Cold war sentiments wouldn't be revving up if Russia wasn't behaving like the Soviet Union.
"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
Cold war sentiments wouldn't be revving up if Russia wasn't behaving like the Soviet Union.
"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
Obviously because only stupid people don't want us to have friendlier relations with Russia.
Granted, I have no issues with having better US/Russia relations. But that goes both ways. Russia meddling with the US election is not the actions of a friendly nation.
And that's ignoring the whole Ukraine situation.
Security consultant Jeffrey Carr also cast doubt on claims that attacks that hit the Democratic National Committee could only have originated from Russian-sponsored hackers because they relied on the same malware that also breached Germany's Bundestag and French TV network TV5Monde. Proponents of this theory, including the CrowdStrike researchers who analyzed the Democratic National Committee's hacked network, argue that the pattern strongly implicates Russia because no other actor would have the combined motivation and resources to hack the same targets. But as Carr pointed out, the full source code for the X-Agent implant that has long been associated with APT28 was independently obtained by researchers from antivirus provider Eset.
"If ESET could do it, so can others," Carr wrote. "It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as CrowdStrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will."
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
Security consultant Jeffrey Carr also cast doubt on claims that attacks that hit the Democratic National Committee could only have originated from Russian-sponsored hackers because they relied on the same malware that also breached Germany's Bundestag and French TV network TV5Monde. Proponents of this theory, including the CrowdStrike researchers who analyzed the Democratic National Committee's hacked network, argue that the pattern strongly implicates Russia because no other actor would have the combined motivation and resources to hack the same targets. But as Carr pointed out, the full source code for the X-Agent implant that has long been associated with APT28 was independently obtained by researchers from antivirus provider Eset.
"If ESET could do it, so can others," Carr wrote. "It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as CrowdStrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will."
The fact that eset managed to find the source code, which may not even be the actual source code for the specific malware/version used in the attack, does not invalidate the findings.
You have all the intelligence agencies agreeing it's Russia.
You have lots of private security firms agreeing it's Russia.
And you this guy saying to be careful you don't base it on a single piece of information.
That does not all add up and refute Russia's involvement.
There is no smoking gun here, as much as you'd love people to believe there to be.
Security consultant Jeffrey Carr also cast doubt on claims that attacks that hit the Democratic National Committee could only have originated from Russian-sponsored hackers because they relied on the same malware that also breached Germany's Bundestag and French TV network TV5Monde. Proponents of this theory, including the CrowdStrike researchers who analyzed the Democratic National Committee's hacked network, argue that the pattern strongly implicates Russia because no other actor would have the combined motivation and resources to hack the same targets. But as Carr pointed out, the full source code for the X-Agent implant that has long been associated with APT28 was independently obtained by researchers from antivirus provider Eset.
"If ESET could do it, so can others," Carr wrote. "It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as CrowdStrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will."
The fact that eset managed to find the source code, which may not even be the actual source code for the specific malware/version used in the attack, does not invalidate the findings.
You have all the intelligence agencies agreeing it's Russia.
You have lots of private security firms agreeing it's Russia.
And you this guy saying to be careful you don't base it on a single piece of information.
That does not all add up and refute Russia's involvement.
There is no smoking gun here, as much as you'd love people to believe there to be.
But plenty of security researchers also say the idea Russia's involvement has been proved is bullshit.
US intelligence agencies making dishonest claims, or just being incorrect in honest assessments, would not be unprecedented.
If this is just "he said/she said" and arguing over which "experts" have most credibility, it is difficult to see the case as having been "proved."
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
I am unsure what you mean by "no smoking gun" as that is exactly what US intelligence has admitted and what I pointed out.
The only path forward that makes sense is for Obama to order the release of as much evidence as possible underlying the reported “high confidence” of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia both intervened in the election and did so with the intention of aiding Trump’s candidacy.
Intelligence agencies hate, often with good reason, to publicly reveal how they obtain information, or even the information itself, since that can make it clear how they got it. But the government would not need to reveal its most sensitive sources and methods — e.g., which specific Vladimir Putin aides we have on our payroll — to release enough evidence to aid the public debate over interference in our election by a powerful nation state.
And if there were ever a situation in which it was crucial to lean in the direction of more rather than less disclosure, it’s now. Obama should make that clear to the intelligence agencies, and that if forced to he is willing to wield his power as president to declassify anything he deems appropriate.
The current discourse on this issue is plagued by partisan gibberish — there is a disturbing trend emerging that dictates that if you don’t believe Russia hacked the election or if you simply demand evidence for this tremendously significant allegation, you must be a Trump apologist or a Soviet agent.
The reality, however, is that Trump’s reference to the Iraq War and the debacle over weapons of mass destruction is both utterly cynical and a perfectly valid point. U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong. In this case they may well be correct, but they cannot expect Americans to simply take their word for it.
Btw I am not Russian, I am in Paris, everyone in France hates Trump but the anti-Russia sentiment also seems strange (France will likely allow EU sanctions against Russia issued after annexation of Crimea, which must be unanimously re-approved by all EU nations intermittently, to expire after the next presidential election as both candidates expected to make make it to the run-off are pro-Putin).
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
edited January 2017
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible (I guess this Carr guy makes one).
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible?
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
None I know of that are reputable.
Some will certainly caution that you shouldn't take them as 100% and absolute proof. But that's like blaming China for hacks. They know China did it, the only thing they really lack is the guy that did it releasing a statement that he did it, and was instructed to do it by their government.
People trying to make Russia seem like an innocent victim are pretty baffling.
Yes, it needs to be clear the didn't hack the voting machines. They did not directly change the results of the election.
What they did was specifically control the flow of information and disinformation to the US public in order to influence opinions. This was done to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump.
That also needs to be understood clearly and not ignored or swept under the table.
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible?
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
Especially when the source of such concrete proof, which in this situation would be something akin to a wiretap in the Kremlin, could merit being highly classified; and disclosing the proof would probably out the source.
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
Cold war sentiments wouldn't be revving up if Russia wasn't behaving like the Soviet Union.
"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
If it was merely a case of pissing on current allies to mend fences with russia that would be one thing, but so much of trump's forign policy seems to either directly or indirectly benefit russia with no benefit to the united states while making the world in general a shittier place.
Brexit weakens the EU and likely strains NATO, making europe more vulnerable to russian influence
The inevitable removal of sanctions on russia allow the oligarchs to staunch some of the bleeding in their economy.
The US pulling out of NATO allows russia to exert greater influence on Europe.
The US going into a pissing contest with china means that both countries see an economic downturn which allows russia to expand it's influence in the east.
It's like watching a multiplayer game of crusader kings where one player is deliberately trying to destroy their own empire.
Cold war sentiments wouldn't be revving up if Russia wasn't behaving like the Soviet Union.
"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
If it was merely a case of pissing on current allies to mend fences with russia that would be one thing, but so much of trump's forign policy seems to either directly or indirectly benefit russia with no benefit to the united states while making the world in general a shittier place.
Brexit weakens the EU and likely strains NATO, making europe more vulnerable to russian influence
The inevitable removal of sanctions on russia allow the oligarchs to staunch some of the bleeding in their economy.
The US pulling out of NATO allows russia to exert greater influence on Europe.
The US going into a pissing contest with china means that both countries see an economic downturn which allows russia to expand it's influence in the east.
It's like watching a multiplayer game of crusader kings where one player is deliberately trying to destroy their own empire.
More like watching a game where one player manages to take over one of the other sides when his buddy left for the bathroom and he jumps onto his computer and starts using it as fodder to build up their own until he comes back.
Cold war sentiments wouldn't be revving up if Russia wasn't behaving like the Soviet Union.
"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
If it was merely a case of pissing on current allies to mend fences with russia that would be one thing, but so much of trump's forign policy seems to either directly or indirectly benefit russia with no benefit to the united states while making the world in general a shittier place.
Brexit weakens the EU and likely strains NATO, making europe more vulnerable to russian influence
The inevitable removal of sanctions on russia allow the oligarchs to staunch some of the bleeding in their economy.
The US pulling out of NATO allows russia to exert greater influence on Europe.
The US going into a pissing contest with china means that both countries see an economic downturn which allows russia to expand it's influence in the east.
It's like watching a multiplayer game of crusader kings where one player is deliberately trying to destroy their own empire.
If anything, you ally with Russia and China, placing the bulk of the worlds military, manufacturing, natural resources, and a fair amount of research under one banner. Then you extort the remaining beakers from Europe / Japan until your tech tree is filled up or you win a cultural victory.
But plenty of security researchers also say the idea Russia's involvement has been proved is bullshit.
US intelligence agencies making dishonest claims, or just being incorrect in honest assessments, would not be unprecedented.
If this is just "he said/she said" and arguing over which "experts" have most credibility, it is difficult to see the case as having been "proved."
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
I am unsure what you mean by "no smoking gun" as that is exactly what US intelligence has admitted and what I pointed out.
"Plenty of security researchers" is weasel wording. How many? How does the number compare to the ones saying it did happen? Intelligence agencies have been dishonest in the past. To my knowledge at no point has every single one along with various private entities collaborated to lie.
An argument from authority is a logical fallacy related to debate. The report submitted by the IC isn't an argument. It's the results of their investigation. The president, president elect, and certain members of congress have been privy to the actual sources and methodology. None of them disputed the methods by which the IC reached their conclusion.
We have the entirety of the IC, private security firms, and both major political parties agreeing it happened. This includes the party that would ostensibly be harmed by it. Trump himself backed off his claims that it never happened when confronted with the report. I think it's unlikely that Trump of all people would collaborate with the Democrats to create a fake report to discredit his own campaign. And I see nothing to indicate that he has.
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
Nor does a logical fallacy disprove an idea.
That's called the "fallacy fallacy", the idea that the presence of a logical fallacy is proof that the statement is wrong is itself wrong.
Also it's tough to discuss how there's no "proof" when the report specifically says "The conclusion is the same, but a lot of the supporting evidence is classified so we can't release it to the public"
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.
Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.
In any event, US intelligence is offering reports that have been widely mocked as sloppy and confused even by security experts who believe Russia did commit the hacks in question, reported by sources that themselves take for granted the accusation as true: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/how-the-u-s-enabled-russian-hack-truthers.html So it is hard to call US intelligence agencies legitimate authorities on computer security specifically.
The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.
But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”
The DNI report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Regarding computer security researchers, they seem completely mixed as to whether they believe there is any ironclad case against Russia on this matter, just looking through accounts of leading security professionals and hackers on twitter shows ambiguity and sometimes outright skepticism. (Kim Dotcom for example overtly says the claims about Russia are "lies".) The tech press is not repeating the same line on this as the rest of the US media, certainly, as the piece by Dan Goodin (widely respected tech journalist who attends BaySec in San Francisco which is a regular gathering of leading security professionals globally) displays.
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
Lets break this down for you @Anti-Climacus
Either the entirety of the US intelligence aperatus and a respected private security service are fabricating nonsense after the fact to throw shade on the incoming president (completely unneccesary IMHO given his words and actions).
OR
Russia, seeing a candidate who was favourably disposed to them and could be easily manipulated directed a team of hackers to breach the DNC's servers with the intent to leak the information to Wikileaks (a website with an anti american/western stability mindset) and weaken a candidate that would maintain the hard stance that Obama had taken with russia regarding it's aggression.
Deductively fallacious not inductively fallacious. Authority(and induction in general) is a necessary component of modern society and abandoning it would render all science obsolete. (As well as basically every interaction you have with anyone as you would no longer be able to evaluate any statement to be true with any confidence)
That is. The argument to authority does not necessitate that the assumptions lead to the conclusion. But the argument to authority does lend credence that the conclusion is true.
And we only care about the probability that the conclusion is true and not whether ther is a forcing mechanism between the assumption and the conclusion so the argument to authority, when the authority is valid, is valid.
Now stop being a goose about things that you should clearly understand.
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.
Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.
In any event, US intelligence is offering reports that have been widely mocked as sloppy and confused even by security experts who believe Russia did commit the hacks in question reported by sources that themselves take for granted the accusation as true: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/how-the-u-s-enabled-russian-hack-truthers.html So it is hard to call them legitimate authorities on computer security specifically.
The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.
But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”
The DNI report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Regarding computer security researchers, they seem completely mixed as to whether they believe there is any ironclad case against Russia on this matter, just looking through accounts of leading security profrssionals and hackers on twitter shows ambiguity and sometimes outright skepticism. (Kim Dotcom for example overtly says the claims about Russia are "lies".) The tech press is not repeating the same line on this as these rest of the US media, certainly, as the piece by Dan Goodin (widely respected tech journalist who attends BaySec in San Francisco which is is a regular gathering of leading security professionals globally) displays.
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
Your argument stems from the idea that the only people who have seen the direct evidence are wrong and that pointing out that they're the only ones who have seen the evidence is logically wrong because it relies on a fallacy?
Also those articles seem to be more "truther" than not. They claim that there's no proof when the DNI release specifically states that they have withheld some supporting evidence because of it's relevance to national security. Meanwhile the DNI has released public information for network owners to combat the potential intrusions. So they have come up with actionable intelligence based on their findings which goes beyond mere speculation.
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.
Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.
In any event, US intelligence is offering reports that have been widely mocked as sloppy and confused even by security experts who believe Russia did commit the hacks in question, reported by sources that themselves take for granted the accusation as true: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/how-the-u-s-enabled-russian-hack-truthers.html So it is hard to call US intelligence agencies legitimate authorities on computer security specifically.
The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.
But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”
The DNI report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Regarding computer security researchers, they seem completely mixed as to whether they believe there is any ironclad case against Russia on this matter, just looking through accounts of leading security professionals and hackers on twitter shows ambiguity and sometimes outright skepticism. (Kim Dotcom for example overtly says the claims about Russia are "lies".) The tech press is not repeating the same line on this as the rest of the US media, certainly, as the piece by Dan Goodin (widely respected tech journalist who attends BaySec in San Francisco which is a regular gathering of leading security professionals globally) displays.
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
Kim Dotcom isn't exactly someone you should trust. He's not a respected computer security researcher, he's an entrepreneur with decent comp sci skills. And that's before taking into account his beef with the US government; he'll happily piss all over it if he can (and he's already bullshitted about Hillary in the past).
If you read into the Goodin piece, the point isn't that there's a lack of evidence that the Russian government was involved, it was that the initial reports weren't strong evidence but that the US government possibly has a lot more information it keeps secret. And that's almost certainly true, the IC was never going to give a full and complete look at their internal workings.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible?
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
People trying to make Russia seem like an innocent victim are pretty baffling.
Yes, it needs to be clear the didn't hack the voting machines. They did not directly change the results of the election.
What they did was specifically control the flow of information and disinformation to the US public in order to influence opinions. This was done to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump.
That also needs to be understood clearly and not ignored or swept under the table.
I disagree. What we have here is a golden opportunity to change our tactics in the face of a new post-fact environment. Nobody really knows what "hacking" is, it's like email servers--too complicated to be fact checked easily.
We should simply assert, loudly and clearly and sometimes through memes that Russia hacked the election. 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt? Easy to fake for the Great Bear. Putin stole the election for his best buddy Trump, who's barely even denying it anymore.
If anybody wants to look closer into the issue they'll find a bedrock of truth. But it serves the purposes of Trump's opponents better to simply spread the broad strokes, however inaccurate they might be.
I'm not even kidding. Not only is it not important to be clear that Russia didn't hack the machines or sway the election, it's very important that we do exactly the opposite.
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
Every expert is questionable but accept Trumps nonsense completely
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible?
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
People trying to make Russia seem like an innocent victim are pretty baffling.
Yes, it needs to be clear the didn't hack the voting machines. They did not directly change the results of the election.
What they did was specifically control the flow of information and disinformation to the US public in order to influence opinions. This was done to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump.
That also needs to be understood clearly and not ignored or swept under the table.
I disagree. What we have here is a golden opportunity to change our tactics in the face of a new post-fact environment. Nobody really knows what "hacking" is, it's like email servers--too complicated to be fact checked easily.
We should simply assert, loudly and clearly and sometimes through memes that Russia hacked the election. 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt? Easy to fake for the Great Bear. Putin stole the election for his best buddy Trump, who's barely even denying it anymore.
If anybody wants to look closer into the issue they'll find a bedrock of truth. But it serves the purposes of Trump's opponents better to simply spread the broad strokes, however inaccurate they might be.
I'm not even kidding. Not only is it not important to be clear that Russia didn't hack the machines or sway the election, it's very important that we do exactly the opposite.
No.
The email release swayed voters: True.
Someone hacked a voting machine: False.
Lying about the latter so people listen to the former is not the way forward; unless your goal is to convince people you're a liar.
People don't discard facts like the former because they have been lied to in a clever manner, or did any digging whatsoever: they do so because it confirms their bias. The end.
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
Every expert is questionable but accept Trumps nonsense completely
Is this a political movement or a cult?
Almost. The problem is the massive miasma of "both sides are bad", that depresses turnout and makes hard to get the rebuttals of Trump's nonsense hard to stick. Or, in other words, people hate the DC establishment so much that they are willing to let Trump go nuts as long as they suffer too. Add to that the point that the outcome won't change no matter how much the CIA talks about it and is incredibly hard to make people care.
Are there any security experts saying that the evidence doesn't lend itself to high confidence in the conclusion that Russia is responsible?
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
People trying to make Russia seem like an innocent victim are pretty baffling.
Yes, it needs to be clear the didn't hack the voting machines. They did not directly change the results of the election.
What they did was specifically control the flow of information and disinformation to the US public in order to influence opinions. This was done to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump.
That also needs to be understood clearly and not ignored or swept under the table.
I disagree. What we have here is a golden opportunity to change our tactics in the face of a new post-fact environment. Nobody really knows what "hacking" is, it's like email servers--too complicated to be fact checked easily.
We should simply assert, loudly and clearly and sometimes through memes that Russia hacked the election. 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt? Easy to fake for the Great Bear. Putin stole the election for his best buddy Trump, who's barely even denying it anymore.
If anybody wants to look closer into the issue they'll find a bedrock of truth. But it serves the purposes of Trump's opponents better to simply spread the broad strokes, however inaccurate they might be.
I'm not even kidding. Not only is it not important to be clear that Russia didn't hack the machines or sway the election, it's very important that we do exactly the opposite.
No.
The email release swayed voters: True.
Someone hacked a voting machine: False.
Lying about the latter so people listen to the former is not the way forward; unless your goal is to convince people you're a liar.
People don't discard facts like the former because they have been lied to in a clever manner, or did any digging whatsoever: they do so because it confirms their bias. The end.
It has not been proven that voting machines were not hacked.
in fact I could get basically any number of experts you want to state that the CIA and the FBI lack the technical expertise to prove that voting machines were not hacked.
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
Every expert is questionable but accept Trumps nonsense completely
Is this a political movement or a cult?
Almost. The problem is the massive miasma of "both sides are bad", that depresses turnout and makes hard to get the rebuttals of Trump's nonsense hard to stick. Or, in other words, people hate the DC establishment so much that they are willing to let Trump go nuts as long as they suffer too. Add to that the point that the outcome won't change no matter how much the CIA talks about it and is incredibly hard to make people care.
Now you see why I think reaching out to Trump supporters is a waste of time
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
Every expert is questionable but accept Trumps nonsense completely
Is this a political movement or a cult?
Almost. The problem is the massive miasma of "both sides are bad", that depresses turnout and makes hard to get the rebuttals of Trump's nonsense hard to stick. Or, in other words, people hate the DC establishment so much that they are willing to let Trump go nuts as long as they suffer too. Add to that the point that the outcome won't change no matter how much the CIA talks about it and is incredibly hard to make people care.
Now you see why I think reaching out to Trump supporters is a waste of time
I was amazed at the number of people who had been convinced that not voting was some form of protest of the two party system.
"Well, I'm not voting for either because I don't like Hillary or Trump."
Look you special little snowflake, one of those two WILL BE President of The United States of America.
How did so many people get so convinced that they get to just pretend both of them are awful so they can avoid the icky feeling of responsibility for the things one of them may or may not do? If you're starving and trying to decide between peanuts which you have a severe allergy to and tofu, you don't bitch about them being equally as bad because yuck tofu.
emails, emails, hacking, hacking, Russia, shouldn't put anyone in a position where they go "yeah, I know Russia hacked the DNC... but the emails! Clinton should be in prison!"
As nice as it would be if it were just Russia's fault, it isn't.
dispatch.o on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
The argument seems to be "yes, we need to see the direct evidence because we don't believe what the CIA says". The CIA lacks credibility, and, unfortunately on this case, for good reason.
Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
You can't win a game you won't play. Why is it stupid to unilaterally disarm when it comes to big money and using Citizen's United but not when it comes to the war of propaganda?
I'm skeptical about the Russia "hacking" narrative for numerous reasons.
What's laid out in this article for starters.
It seems like like a lot of this is resting on a pure "argument from authority" that US intelligence agencies are both trustworthy and always correct in their assessments. But that said, even they have acknowledged they have no "smoking gun". Much more of the substantive content in the intelligence report focused on the RT television channel than on "hacking" at all. I don't know that there is a very compelling argument to say that RT hosting a third party debate or programming against fracking is something we should view as malevolent or particularly important.
We have also had several kind of ridiculous stories emerge recently that have been either entirely disproved (Washington Post claiming Russia hacked Vermont electric grid) or nearly so (Russia hacked voting machines).
I can divulge that I personally am aware that the Podesta hack was not done by the Russian government (the hacker is a far-right guy in Ukraine who is actually anti-Putin, ironically). I have no direct knowledge about the DNC hack but Assange says it was an insider at DNC that leaked it and that does not sound implausible to me.
This narrative just seems too convenient of a way Democrats can ignore faults of the Clinton campaign and continue trying to rev up Cold War sentiments to me.
"I find it really concerning that the intelligence agencies are relying on arguments of authority."
*makes even sketchier argument of authority about some dude he knows that totally hacked Podesta*
Try harder comrade.
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.
Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.
In any event, US intelligence is offering reports that have been widely mocked as sloppy and confused even by security experts who believe Russia did commit the hacks in question, reported by sources that themselves take for granted the accusation as true: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/how-the-u-s-enabled-russian-hack-truthers.html So it is hard to call US intelligence agencies legitimate authorities on computer security specifically.
The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.
But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”
The DNI report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Regarding computer security researchers, they seem completely mixed as to whether they believe there is any ironclad case against Russia on this matter, just looking through accounts of leading security professionals and hackers on twitter shows ambiguity and sometimes outright skepticism. (Kim Dotcom for example overtly says the claims about Russia are "lies".) The tech press is not repeating the same line on this as the rest of the US media, certainly, as the piece by Dan Goodin (widely respected tech journalist who attends BaySec in San Francisco which is a regular gathering of leading security professionals globally) displays.
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
Hahahaha. Goodin rarely shows up to Baysec (though when he does it's always a pleasure to chat with him) but calling it a gathering of globally respected security researchers is fucking ridiculous. It used to be more diverse in attendance but these days it's 90% scary good crypto and chip design people. I don't think there's even anybody who's done offensive security that shows up regularly other than me at this point.
The group is small these days, like 5-10 regulars. It's a great little gathering though.
Citation: Show up next Tuesday at 7:30 at the Holding Company I guess?
With regards to the consensus of the community, it has about as many naysayers as Climate Change. Can't really cite that without fully outing myself, but I attend 4-5 security focused events every month, have a well curated Twitter feed of professionals I've met over the years, and I'm on staff at a relatively major infosec conference (think just below DEF CON/BlackHat/RSA).
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
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"Putin just seized land from another sovereign nation guys, no need to get worked up.", isn't a particularly good argument. It's frankly bizarre that Trump and friends want to mend relations so quickly with a second rate world power at the risk of alienating current allies.
Obviously because only stupid people don't want us to have friendlier relations with Russia.
Granted, I have no issues with having better US/Russia relations. But that goes both ways. Russia meddling with the US election is not the actions of a friendly nation.
And that's ignoring the whole Ukraine situation.
Thank you, will do that in the future.
The fact that eset managed to find the source code, which may not even be the actual source code for the specific malware/version used in the attack, does not invalidate the findings.
You have all the intelligence agencies agreeing it's Russia.
You have lots of private security firms agreeing it's Russia.
And you this guy saying to be careful you don't base it on a single piece of information.
That does not all add up and refute Russia's involvement.
There is no smoking gun here, as much as you'd love people to believe there to be.
I have no issues with listening to all sides. You should listen to all sides.
But I also have no issues with telling a side they are a dumbass if they are, in fact, a dumbass.
But plenty of security researchers also say the idea Russia's involvement has been proved is bullshit.
US intelligence agencies making dishonest claims, or just being incorrect in honest assessments, would not be unprecedented.
If this is just "he said/she said" and arguing over which "experts" have most credibility, it is difficult to see the case as having been "proved."
An "argument from authority" is logically speaking not a "proof."
I am unsure what you mean by "no smoking gun" as that is exactly what US intelligence has admitted and what I pointed out.
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/12/obama-must-declassify-evidence-of-russian-hacking/
Btw I am not Russian, I am in Paris, everyone in France hates Trump but the anti-Russia sentiment also seems strange (France will likely allow EU sanctions against Russia issued after annexation of Crimea, which must be unanimously re-approved by all EU nations intermittently, to expire after the next presidential election as both candidates expected to make make it to the run-off are pro-Putin).
Absolute proof about anything is generally hard to come by.
None I know of that are reputable.
Some will certainly caution that you shouldn't take them as 100% and absolute proof. But that's like blaming China for hacks. They know China did it, the only thing they really lack is the guy that did it releasing a statement that he did it, and was instructed to do it by their government.
People trying to make Russia seem like an innocent victim are pretty baffling.
Yes, it needs to be clear the didn't hack the voting machines. They did not directly change the results of the election.
What they did was specifically control the flow of information and disinformation to the US public in order to influence opinions. This was done to the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump.
That also needs to be understood clearly and not ignored or swept under the table.
Especially when the source of such concrete proof, which in this situation would be something akin to a wiretap in the Kremlin, could merit being highly classified; and disclosing the proof would probably out the source.
The logical fallacy "argument from authority" is committed when someone cites a person's authority in a matter unrelated to the person's authority.
Which is not the case here. If you are hung up on the fact that they aren't revealing specific proofs in the unclassified statement released to the public, then I suggest you do some thinking about the very real and practical reasons why intelligence agencies might not make public how they are able to prove Russian involvement. Like, oh I don't know, the fact that saying how they knew just tells Russia what tactics to change?
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If it was merely a case of pissing on current allies to mend fences with russia that would be one thing, but so much of trump's forign policy seems to either directly or indirectly benefit russia with no benefit to the united states while making the world in general a shittier place.
Brexit weakens the EU and likely strains NATO, making europe more vulnerable to russian influence
The inevitable removal of sanctions on russia allow the oligarchs to staunch some of the bleeding in their economy.
The US pulling out of NATO allows russia to exert greater influence on Europe.
The US going into a pissing contest with china means that both countries see an economic downturn which allows russia to expand it's influence in the east.
It's like watching a multiplayer game of crusader kings where one player is deliberately trying to destroy their own empire.
More like watching a game where one player manages to take over one of the other sides when his buddy left for the bathroom and he jumps onto his computer and starts using it as fodder to build up their own until he comes back.
If anything, you ally with Russia and China, placing the bulk of the worlds military, manufacturing, natural resources, and a fair amount of research under one banner. Then you extort the remaining beakers from Europe / Japan until your tech tree is filled up or you win a cultural victory.
"Plenty of security researchers" is weasel wording. How many? How does the number compare to the ones saying it did happen? Intelligence agencies have been dishonest in the past. To my knowledge at no point has every single one along with various private entities collaborated to lie.
An argument from authority is a logical fallacy related to debate. The report submitted by the IC isn't an argument. It's the results of their investigation. The president, president elect, and certain members of congress have been privy to the actual sources and methodology. None of them disputed the methods by which the IC reached their conclusion.
We have the entirety of the IC, private security firms, and both major political parties agreeing it happened. This includes the party that would ostensibly be harmed by it. Trump himself backed off his claims that it never happened when confronted with the report. I think it's unlikely that Trump of all people would collaborate with the Democrats to create a fake report to discredit his own campaign. And I see nothing to indicate that he has.
That's called the "fallacy fallacy", the idea that the presence of a logical fallacy is proof that the statement is wrong is itself wrong.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-authority/
In any event, US intelligence is offering reports that have been widely mocked as sloppy and confused even by security experts who believe Russia did commit the hacks in question, reported by sources that themselves take for granted the accusation as true: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/how-the-u-s-enabled-russian-hack-truthers.html So it is hard to call US intelligence agencies legitimate authorities on computer security specifically.
The language of the report was decidedly ambiguous.
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/07/us-report-still-lacks-proof-on-russia-hack/
Regarding computer security researchers, they seem completely mixed as to whether they believe there is any ironclad case against Russia on this matter, just looking through accounts of leading security professionals and hackers on twitter shows ambiguity and sometimes outright skepticism. (Kim Dotcom for example overtly says the claims about Russia are "lies".) The tech press is not repeating the same line on this as the rest of the US media, certainly, as the piece by Dan Goodin (widely respected tech journalist who attends BaySec in San Francisco which is a regular gathering of leading security professionals globally) displays.
Talking Paradox games, I played Europe Universalis II a lot, I agree with assessments that US practically seems to be almost deliberately destroying its own empire, but that was my assessment since Obama did the "surge" in Afghanistan.
Either the entirety of the US intelligence aperatus and a respected private security service are fabricating nonsense after the fact to throw shade on the incoming president (completely unneccesary IMHO given his words and actions).
OR
Russia, seeing a candidate who was favourably disposed to them and could be easily manipulated directed a team of hackers to breach the DNC's servers with the intent to leak the information to Wikileaks (a website with an anti american/western stability mindset) and weaken a candidate that would maintain the hard stance that Obama had taken with russia regarding it's aggression.
That is. The argument to authority does not necessitate that the assumptions lead to the conclusion. But the argument to authority does lend credence that the conclusion is true.
And we only care about the probability that the conclusion is true and not whether ther is a forcing mechanism between the assumption and the conclusion so the argument to authority, when the authority is valid, is valid.
Now stop being a goose about things that you should clearly understand.
Your argument stems from the idea that the only people who have seen the direct evidence are wrong and that pointing out that they're the only ones who have seen the evidence is logically wrong because it relies on a fallacy?
Also those articles seem to be more "truther" than not. They claim that there's no proof when the DNI release specifically states that they have withheld some supporting evidence because of it's relevance to national security. Meanwhile the DNI has released public information for network owners to combat the potential intrusions. So they have come up with actionable intelligence based on their findings which goes beyond mere speculation.
Kim Dotcom isn't exactly someone you should trust. He's not a respected computer security researcher, he's an entrepreneur with decent comp sci skills. And that's before taking into account his beef with the US government; he'll happily piss all over it if he can (and he's already bullshitted about Hillary in the past).
If you read into the Goodin piece, the point isn't that there's a lack of evidence that the Russian government was involved, it was that the initial reports weren't strong evidence but that the US government possibly has a lot more information it keeps secret. And that's almost certainly true, the IC was never going to give a full and complete look at their internal workings.
I disagree. What we have here is a golden opportunity to change our tactics in the face of a new post-fact environment. Nobody really knows what "hacking" is, it's like email servers--too complicated to be fact checked easily.
We should simply assert, loudly and clearly and sometimes through memes that Russia hacked the election. 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt? Easy to fake for the Great Bear. Putin stole the election for his best buddy Trump, who's barely even denying it anymore.
If anybody wants to look closer into the issue they'll find a bedrock of truth. But it serves the purposes of Trump's opponents better to simply spread the broad strokes, however inaccurate they might be.
I'm not even kidding. Not only is it not important to be clear that Russia didn't hack the machines or sway the election, it's very important that we do exactly the opposite.
@Astaereth You argument is based in the belief that Dems are going to win a mudfest against Trump and the Trumpians. They won't. Look, "fake news" got inmediatly shot back and that made an impact. How did supporting the Stein recount went for the Dems?
Why exactly do you doubt the CIA in this matter?
Every expert is questionable but accept Trumps nonsense completely
Is this a political movement or a cult?
The email release swayed voters: True.
Someone hacked a voting machine: False.
Lying about the latter so people listen to the former is not the way forward; unless your goal is to convince people you're a liar.
People don't discard facts like the former because they have been lied to in a clever manner, or did any digging whatsoever: they do so because it confirms their bias. The end.
Almost. The problem is the massive miasma of "both sides are bad", that depresses turnout and makes hard to get the rebuttals of Trump's nonsense hard to stick. Or, in other words, people hate the DC establishment so much that they are willing to let Trump go nuts as long as they suffer too. Add to that the point that the outcome won't change no matter how much the CIA talks about it and is incredibly hard to make people care.
the referring to the release by the CIA, which contains a bunch of info, is an appeal to authority, now here is a
It has not been proven that voting machines were not hacked.
in fact I could get basically any number of experts you want to state that the CIA and the FBI lack the technical expertise to prove that voting machines were not hacked.
I don't want politics to turn into that. "Who can lie the fastest" isn't a great qualification for office. I wouldn't vote for left-wing Trump.
Now you see why I think reaching out to Trump supporters is a waste of time
I was amazed at the number of people who had been convinced that not voting was some form of protest of the two party system.
"Well, I'm not voting for either because I don't like Hillary or Trump."
Look you special little snowflake, one of those two WILL BE President of The United States of America.
How did so many people get so convinced that they get to just pretend both of them are awful so they can avoid the icky feeling of responsibility for the things one of them may or may not do? If you're starving and trying to decide between peanuts which you have a severe allergy to and tofu, you don't bitch about them being equally as bad because yuck tofu.
emails, emails, hacking, hacking, Russia, shouldn't put anyone in a position where they go "yeah, I know Russia hacked the DNC... but the emails! Clinton should be in prison!"
As nice as it would be if it were just Russia's fault, it isn't.
You can't win a game you won't play. Why is it stupid to unilaterally disarm when it comes to big money and using Citizen's United but not when it comes to the war of propaganda?
"I find it really concerning that the intelligence agencies are relying on arguments of authority."
*makes even sketchier argument of authority about some dude he knows that totally hacked Podesta*
Try harder comrade.
Hahahaha. Goodin rarely shows up to Baysec (though when he does it's always a pleasure to chat with him) but calling it a gathering of globally respected security researchers is fucking ridiculous. It used to be more diverse in attendance but these days it's 90% scary good crypto and chip design people. I don't think there's even anybody who's done offensive security that shows up regularly other than me at this point.
The group is small these days, like 5-10 regulars. It's a great little gathering though.
Citation: Show up next Tuesday at 7:30 at the Holding Company I guess?
With regards to the consensus of the community, it has about as many naysayers as Climate Change. Can't really cite that without fully outing myself, but I attend 4-5 security focused events every month, have a well curated Twitter feed of professionals I've met over the years, and I'm on staff at a relatively major infosec conference (think just below DEF CON/BlackHat/RSA).
The surge started in 2007, under George W. Bush.