
Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election - ccnafr
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election
======
mciak
Two things stand out to me here:

(1) CrowdStrike, for all intents and purposes, failed. Russia had access to
dem servers for four months after they were hired

(2) Donors trying to use ActBlue (fairly major way dems raise money) were
taken to a spoofed Russian site. Stealing democratic campaign donations feels
like a very direct attack on the democratic process

------
neeksHN
> At trial, prosecutors must introduce credible evidence that is sufficient to
> prove each defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to the unanimous
> satisfaction of a jury of twelve citizens.

> This case was investigated with the help of the FBI’s cyber teams in
> Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and San Francisco and the National Security
> Division.

Assuming this never goes to trial, could the DOJ ever be compelled to release
the evidence used to attribute the defendants? Or will it remain "pending
arraignment" indefinitely?

I'd love to see an in-depth technical analysis of how they were able to
substantiate these allegations

~~~
onetimemanytime
My guess is that Russia will fund one charged guy to hire a a top US lawyer
and fight the charges.

A Russian company--allegedly doing Russia's dirty work--hired top US lawyers
and they are giving DOJ a heartburn...they must share evidence (can tell how
it was obtained) and get ready to go to trial.
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/09/concord-
manag...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/09/concord-management-
arraignment-russia-investigation/594454002/)

~~~
hollerith
I think the US intelligence community is competent and influential enough to
get the DOJ to drop the charges before Russia gained significant knowledge
that way.

------
silveira
Full indictment document:
[https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download)

~~~
toufka
So GRU, during Moscow work-hours, searched for terms like: "worldwide known",
"think twice about", "some hundred sheets", and "company's competence".

And those terms happen to all show up later that day in this post:
[https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/](https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/)

We all here talked about that release at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412)

Our top comment suggested, "The media (and CrowdStrike) blame Russians for it
[0]. Heh... yet this blog and the hacker himself, says he did it alone. //
Yes, APTs definitely do happen but I'd bet they happen a lot less frequently
than the media and security companies would want us to believe."

Those same computers controlled the twitter accounts, @dceaks_
([https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en](https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en)),
@Guccifer_2 ([https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2](https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2))
and the now-suspended, @BaltimoreIsWhr.

Those computers also negotiated bitcoin transactions for VPN services, made
numerous encouraging facebook posts, transferred data to WikiLeaks, and
registered relevant domain names.

And finally those computers communicated with:

1) a candidate for US Congress,

2) a registered state lobbyist,

3) a reporter,

4) a senior member of the Trump campaign.

Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're
listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And
those same computers, that same day, "attempted after hours to spearphish for
the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."

~~~
koolba
> Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're
> listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
> And those same computers, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first
> time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."

Anyone who has seen the actual video for that blurb that doesn’t take it as a
joke should re-evaluate their sense of humor.

~~~
mozumder
Statements are statements. Obama should have arrested Trump the moment he made
this statement.

~~~
freehunter
You'd have to pretty majorly change the US Constitution before that is even
remotely legal.

~~~
mozumder
Not really. Criminal conspiracy is already a crime.

~~~
dragonwriter
Alone, the comment may have been solicitation, but couldn't be conspiracy.

But solicitation is also a crime.

------
dragonwriter
Replying to an unfortunately killed comment which raised common, potentially
legitimate (given the success of various spin efforts) though naive and poorly
informed questions:

> Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the
> information released to the public wrong or fake?

It's the Russian _election meddling_ scandal, the _hacking_ was just one piece
of it, and, yes, much of the information fed to the public in the course of
that operation was false.

Some of that has been covered in the special counsel’s previous indictment of
Russian organizations and individuals involved in the propaganda end of the
operation.

> Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things

It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated
in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US
(that is itself part of a larger operation being conducted not only the US but
the entire Western Alliance), that that influence operation was integral to
the success of the Presidential campaign, and that the US President (who is,
by virtue of that position, also effective head of a major US political party)
may, therefore, effectively be an agent of a hostile foreign power working
against the interests of the US and her allies.

~~~
jdoliner
> It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated
> in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US

That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian
agents and the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is
not a target of the probe [0]. When you say "active collaboration" what does
that actually mean? And could you present some evidence of it?

[0]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/rosenstei...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/rosenstein-
said-to-tell-trump-he-s-not-target-in-mueller-probe)

~~~
puzzle
Yes, only Russian agents are indicted this time, but someone who might be
Roger Stone makes a brief appearance (#44) in the document, too, probably to
be targeted in future legal action.

~~~
dragonwriter
In addition to Stone, there's also the Congressional candidate mentioned at
Paragraph 43.

------
orbitingpluto
"On the evening of June 15, 2016 between 4:19PM and 4:56PM, defendants used
their Moscow-based server to search for a series of English words and phrases
that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0’s first blog post..."

That has got to be one of the scarier things I've read in some time as to the
depth and breadth of current surveillance.

~~~
frankquist
Depth, certainly. Breadth, not necessarily (though I don't want to have much
illusions regarding breadth). It could very well be that this information was
gleaned from when the dutch hacked Cozy Bear. If that's the same group.
[https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-
provide-...](https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-
crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/) (link
copied from another comment)

------
akhilcacharya
I wonder what the folks that kept claiming an inside job have to say about
this?

~~~
threeseed
In particular Assange and Wikileaks.

He publicly supported the claim it was the DNC and every day it looks like
Wikileaks was just being used as an information laundering service for the
Russians.

~~~
robotrout
I had not been aware the the government had ever obtained access to the DNC
server. I assume that will be a key piece of evidence for prosecution and for
defense, so they must finally have it. That's good. Would have been better two
years ago, but good that they have it now.

------
akozak
There's been a longstanding struggle between the design principles of
cryptocurrency - i.e. private payments - and the public policy goals of
monitoring our payments infrastructure for criminal activity. What are
cryptocurrency advocates saying now about e.g. FinCEN's jurisdiction over
exchanges? Is KYC now standard? Do they submit SARs? Do they agree with the
principles, or are they opposed to any sort of oversight?

------
cmurf
Rod Rosenstein said he briefed the president that this indictment was coming
today. The president chose today to attack, from Buckinghamshire, Mueller and
the probe as a rigged witch hunt yet again. The White House statement amounts
to "it proves we did nothing, Americans weren't involved" but no statement
pushing back on Russia at all. No condemnation at all.

But this is from a president who has said about Putin:

"He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You
can only ask so many times"

"Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that"

"And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it."

"I think he is very insulted by it."

The timing of this indictment is obvious to probably most people, but in
particular to people who have studied or are professionals in international
relations - it is to give the president the option to cancel the meeting in
Helsinki. To give him the option to recalibrate and criticize Putin.

But instead what we've got so far is more "witch hunt" paranoid conspiratorial
nonsense which is _identical_ to the single public contribution of
significance Trump produced before becoming president: five years of the
racist lie of birtherism, followed by an admission otherwise while
simultaneously lying again by blaming Clinton for having started the
conspiracy. This is a man who will make up anything, do anything, lie about
anything, and blame anyone for all of it without any reluctance whatsoever.

And it will continue that way.

------
mkempe
The storyline behind the charges is self-contradictory -- according to
Muller's indictments:

a) Russian intelligence tried to hack Hillary's personal email system for the
first time on July 27 2016.

b) Russian cutout Joseph Mifsud told George Papadopoulos on April 26 2016 that
Russia already had thousands of her emails.

------
onetimemanytime
Personally I have no doubt that many US persons (R.S. is probably one of them)
sought the aid of Russia to elect Trump. They thought that Hillary was corrupt
or whatever and Russia could unmask her. The fact that Russia did it, to them
is irrelevant, the "truth" was revealed. I am also certain that the end didn't
justify the means in this case, USA is right to through the kitchen sink at
the people involved...we have elections every 2-4 years and a message should
be sent. (USA did the same is not a moral equivalent to me)

------
cmurf
From the indictment with my comments in []

 _22\. On or about July 27 2016 the Conspirators attempted after hours to
spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a 3rd party
provider and used by Clinton 's personal office. At or around the same time,
they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton
Campaign._

[July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if you're
listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find Clinton's
'missing' emails.]

 _34\. In or around Sep 2016 the Conspirators successfully gained access to
DNC computers hosted on 3rd party cloud-computing services. These computers
contained test applications related to the DNC 's analytics. After conducting
reconnaissance, the Conspirators gathered data by creating backups, or
snapshots, of the DNC's cloud-based systems using the cloud provider's own
technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based accounts
they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the
DNC._

[Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the
FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in the
cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic evidence
to show how the theft occurred.]

 _43a. On or about Aug 15 2016, the Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0
recieved a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S.
Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent
the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate 's opponent._

[Let's pretend this candidate didn't know Guccifer 2.0 was the GRU. He still
knew he was asking for and receiving illegally obtained documents.]

 _72\. In or around July 2016, KOVALEV and his co-conspirators hacked the
website of a state board of elections (SBOE 1) and stole information related
to approximately 500,000 voters including names, addresses, party affiliation,
social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver 's license numbers._

There are quite a few Americans "involved" either by being affected by ID
theft by a crime organization purporting to be a government[1]; an American
soliciting a foreign government to commit a crime the proceeds of which would
likely benefit his campaign; and at least one American who solicited materials
obtained in course of a crime who then received those materials to use against
a competing candidate for Congress.

So the idea that American's aren't involved is nonsense. There are no
Americans indicted for crimes in this particular filing, however.

[1] This is diplomatic. The less diplomatic version is that this is one nation
attacking another, and is an act of war. That's how spy games get
characterized when you get caught and revealed to the public.

~~~
keketi
> [July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if
> you're listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find
> Clinton's 'missing' emails.]

Trump's words were "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find
the 30,000 emails that are missing"[1]. In my view, interpreting that as a
call to commit a crime is a stretch.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-
trump-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-
clinton-emails.html)

> [Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the
> FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in
> the cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic
> evidence to show how the theft occurred.]

Trump's claims are supported by Comey's testimony on March 20, 2017 that the
FBI never got any kind of access, physical or virtual, to any DNC machine.

> HURD: [...] you have still been -- never been given access to any of the
> technical or the physical machines that were -- that were hacked by the
> Russians.

> COMEY: That's correct although we got the forensics from the pros that they
> hired which -- again, best practice is always to get access to the machines
> themselves, but this -- my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute.

[http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1703/20/cnr.07.html](http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1703/20/cnr.07.html)

~~~
creaghpatr
The FBI only stated that they believed Crowdstrike but they themselves never
obtained or examined the server despite multiple attempts.

~~~
mikeyouse
Crowdstrike imaged the server and the FBI absolutely had access to the imaged
server -- The mindless conspiracy theory is that the FBI needed the physical
server.

> _" The DNC coordinated with the FBI and federal intelligence agencies and
> provided everything they requested, including copies of DNC servers," Watson
> said. She added that the copy contains the same information as the physical
> server._

------
wyck
Hopefully Craig Murray is not on suicide watch.

------
pwaai
What will be America's next move here? They are looking awful weak right now.

------
mkempe
Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators, for hacking and
interference in their own electoral processes.

Reminder: the NSA has been hacking into governments and businesses all over
the world.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators.

Start?

It's hardly as if US intelligence officers have never previously been charged
by foreign governments.

~~~
mkempe
Yes, for torture [1], assassination [2], rendition [3], and war crimes [4][5].
Never merely for propaganda.

[1] [https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-
bus...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bush-six-
over-torture/)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-
his...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-history-kill-
leaders-around-the-world-north-korea)

[3]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html)

[4] [https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-
cia-...](https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-may-be-
guilty-of-war-crimes-afghanistan-says-icc)

[5] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2017/12/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-
cage/wp/2017/12/08/the-icc-will-investigate-alleged-u-s-war-crimes-in-
afghanistan/)

~~~
tw04
Really? And you know this how? Just because the Chinese or Russian
government's don't make a public spectacle, doesn't mean they haven't indicted
US citizens for espionage. I'm willing to bet there's more than one US
government employee who would be arrested the second they cleared customs in
one or both of those countries.

~~~
mkempe
Your argument might have at least some weight if it didn't rely on super-
secret, invisible gremlins.

~~~
tw04
Based on your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or actually believe
what you're saying, but 30 seconds on google would alleviate you of your
ignorance.

This has ALREADY HAPPENED. Russia has enticed people they secretly indicted on
spy charges back to Russia, and then stuck them in prison.

[https://abcnews.go.com/WN/russian-spies-swap-cold-
home/story...](https://abcnews.go.com/WN/russian-spies-swap-cold-
home/story?id=11134463)

~~~
mkempe
Come on. I'll ignore, for now, your attempt at insults.

These Russian spies in the US were not US IC agents.

~~~
dragonwriter
They were in fact charged as US IC agents; they weren't US IC _officers_ ,
though.

~~~
mkempe
Now you're pretending that Obama delivered 10 "American" agents to Russia...

Farce, idiocy, or trolling, I can't tell.

------
pseingatl
"Prosecutor in [*] Files Charges against American NSA Officers" Just a
question of time, I suppose.

------
hanshan
>The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and
unexpected ways,”

>“Together with our law enforcement partners, the Department of Justice is
resolute in its commitment to locate, identify and seek to bring to justice
anyone who interferes with American elections.

Sounds like Don Quixote is fighting the internet now. Unless you just shut it
down how is it possible to not have world wide "interference" on the world
wide web? Perhaps we need to think about how the instantaneous global
communications network is obsolescing the concept of the nation state which
was formed as a result of the printing press.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy)

>Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious, and there will
always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to
confuse, divide, and conquer us.

That sounds like a fitting description of mass media/news corporations
everywhere.

~~~
abowlofpetunias
Thanks for your genuine opinion, 4-day-old account in a heavily bombarded
thread.

~~~
pluto9
From the comment guidelines [1]:

> Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and
> is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at
> the data.

Also, your own account is all of 40 days old and you have a grand total of 8
comments, so you don't really have a leg to stand on here.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

