.
In this globalized world, there are no boundaries!
Who’s got more ‘mixed’ music to share?
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
.
In this globalized world, there are no boundaries!
Who’s got more ‘mixed’ music to share?
by Adam L Silverman| 306 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security
(Figure 1: Maskirovka Principles)
Back on October 20th, Thomas Rid reported out an excellent piece of long form journalism on Russian meddling in the US election at Esquire. Rid’s piece specifically focused on kompromat or compromising materials and hacking. Specifically releasing blended real and fabricated materials to achieve one’s strategic goals. Rid’s piece zeros in on the frightening combination of Russian/Russian sponsored hacking and the release of kompromat materials.
What changed over the past year, however—what made the DNC hack feel new and terrifying—was Russia’s seeming determination to combine the two. For the first time, Russia used a hacking operation, one that collected and released massive quantities of stolen information, to meddle in an American presidential election. The inspiration and template for this new attack was a poisonous cocktail of fact and fabrication that the Russians call kompromat, for “compromising material.”
Rid deconstructs and explains what we’ve been observing with the leaked materials from the Podesta gmail, DNC, and DCCC hacks.
CrowdStrike was soon able to reconstruct the hacks and identify the hackers. One of the groups, known to the firm as Cozy Bear, had been rummaging around the DNC since the previous summer. The other, known as Fancy Bear, had broken in not long before Putin’s appearance at the St. Petersburg forum. Surprisingly, given that security researchers had long suspected that both groups were directed by the Russian government, each of the attackers seemed unaware of what the other was doing.
On June 14, less than an hour after The Washington Post reported the breach at the DNC, CrowdStrike posted a report that detailed the methods used by the intruders. The firm also did something unusual: It named the Russian spy agencies it believed responsible for the hack. Fancy Bear, the firm said, worked in a way that suggested affiliation with the GRU. Cozy Bear was linked to the FSB.
But here’s where things get interesting, the folks running this kompromat operation made a mistake, they were sloppy.
Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator who tweets from the handle @pwnallthethings, was particularly prolific. Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious. One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings by a user named “Feliks Dzerzhinsky.” Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police—a figure whose mythic renown was signaled by a fifteen-ton bronze statue that once stood in front of KGB headquarters. Tait tweeted an image of the document’s metadata settings, which, he suggested, revealed a failure of operational security.
A second mistake had to do with the computer that had been used to control the hacking operation. Researchers found that the malicious software, or malware, used to break into the DNC was controlled by a machine that had been involved in a 2015 hack of the German parliament. German intelligence later traced the Bundestag breach to the Russian GRU, aka Fancy Bear.
There were other errors, too, including a Russian smile emoji—”)))”—and emails to journalists that explicitly associated Guccifer 2.0 with DC Leaks, as the cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect pointed out. But the hackers’ gravest mistake involved the emails they’d used to initiate their attack. As part of a so-called spear-phishing campaign, Fancy Bear had emailed thousands of targets around the world. The emails were designed to trick their victims into clicking a link that would install malware or send them to a fake but familiar-looking login site to harvest their passwords. The malicious links were hidden behind short URLs of the sort often used on Twitter.
Today we have further confirmation of the ongoing kompromat operation. Mark Hosenball at Reuters (h/t: Josh Marshall) is now reporting that US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, are now investigating released hacked emails that show very obvious signs of being tampered with.
The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Hillary Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what U.S. officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said.
U.S. intelligence officials have warned privately that a campaign they believe is backed by the Russian government to undermine the credibility of the U.S. presidential election could move beyond the hacking of Democratic Party email systems. That could include posting fictional evidence of voter fraud or other disinformation in the run-up to voting on Nov. 8, U.S. officials have said.
In fact they include complete fabrications, which is something that experts like Malcolm Nance have argued for weeks that we are seeing.
“We have no way of knowing whether this is real or not unless Hillary Clinton goes through everything they’ve said and comes out and says it cross-correlates and this is true,” said Malcolm Nance, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who has spoken frequently in defense of the Democratic nominee and has made the case that the WikiLeaks releases contain manipulated information.
Hosenball goes on to document the kompromat:
In addition to the Carper letter, the FBI has also reviewed a seven-page electronic document that carries the logos of Democratic pollster Joel Benenson’s firm, the Benenson Strategy Group, and the Clinton Foundation, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
The document, identified as a fake by the Clinton campaign, claims poll ratings had plunged for Clinton and called for “severe strategy changes for November” that could include “staged civil unrest” and “radiological attack” with dirty bombs to disrupt the vote.
Like the Carper letter, it was not immediately clear where the fraudulent document had originated or how it had begun to circulate.
On Oct. 20, Roger Stone, a former Trump aide and Republican operative, linked to a copy of the document on Twitter with the tag, “If this is real: OMG!!”
Benenson’s firm had no immediate comment. Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, said the document was “fake.” He said he did not know if the FBI had examined it.
Stone did not respond to emails requesting comment.
It is unclear how any of this might fit into the ongoing accusations and assertions, including the battling leaks from seemingly different factions within the FBI, about links between Trump, his current or former aides/advisor, and his business’s financial ties to Russia. Regardless of how the Russians are involved, what is clear is that Putin is definitely getting what he wants: making America and democracy look terrible as part of his larger strategic objective to roll back the current global order.
The Maskirovka Slips Part III: KompromatPost + Comments (306)
by TaMara| 84 Comments
This post is in: Missing Obama Already, Open Threads
The election has jangled my nerves this week. So it always does me good to hear our President speak:
Open thread…
by TaMara| 50 Comments
This post is in: Authors In Our Midst, Writing Group
These are my concord grape vines – the grapes were delicious and the fall colors awesome (you can read about my grape jelly escapades here )
There seems to be enough interest to pursue this. What I’d like to know next is when is a good time? I’d like to do it twice a month (at least to start) and find a time that works for most. We won’t start until after the election. What works best for you – weekend afternoon, weekend evening or week night? I’ll try and find what works for most. Of course we won’t be able to make everyone happy, but I’ll do my best to find a good time.
Hillary and I are still discussing format and how to approach it all. Stay tuned.
I have been toying with an idea since Authors in Our Midst. I really enjoyed the comments on those threads and it seemed like we had a lot of people who were in progress on some writing project or another. Do we have enough interest to start a writing support group here?
I was thinking we could “meet” a couple times a month and encourage each other, offer advice and suggestions. Maybe a secure drop box to share work to critique. I can see if our published authors would be wiling to pop in and offer their experiences and answer questions.
Hillary Rettig has offered her support/expertise with this, too! So if you’re interested, leave a comment in this post and I’ll take it from there if we have enough interest.
This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Republican Venality, The Party of Fiscal Responsibility, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It
Too f**king little awfully late in the game, but the Grey Lady has come up with another good story on the long-con that is Donald J. Trump. Ross Buettner reports:
…an examination of his tax appeals on several properties, and other documents obtained by The New York Times through Freedom of Information requests, shows that what Mr. Trump has reported on those forms is nowhere near a complete picture of his financial state.
The records demonstrate that large portions of those numbers represent cash coming into his businesses before covering costs like mortgage payments, payroll and maintenance. After expenses, some of his businesses make a small fraction of what he reported on his disclosure forms, or actually lose money.
Donald Trump got his start in life with his dad’s money. The rest of us helped him out by paying his taxes for him for almost two decades. Shafting his subcontractors and partners helped build the kitty. And he still can’t actually make (much) money at his supposed vocation. I loved this bit:
On the financial disclosure forms that Donald J. Trump has pointed to as proof of his tremendous success, no venture looks more gold-plated than his golf resort in Doral, Fla., where he reported revenues of $50 million in 2014. That figure accounted for the biggest share of what he described as his income for the year.
But this summer, a considerably different picture emerged in an austere government hearing room in Miami, where Mr. Trump’s company was challenging the resort’s property tax bill.
Mr. Trump’s lawyer handed the magistrate an income and expense statement showing that the gross revenue had indeed been $50 million. But after paying operating costs, the resort had actually lost $2.4 million.
Donald Trump is a bigot, a thug, the kind of man whom women know all too well.
He’s a braggart, a bully, and the least self-made alleged rich guy short of the Walton kids.
And through it all, he’s crap at the stuff of which he claims to be the world champeen. Would you trust the coffee fund, much less the national budget, to this guy?
But time and again, what the form presented as income did not match what was reported in other documents. Mr. Trump also runs several publicly owned attractions — the carousel and ice rinks in Central Park and a golf course in the Bronx — under agreements with New York City.
Mr. Trump’s disclosure forms reported income from the Wollman and Lasker ice rinks of just under $13 million last year, and $8.6 million the year before. But accounting figures provided by his company to the city show that those figures represent gross receipts…Recent figures were not available, but a 2011 city audit showed that for the previous three years, an average of $25,340 a year for both rinks was left after expenses.
With Logan Airport charging roughly eight bucks a gallon for Jet-A fuel right now, that would pay for barely more than a quarter of a tank of gas for The Donald’s aging jet. He’s a bust-out artist, not a businessman.
Last word to the magistrate who heard Trump cry poor on his misbegotten Doral Golf Course purchase:
“So he spent $104 million to lose two and a half million dollars a year,” Mr. [Leonardo[ Delgado said. “I know how to lose that money without having to spend $104 million. How ’bout you, Murry?”
I’d laugh, except for the non-zero (though still small) chance that this lying sack of ferret fæces could be President-elect next week.
This post is in: Go Fuck Yourself
I seriously dealt with the worst Home Depot employee in the world, who repeatedly insisted they were out of the shower base I wanted. I told him, “No, you have three of them. You have the display one and two on your shelves, and right here on my iphone it says you are in stock.”
He kept looking at his hand held computer thing and saying “It says we are out of stock.” I looked at him and pointed at the display and said “There is the display one, and there are two more up there on the shelves about 15 feet up.”
“I can’t see them. I don’t think those are the same.”
“Then can I just have the display one?”
“No. That’s for display.”
I ended the conversation with “Am I going to have to make a scene to get someone to load that on a cart for me?”
I left the AO before I got volatile and tracked the beeping sounds until I found someone at least competent enough to drive a heavy machinery and asked him to follow me back and get one down and take it up front so I could pay for the damned thing.
I was telling someone else I am beginning to understand shooting sprees. All I could think was “Look, motherfucker, I just learned about shower bases this fucking morning when my dad told me to go get one, and I already know more than you and your fucking inventory.”
***SCREAM***
by Betty Cracker| 137 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, General Stupidity
I’m in media blackout mode, choosing instead to devote that time to GOTV efforts for the duration. But I turned on the TV moments ago and was involuntarily exposed to the tail-end of Natasha Fatale’s Melania Trump’s speech as I scrambled to locate the “INPUT” button on the remote.
Her topic was about how we must be more respectful and kind to one another, treat women with more respect and stamp out bullying, particularly on social media. Hearing that from her was like:
— Listening to Mrs. Bernie Madoff hold a seminar on the importance of honesty in investor-broker relationships
— Hearing Mrs. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. call for abolishing the internal combustion engine
— Enduring a lecture on the evils of wealth inequality from the Walmart heirs
…all at the same time. I need to install a Valium lick at my workstation to get me through this week. Open thread!