A “nation-state” used Wikileaks to influence US election, the head of NSA says

I agree with all points. But, when the mistakes of Iraq (remember Powell's evidence for WMD?) are so recent, I have to ask haven't we learned anything?

The solution is for the NSA to share their evidence to a third party and the third party to come forward saying, "yup, I've seen the evidence and it is clear and irrefutable". I believe congress/senate are usually that third party, but for something technical like this I think they would benefit from inviting someone like Bruce Schneier to those sessions.

Will it happen. No. But, should it happen? Yes. Especially if there are to be escalations.

The "evidence" you mention is circumstantial and shallow. I have no firsthand knowledge but tend to disbelieve most of the conspiracy theories for the following reasons:

1) if you wanted to launch an attack, how better than to buy a few VPSes in Russia. This is like saying that an attack that originated in AWS US-EAST was undertaken by the US Government. Truly bizarre.

2) The person who did that is apparently more of a pundit than an official.

3) Not sure what evidence you'd point to for this. Assange did an interview for hire than was run on RT, but surely he would happily do interviews with American TV networks if they offered.

4) Trump made a PR stunt remark about respecting Putin and the next thing we all know he's a Russian stooge. Not sure how old you are but during the cold war it was a big relief when Reagan and Gorbachev sat down for talks and everyone calmed down. In light of the frantic anti-Russian rhetoric coming from HRC's political campaign, I view any sort of moderation as a breath of fresh air and sign of maturity.

I think the disturbing issue is that we don't have enough transparency into the DOJ, the FBI or the NSA to have any clue what might be going on. There was pretty much zero reaction/reform after the Snowden revelations. I would not have thought this possible.

To play devil's advocate, we could use the same line of thinking to incriminate the Clinton's. In fact, a lot of people have done so. And they get labeled conspiracy theorists or idiots for not having "facts" to back up their claims.

I'm not bringing this point up to start a side tangent argument, but just pointing out that in this election cycle, a lot of people held pre-existing beliefs and would justify them in any way they could (i.e. cognitive dissonance).

>1) The attacks originating from servers owned by Russian companies

This doesn't even hint that there might be Russian involvement. It's utterly irrelevant. Anyone doing something like this will most likely be hosting either in Russia or the Netherlands.

>2) Pseudo-admission/gloating by low-level officials

Low-level officials probably aren't in positions to confirm intelligence operations such as these, and even if they were, such behaviour would hardly be unexpected from an entirely unrelated party.

>3) Wikileaks and Assange's increasingly close relationship with Russia

Would you like to back that up somehow? Not all of us share your security clearance so we can't read the emails between Assange and Putin.

>4) The behavior of the Trump campaign, taking an exceptionally pro-Russian tack. Indeed, the only change they demanded be made to the Republican platform was to take out some anti-Russian commitments.

The pro-Russian tack only stands out if you ignore the rest of their politics... In which case literally anything would stand out, no?

>True, this is all circumstantial

This is all bullshit. There exists significantly better technical evidence of Russian involvement available to the public.

The articles establish that the attacks came from Russia. But, I'm also under the impression that Russia is a hot bed for hacks in general, so the assertion that the attacks originated from Russia isn't saying much.

I found the SecureWorks article had excellent detail but even they only had 'moderate confidence' that the attacks were sponsored by the Russian Government.

Regardless, I find it interesting that the rhetoric is that a 'nation state was influencing the election', rather than our own security practices are so weak that our political organizations were infiltrated repeatedly.

You know, when the integrity of the office of the President of the United States is at stake one would think burning a HUMINT or other asset might be worth it.

Ah, whataboutism; a great way to shrug one's shoulders.

So you are accusing Wikileaks of sitting on a trove of data that was highly unflattering to Trump?

One could argue that news papers already did a good enough job of leaking things about trump, like the audio tape.

I recall that first day of the DNC leaks. The top article on HN was how several US news paper had gone and removed articles about the DNC leaks, with comments that linked to screenshots with before and after shot. The question that I would bring up is if that explains why the DNC leak was first published on wikileaks, while the trump tapes wasn't.

You don't think the following is dirty?

- Clinton fed multiple debate questions ahead of time

- Clinton's private speeches contradicting her publicly-espoused positions

- The DNC blatantly rigging the primaries in Clinton's favor

- Bill Clinton using staff paid by the Clinton Foundation for his own personal engagements

- Donors to the Clinton Foundation subsequently receiving favorable treatment from the State Dept.

- Clinton campaign paying protestors to incite violence at Trump events

- The deputy director of the FBI in charge of the Clinton email investigation is a close friend of Clinton's campaign manager and asked for a role in the campaign.

Etc etc etc (http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/)

All of that information is only available due to emails made public via Wikileaks and would otherwise have been considered the stuff of loony conspiracy theorists.

Many (all?) of the emails can be directly validated as authentic using DKIM, and no one including the senders/recipients have disputed their validity. Safe to say they are legit.

Of course people can draw incorrect conclusions from true facts. But since neither you nor I know the exact truth, we'll never know for sure which party is the one drawing the incorrect conclusions.

In this case it sounds like the NSA has several assumptions:

A. That Trump winning was worse than Clinton

B. That what Russian state-actors do is somehow more "bad" than what American state-actors do

C. That the people of America should be prevented from knowing certain things that "us smarter people in power" can handle, so that they vote for the person "We know is best."

C is pretty scary when you think about it. And I for one, certainly don't trust the militaristically-minded never-tried-marijuana lets-do-polygraph tap-everything-and-ask-questions-later people at our acronym agencies to be more objective judges of long-term good than the average citizen.

Let's (humans) work on stopping asteroids and climate change rather than fight over lines on maps.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

It's interesting to note that the hack that likely got access to Podesta emails and subsequently handed those emails over to Wikileaks is recorded in the leaked emails themselves.

It was a typical phishing email scheme easy to recognize and ignore by anyone who's used a internet connected computer for more than a year, but for some reason not by their own IT guy who tells Podesta to click on the link! EDIT: Actually he does send the correct password reset link as well, but still identifies the original email as authentic. The link in that original email is a bitly one - clearly an email from Google themselves lol

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899

I don't know much about FSB's hacking abilities but I would guess they are a little more sophisticated than this.

Or widespread and obvious collusion and corruption? Don't be thick, these emails revealed just how sleazy and inept the DNC is. The establishment left needs a serious overhaul if they want to do anything of substance in the next four years

I am not trying to get into a who was right/wrong Trump/Clinton/FBI debate. I would like to know why you jokingly assert there was no serious, damaging substance in the leak contents?

Although partisan, this site [0] reveals some very concerning actions.

[0] http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/

I'm not asking only how Trump would benefit Russia, but what evidence exists to suggest that this entire ordeal was some elaborate scheme concocted by the Russian government?

EDIT: If this claim was such a stark truth, surely there must exist a smoking gun somewhere? So, where is the evidence?

> while Clinton would have maintained the status quo.

Much more likely to increase tensions between US and Russia (perhaps even to dangerous levels). Not saying Russia wasn't "looking for it", but Hillary's anti-Russia rhetoric to help her own campaign wasn't helping.

Not to disagree with one half of your assertion (that media leaning right is corrupt and broken), but you appear completely blind to the media that leans left being equally corrupt and broken. Many scandals about the left were covered up and hidden away. You just didn't look for them.

I struggle to find any mass media that hasn't been rendered completely useless during this election cycle. To contrast your Fox/WSJ/WaPo list of egregious terrible media, consider BBC, CNN, TYT, HuffPo, Slate (I'll stop there, but I could list 50 more).

Honestly, the best coverage I could find in this last election cycle came from dreary underground groups. All major media had clearly picked a side and was uninterested in providing useful, factual information.

> IMHO, a large segment of the media is not really journalism, but ideological promotion. This includes Fox properties (Fox News, the WSJ - at least their editorial page, NY Post, various UK publications, etc.), Rush Limbaugh and most talk radio, right-wing blogs, and many others. Therefore a large segment of the news media doesn't cover scandals on the right, while everyone covers them on the left:

Quite so. I don't wonder about those. I wonder about Time, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. The Clinton emails on her private server were an error in judgement; minor compared to most of the muck that came out about Trump.

That a nation-state was attempting to influence the elections should have been a five-alarm fire in all the media, but particularly anything that isn't bought and paid for by the Murdoch crew.

no. his last confirmed public appearance was early october. The checksums of the evidence files don't match post his internet going down. The questions were relayed to him and his lawyer was not present. Do your own research, don't take my word for it, however the "wikileakstaskforce" account was made in October. There is significant skepticism he is alive and the embassy has a bay window which his cat was seen at yesterday. He could simply pull back the curtain or sign a document with the private key to quell skeptics who have become increasingly vocal since his internet was severed over a month ago.

edit: it is nearly 7pm local time in London. Do you not find it odd wikileaks has been rather silent that it's founder has likely completed giving a full days deposition to exonerate him of the crime he is seeking asylum for...in that vbery embassy. A half-decade or greater ordeal. They posted an infographic yesterday, an NEA Bill Clinton leak, and appeal for pardoing Chelsea Manning. No mention that this is day 2 of a major fight for Assange.

edit 2: In fact, according to google[0] there has been NO news about it. There are ~5 stories and none of them relating to todays depo.

[0]https://www.google.com/#q=assange+sweden+interview&tbm=nws&t...

That doesn't make their favoritism any more right.

Uh, I would count that media companies shown to be colluding with Hillary ran delegate counts with superdelegates included to be a massive propaganda campaign to influence voters for Hillary by making them feel there's no viable alternative.

It's hard to estimate the impact of that, and I dont recall it happening as much in 2008.

What? Five thirty eight has them at:

HRC: 2,218

BS: 1,833

This includes >700 superdelegates which are not tied to primary contests. Hillary won almost all of these. If this was 100% up to voters (which admittedly is not how this contest works) it would be closer. That said, she certainly influenced those SD to vote for her well in advance.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-t...

edit: The above information is wrong. Tptacek corrected me. Please see my comment below for expanded point.

First of all, I didn't say anything about what we are "allowed" to discuss here.

I just think we should be honest with ourselves about what we're doing (by "we" I mean America, not HN). I remember what it was like when we were leading up to war with Iraq and all the intimations about Russia of late feel the same way to me. Lots of big accusations that are baseless but sound truthy.

As far as this particular piece of news, I would push back by suggesting that the Democrats blew the election by running a crappy campaign with a charisma-less DC insider that Americans mostly dislike.

Do I then get to accuse the DNC and everyone who pushed for Clinton against her primary opponents of colluding with Russia? I expect not.

That's all well and good, but the scandal part of it that captured the public's interest was certainly because of the blowjob/where'd the cigar go aspect of it. And I wasn't even referencing Clinton in particular--I'd put things like Anthony Weiner's sexts and Larry Craig's foot tapping in the same category. In the sense, they're on the trivial side of things and mostly get the public attention because of prurience, not salience for good governance.

Republicans use state powers, law enforcement and the judiciary, to criminalize and oppress their opposition and to promote their own interests. I don't see Democrats doing the equivalent of any of the following. I'm not saying that to be partisan, but to point out a very serious situation that has become normalized - I would say the same if the Democrats were doing it. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it is semi-authoritarian.

* Bill Clinton was impeached. As you point out, he did commit perjury. However, the legal standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors; it was one of only two impeachments in 240 years (EDIT: Plus a third, Nixon, who IIRC would have been impeached if he hadn't resigned). Those are very high standards; obviously if Bill Clinton's wrongdoing was the standard far more would have been impeached. In fact, perjury is very rarely prosecuted for anyone. For example, GW Bush ran an illegal surveillance program - a far more serious crime - and there were no consequences.

* The 2000 Presidential election was decided by Republicans on the Supreme Court. Arguably it may also be a legally legitimate decision, but it was apparently a political one, as the vote was party-line.

* Democratic voters are accused of criminal fraud, with no evidence, and the GOP uses the government to suppress their voting.

* Organizations that register Democrats to vote are criminalized and shut down. Acorn is one prominent example of many.

* Organizations that promote Democrat-favored causes are criminalized. Planned Parenthood is one.

* The GOP used state powers to investigate Hillary Clinton endlessly, on Benghazi and her email server (note that nothing was found for either). Trump is still leaving open the possibility of continuing to investigate her. It cost her the election. Compare that to Trump, for whom there are no known investigations despite brazen sexual harassment, sexual harassment of minors, tax fraud, and much more.

* The FBI openly took actions, contrary to its rules and traditions, that undermined Clinton and probably cost her the election.

The list goes on and I think the pattern is clear.

... but later the whole line of inquiry and interview of him was ruled in court to be immaterial to the case. So there's some disagreement with the perspective you're outlining.

What? Seems like a smaller government would be that much cheaper to buy off.

Because people seem to misunderstand this: a government that isn't all-powerful may be easier to buy off but not really. There would be no point in buying off a government that couldn't do any favors, so even if someone does buy it, it won't do them any good. Government growth has created the monster we have today. The US government used to only be worth a few terrifs and some influence on who it fought. Today, buying into government not only influences the wrong type of people to be politicians, it also gives huge amounts of power to the investors. To be a big business and succeed in today's world, you pretty much have to either have some people invested in your company in the government or you have to do some bribes. This isn't a view that the government should have no power, rather power that companies don't care about. The US monopoly policy, tax policies, hiring requirements, and other government-imposed burdens on companies are comparatively easier to buy around instead of following if the company is large enough. Why is wanting a small government bad?

There was nothing there, so that seems unlikely.

My direct response to your question is: the same as when the NSA released theirs. Like I said in the very post you're responding to, there are arguments both ways, but to pick and choose which argument you're using in a way that always happens to disadvantage one candidate is a scandal itself, and likely a criminal violation of the Hatch act.

And as an aside, it was an update to the effect of "we don't actually know anything new, but we found something that might hold something new." And, as we know now, didn't actually contain anything new. There's a reason they call it the October surprise.

When they found new evidence relevant to the Clinton case. As it stands, the situation was "we found some emails of the husband of the aide of a person we investigated". That's not directly relevant to the investigation in any way, and it's not evidence of wrongdoing. They drastically jumped the gun by publically linking it as they did.

At an absolute minimum they should have waited until they knew there was some data both relevant to the investigation and not previously known to the FBI. They should probably also have made sure the evidence implied wrongdoing, out of concern of influencing the election.

This is exactly what Comey was told by the Justice Department, his subordinates, and pretty much everyone else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/comey-clinton-...

> When would it have been alright for the FBI to release the update? If they waited until after the election, the other side would accuse them of covering it up—appropriately so.

The FBI's and Justice Department's long-standing rules on the issue are: 1) Never discuss ongoing investigations; and 2) take great care to never say anything that will at all affect an election.

So while your question is an interesting one, the FBI has two clear, long-standing answers and rules, and they violated them.

There are various interpretations, but the most generous version of it has that Russia and Trump had a coincidence of interest in seeing Clinton defeated, and played off each other to maximize the chances of Trump's victory.

The least generous is the Trump is controlled by the Kremlin, and Putin has installed a toadie he has under his thumb to the US Presidency.

Also, there is evidence of Russian government collaboration with Trump's organization, and the Russian ambassador said his government had talks with Trump's people during the election.

That is a great point. I'm updating my post to reflect this information.

The NSA's statement had a lot of weasel-words in it, and Julian Assange explicitly denied that the emails came from a Russian source.

Do most HN commenters believe that Assange is outright lying?

Not only do they not show that, but emails using the official State Department mail servers were in fact hacked by Russia during the same time period. Her mails were very possibly safer on her own server.

Further, Wikileaks didn't leak her State Department emails. The State Department emails we saw were published by the US Government. Wikileaks published hacked emails from the DNC and from John Podesta.

> The fact that it was a state actor is a red herring. Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

I think it makes a huge difference. The specific parties involved and their intent matters.

Suppose this were a shooting instead of hack. If an unknown US citizen shoots up a mall, it's a headline. If a member of a Foreign military shoots up a US mall, it's an international incident.

> Four years of dissembling and foot dragging caused this.

This is an interesting reminder what this whole scandal is actually about - Benghazi.

The whole dragnet search through emails was actually impelled by a frantic search for some way to claim that Clinton caused the death of American ambassadorial staff by malice, or at least gross negligence. This is a concept that has been thoroughly investigated and debunked at this point. In fact we've probably spent more Congressional time on this than Watergate at this point, and they haven't found a single misdeed. It's the biggest McGuffin since Citizen Kane.

But that's how you do it when you're determined to manufacture a scandal - if you can't find dirt then you can go digging and find some point of non-compliance with the investigation, just like how an investigation of Bill Clinton's blowjob was turned into an investigation of (gasp) perjury. With enough months in front of a Congressional panel, everyone will slip up sooner or later. After all, as the lawyers say - "everyone commits three felonies a day", and it's probably more than that for a government official given all the regulations they need to comply with. They will eventually find something.

By the way, back in the day Watergate was actually a big scandal and news outlets certainly would not have knowingly published private communications that were illegally wiretapped. I think that really goes to show how far American values have fallen since the 70s. Our media has abandoned their journalistic values, and is little more than an outlet for tabloid gossip and clickbait.

> Would it had made any difference if it were an unknown US hacker?

Yes, especially if it was done or aided by a domestic three letter agency.

> Isn't it illegal for Federal employees to attempt in any way to influence an election?

If it is, how does any incumbent (and their cabinet or staff) ever campaign for election to another term?

> Couldn't such a thing be considered "attempting to influence" and expose them to losing their jobs or worse?

The maximum penalty under the Hatch Act is removal from office, so no "or worse" here.

In hindsight that's rather a major fault with the Hatch Act, since it means there's little downside to influencing the election for someone who doesn't care about losing their job, or who expects to lose it anyway if the opposition party wins.

> Isn't it illegal for Federal employees to attempt in any way to influence an election?

It is, but law enforcement and Congress only investigate Democrats at high levels, not Republicans. Trump did many things that may be illegal, but there were no FBI investigations. See this post for more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969225