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Comment by jnurmine | Hacker News Reader

Norway likely has irrefutable proof, at least enough so that it can confidently claim another nation was behind it all. Also, presenting detailed proof could reveal something about Norway's capabilities which they'd rather keep hidden.

Now, let's play a thought game: what would happen if Norway DID in fact present evidence and proof?

In the end, no amount of evidence would be enough or credible enough or good enough or acceptable enough etc.

This has been heard already in numerous cases such as GPS jamming in Northern Norway, poisoning of an opposition politician, interference in elections, shoot-down of a civilian passenger aircraft, deploying a military nerve agent in Salisbury, failed coup plot in Montenegro, and so on.

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You can't have "irrefutable proof" on the Internet. On the internet nobody even knows if you're a dog or not. It is strange to me that we have people on this otherwise pretty "technical" site who believe otherwise.

Who says they use the internet for the evidence?

Maybe they have infiltrated the organization who did the attack.

Maybe they were warned by some other nation who had done so.

Maybe they were listening in on the C&C traffic.

Maybe they were tipped off by Russia itself.

Maybe the attackers were sloppy fools.

There are tons of avenues how this could have played out, which would be sensitive to reveal in detail.

Maybe there's a teapot orbiting Mars?

Or maybe Russell himself is orbiting Mars, but it is irrelevant to this discussion.

Those are possible, plausible and falsifiable reasons for having non-internet-based evidence. If any of those reasons were true, Norway would likely stay quiet about the details.

> presenting detailed proof could reveal something about Norway's capabilities which they'd rather keep hidden

Then they can also keep this accusation out of the public eye and deal with this on a diplomatic, which is where these kind of things should be (first) dealt with anyways (as least according to protocol). And this is exactly where so many political accusation lately go off the rails, because although most people are blissfully unaware of it (and hence make them good useful idiots to have the wool pulled over their eyes), these direct political attacks without presented proofs are very much against both the spirit and also the letter of the protocols for such situation.

I have to admit that in this particular case I don't know if diplomatic protocols have not been first exhausted before going public like this, but in many other cases that step certainly has been skipped/omitted. Which in themselves were pretty darn shameful violations in their own right. No, some people argue that it is warranted because Russia is doing wrong in the first place, which of course fully hinges on the assumption that the claims are valid in the first place (without any chance to verify this). However, nowhere does it say that such situations should null and void diplomatic protocols, so this line of reasoning is actually politicized hogwash.

> no amount of evidence would be enough or credible enough or good enough or acceptable enough etc

Where did you get that? If you know how this "game" actually works, you would know that at some level there will be matching/corroborating information coming from source that are not all controlled by the same interests (or group of interests). I've heard this (false) argument that it all comes don't to trust in whoever provides whatever evidence, but that just isn't true. With enough detailed information (which of course and conveniently is never given; should give rise to enough doubts on its own) it is most certainly possible to give a credibility to such evidence that goes way beyond just the credibility of the source of the damning details itself. I've personally seen cases where this was done, among nations that usually have different or even opposing agendas. But when it comes to (most) accusations towards Russia, the most striking part is always the total absence of any evidence at all. Since when have we become all this gullible, that we just believe organization who themselves have questionable track records on their good word and reputation?

Nah, that just doesn't cut it for me. For for anyone to whom it does, good luck with that unwavering faith (which in my opinion goes straight against logic).

>> no amount of evidence would be enough or credible enough or good enough or acceptable enough etc >Where did you get that?

Well, from the fact that there usually is evidence provided, and such evidence usually gets denied by either the high-ranking state officials, and/or state-controlled media and/or state-controlled social media accounts and/or similar channels. In any case the real evidence is seldom presented at all, let alone neutrally, on the state-controlled channels.

Just look at the cases I listed. There is no doubt of deep involvement. Yet in all cases the provided evidence is "fantasy" or "fabrications" or ultimately a "NATO plot" or even waved off as some form of totally illogical hatred of the Russian people (!).

Then there's also the counter-evidences, which are often clumsy attempts to add confusion to the real evidences and to delegitimize the original claims of guilt. For example, in the MH17 case, there was satellite imagery of a fighter jet firing missiles and so on. In the Navalny nerve agent poisoning case there was a "phone call between Warsaw and Berlin".

Sadly, and predictably, denial of presented evidence is the usual reaction and a deliberate part of the communication strategy employed.

On one hand, it is completely logical, because accepting the evidence would be an admission of guilt and such a thing never seems to be done. On the other hand, given their ongoing track record of aggressive and rather expansionist rhetoric, bullying their neighbouring countries and the tendency of always denying evidence, even for things which are clearly their doings, why should any nation think Russia is innocent if something points to Russia?

> the most striking part is always the total absence of any evidence at all

No, there is no "total absence of evidence". There is usually plenty of evidence. And from this we go back to the deliberate strategy of rejecting evidence; the evidence is always somehow lacking, incomplete, inaccurate, etc. or that there is no evidence at all.

The bottom line is that unfortunately Russia is perceived to be like a bully against its neighbouring countries in its West and North-West because of its words and actions. If it stopped doing the needless bullying, maybe those neighbouring countries wouldn't be so fast to point the finger at Russia.

It's so funny how you're very quick to point out that the evidence would be denied, at the same time, we're still not even provided any evidence at all. The link is literally empty; there's nothing more at the link than the custom title we see here.

So, basically, if it comes down to Russia being the defendant, the mere accusation alone should already be sufficient, because Russia always denies the validity of evidence, so, hence there's no need to provide any, because it'll only make it easier for the defendant to defend themselves, when all the evidence is on public display?!

And this happens every single time? If Russia is the defendant, then they're surely guilty? So, we shouldn't even go into the trouble of bothering to collect or examine the evidence? I mean, can you even remember any time, any one single time, when Russia was accused merely for political gain, and we should have been smarter than taking the bait?

>The bottom line is that unfortunately Russia is perceived to be like a bully against its neighbouring countries in its West and North-West because of its words and actions. If it stopped doing the needless bullying, maybe those neighbouring countries wouldn't be so fast to point the finger at Russia.

Sure, that's really the reason. As with everything above it, you may want to hone your skills in differentiating propaganda from (corroborated) facts.

As for the cases you mentioned, there certainly are doubts about (deep) involvement of Russia. For starters because most of the purported evidence really does raise questions about its reliability and in some cases has been shown to not add up. Mind you, I'm not saying this means Russia is innocent. Just that the evidence is inconclusive and in some cases highly questionable (at best).

You of course can frame any such doubts as if all "evidence" is just categorically going to be rejected or denied, but that will on you. I don't know how long you have been around and whether you've moved around a lot, but after decades of rather "hands on" experience with how NATO member (often on USA command) have done all kind of (increasingly) questionable things to further their agenda. If you can say with a straight face that this organization to not lie or produces falsified evidence, than you've clearly have little actual experience with being on the receiving end of their efforts.

Please do take into account that it is you who is talking like there is an already established fact, that Russia is as bad as you claim, while in reality all of that is derived from rather questionable assertions and in more than a few cases obvious propaganda.

I don't claim that Russia is good or bad. That's a complicated discussion and a whole different story, which sadly can hardly be had with most Americans anyways, because the majority is already too presumptuous and indoctrinated to even have a level and honest discussion about it.

What this is about is if there is credible evidence that Russia is (to a high degree of likelihood) guilty of the things you claim(ed) about them. To the best of my knowledge, the answer to that is a clear no. In fact, all I have seen regarding that for the last two decades or so, has been (pretty much without exception) propaganda, framed, falsified or otherwise not passing the bar of credibility.

But feel free to believe otherwise. I'm pretty sure that time will teach you. Especially since the apparatus that has been pushing all this garbage, is slow but surely creeping towards its inevitable demise. There will be a lot of skeletons falling from closets, you better believe it. In fact, you'd be lucky when those who have suffered from these "games" (and many innocent citizens certainly have) will be forgiving when the full extend of this shit show really comes to light. It will pale both Wikileaks and Snowden in comparison.

> which sadly can hardly be had with most Americans anyways, because the majority is already too presumptuous and indoctrinated to even have a level and honest discussion about it.

As opposed to pure and non-indoctrinated Russians, the single bearer of truth?

I mean, I'm sure you're inflating Putin's ego massively by attributing superhuman powers to GRU, and in particular to its cyberwarfare arm. But if I were to bet my own money, I'd say the Russian government's capability for anything other than than Nigerian prince style phishing is quite limited. Why? Because in Russia government employees are paid a pittance, and soldiers are paid even less, so they do not get the best people. Shit, they didn't even get _me_, and I have no illusions about being the best at anything other than shitposting on HN.

I believe it can be interesting to examine how for example the GPS jamming situation in Northern Norway has developed:

There are reports of GPS jamming happening already in 2017.

In 2018, GPS was jammed during the NATO Trident Juncture exercise, the diplomatic routes were tried, and Russia denied everything: "Initial diplomatic contacts between Nordic governments and Moscow has produced a flat denial that Russia was behind the GPS signal-jamming." [1]

President Putin's senior press spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated the usual message of innocence and victimhood: "There is a tendency to blame Russia for all sins in general. As a rule, these allegations are found to have no basis in actual fact" [1]

Committee of Foreign Affairs chairman Vanhanen of Finland said Norway's intelligence is trustworthy and in any case Norway won't release technical military data: "There is every reason to trust Norway and its intelligence. It’s unlikely that Norway will publicly disclose the methods behind its assessment. As no technical evidence will be offered in the public domain, we may end up in a situation where Russia just denies it. We need to tell Russia that we do not accept disturbances of this kind in our airspace" [1]

Year 2019: GPS is again jammed in Northern Norway. Norway now has electronic evidence it was Russia. Russia asked for evidence. Norway provided the civilian-side evidence. Result: no reply from Russia.

Again, the message of innocence, victimhood and lack for evidence were made; "The [Russian] Embassy called for evidence." [2] and Zakharova (foreign minister Lavrov's spokesman) "even named the accusations “absurd histories” and said western politicians are making it a habit to blame Russia for all kind of incidents without providing evidence." [2]

The Norwegians say they have provided the data: "“We believe this is not acceptable and we have provided the information we have from the civilian side. They asked for our data, and we gave it to them,” [foreign minister] Eriksen Søreide says and underlines that Russia, so far, has not responded to the data." [3]

There is a mention of a dialogue having started but where this went is not elaborated.

Now, in the year 2020: GPS jamming still happens. "“The last incident was not long ago. In April/May this year we registered another episode. ..., says Police Chief Ellen Katrine Hætta to High North News." [3]

"District Police Chief Ellen Katrine Hætta first noticed jamming in 2017 and then notified the Norwegian Police Directorate. The National Security Authority has analyzed the jamming and in September 2018 verified that the jamming came from the east. The intelligence services have concluded that Russia was behind it." [3]

There is a pattern.

Now, disturbing navigational systems in an wilderness-rich area like Finnmark and Northern Lapland is dangerous, and if it is done intentionally, it is an aggressive move and not anything innocent friendly nations should be doing.

Maybe some of those cases were somehow accidental, but why not just come out and say so?

> which sadly can hardly be had with most Americans anyways

I honestly have no frame of reference for this, since I'm not an American and have no experience discussing these issues with Americans.

As for apparatuses creeping to their inevitable demise, President Putin is, however sparky and bright, not by any means immortal, and there is no clear successor defined. There are rumors but that is all. Once Putin loses control for whatever reason, a rush to grab political and economical power is likely to ensue and more than likely to become messy, and no doubt skeletons will fall not only from closets, but windows, too.

[1] https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/16/finland...

[2] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/03/russian-m...

[3] https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/gps-jamming-still-causing-p...

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