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Greg McDonald wrote on Saturday 2018.07.28: > Did someone say something about no evidence of Russian hacking? Yes, that was me, on Friday, 2018.07.27. I was responding to a previous post by Jason Hicks, made Thursday 2018.07.26. Hicks’ post specifically referenced the leak of DNC e-mails through the efforts of Russia or Wikileaks or a disgruntled DNC staffer or (take your pick), and said that “it's clear that it was Russian intelligence”. Although I wasn’t clear that I was being specific about the DNC e-mail leak (sorry), I did mention Julian Assange in my post, and I think that’s the only mischief he’s been commonly accused of in connection with the 2016 election. Yes, the Intercept piece of Monday 2017.06.05, referenced by Greg McDonald in his post, does, indeed present some evidence that spearphishing was done in connection with the election. The attached leaked NSA document, dated Friday 2017.05.05 (?), refers to, and describes, a specific e-mail attachment, even providing message digests to allow it to be identified. The NSA document asserted that the associated e-mails were the product of Russian intelligence, and I have no opinion on that. Nowhere, however, is there any evidence in the document itself why this assertion was made; I presume that the NSA document is to be read in the context of additional documents we don’t have. The chart at the end characterizes some statements of GRU involvement as “Analyst Judgement”. However, evidence linking the spearphishing attack to the GRU is omitted from the document, presumably to be found elsewhere. As far as the e-mail attachment itself goes, it might have been done by anyone with an elementary knowledge of Visual Basic and the English language, from a high school student in Omaha to a scammer in Nairobi to an officer of the GRU. Much of the evidence regarding the source of the e-mails would be found in the headers, which are not discussed in the document. Nevertheless, nothing looks (pardon the pun) fishy here. Weaknesses in voting systems have been discussed since at least as far back as the late 1990s. I recall, but my memory may be faulty here regarding the exact date, presentations at Defcon (an annual hackers’ conference) around two decades ago. No one was surprised when the problems started to become big news with the 2000 election. Yet, we’re still seeing not much action to change things. Another weakness (some vendor was stupid enough to put PCAnywhere into voting machines) recently surfaced. Does anyone really care? We know people have been breaking into election systems for a long time, I’d be amazed if the Russian government weren’t getting in on the fun. But the press and the politicians are so upset about this Russian thing, somebody ain’t telling the truth. But I’m still waiting for evidence that Wikileaks did anything to encourage the DNC e-mail leak, beyond providing a publishing platform, in the same way that (say) demonstrators might be encouraged to turn out for a march or protest by knowing that they’ll get some news coverage. I’m still waiting for any evidence that the Russians exfiltrated the e-mails, or that they were leaked by a DNC staffer, or any other actual clue – beyond speculation – to who released the e-mails, or how it was done. Given the controversy, I can’t see any legitimate reason not to release some evidence to put to rest (or maybe just to tranquilize) the issue. We (in the U.S.) have a President who makes things up as he goes along, intelligence agencies known to have lied to the people and to Congress, reporters excluded from press events as a consequence of asking “inappropriate” questions, a gutless and unprincipled government in general (the best that money can buy!), and media that refuse to delve into forbidden territories in any meaningful way. So with the chorus chanting “the Russians did it” (which might be entirely plausible but you’re ill advised to make up propaganda that can’t be made to appear plausible), but with no evidence, I’m not prepared to believe anyone. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
