DNC E-Mail Wikileaks

[malchior]

It also begs the question - if Hannity keeps telling this story despite the "retraction" is it really a retraction or merely removing one version of the story from the website.

[malchior]

Classic Hannity.

[hepcat]

So all he has in his defense is "I am rubber, you are glue..."?

[Zarathud]

Watch those double negatives. A phony hypocrite = a fake liar = truthful or sincere.

Or the opposite of Hannity. Hannity and Tucker Carlson are vile, cancerous dicks.

[El Guapo]

So all he has in his defense is "I am rubber, you are glue..."?

....then what???

[hepcat]

You need to cough up some cash to find out, pal. I'm behind a paywall.

[Max Peck]

It looks like Hannity might be getting the O'Reilly treatment. It'll be interesting to see if this snowballs.

Fox's Sean Hannity loses advertisers after conspiracy theory

Several companies have pulled adverts from Fox News host Sean Hannity's show after his coverage of a debunked election murder conspiracy.

At least five firms have cancelled commercials, despite Mr Hannity's pledge to drop the topic on-air.

Fox has retracted their story, which claimed a Democratic National Committee employee was shot because he passed emails to Wikileaks.

Washington DC police suspect Seth Rich was gunned down in a botched robbery.

Companies that have ditched the Sean Hannity Show are Cars.com, the United Services Automobile Association, home-security company Ring, Crowne Plaza Hotels, Peloton bicycles, and mattress companies Leesa Sleep and Casper.

[...]

On Wednesday Fox host Kimberly Guilfoyle announced Mr Hannity was going on holiday and that she would replace him on-air for the rest of the week.

"Like the rest of the country, Sean Hannity is taking a vacation for Memorial Day weekend and will be back on Tuesday," a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement.

"Those who suggest otherwise are going to look foolish."

Former Fox host Bill O'Reilly was also targeted in an advertising boycott over several sexual harassment claims, shortly before he went on holiday never to return.

[hepcat]

You're going to hurt the feelings of our resident conspiracy theorist, man.

[Rip]

There was no hack of the Democratic National Committee’s system on July 5 last year—not by the Russians, not by anyone else. Hard science now demonstrates it was a leak—a download executed locally with a memory key or a similarly portable data-storage device. In short, it was an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system. This casts serious doubt on the initial “hack,” as alleged, that led to the very consequential publication of a large store of documents on WikiLeaks last summer.

Forensic investigations of documents made public two weeks prior to the July 5 leak by the person or entity known as Guccifer 2.0 show that they were fraudulent: Before Guccifer posted them they were adulterated by cutting and pasting them into a blank template that had Russian as its default language.
Guccifer took responsibility on June 15 for an intrusion the DNC reported on June 14 and professed to be a WikiLeaks source—claims essential to the official narrative implicating Russia in what was soon cast as an extensive hacking operation. To put the point simply, forensic science now devastates this narrative.

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new ... -dnc-hack/

[LordMortis]

That's a Wall of text that could cover the US Mexican border.

I was looking for "the smoking gun" by skimming and I came to this as first point, and gave up

The customary VIPS format is an open letter, typically addressed to the president. The group has written three such letters on the DNC incident, all of which were first published by Robert Parry at Here is the latest, dated July 24; it blueprints the forensic work this article explores in detail. They have all argued that the hack theory is wrong and that a locally executed leak is the far more likely explanation. In a letter to Barack Obama dated January 17, three days before he left office, the group explained that the NSA’s known programs are fully capable of capturing all electronic transfers of data. “We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks,” the letter said. “If NSA cannot produce such evidence—and quickly—this would probably mean it does not have any.”

Not saying they're wrong, but if that is the opening salvo for in an appeal for credibility, they landed way off mark.

[malchior]

I cannot even begin to speak about how little credibility that report deserves. That they make these conclusions based on what they know is ludicrous. No serious authority would accept this as evidence. But that wasn't their intent. It was to distort. Their analysis essentially hinges on one piece of information with a deep dive without key pieces of information. They argue that the transfer speed was not possible due to ISP limitations but don't know the actual architecture involved, they don't have the detailed logs, and they had to make some pretty self-serving assumptions. They just say that the transfer speed wasn't commercially available to a hacker. Which is a huge assumption and glosses over the nation-state aspect. Or that there are plenty of other ways to get this datum. As an example argument against their hypothesis, that transfer could have been entirely internal (as they claim) but still related to the hack. For instance, the initial collection of data from the source location to a separate compromised host on the same network could easily achieve those speeds for later exfiltration. It didn't have to be a USB key or portable hard drive. Further, if a device was used there would often be forensic evidence of such on the devices used. That would be actual proof. This is just garbage for now.

Edit: Just because I feel like piling on - this is dumber than I thought.

What is the maximum achievable speed? Forensicator recently ran a test download of a comparable data volume (and using a server speed not available in 2016) 40 miles from his computer via a server 20 miles away and came up with a speed of 11.8 megabytes per second—half what the DNC operation would need were it a hack. Other investigators have built on this finding. Folden and Edward Loomis say a survey published August 3, 2016, by is highly reliable and use it as their thumbnail index. It indicated that the highest average ISP speeds of first-half 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications. These speeds averaged 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively. Peak speeds at higher rates were recorded intermittently but still did not reach the required 22.7 megabytes per second.

This is laughable. In 2016, I had speeds capable of 22.7 MB/s *in my home*. That is approximately 200 Mbps. That is a common speed in parts of the world. Are you kidding me with this grade school nonsense? This is the deepest, darkest pile of dog doo. RIp did you even read or analyze this? You have to know this argument is complete nonsense. A guy tried the transfer and was really close and had the latest server tech (lol wut?). Therefore it isn't possible. This is impossibly stupid.

[YellowKing]

"Your honor, the average speed of a car traveling on an interstate is 65 miles per hour. Therefore it is impossible that my client was going 80."

LOL. I had a 50MB connection in 2015.

From a 5 second Google look up of a Speedtest.net report:

The typical fixed broadband consumer in the U.S. saw average download speeds greater than 50 Mbps for the first time ever during the first six months of 2016, topping out at 54.97 Mbps in June.

[El Guapo]

There are large parts of the far left (including a couple Sanderites on my FB feed) who are desperate to believe that it was an insider leak and not Russia. I think this is both because they are desperate to believe the worst DNC anti-Sanders conspiracies, because they hate centrist democrats / the "Establishment" about as much as they hate Republicans, and because they are ideologically inclined to trust foreign governments (even noxious ones) over U.S. government institutions (because they hate the U.S. establishment so much).

I don't doubt that the authors here believe what they are saying. But how weak it is a sign of how desperate the Nation is to believe this stuff.

[malchior]

The Nation's editor also happens to be married to a Kremlin apologist - that might have something to do with it.

[El Guapo]

Honestly I doubt that that really is connected to it. It's more than anti-anti-Trumpism is rampant among that stripe of the left. They hate the U.S. political and national security establishment so much (to be fair, not without some reason) that it's extraordinarily difficult for them to see any other force as worse, or even to see establishment people or groups as right about something.

Jonathan Chait had a good column the other day about Glenn Greenwald and this effect.

[malchior]

Honestly I doubt that that really is connected to it.

Really? The editor is married to a main Kremlin booster and that isn't a connection? It isn't hard to imagine he has some influence on her thought patterns around Russian politics.

It's more than anti-anti-Trumpism is rampant among that stripe of the left. They hate the U.S. political and national security establishment so much (to be fair, not without some reason) that it's extraordinarily difficult for them to see any other force as worse, or even to see establishment people or groups as right about something.

Jonathan Chait had a good column the other day about .Glenn Greenwald and this effect.

I don't disagree with the rest. The Bernie side of the house and especially the Greens have gone mad.

[Carpet_pissr]

They hate the Clintons and liberalism so much that it's extraordinarily difficult for them to see any other force as worse

Just for kicks...you could end that sentence with "even one as obviously terrible as Donald Trump."

I think that goes a long way to explaining why here, in the heart of red country, I didn't see any MAGA hat wearers (maybe ONE), or Trump bumper stickers or yard signs, before the election. If any, VERY few.

[El Guapo]

It's more that I am inclined to view the causation as going in a different direction. The Nation occupies part of the political spectrum that (going back some time) tends to be reflexively sympathetic towards anyone who is critical of the U.S. government and U.S. political establishment institutions, no matter how noxious those adversaries might be themselves. The Nation's editor essentially by definition would travel in those circles. I think it's likely that the Nation editor would meet and marry someone who is a Kremlin apologist because those are the circles that they travel in. So it's more likely that the politics caused the marriage rather than the other way around.

Anyway, it's irrelevant to how right or wrong they are on this point, of course.

But I just find it incredibly frustrating how many people find it hard to wrap their heads around complexity and want everything to be pure and simple. It's not that hard to understand that establishment institutions have done bad things and that at the same time their enemies can be worse, or that people can be wrong about some things and right about others. That's not something limited to the Nation or to the far left, of course, but it's just incredibly frustrating.

[El Guapo]

They hate the Clintons and liberalism so much that it's extraordinarily difficult for them to see any other force as worse

Just for kicks...you could end that sentence with "even one as obviously terrible as Donald Trump."

I think that goes a long way to explaining why here, in the heart of red country, I didn't see any MAGA hat wearers (maybe ONE), or Trump bumper stickers or yard signs, before the election. If any, VERY few.

There's a very similar effect on the educated right, as well. National Review has no love of Trump, but they hate democrats so much (and for so long) that they've written a lot in an anti-anti-Trump vein.

[Victoria Raverna]

"Your honor, the average speed of a car traveling on an interstate is 65 miles per hour. Therefore it is impossible that my client was going 80."

LOL. I had a 50MB connection in 2015.

From a 5 second Google look up of a Speedtest.net report:

The typical fixed broadband consumer in the U.S. saw average download speeds greater than 50 Mbps for the first time ever during the first six months of 2016, topping out at 54.97 Mbps in June.

54.97 Mbps is not enough to transfer at the speed of 22 MB/s. 54.97 Mbps can transfer about 5 MB/s.

[Isgrimnur]

#CapitalizationMatters

[YellowKing]

Ooops yep, sloppy reading on my part. As an IT guy I should have known better.

[Isgrimnur]

[Rip]

From that Alt-Right pro-Trump site Salon.....

How did the group come to the conclusion that it was a leak, not a hack?

Investigators found that 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded locally on July 5, 2016. The information was downloaded with a memory key or some other portable storage device. The download operation took 87 seconds — meaning the speed of transfer was 22.7 megabytes per second — “a speed that far exceeds an internet capability for a remote hack,” as Lawrence puts it. What’s more, they say, a transoceanic transfer would have been even slower (Guccifer claimed to be working from Romania).

“Based on the data we now have, what we’ve been calling a hack is impossible,” Folden told The Nation.

Further casting doubt on the official narrative is the fact the the DNC’s computer servers were never examined by the FBI. Instead, the agency relied on a report compiled by Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm compromised by serious conflicts of interest — the major one being that the firm was paid by the DNC itself to conduct its work. Another is that the firm’s owner is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank known for its hostility toward Russia.

The Intelligence Community Assessment published in January of this year, which claims “high confidence” in the Russian hacking theory, presented no hard evidence. Yet many in the media have relied on it as proof ever since. Ray McGovern, another VIPS member and formerly the chief of the CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, called that intelligence assessment a “disgrace” to the profession.

The VIPS report also notes that the timing of events is strangely favorable to Hillary Clinton. It is hard to disagree.

On June 12, 2016, Julian Assange announced that he would publish documents related to Clinton’s campaign on WikiLeaks. Two days later, Crowdstrike, the firm paid by the DNC, suddenly announced the discovery of malware on DNC servers and claimed it had evidence that the Russians were responsible for it. This set in motion the narrative for Russian hacking.

A day after that, Guccifer appeared, took responsibility for the purported June 14 hack and announced that he was a WikiLeaks source, working on behalf of Russia. He then posted the documents which VIPS now claims were altered to make them appear more “Russian.”

On July 5, two weeks later, Guccifer claimed responsibility for another hack — which the VIPS report categorically states can only have been a leak, based on the speed of data transfer.

As Lawrence suggests, this timing was convenient for the Clinton campaign, which could avoid dealing with the contents of the leaks by instead focusing on the sensational story of Russian hacking.

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/15/what-if ... er-ignore/

The best part.

For the media and mainstream liberals to dismiss the information presented in Lawrence’s article as lacking in evidence would be breathtakingly ironic, given how little evidence they required to build a narrative to suit themselves and absolve Clinton of any responsibility for losing the election.

The authors of this report are highly experienced and well-regarded professionals. That they can be dismissed out of hand or ignored entirely is a sad commentary on the state of the media, which purports to be concerned by the plague of “fake news.”

If these new findings are accurate, those who pushed the Russia hacking narrative with little evidence have a lot to answer for. The Clinton campaign promoted a narrative that has pushed U.S.-Russia relations to the brink at an incredibly dangerous time.

Unlike the cacophony of anonymous sources cited by the media over the past year, these experts are ready to put their names to their assertions. They expect that pundits, politicians and the media will cast doubt on their findings, but say they are “prepared to answer any substantive challenges on their merits.” That is more than any other investigators or intelligence agencies have offered to this point.

Given the seriousness of this new information, the DNC’s official response to The Nation’s story is so lackluster it is almost laughable:

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the Russian government hacked the DNC in an attempt to interfere in the election. Any suggestion otherwise is false and is just another conspiracy theory like those pushed by Trump and his administration. It’s unfortunate that The Nation has decided to join the conspiracy theorists to push this narrative.

The clear implication here is that anyone who questions what U.S. intelligence agencies “have concluded” is a conspiracy theorist pushing lies on behalf of Trump or Vladimir Putin. It is clear that the DNC expect the matter to be left at that, with no further inquiry from the media or anyone else.

By the looks of things, that’s exactly what will happen.

[hepcat]

What's this have to do with the Vice piece on Charlottesville?

[Isgrimnur]

Seems like a trustworthy, nonpartisan source.

[malchior]

I see how this is going. The original garbage theory about Internet speed didn't stick so they pivoted to the lack of public evidence canard. Puhlease. It should amaze me how desperate decent chunks of right and the extreme left are to let Russia off the hook. Mostly so they can go after their local demon(s) of choice. But unfortunately it is all too common and it works all too well.

[malchior]

Seems like a trustworthy, nonpartisan source.

Seems some folks got played by Putin *again*. But by all means keep on truckin'!

[LordMortis]

...

Seems like a trustworthy, nonpartisan source.

Izzy goes to search for plagiarism and unmasks the truth

[rip]and I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for your meddling obsessive research[/rip]

[Rip]

I see how this is going. The original garbage theory about Internet speed didn't stick so they pivoted to the lack of public evidence canard. Puhlease. It should amaze me how desperate decent chunks of right and the extreme left are to let Russia off the hook. Mostly so they can go after their local demon(s) of choice. But unfortunately it is all too common and it works all too well.

The internet speed did stick it still would have required a connection speed of 178 mbps to have xferred the data in that amount of time.

You are still neglecting the crux of the matter, while the report doesn't PROVE it was a leak and not a hack, it casts serious doubt on it.

For the media and mainstream liberals to dismiss the information presented in Lawrence’s article as lacking in evidence would be breathtakingly ironic, given how little evidence they required to build a narrative to suit themselves and absolve Clinton of any responsibility for losing the election.

[hepcat]

Why the latest theory about the dnc not being hacked is probably wrong.

[malchior]

The internet speed did stick it still would have required a connection speed of 178 mbps to have xferred the data in that amount of time.

No it didn't. You know that was a commercially available speed for *years* at this point. It is a ridiculous assertion. I suspect you know that too.

You are still neglecting the crux of the matter, while the report doesn't PROVE it was a leak and not a hack, it casts serious doubt on it.

How?

For the media and mainstream liberals to dismiss the information presented in Lawrence’s article as lacking in evidence would be breathtakingly ironic, given how little evidence they required to build a narrative to suit themselves and absolve Clinton of any responsibility for losing the election.

It is dismissed because it is based on paper thin reasoning.

[malchior]

Why the latest theory about the dnc not being hacked is probably wrong.

I find it hilarious that The Hill article perpetrates the false notion that 20 MB/s speeds are not commercially available (then weirdly debunks it as well). Google Fiber delivered Gig speed to homes in some cities in 2013. Verizon FIOS has also delivered that speed for years. I personally had a gig circuit dropped in my former employer in ... 2006 via the NJ Higher Ed network project. The argument is LUDICROUS.

[Isgrimnur]

But it plays well to people in areas that the Universal Service Fund was supposed to help but didn't.

[LordMortis]

No it didn't. You know that was a commercially available speed for *years* at this point. It is a ridiculous assertion. I suspect you know that too.

With regard to bandwidth, the only real question is could the DNC handle those sorts of speeds with the tech they were using. If the answer is yes, then there is no need to speculate that hackers make use of it. Not in 2016 and not in 2010. Here is my first assumption. Someone hacking a quasi US government organization in the US are using a whole lot of someone else's resources between them and the organization.

With regard to other stuff, I got nothing. As I stated, I saw Trumpian wall of text and I had to get through pages and pages to get nowhere with their allusions or supposed smoking gun. Once I got to an opening salvo I couldn't take serious, there was no way I was sorting through the rest.

[Rip]

Now this would make it interesting. I hate to get my hopes up but if this worked out it could be earth shattering.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/17/exclu ... ak-source/

The congressman told TheDC that “if [Assange] is going to give us a big favor, he would obviously have to be pardoned to leave the Ecuadorian embassy.” Assange took asylum in the embassy in August 2012 after facing sexual assault charges in Sweden. The Justice Department also reportedly wants to charge Assange for helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, leak thousands of classified documents.

“He has information that will be of dramatic importance to the United States and the people of our country as well as to our government,” Rohrabacher said. “Thus if he comes up with that, you know he’s going to expect something in return. He can’t even leave the embassy to get out to Washington to talk to anybody if he doesn’t have a pardon. Obviously there is an issue there that needs to be dealt with, but we haven’t come to any conclusion yet.”

[Holman]

Chuck Johnson is giving an unambiguous white-supremacist handsign there, BTW.

[Max Peck]

So, Putin's bought-and-paid-for Congresscritter and Putin's propoganda distributor are going to crack this case wide open, exonerating Russia? Sounds legit.

[Holman]

So, Putin's bought-and-paid-for Congresscritter and Putin's propoganda distributor are going to crack this case wide open, exonerating Russia? Sounds legit.

And they've brought along batshit-insane conspiracy hound Chuck C., so you know they'll get the REAL STORY.

[RunningMn9]

LOL. I had a 50MB connection in 2015.

While it's *possible* that you had a 50MB connection in 2015, it seems far more likely that you had a 50Mb connection. Big difference.

A 22MB/s connection corresponds to about a 200Mbps connection. Although I had a faster connection than that in 2016.