Top Secret NSA Report Allegedly Showing Russian Military Hacked US Election Software Systems obtained by The Intercept
The Intercept has obtained a "Top Secret" document from an anonymous NSA source that claims the Russian Military Intelligence (a/k/a GRU) hacked into a US company, VR Systems, that sells "electronic voting services and equipment whose products are used in eight states."
The NSA report, dated May 5, 2017, which the Intercept says has been independently authenticated, states that the email account of one "target" at VR Systems was compromised by a spear-fishing attack last fall:
The spear-phishing email contained a link directing the employees to a malicious, faux-Google website that would request their login credentials and then hand them over to the hackers. ... While malicious emails targeting three of the potential victims were rejected by an email server, at least one of the employee accounts was likely compromised, the agency concluded. The NSA notes in its report that it is “unknown whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised all the intended victims, and what potential data from the victim could have been exfiltrated.”
VR Systems sells software and equipment in eight states - California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia - that is used to "maintain and verify" voter registration databases. In other words, the software and equipment VR Systems sells is used to monitor voter registration rolls, and thus would be employed to determine who was eligible to vote in those eight states.
Two months after infiltrating VR Sysytems, the reports states the hackers, using a fake VR gmail account that appeared to look like it was associated with the company, directed another spearfishing "operation." This time the hackers:
“[Targeted] U.S. local government organizations.” These emails contained a Microsoft Word document that had been “trojanized” so that when it was opened it would send out a beacon to the “malicious infrastructure” set up by the hackers.
The NSA assessed that this phase of the spear-fishing operation was likely launched on either October 31 or November 1 and sent spear-fishing emails to 122 email addresses “associated with named local government organizations,” probably to officials “involved in the management of voter registration systems.”
The emails contained Microsoft Word attachments purporting to be benign documentation for VR Systems’ EViD voter database product line, but which were in reality maliciously embedded with automated software commands that are triggered instantly and invisibly when the user opens the document.
Whether the voter databases in those eight states were compromised or not is still under investigation. However, if the recipients did open the malware files in the emails, then the hackers could have obtained what one expert referred to as "persistent access" to any infected computer. In effect, the hackers could have set up a "back door" to download additional malware. An IT security expert interviewed by The Intercept, after reviewing the report, stated this type of hack was of “medium sophistication, ... [that] practically any hacker can pull off.”
Nonetheless, the NSA report, though it is clear it attributes the attack to the GRU, is unclear about the results of this hack attributed to Russia.
It is unknown,” the NSA notes, “whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised the intended victims, and what potential data could have been accessed by the cyber actor.”
Experts quoted in the article indicated that they were concerned that the hackers might have been able to obtain control over individual machines or the central vote tabulator to alter the vote count. However, even if that did not happen, it's possible, according to Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, that the election could still be "disrupted."
“If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information,” she said. “This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot, or be required to cast a ‘provisional’ ballot — which would mean it has to be checked for their eligibility before it is included in the vote, and it may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.”
The Intercept noted that such a voter registration system malfunction in fact did occur in Durham. N.C., which uses VR Systems products. Long lines and the chaos that resulted at those polling places that day did force local officials to switch to paper ballots. However, Durham election officials stated categorically that the problems experienced were not related to any hack or other "suspicious activity" outside what the NC Board of Elections has normally experienced in the past. Though, that in itself is cold comfort for voters.
To sum up, this is what we can glean from the "Top Secret" NSA report obtained by the Intercept:
1. NSA concluded that Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) hacked into VR Systems, a vendor of voter registration software and hardware.
2. The GRU sent out a spearfishing attack to 122 election officials in the eight states where VR Systems voter registration products are used.
3. The NSA does not know what, if any, effect this operation had on election day in the jurisdictions where the company's products were employed.
4. The NSA report was obtained from an anonymous source. The Intercept claims the authenticity of the document was independently verified, thous it did not go into any detail regarding how that was accomplished.
5. The Intercept, after discussions with the NSA, chose to redact some material from the published document.
Perhaps most importantly, the Intercept included the following statement, in the third paragraph of its article, which provides some context and qualifications about the report itself:
While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based[emphasis mine]. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.
Make of all that what you will. As to why this document was anonymously leaked to The Intercept, and not one of the larger, more mainstream media outlets that have been pushing the Russia election hacking narrative, is just one of the many questions I have about the information contained in this allegedly Top Secret NSA report that confirms a cyber-attack and possible infiltration of our country's election infrastructure by a Russian governmental agency.
This NSA report, with redactions, can be found at this link.
Comments
I'm still seeing no evidence that it was Russia
apart from the fact that "the NSA concluded it was Russia" and then someone released that report to the Intercept.
Why did they conclude it was Russia? Are we ever going to get a look at the evidence, apart from really stupid stuff like "the hacker called himself Felix Edmundovitch" and "he used Cyrillic characters?"
Why is it so difficult to show us the evidence?
We have every reason not to take our intelligence community at its word, after what happened the last time they asked us to take their word for something.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's the issue I have with it as well
as the expert interviewed by The Intercept about this alleged cyberattack say it was of "medium sophistication ... [that] practically any hacker can pull off."
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
And we already know from Wikileaks
that the NSA knows how to put any signature it wants on a hack.
IMHO, these are the key words
I approach this report with a lot of skepticism because it reinforces the "Russia did it" narrative.
Edit to add: If our government is so worried about our elections being compromised by computer "hacks," then perhaps we need to go back to hand counted paper ballots tabulated in a public forum. To be honest, our elections are already compromised by partisan voter roll exclusions and fake ballot counting due to proprietary software that is being used. We do not need the Russians to do it for us when our leaders are already doing it to us.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
absolutely right.
funny that our dem "protectors" who are so worried about Russia don't propose this simple fix.
Like MFA, the obviously correct thing to do. Yet somehow our dems can't quite get behind it. The WAR goes on- which they just can't oppose.
what do you say when our first & worst enemy is our own government?
the men who stole america.
@gulfgal98 Gulfgal, the Russia
Gulfgal, the Russia story is a slam-dunk! What's your problem with it, are you a traitor?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ha! You caught me!
Did you not know? We are all Russians now.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98 Da, tovarisch!
Da, tovarisch!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's certainly what I was thinking
The various electronic voting systems we have in place right now are designed to be insecure... or at least it certainly looks that way from an infosec standpoint. I'm not really sure how you'd secure electronic voting systems but I know it won't be easy -- guarding against internal attack never is. But the other thing I know is that we haven't even really tried and in the absence of that I am absolutely in favor of paper systems which limit the scope of each successful attack.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
I'm all for paper ballots myself.
Here in IL, at least in the precincts where I've voted, we mostly use paper ballots that are fed into optical scanners, but there are a couple electronic voting machines available. I always opt for the paper ballot. I like that there's at least physical backup of the votes if something goes hinky with the scanner - unlike the electronic voting machines.
@Sister Havana the optical
the optical scanners aren't safe. I was volunteering in a precinct in 2004 that had optical scanners, and fraud happened in that precinct.
Hand-counted, not computer-counted is the only way to even begin to get a secure vote count.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's definitely not a perfect solution.
But at least they can hand count the original paper ballots if need be. They can't do that with electronic voting machines.
Trump was right about the fat hacker on the bed.
Absolutely point taken.
The main unproved and critical assumption is that these common hacking techniques are solely the providence of the Russian state hacking machine. If it is phishing, then it proves Russians did it. Nobody else does it. End of story. (And oh, it must be Russian policy to leave proof they did it.)
In a way, the French cyber security group undermined this when looking in the Marcon hacks said there was no proof the Russians did it as the techniques were so common.
Bizarrely, Trump was correct when he said that fat guy on this bed could have broken into the DNC servers and Podesta’s email.
But
NSA special top top agent Joe Isuzu said so!
On to Biden since 1973
National security
is why you can't see the raw intel. Besides, we're smarter than they are, and will quickly see through the fabricated nonsense. I think the reason it was leaked to the Intercept is to ride on Greenwald's credibility. As much as they hate Greenwald, they know that he's got credibility the MSM can't compete with.
It looks like Glenn got trolled.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
The report does not seem to have enough substance
to warrant publication. This mysterious "independent verification" is insufficient.
@gustogirl I think the
I think the "independent verification" is verification of the report, not of the intel. IOW, it's an authentic report from the NSA that The Intercept had independently verified by someone neither in the NSA nor working for them.
That doesn't say jack or shit about the quality of the contents.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ah, thanks
for the clarification.
@gustogirl And it turns out,
And it turns out, that "independent verification" is actually a bunch of shit, because they went straight to the fucking NSA and asked them if it was real.
That doesn't look "independent" to me.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@dervish They could at least
They could at least have the decency to make up a plausible lie. "We know it's Russia, because we tracked the IP of the hacker..." etc.
Anyway, "national security?" If, unlikely though it may be, Russia did hack our elections, they certainly know by now that the NSA figured it out, and they probably have a good idea how the NSA figured it out. These are professionals! Are we supposed to believe that they would just use the same IP address, or the same code with the same signature, after having been "caught?" How stupid would that be?
Is it just that I don't have enough technical expertise, or enough understanding of espionage, or is this "national security" refrain as stupid as it sounds?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
They also expect you to believe
That Qatar is a major sponsor of terrorism, to the exclusion of it's accusers, KSA, Bahrain and UAE.
They also expect you to believe that ISIS is in cahoots with Iran.
They clearly think that most of us have the IQ of a radish, and those of us that don't, well, we can't be trusted with raw data, because we'd see through it instantly.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish I thought Qatar was
I thought Qatar was one of Saudi Arabia's frenemies/hangers-on, up until very recently.
It was always KSA, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Bahrain moving together, more or less, at least that was my (admittedly not expert) understanding of it.
So now KSA wants to shed Qatar, or maybe let Qatar take the fall for what they were all doing together, and so they call Qatar terrorist, which is sort of like me calling out somebody for being addicted to caffeine.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The ideological split between the KSA and Qatar
was apparent during the Arab spring when Mubarak was removed and Muslim Brotherhood backed Morsi became president. Qatar government mouthpiece Al Jazeera played a large part in this. Qatar also pumped billions into the country to back Morsi up.
The KSA then stopped oil shipments to Egypt during Morsi's reign. The KSA helped to remove Morsi and put the military connected Sisi into power. The KSA gave Sisi billions and turned the oil spigot back on. Al Jazeera reporters were banned and jailed.
@CB OK, so there's
OK, so there's actually some real differences there? I thought we were one big happy CIA-backed family over there in the Gulf States.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The KSA backs ISIS. Qatar backs Muslim Brotherhood
in Syria. In the ofttimes, when they are not attacking the Syrian Arab Army, they kill each other for relaxation and sport.
I've heard they like to use human heads for their soccer matches. /s
@CB I'm getting
I'm getting it now--this is one of those things where the CIA is backing just about anybody who agrees with their goal of removing Assad, because why should they bother figuring out the fine distinctions between those little nobodies over there, am I right?
So from the point of view of US policy, they often look similar to the amateur and less-informed person (like me). But in fact, there are deep and important differences.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
We have a winner. You have a choice between
the beef roast and the package of pork chops.
My favorite was when
we had pentagon backed militias fighting CIA backed militias. Fun times.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
And KSA backed ISIS demanding/stealing
the US supplied weapons from both groups. The clusterfuck in Syria is all good as long as the country is ripped asunder. The US and its allies didn't and still don't give a flying fuck about civilian casualties. The goal is to completely destroy the country by any means if they can't put their puppet in power. The current operations are to ensure Assad will not be able to put the country back together for several generations or more.
The sooner the US is knocked down several pegs by Russia and China, the safer the world will be. The US has been a rogue state since the end of WWII.
It goes back even further
to 1995, when Sheikh Hamad overthrew his father. Sheikh Hamad immediately started a modernization campaign, including greater civil liberties and press freedoms. Qatar is still light years behind the west, but it's a lot more liberal than KSA, and that burns a hole in KSA's gut.
The grandfather, Khalifa, used to always rubber-stamp whatever KSA did or said. Hamad never has, and this brouhaha is about that. The Saudis want their puppet back.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Unfortunately, you may be right.
One point of the Russian narrative that was a big hole which was recently exposed was the hacking of "voting machines". Nobody in the establishment was making that claim. A poll come out saying democrats believed the Russians hacked into the election system, and were then castigated for believing that when nobody in the IC was making the claim. And then out comes a story "proving" the Russians did hack into voting machines of various sorts.
In looking back, as the charges got more extreme, and as they were losing momentum, new charges emerged.
I am not sure Glenn himself was set up as I sorta doubt he has yes/no decisions over what articles get published at this point. But definitely The Intercept had street creds and looks like they were chosen as the NYTime sand WaPo were losing their credibility on leaks.
One hire which undermined TI's credibility was the hiring of Ryan Grin who before he left, wrote a total smear piece on Sander supporters.
Ryan Grim
is also one of the report's authors.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Let's zap him in the comments
That will erode his credibility further.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@gulfgal98 Oh, please. FFS!
Oh, please. FFS!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@MrWebster What's so fucking
What's so fucking embarrassing about this is that they bring it up more than six months after they launched the original story. You can practically hear them saying "Oh, wait, those little people down there aren't responding the way we want them to. 37% is not nearly enough--in the buildup to the Iraq War, we had 70% compliance with our story! Let's throw something else in the pot and stir it up a bit."
They don't even bother lying skillfully.
I don't mind a parasite; I object to a cut-rate one.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Also, even if the NSA's conclusion were something
we could simply trust, if this document is correct, "the Russians" hacked the following states:
California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia
Did anybody else notice something about that list?
California--Hillary won
Florida--Trump won
Illinois--Hillary won
Indiana--Trump won
New York--Hillary won
North Carolina--Trump won
Virginia--Hillary won
West Virginia--Trump won
In other words, if the election was being "hacked," clearly it wasn't hacked for either candidate. It looks, ridiculously, like whoever hacked it was trying to ensure a fair and accurate count! Because most of those states went exactly like anybody would expect them to. Could you imagine Trump winning California, or Hillary winning West Virginia? Can you imagine Trump winning VA, which is now dominated by the Northern VA DC suburbs and exurbs (I can't), or New York? Can you imagine Hillary winning Indiana? Hillary could have won North Carolina, perhaps, if all the Black people and every left-leaning white person in NC turned out while conservative North Carolina Republicans stayed home, but it's hardly a big surprise to have Trump win there.
Really the only state among those listed that I thought might go the other way was Florida, which could have gone either way.
So my point is what the hell were the hackers after? Clearly not skewing the election in favor of one candidate or the other.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Excellent point!
It appears that the real point of this information is to continue the Russia, Russia, Russia narrative.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Precisely!
The premise is that a disgruntled Berniecrat give allegedly "top secret" information, in a folded, creased envelope (as if that means anything at all) to the Intercept. The Intercept then voluntarily gives up the source to the Feds. The purported top secret stuff contains no raw data. Moreover the information, which lacks raw data, conveniently supports (so they say) the Russian hacked the election for Trump narrative.
The Sane Progressive has an excellent video on this
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8RXSzy7uL8]
@Alligator Ed Wow! I hadn't even
Wow! I hadn't even thought of that.
The Intercept then voluntarily gives up the source to the Feds.
They just gave up their source. They just gave her up to be arrested!
Wow, that sounds like a real anti-establishment muckraking paper, don't it?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Durnit all, AE
I already posted this video below.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
My apologies, gulfgal, I didn't read through the thread
before posting.
This is my point too.
Once again, we're talking about bog standard phishing emails that people have fallen for, not some outside force breaking through the security. What did they actually do with the login information? Did they do anything? How does anyone know who was responsible?
The article only seems to confirm that some people fell for the phishing attempts and then goes into all the potential things someone could do with passwords. And even then, they essentially say the systems are such a clusterfuck, you'd have to really know what you're doing. And, as you point out, the outcomes sure don't show any consistency if they had been hacked.
This just seems like another headline that will help sell the narrative, but the actual facts don't support the hypothesis.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
@Dr. John Carpenter If the state of Russia
If the state of Russia sent hackers to rig the votes of those states for Trump, they sure didn't do a very good job.
While I appreciate that having all of them go to Trump would be too obvious, lining it up exactly how it would be likely to go anyway seems curiously redundant.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Pointed observation indeed--IT article was a lot of speculation
I read the article, and as you write, it was alot of speculation once the point was made that somebody gave up their password. There was no proof on what exactly was done. This reminds me a Guardian article when the Panama leaks happened. They wrote an article showing that Putin was corrupt because some of his cronies had accounts. The writers went through a speculative scheme on how maybe possibility Putin himself transferred money his money to Panama using his cronies. Speculation morphed into fact.
Priceless!
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
@SnappleBC Thanks. This has long
Thanks. This has long ago become ridiculous.
Welcome, my friend, to the show that never ends.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Most excellent point.
But that point won't get much traction or generate any amount of doubt, as the purpose is to simply generate the proof that Russians changed the vote count.
@MrWebster What do you mean--that
What do you mean--that nobody's going to bother thinking about why they did it, or how their presumed results don't bear out the notion that it was them hacking in the first place? unless there's an alternative explanation for why they're doing it.
My takeaway: if that's the measure of Russian intelligence, we don't have to be afraid of it.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ah, thank you for writing about this Steven D
I read some of it earlier today and then got sidetracked. Your yellow highlighted passage struck me immediately too - just seemed kind of funny from the Intercept, the tone. Well, many sites now are infected and it sometimes, for me, comes down to who wrote it before I read it. When you point out the states involved, I didn't get that far, that makes the picture more confusing, but somehow clearer in that maybe this is just more BS.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Why the intercept
and not bigger outlets? See what holes are spotted in the claim before going big? A test drive.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Or targeting skeptics.
The true believers who read the Times and the Post don't need to be told there was a hack; they know it in their hearts, . . . and blaring from every mainstream media outlet that can scrape a signal together.
Electronic voting/verification
Has always been a stupid idea. Back to paper, hand-counted in public, ballots if we're serious about vote integrity.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
@jim p Of course that would fix
Of course that would fix it! Unless the Russians want to send Felix Edmundovich over here to personally rig each polling place.
You know what gets me? Once again, this is a claim riding on personality and reputation (well, The Intercept published it, and they're the good guys, so of course it must be true!) It doesn't rely on evidence and logic.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
As usual, no real proof that this is true
Not when it's worded like this.
I checked DK to see how they were covering this and found this link that suggests this person was responsible for sending it to the Intercept and others.
Federal contractor arrested for leaking classified NSA information
Even this article isn't clear with words.
And Greenwald is getting slammed over the woman who was arrested. Of course they are going after Trump for prosecuting her because he's a fascist. I guess they don't remember Obama's war on whistleblowers. Selective amnesia strikes again.
I just can't get over the fact that people are believing the same intelligence agencies that have lied to us repeatedly when it comes to the wars they want us to get behind. ,
How many people who believe this know about the NATO troop buildup in countries that surround Russia? Would that information change their minds about supporting the new McCarthyism?
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
I see no reason to believe anything those people say.
Literally everything we see and hear is propaganda now. Or at least must be presumed so. Everything they tell us is geared to incite fear and loathing, to which our responses are already pre-determined.
Honestly, we need to stop falling for it.
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
There are no references to dates
in this story. When exactly did all this happen?
I ask, because in the primary, there were plenty of reports of people being suddenly registered with the wrong party or de-registered. All those problems seemed to benefit Hillary in the primary.
So, no doubt, some kind of hacking/database meddling went on during the primary. Why is no one talking about those incidences?
So Hillary is a Russian agent!
Why isn't that blasted all over the internet?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
You made me smile...
@gustogirl Because it was done on
Because it was done on Hillary's behalf, obviously.
I'm guessing that breach back in January where they accused Sanders and his people of snooping on Clinton campaign voter data, was probably when they got access to Sanders' voter data. Doors open both ways.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The leaker who was exposed by The Intercept
was a Hillary supporter. It is unusual because of where she worked
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/do-not-trust-the-intercept-or-how-t...
I wonder if there is any connection to the DWS IT specialists Abid, Imran and Jamal?
@CB This is getting
This is getting entirely too crazy, isn't it?
Why *does* she have that information?
Probably the answer has something to do with a folded envelope.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
According to the Intercept article and the NSA document
the hack of VR Systems occurred sometime in August. The fake email addresses were created in late October and the emails to 122 election officials were sent out on October 31st and Nov. 1st. The article is quite long so I tried to distill it down to the essentials.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Thanks,
.
I should have read, rather than skimmed the article.
I appreciate your finer comb!
Reality Winner related
LOL can't get a better name then that right now. This is a twitter link copy pasta from lurking breitbart this morning, don't ask.
Sorry if it doesn't embed or whatever, hopefully the signal gets through.
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/871845271147126784
huh
@eyo And it's Reality Winner,
And it's Reality Winner, coming around the bend and closing in on Daddy's Dollars, Love My Gal and Greased Lightning, who's in the lead by a length!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Of course we'll never hear about "our" hacking shenanigans
in Russia and anywhere else the the USA has an interest in manipulating election outcomes....
That's so far above Top Secret that it's Burn Before Reading.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
If you look, you will find it on the net.
Quite a lot was published by the MSM in the decades prior to the Bush the Lessor reign when some of them actually performed the function they were designed to do.
'we' don't hack with cyber
'we' use guns and money
bygorry
Somebody needs to tell the CIA forgers to step up their game
Next time they need to put "From the Desk of Vladimir Putin" on letterhead on the phishing emails.
This "Subtle" shit just undermines their propaganda efforts. They keep repeating the same lie over and over again...
Supposedly the NSA insider on this one is a actual Bernie Supporter, and they are filing charges. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/06/the-easy-t...
If an "Insider" being charged for leaking can't even leak actual proof... Leak might have been in good faith, trying to show exactly what they have. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
According to MoA report
(see in my other post) the leaker was a Hillary supporter. There's some people who think it was a black flag operation set up by Clinton supporters. If that is true, then the exposure of the leaker would be a good thing. The Clinton machine now has to rescue her.
Hell if I know.
After that crap last election, people's political beliefs have become very complicated, hence why I went with "Supposedly".
Honestly, I am looking at this "Leak" and not seeing anything that will get rid of Trump, or change the election at all. It just reinforces the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA narrative, albeit poorly. Just enough for the MSM to get breathless about it and scream that prosecution of the leaker PROVES it is damaging Trump.
No matter what the intent is, the effect is just the same old shit they served last week. I really do not want this Russia war they're selling, but they keep hawking it.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Interesting story at Moon of Alabama
on how the Intercept exposed the leaker and how your printer can expose you.
The moral of the story is if you are a leaker, don't give the information to the Intercept. I took the intercept off my reading list when they published some suspect information several years ago and I found out who pays the piper there.
Time to bone up on cold war era spy movies, methinks
If you work for the government and you want to leak...
ASSUME they're going to at a bare minimum fire you.
Course when I was young and dumb I once leaked information about Medicare Part D which caused my immediate termination. Course, I didn't leak anything confidential, just posted my experience and the fear and horror that people calling into my help line were experiencing. Including a bureaucratic SNAFU which resulted in thousands of Wisconsin Seniors losing their prescription coverage. (Pre-Walker) Should never have leaked it to TOP. They made it No 1 for a day, then ignored me when I continued to to give them info, right up until I was fired.
Point is, I should have at LEAST hidden my IP, because that's how they found me. Course, it was on a network computer, and they were ready to go on a witch hunt throughout the building to find the perp. I just owned up to it and saved them the time. I was freaking proud of what I had done, even if I was punished for it.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Markos probably fingered you.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
No, it wasn't him, it was somebody federal.
I was working as a contractor (Under Kelly Services) for Wisconsin Medicaid.
They showed me the email that sparked the witch hunt with my link on it. It was a medicare.gov address and looked to be somebody fairly high up in Medicare. It was not somebody from Wisconsin, because my boss at the time was EXTREMELY angry that she had been called by her boss to find the culprit. Was actually fairly happy with me that I owned up and saved her a LOT of time and effort, and didn't even have me escorted from the building. Just stated that my services were no longer required, and would never be required again by Medicaid.
This was about 2005, IIRC.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Ouch!
They can track it to a particular printer
but how can they prove that she was the one who used her computer and printer to print it?
The poor thing may have been set up just to give the story some legs.
Newer printers store image, and then print it.
At my last job, the newer printers stored what you wanted to print, and then print it. I imagine there are switches in the admin. software that would either keep or flush the thing being printed. The software company I was once at setup Windows to NOT allow the transfer of certain types of file types to thumb drives, and they were not in the security business.
Everything is recorded. She would have had to login
to her computer to use the printer. They have timestamps for everything she was doing - including going for breaks, etc. She'd have to prove someone hacked her computer while she was away.
@CB She sent this shit as
She sent this shit as PDFs? or do they mean, when she printed it?
Didn't the lady ever hear of a zip drive?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
She printed a copy from the image on her
computer using her government supplied color printer. She then folded the printouts, put them in her purse and left. Then she mailed them to the Intercept by USPS.
The Intercept photocopied these printouts (in color), put them in a pdf and sent them on to the government with a request for verification. These photocopies showed the fold marks as well as the identifying yellow markers. The time stamp and serial number showed it was Ms. Winner who printed them from her computer in her office.
It probably took less than an hour to nail Ms. Winner after the spooks got the request from the Intercept.
The Intercept should have photocopied the leaked documents in black and white (not grey-scale), several times, to ensure the light yellow markings were no longer visible.
Her computer may not have been authorized to transfer data from/to a zip drive. These drives are notorious for compromising entire computer systems - example: Stuxnet.
@CB Well, it's how a
Well, it's how a fair number of leakers have done it so far. At least, those leakers not sponsored by the state.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
And Trump's leaking to the Russians at a dinner?
His leak could endanger human lives but he won't be charged.
To thine own self be true.
When was this?
@CB
May 16
Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-hi...
'Can you keep a secret?': How Trump's intel-sharing woes could chill U.S. espionage alliances
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-russia-espionage-foreign-allies-chill...
To thine own self be true.
The dinner threw me off
I knew about this meeting in the Oval office. There was nothing unusual or wrong about this meeting. All previous presidents have had similar meetings. Secret backdoor meetings with the Soviets or Russia have been established since JFK times. Bush I and Clinton had meetings with Russians that were highly questionable and possibly impeachable if Congress knew of the contents.
The President can't leak.
He has the authority to make anything public or to reveal it to anyone he wants.
You don't think that the CIA / NSA can (legally) order the President, do you?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
well, he could be impeached, depending on the
nature and consequences of the leak.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Can only impeach for high crimes and misdemeanor's
not for legal actions and/or policy differences much as we might despise them.
Giving terrorist information to a nominally friendly government is not impeachable. We only have "unnamed informants" word that the source was compromised. And even if it is true, it's despicable but not impeachable. Presidents have done a LOT worse. How about Obama fingering individuals for drone attacks then watching and applauding like it was a video game. Much closer to impeachable because the President doesn't have the high justice to condemn and execute individuals without a trial and if considered an Act of War, we are signatories to treaties (Geneva Convention?) that forbid targeting individuals.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
sorry, i was responding more to your
generalization than to the particulars of this case:
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
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