Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?

I agree (and I am no fan of Trump, and would never vote for him).

"Tea Leaves" makes one other interesting claim:

>Different in every way from traffic seen on adjacent servers managed by the same server company, this specially configured server has been exclusively corresponding with Alfa-Bank and Spectrum

If he can back up the claims about IP restriction (how could he really prove this, anyway?) & the traffic truly being different from all other Cendyn mail domains, then this does deserve some further scrutiny.

>Tea Leaves claims -- but also does not provide evidence for -- that the DNS records for Trump-Email.com were pulled after Alfa Bank was contacted for a statement.

I actually have access to some of the same research systems and can confirm that that part is accurate. (I can provide full evidence if you like.) It doesn't necessarily mean anything nefarious, though. The Trump campaign formally stated it was an old record that's no longer in use, so decommissioning the domain isn't necessarily unusual.

Here is one of the quoted experts being unhappy with how their words are used to support the article: https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/shits-gone-plaid-g...

> Here's a mirror of the actual source site, with links to the "data". http://gdd.i2p.xyz/

The source says they have no idea what that host is; it's not clear that it's an accurate mirror.

The article is incredibly vague and they say the data is incredibly sparse. My sense is that they should release the data if they want to make a claim as they are. It could just as easily be a software vendor in Russia.

Consider if the company used Kaspersky anti virus, for example. You would see very rare transmissions (checking for virus updates). They could restrict their firewall to only allow IP's for the antivirus. And it would show connections to Russia (where Kaspersky is located). And you could easily construct the narrative found in the linked article.

Now I'm mot saying it was Kaspersky, I'm saying that this example would produce the same fact pattern as the one in the linked article, so we can't assume that the fact pattern implies what they're implying.

I'm not an expert, but couldn't you just use the IP address directly? Wouldn't that avoid DNS hits?

You could run your own DNS server so your lookups don't wind up in the logs of these guys.

Exactly. I find it ironic this article cites Snowden while literally sounding like the very spying that Snowden exposed and fought.

Ensure that your logless VPN provider runs their own DNS service. Test at https://dnsleaktest.com

I found the article interesting in the forensic details (in spite of the political details), in the same way I found Mark Bowden's "Worm" interesting. I can see how some might not.

Mostly because I wanted to hear what some real experts thought of the evidence presented.

> we need to be posting regularly about how HC is breaking the law

This article details an interesting technical investigation by leading security experts and also it bears more analysis, resulting in some interesting discussion. Clinton's email servers were also discussed. When Trump or Clinton do something non-technical, it's not discussed.

> and how Google, Facebook, and Twitter are suppressing free speech

That topic is frequently discussed.

That there could have been some covert messaging between Trump's people and an important Russian bank ;

In other words, this seems to be more circumstantial evidence of Russians involvement in the American Presidential campaign.

I think there has been an interesting pattern with Trump. His choice of Manafort (Kremlin Insider) and Cater Page (Kremlin Insider), his daughter vacationing with Putin's Family, his son involved in business ventures in Russia. Trumps dealings with Russian Oligarchs concerning Real Estate in NY and Miami.

I suppose someone might find it interesting when a Presidential candidate has a great affinity for what some consider a foreign adversary and has taken deliberate steps in changing policy to align with Kremlin's/Putin.

If Trump is elected it will be interesting to see how it plays out with the Kremlin. Is he part of a 5th column?

"They concluded that the server was set to accept only incoming communication from a very small handful of IP addresses."

If it is true that there was not just communication but also ip address filters that protected this communication it would be an indicator for a ongoing and deliberate business relationship.

Your comment prompted me to read the article in question. I did so with an eye out for the descriptions of DNS. I didn't get the impression of DNS being sinister. Writing about a technical topic like DNS for a largely lay audience (slate.com) can be challenging, but nothing stood out as particularly grievous to me. I'm admittedly not an expert. What about the article did you take to be foggy or sinister?

If you read the details, that doesn't describe what happened.

If we're going to have discussions on Hacker News about this, we can't let them immediately devolve into conclusions supported by such things as "bromances".