McClatchy: Jailed Russian says he hacked DNC on Kremlins orders and can prove it

[MelissaB]

Jailed Russian says he hacked DNC on Kremlin’s orders and can prove it

WASHINGTON

A jailed Russian who says he hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers on the Kremlin’s orders to steal emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign now claims he left behind a data signature to prove his assertion.

In an interview with Russia’s RAIN television channel made public Wednesday, Konstantin Kozlovsky provided further details about what he said was a hacking operation led by the Russian intelligence agency known by its initials FSB. Among them, Kozlovsky said he worked with the FSB to develop computer viruses that were first tested on large, unsuspecting Russian companies, such as the oil giant Rosneft, later turning them loose on multinational corporations.

Kozlovsky first came to public attention in early December when word spread about his confession last Aug. 15 in a Russian courtroom that he was the person who hacked into DNC computers on behalf of Russian intelligence. The Russian was jailed earlier this year, alleged to have been part of a hacking group there that stole more than $50 million from Russian bank accounts through what’s called the Lurk computer virus.

The alleged hacker posted to his Facebook page in December a transcript and an audio recording of his confession during a pre-trial court hearing. He also confessed online to having hacked investigators looking into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, brought down in July 2014 by a missile near the disputed Ukrainian border with Russia.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article191857354.html#storylink=cpy

[MelissaB]

1. Last 2 paragraphs:

Kozlovsky’s claims include an assertion that for the past seven years he was under the control of Major Gen. Dmitry Dokuchayev, who he said gave him orders to breach the DNC servers to interfere in the U.S. election process. A federal court in San Francisco in February issued an arrest warrant for Dokuchayev for his alleged role in a hack of Yahoo accounts. A month later the FBI put the former hacker-turned-spy on a Wanted poster for his alleged role in directing hackers. He was arrested in Russia in late 2016 on treason charges in a high-profile incident that included the arrest of another FSB cyber leader.

The jailed Kozlovsky told RAIN TV that he had a relationship with Dokuchayev that preceeded the latter’s rise to a prominent post in the FSB.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article191857354.html#storylink=cpy

[MelissaB]

2. Caroline O thread: So this story is enticing but there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about it

So this story is enticing but there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about it. For one thing, it would not be the first time an imprisoned Russian hacker falsely claimed credit for the DNC cyberattack.

Link to tweet

[Grassy Knoll]

3. So No Connection To Idiot God?

[rainin]

4. I'm skeptical because he's been allowed to live. n/t

[MontanaMama]

5. Exactly.

[lastlib]

6. Or he's just the fall guy so Putinites can say their hands are clean......

"See, we put that evil little hacker in jail for you!"

[Eyeball_Kid]

7. This might be an indication that Putin is finding Trumpy to be a liability.

He allowed a prisoner to talk with the press about hacking the DNC. He's embarrassing Trumpy. This interview occurred because it was a tactic to a strategy. It should be seen as a message to Trumpy reminding him who's in charge.

Putin sees Trumpy as a crumbling vulnerable old man. He can push Trumpy's buttons at will. Putin's messaging is calculated to be neither too harsh nor too soft. Trumpy, for his part, can neither rebel nor question. Putin has him played.

[uponit7771]

8. Nope if he has a digital signature and it's true then his death world only afford to credibility

[Igel]

9. Yet consider the scope of his evidence.

"I was under orders from General D to hack this, and as proof there's my digital signature."

The digital signature is perhaps proof that he did the hack. Depends on how convincing the signature is.

But I know when I created my digital signature I didn't need to demonstrate who my boss was or under whose authority I was going to be using the signature.

(If you google Dokuchaev, though, you'll find suspicions floated that he's one of Steele's informants. Then again, he was also arrested. So nailing him could be a way of discrediting Steele, if the claim he's one of the informants is true; or it could just be a way of distancing the Kreml' from Dokuchaev because of what Dokuchaev did; or it could just be trying to continue to frame somebody that's a potential scapegoat. Note that for a lot of people, double agents and disinformation can only occur when they need it to occur for the sake of their beliefs. It's what makes disinformation so easy.)