The Dubious Case of Russian Hacking

[David Guyatt]

William Binney & Ray McGovern wade in on the Russian hacking story and regard it as dubious and show that the much trumpeted claim that proof would be provided in the Joint Intelligence Report, none in fact was supplied.

The Dubious Case on Russian Hacking'
January 6, 2017

Still not showing evidence, U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper told senators he's really sure Russia was the source of "hacked" Democratic emails, but the case remains weak, say ex-intelligence officials William Binney and Ray McGovern.




By William Binney and Ray McGovern


It has been several weeks since the New York Times reported that "overwhelming circumstantial evidence" led the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin "deployed computer hackers" to help Donald Trump win the election. But the evidence released so far has been far from overwhelming.




Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)
The long anticipated Joint Analysis Report issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI on Dec. 29 met widespread criticism in the technical community. Worse still, some of the advice it offered led to a very alarmist false alarm about supposed Russian hacking into a Vermont electric power station.


Advertised in advance as providing proof of Russian hacking, the report fell embarrassingly short of that goal. The thin gruel that it did contain was watered down further by the following unusual warning atop page 1: "DISCLAIMER: This report is provided as is' for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within."


Also, curiously absent was any clear input from the CIA, NSA or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Reportedly, Mr. Clapper will get a chance on Friday to brief an understandably skeptical Donald Trump, who has called the briefing delay "very strange," even suggesting that top intelligence officials "need more time to build a case."


Clapper's Checkered History


Mr. Trump's skepticism is warranted not only by technical realities, but also by human ones, including the dramatis personae involved. Mr. Clapper has admitted giving Congress on March 12, 2013, false testimony regarding the extent of the National Security Agency's collection of data on Americans. Four months later, after the Edward Snowden revelations, Mr. Clapper apologized to the Senate for testimony he admitted was "clearly erroneous." That he is a survivor was already apparent by the way he landed on his feet after the intelligence debacle on Iraq.


Mr. Clapper was a key player in facilitating the fraudulent intelligence. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put Mr. Clapper in charge of the analysis of satellite imagery, the best source for pinpointing the location of weapons of mass destruction if any.




President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney receive an Oval Office briefing from CIA Director George Tenet. Also present is Chief of Staff Andy Card (on right). (White House photo)
When Pentagon favorites like Iraqi émigré Ahmed Chalabi plied U.S. intelligence with spurious "evidence" on WMD in Iraq, Mr. Clapper was in position to suppress the findings of any imagery analyst who might have the temerity to report, for example, that the Iraqi "chemical weapons facility" for which Mr. Chalabi provided the geographic coordinates was nothing of the kind. Mr. Clapper preferred to go by the Rumsfeldian dictum: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." (It will be interesting to see if he tries that out on the President-elect Friday.)


A year after the war began, Mr. Chalabi told the media, "We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful." By that time it was clear there were no WMD in Iraq. When Mr. Clapper was asked to explain, he opined, without adducing any evidence, that they probably were moved into Syria.


With respect to the alleged interference by Russia and WikiLeaks in the U.S. election, it is a major mystery why U.S. intelligence feels it must rely on "circumstantial evidence," when it has NSA's vacuum cleaner sucking up hard evidence galore. What we know of NSA's capabilities shows that the email disclosures were from leaking, not hacking.


Here's the difference:


Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or other cyber-protection systems and then extracts data. Our own considerable experience, plus the rich detail revealed by Edward Snowden, persuades us that, with NSA's formidable trace capability, it can identify both sender and recipient of any and all data crossing the network.


Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization on a thumb drive, for example and gives it to someone else, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did. Leaking is the only way such data can be copied and removed with no electronic trace.


Because NSA can trace exactly where and how any "hacked" emails from the Democratic National Committee or other servers were routed through the network, it is puzzling why NSA cannot produce hard evidence implicating the Russian government and WikiLeaks. Unless we are dealing with a leak from an insider, not a hack, as other reporting suggests. From a technical perspective alone, we are convinced that this is what happened.


Lastly, the CIA is almost totally dependent on NSA for ground truth in this electronic arena. Given Mr. Clapper's checkered record for accuracy in describing NSA activities, it is to be hoped that the director of NSA will join him for the briefing with Mr. Trump.


William Binney (williambinney0802@comcast.net) worked for NSA for 36 years, retiring in 2001 as the technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and reporting; he created many of the collection systems still used by NSA. Ray McGovern (rrmcgovern@gmail.com) was a CIA analyst for 27 years; he briefed the president's daily brief one-on-one to President Reagan's most senior national security officials from 1981-85. [This article previously appeared in The Baltimore Sun at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion...tory.html]

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[Dawn Meredith]

I am very surprised that there is not a big thread on this fake story. I just saw some articles on Fox news that are finally questioning this bullshit. Shared on facebook.

[Albert Doyle]

CNN has loosened up lately and conservative commentary Jeff Lord was actually allowed to give two examples of bad intelligence. One was the WMD, but to my shock the other was the Kennedy assassination. Jeff Lord actually referred to the official story on Kennedy's death as bad intelligence on CNN!

This morning a commentary was allowed to say there were two dissenting votes on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that were ignored who turned out to be right. He said the same phony jingoism that is currently being employed was allowed to push through Johnson's Viet Nam escalation.


American politics have become so corrupted that the stripes of the Democrats have jumped to the Republicans...

[Peter Lemkin]

They are offering NO proofs whatsoever on which to really make a determination. My take on it is it is a political move to weaken Trump. I'm all in favor of weakening Trump with truth [easy enough!], but not with lies. Least anyone forget the USA has even admitted to many cases of US interference in foreign elections, usually via the CIA - but not always. One notable, but far from the only one, can be found here https://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/italy - so who are we to point fingers!?! As the Empire collapses, they feel free to stoop to anything for the remaining bits of money and power. Morality and Truth were never the strong suit in the USA, but it is getting worse and worse with each passing day.

[Magda Hassan]

Wikileaks is having a press conference with live streaming via the Frontline Club in London at 10 am Monday.
WikiLeaks ‏@wikileaks Jan 7 ANNOUNCE: WikiLeaks press conf, Monday 9am ET streamed live responding to CIA report on WikiLeaks Background: http://www.e3xpress.co.uk/news/world/751337/CIA-analyst-hacking-claims-Hilary-Clinton-discredited-Putin-US-election-Donald-Trump …

260 replies 3,905 retweets 4,943 likes

[Magda Hassan]

Meet The Awan Brothers - The (Not-Russian) IT Staff Who Allegedly Hacked Congress' Computer Systems

by Tyler Durden
Feb 4, 2017 3:20 PM


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In an ironic twist, it appears it may not have been 'The Russians' that hacked America's political system last year. As The Daily Caller reports, three brothers (Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan) who managed office IT for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers were abruptly relieved of their duties on suspicion that they accessed congressional computer networks without permission.
Imran Awan seen below with Bill Clinton


As Luke Rosiak repoerts, the brothers were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Three members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation's most sensitive issues, information and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.

The brothers are suspected of serious violations, including accessing members' computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.

The three men are "shared employees," meaning they are hired by multiple offices, which split their salaries and use them as needed for IT services. It is up to each member to fire them from working...

Jamal handled IT for Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who serves on both the intelligence and foreign affairs panels.

"As of 2/2, his employment with our office has been terminated," Castro spokeswoman Erin Hatch told TheDCNF Friday.

Jamal also worked for Louisiana Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond, who is on the Committee on Homeland Security.

Imran worked for Reps. Andre Carson, an Indiana Democrat, and Jackie Speier, a California Democrat. Carson and Speier are members of the intelligence committee. Spokesmen for Carson and Speier did not respond to TheDCNF's requests for comments. Imran also worked for the House office of Wasserman-Schultz.

Then-Rep. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, employed Abid for IT work in 2016. She was a member of House committees dealing with the armed services, oversight, and Benghazi. Duckworth was elected to the Senate in November, 2016. Abid has a prior criminal record and a bankruptcy.

Abid also worked for Rep. Lois Frankel, a Florida Democrat who is member of the foreign affairs committee.

Also among those whose computer systems may have been compromised is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Florida Democrat who was previously the target of a disastrous email hack when she served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign.

Read more here...

A criminal investigation into five unnamed people began late last year related to serious and potentially illegal violations of House IT policies, Politico reported Thursday. Chiefs of staff for the members were briefed Thursday by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
Buzzfeed reported Friday that one of the affected members claimed:

"they said it was some sort of procurement scam, but now I'm concerned that they may have stolen data from us, emails, who knows."

While treading carefully here, and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, is it just us or is the irony too perfect that having blamed 'Russians' for allegedly hacking their systems and manipulating the election, it was three IT staff they hired (with immigrant-sounding names - yes we said it) that in fact broke into the systems of various politicians and aides.

[Peter Lemkin]

Seth Rich, the 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer who was shot dead on a Washington, DC street last July.
On August 9, in an interview on the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur, Julian Assange seemed to suggest rather clearly that Seth Rich was the source for the Wikileaks-exposed DNC emails and was murdered for it.
Julian Assange: "Our whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often face very significant risks. A 27-year-old that works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons, as he was walking down the street in Washington, D.C."
Reporter: "That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn't it?"
Julian Assange: "No. There's no finding. So … I'm suggesting that our sources take risks."