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Comment by mtgp1000 | Hacker News Reader

I saw a screenshot of a CNN article which said that that the CIA frequently used tactics to make hacks appear as though they were from Russia. Which is something I always suspected was relatively easy to do...change some logs, some timestamps, use some existing code...I'm not a hacker per se, but most of us write code here and deal with these kinds of things...

So does anything in this vault possibly call certain recent allegations of Russian interference into question?

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The intelligence community's opinion that the DNC hack was done by Russia was based upon the single source of a private organization CrowdStrike. But given all the heavy hitting nation states regularly frame others, "Russia's fingerprints" can mean either they did it or they didn't, so it's functionally worthless.

That's completely untrue.

Shawn Henry said "We said that we had a high degree of confidence it was the Russian Government"

Sorry, but "high degree of confidence" is not proof, especially not from the organization that told us Iraq had WMDs with high degrees of confidence.

Additionally, at no point in time did they have access to the hardware.

Are you forgetting that this is the same collection of people responsible for being unable to secure their own hacking tools?

Skepticism of the claims of law enforcement and the intelligence community are good, for a multitude of reasons, but the case here is a lot stronger than you're suggesting and is substantiated by much more than mere finger-pointing by the US government or other governments.

It's unfortunate that the political climate in the US is on such a knife's edge right now that basically no one trusts anyone and everyone is running with their own databases of the facts of the world.

I understand the US government is itself very largely to blame for this deep distrust, but posts like yours make me worried for the next few decades. This isn't a criticism of you at all, but just general concern that things are kind of coming apart at the seams societally. I really hope the "two movies on one screen" phenomenon doesn't escalate to the point that the screen shatters into a billion pieces.

You're either misleading or ill-informed. Since 2016 it is well documented Russia intervened through hacking and disinfo operations.

It's my understanding that nothing truly concrete has been shown to the public?

There has been direct testimony from intelligence officials and thousands of pages of reports including very technical details. Do you want server logs, intercepts, confessions? All these provide nothing of value to the general public.

When intelligence agencies share clear evidence a dictator gassed his own civilian population, no one cares or trolls ask for more evidence.

>When intelligence agencies share clear evidence a dictator gassed his own civilian population

Funnily enough, there's no clear evidence of this. According to OPCW leaked documents there's a higher probability the gas was manually placed at the site. [1] Which of course, calls into question the Syrian government's involvement, especially given earlier intelligence showing ISIS had possession of such chemical weapons.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemic...

You're asking for clear evidence but then using an op-ed from a known controversial journalist on Syria, sharing a Wikileaks leak after the GRU was caught hacking the OPCW ?

Clear evidence you can't fake: a rush of hundreds of people (including children) to the different hospitals near the Khan Sheikhoun site while all showing the same respiratory and neurological symptoms. How can one fool so many doctors?

Here's a breakdown of the exact, and single email/document used to "discredit" all chemical attacks perpetrated by Al-Assad on his population https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/11/25/emails-and-readin...

This seems to be some form of strawman, given I never even implied there was no attack. Merely that it was misattributed according to leaked documents written by chemical experts.

Also, Assad was by all accounts winning the war and pushing back on all fronts at the time. Do you think he's such a lunatic and so strategically bankrupt that he'd launch a chemical attack on his own people while he's winning? Or is it more likely that ISIS launched a false flag attack using chemical weapons that we know they have in order to get the West to do their bidding against Assad?

The Syrian war is a mess, and there are no good guys. The US-backed rebels commit war crimes and behead children, for example.

The source of leaked documents really doesn't concern me as long as they are authentic. For argument's sake, if Snowden was a Kremlin double agent I wouldn't care because he revealed genuine government wrongdoing.

Attacking the source generally isn't a valid argument, especially given the authenticity of the information.

All of that was based on the opinion of a private organization. No intelligence official ever had possession of the server or was involved at any time.

Russia did not limit it's election interference to hacking one single server. This is actually very straightforward.

Here are more details and evidence if you are sincere and want to dig deeper: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

Do you think it's prudent for the intelligence community to allow private organizations to attribute nation state attacks on their behalf without inspecting the evidence?

It's a pretty simple question, and that's what it boils down to.

An account from 3 days ago alleges that the CIA is faking Russian hacking info.

Remember folks: there are disinformation campaigns on HN too.

Maybe they're right, but it's a little suspicious, no?

No, Russian interference allegations were confirmed through other means, mainly human intelligence and other types of intercepts. The dutch even filmed the meddling operations through GRU hacked security camera.

I don't see how the Dutch story is relevant, if it's the one I looked up, and it sounds therefore like there is at best circumstantial evidence. Even motive isn't very reliable because all kinds of people are out to do things like influence the elections.

It is intelligence, not "at best circumstantial evidence". And no, "all kinds of people" did not have the same explicit motives highlighted by the Muller Report, the Senate Committee, or 18 US intelligence agencies showed. I guess spitballing theories on hn is always more accurate than thousands of analysts sharing this analysis in Western countries.

Just one source: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...

An account from 3 days ago alleges that the CIA is faking Russian hacking info. Remember folks: there are disinformation campaigns on HN too.

Maybe they're right, but it's a little suspicious, no?

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