If multiple agencies say something it’s a reasonable bet that it’s not an outright fabrication.
You literally think the CIA, FBI and the alphabet soup of other agencies are all lying? Really? Really?
They’re intelligence agencies, they probably aren’t going to post their files on the internet without significant redaction.
The idea that you’d be able to assess that evidence if you saw it is asinine by the way. A deerstalker cap and a magnifying glass aren’t all you need to do proper intelligence work. It takes training and expertise.
One evaluates the evidence in light of all available information, including the fact that intelligence organizations have to be exceedingly careful to protect their sources and methods while also protecting the public interest. When a joint report by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI says it was Russian hacking, when the CIA confirms it was Russian hacking, and when the same problem has been known to be occurring all over Europe, then one is left with two possibilities.
Possibility #1, it was Russian hacking. Or possibility #2, Obama, in his capacity as a Kenyan-born secret Muslim, has forced three different US government agencies and the leaders of half a dozen western European governments to all independently make up an untrue fabrication and lie to the world about Russian hacking, and to do so for no discernible reason. Hardcore Breitbartians may prefer to believe #2, but that doesn’t make it a rational belief. It makes it the same bullshit as eveything else they believe.
Whatever you might be, your description of what the evidence is supposed to look like is laughable. It assumes a preposterous level of incompetence so extreme that even a couple of high-school amateurs would have hidden their tracks better. I very much doubt that the Russian hackers left a long trail of Russian IPs registered to the KGB. What there is is enough evidence to independently persuade major US security agencies that the Russians were behind it, just as there is in the European countries I mentioned. The CIA isn’t going to expose their entire information-gathering infrastructure and methods just to persuade Breitbartians and Trumpists, who are pretty much completely detached from reality would undoubtedly still continue to deny it.
So, a professional programmer will instantly understand the technicalities of “hacking” and cyber-security because both involve 'puters. Same way a neurosurgeon instantly understands psychiatry because they both involve brains. OK. I mean, if you say so. With all due awe.
Yeah, I read like, Sweden has like no army whatsoever, well maybe a ceremonial regiment to bow down before their royalty, and no tanks or stuff; and they spend all their money on free food or something; and they’ve no airforce because they don’t want the noise frightening the elk. And they don’t make anything because they have no industry ? but just rely on remittances from Uncle Sam.
Maybe it was Breitbart.
I don’t agree at all with the belief that Comey cost Hillary the election. Polls on Drudge had been showing either Clinton barely ahead or Trump barely ahead, with Trump taking a slight lead in the weeks just prior to the election. But anytime I’d mention on this board that the race was close, I’d be inundated with MSM polls that showed Clinton to be the runaway favorite.
Then the election happened and it became obvious the MSM polls were the ones that were wrong and the ones that were ignored on Drudge were the ones that had a true handle on the electorate.
This is not to say that Comey’s letter didn’t have some degree of impact. But so did many other elements that impacted on a few hundred thousand votes in key areas which combined to cost Hillary the election. If she’d campaigned harder in the rust belt she would have won the election. If the DNC’s shenanigans against Bernie Sanders hadn’t come to light she’d have won the election. If she hadn’t come to be recognized as such a phony and inveterate liar and all around untrustworthy and unlikeable person she’d have won the election. Etc., etc., etc.
In short, there are a dozen or more ways that if Clinton had garnered just a few thousand more votes in certain key areas she’d have won the election, and all the blame can’t be put on any one of them. They each played a role, yes, but none of them were decisive on their own.
And then you have the extraordinarily smart, savvy and cost-effective campaign that Trump ran apart from his rallies, which no one was aware of. His campaign was designed to do exactly what it did - barely win a plurality in most of the country’s states and to therefore win the electoral college. In a different thread I posted an informative article explaining exactly how all this was accomplished. Along with a link to the article I also made the following observation:
If you want to know how and why Hillary really lost the election (or rather how and why Trump won it) I’d suggest you read this article even if you don’t want to. I’ll post it again here.
It’s amazing how people who have demonized the CIA for decades all of a sudden are willing to fully trust what CIA tells them without any evidence to support it whatsoever.
Once again, with emphasis. There was no “hacking” involved. It was “phishing” - relying on the stupidity of the recipients to go to a pretend website and voluntarily input their login credentials.
So it looks like I was wrong about Russia doing the usual ‘now we’ll expel some people’ - apparently Putin’s response is to essentially say “Obama’s being petty, we’re going to ignore it and wait for the next President”. Definitely doesn’t look like what people thought was Obama’s attempt to put Trump into a lose-lose situation worked. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/world/europe/russia-diplomats-us-hacking.html?_r=1
I find it amusing too, people who will distrust the FBI, CIA, or NSA most of the time suddenly believe that they are perfectly honest and never make mistakes when the information is what the person wants to hear. I find it hard to buy any of the ‘we know it’s true, but can’t release anything to back that up’, I consider it about as reliable as the statement from Comey about finding new Clinton emails that turned out to be nonsense.
Seriously, Republicans and conservatives have lost all rights to any demands for anything factual or truthful. It’s all about what they want and choose to believe, with no connection to reality required.
Regardless of my thoughts around this, I think the difference is a pedantic semantic quibble. “Social engineering” such as phishing has long been part of the hacker’s playbook. It may not be hacking by strictest definition, but the end result is the same.
Regardless, while I do think Russia was probably behind or at least tacitly supported it, I, too, would want something a little more concrete on the evidence front in order to be consistent with my views of the intelligence agencies regarding past intelligence fuck-ups.
It’s in the report and in all other published info about the affair:
“APT29 has been observed crafting targeted **spearphishing **campaigns leveraging web links to a malicious dropper; once executed, the code delivers Remote Access Tools (RATs) and evades detection using a range of techniques. APT28 is known for leveraging domains that closely mimic those of targeted organizations and tricking potential victims into entering legitimate credentials. APT28 actors relied heavily on shortened URLs in their spearphishing email campaigns. Once APT28 and APT29 have access to victims, both groups exfiltrate and analyze information to gain intelligence value. These groups use this information to craft highly targeted spearphishing campaigns.
…
In spring 2016, APT28 compromised the same political party, again via targeted spearphishing…
…
Actors likely associated with RIS are continuing to engage in spearphishing campaigns, including one launched as recently as November 2016, just days after the U.S. election.”
The fact that it was through phishing that the emails of DNC and Podesta were compromised is confirmed by actual evidence - the phishing emails themselves were published.
Well, that’s a bit different, in ways that make it even more insidious. Yes, new e-mails, true. Might be relevant, truthiness. A need to report it to Congress, truthiness. A need to overrule a long standing protocol about interfering with elections, or even the appearance of such interference…not even truthiness.
Economic sanctions are not a toy. If you truly believe that Obama is using an executive order to unilaterally sanction Russia because he’s a sore loser and wanted to spite Trump you should be fucking horrified.
So much for Obama’s promise of a smooth transition. The guy just cannot resist throwing as many obstacles in Trump’s way as possible. Any normal President would have the courtesy to leave these important decisions to his successor. Lame-duck Presidents should act like lame-duck Presidents. In fact I can’t recall any previous President behaving to a President-Elect in this petty and vindictive manner. GW Bush certainly didn’t in the transition from his administration to Obama’s.
Fortunately we have only a few more weeks of this pathetic behavior then it’s bye bye Obama, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
What there is is enough evidence to independently persuade major US security agencies that the Russians were behind it, just as there is in the European countries I mentioned. The CIA isn’t going to expose their entire information-gathering infrastructure and methods just to persuade Breitbartians and Trumpists, who are pretty much completely detached from reality would undoubtedly still continue to deny it.