann:

Re: Russian trolls, a blog that does not require any authentication
of any kind is a huge magnet to trolls of all sorts and is quite the
anomaly these days. There’s bound to be a few of the Russian sort
in there. 😉

As a general point: the surprisingly languid tone of the DNC about
this “hack” – with almost nothing in the way of angry retorts towards
the alleged perps or threats of reprisals of any kind whatsoever –
leads me to believe there is something VERY fishy about this “hack”.

Working hypothesis: an attempt to disseminate negative attack points
about Trump without being directly accused of “negative campaigning”.

JHanlon • June 20, 2016 10:54 AM

Per Eric Schmidt, Google/ Alphabet, “In Russia, farms of online trolls systematically harass democratic voices and spread false information on the Internet and on social media.” How diplomatic.

Troll Farms are nothing new but we’re supposed to think all the Illuminutty videos on YT are by and for paranoid delusionals. A few are but most are just the opposite. Novelty soft news their speciality: Ebola contagion, mind control, chemtrails, UFO, 911, gang stalking, climate change denial, NWO, financial Fukushima and religious end-times all the time. IOW, anything that sounds insane, manufactures doubt/ disinformation and controversy nullifying nuance, objective facts and reality itself.

All directed at You Tube videos and comments and various comment sections throughout: HuffPo, World Net Daily (imagine the anti-Obama RW combined with RW Russian troll teams?) This comment section would be too good to pass up.

Dirk Praet • June 20, 2016 6:19 PM

@ Phil Koenig, @Yoshi2

I don’t think anyone but a toddler in 2016 thinks that simply looking at the source IP header of an incoming packet in an alleged high-level hacking case is enough to make any sort of claim about the source of the “hack”.

Has anyone asked John Brennan or James Comey yet ?

Grauhut • June 21, 2016 3:25 PM

Funny, these “russian hacker collectives” have the needed balls of steel to self-publish the DNC files on wordpress! 🙂 Thats possibly a “dislike” for Assange.

I’d appreciate to see the metadata of these posts:

guccifer2.wordpress.com

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