
The U.S. Government thinks thousands of Russian hackers may be reading my blog - iconjack
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/the-u-s-government-thinks-thousands-of-russian-hackers-are-reading-my-blog-they-arent/
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jackweirdy
This is so true. The evidence presented by the government is totally
underwhelming.

This Twitter thread lays out the most concise and compelling case I've seen,
compiled from open-source intelligence:

[https://www.twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/8166215536432...](https://www.twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/816621553643294720)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I actually have a much simpler heuristic for knowing when something originates
with Russian intelligence.

Just follow the chain of reasoning being proposed to its eventual conclusion,
and then check what that conclusion is. If the conclusion amounts to, "And
therefore, the only political actors you can trust are the reactionary
nationalists", it very likely originates with Russian intelligence.

Why the Russians? Well, because Russian intelligence has been disseminating
propaganda along exactly those lines for the past _century_ , starting, if not
earlier, with the world's most famous propagandistic literary forgery[1]. The
content, at this point, can be mad-libbed, and usually _is_ mad-libbed with
little reference to facts or actual circumstances. All it has to do is sow
paranoia, point to every democratic or revolutionary faction as destroying the
nation, and then conclude, "Therefore the only people you can trust are the
reactionary nationalists, ie: the
Tsarists/Fascists/Stalinists/Arabists/Duginists/Trumpists/National Front/Neo-
Nazis."

Once you detect the mad-libbing, you can skip the argument, jump to the
conclusion, and know what you're looking at.

[1] --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion)

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nv-vn
Any sure-fire proof would make the U.S. look just as guilty as Russia. Even if
the U.S. knows for sure, it will look a lot worse for them if they try to
release the information. The chances that they know for sure and will release
the proof are roughly 0.

The problem, though, is that they released such useless information. If we
trust what has been released, the "Russian hackers" were very far from elite,
and far below the level of many American teenagers (let alone professionals).
I'm skeptical both about the accuracy of this report and the accuracy of the
claim that it was Russia. Either all/most of what's been reported is false, or
Russian hacking experts weren't involved. And if the information presented is
incomplete, I don't see a reason to defend the U.S., because that would mean
they're doing the exact same things in Russia.

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bjourne
The reports the US government have released aren't very compelling. But read
these reports about the malware used from independent researchers:

    
    
        http://www2.fireeye.com/rs/fireye/images/rpt-apt28.pdf
        https://www2.fireeye.com/rs/848-DID-242/images/rpt-apt29-hammertoss.pdf
    

From the report:

> APT29 has been operating in its current form since at least late 2014. We
> suspect the Russian government sponsors the group because of the
> organizations it targets and the data it steals. Additionally, APT29
> appeared to cease operations on Russian holidays, and their work hours seem
> to align with the UTC +3 time zone, which contains cities such as Moscow and
> St. Petersburg.

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mattbgates
I got a surge of visits from Russia this year as well, specifically from
Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Before that, my top 5 visits from countries were: United States, India, United
Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

This year, however, it somehow jumped and became: United States, Russia,
India, United Kingdom, and Canada.

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someuser001
Thousands of Russian hackers are probably intercepting the web traffic of
thousands of American citizens.

