Gude. 
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I for one am in favor of anyone incorporating unorthodox methods from the art and post-modern lit-crit world.
However it doesnt look like Donald Trump has been doing that. Indeed Im not sure that he can read.
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Like it!
So when I am corrupt I never use email. Thats just stupid. I go into a side room and have a face to face conversation. Also I dont make a direct offer if I can avoid it. I just try and make it clear that I am willing to bribe people - but in a way isnt too direct. Like who wants to go to jail?!
So absolutely right. A direct “quid pro quo” is like so totally unambiguous that you would need to be both brain dead AND corrupt to set it up like that. The kind of corrupt I do is ask my friends for favours and do them favours which I can only do cos I have the trust and discretion of my employers.
If I ever get public office I will be able to apply this kind of incrementally subtle corruption to public office. Like if I get a right job I might be able to do small favours for my friends and have them like “owe me a favour” which I can cash in later. Totally undetectable but totally screwing over the public? Need a liquor license? hahaha.
Quid pro quo? Nah, you mean ffing obvious totally undeniable quid pro quo! And of course who is that crass?
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I had read that there was evidence of hacking - although the language used by the 2 of 17 US intelligence agencies which went public was “consistent with the methods and motives” which feels a bit light of categorical. But what I have not seen is evidence of data ex-filtration. I have no doubt that the Russians hacked a lot of shit. I just wonder whether they took the emails and sent them to wiki-leaks.
Craig Murray on his blog said he had spoken to Assange and had been told that Russia is definitely not the source and also that hacking may not have been the method of obtaining them. I suppose Assange may know the truth. I also accept that neither Assange nor Murray is reliable. However I definitely have doubts the Russians could be bothered to do as has been alleged cos I dont see how they benefit. I definitely see why the Clinton team would be motivated to suggest it was the Russians - its pretty obvious how they benefit.
If you want to suggest this is a causus belli I personally would prefer it if it was a certainty. Unless you think there is no risk to fighting a war with Russia? Allocating responsibility after the nuclear apocalypse wont make me feel better about the explosions.
Neither is Samantha Bee…
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Probably. I think they are a little late on that, though. I think it’s already in chaos.
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Trust me, many of us here are in total agreement with you.
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The attack on the DNC server had Russias fingerprints all over it, and in the case of the private key used in the C&C communications as well as the C&C servers that was used in a precious Russian attack on the Bundestag, so there’s really no other plausible explanation. There were multiple attacks, so maybe Russia wasn’t involved in all, though analysis of the Podesta attack used the same methods/software and intelligence agencies are assuming Russia as the most likely candidate.
The docs that Wikileaks released initially contained a lot of metadata that also point to a Russian source. Much of the work analyzing these was done by private InfoSec firms, and while not 100% conclusive is incredibly damning. The documents Wikileaks released include the initial use of Cyrillic, but not the Moldovan Cyrillic one would assume if Guccifer 2.0 was actually Romanian, time zones in file metadata, original metadata containing the Felix Dzerzhinsky username, the immediate cleanup of metadata once analysis pointed out the Russian source, to the attackers taking a break on a Russian holiday, along with a long string of other damning details including massive holes throughout Guccifer 2.0’s story.
I can’t say why Russia would do these things, but there’s enough evidence out there that it’s impossible to come up with a plausible account that doesn’t involved them doing these things. I really can’t understand the motives, and won’t speculate.
I can’t say what Assange’s story is, but he was caught peddling docs that appear to have been sourced from Russian intelligence agencies years ago, and has a long history of dishonest claims, so I don’t trust his word. I really can’t understand his motives, and won’t speculate.
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So it must be the Russians cos they signed it - with the name of the founder of the Cheka? You dont thinks a little - ahem - unsubtle?
As for the Cui Bono point, I still dont get it. The Russians want to elect Donald Trump because he is really pro Pelmeni? Cos he is bound to be soft on Russia?
What do you think the Russians will get from a President Trump? Whatever it is its got to be worth really pissing off a potential President Clinton. And it doesnt look like they were worried about getting caught. Not if they are gonna use Dzerzhinsky as the username. Im surprised they didnt use VILennin.
I know you dont want to speculate but you sort of are already. And motive is an element of most crimes.
A useful idiot?
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He might be an idiot but most of the US doubts he is useful.
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If that alone was the evidence it’d be flimsy, but that’s only one detail among a sea of others. Once the Felix Dzerzhinsky username was pointed out by analysts it immediately disappeared from subsequent dumps, which is also significant.
Nor do I, but that doesn’t make the very compelling evidence that they are involved disappear.
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we had this discussion before. the Bundestag hack was not attributed without restrictions to Russia, though it seems likely.
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Aren’t Drumpf’s mail-servers supposed to be delectable honey pots just waiting to be hacked?
I would think that there should be a big juicy Drumpf Dump sitting at wikileaks if there was interest in a bi-partisan disruption…
True, though that’s a separate rathole. All we’re dealing with are arguments from probability in a domain where certainty is effectively unobtainable. Conversely, the additional evidence from the DNC attacks increases the already very high probability that the Bundestag attack originated from Russia.
If only they had signed it Donald Duck, then we would have conflicting information and the true perpetrator would be ambiguous. What kind of fools are running the FSB and the GRU these days?
So let me try and make your case - if the Russians did this then they wanted to be caught. But if they wanted to be caught then they must have realized that it would end up helping HRC. Which means that on some level they must have wanted HRC to be the winner!!!
Oh my god, HRC is the real Russian sleeper!!!
Does that sound stupid? It does dont you think? So maybe the argument that Donald Trump is a Russian sleeper is symmetrically dumb. That said, you dont need Russians to not want to vote for that halfwit retard Trump.
And of course, maybe the Russians have realised that nothing could make they US less of a laughing stock than electing a President Trump. In which case the likelihood of a confrontation with Russia might actually go down! So maybe I want to vote for the halfwit retard just to reduce the risk of nuclear war?
Ah forget it. Lets just pretend it was the Russians.
I don’t know what the motives are. I work in InfoSec and have been following that side of the story with great interest. The evidence there’s strong enough that if there was no political reason to want to deny it nobody would be questioning it. Trying to pick at one detail in a username that was quickly dropped one it was discovered while ignoring a vast number of other pieces of evidence is not an honest way to look at all of the evidence. Why the Russians are doing what they’re doing isn’t something I know enough about to make much of a guess about.
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A genuine question. I know there is evidence the Russians hacked into the server. But is there evidence they took all the emails? And how strong is the evidence that the Russians passed it to wikileaks? The key is the last point. The other points are sort of irrelevant except in as far as they point to the latter.
The mails were sent to the C&C system that use the same key as the Bundestag hack which is believed to have been used by Russia (with some qualifications). That system was installed by the initial attackers, though there were actually two separate attackers going after the DNC server, which are believed to have been run separately by the FSB and GRU. They tried to cover their tracks, but the C&C system that was passing the email dumps took a break on a Russian state holiday which is notable and not a detail I’d expect someone who was trying to create a false flag op would even think of.
Fairly strong based on the dumps Wikileaks posted. There’s plenty of analysis of the dumps here and elsewhere that you can read up on, it’s been a topic of obsessive focus among independent security researchers.
I understand it’s hard to believe. I doubted it for a while, but the analysis makes an incredibly strong case that hasn’t been refuted at all by those who’d most want to refute it.
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Ha. They can’t spell anxious OR wannabe.
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