December 13, 2016

The alleged Russian hacking problem

We have avoided the issue of alleged Russian hacking because so much of it has been speculative and fuzzy in details. Crediting something to intelligence agencies sounds good, but raises the question of who within the agencies released the information and for what reason. Thus one question has been: was the election manipulated by the Russians or by someone in the CIA?

Here, for example, is an excerpt of a statement by eight former intelligence officials (including key whistleblowers) offering an alternatives view:
We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking:

Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did.

Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or any other cyber-protection system and then extracts data.

All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it – and know both sender and recipient.

In short, since leaking requires physically removing data – on a thumb drive, for example – the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.
 We offer no answers but suggest that the media take it all a bit slower.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm....yes, or you could just take Assange and Wikileaks at face value when they said it was a LEAK from the DNC itself and NOT a HACK by an outside agency or country.

But, hey, why should that get in the way of rampant dangerous jingoism disguised as defending democracy?

Anonymous said...

Elites are sure acting crazy. They in effect lost control of control type "information control" .

Anonymous said...

As always I cannot predict the exact future, one thing for sure the Republic as designed today can't hardly stand the capitalist elites losing information control. The results for overseas republics tends towards regression to dictoial conditions.

For the Republic to be semi stable first world is a rare special condition in history.

The more open truly democratic nations will advance, the rest will regess into chaos and dictoial conditions.

Anonymous said...

Also, everyone is forgetting the most important point. Even assuming that the Russians were involved - the allegation against them is that the Russians let us know information which was accurate and relevant to the elections. Moreover, this was information which people in power were hiding from us. If that interfering with our electoral process, we need more of it.

Anonymous said...

I really don't understand this outrage about interference with our elections. In Syria, the Syrian people elected Assad. This country then funded a rebellion to overthrow him. Where was the media outrage then? Where were the congressional hearings about the threat to "democracy?"More importantly, why can't anyone see the rank hypocrisy in all of this?

Anonymous said...

Former British ambassador Craig Murray said he has met the person who handed over the e-mails and they WERE from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The e-mails were released by Mr Assange's site and caused damage to Hillary Clinton's reputation with a number of shock revelations among tens of thousands of e-mails.

Speaking to The Guardian, Mr Murray said: “I know who leaked them.

“I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

“As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two."

(Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/743430/WIKILEAKS-BOMBSHELL-Assange-ally-Clinton-hack-inside-job-NOT-Russia-Oliver-Stone)

Anonymous said...

In followup to anon at 1:12.

It is a question of who you believe: Julian Assange or the CIA. That is a rather easy call. Wikileaks has never been caught peddling bogus information. Never - not once. The CIA makes a business out of peddling false information. Considering their respective histories of credibility, the CIA's allegations should not even have been considered newsworthy, much less something to drive the news narrative throughout the nation.