CIA: Russia manipulated the election to install Trump

The comments section was good and not trashed with political commentary. So basically no link has been shown yet after this release of data and if there was clear evidence then the govt is still sitting on it. Also after reading further in the comments section the author said this about the title

 

Bobby, said what I was going to say. You sound just like the repubs of the past 8 years man. So many truly believed that Obama was incompetent and not someone they wanted representing them for one reason or another. But Obama did a good job; even if conservatives still won't admit it...the sad thing is it looks like the liberals are going to do the exact same thing. Even if Trump does well they're going to complain about how he's driving this country into the ground. It's sucks how people get so butthurt that they can't see the truth of a situation and now the pendulum has swung and it's suddenly a catastrophe. Somehow I think we'll be okay.

 

Perhaps we should start with the leaders of both party.

Obama elected. Repubs leader - 1st priority is to get rid of him. Work against him on agreements, work against him on differences.
Trump elected. Dems leader - 1st priority is NOT to get rid of him. Work with him on agreements, work against him on differences.

See the differences already?

As for the public in large - that's hard to said and we won't have a good idea until probably at least 2-4 years into Trump's Presidency.

Then we can also consider the qualification of the two. But that won't go anywhere when anti-establishment and knowledge is a basis for goodness now.

 

Kind of interesting and I don't know if it was reported here....so the German intelligence agencies had been making the same claims as our govt related to the hack into their parliament in 2015. They were claiming it was the Russians and the APT28 group. The info in that hack was released to Wikileaks. A couple weeks ago they changed their stance and said the information was leaked to Wikileaks from an insider. http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/...ss-quelle-im-bundestag-vermutet-14579135.html

Not saying this changes anything with the DNC hack, but it is interesting to note since Wikileaks has implied their information came from insiders.

 

Immediately and desperately calling for a vote recount is certainly trying to get rid of him from the start. These election hacking statements by the dems aren't trying to undermine the legitmacy of this election? As for working with him on agreements...we'll see how that works out in the coming year or so.

 

Dont forget trying to coerce the EC into switching their votes to "anyone but Trump".

If the Democrats regain any parts of Congress, they will do the same exact thing. For anyone to think otherwise is a fool.

Secondly, Trump isn't exactly a Republican stooge either.

 

Also interesting how this Russia angle has made people completely forget about the massive leaks that occurred at the NSA in mid 2016. The Russians were used as a scapegoat back then as well. These stories from a few months ago have been completely forgotten...

I tried to edit down the first link, but there is so much interesting stuff in there.

https://nsa.gov1.info/dni/nsa-ant-catalog/ That's the ANT catalog talked about in the article.

Commentary: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-intelligence-nsa-commentary-idUSKCN10X01P

Like the hacking tools, the catalog used similar codenames. Among the tools targeting Apple was one codenamed DROPOUTJEEP, which gives NSA total control of iPhones. "A software implant for the Apple iPhone,” says the ANT catalog, “includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact-list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell-tower location, etc.”

Another, codenamed IRATEMONK, is, “Technology that can infiltrate the firmware of hard drives manufactured by Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital.”

In 2014, I spent three days in Moscow with Snowden for a magazine assignment and a PBS documentary. During our on-the-record conversations, he would not talk about the ANT catalog, perhaps not wanting to bring attention to another possible NSA whistleblower.

I was, however, given unrestricted access to his cache of documents. These included both the entire British, or GCHQ, files and the entire NSA files.

But going through this archive using a sophisticated digital search tool, I could not find a single reference to the ANT catalog. This confirmed for me that it had likely been released by a second leaker. And if that person could have downloaded and removed the catalog of hacking tools, it’s also likely he or she could have also downloaded and removed the digital tools now being leaked.

In fact, a number of the same hacking implants and tools released by the Shadow Brokers are also in the ANT catalog, including those with codenames BANANAGLEE and JETPLOW. These can be used to create “a persistent back-door capability” into widely used Cisco firewalls, says the catalog.

Consisting of about 300 megabytes of code, the tools could easily and quickly be transferred to a flash drive. But unlike the catalog, the tools themselves – thousands of ones and zeros – would have been useless if leaked to a publication. This could be one reason why they have not emerged until now.

Enter WikiLeaks. Just two days after the first Shadow Brokers message, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, sent out a Twitter message. “We had already obtained the archive of NSA cyberweapons released earlier today,” Assange wrote, “and will release our own pristine copy in due course.”

The month before, Assange was responsible for releasing the tens of thousands of hacked DNC emails that led to the resignation of the four top committee officials.

There also seems to be a link between Assange and the leaker who stole the ANT catalog, and the possible hacking tools. Among Assange’s close associates is Jacob Appelbaum, a celebrated hacktivist and the only publicly known WikiLeaks staffer in the United States – until he moved to Berlin in 2013 in what he called a “political exile” because of what he said was repeated harassment by U.S. law enforcement personnel. In 2010, a Rolling Stone magazine profile labeled him “the most dangerous man in cyberspace.”

In December 2013, Appelbaum was the first person to reveal the existence of the ANT catalog, at a conference in Berlin, without identifying the source. That same month he said he suspected the U.S. government of breaking into his Berlin apartment. He also co-wrote an article about the catalog in Der Spiegel. But again, he never named a source, which led many to assume, mistakenly, that it was Snowden.

In addition to WikiLeaks, for years Appelbaum worked for Tor, an organization focused on providing its customers anonymity on the Internet. But last May, he stepped down as a result of “serious, public allegations of sexual mistreatment” made by unnamed victims, according to a statement put out by Tor. Appelbaum has denied the charges.

Shortly thereafter, he turned his attention to Hillary Clinton. At a screening of a documentary about Assange in Cannes, France, Appelbaum accused her of having a grudge against him and Assange, and that if she were elected president, she would make their lives difficult. “It's a situation that will possibly get worse” if she is elected to the White House, he said, according to Yahoo News.

It was only a few months later that Assange released the 20,000 DNC emails. Intelligence agencies have again pointed the finger at Russia for hacking into these emails.

Yet there has been no explanation as to how Assange obtained them. He told NBC News, "There is no proof whatsoever" that he obtained the emails from Russian intelligence. Moscow has also denied involvement.

Former NSA Staffers: Rogue Insider Could Be Behind NSA Data Dump
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/former-nsa-staffers-rogue-insider-shadow-brokers-theory

Prosecutors: NSA contractor's alleged theft 'breathtaking' in scope
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-harold-martin-nsa-theft-20161020-story.html

No big deal....just 50 terabytes of data from the past 20 years quietly walked out the door.

 

That was by a 3rd party candidate that initiated the voter recount. You are blaming this on the DEM? I'm sure there are some DEM that wanted a recount and such, but don't get fooled that that's most of them. When your party leader said, election is fair and square, most moved on.

The "election hacking" statement is from the CIA, and FBI and other government agencies. Are you saying those are DEM agencies? And the statement said nothing more than what Russia involvement was. Why is that such an issue? It doesn't mean jack to the election result, and no agencies has made a statement, in fact they made the statement that election result isn't in question.

Yes, we'll see.

But as I said, the first priority is clearly a difference between the two party leadership. We have that established already.

 

If you are referring to statement from Congressional leadership.... Oh, we don't have to guess.

McConnel made his statement when GOP was a minority in Congress, prior to the mid-term.

DEM is a minority in Congress now. They made their statement that they will work with Trump on agreements and against him on disagreements. Quite sensible.

Plus, you don't have to be a majority party to have your #1 priority to make Trump a one-term president. You can still be very effective in saying no to everything, like how the GOP behaved.

-king of false equivalence-

 

Hey maybe I missed this detailed explained how the security was breached. The above quoted retired officers are still standing for their take that there were no hacks, but insider leaks as of a few days ago.

Hey the Russkies as the perenial arch villains that still have a hold on the imaginations of many Americans, including some liberal Democrats.

However, As far as I know retired intelligence professionals, including recent retirees who built the backbone of our electronic surveillance systems still think it almost for sure was a leak from inside the DNC since the NSA can trace all electronic communication to and from the DNC. I tend to trust them more, than guys like Clapper hat we have lying on camera in the last year or two or the usual politicans dependent on "defense" stock CEO's or who are maintaining their options for their next career in the military industrial complex etc. t

.

 

Glynch I don't know how much we have agreed in the past, but everything about this Russian hack is fishy to me. The response to it and now the "evidence" being provided does not add up. Then when you consider that German story I posted above then people really need to stop with their blind partisan thinking and analyze what is going on.

You have a group of experts, insiders, and whistleblowers yet to be proven as liars versus a group of people who are providing evidence that is questionable at best.

Assange has implied a leak, one of his associates said it was a leak, William Binney (the man who created the NSA's global surveillance system) and his fellow intelligence professionals have said it must be a leak due to the complete lack of hacking evidence. Now the Germans who were accusing the same Russians and same hacking group for their parliament hack are now saying their hack was a leak. The people in the US Govt who have said it was a Russian hack have effectively provided nothing to prove their claims. The NSA could prove this was a Russian govt hack and they have been spectacularly quiet. They would have everything and they have provided nothing.


If it walks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck....

 

Damn Russians hacking the Dolphins! They were totally going to win otherwise.

 

Your point is fair, at the level of appearances. I'm sure I and some others seem a lot like the "oh noes!!!11!" crowd of late 2008 and early 2009. I think there are more of us, this time, and with far better reasons -- based on a candidate's deeds & words, hard evidence of his mental state, and a better knowledge of history than a lot of the doomsayers of '08.

BUT I would love nothing better for us to get to 2020 or 2024 and say "meh, that wasn't so bad." And if he's not a walking disaster for us, I'll be happy to man up and say "I was wrong." It is always very possible. Of course, "disaster" might be in the eyes of the beholder, but we'll see. Hopefully reasonable people can agree on his presidency in the end, if the internet ever allows anyone to agree on anything again.

 

I am not sure this Craig Murray who says he personally got the disk or thumb drives from a disgruntled person with access to the DNC material.has been mentioned in this thread .. I don't like to quote the the Washington Times, but as the Bezos owned Wash. Post becomes largely just another government established paper with a largely neo-con editorial page and so very far removed from the Woodward and Bernstein days, why not?

++++++++++
A WikiLeaks figure is claiming that he received leaked Clinton campaign emails from a “disgusted” Democratic whistleblower, while the White House continued to blame Russian hackers Wednesday for meddling in the presidential election and asserted that Donald Trump was “obviously aware” of Moscow’s efforts on his behalf.

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said in the report by the Daily Mail that he flew to Washington for a clandestine handoff with one of the email sources in September.

He said he received a package in a wooded area near American University.
“Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,” Mr. Murray told the British newspaper. “The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/14/craig-murray-says-source-of-hillary-clinton-campai/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/14/craig-murray-says-source-of-hillary-clinton-campai/

 

Being skeptical is healthy. As Richard Feynman always said, "As a scientist, you have to assume that Nature is trying to fool you, and that you are the easiest person to fool." It's a good starting point.

But robbie and glynch, let me ask y'all a basic question. No snark intended. What I *sincerely* don't get in the conspiracy model here: if this is all "made up" and the Russians were not involved, then what are the intelligence officials hoping to gain? Brownie points in the dying days of a Democratic presidential administration? What does Obama gain by stirring up extra trouble with Putin based on false evidence, with just one useless month in office? I just don't understand the benefit for any would-be scheming Dems here.

1. Have embarrassing (but not especially damning or surprising) emails released by Wikileaks.
2. Lose an election and control nothing in government.
3. Um, let's see... make up a Russian conspiracy/hacking model!
4. Convince intelligence branches (multiple, some of whom actively worked against your POTUS candidate) + some senior Republican politicians of your fake story.
5. Have outgoing POTUS impose symbolic actions against Russia
6. ???
7. Profit! Win! Fundraise!

I think everyone reasonable, on all sides, acknowledges that the email dump isn't what sunk the Dems this year. So they can't be doing all this to scapegoat their failures -- that's not logical. So why would they be making **** up?

 

My belief is there is no conclusive evidence to impose retaliation. I am not denying the Russias did not hack it nor am I denying the Russians didnt leak it. I believe the administration is happy enough with the evidence they have to openly make claims. This has been a problem with this administration from the start. Keep in mind the Russian narrative was prematurely pushed before the election for damage control. It was easy to say "Russia did it, they are meddling and Trump is a bad guy for not openly blasting Putin and benefiting from the exposure". Now the election is over, people are upset because they believe Russia did and now they want answers. The DNC would look very foolish if it turns out they were prematurely making false accusations simply to run Trump down.

Ive said it many times over; Russia and China have been compromising our systems for years. There is a lot of electronic hardware that comes out of Russia and China with built in back doors (none on official government networks of course). This is how out of control online espionage has become. Russia and China are very much entrenched in our networks. The reality is this does not have to be an either/or scenario. There is a good chance its a case of both; Russians did intrude on the networks, plant malware, ect ect ... AND there could have been an inside whistleblower who provided wikileaks the info.

I haven't seen a time line on what exactly happened and what was discovered. There seems to be a lot of speculation based on limited info released. Reading the tech blogs have given me more insight than any of these mainstream media has provided.

One thing I am reading that is grossly overstated is the NSA's ability to see traffic moved across the network and the assumption very little gets past them. If you watch the movie Zero Days, you can see the havoc a group of people can cause when they have exploits in which they only know. The Russians and Chinese have the resources to perform sophisticated hacks. This is why many of us find the level of intrusion very amateurish.

In the grand scheme of things, nothing of detriment was really exposed. Is anyone really surprised the media was willing to do what they did? Why would Russia put that much scrutiny on themselves for an amateurish hack job when the whole world though Hillary was going to win in the first place? That is a very very risky gamble to further piss off Hillary. Putin isnt that stupid. The more and more you think about it, the more it does not make sense Russia was behind it.

 

Julian Assange says the there was no hack and the DNC emails were leaked from within.

 

Glynch, you are too much. Why don't you just link arms with the Trump apologists/conspiracy theorists and sing Kumbaya. This little nugget might as well have been from one of the Trump Troop here, "the Bezos owned Wash. Post becomes largely just another government established paper with a largely neo-con editorial page and so very far removed from the Woodward and Bernstein days, why not?" You dismiss one of the finest newspapers in the country like you were chatting with a squirrel as you took out the trash. Give us all a freakin' break and walk away from the Democratic Party. The GOP D-Team is eager to have you, I'm sure. Take up golf. Maybe you can play at one of Trump's courses someday.

 

I haven't seen anything showing that anyone would gain from falsely blaming the Russians. Sadly this is another case of Americans looking for anyway to try and blame and fault other Americans who have different political views.

The closest thing to a reason is that claim that it is all an excuse to pin the Democratic loss on somebody other than the candidate. Of course the intel agencies aren't partisan (and if they were, it be hard to paint them as Democratic partisans), and the intel agencies almost every other Democrat is admitting that there is no evidence-based way to say the Russian interference actually changed the result. So it isn't really something any large contingency is actually saying.

Sadly it's another example where the news may find a few examples of a few people saying that it nullifies the election, and then applying it to all Democrats or liberals. The media will always focus on the sensational rarity because that's what news is. It isn't the normal everyday liberal or Democrat that knows they lost election by the rules that govern the election, and hope to make changes and move on. Because that isn't news, it's the mundane everyday way things are. So instead some folks that oppose the Democrats will seize onto whatever they can in order to demonize the Democrats and feel no regrets. That desire sadly supersedes making sense.