“It's the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow, oblivious to the implications. One year later, from the AIVD headquarters in Zoetermeer, he and his colleagues witness Russian hackers launching an attack on the Democratic Party in the United States. The AIVD hackers had not infiltrated just any building; they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything.”
“That's how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won't be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.”
“The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous. It's also grounds for the FBI to start an investigation into the influence of the Russian interference on the election race between the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Donald Trump.” (Volkskrant)
*************************
The events behind this story have been alluded to in various accounts of digital penetrations of US computer systems over the last few years. Rick Ledgett described the Department of State hack in November 2014 as intense “hand-to-hand combat within a network” against an aggressive and tenacious foe known as Cozy Bear or APT29. The fight to rid the Pentagon and JCS networks of an uncharacteristically aggressive foe in August 2015 was also attributed to Cozy Bear and the Russian government. The same person who led the NSA team in the JCS fight, Captain Johnston, USMC, faced this foe again as a CrowdStrike employee when he responded to a call from the DNC in April 2016. When the FBI first warned the DNC in September 2015 that hackers were in the DNC network, Special Agent Adrian Hawkins referred to the intruders as the Dukes, another name for Cozy Bear or APT29.
In each of these cases we knew who the intruders were because of the digital and visual surveillance of those intruders and their SVR handlers by the Dutch. Information from that surveillance let USI identify the SVR officers involved. USI subsequently bugged the SVR officers’ phones and monitored their communications. This is a major reason why the CIA, NSA and FBI were able to assess with high confidence that Moscow made a concerted effort to influence the 2016 election.
There are still many who find it inconceivable that the Russian government attempted to influence the election much less pull off the DNC and Podesta hacks. They also find it inconceivable that a concerted, long term intelligence operation could ever prove attribution. It can and it does. I’ve done it myself. I see plenty of room for doubt concerning the effects of such a Russian influence operation or whether anyone in the Trump camp knew about this or took part in it. That’s a whole different story requiring its own concerted, long term investigation. l’m more than willing to wait for this investigation to run its course. It's just a damned shame that more sources and methods will inevitably be burnt in the process.
TTG
http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2017/04/nsa-engaged-massive-battle-russian-hackers-2014/136683/
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/incident_respon_1.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html
Democrats believe Hillary would have won if not for Russian interference? Not many of them. I think Democrats and Republicans are equally stupid, although in different ways. And the Democrats sure got emotional when Clinton lost. But this idea that most Democrats BELIEVE Hillary would have won if not for Russian interference? Forget it. That is nonsense. This seems to be anti-Democratic baloney cooked up by Fox News.
It sounds to me like most Democrats recognize that Hillary was a terrible campaigner. And the defeat of Sanders put a lot of Democrats on the sidelines. And the ridiculous Abedin email story acknowledged by Comey just before Election Day (possibly in response to the fear that anti-Hillary agents in the NY FBI office were going to leak it anyway) seems to have put Trump over the finish line, according to detailed analyses of swing-district polling data (if so, this was a very good dirty trick). So in reality, there were lots of likely reasons why Hillary lost.
Still, there's a legitimate case to be made, just by the numbers: Clinton won the popular vote by 2.7 million votes, but lost the Electoral College by only 60,000 votes -- spread over a handful of districts in 4 states. Facebook estimates that 128 million users were exposed to Russian-linked propaganda during the 2016 campaign season. I haven't seen the data for Twitter. And a LOT of people use these social media sites. This would have been more than enough to swing the election.
A few months ago it was reported that Mueller was talking to Cambridge Analytics, the Trump campaign's voter-targeting data firm. The question for them might be something like: Did you pass swing-district polling data to unknown people who were spreading the Russian propaganda onto social media by geographically-targeted ad buys, thus making it look legit? ... Again, maybe there is nothing to this. And if there is something to it, it might not be illegal! But it would stink to high heaven.
Posted by: Lee A. Arnold | 28 January 2018 at 07:32 AM
"There's a reason the AIVD writes in its annual report about 2014 that many Russian government officials, including president Putin, use secret services to obtain information."
This single sentence make the whole article a sham.
'government officials, including president Putin' - shit even in a democracy the leader of an organization comes first, knows the most isn't he/she?
'use secret services to obtain information.' - Damned, secret services ARE created for this!
The writer is a lunatic or is big time BS-ting.
Fake news, fake news! Who have spoken about fake news?
Posted by: Balint Somkuti, PhD | 28 January 2018 at 07:37 AM
Thanks TTG. Your comments make a lot of sense.
Posted by: SR Wood | 28 January 2018 at 07:52 AM
Ivan
Training people who later assassinate someone is not the same thing as training someone to assassinate. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 28 January 2018 at 08:01 AM
TTG
Clapper knows nothing of clandestine HUMINT operations. He is altogether a staff intelligence type. I tried to teach him the most basic sort of things. It was like talking to a wall. All he could think about was that if an operation was revealed in the press, his career would be damaged. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 28 January 2018 at 08:10 AM
TTG
What does "DIP" mean? pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 28 January 2018 at 08:20 AM
pl,
DIP means "die in place"
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 08:42 AM
TTG,
Since the time of Commander Crabb (yes, that long ago) one has always taken it for granted that it's no holds barred when it comes to one country conducting intelligence operations against another.
Electioneering is another no holds barred activity. Very much so in the States last time round.
Mix 'em up and I don't envy you or the commenters here when it comes to disentangling the results. I do envy you in the States when it comes to the openness with which these matters can be discussed publicly, but that's another story.
That said, it's broken record time for me again I'm afraid. Whatever the intelligence component of Mr Steele's activities, there was past doubt a political component as well. He was interfering in a US Presidential election. He was explicitly backed by the UK authorities when that interference became public. His interference was partisan and was explicitly directed against Trump.
Someone in the UK had to authorise that. Whoever that was could only have taken that risk after clearing it with someone in the US. Who were these "someones"?
Posted by: English Outsider | 28 January 2018 at 08:47 AM
Dear TTG,
I've been hoping to get your reaction to the work by Suzie Dawson referenced above many times. It appears to be a rather thorough and damning debunking of the Dutch intelligence story. You clearly believe the Dutch story, so could you respond to Dawson's points. here they are again - https://steemit.com/steemit/@suzi3d/10-reasons-the-dutch-russia-hacking-story-is-fake-news
Posted by: pj | 28 January 2018 at 10:14 AM
All
Recall this from January 2017!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-04/did-chuck-schumer-just-threaten-donald-trump
In light of what we have learned from Peter Strzok's and Lisa Page's text messages, from the declassified FISC ruling, from Admiral Rogers compliance review at NSA and meeting with Trump a week after the elections, and Clapper calling Trump a Manchurian Candidate, this statement by Sen. Chuck Schumer on Rachel Maddow's show makes a lot of sense.
It also makes perfect sense in light of this why so many, especially folks like Schumer and Feinstein and Schiff and of course the media, are doing everything to undermine Nunes, Goodlatte & Grassley. This conspiracy if fully exposed will likely show that the collusion was really among the highest levels of the Obama administration. What none of them expected and could believe is that the voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin saw through their propaganda to elect Donald Trump. Their expectation was that Hillary would sail through and this conspiracy could have been neatly buried. Knowing what we know now, can you imagine the scale of corruption and partisanship at these agencies under a Hillary Clinton presidency? Maybe the country did dodge a bullet by electing Donald Trump as now there is a possibility of exposure of the Deep State!
Col. Lang, TTG, Publius Tacitus, is Chuckie right? Has the IC and law enforcement become a law unto itself? Does it need to be disbanded and rebuilt from scratch? How can it be reformed?
Posted by: blue peacock | 28 January 2018 at 10:30 AM
Thank you.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 28 January 2018 at 11:47 AM
TTG:
In the absence of strategic leverage against the Russian Federation, how do you envision the United States confronting her?
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 28 January 2018 at 11:58 AM
TTG –
A few more questions and a comment:
1. Can you speculate on the probability of Russian intelligence having accessed SOS HRC’s private email server? It seems this would have been a prime target and based on Guccifer’s (the one in US jail) release (after HRC left SOS, but before the election) through RT of four Sid Blumenthal/HRC emails during her SOS tenure this would not seem to have been difficult.
2. And if Russian intelligence had acquired HRC’s private server emails and/or HRC/Clinton Foundation (anther obvious target) emails would the possible (I think probable) corruption they could have revealed have been a less dangerous path to making “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord so that we are unable to confront Russia in any meaningful way”?
3. Is it plausible that Russia’s high-level “US watchers” would not have seen the risks of releasing the DNC emails, which were directly linked to the election process?
My view is that the DNC email release could eventually strengthen the US by exposing the deep corruption within the democratic party that would not likely have ever seen the light of day if HRC had been elected. There is now at least a chance that the democratic part can reform the process of selecting presidential candidates. I am also seeing many thoughtful members of “then left” recognizing how damaging the banking and trade systems actions taken by Bill Clinton and continued through Obama have been to our country. Breaking the Clinton/Obama/Clinton leadership chains is at least providing areal opportunity to begin addressing these challenges as we have seen with Trump walking away from the deeply flawed pending Asia and EU trade agreements.
Posted by: Joe100 | 28 January 2018 at 12:12 PM
Lee A. Arnold,
Assume the Mueller report is as you say. Let us then assume that the IG report and the Congressional Republicans report a conspiracy at the Obama administration and that the Mueller probe was launched on false pretenses and that the attorneys on Mueller's team are partisans. How do you think that plays out in the mid-terms?
Posted by: Jack | 28 January 2018 at 12:32 PM
"Did you pass swing-district polling data to unknown people who were spreading the Russian propaganda onto social media by geographically-targeted ad buys,.."
Why would the Trump campaign need the Russians to do that, when they had the ability to do exactly this type of social media campaign? Trump campaign had a big social media operation in San Antonio to do precisely that. In any case the so called analysis by Facebook is laughable.
Posted by: Jack | 28 January 2018 at 12:50 PM
More abut Atlantic Council and the Crowdstrike' star Alperovitch: https://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=219560
January 27, 2018, "Unmasking Propornot- Exposing Deep State Crimes," by George Eliason
"The obvious takeaway is that a lawsuit is a bare minimum that needs to happen. People need to be investigated for crimes against the state. When we take a closer look at who had potential access to top-secret servers, that will become painfully obvious. These people have tried and are trying to rip the fabric of society in pieces. At the very least, they have earned a good tarring...and feathering. When you look at the financial end of this a lawsuit in the billions would barely touch it."
Posted by: Anna | 28 January 2018 at 01:16 PM
The Twisted Genius,
( reply to comment 108),
Clinton lost the election by losing several midwestern ex-industrial states. Noted liberal filmmaker Michael Moore predicted these states would vote for Trump in advance of the election taking place. He called these states the "Brexit states". He made that prediction before the election, which means it was a real prediction and not just an after-the-fact false claim of credit for predicting.
And Clinton lost the Brexit states entirely on her own. When she said that she would put her husband Bill in charge of the "economic recovery plans", she revealed that she supported all the past and future Trade Treason Agreements that Bill supported and supports. She thereby revealed herself to be a Social Class Enemy of the Midwestern People. She lost my vote right there. If she lost the other "margin-of-victory" votes at the same time, that goes to show that she was the most important scuttler of her own election, not "Russia" or anyone else.
After that, she went further by restating her support for Assad-Must-Go and her support for the NaziNazi Banderazi coup regime in Kiev. This indicated her support for jihaddery and for war with Russia. That may have lost her some more votes.
Also, her Clintonite Party and the MSM colluded to give Trump billions of dollars of free and favorable publicity all through the primaries. This strategy, the "pied piper strategy" as revealed in the Podesta e-mails, ended up picking what turned out to be her STRONGest opponent, not her WEAKest one the way she and the MSM had hoped.
So in a very real way, Trump is Clinton's fault and Clinton's gift to the nation. Clinton's gift which keeps on giving . . . for the next four or maybe eight years. Naturally Clinton would like to claim that the Putin ate her homework or stole her election or whatever. She typically refuses to accept that she lost the election all on her own.
Posted by: different clue | 28 January 2018 at 02:59 PM
David Habakkuk,
My comment about Russia trying to ensure “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” echoes the finding in the DNI intelligence assessment on Russian efforts to interfere in our election.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump… Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.“
That DNI assessment relied heavily on two documents obtained by USI from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. The first paper, written in June 2016,
“recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-russia-election-exclusive/exclusive-putin-linked-think-tank-drew-up-plan-to-sway-2016-u-s-election-documents-idUKKBN17L2N5
All this can be easily discounted without evidence. In this case, as in any, actions speak louder than words, even Putin’s.The evidence I pay attention to is the elements of the Russian information operation that played on divisive issues within the US. One example, I alluded to earlier in this thread was the dueling Russian Facebook pages that organized both the protest and counter-protest outside an Islamic center in Houston, Texas in May 2016. Both pages masqueraded as US-based groups. There are many news stories of this kind of activity. House and Senate hearings with Twitter and Facebook execs offered more evidence. I found this Washington University research paper for a more academic approach.
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/
http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf
None of this means that we have to be full-blown enemies with Russia. I'd rather see us cooperate on as many issues as possible. I'd even like to see military exchanges restart. At the same time, we should take all necessary measures to thwart the effectiveness of any future Russian influence ops targeting us.
As far as Clapper goes, I think he's a self-serving SOB, but I don't just discount anything he says, just take his utterances with a healthy dose of salt.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 07:49 PM
David Habakkuk,
My comment about Russia trying to ensure “the US is rife with doubt and internal discord” echoes the finding in the DNI intelligence assessment on Russian efforts to interfere in our election.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump… Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.“
That DNI assessment relied heavily on two documents obtained by USI from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. The first paper, written in June 2016,
“recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-russia-election-exclusive/exclusive-putin-linked-think-tank-drew-up-plan-to-sway-2016-u-s-election-documents-idUKKBN17L2N5
All this can be easily discounted without evidence. In this case, as in any, actions speak louder than words, even Putin’s.The evidence I pay attention to is the elements of the Russian information operation that played on divisive issues within the US. One example, I alluded to earlier in this thread was the dueling Russian Facebook pages that organized both the protest and counter-protest outside an Islamic center in Houston, Texas in May 2016. Both pages masqueraded as US-based groups. There are many news stories of this kind of activity. House and Senate hearings with Twitter and Facebook execs offered more evidence. I found this Washington University research paper for a more academic approach.
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/
http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf
None of this means that we have to be full-blown enemies with Russia. I'd rather see us cooperate on as many issues as possible. I'd even like to see military exchanges restart. At the same time, we should take all necessary measures to thwart the effectiveness of any future Russian influence ops targeting us.
As far as Clapper goes, I think he's a self-serving SOB, but I don't just discount anything he says, just take his utterances with a healthy dose of salt.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 07:50 PM
All:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 28 January 2018 at 08:01 PM
I would be very interested on precisely where "next to Red Square" Moscow State university has a "building".
My understanding of MGU is that this would require a rather expansive definition of "next".
Posted by: A.I.Schmelzer | 28 January 2018 at 08:17 PM
pj,
Okay. Lets look at the steemit article “10 Reasons The Dutch-Russia Hacking Story Is Fake News” by suzi3d. The first reason cited is that the Russians would never hack from a university because they knew from the 2013 Snowden documents the NSA looks at university networks in enemy countries. The author assumes the university location of the APT29 hackers was established in 2014 because that’s when the Dutch penetrated them. Yet APT29 was active several years earlier. Maybe the APT29 hackers did move into those offices in 2014, but there is no evidence of that. Hackers have used university networks since the dawn of the internet, even before that. It will always be so. USI wishes it could use those networks, but it is prohibited.
Reason two states that the US ignored Dutch warnings of the DNC hack. The author probably doesn’t realize the FBI warned the DNC of the APT29 intruders in September 2016. In hindsight, it was a serious FBI and DNC mistake that they did not take these warnings as seriously as they should. Neither the FBI or DNC were too concerned until the hacked emails were publicly released by DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks. Before that it was just another unfortunate hack of a private entity.
Reason three tries to make an issue of the dual nature of Mueller’s investigation. Is it collusion or hacking? Well it’s both. Mueller was appointed “to investigate Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election and related matters.” How is this a reason to discount the Dutch hacking story?
Reason four is the only logical argument made by the author. The sources for the story are anonymous. That should be a caveat for any story. Unfortunately this reason then states that the article “devolves into outright, easily disprovable disinformation” and then fails to identify or disprove any of that “disinformation.”
Reason five is “techno-bable.” The author goes on a diatribe about the difference between CNA and CNE. Why the author then cites a TS document released by Snowden that supports the existence, organization and function of the Dutch cyber outfit is beyond me. That document supports the article the author tries to pass off as fake news.
Reason six states that we will never see the alleged evidence. Well, that’s the nature of classified intelligence.
Reason seven calls the mention of the MH17 shoot down a dog whistle. What?
Reason eight and nine deal with the 2014 DOS attack and tries to point out inconsistencies in a rather straight forward story.
Reason nine tries to say Russian hackers wouldn’t make mistakes. Well, guess what, all hackers make mistakes and the longer they hack, the more likely one of these mistakes will trip them up. The author also claims no real hacker would use spear phishing attacks. That’s bullshit. They do because it works and will continue to do so as long as these methods remain effective.
The final reason is that the article avoids the obvious credible narrative like the plague” and then fails to state that narrative. The author just goes off on tangent that spies spy on each other and then adds reasons for the CIA and NSA being flat evil.
All in all, I find the steemit article wholly unconvincing and not at all thought provoking. At least the forensicator research and ensuing VIPS article were thought provoking and worthy of serious consideration.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 09:07 PM
Anna,
Reference your comment at #120
"Well, your animosity towards Russians is obvious in your comments."
You should review my past posts from those covering Novorossiya and Ukraine, Syria and, yes, even the infamous reflexive control post. I speak very highly of Russians and Putin. I found the Russian information operation targeting the 2016 US election to be an elegant hack and bloodless to boot. I saluted the magnificent bastards
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 09:18 PM
Babak,
Reference #140
"In the absence of strategic leverage against the Russian Federation, how do you envision the United States confronting her?"
Why confront when we don't have to? We should protect ourselves and our institutions and seek to cooperate whenever we can. I'm pretty sure we'll find a willing partner. The biggest obstacle is our foolish and misguided desire for full spectrum dominance.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 28 January 2018 at 09:25 PM
That is what you yourself stated, "...confront Russia" earlier on this thread.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 28 January 2018 at 09:42 PM