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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.

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.

These are excellent points. I think everyone has forgotten that the cold war was a big deal and the world took a breath of fresh air when it ended. The largely unsubstantiated anti-Russian rhetoric is (regardless of whether it is true or false) provocative and dangerous, and I think quite irresponsible.

Perhaps its evidence that the NSA needs to shift resources from its data collections apparatus to securing our nation's own resources. But, no instead its used as evidence to beat the war drum.

My most likely scenario for war is Putin thinking he has more control over Trump than he does, launching an aggressive attack against Russia's neighbors, and then Trump feeling embarrassed and responding in kind.

But I agree wholeheartedly: the first and foremost purpose of the NSA should be securing the USA's IT infrastructure.

>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.

  > we can't read the emails between Assange and Putin.

Perhaps some person or organization that believes in radical transparency will leak them.

>There exists significantly better technical evidence of Russian involvement available to the public.

Could you share?

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).

Incriminate them for what? How, with that line of thinking?