The dastardly Russians have been naughty again

Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment

With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.

The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.

It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.

The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.

The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.

The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers.

“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”

Okay folks look at the definitive headline that tells people that it actually happened, but inside the article there are a bunch of maybies and might have happens.

American officials are warning that the Russians have grown stealthier since 2016, and are again seeking to steal and spread damaging information and target vulnerable election systems ahead of the 2020 election.

[Read: Even as American election defenses have improved, Russian hackers and trolls have become more sophisticated.]

In the same vein, Russia has been working since the early days of Mr. Trump’s presidency to turn the focus away from its own election interference in 2016 by seeding conspiracy theories about Ukrainian meddling and Democratic complicity.

The result has been a muddy brew of conspiracy theories that mix facts, like the handful of Ukrainians who openly criticized Mr. Trump’s candidacy, with discredited claims that the D.N.C.’s email server is in Ukraine and that Mr. Biden, as vice president, had corrupt dealings with Ukrainian officials to protect his son. Spread by bots and trolls on social media, and by Russian intelligence officers, the claims resonated with Mr. Trump, who views talk of Russian interference as an attack on his legitimacy.

The Biden campaign responds...

"Donald Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into lying about Joe Biden and a major bipartisan, international anti-corruption victory because he recognized that he can’t beat the vice president,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign.

“Now we know that Vladimir Putin also sees Joe Biden as a threat,” Mr. Bates added. “Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our elections.”

Not only dastardly, but also lazy.

"The Burisma hack is a cookie-cutter G.R.U. campaign,” Mr. Falkowitz said. “Russian hackers, as sophisticated as they are, also tend to be lazy. They use what works. And in this, they were successful."

From Zero Hedges:

Color us skeptical, alt-right, conspiracy-wonk, Putin-puppets; but the transparency and timing of tonight's "bombshell" report from The New York Times of an 'alleged' hacking by 'allegedly' Russian hackers of Burisma - the Ukrainian energy firm that VP Biden's crack-smoking, energy-ignorant son was paid $50,000 per month as a board member - reeks so strongly of foundational narrative-building for something "embarrassing" that is coming, it is stunning just how dumb the deep state must think the American public really is. Actually, maybe not all that stunning.

So who wrote that article?

Mr. Falkowitz is a significant donor to Democrats; and even more intriguing, the company's CSO - Blacke Darche - also worked at the NSA and most notably, Crowdstrike.

While NYT admits it is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for, that did not stop them speculating, based on more anonymous sources.

Or, you could choose to believe that the Russians - who allegedly were so dumb last time as to make it obvious it was them doing the hacking - have done it again... following the same pattern, and getting caught in their "meddling"? Oh wait, they have answer for that 'conspiracy theory' - that Russian hackers are "lazy"...

So here we go again with the made up stories about how ByeDone would have won the election if Russia hadn't interfered. Again. But what news is ready to come down the pike? We already saw the video of Joe bragging about how he got "that sonofabitch" fired.

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Pricknick's picture

give a shit.
Zerohedge and new york slimes are both proven bullshitters, as are about 99% of lame stream media and web sites anymore. But what better pablum for the majority of the masses.
It's gotten to be that it doesn't matter who writes the salicious nonsense as it's almost all nonsense.

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5 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Any "RUSSIA MEDDLING OMG REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!1!" stories are right up there with gossip blogs and fan fiction these days. I'm also adding hacking stories to that pile. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Ghoul of Politics Past, hacking has become short-form for ass-covering. Nothing embarrassing can emerge that can't be attributed to Russia or hacking (preferrably Russia is doing the hacking), and it's automatically taken as gospel. The plutocracy these days, pffffft! They can't even be bothered to spend the time coming up with a classic, old-school non-denial denial. I'm offended! /s

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12 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

And they are so outrageous.

I must refer anyone interested to the only (known) forensics of the event and the materials leaked. It was updated just last month.

Guccifer 2.0: Evidence Versus GRU Attribution

This is vetted by acclaimed former program designers and agents of the US intelligence agencies.

It's the only uncontested factual information that we have about what physically took place.

The DNC computer was not hacked in connection to the stolen emails. So there is no pattern to follow. This is CrowdStrike making it up again. The net is closing.

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15 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic was a key piece of successfully squashing the real story of the rat's nest of unethical to illegal activity from the DNC and the Shillary campaign. Thanks for posting that link.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Pluto's Republic

...dated December 24, 2019 that lays it out the completed research and physical evidence for interested Americans. Many need help like this so they can stop lying and misinforming others, which is putting the safety and the future security of all Americans into jepoardy.

Guccifer 2.0: Game Over

Included at this link is an index to all of the forensic work that has been completed on this Russian Hacking Hoax. It is an enormous body of serious work involving cooperative assistance from leading experts from around the world.

The links to related third-party articles at the very end, I found particularly interesting.

Bookmark this. You may want to pass the facts onto others.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Pluto's Republic's picture

Sorry to say WAPO is a paywall site

The propaganda and lies they just dropped, below, is the kind that leads to war. It doesn't matter who reads it the article. It's all about the headline and the hysteria.

U.S. commanders at al-Asad base believe Iranian missile barrage was designed to kill

AIN AL-ASAD, Iraq — U.S. commanders at the Iraqi military base targeted by Iranian missiles said Monday they believe the attack was intended to kill American ...
The Washington Post

.
As you will recall, Iran's missile barrage response was planned by all parties involved — Russia, Iran, and the Pentagon — many hours ahead of time. All Americans were evacuated from the base for their safety. The missile strikes were closely targeted and accurate. The entire point of the missile response was to satisfy the Iranian people that their protests against the assassination were being heard.

The US has fallen under propaganda attack today, launched by the Deep State coup government in Washington. We are all designated as disposable.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I'm still wondering through the guccifer one. This looks like it has great information.

But so what if Iran had meant to kill Americans? This is what happens during wars is it not? We just killed Iran's general in cold blood, but of course with our exceptional attitude none of our troops should be touched. But I question the validity of the military people speaking out on it because most reports have said Iran gave lots of time for them to bug out of harm's way. And I've read that they did.

And now people are questioning if we had any role in the shooting down of the plane. The flight identification might have been changed from a commercial jet to a military one. If so....I guess I don't want to finish this sentence.

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11 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

...in the first 24 hours of an event is the very best news you will ever find. It often contains important information that you are not supposed to know. I gather all I can from all sources and copy or archive it. Some unlikely places, like the Daily Mail out of the UK, often have the most detailed information before it gets classified and pulled.

The text on the internet news gets cleaned up constantly. I watched it happen in real time.

RE: Guccifer 2 — A couple of weeks ago, controversial former CIA analyst Larry Johnson dropped a convincing article titled "Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks?". And another one, "My Whistleblower Complaint on the Alleged Russian Hack." Both are worth a look if only to see the kind of material he includes.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
ggersh's picture

@snoopydawg Does anything about this make sense?

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202001131078026961-iran-jet-disaster-...

But the big question which many people on social media are asking is: why was this “videographer” standing in a derelict industrial area outside Tehran at around six o’clock in the morning with a mobile phone camera training on a fixed angle to the darkened sky? The airliner is barely visible, yet the sky-watching person has the camera pointed and ready to film a most dramatic event, seconds before it happened. That strongly suggests, foreknowledge.

Given that something awful has just been witnessed it is all the more strange that the person holding the camera remains calm and unshaken. There is no audible expression of shock or even the slightest disquiet.

Turns out that Nariman Gharib, the guy who received the video and credited by the NY Times for submitting it, is a vociferous anti-Iranian government dissident who does not live in Iran. He ardently promotes regime change in his social media posts.

Christiaan Triebert, the NY Times’ video expert, who collaborated closely with Gharib to get the story out within hours of the incident, previously worked as a senior investigator at Bellingcat. Bellingcat calls itself an independent online investigative journalism project, but numerous critics accuse it of being a media adjunct to Western military intelligence. Bellingcat has been a big proponent of media narratives smearing the Russian and Syrian governments over the MH17 shoot-down in Ukraine in 2014 and chemical weapons attacks.

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7 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

snoopydawg's picture

@ggersh

at the right time? I questioned his filming it the first time I saw the video, but the article points out that he didn't flinch or utter a word of surprise. Now who wouldn't have uttered a wtf?

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7 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

CB's picture

@ggersh

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3 users have voted.
Bob In Portland's picture

Blacke Darche would be the name of one of the villains.

This is propaganda season. Well, it's always propaganda season. Everyone should put on their heaviest raincoats.

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7 users have voted.
CB's picture

@Bob In Portland

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2 users have voted.

Russian hacking, thereby justifying installing someone other than Bernie as the Dem nominee.

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6 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

The "Russians" don't need to hack Burisma. I saw somewhere, I think it was at Vesti, that Putin says they already know all of it, who paid how much to who and when.
Does the NYT think that the Russians don't have contacts in Kiev ?
Please.

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6 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.