‘DNC Hacker’ Unmasked: He Really Works for Russia, Researchers Say
Source: The Daily Beast
The hacker who claimed to compromise the DNC swore he was Romanian. But new research shows he worked directly for the Vladimir Putin government in Moscow.
The hacker who claims to have stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and provided them to WikiLeaks is actually an agent of the Russian government and part of an orchestrated attempt to influence U.S. media coverage surrounding the presidential election, a security research group concluded on Tuesday.
The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found.
ThreatConnect is the first known group of experts to link the self-proclaimed hacker to a Russian operation, amidst an ongoing FBI investigation and a presidential campaign rocked by the release of DNC emails that have embarrassed senior party leaders and inflamed intraparty tensions turning the Democratic National Convention. The emails revealed that party insiders plotted ways to undermine Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid.
Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/26/dnc-hacker-unmasked-he-really-works-for-russia-researchers-say.html
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Tal Vez
(660 posts)
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,212 posts)
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,044 posts)He is worth less than he says.
(Actually, Trump is worthless.)
bucolic_frolic
(43,299 posts)If he releases his tax returns, you can guess what's there probably pretty easily
If he doesn't release his tax returns, he can call them
private
irrelevant
or say he'll release them after the election
None of those three are a good option. Even if he has reasons, such as business
competitiveness, those reasons are not good enough when running for President
This is a haymaker issue
Democrats must sing with one voice through November
63splitwindow
(2,657 posts)to be President of the United States, as if there is not already a plethora of reasons that make him wildly inappropriate to even be considered for ANY office of trust.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)
uawchild
(2,208 posts)Wow. STOP THE PRESSES.
THAT "most likely" means it's PUTIN!!1111
Or, maybe, a Romanov Prince who needs a short term loan to free up his inheritance which he will gladly give you 10%?
Call me when the FBI weighs in. Lol
Tempest
(14,591 posts)The IP address and the VPN network were both used to hack into federal government web sites in 2014 and were traced back to the Russian government.
US cyber security firms all have confirmed the hack was the work of the Russian government.
But go ahead and ignore the mountain of evidence.
uawchild
(2,208 posts)Where it said the server was used by the Russian government.
Tempest
(14,591 posts)American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/spy-agency-consensus-grows-that-russia-hacked-dnc.html
newthinking
(3,982 posts)"experts".
The FBI has already said they don't know.
Politics....
Sgent
(5,857 posts)the experts cited in this article, is the firm that was hired by the DNC to investigate after they were alerted to possible infiltration.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Another cyber security firm.
The said the same thing.
FBI sources are also saying the same.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)SAN FRANCISCO – Computer security researchers say it’s difficult to definitively say the cyber theft of files from the Democratic National Committee subsequently posted online by Wikileaks was the work of Russian hackers, as some media outlets have reported.
<snip>
The amount of information and the conclusions that can be drawn from strictly technical forensics are limited, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with for the Intel Security Group.
For instance, if hackers wanted to make it seem as if they were coming from Russia, they would put strings of Russian in their code and then compromise a machine somewhere in Russia and use it to launch the attack from, he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/07/25/experts-hard-prove-russians-behind-dnc-hack/87529230/
from the sony-hack-redux dept
As you almost certainly know by now, on Friday Wikileaks released a bunch of hacked DNC emails just before the Democratic Presidential convention kicked off. While Wikileaks hasn't quite said where it got the emails, speculation among many quickly pointed to Russian state sponsored hackers. That's because of the revelation last month of two sets of hackers breaching the DNC's computer system and swiping (at the very least) opposition research on Donald Trump. Various cybersecurity research firms, starting with CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate, pointed the finger at the Russians.
Of course, whether or not you believe that may depend on how credible you find the big cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike, FireEye and Mandiant (the big names that always pop up in situations like this). For what it's worth, these guys have something of a vested interest in playing up the threat of big hacks from nation-state level hackers. For a good analysis of why this finger-pointing may be less than credible, I recommend two articles by Jeffrey Carr, one noting that these firms come from a history of "faith-based attribution" whereby they are never held accountable for being wrong -- and another highlighting serious questions about the designation of Russia as being responsible for this particular hack (he notes that some of the research appeared to come pre-arrived at that conclusion, and then ignored any evidence to the contrary).
Still, the claim that the data came from the Russians has become something of a story itself. And, of course, who did the hack and got the info is absolutely a news story. But it's an entirely separate one from whether or not the leaked emails contain anything useful or newsworthy. And yet, because this is the peak of political silly season, some are freaking out and claiming that anyone reporting on these emails "has been played" by Putin and Russia. Leaving aside the fact that people like to claim that Russia's behind all sorts of politicians that some don't like, that should be entirely unrelated to whether or not the story is worth covering.
And yet, we already have stories arguing that "Putin weaponized Wikileaks to influence" the US election. That's ridiculous on multiple levels. Wikileaks releases all kinds of stuff, whether you agree with them or not. And the idea that this will actually impact the election seems... unlikely. Is the (not at all surprising) fact that the DNC is fully of cronyism and favoritism really suddenly going to shift voters to Trump? Of course, Wikileaks implicitly threatening someone with legal action for saying there's a connection between Russia and Wikileaks is pretty ridiculous as well.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160724/17512435054/whether-not-russians-hacked-dnc-means-nothing-concerning-how-newsworthy-details-are.shtml
Couldn't get the links mentioned to work, but you can copy and paste them if interested:
https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/the-dnc-breach-and-the-hijacking-of-common-sense-20e89dacfc2b#.rd36rnqme
https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/faith-based-attribution-30f4a658eabc#.a4qb3rh22
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Nice try.
bananas
(27,509 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)So, 'experts' believe that Cyrillic characters in some Emails and traces of a server in Russia somewhere is definite proof that Putin did it! Again! OK then, NOW I'm convinced.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Must be tough to see so many posts which don't validate your bias.
