KremlinGate

'Proved right'. Hardly. No proof, no collusion, only propaganda, gullible dupes and useful idiots. Remember McCarthy. Remember Orwell. 

After Helsinki: Russia Must Be Destroyed (podcast)

https://t.co/KfB63o97QP

"The Helsinki Summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin should have been hailed as a momentous event, considering the catastrophic state of US-Russia relations. But instead the US President has been branded a traitor by the western media and political class, as Jon Wight and George Szamuely discuss..."

A Walk on the Wild Side as Trump Meets Putin at Finland Station

http://www.atimes.com/article/a-walk-on-the-wild-side-as-trump-meets-put...

"The Cold War is a thing of the past.' By the time President Putin said as much during preliminary remarks at his joint press conference with President Trump in Helsinki, it was clear this would not stand. Not after so much investment by American conservatives in Cold War 2.0. Russophobia is a 24/7 industry, and all concerned, including its media vassals, remain absolutely livid with the 'disgraceful' Trump-Putin presser. Trump has 'colluded with Russia.' How could the President of the United States promote 'moral equivalence' with a 'world-class thug?'

It was inevitable that a strategically crucial summit between the Russian and American president would be hijacked by the dementia of the US news cycle."

For anyone who may be interested in actual information, Micah Lee, the computer security expert at The Intercept, has a piece up carefully analyzing the contents of the indictment from last Friday. If anyone can read this and still believe that the GRU was not responsible for successful attacks on the DCCC and DNC computer networks, please tell us what specific allegations you disbelieve.

It is still possible to believe that these events did not change the outcome of the election, and/or that the Trump campaign was in no way involved, but there is no longer any rational way of denying that the GRU did the hacks in an attempt to help Trump.

[quote=Michael Moriarity]

 there is no longer any rational way of denying that the GRU did the hacks in an attempt to help Trump.

[quote=NDPP]

"With Friday's indictments  of Russian intelligence officers,  Ray McGovern and Bill Binney have written an open letter to President Trump making clear that the 'evidence' behind the indictments is as fraudulent as the intelligence alleging WMD in Iraq..."

Memo to the President Ahead of Monday's Summit

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/15/memo-to-the-president-ahead-of-mon...

PS: 'Rosenstein acknowledged that the indictments included no charges of collusion between any American citizens and the alleged Russian hackers. He added, 'There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result.' [See #1105]

Unbiased is right. A plague on both their houses. I identify with neither, how could you possibly?

NDPP wrote:

"Gallup recently did a poll of what Americans say is the most important problems facing the country. One finding: The percentage of Americans saying 'Situation with Russia' is the most important problem is literally too small to represent with a number."

https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1019243052261666816

At one point Americans didn't think Watergate was a problem either.

I don't...

https://youtu.be/nkF6WpWAxy8

Russia is not the problem. Brainwashing, gullibility and wilfull ignorance are. Furthermore, as has been made abundantly clear, the truth means nothing to some. If it's the wrong truth they hate it and overwhelmingly prefer the lie. 

It seems that some people are feverishly trying to discredit the Mueller Investigation before it presents its findings.

Putin personally ordered the cyberattack on the DNC and John Podesta.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/europe/trump-intelligence-russian-election-meddling-.html#click=https://t.co/l844uns5la

The 'Treason' Charge Against Donald Trump

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/19/pers-j19.html

"...The idea that Trump is an agent of the Kremlin has as much credibility as similar charges leveled more than half a century ago by the likes of McCarthy, Stormer and the John Birch Society against Eisenhower and Kennedy. The fact that the Democratic Party is resurrecting a narrative associated with the most right-wing elements of the American political spectrum has ominous implications.

That expressing skepticism as to the veracity and integrity of the CIA, FBI and NSA can be branded as treason repeats a stark warning of the dangers of a US police state. These are the interests expressed by the Democrats, the consummate party of Wall Street and the CIA..."

The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1019936133147516929

What a sad spectacle seeing Stephen Cohen describing Trump as profound, and treating him as if he were some foreign policy mastermind.  Trump is a totally transactional being.  He is simply repaying Russia for the financial lifeline it gave him over the years and the election support it gave him through its cyberspace Watergate against the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate.  And whatever else it has on and over him.

"Russiagate Mind Explosion: Alexei Navalny, the anti-Putin political activist, supported and endorsed Maria Butina, the gun lobbyist charged with pro-Putin espionage. 'Maria Butina lobbies for gun rights and is practically the only candidate running a good election campaign...she's worthy of your support,' Alexei Navalny (He's a gun-nut too.)"

https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1019287994447155200

'Russophobia Runs Amok' (and vid)

https://on.rt.com/9apy

These American scholars say the real threat to the US is Russophobia...

Helsinki Summit: Trump and Putin Respond to Mueller Indictments

https://off-guardian.org/2018/07/18/helsinki-summit-trump-and-putin-resp...

"So: this is a matter of importance not only to the validity (or not) of the Magnitsky Act economic sanctions against Russia, but to the Russiagate accusations regarding US President Donald Trump..."

bekayne wrote:

NDPP wrote:

 

"The anti-Trump 'Resistance' movement is the Mona Lisa of psyops, the Last Supper of propaganda. It's managed to get every quasi-lefty in the Western world to line up with the CIA, FBI, NSA and NATO, and somehow still believe they're 'anti-establishment."

https://twitter.com/OffGuardian0/status/1019307608732258305

"There's a sucker born every minute." - PT Barnum

As opposed to lining up with the right wing governments of Putin and Trump.

I lived through the Cold War false dichotomy and became an anarchist instead. I am perfectly capable of both hating the Democrats and the Republicans at the same time just as I am capable of hating any totalitarian government no matter what ideaology they claim to suscribe to.

Trump is the Orange Herring and he plays his role well. While the whole world is talking about his latest stupids statement or action the US government from both sides of the House voted in one of the largest military budgets in history and is pressuring all NATO countries to spend more on their war machines. I am not happy to see our population being whipped into a war mentality against either Russia or China because I'm both an old fashioned peace activist and live near a NATO air force base that could be a target.

When NATO broke its promises not to expand into Eastern Europe it led to another arms race. We now have new generations of weapons being built instead of disarmament. After you are done laughing at my inane fears you can get back to cheerleading for your side in the great race to armageddon.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/putin-russia-new-nuclear-weapons-test-inte...

WWWTT wrote:

I didn't find anything there that would be specific enough to say the GRU is responsible.

Just because some of these addresses are from Moscow really means nothing. If anything, why would the Russians take such a risk of getting caught when they can easily hire hackers from other regions in the world?

No sorry MM but these charges to me really don't mean anything. Nothing will ever come out of them anyways because these individuals will never come to the US to stand trial. And the US inquiry isn't aware of this?!?!?!?!

How much you want to bet this will go nowhere beyond a bunch of accusations?

I give this till 2020, by then the next US election will put this 2M under and the US corporate media circus will move on to the next freek show.

I don't know how technical you are, but I have been a software developer for 40 years, and I regularly read a number of sources on the details of internet security. To my eyes, this evidence is very convincing. If you don't find it so, I suspect you either don't have the background knowledge, or don't want to believe your own lying eyes.

You may very well be right that nothing will come of it, but that is because of social and political factors, not because the hacking didn't happen, or the GRU didn't do it.

@ MM

Yes of course I read your links! And I ask again, where’s the evidence that these accused where directed by Russian intelligence? All I have seen is hearsay accusation. 

Anyone could have paid these hackers. 

Not only that, as you pointed out this happens all over the world!

Remember this

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/18/sony-hack-timeline-interview-north-korea/20601645/

again, absolutely nothing concrete just hearsay 

WWWTT wrote:

@ MM

Yes of course I read your links! And I ask again, where’s the evidence that these accused where directed by Russian intelligence? All I have seen is hearsay accusation. 

Anyone could have paid these hackers. 

Not only that, as you pointed out this happens all over the world!

Remember this

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/18/sony-hack-timeline-interview-north-korea/20601645/

again, absolutely nothing concrete just hearsay 

OK, let's take a swing at this.

Point zero is that I am assuming that the prosecutors who drafted the indictment aren't making it all up, but they actually do have some evidence of the things they allege. It is logically possible that the whole thing could be a fantasy with no connection to reality. If that is the case, none of the other points matter, because a complicated, consistent set of lies are still lies.

Point one is that throughout the indictment there are connections that indicate the various acts were done by the same group in a coordinated way, not by an assortment of different groups.

Micah Lee wrote:

The indictment says that the organization DCLeaks, which claimed that it was started by a group of “American hacktivists,” and the persona Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be a Romanian “lone hacker,” are both controlled by the named Russian intelligence officers. DCLeaks operated the website dcleaks.com and the Twitter account @dcleaks_, and Guccifer 2.0 operated the website guccifer2.wordpress.com and the Twitter account @Guccifer_2.

Russian officers took steps to anonymize their hacking and infrastructure, according to the indictment, trying to leave no trace of their identity as they rented servers, registered internet domain names, and set up accounts for email, Twitter, and other uses. But they didn’t do the best job compartmentalizing this infrastructure. This allowed Mueller’s team to confirm that the same people were behind a number of ostensibly distinct operations: DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, the spear-phishing campaign, and the hacks of the DCCC and DNC networks.

For example, the spear-phishing emails that John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair, and others received included links to the URL shortening service Bitly. The Bitly account that created these links was registered using the email address “[email protected].” The attackers used that same email address to create an account on a provider where they leased a server, which they paid for using an “online cryptocurrency service” (based on the wording of some instructions quoted in the indictment, I think the service in question may be BitPay). This same cryptocurrency account was used to pay for registering the domain name dcleaks.com. This means that whoever was behind the spear-phishing campaign (and thus the DCCC and DNC hacks) also bought the domain name dcleaks.com, and also leased this server.

Point two is that the actions of specific individuals, on specific dates are listed in such great detail that their actions must have been surveilled in real time.

Micah Lee wrote:

One thing that stood out while reading the indictment is how many times the document mentioned exactly what one of the defendants, GRU cyber operations officer Ivan Yermakov, was researching on the internet, and when:

• “On or about March 28, 2016, YERMAKOV researched the names of Victims 1 and 2 and their association with Clinton on various social media sites.”
• “For example, beginning on or about March 15, 2016, YERMAKOV ran a technical query for the DNC’s internet protocol configurations to identify connected devices.”, “On or about the same day, YERMAKOV searched for open-source information about the DNC network, the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton.”, “On or about April 7, 2016, YERMAKOV ran a technical query for the DCCC’s internet protocol configurations to identify connected devices.”
• “During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server.”
• “On or about May 31, 2016, YERMAKOV searched for open-source information about Company 1 [CrowdStrike] and its reporting on X-Agent and X-Tunnel.”

How could the U.S. investigators have access to this information? Two explanations come to mind. The most likely is that the National Security Agency — or a foreign partner, like the Dutch intelligence service AIVD, reported to have provided information on the 2016 election-related hacks to U.S. authorities — compromised Yermakov’s computer and regularly logged his keystrokes or accessed his browser history. Another explanation would be that Yermakov used Google while logged into an account to do these searches, and the investigators learned his search history from Google. I find the latter to be less convincing because the search engine Yandex is much more popular in Russia, and are GRU officers really stupid enough to use California-based Google?

Point three is that there was a login to the Guccifer2 twitter account that didn't go through a vpn, and thus showed the IP address of a GRU network in Moscow. This ties all the actions together as coming from that GRU network.

Micah Lee wrote:

Someone used “the same pool of bitcoin funds” to pay for a Malaysian VPN service, as well as a Malaysian server to host the dcleaks.com website, the indictment states. Months later, someone logged into the @Guccifer_2 Twitter account from that same Malaysian VPN account. This confirms that the same people who are behind dcleaks.com also have access to the @Guccifer_2 Twitter account.

What isn’t mentioned in the indictment is that, on one occasion, someone reportedly logged into the @Guccifer_2 Twitter account without connecting to a VPN service first, revealing their real IP address. “Working off the IP address,” the Daily Beast stated in March, “U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.”

Point four is that the indictment contains information that almost certainly came from the logs of various companies that were used in the intrusions.  If someone has access to all these records, which the prosecutors would have, it is reasonably easy to string together the bits and pieces of evidence in a meaningful way.

Micah Lee wrote:

The quantity of technical details related to GRU’s 2016 cyberattacks show that the U.S. government has some impressive capabilities. But the primary capability they appear to have used wasn’t technical, it was legal: the subpoena. The U.S. government can compel companies to hand over data.

Based on reading the indictment, I think that the U.S. government almost certainly received data from Bitly, Twitter, Facebook, Google, WordPress, and probably from several other companies, including BitPay or other cryptocurrency payment processors, VPN providers, VPS hosting providers, and domain name registrars, among others. (Twitter and WordPress declined to comment. BitPay said, “BitPay has received subpoenas from U.S. government agencies but how the information is to be used or why it is requested is not shared with us.” Facebook and Google did not respond to a request for comment.)

With access to all of the information that companies have related to specific accounts, like IP addresses the attackers used to login to services from, time stamps of when they were active, copies of emails and direct messages sent, and potentially images of the hard drives attached to servers used in the attack, it’s possible to paint a very detailed picture.

What we see is that all the actions in the indictment were done by a single group. That group was sophisticated enough that it was almost certainly a state actor. The GRU is named, as are specific individuals in that organization. This seems to be based on having compromised the computers used by at least some of these individuals.

Unless the whole indictment is a fabric of lies, which I consider quite unlikely, there are logs and other records which can back up all the allegations, due to the very nature of these allegations. These can't just be guesses, they must be either lies or facts. I consider it overwhelmingly likely that they are facts, but that's just my opinion.