How are Putin/Trump's Russian minions different than the Watergate Burglars?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

At least Nixon used people, as misguided as they were, who thought they were acting on behalf of their country and not against it.

[Iliyah]

1. Any congress hearing?

Nada, only inclusive for Dems. Would love to see the DNC e-mail dump connection to the RNC

[Melissa G]

2. The Hack was Romanian, not Russian.

Here is the full transcript:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-full-interview-transcript

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Guccifer has been proven to be a liar. He is a poseur and a clown.

He said he hacked Hillary' Clinton's server. The FBI said that was a lie !!! That is as truthful as me saying I beat up Mike Tyson.


The Russians hacked it:

Proving the source of a cyberattack is notoriously difficult. But researchers have concluded that the [Democratic Party] national committee was breached by two Russian intelligence agencies, which were the same attackers behind previous Russian cyberoperations at the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. And metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers. Though a hacker claimed responsibility for giving the emails to WikiLeaks, the same agencies are the prime suspects. Whether the thefts were ordered by Mr. Putin, or just carried out by apparatchiks who thought they might please him, is anyone’s guess. …


https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/

The FBI and other US agencies involved haven't yet officially attributed the DNC attack to Russian government hackers. But evidence gathered by the FBI so far points to groups that are known to US counter-intelligence for carrying out intrusions for the Russian government, the officials briefed on the probe say.


http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/25/politics/democratic-convention-dnc-emails-russia/

[Ghost Dog]

8. Who are these experts and what is the nature of the metadata evidence?

Is there a link to technical data?

The source for the wapo piece is the NYT, quoting Clinton’s campaign manager:

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, argued on ABC’s “This Week” that the emails were leaked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump” citing “experts” but offering no other evidence...

The CNN piece says:

Private-sector cyber security investigators hired by the DNC concluded that hackers working for the Russian government were behind the year-long breach of the DNC. The investigation found intrusions by two Russian hacking groups...

... It's possible that other hackers took advantage of the DNC's vulnerabilities and also stole information, US officials said. But the intrusion so far appears to bear the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation...

In the Vice interview above, however, Guccifer 2.0 says he places such 'hallmarks' (is this what is referred as metadata?) himself...

... Just looking for facts amongst the opinion & spin...


Also, it's important not to mix up the two Guccifers: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2288577

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. That's why we have an investigation.

But if you believe Guccifer is the source of the intrusion there is nothing I can do to disabuse you of that notion.


" "

[Ghost Dog]

12. Which Guccifer? See edit above.

I try to avoid believing anything without empirical evidence.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Guccifer 's forte was guessing the passwords of internet users....

An intrusion of this magnitude was well beyond his reach.

The evidence points to Russian hackers. So now the FBI is charged with confirming the hacking and divining the ties of the hackers to a foreign government, i.e. Russia.

[Ghost Dog]

14. This involves not Guccifer, but instead Guccifer 2.0:

WIRED. ANDY GREENBERG SECURITY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 06.15.16.

FINDING THE PERPETRATOR of a sophisticated hacker intrusion can be messy. Getting to the bottom of a vicious data breach at the center of a no-holds-barred presidential campaign is a full-on trainwreck.

On Wednesday, Gawker and the Smoking Gun published the Democratic National Committee’s opposition research files on Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, which the DNC admitted earlier in the week had been stolen by hackers. And a hacker using the name Guccifer 2.0 posted a sample of the files to WordPress, along with a taunting note. “Guccifer may have been the first one who penetrated Hillary Clinton’s and other Democrats’ mail servers. But he certainly wasn’t the last,” the hacker wrote, referring to earlier claims by a well-known Romanian hacker known as Guccifer, who has said he penetrated Clinton’s unofficial email servers during her time as secretary of state before being arrested and extradited to the US earlier this year. “No wonder […] any other hacker could easily get access to the DNC’s servers.”...

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/chaotic-whodunnit-follows-dncs-trump-research-hack/

Guccifer 2.0 describes his intrusion thus:

I used 0-day exploit of NGP VAN soft then I installed shell-code into the DNC server. it allowed me to intrude into DNC network. They have Windows-based domain architecture. then I installed my Trojans on several PCs. I had to go from one PC to another every week so CrowdStrike couldn't catch me for a long time. I know that they have cool intrusion detection system. But my heuristic algorithms are better.

When did you first hack them?

Last summer.

And when did you get kicked out?

June 12, when they rebooted their system...

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-full-interview-transcript

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. We will have to wait...

I suspect the investigation will demonstrate the fingerprints of Russian apparatchiks are all over it.

Cui bono?

Putin, he puts in a stooge who will weaken NATO and give him the helpless Baltic states on a silver platter. Trump and Putin are such singularly awful people. I pity the Russian people, especially my glbtq brothers and sisters. I hope I don't have to pity us too...

[Ghost Dog]

16. I think such apparatchiks might well have been among the perhaps many intruders,

perhaps including this Guccifer 2.0.

But, now, the key question: which of these then passed on the 20,000 emails to Wikileaks, and what evidence would answer that question?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. I suspect at the end I will learn what I believe and that is Putin is helping his pal, Donald Trump.

[Ghost Dog]

19. Oh, I think that is very likely.

This email leak would be a clumsy way to go about it, though, risking self-exposure?

There will surely be more subtle ways of doing so...

As you say. We shall see.

[Melissa G]

20. Are you referring to Guciffer or Guciffer 2.0?

They are 2 different people.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Putin's and Trump's enablers.

[Melissa G]

22. That is conflated and not factual which was something we used to care about around here. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. I "care about" not enabling Trump. You should too. We all should.

[Melissa G]

24. There are many things to care about at this moment.

Truth should never be a casualty.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. At this moment...

"At this moment" Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from coming to America and kick out the Mexicans who are already here. "At this moment" he wants to torture terrorists and kill their families. "At this moment" he says he prefers Jewish accountants over black ones because the former are naturally better with money and the latter are naturally lazy. "At this moment" he calls women pigs and worse. "At this moment" he fawns over dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un... "At this moment" wants to blow up alliances that have kept us safe.




If I was Hispanic or Muslim I would feel like a Jew on the eve of the 1933 German Federal Elections. That's what I "care about at this moment."

[Melissa G]

26. I Am a Hispanic Mother with children. My Godchild is black. You have your list and I have mine.

The Truth matters to me. Seems lower on your list since you keep posting.

There are many people positioning at this moment to blow up many alliances. Sadly, at the moment it's come to light that our own DNC is blowing up a few.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

27. What truth.... All the evidence points to the Russians.

My mom was Jewish. When I was a kid she had friends who were Holocaust survivors who still had the numbers the NAZIS tattooed on their arms. Will Trump put my Mexican friends on cattle cars? No, but he will create an environment where they will feel unwelcome, alone, and scared.


As to alliances:

He’s not Hitler, as his wife recently said? Well, of course he isn’t. But then Hitler wasn’t Hitler—until he was. At each step of the way, the shock was tempered by acceptance. It depended on conservatives pretending he wasn’t so bad, compared with the Communists, while at the same time the militant left decided that their real enemies were the moderate leftists, who were really indistinguishable from the Nazis. The radical progressives decided that there was no difference between the democratic left and the totalitarian right and that an explosion of institutions was exactly the most thrilling thing imaginable.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-dangerous-acceptance-of-donald-trump

[Melissa G]

28. Well wikileaks who actually leaked it says this...

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/757003020798464000

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. The evidence points to the Russians

FBI Suspects Russia Hacked DNC; U.S. Officials Say It Was to Elect Donald Trump
Did the Russian government hack the DNC to bring down Hillary Clinton? That’s the view that’s quickly emerging inside American intelligence and law enforcement agencies.



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/25/fbi-suspects-russia-hacked-dnc-u-s-officials-say-it-was-to-elect-donald-trump.html

I have a question. Do you or do you not believe Donald Trump represents a deviation from democratic norms and the rule of law and poses a mortal danger to people of color and Muslims and it is incumbent upon all people of good faith to do everything within the law to stop him ?

Thank you in advance.

If you read about 1930s and 1940s era Germany you will come to the conclusion that while most of Germany didn't hate the targets of Hitler's wrath as much as he did they didn't care all that much for them either. That's how it happened.

[Melissa G]

30. Question for you back... How do you feel about unverifiable elections?

And Election Fraud?

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-did-media-race-blame-russian-govt-hacking-dnc

While the Post story by Ellen Nakashima was sourced to “committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach”—i.e., CrowdStrike, the security firm hired by the DNC—that attribution dropped out of the headline, presenting Russian government culpability as an unquestioned fact. This framing was echoed by dozens of media outlets who picked up on the story and uncritically presented Russian guilt in their headlines without qualification:

snip
Then something strange happened. Wednesday afternoon, a person or persons using the name “Gufficer 2.0” (referencing a hacker who infamously got into the Bush family emails) published online what appears to be detailed information derived from the hack. In the post, Gufficer 2.0 claimed the hack wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as CrowdStrike claimed, and wasn’t the work of hackers working for Russian intelligence.

While it’s definitely conceivable that Gufficer 2.0 could turn out to be a front for Russian intelligence, as CrowdStrike alleges, it certainly raises doubts as to the airtight case against Russia. Tech website Vocativ (6/16/16) concluded with a note of skepticism from Jeffrey Carr, CEO of a competing cybersecurity firm, who observed that while “it’s not unusual for any intelligence service to cover its tracks,”

I’m skeptical almost all the time when it comes to attribution…. I think the entire historical assignment of [government-affiliated] actors…was just wrong. That they were never part of an intelligence service or military service in the Russian government, that they were always independent hackers, and we don’t really know who they are.

much more...http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-did-media-race-blame-russian-govt-hacking-dnc

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. If a person tampers with an election and is adjudicated as so he or she should be in prison.

[Melissa G]

32. Agreed n/t

[bigtree]

3. Worse. Trump's connections suggest a direct conspiracy with a foreign government

...to influence and disrupt a presidential election. This from a republican party nominee.

I think this could devolve into a massive meltdown for Trump, complete with indictments. Just heard that the FBI's launched an investigation into the hacking... unconfirmed.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Oh - let it be true bigtree!

[workinclasszero]

17. "Trump's connections suggest a direct conspiracy with a foreign government"

And if proven..the Republican party and all of it's supposedly "patriotic" supporters at fox news/Hate radio OWN it!

[NCTraveler]

6. The attacks on the DNC are criminal. That much is knwon.

The investigation will show more.

We are up against a lot of people who will do anything to keep a progressive out of the WH. Clinton is a progressive with power. Their worst enemy.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Difference? The former association has a lot more support from the left?

Last edited Mon Jul 25, 2016, 01:01 PM - Edit history (1)

[DemonGoddess]

10. ^^^This!!!

[Blue_Tires]

9. The Watergate Burglars didn't have apologists and cheerleaders on the left...

[Cha]

33. They're worse..

One last thing: if you’re only looking at this story as an internal DNC scandal, you’re missing the despotic forest for the trees. We can’t emphasize enough: this story is bigger than Bernie or Hillary. It’s bigger than Trump. It speaks directly to the sovereignty of our electoral process. The sooner it’s treated this way, the better off we’ll be.

Yes, it's bigger than Watergate.. It's espionage by a foreign country.

Yes, I get it. Some of the content contained in a handful of the emails (out of a 19,000 email tranche) was fishy in terms of DNC officials expressing dissatisfaction with Bernie Sanders and his campaign. (Bernie’s religious beliefs should never have been discussed, for example.) We’ll circle back to the veracity of the emails momentarily. However, what we know so far greatly outpaces anything damning about the DNC officials themselves. What we know, and what’s rapidly developing by the day, is that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Putin’s intelligence apparatus broke into the DNC’s network, stole the emails, set up a front account, and handed over the emails to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks organization via that account. We also know that Putin and various Russian oligarchs have been giving money to Donald Trump. And we know that Trump’s foreign policy closely aligns with Putin’s, especially when it comes to the Balkans and NATO, which Trump has repeatedly stated will be allowed to fall to Russian aggression on Trump’s watch.

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/27/bigger_than_watergate_the_russian_orchestrated_dnc_email_hack_places_our_national