It's really interesting FBI/DHS would make those claims publicly when the chance of having any hard evidence of that would be minimal. But they still did it. Why?
Your question of 'why' seems to be the scariest. US lead activities have been encircling Russia and pressing influence right to their borders for some time. For me I feel its too far and they are cornering the bear. Probably there is too much resource in the 'spy' world and they have to do something to justify their position, hence the older generation keep the pressure on Russia from their cold war agenda or they are looking to pick a fight. The latter being very scary.
...but really I'm no expert and just wonder why countries can put more effort to looking after their own populations needs. All this spy/military expenditure seems so wasteful.
If there were security holes in such a high profile organization, I would assume multiple intelligence agencies may have made interceptions of the data.
The US intercepts communications of even friendly foreign governments, it certainly should be expected that a hostile government is going to try to intercept communications of the US government and related private organizations.
If Julian Assange is to be believed, which I think is fair, my guess is Russia hacked the DNC and RNC, yet the DNC dump came from someone else, internal or external.
Everything about the Russia stories are reminding me of a few years ago when ever hack was caused by China. Of course, because hackers are routing traffic through China and thats where the trail ended!
I've written this here before, but while there is the appearance that the United States Government is unified and trying to do one thing, this is not the case. There are specific individuals, within places such as the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, who have very intentional strategies and agendas which in some cases are totally at odds with the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice. They have done enough to keep long, multi-Presidential administration careers and gain influence in those organizations while avoid being ousted, but they are wielding outsized influence on US foreign policy.
If one tries to explain what the US is doing without acknowledging or understanding the strong opposing forces within the US government, things start sounding really wacky. Most certainly others within the US government including elected officials are guilty of this too, at least in their public statements (which like propaganda can have long term destructive counter-effect of eventually causing the majority of your supporters to fight for made up stories rather than what you were originally intending to do.)
Why? He already has a distain against the US and Clinton. He has no more reason to tell the truth the the state players do.
> Comneys email announcement at the 11th hour about reopening email investigation was probably a deciding variable and that was hardly Russian lead.
This I completely agree with. I think the DNC leaks may have impacted a hundredth of a percent, but Comney contributed in a tenth of a precent. Why would he not intervene? He was almost certainly aware that he would have been job hunting shortly after a Clinton win. He already has shown us his true nature in the whole Apple phone mess which really was more a litmus test then trying to gather real intelligence.
Still at the same time if indeed we had foreign actors engaged in election manipulation that is something we, nor any nation, should not tolerate. And yes we should also look inward as I am fairly certain that we have been guilty of this in the past.
Maybe, although I doubt this is enough, we and others can quit this ongoing manipulation. The US has proved it backfires multiple times in the middle east. Other nations can hopefully learn from our mistakes. I almost hate to bring it up, but.. "Why can't we all just get along". The answer is simple in that folks want to keep jobs and power.
> I'm no expert and just wonder why countries can put more effort to looking after their own populations needs.
If they did then that reduces the fear of those against us. That fear seems to be the driving force of politics in 2016 globally.
Using Mind Control to make Debbie Wasserman Schultz quit as DNC chair for rigging thr Primaries and then same day get a new job with HRC was genius hacking.
It's like poeple think the only thing shady was Comey the Weasel!
If Trump had done basic things like released his tax returns (to show no massive conflict of interest with Russian loans etc) or stopped praising Putin on a regular basis then it would be a lot easier to dismiss concerns about his relationship with Putin and whether they stand to benefit by Trump's election.
Russia/Putin has a history of crushing domestic political dissent (including assassinations) and exploiting xenophobia for political gain. There is NOTHING for the US or any NATO member to admire about Putin or the Russian political system.
Edit. I forgot to mention the proxy war in Syria! Russia has everything to gain by tipping the scales in favour of a politician that upsets that status quo in the US.
The US has wanted Ukraine in NATO for as long as I've been alive if not longer, having forces on the front door of Russia along the European border is something they deeply desire.. US Government's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs even admitted to pouring billions into the effort.[0]
So lets not pretend that the US government is in a morally unquestionable position either.
Courting a country for NATO isn't quite the same as actively invading.
You are 100% correct that it's a game of cat and mouse.
I don't think so, but I really lack the historical knowledge of the previous Cold War. However, Trump's remarks on starting an arms race are really troubling in light of all of this.
Currently this appears to be a tit-for-tat propaganda campaign. Maybe even some blatantly vengeful actions by a departing administration. We already know governments hack each other regularly, so what distinguishes that from some kind of Cold War mobilization of government hackers? A recruitment surge, less activity devoted to China or European nations, mysterious sudden problems in Russia cropping up?
When someone writes a story about a very good malware suite suddenly wrecking Russian infrastructure or collapsing businesses crucial to the Russian economy, then it'll obviously have started.
1) The US helped plot to overthrow the Ukranian government in 2014.
2) Russia was not keen on NATO pushing for Ukraine to become a member, which would literally put the Russians major warm naval port under NATO hands.
3) Crimea has been a part of Russia for centuries, the only reason Crimea became a part of Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union is because the SSR transferred Crimea from the Russian state to the Ukraine state in 1954 to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the Ukraine as part of Russia.
4) The vast majority of the population of Crimea has been for hundreds of years of Russian ethnicity and language.
5) Crimea voted to rejoin Russia
The State of Politics are much deeper than you seem to admit.
Edit: Russia's support for Syria has more to do with the strategic location of Syria and the transportation of Russia's Natural Resources through that territory.
In order to keep Ukraine in its orbit, Russia systematically undermined Ukrainian government and security using corruption (which was extremely effective). However, when a significant number of Ukrainians became more and more convinced with democracy (and here the strong political and cultural Western influence is apparent, nothing secret about it) they finally protested against corrupted politics provided by then-president Yanukovich supported (and controlled) by V.Putin.
With the occupation of Crimea and Donbass (Eastern Ukraine), Russia tries to keep influencing Ukraine in a military way, since the old way through corruption is no longer possible. It also played well internally and ensured electoral support for Putin as Russia economy started declining following the fall of oil prices. The occupation also intentionally demonstrated that the existing international law has no power it claims to have which implies that the global security system should be redesigned.
Ukraine is/was a sovereign nation. Why should Russia stop them from joining NATO if that is what they want? The invasion of their country seems to suggest that a desire for NATO protection was warranted?
Annexing another sovereign nation based upon historical claims and access to a military port is blatant aggression and a return to the cold war mentality (sending unmarked military units over the border? Supplying arms and equipment?).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2...
https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-trainers-ukraine
https://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/west-hems-russia...
From the second link:
"[Nuland's] strong statement of preference for how Ukraine's government should be formed – and apparent confidence that the US has major influence over that – is a reminder of the disconnect between US government assurances that it doesn't meddle in nations' internal politics and its actual behavior (White House spokesman Jay Carney repeats this canard in his comment on the tape.) This was not a conversation analyzing unfolding events and how to respond to what comes next. This was about molding a situation according to US interests."
> Mr. Putin made this decision around Crimea and Ukraine - not because of some grand strategy, but essentially because he was caught off-balance by the protests in the Maidan and Yanukovych then fleeing after we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/02/01/pres-obama-on-f...
2) Emails between the NATO general and US political staff, regarding US involvement in Ukraine politics during that time.
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/01/nato-general-emails/
3) NATO agreed not to expand to the East in 1990 when the SU broke up, and Crimea Voted To Rejoin Russia.
Edit: Feel free to Listen to the Phone call between Nuland and Pyatt from 2014
The second link is specifically about a US general going behind Obama's back in an attempt to escalate the conflict and the third even talks about how Russia is probably having similar conversations.
I don't disagree that the US/EU/NATO hasn't played games in the conflict. I do however think that there is a difference between political games and sending tanks across a border.
Thanks again for the links.
Which is not supported by any claims, except wild Russian propaganda.
> NATO pushing for Ukraine to become a member
Same.
> Crimea has been a part of Russia for centuries
Russia (as is) didn't exist _for centuries_.
> to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the Ukraine as part of Russia
That's wrong on so many levels...
> Crimea voted to rejoin Russia
Sure. _After_ Russia invaded Crimea they've held highly falsified voting which wasn't recognized by any international officials.
All in all, your information tend to be highly skewed to Kremlin propaganda.
2) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/russia-wary-of-nat...
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/04/opinion/la-oe-walker...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2016/09/22/say-no-to-...
3)>"Gifted" because Khrushchev's transfer was ostensibly to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's merger with the Russian empire. And he probably didn't think the Soviet Union would be gone less than 40 years later.
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/02/27/283481587/c...
4) 2/3 of Crimeans are ethnically Russian, and Russians have been the predominant people in Crimea for 100 years
And you've failed to produce any sources for those _many_ claims?
Color me suprprised.
Listen to the hacked Nuland-Pyatt call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV9J6sxCs5k
Ron Paul: U.S. State Dept. Conspired To Overthrow Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZwPy8ogGXc
Ukraine’s Pres. Poroshenko Says Overthrow of Yanukovych Was a Coup http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/06/ukraines-pres-poroshe...
If the population is hostile to the supposed aggressor there's usually guerrilla warfare that starts almost immediately after the invasion.
History has no shortage of examples of this.
Yet there's an absence of this in Crimea.
And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) and allowed soldiers and weapons to flood into Ukraine which then resulted in Flight 117 being shot down.
Nobody is looking for a fight with Russia but capitulating and doing nothing is not an answer either. Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Obama and Josh Earnest have not gone as far as using the word "rigged" but they have essentially implied as much. Other large media outlets have done the same and yes, some have used the word "rigged" directly [1] (and if I dug through CNN / MSNBC / ABC reels I am positive I could find many more examples). Lesser known media outlets and internet commentators have been using the word "rigged" profusely, so it's not "nobody".
> Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Hillary Clinton herself is on video calling for an escalation of that in the form of a military response, shortly after some saber-rattling about the US nuclear arsenal [2].
> And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation)
And you should remember the unprecedented actions that have caused the United States' relations with almost all the world to deteriorate. Claims of influencing foreign elections (c.f. the entire history of the CIA) and widespread hacking (c.f. the NSA essentially pwning the world) are particularly hypocritical.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-elec...
The election was rigged by Russian intelligence, which was almost surely behind the hacking of Democratic emails, which WikiLeaks then released with great fanfare.
It has also morphed into a large percentage of the population believing that Russia hacked voting machines and vote tallies, for which there is absolutely no evidence. This furthers the agenda of deligitimizing the election results.
Here's a list of some of the findings from the leaks, though not all are relevant to this -
> There was also that time when they staged violence at the Trump rallies and blamed it on Bernie supporters.
The DNC did not stage violence at Trump rallies and blame it on Bernie supporters. You're probably thinking about http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/project-veritas-actio..., who incited Trump supporters to violence, which is different from pretending to be a violent Sanders supporter. Zulema Rodriguez also had nothing to do with "rigging the primaries."
I am thinking of that incident and there's a lot going on in that one. You can see Bernie supporters getting blamed here, though:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sanders-supporters-divided-trump-...
The caucuses were heavily skewed in Sanders's favor. Caucusing requires a large time commitment, which favored Sanders supporters over the poor minority Clinton voters. You're probably thinking about the Nevada Convention, which I explained in my previous comment.
> I wasn't personally paying much attention yet, as I'd already assumed Clinton had the nomination in the bag.
She certainly had it in the bag, which makes the claim that she would resort to rigging the primaries even more ludicrous. She got almost 30% more of the popular vote than Sanders. Despite the media wanting to make the race seem close and interesting, it was obvious to even a casual observer like you that it was a landslide.
> You can see Bernie supporters getting blamed here, though:
The people quoted in that article are actual Bernie supporters.
Yes, the US has meddled in international affairs but let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so or that Russia is some benign country that has no history of actively working against the interests of Europe/US/NATO or that Russia doesn't have its own agenda.
For all of the faults of the US/Europe I'm glad I grew up in the "west" rather than behind the Iron curtain. I also don't see millions of people who fled western nations to Russian states - the single direction of political and economic migrants over the last 70 years speaks for itself.
please, are you going to use that argument to bring back slavery? trite and baseless.
Which is an absolutely incorrigible position.
As to being glad that we grew up in Western Europe during the cold war, I have an Albanian friend who is now a professor of economics in the USA. He said that, although living in communism as an adult (Albania had the worst communist, btw) would have sucked, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anything.
I've never met tougher mofos than my Albanian friends or my wife. They know how to have fun, how to behave in groups and nothing scares them. By comparison how many of my peers (or myself) suffer from anxiety, are anti-social (being on your phone in public is very anti-social) or just weird?
Nobody sensible said that, but I've seen more than a few comments along those lines on various sites, enough to believe that general sentiment is commonplace.
As for Comey, I'd say he let her off easy. Take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1Mc6-RDyQ
Then look at the PDF attached here of an email between Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton and ask whether this looks intentional or not:
Just to underscore that, I just linked to a document where Colin Powell describes in detail how they're subverting the law: https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/30324
"However, there is a real danger. If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it [is] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and be subject to the law. Reading about the President's BB rules this morning, it sounds like it won't be as useful as it used to be. Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data."
I don't think it's reasonable to let our politicians get away with this. Inasmuch as people are worried about Russian influence, it seems strange to me that there's no worry about the very leaders to jeopardize our OPSEC with their hubris. Here is Colin Powell, again, saying things that should make HN readers cringe:
"Now, the real issue had to do with PDAs, as we called them a few years ago before BlackBerry became a noun. And the issue was DS would not allow them into the secure spaces, especially up your way. When I asked why not they gave me all kinds of nonsense about how they gave out signals that could be read by spies, etc. Same reason they tried to keep mobile phones out of the suite. I had numerous meetings with them. We even opened one up for them to try to explain to me why it was more dangerous than say, a remote control for one of the many tvs in the suite. Or something embedded in my shoe heel. They never satisfied me and NSA/CIA wouldn't back off. So, we just went about our business and stopped asking. I had an ancient version of a PDA and used it. In general, the suite was so sealed that it is hard to get signals in or out wirelessly."
If the law is so toothless that high ranking people of either party (Powell is a Republican) can deliberately subvert them, then we're always going to be at the mercy of every country with half-decent spies. This is a problem in its own right, independent from whatever partisan considerations we have here.
===
Note: The square brackets in the quote are me fixing typos in the original.
The email between her & Powell would also make it interesting to see whether (g) applies.
For reference, here's 18 USC 793 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
The indictment is here: https://fas.org/sgp/jud/kim/082411-order.pdf
"Kim had a reason to believe that this information could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation"
There was a TS picture of NK on there. Huma Abadeen had access to her device (someone who was born in the USA, but raised in Saudi Arabia) as evidenced by signatures on some emails "from" Hillary. And even if there wasn't that, they should have the ability to prosecute her for all of the false statements made during the investigation (which would be under a completely different statute).
For all the worry about foreign powers influencing the USA, it's undeniable that she and Colin Powell schemed in such a way that jeopardized OPSEC. That will remain an issue as long as people can get away with it.
What false statements did she make under oath during the investigation? Comey specifically said that they have no evidence that she lied to the FBI. http://www.politico.com/blogs/james-comey-testimony/2016/07/...
> There was a TS picture of NK on there. Huma Abadeen [sic] had access to her device (someone who was born in the USA, but raised in Saudi Arabia) as evidenced by signatures on some emails "from" Hillary.
Why mention that she was raised in Saudi Arabia? She is a US citizen who obtained security clearance in 2009, during which the FBI would have thoroughly checked her background. Before you go even further off the reservation, she doesn't have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood either. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...
Let's look at the Kim case because the indictment so clearly draws out the difference with the Clinton case. From the indictment:
"The indictment charges that Kim had a reason to believe that this information could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation and that Kim knowingly and willfully communicated, delivered or transmitted that information to a reporter for a national news organization, who was not entitled to receive that information."
It continues:
"Count Two of the indictment charges that on or about September 24, 2009, Kim denied to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had had any contact with a named reporter for a national news organization since meeting the reporter in or about March 2009. The indictment alleges that Kim actually had repeated contact with the reporter in the months following the March 2009 meeting. The indictment charges that Kim knowingly and willfully made a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation to the FBI in violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)."
Kim knew that giving the national security information to a reporter would get that information seen by a foreign nation to its benefit (violation of the Espionage Act). Then he lied about it to the FBI (violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)). Clinton did neither.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1Mc6-RDyQ
> Why mention that she was raised in Saudi Arabia?
Because it shows how easily the information could escape the US to other countries, even inadvertently. I haven't claimed anything regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, nor was I aware it had been claimed regarding her.
> Kim knew that giving the national security information to a reporter would get that information seen by a foreign nation to its benefit (violation of the Espionage Act). Then he lied about it to the FBI (violation of I8 U.S.C. § IOOI(a)(2)). Clinton did neither.
That North Korean photo we're talking about was discussed with one of her press guys and none of these people who accessed this were cleared for TS information other than Hillary herself. Huma was found emailing Wiener from Hillary's device in at least one case (probably how his laptop got roped into that).
Incidentally, here's the warrant for Wiener's laptop (which mentions all the TS info on this uncleared server, among other things): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1NKixAl7kHoVmp5MkFfTEgwc2s...
And here's the email where they discuss the NK photo they were worried about: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10587
Again, none of those statements were made to the investigators or under oath.
> Because it shows how easily the information could escape the US to other countries, even inadvertently.
Again, that is the FBI's job to determine when doing the security clearance background check.
> That North Korean photo we're talking about was discussed with one of her press guys and none of these people who accessed this were cleared for TS information other than Hillary herself.
What North Korean photo are we talking about? This is the first time you've mentioned it. I suspect you are talking about http://www.wptv.com/news/political/clinton-email-on-north-ko..., which was neither Top Secret nor sent to a news reporter. If it wasn't sent to a news reporter, why do you think this email is anything at all like Kim's case?
"The rumor was not that ODNI had completed the review and determined only one was not TS and the other was, but rather that they had only reached a definitive conclusion on the one (we think the North Korea email that supposedly relied on satellite imagery) and were still deciding on the other."
Again, cite the law. It doesn't exist.
> The statute - 18 U.S.C. Section 793(f) - says nothing about intent.
Again, that section was anulled by case law, in particular Gorin v. United States, which establishes the bright line of scienter for applying this law. That is why Comey said that no prosecutor would bring this charge.
Where are those facts? please show hard evidence. So far I haven't seen any hard evidence that proves it was the state of Russia who orchestrated the hacks.
> And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) and allowed soldiers and weapons to flood into Ukraine which then resulted in Flight 117 being shot down.
If you believe that Russia is absolutely bad and the US and Ukraine are infinitely good and righteous, then you might want to look at what the other side says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHCNk9BYy4
The fact that the majority of the Crimean population is Russian, should give you a hint that maybe there is more to this story than what the Western media says.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea#Demographics
I have yet to see Putin making an aggressive announcement, however US officials continuously keep making threats and sanctions.
> Nobody is looking for a fight with Russia but capitulating and doing nothing is not an answer either. Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that.
Destroying diplomatic relations and throwing sanctions sound like looking for a fight to me. I fail to see anything good coming out of this.
Polish president in 2008 was saying "Today Gorgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after Baltic States and then maybe even Poland". He died in Russia in airplane accident in 2010 when going for anniversary of the Katyn massacre, a mass murder of Polish intellectuals, politicians, and military officers by the Soviets during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible. Last Russian tanks left Poland in 1993 and I don't want to see them back. Not in my life time nor after I'm gone. I'm happy to go with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush or whoever will be elected by the American nation, just to stay as far as possible from Russians. And it's not that we are that big fans of Americans, we just know the history way too well - we are affected by it till this day.
If you want to see what happens when a person like Putin starts to say that the last peace agreements are bad and borders need to be changed then look at the second world war and the Polish history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement
So is that a fear in Poland? That peace with russia would involve handing over parts of your country to Russia?
Which is largely how World War II started in Europe: Stalin and Hitler agreed on a partition of the lands in between, and together started a war to implement that agreement, so that their armies could shake hands in the middle of Poland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
"The agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 (but dated 29 September) after being negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, excluding the Soviet Union."
The German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed in August 1939, almost a year later.
Sure, Chamberlain was wrong with that peace in our time and handing Bohemia to Hitler. But obviously he had difficulty in going to war over it, as well.
And Arthur Harris would have hung as a war criminal if Britain had been on the losing side against Germany. But that's a different story. The two dictators and systems in their countries were the ones most responsible for bloodshed.
That would be "Bucharest" and the whole quote is actually a rumour published by Kommersant who cited a NATO delegation source. Not exactly reliable.
> I'm from Poland and I can tell you that having USA military bases in Poland is a big win for every political force in my country. Left, right, liberal, socialists agree - we want to keep Russians as far as possible.
Don't you realize that the US is looking for a conflict and a future proxy war may be waged in your country exactly because of those bases?
No one is absolutely bad or good but Putin and the Russian government is responsible for the situation in Ukraine.
Ukraine was doing badly enough on its own, it didn't need Russia fucking it over. And its such a stupid panic it's not like Ukraine would have been admitted into EU or Nato, next election or 2 (with a mildly less corrupt/nasty candidate) things would have swung back to Russia friendly candidates.
Russian language started to be used by civilians in 16 century. Before that, it used in churches only. (See Wikipedia for details).
What language your grand....grand parents are used before 16 century?
Also, samples of history are incorrect, causing multiple LOL's.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius
There are many debates on youtube about how much of 1 slavic language a speaker of a different slavic language can understand.
I was recently listening to an episode of Sean's Russia blog that briefly discussed how much Russian is spoken in Ukraine. http://seansrussiablog.org/2015/04/09/post-maidan-ukraine-an...
I was listening to an episode of This American Life recently, the interview subject, who sounded Greek to me, was repeating the Old Slavonic liturgies he sang in his youth during Byzantine Orthodox services.
I'll have to read and find out if Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic are different or the same thing.
It's all over the place. There's no subtlety or nuance in how this issue is reported in the media.
DNC and Podesta email hacks have been turned into Russian hacking of the entire election, and (not accidentally) many are inferring that Russia likely hacked actual voting machines.
Many people seem to be looking for a fight with Russia. Look around on twitter. See the desire for escalation in Syria. Remember the desire for a no fly zone in Syria supported by Hillary Clinton. As General Dunford testified, this would have required war with Russia.
Occam's razor says it's what the DNC wanted them to say. Politically it's a lot easier cop to being penetrated by a state actor than a group like Anonymous, and it allows the Democrats to deflect the conversation from the content of the emails. Well, to make the attempt, anyway.
I'll be curious to see what Trump does with this once he takes office. If there's no compelling evidence of Russian state involvement I suspect he'll direct the relevant agencies to release everything. If he doesn't do that it's going to be difficult for him to cast doubt on the Russian angle.
Just an observation: I don't recall until very recently the DNC or the RNC to refer to the parties, as opposed to the Democratic Party or Republican Party. I wonder why the shift? The focus on the Podesta/DNC emails? Makes sense during the election, and now it seems to have transferred over to referring to the party as part of the government (e.g., in reference to the FBI or DHS). Last time I remember the DNC being mentioned so much by name was during the Bill Clinton campaigns, in contrast to the Democratic Leadership Council. My memory can be faulty and selective, so I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this as well. (Anyone else remember Sinbad in Shazam?)
b) It has been claimed that this document is more a guide for other companies and government agencies about the type of techniques that Russia allegedly used. General education about security is still pretty low and the US government et al are going to need to more in this area.
Inasmuch as it's a guide for other agencies, they'd be better served by OWASP recommendations. It's not clear what anyone could do with a report like this. I don't see any great takeaways that one could add to the next revision of their STIG. There are no 0-days for an IAVA.
As long as we're going for pure speculation, I think that Kim Dotcom hired Ukranian hackers and I could potentially find weak circumstantial evidence by going through a timeline of his Tweets. I seem to remember that he had foreknowledge of some of the items to be leaked, though that could've been pure BS and I didn't really investigate it at the time. He also has motive based on this administration's treatment of him.
EDIT: Found it -
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-14/kim-d...