Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet?
Just asking, for a friend :)
Just asking, for a friend :)
The NSA leak weeks later that confirmed sophisticated and documented techniques for making hacks appear to come from somewhere else (e.g. by using existing known-Russian C&C servers) is unrelated, and it's apparently unfathomable to think anyone else would be able to use the same techniques.
Also, none of us have ever read history books, which are full of wars and witch hunts started over unverifiable claims by people in power that turned out to be mistaken (at best) or lies (at worst) to push their agenda.
So I'm not sure why you're asking for concrete evidence. They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you?
Only if it made sense. At nearly every angle you look at, it doesn't.
If the Russians wanted someone they could push around, then Clinton was their candidate. She's the one who signed off on the Uranium deal, and had several large donations she received as SCOTUS from the Russians. John Podesta (her campaign chair) had financial interests in a Kremlin funded company, and was also on several of the corporate the boards of said company.
Compared to Trump (some smoke, no hard evidence, lots of "anonymous sources"), the ties between Clinton and the Russians are way stronger and have far more substance to them. If this is the case, then why would the Russians want someone they know to be a wild card and prone to being impulsive compared to someone they already made deals with, and had far deeper, established relationships with?
If they were going to influence the election and wanted a puppet, it makes 110% more sense to discredit Trump and put Hilary in office.
What large donations from Russia did Clinton receive? Were they comparable to Trump's MANY funding streams from Russian banks? Or multiple of his campaign advisers (not to mention his pick for NSA) having deep Russian ties?
Also wasn't Trump the guy falling all over himself to praise Putin/Russia both on Twitter and in-person? Or explicitly asking for Russia to publish more leaks during one of the presidential debates?
Seems like you have your information pretty mixed up (or simply made up).
Can you post a substantial source for any of your claims?
http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/ (details Trump's many ties to Russia and was written by a Republican to boot.)
On this note, I just want to point out that Russia is the only European country in the world's 10 most populous countries, and that Russia controls more land than any other country on earth (almost twice as much as the second-largest landholder, China).
It should be no surprise that Americans involved in international business will have substantial connections to such a significant world entity.
It's really kind of silly to hear people holding any previous dealing in Russia against anyone that has a remote connection to Donald Trump.
Generic answer for all questions of that general format.
NO!
The caveat is that they aren't disclosing the methods by which they came to this conclusion, so we can't know 100% for sure. It's dependent on our belief in our intelligence agencies to be acting independently and presenting true, unbiased information.
Full-disclosure, I voted for Johnson, and while I am sympathetic to the leaks, had the DNC not been doing shady stuff, there wouldn't have been anything to leak. That being said, I personally believe in our intelligence agencies, so I think it's reasonable to believe that Russians were involved in the U.S. elections. But I hold the DNC more accountable for their loss than the Russians.
For those interested: [0] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
[1] Link to the actual report: apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/the-intelligence-community-report-on-russian-activities-in-the-2016-election/2153/
[2] From DHS: dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national
This is an on-going prolific attack against civilians in addition to the usual military/political targets. Much as Ru MoD regularly targets civilians in Syria such as medics and emergency responders.
All part of Russia's war on the world.
[1] https://citizenlab.org/2017/05/tainted-leaks-disinformation-...
The closest to an in-depth critical look at the evidence presented by the government I've seen so far is probably this: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/did-the-russians-real...
Nevermind that the target of the hacks, hacks who share the same infrastructure, all focus on entities of Moscow's interest.
Navalny, MH17, DNC, Syria, Bellingcat. Gee wonder what the common thread here is.
You posted this comment 7 minutes after I posted the link. 6 minutes prior to that, you posted another comment in this thread, so I know you haven't immediately started reading the article. Since the article is quite long, I highly doubt that you've read it.
And no, none of the presented arguments there are "but Russians wouldn't possibly do that this way".
"“If the guys are really good,” says Chris Finan, CEO of Manifold Technology, “they’re not leaving much evidence or they’re leaving evidence to throw you off the scent entirely.” How plausible is it that Russian intelligence services would fail even to attempt such a fundamental step?"
"On the other hand, sloppiness on the part of developers is not entirely unknown. However, one would expect a nation-state to enforce strict software and document handling procedures and implement rigorous review processes."
"The strings in the code quite transparently indicate its intent, with no attempt at obfuscation. It seems an odd oversight for a nation-state operation, in which plausible deniability would be essential, to overlook that glaring point during software development."
Acting befuddled is not a reasonable means of helping to cast suspicions aside.
Nothing can change who these attacks, sharing the same infrastructure, targeted. Opponents of Russia's current ruling order. Very specific frame up jobs against Putin's political opposition and phishing against civilian analysts who just happened to be making news regarding MH17? Come on now.
The purpose of HN is to gratify intellectual curiosity, not smite enemies. The lines aren't sharply drawable, of course, and it's understandable if discussion crosses into political topics sometimes—but that's quite different from using the forum as a political or ideological platform. We use the 'primarily' test: if an account is primarily using HN that way, it's abusing the site and we ban it.
I guess you didn't check my submission history then. If you want to discuss incivility, trying to frame someone up to meet the metrics for banning seems awful uncivil.