The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Both officials declined to specify what actions President Barack Obama has approved, but said targeted economic sanctions, indictments, leaking information to embarrass Russian officials or oligarchs, and restrictions on Russian diplomats in the United States are among steps that have been discussed.
One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control. One example of an excessive step might be interfering with Russian internet messaging.
The FBI, CIA and Office of Director of National Intelligence agree that Russia was behind hacks into Democratic Party organizations and operatives ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. There is also agreement, according to U.S. officials, that Russia sought to intervene in the election to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Russia has repeatedly denied hacking accusations. Trump has dismissed the assessments of the U.S. intelligence community.
Obama, in an interview earlier this month with NPR, said, "We need to take action and we will" against Russia for interfering in the U.S. election.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, promised retaliation on Wednesday against Washington in the event of new economic sanctions.
Jim Lewis, a cyber security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said further sanctions may be an effective U.S. tool in part because they would be difficult for Trump to roll back and because Russia "hates" dealing with them.
"For the rest of the world, it’s like having 'scumball' stamped on your forehead," Lewis said.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
he Obama administration struck back at Russia on Thursday for its efforts to influence the 2016 election, ejecting 35 Russian intelligence operatives from the United States and imposing sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services, including four top officers of the military intelligence unit the White House believes ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.
In a sweeping set of announcements, the United States was also expected to release evidence linking the cyberattacks to computer systems used by Russian intelligence. Taken together, the actions would amount to the strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack aimed at the United States.
...
Mr. Trump will now have to decide whether to lift the sanctions on the Russian intelligence agencies when he takes office next month, with Republicans in Congress among those calling for a public investigation into Russia’s actions. Should Mr. Trump do so, it would require him to effectively reject the findings of his intelligence agencies.
Asked on Wednesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., about reports of the impending sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.”
The Obama administration is also planning to release a detailed “joint analytic report” from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security that is clearly based in part on intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency. A more detailed report on the intelligence, ordered by President Obama, will be published in the next three weeks, though much of the detail — especially evidence collected from “implants” in Russian computer systems, tapped conversations and spies — is expected to remain classified.
Asked on Wednesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., about reports of the impending sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.”
Asked on Wednesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., about reports of the impending sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.”
Holy fucking shit. [Facepalm]
Just like global warming then: A lot of people say a lot of things and nobody really knows anything.
On October 7, 2016, the Department Of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) issued a joint statement on election security compromises. DHS has released a Joint Analysis Report (JAR) attributing those compromises to Russian malicious cyber activity, designated as GRIZZLY STEPPE.
The JAR package offers technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services (RIS). Accompanying CSV and STIX format files of the indicators are available
...
DHS recommends that network administrators review JAR-16-20296.pdf ... for more information and implement the recommendations provided.
Asked on Wednesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., about reports of the impending sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need.”
Holy fucking shit. [Facepalm]
What is he even saying? Seriously, what is the point of those sentences?
I look forward to President Trump's fireside chats on "Tide goes in, tide goes out" and "Fuckin' Magnets."
Taibbi's piece is pretty short on specifics as to why he thinks the assessment is dubious, or how it's like the Iraqi WMD case. He pretty much admits he doesn't know, and the press should be careful how they frame it. Just like any other story
Last edited by Alefroth on Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I usually like Taibbi's writing but this is a pretty thin argument on his end. Basically don't trust intelligence agencies because of mistakes of the past and Obama's response was too weak. A guy who is out of office in a month. And who has been fairly non-confrontational his entire Presidency. The question becomes why are the intelligence agencies saying this? Especially in the face of the incoming administrations stance?
Journalistic suspicion is healthy, but don't confuse it with what we're getting from Trump's surrogates (from Giuliani on down) right now: dismissal of American intelligence agencies as "incompetent;" praise for the former head of the KGB. That's where we are.
Add to this Trump's lack of interest in briefings and his whole team's hostility to facts that trouble their narratives. Even leaving aside the present crisis, what does this say to the agents and analysts who've spent careers and sometimes risked their lives gathering intelligence? And what outside sources are going to risk their own safety to help us? The Trump team's attitude towards Muslims must be having a huge impact on our ability to recruit information sources in the Muslim world.
It's clear that for Trump the facts are less important than what he wants to hear. That never ends well.
I agree - just think he puts together a weak case about the Russia angle being suspicious. Though his point about skepticism is good - it is his bread and butter.
Still there are so many bad scenarios in front of us. Let's say Trump truly thinks he is just the best and can fix everything. First off clearly that isn't possible - even if he were a genius. Instead he is dangerously ignorant. And people in his circle are going to abuse that. That they've possibly got him believing that aligning with Russia is a good idea (or just needed to nudge him a little) is terrifying. Especially since he is unwilling to listen to his intelligence experts. Plus he surrounded himself with a national security adviser who was burned by them. So we are going to likely be wide open on entire fronts. If we were to posit a true intelligence agency failure, it is possible it is that they miscalculated Trump badly. They didn't think through the ultimate worst case that the incoming President is so arrogant and stupid that he would burn them publicly over their analysis.
Consequently, Muslim recruiting is just one of many coming huge problems. Russia has a mostly clear board right now . It is possible that they will turn the heat up on the Ukraine within a year or two as the situation for ethnic Russians 'deteriorates'. Especially if Putin gets his hooks into more Continental parties and they start winning election. If so, the board opens up almost entirely. And we face other issues with Trump poking at China as well. Ugly stuff.
Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups.
"This ultimately seems like a very rushed report put together by multiple teams working different data sets and motivations," Robert M. Lee, CEO and Founder of the security company Dragos, wrote in a critique published Friday. "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."
The sloppiness, Lee noted, included the report's conflation of Russian hacking groups APT28 and APT29—also known as CozyBear, Sandworm, Sednit, and Sofacy, among others—with malware names such as BlackEnergy and Havex, and even hacking capabilities such as "Powershell Backdoor." The mix up of such basic classifications does little to inspire confidence that the report was carefully or methodically prepared. And that only sows more reasons for President elect Donald Trump and his supporters to cast doubt on the intelligence community's analysis on a matter that, if true, poses a major national security threat.
A messy report undercuts the case? No one is sharing the actual evidence because it is Classified or Proprietary data. End of story. That we don't get to see is the least surprising thing ever. I guess we should expect detailed BDA reports and surveillance data too before we accept intelligence reports that Russians bombed some target in Syria, right?
malchior wrote:A messy report undercuts the case? No one is sharing the actual evidence because it is Classified or Proprietary data. End of story. That we don't get to see is the least surprising thing ever. I guess we should expect detailed BDA reports and surveillance data too before we accept intelligence reports that Russians bombed some target in Syria, right?
It isn't just messy, it lacks any evidence to draw a conclusion. There is nothing in the physical evidence that proves ANY connection to the Russian government or even Russia. It just shows that some tools that are commonly used in Russian and Ukrainian hacking circles were used. Note those tools can be obtained by anyone. Even me.
malchior wrote:A messy report undercuts the case? No one is sharing the actual evidence because it is Classified or Proprietary data. End of story. That we don't get to see is the least surprising thing ever. I guess we should expect detailed BDA reports and surveillance data too before we accept intelligence reports that Russians bombed some target in Syria, right?
It isn't just messy, it lacks any evidence to draw a conclusion. There is nothing in the physical evidence that proves ANY connection to the Russian government or even Russia. It just shows that some tools that are commonly used in Russian and Ukrainian hacking circles were used. Note those tools can be obtained by anyone. Even me.
Weak evidence is weak.
I keep forgetting we are talking to a host. Physical evidence of cyber security hacking? Do we need to have a FSB agent in custody confessing before you believe it? You keep making some assertion that there isn't any evidence that *proves* the connection. Crowd strike is still maintaining that they have overwhelming evidence that it was the Russians. The CIA and FBI said the same. You can choose to keep ignoring that by find tiny nuggets of evidence that you think prove that but this report is not it.
malchior wrote:A messy report undercuts the case? No one is sharing the actual evidence because it is Classified or Proprietary data. End of story. That we don't get to see is the least surprising thing ever. I guess we should expect detailed BDA reports and surveillance data too before we accept intelligence reports that Russians bombed some target in Syria, right?
It isn't just messy, it lacks any evidence to draw a conclusion. There is nothing in the physical evidence that proves ANY connection to the Russian government or even Russia. It just shows that some tools that are commonly used in Russian and Ukrainian hacking circles were used. Note those tools can be obtained by anyone. Even me.
Weak evidence is weak.
I keep forgetting we are talking to a host. Physical evidence of cyber security hacking? Do we need to have a FSB agent in custody confessing before you believe it? You keep making some assertion that there isn't any evidence that *proves* the connection. Crowd strike is still maintaining that they have overwhelming evidence that it was the Russians. The CIA and FBI said the same. You can choose to keep ignoring that by find tiny nuggets of evidence that you think prove that but this report is not it.
The answer is right in the article and explicitly addresses the Crowd Strike assertions.
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."
That is the only thing that Crowd Strike uses to claim that it was Russia was because X-Agent was used. That is total weaksauce.
Rip wrote:That is the only thing that Crowd Strike uses to claim that it was Russia was because X-Agent was used. That is total weaksauce.
First off - we don't know all the evidence. Neither does James Carr. They might be publicly saying that it is based on the tool chain but I think it is safe to say they aren't compromising the hand that feeds them to prove a case that the CIA and FBI backs. So please keep saying no one has proof if you choose to continue to be inaccurate. You don't know that. Also do you not acknowledge that the FBI and CIA also say they have overwhelming evidence Russia was directly tied to the hacks?
And for crissakes you posted the entire problem with relying on the report for anything -
"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."
It was redacted to death. It doesn't make me think - gee whiz they had a weak case - it is gee whiz - they shouldn't have promised to release data they can't.
You know Rip, by doggedly defending the Russians, all you're doing is convincing everyone that you believe that not only were the Russians behind the election-related hacking, but that you're convinced that they actually tipped the balance for Trump. Otherwise, why would you care about the allegations against them, let alone be so determined to pretend that it wasn't them behind the hacking that we all know did actually happen.
It's also the most likely reason that Trump is such an ardent Russophile. Well, assuming he wasn't outright colluding with them all along.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Max Peck wrote:You know Rip, by doggedly defending the Russians, all you're doing is convincing everyone that you believe that not only were the Russians behind the election-related hacking, but that you're convinced that they actually tipped the balance for Trump. Otherwise, why would you care about the allegations against them, let alone be so determined to pretend that it wasn't them behind the hacking that we all know did actually happen.
It's also the most likely reason that Trump is such an ardent Russophile. Well, assuming he wasn't outright colluding with them all along.
I'm not defending the Russians. I'm the one that was calling for me to be done to them for the last eight years. I'm am simply calling it a weak case based on currently publicly known information.
If they have some smoking gun and show it to the congressional intel committees and the members of said intel committees are satisfied it is a smoking gun I am fine with that. I don't need to see it but someone I trust beyond anonymous sources and administration talking heads before I accept it as established fact.
At the end of the day we should have done as much against them in the spring of 2014. The only reason anything was done now is in my view more about attacking Trump than countering Russia. Russia has already walked all over Obama and this just comes of looking like a bitter cowardly parting shot. Along with a win in Syria, Russia looks as strong right now as they have since the Soviet Union broke up.
Rip wrote:If they have some smoking gun and show it to the congressional intel committees and the members of said intel committees are satisfied it is a smoking gun I am fine with that.
Lindsay Graham: "There are 100 United States senators. Amy Klobuchar is on this trip with us. She's a Democrat from Minnesota. I would say that 99 of us believe the Russians did this and we're going to do something about it,"
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
If Russia's intent is really to sow discord, then they should release the RNC emails just after the inauguration. I'm sure there's plenty of anti-Trump stuff, especially early in the primaries. And we know Trump doesn't take well to perceived slights...
Ralph-Wiggum wrote:If Russia's intent is really to sow discord, then they should release the RNC emails just after the inauguration. I'm sure there's plenty of anti-Trump stuff, especially early in the primaries. And we know Trump doesn't take well to perceived slights...
The scuttlebutt said that their original intent was simply to de-legitimize Clinton's presidency. Now that they've surprised even themselves by getting their patsy elected, Putin isn't going to do anything to jeopardize his good fortune. He'll play Trump like a yakkety sax.
WordFence is a plug-in designed to protect users of WordPress that has been downloaded over 1 million times. The report released last Thursday by the DHS and FBI, titled “Grizzly Steppe,” contains a PHP malware sample which WordFence employees analyzed.
“Our security analysts spend a lot of time analyzing PHP malware, because WordPress is powered by PHP,” the blog post written by WordFence founder and CEO Mark Maunder said in a post Friday. “We used the PHP malware indicator of compromise (IOC) that DHS provided to analyze the attack data that we aggregate to try to find the full malware sample.”
WordFence was able to find the name of the malware and the version. Maunder said it is a malware called “P.A.S. 3.1.0.,” which was available for download on a site that is currently down.
The tech CEO wrote: “The PHP malware sample they have provided appears to be P.A.S. version 3.1.0 which is commonly available and the website that claims to have authored it says they are Ukrainian. It is also several versions behind the most current version of P.A.S which is 4.1.1b. One might reasonably expect Russian intelligence operatives to develop their own tools or at least use current malicious tools from outside sources.”
In a series of FAQs published Monday, Maunder continued to criticize the DHS/FBI report. He said TechFence reviewed IP addresses that the DHS said was behind hacking efforts and found that they “belong to over 380 organizations and many of those organizations are well known website hosting providers from where many attacks originate. There is nothing in the IP data that points to Russia specifically.”
Much of the evidence tying Russia to hacking efforts has been criticized by cyber security experts. One link tying Russia to the leaking of Democratic National Committee emails is that documents leaked by hacker Guccifer 2.0’s were modified by a user named Felix Dzerzhinsky, the man who founded the Soviet secret police.
Cybersecurity expert Jeffrey Carr wrote in a blog post, “OK. Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add Iron Felix’s name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world while pretending to be a Romanian hacker.”
I went to Fox news to see their slant on all this.
I couldn't find any articles on it except for a poll asking it Obama was right in putting sanctions on Russia for hacking.
68% said no. 21% said yes.
Compare that to CNN and MSN and Yahoo who seem to have a fixation on the hackings.
I thought it was an interesting comparison between the liberal and the conservative press.
The US intelligence chief has promised to explain why Russia allegedly meddled in the US presidential election.
Director of National Intelligence General James Clapper said Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the hack of Democratic Party emails, and the motive will be revealed next week.
But Mr Clapper stopped short of saying it was "an act of war".
Russia has denied involvement but the US has announced sanctions against Russian officials.
A report on foreign meddling in US elections was given to President Barack Obama on Thursday.
President-elect Donald Trump is to be briefed on the report on Friday and the unclassified version will be made public next week.
Top US intelligence officials were giving testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee investigating the alleged interference.
In their assessment, Moscow interfered to help Mr Trump, the Republican candidate, beat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Asked by a congressman if they "will ascribe a motivation to Putin", Mr Clapper replied "yes, we will ascribe motivation".
Mr Clapper described the Russian efforts as a "multifaceted campaign", which featured "classical propaganda, disinformation, [and] fake news".
In joint testimony prepared for the hearing, officials said Russia had an advanced cyber-programme that posed a major threat to a wide range of US interests.
"Russia is a full-scope cyber-actor that poses a major threat to US government, military, diplomatic, commercial and critical infrastructure," the testimony said.
It was written by Mr Clapper, Marcel Lettre, Undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, and Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency.
Senator McCain, in opening the session, reminded the panel that they were not there to "question the outcome of the presidential election".
"We cannot say they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort," Mr Clapper said about the Russian intelligence operation, adding that the Russians may have had "multiple motivations".
"We have no way of gauging the impact... that it had on the choices the electorate made."
Asked by Senator McCain about whether it was "an act of war" Mr Clapper said "that is a very heavy policy call that I don't think the intelligence community should make".
Mr Trump has repeatedly rejected allegations that the Russian government hacked into the computers of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, and the servers of the Democratic National Committee.
On Thursday, he said he was a "big fan" of intelligence agencies, after months of casting doubt on the Russian link.
Last week he said he would announce information about hacking "on Tuesday or Wednesday", but no announcement came.
The Department of Homeland Security in late December released a declassified report to bolster accusations that the Russian government deliberately sought to aid the New York real estate mogul's candidacy.
The Obama administration also expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the US and closed two compounds said to be used by Russian intelligence.
But Senator Lindsey Graham told the Senate committee that President Obama had not gone far enough with his response.
"It is time not to throw pebbles but to throw rocks," he said.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
