"The Russians did it" -- speculation or fact ?

BACKGROUND:

Who did Russia want

as the US president 

in 2016?

I think the answer is obvious

-- another Democrat, 

who was like Obama:

(1) 

Obama looked 

the other way as Russia

grabbed Crimea, and 

eastern Ukraine, 

(2)

Obama drew a red line 

in the sand in Syria, 

and then backed down 

to let Russia rescue Assad, and

(3)

Obama sent $150 billion 

to Russian ally Iran 

for an empty promise

to stop their

nuclear program.

The claim that Russia

wanted Trump, a tough guy

who wanted a lot more

US military spending,

to be the next US president,

makes no sense to me.

Of course now

Putin claims that he 

had favored Trump in 2016, 

just to hurt Trump's reputation.

In fact, if you look at the Trump

relationship with Russia

after the election, it's 

very obvious he has been

tough on Russia -- challenging

them in Syria, sending heavy

arms to the Ukraine, and 

killing and wounding

several hundred Russian

mercenary troops fighting

for Assad in Syria.

SUMMARY:

Twelve Russian spies 

have been indicted

for hacking the

Democrat National 

Committee (DNC),

and other interference

with the 2016 US election

(which did not involve 

any Americans).

Russian interference,

that we know of,

consisted of the lame

Russian internet trolls

with their $100,000
of Facebook ads,
most after the election

and the usual spying

and hacking that

has gone on 

for many decades.

The Russian meddling

was incompetent,

having no effect

on election results.

The meddling by Democrats
in the Obama administration,
was also incompetent --
because Trump won !

The claim that Russians
hacked the DNC eMails,
and sent them to WikiLeaks,
is the most important claim
for me to focus on.

DNC eMails initially made
Democrats look bad,
but Hillary quickly 
reversed the issue
by claiming 
'the Russians did it',
then claiming Trump
was colluding with Putin,
and she tried to create
a (false) image of herself
being tough on Russia! 

In the end,
I don't know whether 
the DNC eMails ended up 
costing Hillary any votes.

I wondered why 

this indictment

did not come 

one year ago.

Perhaps Robert Mueller

needed another year

to gather evidence

that could convict 

the Russian defendants

in court ?

The timing is suspicious !

My guess is that Mueller

wanted to embarrass Trump

just before his summit

with Putin?

So far, real evidence,

assuming it exists,

has not been revealed

to the American public

... and I suspect 

it does not exist.

I have several big issues 

with the indictment:

-- It is a 'show indictment'

because everyone knows

there will not be a trial,

making this a smarmy

prosecution

(because most people

assume indicted

people are guilty,

instead of assuming

they are innocent.)

Indictments are also

too easy to get

(an indictment 

only means that

a grand jury thinks

there is a case

 -- it is said that

a good prosecutor

could indict 

a ham sandwich!)

Here are 

my two issues:

(1)

No evidence 

has been presented,

so we have no idea

if any of the claims 

could ever be 

proven in court.

No evidence 

will ever be presented,

because there will be 

no trials.

We just have to 

trust Mr. Mueller, 

and his team 

of 13 angry Democrats

 -- and I don't trust them !

(2)

Are Russian government spies 

such unsophisticated hackers

that they left an electronic trail 

back to themselves?

They are most likely 

among the best hackers,

in Russia, easily able 

to leave a false trail 

to another country

(our CIA can do that too).

There was no reason 

to deliberately leave 
a trail back to Russia, 

unless Russians 
wanted us to know,

which doesn't make sense.

Did Russia's GRU

(Russian military intelligence)

and FSB 

(Russian Federal Security Service,

that replaced the KGB)

try to spy on Americans

by hacking computers,

and have they had 

some successful hacks ?

Of course they did !

That's what spies do !

I'm very confident

they've been doing that

since Al Gore invented

the internet !

Did the specific Russians 

named in the indictment

successfully hack the DNC,

get valuable blackmail material

for use AFTER Hillary was elected,

and then just give away 

their blackmail material

to WikiLeaks, for publication

BEFORE the election?

That would make no sense.

But I doubt if we will ever

know the truth about how

WikiLeaks got the DNC eMails.

Here are the reasons

I doubt that the specific 

Russians indicted 

were the source of

WikiLeaks' DNC eMails: 

(a)

WikiLeaks says

the DNC eMails

came from a DNC employee.

Should we trust WikiLeaks?

Well. when compared 

with the dishonest Clintons,

and the DNC, I trust WikiLeaks 

a lot more.

WikiLeaks has an good reputation

for never publishing fake information,

which is not easy to do,

and never revealing their sources.

WikiLeaks claimed 

they got the eMails

from a DNC insider

who was unhappy 

about how Bernie Sanders 

was treated -- the information

allegedly came to WikiLeaks

on a flash drive.

Some people thought the leaker

was Seth Rich, a DNC employee

later murdered on the streets

of Washington, DC, at night,

with none of his valuables taken.

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks

fueled that theory by offering

a $10,000 reward for information

leading to Rich's killer(s). 

But, since WikiLeaks has never 

revealed its sources,

I find it hard to believe they

would mention Seth Rich's name 

if he was really their source.

We'll never know the truth.

(b)

The DNC never allowed

the Obama FBI and CIA, 

headed by people who 

strongly preferred Hillary,

to examine their computers 

and servers, and verify that

"the Russians did it".

All reports and data given 

to the FBI and CIA had been

filtered through CrowdStrike, 

who was hired by the DNC,

and that is very suspicious. 

(c)

CrowdStrike's main 

claim to fame 

is "hacking attribution" 

-- they'll tell clients who did it,

but that alleged skill is a fraud.

They just tell their clients

what they want to hear,

rather than the truth,

which is "we don't know",

in a way that can never

be verified.

When a big data loss 

is announced, 

victims want to know 

who did it.

Honest cyber-security experts 

rarely know because they

almost never catch 

the hacking while it is

in progress.

CrowdStrike 

falsely claims 

they can identify 

the hacker, 

and then they blame

the governments of 

China, Russia, Iran

or North Korea,

knowing those four nations

will never confirm or deny

the CrowdStrike claim, 

and will never cooperate 

in any investigation ! 

CrowdStrike attribution claims 

can never be verified, 

or falsified -- they are a fraud.

(d)

After just one day of 

DNC forensic analysis,

CrowdStrike declared

"Russia did it".

According to CrowdStrike,

within 10 seconds 

its software “found” 

the DNC culprit !

But, in reality, attribution of 

computer network intrusions 

to specific actors

is universally accepted 

as a VERY difficult problem. 

Reasons:

-- Malware components 

are often the same, or similar,

because hackers 

will sell code to each other, 

and frequently open source it. 

-- Hackers can use 

an intermediate computer, 

anywhere else in the world,

to divert attention 

from their own computer. 

Intrusions usually start 

after hackers obtain 

some insider’s password 

or trick a user 

into installing malware 

on his computer 

inside of a network. 

DETAILS:

CrowdStrike was called by the DNC

after a suspected a breach 

in its network, in early May 2016. 

CrowdStrike announced 

there were two breaches 

by “two separate Russian 

intelligence-affiliated 

adversaries” 

-- Fancy Bear (APT28), and

-- Cozy Bear (APT29). 

CrowdStrike suggested 

Fancy Bear belongs to GRU 

(Russian military intelligence)

and Cozy Bear belongs to FSB 

(Russian Federal Security Service,

that replaced the KGB). 

The mainstream media 

claims that the “DNC hack” 

has been confirmed by multiple 

private security companies, 

and also by the US 

"Intelligence Community 

Assessment (ICA)" 

published January 6, 2017.  

But all these "confirmations" 

are based on the same data, 

from the same source: 

CrowdStrike. 

The actual reports, 

from IT companies 

other than CrowdStrike,

included limitations, 

qualifications, conditions, 

and/or limited confidence in

he 'Russia did it' conclusion. 

Obama’s initial request 

for the ICA report 

was highly biased too

-- he demanded

an “intelligence report 

assessing RUSSIAN 

activities and intentions 

in recent U.S. elections.” 

There is too much evidence 

that CrowdStrike's attribution 

to Russia for the DNC eMails

that were given to WikiLeaks,

contradicting WikiLeak's claim,

was a wild guess, and a fraud 

that could never be proven

in court.

CrowdStrike gave the DNC and 

Hillary Clinton what they wanted

to hear, because they used

the "Russia did it" claim to 

tell the public that Putin 

wanted Trump to win --  

something that can only hurt

a candidate for US president.

2016    
CrowdStrike  /  DNC  Timeline:

Apr 29, 2016 – 425 eMails are leaked. 

                         DNC notice suspicious activity.

Apr 30+ – Leaks continue at high level.

May 4 – DNC calls in CrowdStrike.

May 5 – CrowdStrike installs software.

May 6 – CrowdStrike identifies “Russia” as hacker.

May, 3rd week – Leaks continue, 

                            up to ~1500/day.

May 26 and later – No leaks

Jun 10-12 – CrowdStrike “cleanses” 

                      the DNC system.

Jun 14 – DNC announces the hack, 

                  and blames Russia.

Jun 15 – “Opposition research” document 

                     released by “Guccifer 2.0”.

Jun 18-Jul 14 – Guccifer 2.0 

                           releases more documents.

Jul 24 – Hillary starts to malign Russia.

Aug 25 – Hillary makes very aggressive 

                    anti-Russia speech.

Aug 30 – Harry Reid accuses Putin 

                  of attempting to rig 

                      the US election.

Oct 7 – Obama publicly accuses Russia 

                    of cyber attacks on US election systems, 

                       and the democracy itself, 

                       ... but does nothing to stop them.

CrowdStrike's  Strange  History

of Hacking  Attribution  Fraud,

and Connections to Mueller:

In 2011, Dmitri Alperovitch, 

a former McAfee VP,

falsely claimed that 

advanced malware families 

are unique to hacker groups, 

and that the hacker groups 

can be identified 

by the kind of malware used.  

Alperovitch also

falsely claimed 

he could identify

a foreign government 

behind most intrusions. 

Alperovitch met a person 

who fell for his trick: 

Shawn Henry. 

Henry was the

executive assistant director

to Robert Mueller, 

who appointed him in 2010. 

In March 2012, Shawn Henry retired 

from the FBI to join Alperovitch 

and George Kurtz in CrowdStrike. 

Shawn Henry is currently president

of CrowdStrike Services & its CSO.

From its beginning in 2012, 

CrowdStrike has used a

fraudulent attribution methodology 

to attract publicity, and customers.

Alperovitch falsely pointed a finger

at the governments of China, Russia, 

Iran, or North Korea. 

CrowdStrike clients like 

their attribution claims: 

Being hacked by the China  

or Russia government 

sounds a lot better than 

being hacked by some teenager 

in his basement.

When CrowdStrike 

encountered 

a new type of malware, 

the first thing it did 

was a national attribution, 

reflected in their name 

for the hacker group.

Alleged Russian groups 

were given a name 

ending with Bear. 

Steven Chabinsky, 

a Deputy Assistant Director 

of the FBI Cyber Division 

under Robert Mueller, 

was hired by CrowdStrike 

in September 2012.  

He became CrowdStrike’s 

general counsel, 

and chief risk officer. 

By its own admission, 

CrowdStrike watched over 

the activities of two teams 

of alleged Russian hackers 

from May 6 until early June. 

Just watching them

doesn’t make sense. 

The DNC’s IT department 

should have shut down 

their Internet connection, 

then changed all passwords, 

and sanitized all computers.  

There were 14,409 eMails 

in the WikiLeaks archive 

with dates AFTER

CrowdStrike’s installation 

of its security software. 

That means more eMails 

were hacked AFTER 

CrowdStrike’s discovery 

on May 6, than BEFORE. 

In CrowdStrike’s 

original announcement 

that “Russia” hacked the DNC, 

Dmitri Alperovitch said, 

on the one hand, that the 

“tradecraft” of the hackers 

was “superb” 

and their “operational security 

was second to none” 

... but if that was true, 

how was CrowdStrike

immediately able 

to attribute Russia ?

The CrowdStrike company, 

and similar “solutions peddlers”, 

usually build their case on a chain 

of very weak assumptions. 

Malware is frequently 

attributed to Russia 

because Russian words 

or Cyrillic fonts are found in it, 

or in earlier versions of it. 

But Russian is the mother language 

for many people living in Ukraine, Belarus, 

Kazakhstan, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, 

and tens of millions of emigrants 

all over the world, including in the U.S.