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Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

So this is how rumour becomes truth - the US government accuses Russia of hacking the DNC, either because they have some kind of proof (unlikely) or because it serves their global interests (likely), media publishes articles of this myth, and then completely unrelated articles embed this "truth" in the title, even though the content doesn't really require it. Abhorent!

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> the US government accuses Russia of hacking the DNC, either because they have some kind of proof (unlikely)

"two competing cybersecurity companies, Mandiant (part of FireEye) and Fidelis, confirmed CrowdStrike’s initial findings that Russian intelligence indeed hacked the DNC. The forensic evidence that links network breaches to known groups is solid... etc etc"

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-b...

Attribution is hard. The NSA likely never hacks someone's systems from US IPs. They hack Russian and Chinese computers first, from where they launch their exploits. I would imagine the NSA is not the only country that does this.

I don't know how good the two security firms are and whether they could actually identify something like this, though.

Attribution is difficult, but your comment shows a lack of understanding. Everyone already knows that you can't attribute activity based solely on the geographical association of IP addresses.

Read the whitepaper that CrowdStrike wrote on the HammerToss virus. They attribute it to Russia for two reasons:

1) It is "sophisticated", because it uses public services like Twitter/Github and embeds command & control scripts into images. Any mid-level application developer could write a similar virus in a weekend.

2) The work required to keep the virus operating (registering Github/Twitter accounts, posting messages) was done during the Russian workday. Because the Russian hackers are highly sophisticated enough to write this virus but incompetent enough to not cover their tracks.

This is the clearest, most blatant example of the US propaganda machine at work. With no concrete evidence whatsoever they have accused a nuclear power of performing these attacks, and the media and a bunch of "infosec researchers" (who most in tech recognize as charlatans) fell in line.

Did you read the link? There's actually a lot more evidence than that.

"a reused command-and-control address—176.31.112[.]10—that was hard coded in a piece of malware found both in the German parliament as well as on the DNC’s servers. Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic security agency BfV as the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. "

Also, occam's razor.

It's funny how conspiracy theories take more evidence that they are wrong as evidence that the conspiracy is bigger than they thought. So now, it's a bunch of us intelligence agencies, the wall street journal, the democratic party, several unrelated it security companies, microsoft and google that are all trying to frame the russians?

It's not a conspiracy theory to say that solid attribution of cyber attacks is practically impossible.

There are other kinds of intelligence besides computer forensics. So, attribution is not impossible if you are a nation state with other resources.

Just like there was no conspiracy to frame Iraq as having WMDs or being responsible for 9/11? I mean, all of NATO was on board, they couldn't have possibly been wrong.

So, because that conspiracy theory adopted some very well known (at the time) correct elements, then this one is also correct?

Then how about these: because Iraq was framed as having WMDs, then the Titanic was actually the Olympic rebadged and sunk as insurance fraud. The Moon? Man didn't walk on it, that's just an American lie because no WMDs. It's also a hologram, because Iraq didn't have WMDs!

Nothing else you mention has a documented history of government non transparency.

Foreign policy on the other hand continues to reveal events that occur not as they were originally described.

Does anybody else feel like there's a ongoing media push against Russia recently (as a UK resident, US/RU relations haven't been that great since WW2) - if I had to put a date on it, around the time of the Aleppo bombing?

Kinda like how 'terrorists' were responsible for every drop of spilled milk in the early 2000s, Russia is now responsible for hacking every system in the west.

Not that I care one iota for Russia, but being influenced to distrust and hate feels really underhanded.

It's not media's fault. Russia is waging open cyber war against west, of course media covers it. I know from reliable source that my country's government IT infrastructure, especially ministry of foreign affair, are being attacked by Russia nearly constantly -- it's even worse that what media says.

It's not like NSA and Chinese gov. hackers weren't doing the same, hilariously hypocritical to blame only one party. Same was happening with surveillance, with basically everyone with their hands in the cookie jar.

I think everyone understands/expects espionage, it's the public 'weaponization' of the information that makes Russia a particularly bad actor.

If Russia had not released the DNC emails (or had somehow done so surreptitiously) to queer the US election, there would be no story to report on.

How quickly we forget things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

Did the media incorrectly implicate the actors in that case?

The argument is that if Country A uses cyber warfare it's "good", but if country R does it, it's "bad". While both are doing the exact same thing, as I said above.

If country R hacking other countries is an accepted fact, why all the whining about it being covered in media? It is a big deal.

Is trying to stop a country from obtaining nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty really morally equivalent to interference with a democratic election?

This statement is very unpopular. "Someone" has to be good and anti-evil and at the same time very competitive. No one knows how, sadly, but also no one want to feel like evil.

Well, relations with Russia have gotten worse since Ukraine.

Why do people seem so adamant that Russia didn't do it when it's very and most likely that they did?

> when it's very and most likely that they did

Why do you think so? First of all, there are countless "enemies" that would want to hack the US/DNC (North Korea comes to mind, who was accused of hacking Sony some time ago, as does Iran, who was itself victim of US hacking). All of those seem equally likely. Second, it's possible that there was a leak, not a hack.

But you don't see much reaction when NK or Iran gets accused of hacking.. but the mention of Russia seems to get people really up in arms about it.

Maybe. I called it "bullshit" then just as I do now.

Given that there is forensic evidence that led infosec/intelligence institutions to conclude Russian hackers did it, I would say the other options are not equally likely.

Trump/Alt-right supporters. They love Putin because he's a "strong leader" and he hacked the DNC.

But it could be anyone! China! Or a 400 lb kid living with his parents. /s

Maybe not adamant, but doubtful considering our government has consistently misled us about who are our real enemies and their level of actual threat.

What Iraq and those WMDs? Or Iran that has been just a few months away from getting Nukes for like 20 years. Or nearly all the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but apparently they are our friends.

Except the Russians have been implicated by more than just the government, its been backed up by multiple independent internet security firms. Also, the Bush administration that supported the Iraq war has kinda been out of power for a while now.

This is not about just one administration.

Foreign policy continues to reveal events that occur not as they were originally described.

The real question "Are we certain enough to take actions that could lead to war?" because that is where are government is going with this. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/does-government-know-hac...

Yes, it will be repeated until accepted as truth.

This is the same kind of 'truth' that led us to war in Iraq over WMDs.

> either because they have some kind of proof (unlikely) or because it serves their global interests (likely)

Is it just me or is Trump making conspiracy theories great again? There's always a fringe that is happy to see a conspiracy in everything (and sometimes they're actually true), but it seems that this sort of thinking is everywhere at the moment.

Snowden revelations made "conspiracy theories" plausible regarding cyber security, operations and media reporting.

The thing is, I remember the EFF reporting on NSA spying activity long before Snowden blew the cover open. The EFF has a great timeline (https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying/timeline). The first apparent reveal of warrant-less spying was in 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-...) and Mark Klein was the first major whistleblower back in 2006. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein).

What Snowden confirmed was more the scale. The details honestly shouldn't have been terribly surprising for anyone who had followed computer news for the last decade, unfortunately.

As far as Russia hacking the DNC is concerned, what I know is there are several cybersecurity companies that have confirmed that Russian hackers were involved, publishing white papers with a fair bit of evidence. I personally haven't seen a single cybersecurity company so far refute that information.

I do welcome a technical refutation of the white papers or a point to a cybersecurity company that disagrees! Counterpoints however have to be data-oriented to be interesting. I consider random commentators posturing that all this is just US propaganda with little evidence to be merely cheerleading, sorry, that's not interesting to me...

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