
White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election - ry4n413
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/?amp=1
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quonn
This article quotes Robert M. Lee, but omits the important paragraph below,
which seems to directly contradict the headline:

"The White House’s response is ultimately a strong and accurate statement. The
attribution towards the Russian government was confirmed by the US government
using their sources and methods on top of good private sector analysis. I am
going to critique aspects of the DHS/FBI report below but I want to make a
very clear statement: POTUS’ statement, the multiple government agency
response, and the validation of private sector intelligence by the government
is wholly a great response. This helps establish a clear norm in the
international community although that topic is best reserved for a future
discussion."

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nrjdhsbsid
Anything you read in the news about this is all speculation. Any hard evidence
the US has is most definitely top secret. I would believe the govt in this
case, mostly because openly blaming another country for this is polically
somewhat dangerous. There's not really a reason to point fingers unless you
really want to send someone a message to "knock it off"

Blaming anyone and publicly admitting that your governments fundamental
democracy was compromised is not to be taken lightly. Politically, this is a
signal to Russia that if they continue to interfere there will be
consequences.

The US govt would not publicly admit such weakness unless there was a good
reason

~~~
voidr
> Any hard evidence the US has is most definitely top secret.

The problem with this logic is illustrated by the following: You stole 1
million dollars from me, I have hard evidence, but I'm not going to disclose
it, because it's "top secret", I'm just going to get you arrested.

> The US govt would not publicly admit such weakness unless there was a good
> reason

It's not the US that's "weak" it's the DNC, it doesn't make the US look weak,
it only antagonises Russia.

> Blaming anyone and publicly admitting that your governments fundamental
> democracy was compromised is not to be taken lightly.

Disclosing the corruption of one political party is compromising democracy?
What should have happened instead? If this were to happen to any other country
would you still call it "compromising democracy" or would you call it
"investigative journalism".

> Politically, this is a signal to Russia that if they continue to interfere
> there will be consequences.

Yes, however it is uncertain who would be the bigger loser in this case.

~~~
nrjdhsbsid
The first part of your comment doesn't make sense. What does diplomatic saber
rattling have to do with arresting people?

Besides, a government has a duty to give it's citizens a fair trial. It has no
duty to protect a foreign government. So why would it release the evidence?

Compromising the DNC during elections is attacking the Democratic election
process. If somebody's goal was to be a whistleblower why would they
strategically release information timed to disrupt an election?

~~~
voidr
> The first part of your comment doesn't make sense. What does diplomatic
> saber rattling have to do with arresting people?

The point I was trying to make is that if you accept any statement without
proof then they can also easily feed you any narrative they desire to advance
an agenda.

You could argue that the DHS would never lie to the public, for me that's a
bit hard to believe after the NSA scandal.

> It has no duty to protect a foreign government. So why would it release the
> evidence?

The reason I say they need to show hard evidence is because it's virtually
impossible to track down the true source of a professional hacking attempt.

So far all they have shown is that some Ukrainian hacking tools were used that
anybody can get.

> Compromising the DNC during elections is attacking the Democratic election
> process. If somebody's goal was to be a whistleblower why would they
> strategically release information timed to disrupt an election?

They did not compromise the DNC elections, they released info on what actually
transpired during the DNC elections. The election itself went on undisrupted.

Saying that releasing information to the public during election time is
compromising democracy is kind of like saying that releasing information about
a product compromises my purchasing process.

If we define releasing information on parties during election a horrible act
of messing with democracy, where we need to go after the perpetrators, then I
need to ask: why aren't the same people going after the person who leaked the
~10 year old Trump audio tape?

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losvedir
Largely a rehash of all the other discussions on the subject. No, it doesn't
provide much _new_ evidence, but also some claim that it wasn't really
supposed to.

Anyway, one particular component I'm curious about, is the new list of IP
addresses that were released[0]. I've been following the story only somewhat
closely, but I believe that was genuinely new evidence that came out. Is there
a public DB somewhere that lists what we know of IP addresses and their known
malware activity? Some other post on HN mentioned that "30+%" of them were
simply Tor endpoints and VPSs/VPNs, which obviously don't say very much. But I
don't really know of a way to get a feel for how interesting this new data the
government released is, or if that 30% claim is accurate.

[0] [https://www.us-cert.gov/security-publications/GRIZZLY-
STEPPE...](https://www.us-cert.gov/security-publications/GRIZZLY-STEPPE-
Russian-Malicious-Cyber-Activity)

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Isamu
"It is my opinion and speculation that there were some really good government
analysts and operators contributing to this data and then report reviews,
leadership approval processes, and sanitation processes stripped out most of
the value and left behind a very confusing report trying to cover too much
while saying too little."

Pretty much sums it up.

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bruceb
Aside from the question who hacked DNC and Clinton campaign is there any
analysis of it made a material difference in the election. Would no hack made
a difference in FL, OH, WI and MI. Probably not in first 3.

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whitemale
When the US does it to other countries it's good, when it happens to the US,
it's tampering with democracy. Also, it's not like Russia created the
corruption inside the democratic party. If the democrats would have been as
innocent as they pretend, then maybe Russia's tampering attempt would have had
no effect.

This whole narrative is a distraction from the real issue.

