Guccifer 2.0 Hacked Clinton Foundation | Hacker News Reader

Guccifer 2.0 Hacked Clinton Foundation

guccifer2.wordpress.com

163 pointskoolba181 comments

I don't trust this source anymore, Russian attribution or not.

Sources with a serious political bone to pick around an election can too easily plant or modify data in these "dumps" to craft an artificial narrative. With this "Guccifer 2.0" bit, we are past the land of hacktivism and well into the land of information warfare, where misinformation is a tool more powerful than real information when dosed correctly.

If this was a random dump a few years ago, I'd be more likely to trust it, but let's also remember that we don't really have much of a way to verify this stuff. That could be a directory structure on some random user's hard disk full of fabricated documents for all we know.

EDIT: I'm also very curious to see how fast "Guccifer 2.0" stops their anti-Clinton "hacktivism" as soon as the election is over. I'd get a great chuckle out of the Russians hanging some patsy out to dry saying "look, we caught him!" in a big show of false alliance.

>Sources with a political bone to pick can too easily plant or modify data in these "dumps" to craft an artificial narrative.

Which is where traditional news organizations come in play. When the tax returns for Trump were dropped off, they had to verify them. For example, they were particularly worried about a number whose first two digits were not the same font as the other numbers. That seemed to indicate that maybe someone had doctored part of it, but then they found the tax preparer who worked on it and he explained why that was.

Great example, however the anti-establishment cohort seems to be worryingly willing to perceive mainstream media as a vast liberal conspiracy while happily devouring truth-poor, conspiracy-rich outlets like Infowars and Breitbart.

This was going to be my reply to this, almost exactly. The fact of the matter here is that there is a large group of people that treat Infowars, Breitbart, etc. as news organizations of integrity higher than or parallel to "traditional" news orgs, as they are good at stopping cognitive dissonance and confirming their beliefs. All it takes is enough of these to jump on the unverified documents and turn it into a faux scandal that requires a question or three at a debate.

More like "everything you know is a lie and ONLY WE can give you the truth."

The more you buy into it the more susceptible you become to baseless conspiracy theories. Because it's always easier to believe that the people you are told to hate deserve the hate than to consider that you were duped.

It scares me how many smart people are playing right into the Bernays/Goebbels/Chavez playbook.

Are you saying that CNN, MSNBC, NYTIMES, ABC, CBS, NBC aren't all extremely biased in favor of Hillary Clinton and Democrats in general?

I never said they were or were not. But that only sets the tone and the coverage. Emails/Benghazi/Clinton Foundation got plenty of coverage by the "liberal" media. The facts were found, and they moved on.

What's the old saying, facts have a liberal bias?

How well would you say modern "liberals" handle facts in the domains of:

- IQ testing

- Evolutionary psychology

- GMOs

- Child development

- Economics

I encourage you to watch this panel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsgapaYCs40) and then say that "the facts are found". They have been stonewalling all fact-finding from the start, and anyone paying attention to the actual facts can see a seriously egregious pattern of corruption and cover-up on multiple levels.

I'm not a Trump supporter, either, but I am baffled by how ignorant some Democrats have become to this stuff given the relative cynicism and insight that prevailed during the Bush years, especially concerning Iraq. She acts a lot like Bush and we can expect a very similar administration from her. It's sickening, honestly, as people will die and suffer for our ignorance.

I mean, I would say that, given that it's true and everything.

Side note: I don't think it's completely fair to place Breitbart alongside Infowars; they are on completely different strata.

Is it any wonder people don't trust the establishment media when the they push narratives like that of the impending "mushroom clouds" if we don't invade Iraq? With nary an ounce of critical coverage? It wasn't long after that we found out that it was all a bunch of bullshit. But of course by that time it was too late for the million Iraqis and thousands of Americans who died, and the trillions of tax payer dollars wasted (stolen), yet somehow alternative news sources are the problem? I'll go ahead and assume that you were equally critical of the NY Times when they published, from sources with a political axe to grind, false information about the supposed Iraq threat. One must always question the sources, but that's hardly unique to alternative news outlets.

It's also very convenient to lump all alternative news source in with the Infowars and Brietbarts. The reality is that there are a plethora of disparate media outlets of varying quality that are covering legitimate stories from legitimate (at least by NY Times standards) sources - stories that are simply not covered elsewhere. People should be free, and indeed encouraged, to get their information from a variety of sources. The implication that people are drinking either full-establishment or full-Infowars kool-aid is false. People have lost trust in the mainstream media, for good reason, and they are searching for alternatives. That doesn't mean they agree with anything and everything that can be found.

And finally, please tell me, why would all the top DNC heads resign over the Guccifer leaks if they were all forged and fabricated?

"Traditional news organizations" do this all the time.

Take the recently leaked audio of John Kerry speaking to Syrian opposition: [1]

And the New York Times, CNN, etc coverage of it: [2]

The New York Times, which shared the most of any news organization (only a couple minutes total) made a number of serious edits:

- They include Kerry espousing the principles of Democracy, but not the fact that he was trying to convince the opposition (which does not want an election, including one overseen by the US) that they might want to have an election.

- The New York Times completely avoids publishing Kerry say that the reason that Russia intervened in Syria was because if they hadn't Daesh was likely to take over the government; and that the US had been hoping to use the ISIS threat as leverage to negotiate American support within the Syrian government.

- The New York Times edited out Kerry's admission that much of the Syrian opposition have allied themselves with "Nusra and Daesh": al Qaeda.

- The clips of Kerry describing how a US invasion of Syria would be completely illegal, whereas Russia was legally invited by the government of Syria got dropped

Etc.

Or, if you're looking for something bigger than proxy war, remember the US coverage of the Snowden Documents? Their censorship of it for a decade as documents before Snowden Docs came out? The fact that most of the media organizations tried to report to Federal authorities than take the story originally? That the major networks towed the official line (even using it's language like "bulk collection") and repeated US denials of specific program elements even with published documents completely contrary to their coverage? Do you remember how the media tried to make the story about "Hero or Zero?" and "Merkle and Obama are having an argument" rather than cover the content of the documents, including the NSA's relationship to mass propaganda programmes, government hacking to benefit private US citizens and industries, and efforts to influence overseas elections?

The traditional media verifiably alters and spins documents, records and stories.

The speculation that "Guccifer 2.0" has done the same thing is just that - speculation.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3grHmI44mg

[2] www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

This is mostly disputable.

They include Kerry espousing the principles of Democracy, but not the fact that he was trying to convince the opposition (which does not want an election, including one overseen by the US) that they might want to have an election.

I'm not sure what the point here is. The Syrian opposition is a very wide range of groups. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this, no?

The New York Times completely avoids publishing Kerry say that the reason that Russia intervened in Syria was because if they hadn't Daesh was likely to take over the government; and that the US had been hoping to use the ISIS threat as leverage to negotiate American support within the Syrian government.

That simply isn't true.

The second map on http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034 (ie, http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/news/special/2016/newsspec_13854/im...) show this. The Syrian government's core cities (Damascus, Homs, Aleppo) are/were mostly threatened by the Syrian opposition forces (the "FSA").

They say that Daesh was gaining enough strength to threaten Assad in the future, and they hoped that would get Assad to negotiate.

The New York Times edited out Kerry's admission that much of the Syrian opposition have allied themselves with "Nusra and Daesh": al Qaeda.

I haven't listened to the whole tape yet, but I'd note that at the very start the female speaker specifically says they are trying to avoid aligning with Nusra, but that she thinks Nusra is waiting for them to get desperate.

I'm not sure this is editing it out, as opposed to the fact that the Syrian environment is extremely complex and changes rapidly.

The FSA is getting destroyed at the moment, and FSA-aligned groups include a wide range of other groups, which change their alignment with Nusra (and the Kurds) frequently.

The clips of Kerry describing how a US invasion of Syria would be completely illegal, whereas Russia was legally invited by the government of Syria got dropped

I haven't heard this yet, but it sounds correct to me? I don't think anyone in the US is advocating for an invasion are they?

Edit: I've heard this part now. I don't understand what you are saying - is there anything new or controversial to report here?

Edit - With regard to your editted question "I don't understand what you are saying - is there anything new or controversial to report here?": yes.

First: the material that the NYT specifically edited to display wasn't new information. To the contrary, the information edited out would be new information to a lot of people (including yourself if you look at your own comment wrt 'that's not true' and 'most of this is disputable').

Second: the point of the comment, even if you choose to ignore/disbelieve things you do not want to believe wrt Syria, is that the NYT is very selective about what they choose to publish. Indeed, take a look again at what parts the NYT chose to include and what parts got small versus big font, and how context was edited out of the snippets.

> They include Kerry espousing the principles of Democracy, but not the fact that he was trying to convince the opposition (which does not want an election, including one overseen by the US) that they might want to have an election.

I'm speaking here about both the 'majority consensus' of the opposition, and what is spoken by the leadership of the opposition in the leaked audio.

In any case it's an important omission by the New York Times, which is the point of the comment.

> That simply isn't true.

> The second map ...

It definitely is true. I doubt how closely you've followed the Syrian Proxy War.

But the point (again) here is that John Kerry said it, and said it to opposition leaders behind closed doors, and it was edited out.

> I haven't listened to the whole tape yet

Keep listening.

> I haven't heard this yet, but it sounds correct to me? I don't think anyone in the US is advocating for an invasion are they?

There have been many attempts to find a political basis for US coalition invasion of Syria. However at this point the better of those options have run out. The remaining options are:

A. Provoke or simulate Syrian government attacks on US forces (think Tonkin) at which point it is legal based on self-defense.

B. Get invited in by the Syrian government (not likely to happen).

C. Get the UN Security Council to justify it. Unlikely as Russia or China is likely to veto it.

D. Establish a legal argument that the US is justified going in because of atrocity. Right now this would be an uphill legal battle as it is not the consensus that this can justify an invasion.

Other options (besides the diplomatic track) for the US geopolitical objective of regime change include some covert, illegal options such as assassination of key Syrian government officials, more proxy support including of al Sham (al Nusra's new branding), and leverage on Russia/Syria in other contexts (sanctions/economic warfare, more propaganda/information war, etc).

There's current emphasis on the possibility of building support, under the authorities current present, to establish no-fly zones to give Syrian terror/opposition/rebel groups cover for ground offensives and to let off government and Russian strikes.

There have been many attempts to find a political basis for US coalition invasion of Syria.

By who? I mean, I guess there are probably people in the US government who think it is a great idea - but there were people who thought it was a great idea to invade Iran.

I think this thread is a sensible read of the situation: https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/55vn65/gene...

Obama certainly doesn't want to invade.

And from the tape it's pretty clear that Kerry was telling them that it isn't going to happen.

> By who? I mean, I guess there are probably people in the US government who think it is a great idea - but there were people who thought it was a great idea to invade Iran.

You are on the nose: joint chiefs of staff, heads of state and stategists.

Here is a recent piece from the Washington Post "Obama administration considering strikes on Assad, again"

Emphasis on "again".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/10/04...

The Obama Administration has made it very clear that there is "no military solution". But that's been an ambition more than it has been a doctrine. The Administration absolutely may change its mind for strategic reasons. And will an election coming up any divergence could happen. The Clinton Campaign's platform on Syria is invasion (Kaine and Clinton have both long advocated for this).

I agree that Kerry is telling the opposition that US invasion is not likely to happen, because of the legal obstacles and because the legislative branch and public opinion inside the United States are against it.

But I've witnessed US propaganda flip the minds of citizens and their legislature many times. It's not impossible in Syria. Just less likely.

More likely is we'll try simultaneously to create no fly zones, we'll send larger amounts of money, weapons and training, and we'll turn on the spigot of non-traditional warfare (lawfare, economic warfare, information warfare, etc).

All in all what it means is that Syria'r proxy war is still a frozen conflict and there's bound to be years left of strife and suffering for the Syrian people.

The opening paragraph of the WP piece is this:

"U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria. But there’s little prospect President Obama will ultimately approve them."

There are no good options in Syria.

I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information.

If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is.

I guess the US consensus view is:

- ISIS is bad

- Nusra is bad

- Assad is bad

- The Kurdish situation is extremely complex because of Turkey

- Some groups within the FSA alliance are worth supporting

I think the US's state goal is a cessation of hostilities, Assad leaves power and democratic selection of the next government. All of those things are pretty difficult things to achieve.

I don't think any mainstream media is being particularly misleading here?

The fourth paragraph:

"The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said."

> I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information. If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is.

I think other commenters understand the following: the NYTimes and other 'establishment' media outlets edit and publish material material to cohere with state narrative.

The details left out of media pieces end up being the same details everywhere: the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name, Russia is there legally, the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal.

The way you've characterized it is that the media each miss random bits of the story here and there, and each story/outlet can't be comprehensive.

But that's disingenuous. When there's very damning material (thinking of the DIA FOIA document from ~2012, or the Victoria Nuland audio recording) the media inevitably leave out all of the same information they do every time: the context, motivation, objectives and legality that would contradict the state narrative necessary for maintaining government support and sense of legitimacy.

This bit of history with Kerry is just a recent example.

The distraction, misinformation and censorship of the Snowden Documents is another example provided in the very top comment.

the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda

But it isn't as simple as that. "The opposition" isn't one group, and no one could ever sensibly claim that it is.

The FSA (such as it is) doesn't have a deep relationship with al Qaeda. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times when there interests align (ie, both are fighting the regime).

No Kurdish group has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, but there are times when they've had agreements to leave each other alone.

BUT, it gets complicated. There are plenty of Islamists groups which aren't al Qaeda/Nusra/ISIS and do have good relationships with the FSA. Groups like Jabhat al-Shamiya[1] fight alongside the FSA, and have sometimes received US aid (while at other times haven't).

the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name

Well, no. Even RT is reporting US attacks on Nusra[2]. Interestingly, RT makes the same claim you do, apparently based on this quote: "We did carry out strikes initially, back in 2014-2015, against Nusra. But absolutely, you’re correct in that, as they became intermingled and as they became intermingled in civilian areas, we’ve always sought to limit the possibility of civilian casualties in any of our airstrikes. We wanted to work in a very strategic fashion about how to take out senior Nusra leadership like we’ve done pretty effectively against ISIL. And that doesn’t include just laying waste to populated areas that may be under Nusra’s control.".

That seems pretty well aligned with how the US has been striking at ISIS too.

Russia is there legally

Does anyone dispute this? I think the primary questions about Russia's involvement is around how they are carrying out attacks in Aleppo.

the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal

How can anyone claim the US has a single primary aim? I think everyone would agree that is one aim of the US: they say that all the time, and it has been widely reported.

It isn't clear how that is illegal: at the moment the peace process seems the primary path towards settlement, and that is what the US is engaged in.

The US isn't going around bombing Assad in Damascus or anything (not withstanding the attack on Syrian troops a week or two ago, which didn't help with anything!)

[1] https://medium.com/@ryanmofarrell/jabhat-al-shamiya-is-one-o...

[2] https://www.rt.com/usa/361519-pentagon-airstrike-al-nusra/

An overall note: I think we both agree at this point of the conversation that US media have a very specific spin on reporting in a way that skews and includes information to magnify the official US narrative, even when it is plainly evident that this presentation is factually inaccurate.

You've described a kind of unsatisfied state with how to understand the facts, but have not yet overtly agreed that not only does US media not communicate how to understand these facts or explore their complexities - but that US media does not make the facts themselves available, preferring to exclude and obscure them.

I think we can both agree that the US media could service the American public much better if it both presented the unsavory, contradictory-to-state-narrative facts and if it deeply explored the complexities of these facts rather than resort to obscurantism like "it's complicated and there are a lot of factions on the ground and not EVERY person in the opposition has a relationship to groups formally recognized by the United States as terrorists."

That said, here's an attempt to respond to the confusion in the above comment about those complexities.

> the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda

The point here is that not only are al Qaeda and ISIS incredible strategic assets to the opposition that is very important to its military success, but that the way this gets explained in US media is it gets excluded entirely.

It's not enough to point at my one line summary and say it's not enough. It's the US medias job to write non-one-line non-summaries that explain how very deeply embedded the opposition is with al Qaeda and the complexities thereof, and the legal quagmire that the US is in.

Jabhat al Sham is another great example of an extremist group that, in other circumstances the US would freely designate a terrorist organization, but fluxuates in doing so for it's objectives in Syria.

> the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name

It did indeed for many months. Given your article is from yesterday and does not indicate that al Nusra (al Sham) was being bombed but just that a leader was a target objective of a bombing elsewhere, I'd need to do some reading.

The claim is not based on the Mark Toner/John Kirby statement, but reports from US journalists out of the DoD Press Office, State Department - National Security reporter exchanges, the stopping of bombing reports from the Pentagon for that group, and 'leaky intelligence' from the Russian, Syrian, American and Qatari (via al Jazeera) sides.

> Russia is there legally

> Does anyone dispute this? I think the primary questions about Russia's involvement is around how they are carrying out attacks in Aleppo.

There's been many questions and rumors in the US media about Russian activities in Syria depending on whatever currently is making Washington's life difficult.

> the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal

Nobody claimed here that there is a single aim. "Primary objective" is a technical term.

It's very clear how regime change is illegal. The US has hoped to achieve a political process whereby it achieves its objective without having to commit to too many illegal activities along the way. Of course that's been difficult and the Obama Administration is again considering illegally invading Syria to achieve the objective.

The question now is:

A. Will the US be able to foment a political transition away from Assad in a way that replaces the regime with one open to the future geopolitical objectives (wrt energy security, arming of Hezbollah, transit for Iran) of US allies?

B. If it is not able to achieve the political transition it wants, or one at all, how will it then intervene?

C. If a future political solution looks insurmountable, will the US choose to pump weapons into the opposition? Will it try to find a legal argument to invade Syria? Will it covertly break international law and directly attack the Syrian government (as it has several times already)?

D. Is it possible that a new administration would cut a deal in Syria to exit the geopolitical situation to focus on counter-terrorism and stabilization?

Etc.

> The US isn't going around bombing Assad in Damascus or anything

It is engaged in other types of warfare, including encouraging officials from the government to defect, attacking it's command and control structures to make it less effective at warfighting, grounding it air force with sabotage and cyber sabotage, etc.

Anyway, remember, bombing Syrian government facilities and personnel is on the table as per the article from yesterday.

Also, I'm not sure if time is serving either one of us well on this topic any more. We seem to agree, at least implicitly, about the primary driver of the thread: the dominant narrative presented by US media is the state narrative, even as this means US news organizations edit material selectively.

Traditional news organizations are not especially good at this. Look at the highly non-traditional Bellingcat to see how well data can be quality checked!

Wikileaks has also not, to my knowledge, released any dumps with planted data. I don̈́t know what sort of work they do to verify, but they obviously do something.

> I don't know what sort of work they do to verify, but they obviously do something.

That sounds like wishful thinking. The only obvious conclusion you can come to is nobody has successfully contradicted their dumps. It means that and nothing more.

As I said, planting data is harder that it looks, and groups that have tried have often been caught. Also, the subjects of the leaks have not come with accusations of planted data. I'm comparing wikileaks' track record to that of independent (or probably state-sponsored) hackers like the ones who released the Britam data, and it's not based on nothing you can say that the former has a better track record.

If this is fake data it is either really well done or is at least partially real. There is contact info in the linked spreadsheet that I can verify is legitimate. Of course you have no idea whether or not I am legit.

Between public records and private marketing databases, is it information that can't be bought?

> If this is fake data it is either really well done or is at least partially real.

Good information warfare doesn't forge everything. It weaves the lies in with the truth so it becomes indiscernible what is truth and what is not. The truth is what sells the deception.

Right, but how do you tell (not speculate) that this is the case here, and not - for example - the Panama Papers?

My guess is that the very vast majority of these documents are real and should be taken very seriously.

Now, it does look like they may be from DCCC and not the Clinton Foundation - Guccifer 2.0 in this case being a stupid, bragging and amateurish hacker.

> Right, but how do you tell (not speculate) that this is the case here, and not - for example - the Panama Papers?

From a single data point? You don't.

You need to be able to gain the same information from other sources to corroborate it, and weighted based upon trust criteria. A known good trustworthy source in your web of trust outweighs neutral sources. A series of confirmations from other, disparate, seemingly-trustworthy sources that do not have a likely bias toward the information also count positively.

At the end of the day some part of it is subjective, yes, but you can gain confidence in the accuracy of a source with third-party corroboration.

So we could conclude that, on the basis of the non-faked information out of Guccifer 2.0 that likely this information hasn't been forged either.

But we should look to corroborate that information in addition to corroborate information from the Panama Papers, given the importance and implications of the information and the incentives for the sources to alter and selectively leak information.

> So we could conclude that, on the basis of the non-faked information out of Guccifer 2.0 that likely this information hasn't been forged either.

Sure, you could make that argument based upon your own web of trust.

Crowdstrike and others that have given this Russian intelligence attribution are higher in my web of trust than an anonymous Russian-appearing hacktivist, largely because they are people are in my own social circle and personal network. Believing that attribution and having an understanding of the history of Russian tradecraft and its current political leadership, I'll verify before trusting in this case. I'll assume something in here is likely faked, forged, or set up to deceive in some way.

Not believing it is Russian intelligence but likely highly partisan, I will maintain my skepticism given the timing of this release and the fact that this hacktivist has only been anti-Clinton late in an election cycle.

In my mind, Russian intelligence is to be trusted the same amount as Qatari, Saudi Arabian, Chinese, American, Canadian, German, etc intelligence.

Have they every published false information before? Guccifer seems to have a pretty good track record.

It looks like recycled data from an attack on the DCCC, not anything from the Clinton Foundation:

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/299236-alleged-gucci...

> Sources with a serious political bone to pick around an election can too easily plant or modify data in these "dumps" to craft an artificial narrative.

I disagree. That would disqualify too many things, including Trump's 1995 tax return, the Snowden documents, and so on.

We should be aware of the potential bias the leaker has, but that shouldn't stop us from objectively looking at the data.

Clinton Foundation seems to think it was not hacked and posted data not theirs: https://twitter.com/DonnaShalala/status/783414514259636224

It's not so easy to plant a fake narrative as it might seem. There are a lot of details to get right.

Remember the Britam hack? Private security company Britam got hacked, tons of internal documents released. Among them one "smoking gun": that the company had allegedly been offered a contract to stage a fake chemical attack in Syria.

It was just that this mail had fake headers, transparently copied from another mail in the same archive.

There was also another attempt to plant a false flag narrative in another hack, of the private mail of a US officer in Egypt.

This Guccifer has alreadly bumbled once by (apparently) not being aware of all the metadata that leaks into MS documents. We know they use Russian keyboards... So, you're right to not trust them by default. But also, it's too easy to dismiss anything they leak - faking data is hard.

This Guccifer was logged in as "Felix Dzerzhinsky", sort of like logging in as J. Edgar Hoover. This is borderline "sarcastic false flag" territory.

Reading the comments below, I fear for our future. It seems no-one trusts information from any source any more, which gives us an excuse to lazily discount any critics of our own beliefs.

The US presidential election in particular seems to be condensing into two very distinct sets of beliefs - one following a colourful businessperson, and the other a jaded politician - both of whom should be pursuing comfortable retirements instead of high office, in my completely irrelevant opinion (I'm not from the USA). Both sides discount everything the other says, because "you can't believe anything these days" and they can easily find their own media outlet that agrees with their point of view.

My fear comes from the devaluing of the fourth estate. If the losing side on this election hears anything but "it was a fair race, but we lost" from their media, and given America's unhealthy predilection for firearms, you're not far off a civil war.

As an American, thank you for stating what I thought was obvious.

I downloaded the archive. I think people should make their own picture of it. There is a lot of content. The "Pay to Play" folder is just case studies of pay to play having taken place and does not implicate the Clinton Foundation in any foul play.

For instance, one document describes how a certain congressman, Brian Bilbray (R), wrote H.R 4056 to stop inspections of drug and medical warehouses in California before cashing in with donations from various medical companies. A couple of other congressmen and women of both parties are listed as well in the documents along with bills they passed and the companies that donated to them.

The newest documents are from July 5th.

Who conducted these studies and are any of them public?

Just a note that Crowdstrike, the first (and most reputable) organization to attribute "Guccifer 2.0" to Russia, is run by a rabid Republican.

And, of course, there's this --- which I just got from The Grugq's feed:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/22/turns-out-you-cant-trust...

Shift blame, make counter accusations.

Yeah, unfortunately it seems to be an effective strategy.

To give a textbook example, take a look at how this 'aid truck attack' in Syria was used to shift blame:

http://youtu.be/_grZK1hqExk

Yeah, this seems totally legit.

What part of it do you doubt? Do you want me to prove the suggested meetings at the UN took place? Do you think someone dubbed John Kerry's voice?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cyber...

Because only the "rabid" right has been pointing fingers at Russia for these hacks...

Recall who had access to these servers:

* Platte River Networks -- the entire staff had access to the servers, which were unencrypted

* Datto -- Platte River backed up to cloud service Datto, unencrypted. All Datto employees had access to the documents

* FBI -- the FBI recovered tens of thousands of documents. Many agents were not happy with the Comey's decision

* Employees of the Foundation -- you cannot work in a corporate environment without access to necessary documents

It is entirely possible that one of the above released the documents, but tried to blame it on Russia so that they would not be suspected.

That's "motive". You need "means", too.

Attribution isn't simply based on "these people have a reason not to like HRC". In Crowdstrike's case, they've instrumented a decent fraction of all the desktops deployed in companies around the world and used them to hoover up malware and exploit toolkit samples.

So, to give this argument legs, you have to conjure up an employee of "Platte River Networks" who not only wants to leak Clinton Foundation files, but also knows the precise IOC's that three different threat intelligence firms associate with Russia. (Different firms, different IOCs, by the way --- here we're speculating that some random "managed IT services" company in Denver has faked out all of them).

About the closest you come to that is by suggesting that it's the FBI leaking Clinton Foundation files.

At that point, I think Occam is starting to bind on your argument a bit.

It is entirely possible that the Russians were behind some or all of the hacks. However, we don't have sufficient evidence to prove that.

For one, Cloudstrike was referring to DC Leaks, not Guccifer 2.0 (nor Wikileaks).

Further, it is very, very rare for intelligence services to release private documents to affect an election in another country. It is far more common to use that intelligence to affect diplomatic relations between leaders (i.e. to get policy outcomes), not to affect the populace of a country.

Finally, I'd argue that just because the Russians hacked into one or more servers does not mean that an American didn't leak the documents. It is possible (though I will admit less likely) that both occurred: the Russians hacked the DCCC, but a lone FBI agent leaked documents to e.g. Wikileaks.

First, it's Crowdstrike, not Cloudstrike.

Second, no, the attribution was specifically about "Guccifer 2.0".

Third, I'm not sure any of us can speak to the motives and objectives of any intelligence service, so the notion of what is or isn't "rare" isn't helpful.

With regards to Russia hacking the DNC and then the FBI separately hacking the Clinton Foundation and then sending the documents to Wikileaks(!), I refer you back to Occam.

We have pretty good evidence:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-b...

But, these files were sent to VirusTotal before Crowdstrike, no?

While Guccifer 2 may have all sorts of motives, the important question is the legitimacy of the data and whether it reveals any sort of wrongdoing by US elected officials. I personally hope it doesn't and that we can move on from this scandal... But if it does, I'd also like to know.

That doesn't follow logically, because we're meant to trust:

* That whoever this is hasn't left out information that doesn't fit the narrative they're selling

* Hasn't edited the information to suit their narrative

* Hasn't included wholly false information

This matters even more if we believe it's Russia, because falsified leaks are part of Russia's M.O.

Unfortunately if we follow that logic we would be out believing in the content of things like the Panama Papers, the Snowden Documents or the DNC hacks.

In this world of state disinformation programmes (US, Russia and others) we need these leaks AND we need journalists and civilians to take them seriously; looking to establish second sources to corroborate information.

I don't understand. Do you dispute the logic, or just worry about where it leads? I read your comment and rebutted it, but your response doesn't feel like a rebuttal.

I would call it deeply incomplete, selectively applied logic.

Also I am a different commenter than the one that you responded to (I'm not the guy from your internet argument).

If you think the logic is faulty, could you actually rebut it with some specificity?

Sure.

I think the logic is faulty because it is very specific about implying what sources to trust/not to trust - without motivating that trust/lack of trust on a logical basis.

As such the argument is open to selective application, whereby the party applying the logic decides a priori the result based on their biases about the trustworthiness of the source (and therefore the truthiness of the leaked documents).

In this case - in the domain of information warfare - hacks and leaks implicating US officials in foul activity (global surveillance, propaganda programming, election flipping, regime change, torture programs, corruption in election systems) ought not be questioned a priori less or more than leaks implicating non-US officials in foul activity (tax avoidance, e.g. Panama Papers; arming proxy groups that in turn cause accidental casualties, e.g. MH17).

Not fully stipulating - in a consistent, logical and sound format - a formal criteria for a comprehensive system to establish and evaluate a priori source trust leaves your logic wholly incomplete, unable to grapple with real world issues of information consumption and investigative reporting.

Resulting in what I had said: deeply incomplete, selectively applied logic.

This is a really interesting comment and approach to reasoning about information warfare. I'm curious if you have any reading recommendations or if you would care to share more thoughts on the subject.

The logic can be used to justify scepticism, but not categorical dismissal as you seem to want.

I'm not arguing that we should not keep those cautions firmly in mind when interpreting this data dump.

A few points:

- Some may be DKIM/DomainKeys signed, which could provide evidence of tampering if the tamperer was unsophisticated enough to try tampering with a signed message.

- Any other party to any contested email could potentially produce a version of the email that differed from the leaked one.

- Chances are more than one group/individual hacked the server, so there could be other sources of verification, though it would still be difficult to determine which one to trust.

All in all, I hope that nothing interesting or troubling is found in the emails and we can all move on from this issue. I'm also skeptical Russia had anything to do with it.

I know your politics are not the same as mine (I think we're both left of center, but you're way more left than I am), but I have to ask:

Why are you skeptical that Russia had anything to do with this? Serious question!

* Russia is notorious for doing stuff like this online.

* Three threat intelligence firms --- including the two most reputable firms in the business, one of which is run by someone who hates Clinton --- publicly attributed the attacks to Russia.

* The basis of that attribution includes IOCs that weren't even publicly known before the attribution occurred, and would be difficult even for an expert to forge.

Clearly, anyone could have hacked the Clinton Foundation.

But I'm surprised people believe that it would be straightforward to hack the Clinton Foundation in such a way as to leave a trail of IOCs leading back to Russia. I think? you have to be an expert to do that.

I have moved to the left on this sort of issue after there was no high level official response or remediation after the Snowden revelations. I think many people fail to grasp how vulnerable we are to surveillance and propaganda. I have not seen any elected officials offer any reasonable reassurance or even accept accountability for what appear to be excesses. This suggests to me either fear or complicity, either of which are pretty bad news.

I think your questions contain the assumptions for my answer:

A state sponsored intelligence agency has the sophistication to forge the IOCs (or not to). Russia has a state sponsored intelligence agency. Therefore, the IOCs would not have been found unless the state sponsored agency responsible for the leak wanted them found. Thus if the data was leaked by Russia, it would have been accountable only if being held accountable offered a strategic benefit.

I have not yet observed any strategic benefit to Russia doing this. In fact, unless the hypothetical smoking gun is so significant that it will harm the very likely election of HRC to the presidency (and that was deemed beneficial), I find it unlikely that Russia would have been willing to risk the significant harm in diplomacy caused by being caught meddling in a US election.

So I think the hack was either done by a less sophisticated group (likely Russian) or by a different state sponsored group who chose to leave the trail pointing to Russia. Considering that escalated US/Russia tensions will amount to Billions in appropriations, there is clearly a financial incentive for stewing the conflict. There is also a dedicated interest group in the US that has tried to nudge the US into more direct conflict with Russia over the Ukraine, etc. But the surprising factor has been how readily Clinton's campaign jumped into finger pointing.

I do not see how it possibly benefits Clinton (or her diplomatic core in 2017) to engage Russia in finger pointing and accusations of meddling in a US election. If a response was warranted, it should (in my opinion) have been measured, and it should have come from president Obama, and the issue should not have become a rallying cry for HRC's campaign. It's absurd and unprecedented for a candidate who does not hold office to levy such serious accusations at a foreign government. If accusations are warranted there is an existing group of officials whose job it is to deal with it.

The first version of the Russia finger pointing story didn't really get legs and was not vetted by any named/credible infosec experts. The second round was, by the firms you mention, and I believe at least one official made a statement confirming the suspicion of Russian involvement.

So there is some unknown motive for HRC deciding to circumvent the proper diplomatic method of resolving something as serious as election tampering by a foreign country. I doubt it amounts simply to trying to leverage the news cycle in a beneficial way, or even misdirection. It seems like too big a risk, one that a former Secretary of State would be abundantly cognizant of, especially if it really was Russia and some retaliatory action would need to be taken in the near future.

I think there is room for exploration of the various motives that other state actors might have had for leaking the docs, but my guess is that the goal is to get the information into public view so that it cannot be used against HRC later after she's elected. Only if the leaked information ends up containing an election-risking smoking gun will it be plausible to believe that a state actor released the information to harm HRC.

@tptacek I had about 30 seconds of battery left when I typed the parent, so there are a few minor typos, but I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Yep, I know I owe you a response; you posted just as I was going out for the evening last night. :)

It's certainly possible that the infosec apparatus of the USG government, at its highest levels, could forge a compromise of the DNC. They have the requisite intelligence to leave the right trial of breadcrumbs to trick firms like Crowdstrike.

But I don't think it's very plausible. Break this down a bit:

* Possibility 1: The NSA/CIA/DHS deliberately attack the Democratic National Committee --- a black-letter crime --- and deliberately create a fraudulent attribution to Russia. In the process, they reveal unflattering secrets about the party of the government still in power, and generate fodder for one of the most volatile Presidential elections in recent history. Plausibility rating: HIGHLY IMPROBABLE.

* Possibility 2: The attack isn't instigated by the US government, but rather some group of randos who the USG finds convenient to frame for the attack. Since the attribution work is performed simultaneously by US federal law enforcement and multiple attribution firms, a conspiracy must be generated between the firms (who are unanimous in their opinion) and law enforcement --- and, since the act of framing Russia is both deliberate and highly strategic, probably the executive branch of the US government at the highest levels. This is technically possible to accomplish, but would represent the most sophisticated and ambitious conspiracy undertaken by the US government in the last 50 years. Plausibility rating: EVEN LESS PROBABLE.

* Possibility 3: Both the USG and the attribution firms believe in good faith that they have a firm attribution to Russia. But they're wrong. For example, perhaps Russia seeded the last generation of their attack tools to a bunch of randos in Eastern Europe. Problem: tools, implants, and exploits are important IOCs, but they aren't the only ones, and the attribution depends on some IOCs that can't be seeded --- previously used staging servers and command and control systems. Plausibility rating: SLIGHTLY MORE PLAUSIBLE BUT STILL IMPROBABLE.

* Possibility 4: As bystanders we don't have a clear enough understanding of Russia's M.O. to gauge their intent. We agree broadly that Russia is highly competent and capable, and that this is a high-profile attack, so it's unlikely that they were just too dumb to set up fresh staging servers. So Russia is comfortable with the world knowing they're doing this; in addition to hamfistedly manipulating the election and supporting their favorite candidate --- we know Trump is their favorite candidate, they just filed a complaint to the U.N. to that effect!!! --- they're also communicating something to the US about their willingness to sow chaos and exploit it to their own ends. Plausibility rating: SUBJECTIVE.

Those are good points and I generally agree with your probability assessment and with the utter subjectivity (and un-knowability of the motive with the currently available information).

The biggest current unknowns in my opinion are:

- Why did the HRC campaign decide to circumvent normal channels and make immediate accusations of Russian involvement?

- Why did Clapper wait until today to make an official statement? Why did he make an official statement at all?

One thing I've noticed about information campaigns is that they often seem to rely upon the human tendency to replace AND with THEREFORE when news is released piecemeal.

Hence, Server hacked AND campaign blames Russia AND Clapper blames Russia AND _______ AND ________ AND ________ ...

These disparate facts will seemingly turn causal and will be attributable to specific protagonists as the campaign develops.

Since HRC's team is essentially setting the agenda for the data points we've received so far, I am expecting there to be a punchline, or some causal narrative we're going to be asked to believe at some point in the future.

I don't think it matters to Trump supporters if Mandiant found Putin hacked into DNC computers from his laptop.

In what I think are Robin Hanson's terms, for Trumpists the enemy in near mode is the Clintonistas.

Once the Democrats are defeated they would change again, like defeating an end of level boss, geopolitical concerns would become less abstract.

This is good for Clinton though because it should consolidate her base. Democrats will be feeling more patriotic than usual. I really am not sure whether geopolitics with Russia becomes more far or abstract after the election if she wins.

For my part I do not think she is a known quantity as many people have said. Familiar but not known. A known quantity is what people said about Merkel but then she became unpredictable. I have this suspicion that Trump is unpredictable in predictable ways but that Clinton could be just as unpredictable.

What I really do not know is what Clinton's position is on 'the decline of the empire'. Have there been acknowledgements? Declarations? Business as usual?

This group's DNC hack has already been tied to Russia by way of the forensics of a previous hack on the German government.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence linking GRU to the DNC hack is the equivalent of identical fingerprints found in two burglarized buildings: a reused command-and-control address—176.31.112[.]10—that was hard coded in a piece of malware found both in the German parliament as well as on the DNC’s servers. Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic security agency BfV as the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. The infrastructure behind the fake MIS Department domain was also linked to the Berlin intrusion through at least one other element, a shared SSL certificate.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/all-signs-point-to-russia-b...

Not sure why your comment was downvoted.

Seems to me this should be verified as legit data before we start disseminating this info, no? In this guy's screenshots there is literally a directory titled "Pay to Play." A little on the nose isn't it?

> Seems to me this should be verified as legit data before we start disseminating this info, no?

The previous releases haven't been disputed so until proven otherwise, I'd say this is legit as well.

> In this guy's screenshots there is literally a directory titled "Pay to Play." A little on the nose isn't it?

I'm not sure if that's the original directory listing or a grouping Guccifer 2.0 put together. Even if it's not, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if there was a directory or Excel named "Pay to Play" or equivalent. It's still a ways away from naming it "Bribe List" or "Scamola Monies".

That's exactly Russian tradecraft - they build up trust with the leaks of true information, then layer in false, damning allegations.

We'll likely see the worst lies directly before the elections, so as to aid Trump the most.

Even if we believe that this is a Russian conspiracy, why is it more important than the actual corruption? Leaking DNC emails was probably illegal, but that does not make the content any less damning.

Did you mean to respond to me?

I just said that the Russian intelligence services will use the trust they've established (by disseminating truthful information) in order to spread lies when it comes closer to the election - do you not see harm in that?

Edit: Also, can you point to the 'actual corruption' that occurred? Not the dirty tricks (which I agree happened), but the 'actual corruption' that you are alleging occurred. So far I've heard plenty of people allege corruption, but I've yet to actually see this corruption. With the contents of the DNC emails it shouldn't be difficult.

I see harm in what you're saying, but I also think the same thing applies to the US media and corporations. Just because the hack was linked to Russia and they have been at loggerheads with the US, you should not be using that sentiment to discredit the actual information.

I don't know what you call 'actual corruption' but discriminating against another candidate, not providing level playing ground and actively harming another candidate's campaign, DNC chair stepping down because of corruption and immediately getting hired in Clinton campaign all look pretty shady to me. Illegal, maybe not but definitely corrupt.

> Just because the hack was linked to Russia and they have been at loggerheads with the US, you should not be using that sentiment to discredit the actual information.

Correction, Russia is in hostilities with the United States, and is attempting to weaken it's international standing and weaken it's treaties (primarily NATO). It's currently headed by a dictator fond of murdering journalists and dissidents, jailing and inciting violence against sexual minorities, nationalizing multi-billion dollar corporations for his personal profit, and literally (as in the actual definitive use) rigging elections - in addition to invading his neighbors. There is no honest defense of Putin as a leader, and there is no honest defense of why he should have a say in who America elects as it's next president. I'd suggest that his involvement in the US electoral process is poisonous, and if any US citizens are found to have conspired in this effort with him, that should be considered treason.

And again, you seem to be intentionally mis-parsing my words. As I've now said twice, Russian intelligence intentionally leaks truthful information so that it may later spread deceitful propaganda. I've never argued that American voters aren't entitled to know truthful disclosures about it's electoral process. But again, as I've said twice, Putin has a track record of using this credibility to later spread lies. With the understanding that Putin intentionally spreads lies, it becomes abundantly clear as to why America should treat everything he leaks with a healthy dose of skepticism.

With regards to the 'everyone else is doing it' what-aboutism, I'll pass. I personally find it a tiring and intellectually lazy argument, and in any case it's irrelevant.

>I don't know what you call 'actual corruption' but discriminating against another candidate, not providing level playing ground and actively harming another candidate's campaign, DNC chair stepping down because of corruption and immediately getting hired in Clinton campaign all look pretty shady to me. Illegal, maybe not but definitely corrupt.

To be clear, 'actual corruption' is orchestrating the submission of fraudulent ballots (ballot-box stuffing), fraudulently disqualifying the ballots of eligible voters, or otherwise attempting to alter the outcomes of American votes.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with American politics, but otherwise these 'dirty tricks' are actually par the course - since forever, really. A candidate who is unable to overcome them probably isn't qualified to become president by dint of their amateurism. For some perspective, the DNC tried all these tricks - and worse - on Obama as he wrested the nomination away from Hillary. If you believe that Sanders could walk into the Democratic Party after 30 years as independent and seize the nomination then you don't understand party politics.

Lastly, the question of DWS's resignation. To be clear, no allegations against DWS regarded 'actual corruption.' With that said, Putin timed his leaks beautifully to sabotage the Democratic Conventions. If you'll remember, these disclosures left the convention beginning in an upheaval and largely against HRC. Since there is no person able to force the resignation of the DNC chairperson, HRC faced a convention in open revolt against her and the chairperson. Offering DWS a spot in her campaign allowed her to resign and still save face, and allowed HRC to bring in a chairperson who could help bring the convention to heel. DWS draws no salary from the campaign nor has any responsibilities - we call this an honorary position. What you're calling 'actual corruption' I call deft political maneuvering.

Lastly, Bernie Sanders lost by over 3,000,000 votes. To suggest that the nomination should go to him is in defiance of the idea of a democracy, unless you are alleging that Hillary Clinton manufactured or stole 3 million votes.

"I wouldn't use the word 'rigged,' because we knew what the rules were. But what is really dumb is that you have closed primaries, like in New York State, where 3 million people who were Democrats or Republicans could not participate. Where you have a situation where over 400 superdelegates came on board Clinton's campaign before anybody else was in the race, eight months before the first vote was cast. That's not rigged. I think it's just a dumb process, which has certainly disadvantaged our campaign." - It seems Bernie himself would align much more closely with my interpretation of reality than yours.

You've obviously made up your mind, so I'm not going to reason with you. As far as I am concerned, who leaked things should not be the point of discussion. The point of discussion should be if it is truthful or not. If it is, then the problem is not Russia, it is the internal corruption. Calling something par the course does not make it right. I am not invested in any of the candidates, but I think just because it was unfair in the past, it should be unfair now. I don't want to go into the whole email discussion, but it was proved multiple times that the private server wasn't an accident but intentional setup and that confidential material was transmitted. How is there no ramification for that?

You seem to be caught in the notion that you acquire information in a vacuum, and that propagandists don't subtly alter or omit information as to further their own interests. Best of luck with that.

With regards to Sanders, as best I can tell, you seem to be upset that your candidate wasn't exempted from both the political process and the democratic process. I'm unsympathetic to people who cry after they lose a game and want the rules changed for themselves, which is essentially what you're arguing for now. Sanders joined public service at the same time the Clintons did, if he wanted to gain power on a national stage there was nothing stopping him. The tricks utilized against him are nothing compared to the sustained attacks the Clintons have weathered for 25+ years, much less what Barack overcame in a single election. Everyone else seems to get along just fine, but for some reason we're all supposed to stop and rewrite human nature when Sanders supporters learn how the world actually works.

If you think all these games are unfair, they are - and so what? They're nothing compared to the politics played on the international stage by Putin, Xi Jingping et al. There's no imaginary referee that you can go run to whenever someone is mean to you internationally, just as there isn't one in an election locally. I expect my president to find ways to adapt, just as I would when a hostile nation tries to sabotage their political process. FWIW, Sanders himself understands this fully, hasn't complained or cried about it, and is using his opportunity to the fullest to effect positive change in the world.

The final fact you seem keen to ignore is that Clinton won her nomination by over 3,000,000 votes. For some reason the clear will of the electorate isn't a good enough reason for you to accept her nomination, and instead you insist that this process be ignored so your preferred candidate is instead nominated.

As for the email 'scandal', I'll again pass. I'm equally unsympathetic to people who try and change topics to avoid admitting they're wrong.

You seem to think I am invested in Sanders, which I can tell you is not true. Heck, I can't even vote. You go on your elaborate rant about how the system has always been unfair and Clintons are brilliant to utilize it in their favor and nobody should complain about it, yet you fail to feel the same way about Trump or Putin. Propaganda has always been used and misinformation has been used to influence large groups of people to do stupid stuff. If the large group decides to buy into the propaganda and elect Trump, why are you complaining? I am digressing here from my original point that people are too focussed about the source and not enough about the contents and its validity, but going by what you've already said, you seem to be ok with everything being wrong as long as it favors Clintons. I am done discussing this.

You seem to keep straw-manning my argument - again I never proposed that voters aren't entitled to the information contained in the emails. The notion that you seem to be arguing against is Putin is a skilled propagandist who subtly alters and omits information to further his agenda - again which is solely to weaken the United States. Again, he has a proven track record of doing this. That's why I advocate learning about issues from multiple reputed sources who can vet information and contextualize it, and not take as fact random Wordpress sites set up by Russian intelligence services.

Lastly, if you've read my last few replies they are all saying that these are fair tactics, and candidates who can't respond to them probably don't deserve our votes. I'm sorry you took this as meaning I'm pro-Clinton and against everyone else, but I'm usually for people basing their votes and opinions on facts.

The Rajiv Fernando appointment isn't a textbook example of 'actual corruption'?

There's no lack of other questionable appointments but this one in particular seems to leave no room for debate.

I think the phrase you're groping for would be 'political patronage', not 'actual corruption' - unless you're alleging he fundraised for the Clinton campaign with the express intention of obtaining that particular seat.

Otherwise political patronage is the same as it has always been, and in this case was marred by the fact they probably didn't have any relevant positions to reward him, and cast about for any seat available. If you look through the diplomatic appointments of the last ~10 presidents, you'll find that many are unqualified for their appointments.

It's the same process that brought Mike 'heck of a job' Brown to the head of FEMA, where he concerned himself with his dinner plans as thousands of Americans drowned in New Orleans.

And truthfully, I'll bet every presidential appointment ever has been made first and foremost on the basis of that president's relation to the individual, unless you can find me an appointment made on the behalf of an individual said president hated personally.

Broken? Absolutely. Corrupt? No.

I wrote a longer reply but it really comes down to this:

Rajiv Fernando was not qualified to be on this particular natsec expert board that comes with a Top Secret clearance.

Political patronage isn't necessarily wrong when you're handing out the typical ambassadorships which people tend to actually be qualified for.

However, it certainly becomes "actual corruption" when you start putting those people in impactful roles that they're utterly unqualified for.

I didn't just pull out a random example out of my ass.

>Rajiv Fernando was not qualified to be on this particular natsec expert board that comes with a Top Secret clearance.

I don't disagree with you.

>Political patronage isn't necessarily wrong when you're handing out the typical ambassadorships which people tend to actually be qualified for. However, it certainly becomes "actual corruption" when you start putting those people in impactful roles that they're utterly unqualified for.

But again, you're not really arguing against HRC as much as you are the status quo. Again, Bush appointed a supremely unqualified man to head the agency responsible for protecting America during emergency- I didn't pull a random example out of my ass either.

You're suggesting that Hilary's patronage is unique because the beneficiary could potentially have serious responsibility- Im saying Bush's beneficiary let New Orleans drown, then grossly botched his responsibilities while Americans killed each other for food. I'd suggest the oversight of American emergency preparedness is a life-or-death matter, as the blood of ~1,200 American citizens is on Mike 'heck of a job' Brown's hands.

All that is to say that consequential political appointments can be had through patronage. Unless you can somehow show that this appointment was directly requested by Rajiv, again my response is that he probably didn't want this particular position, but it's the one that was left after HRC exhausted the choice positions.

Again, I don't think the action was responsible but I can't see how it was out of line with the dysfunctional status quo.

> But again, you're not really arguing against HRC as much as you are the status quo

To many people that is the same as voting Trump.

If people decide to rebel against the appointment of unqualified people to impactful positions by electing trump to the presidency... that would nicely summarize the cognitive dissonance of this election.

or you know, democracy. If people choose to vote somebody into office, no matter how wrong it is, it still is democracy.

Your comment really doesn't make sense in relation to what it is responding to.

It does. If people elect Trump, you're calling it cognitive dissonance, I'm saying it is democracy.

No, I said if people rebel against unqualified people taking consequential positions by electing trump that is cognitively dissonant. And it is, because objectively Trump is the least qualified person to ever be nominated by a major party.

I don't think the prevalence of "actual corruption" justifies it.

Just to be clear though, I think HRCs opponents would in all likelihood behave in similar manner.

>All that is to say that consequential political appointments can be had through patronage. Unless you can somehow show that this appointment was directly requested by Rajiv, again my response is that he probably didn't want this particular position, but it's the one that was left after HRC exhausted the choice positions.

I don't think what Rajiv wanted is really relevant here, he supported Hillary and was rewarded for it in a very inappropriate manner, that's corruption.

I wouldn't have any complaints if the post Rajiv was handed was one he was qualified for, but that obviously isn't the case here. Nothing wrong with handing out consequential positions to qualified people.

>Again, I don't think the action was responsible but I can't see how it was out of line with the dysfunctional status quo.

It's not, just as the cop trying to extort me for a bribe in Thailand isn't. Doesn't make it any less corrupt though.

>I don't think what Rajiv wanted is really relevant here, he supported Hillary and was rewarded for it in a very inappropriate manner, that's corruption.

For better or worse (probably worse), or current definition of corruption necessitates a quid pro quo.

Using your Thai cop analogy, its possible that said cop could attempt to extort a powerful Thai politician who could have them prosecuted. However, that doesn't make their prosecution any less corrupt, nor does it address the incentives that make extortion so commonplace to begin with. Will the police force be any less corrupt after they are gone? It is simply swapping out one corrupt individual with another, and life goes on. I'm saying if I have a problem with the practice, I'm going to try and change the process - not simply charge the last person holding the hot potato.

> Did you mean to respond to me? I just said that the Russian intelligence services will use..

I am not that poster. However, it seems that many are arguing if the source is legitimate, but tacitly accept it is StateSponsered. Yes, we are actively in a coldwar, however, that does not mean it is Russia.

I am extremely suspect of the sources agenda. I agree with you this has the markings of a manufactured agenda on it. It could certainly be Russian operatives; or some subset of information was handed off from a highlevel RU source, but that is not proveable nor are there a reasonable amount of credible evidence.

The media has spent time discussing "Russian" involvement in near synchronicity-- moreso than the content of the emails.

There has only been limited time to remarks questioning a second Snowden like insider, which on the program I heard (NPR) there was casual speculation they were a Russian plant.

There are many outfits capable of this one might imagine. The "this was so easy"-esqu bit strikes me as utter bullshit. This whole leak seems extremely awkward, and its motivation is unclear.

The lack of real evidence & the unlnowns about the underlying agenda are scary. Clearly, someone who is powerful is behind this, if they are able to evade detenction by the NSA as well as gain entry to one of Americas most powerful correspondence.

I think a preponderance of the evidence would suggest Russian involvement, from the incident response report, the overwhelming agreement of the intelligence community (on background, of course), to the excellent reporting by Joseph Cox of vice who found it odd a Romanian hacker couldn't actually speak Romanian. Also worth noting is 'the equation group' suffered a breach after American officials persisted in talking about Russian attribution after Putin had warned them to move on. Attribution is extremely difficult, but the balance of evidence remains clear.

If you study Vladimir Putin, you'll find this is pretty par the course. He practices what he calls 'asymmetric warfare', an interesting aside in itself - but in short, he's the most skilled propagandist alive today. He's known to have interfered with European elections and funded far-right and far-left groups of almost every shade; anything to destabilize his enemies. His interference with domestic US elections is for the same reasons: to weaken US international standing and NATO, and place someone in office who would be more compliant to his demands than HRC.

Again, I believe we agree on the facts but draw different conclusions. I think it is likely, probable even, that Russia was involved. However, not familiar with what you sourced so going on the post alone, the only evidence appears circumstantial, and one hacker was decidedly not Romanian.

Simply for rhetoric, I will propose a scenario that I do find possible. Guccifer2 was a fairly talented hacker who found and copied the DNC files and disseminated them. However, immediately the weight of NSA & US Intel closed in hard. Captured him, and are executing the scenario you just proposed but from the American angle.

Blame the Russians/anyone else, leak mostly trivial data, and a few larger but not extremely problematic things to feed the narrative, and then gain credibility. From there, you can use the alias as a hunny pot to attract others, destroy the credibility of guccifer2 hopefully calling into question the next persons legitimate attempts at such a feat, or continue shaping the narrative.

This disclosure seems extremely weird. The pay for play directory and the bro-ish shout out to assange are ridiculous. I can't see the payforplay directory being legit (he said that the photo was from dnc dir) and the whole thing just seems absurd. I haven't been following it enough, but hopefully he has been signing messages, and if not cryptographic proof, something nearly as irrefutable.

Do you have any evidence of Russian involvement? It would seem to me that a state actor would have the sophistication not to leave fingerprints on the data.

You should probably start with the incident report published by the incident response firm responsible for investigating the DNC hack: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...

That's a fundamental problem with leaks like this, particularly from brazenly partisan sources. There's no realistic way to verify that the hacker did not fabricate documents to insert before they released the "leak". The "Pay to play" folder and the TARP spreadsheet strike me as a little too convenient to be real.

It's a fair point, but "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity".

That saying really does not work when the you're talking about one party potentially being malicious and a completely different party being stupid. It's also worth pointing out that malice and stupidity aren't necessarily an either-or.

Hanlon's Razor definitely does not apply when you are talking about intelligence, information warfare, and diplomacy. To believe that aphorism holds true as a "razor" in high-stakes political games puts one firmly in the stupid camp.

This 100%.

However most people who hold this view seem to apply it only for adversaries of their nation, and not the intelligence activities of their own nation.

For example the selective leaks known as the Panama Papers was criticized for being screened before being leaked of implicating US officials - and for being selectively published to implicate other world leaders.

Ask an American about this an Hanlon's Razor suddenly seems relevant.

Really, whether to take the mental effort to understand the realpolitik implications, incentives and to pry into leaks and their sources to understand what's true, what's false, what's mischaracterized and what's missing - that decision to be careful and skeptical is immediately under the bias that nationalistic individuals hold dear: cognitive dissonance, etc.

It should be easy to verify/falsify the corporate donations listed under TARP.

It's easy to verify that they received TARP money and donated to Democratic PACs because both of those things are public information and completely legal to do. What Guccifer 2.0 claims goes far beyond that - that there's an explicit kickback donation scheme that funnels a percentage of TARP funds back to the lawmakers who authorized it. Proving that would require proving that the spreadsheet was actually created by a Clinton Foundation staffer and not fabricated by the hacker. That's very difficult to do, much more difficult than simply verifying the donation amounts.

Edit: With recent information that this appears to be recycled info from the DCCC hack rather than from the Clinton Foundation, any credibility Guccifer 2.0 may have had should go out the window. The blog post is flat-out lying about the source of the data and contents.

Sure... though worth noting that it would be in the interest of some for that verification process to take absolutely as much time as possible.

I have no opinion on whether this leak is "real", but if it is, Pay To Play almost certainly refers to this: https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2010/ia-3043.pdf and not illegal pay-to-play schemes.

DNC leaks included a lot of messages with a "pay to play" label and they were all about documenting compliance with pay to play laws.

> "Seems to me this should be verified as legit data before we start disseminating this info, no?"

Whilst it makes sense to check the data, does it not make it easier to verify by leaking it? Many hands make light work.

That said, I don't think this leak is likely to change the outcome of the US election. Anyone who has been paying attention is well aware of the corruption widespread throughout politics, and the level of integrity in mainstream journalism is so low that politicians can get away with blatant lies with minimal blowback.

Nope, because if you look at the file it's opposition research. I'm not surprised to see Democrats not mincing words about corruption internally - when speaking of opponents.

Guccifer 2.0 could also just be who he claims to be, which is an ethnic Romanian hacker living in Moldova who launches attacks through Russian servers because he/she knows any kind of US state dept req for evidence from that server will be ignored. I would assume this to be a personal beef against the Obama/Clinton admin for locking up Guccifer 1.0 by somebody in his crew not automatically assume nefarious nation state actors are behind the leaks.

FYI, foundation and campaign both denied to me that the hack happened or that the docs are theirs:

http://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/clinton-foundation-denies-h...

The Hill thinks it's snippets from the DCCC hack in July:

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/299236-alleged-gucci...

Given the presence of folders such as "Intern Sandbox", this seems more like the general Samba server of the foundation accessed by a wide variety of employees than quote "the private server of the Clinton clan".

There is no claim this is the private server. It says right in the title "HACKED CLINTON FOUNDATION."

That line "the private server of the Clinton clan" is taken verbatim from the site.

It's not claiming that this is from HRC's private email server, just that this is from a different internal server.

People are finding it offensive that someone robbed the bank while watching the video footage and saying that it was not legal to film. But they are ignoring the fact that something wrong happened (bank was robbed). Of-course there is an issue of trust with the source but in that case why is Clinton and Clinton foundation not coming forward and discussing what happened and be transparent about it.

I wonder if the data dump contains a smoking gun. While I could never vote for either of major party candidates for a variety of reasons, it would be nice if there were clear evidence of HRC's guilt or innocence in the emailgate matter.

> HRC's guilt or innocence in the emailgate matter.

Guilt or innocence likely doesn't matter; like Sanders said, I'm sick of hearing about the emails. The fact of the matter is that, well, they don't matter. DOJ will not prosecute, and a ton of people voting for Clinton will choose her anyway, even if she did something illegal, because Trump is basically an American Duterte.

Nothing short of full-blown, violent-crime-felony-type scandal will derail the Clinton train at this point, and even then it would end up with a lengthy impeachment process vs. destroying her chances in the election.

Trump is basically an American Duterte.

Haha that will be funny, when Trump gets 60% more votes than the second-place candidate, and then three months after election has a 90% approval rating. We heard it here first!

[EDIT:] I ain't voting for him, but I seem to have touched a nerve... are you guys afraid of something?

You know as well as I that even though your sarcasm is warranted due to my inaccuracy, I was trying to speak more to Duterte's authoritarian leanings than his performance in the election.

We have different understandings of the political situation. Sure, on those occasions when Trump isn't simply incoherent he is often engaged in frankly racist fear-mongering. It's reminiscent of someone's use of the term "super-predators". If they can keep his somewhat scarce attention, a Trump election would be great news for manufacturers of forever-stamping boots. If Trump deserves any comparison to Duterte, it's only because he's somewhat frank in his glowing admiration for terrorism as a police tactic. Duterte has always been more than "somewhat frank"; for decades he has spelled out in detail how little value he places on human rights.

And although she is generally more circumspect... ditto for Clinton. Somehow people who do care about human rights find enough blank spaces in her that they can color in a candidate for whom they can stomach voting. In reality, she won't even make the halfhearted gestures at pardons for victimless crimes that Obama has made recently. Clinton will be every bit as eager as he is to murder around-the-world around-the-clock with terrordeathdrones. She'll continue her innovations in hiding from FOIA while throwing the citizenry to the dogs of the Surveillance State. She'll be talked into more travesties like Libya. She'll probably rein in those states who have rolled back drug prohibition. Trump will do this crap because he doesn't know any better. Clinton will because the real evil bastards have plenty of proof of all of her "violent-crime-felony-type scandals".

Remember kids, don't waste your vote!

I mean, some would say that a large FBI investigation clearing her, hours spent answering questions in front of congress, and every major media organization being unable to find anything criminal would be as clear evidence of her innocence as you could ever hope for? I mean, what are you looking for for proof at this point?

Yeah, but they're biased

I take seriously the idea that officials' email conduct should be 100% transparent and available to the public record. Clearly there were efforts made to circumvent the accountability measures that were in place. I don't care whether or not HRC is convicted or anything like that, but I think at present we don't really know, as some of the evidence was not available to the investigation.

This kind of basic accountability and transparency is essential to the proper functioning of democracy.

Probably email should just be immune from FOIA requests (like phone calls) and we could have avoided all this.

I hope you're joking. Having all of the correspondence and conduct of our elected officials subject to archival (even if classified for several decades) is a crucial aspect of democratic governance.

Not joking. It's not crucial at all. Lots of communication is not preserved (eg, phone calls, face to face).

Serious question, why do you think that when it comes to emails? Do you also think all of their phone calls should be recorded to make sure they don't just shift any illegal conversations to that? Should all politicians wear a body camera at all times, so we can make sure they aren't meeting lobbyists after hours?

Yes, I do think all of their phone calls used for official business should be recorded, perhaps to be classified for a number of years but eventually released.

I would also support the body camera idea, and would like them to wear one even in meetings to discuss classified material. The recordings would be classified, but could eventually be declassified a few decades later.

Think about how much highly relevant American history is still classified. While there are some (narrow) cases where information should be secret for a limited time, I do not think that the public should give up its right to access the communications of elected officials.

In the past, the minutes from a meeting would be recorded and classified. The modern equivalent is recording/archiving/classifying all official conduct.

I'm not saying I want to read HRC's emails, but the idea that there were secret correspondences that she undertook while in office and took pains to hide from the public record should be troubling to all of us. The notion that historians might review the emails after they were declassified in 20 years is enough of a disincentive for corrupt behavior to warrant capturing and preserving the information.

We've seen in the past dozen years that our officials have hidden and classified information simply to avoid embarrassment or as part of a disinformation strategy aimed at the American people. Doing this should not be possible and should not be a temptation to officials when deciding on a course of action.

I believe that all official records should be preserved. There are regulatory standards that apply to corporations regarding the retention of records -- including emails. One example is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. These kinds of rules were put in place in an attempt to combat fraud. Why should the federal government be exempt from retaining emails?

The conclusion was "well, she was careless, but we can't find evidence of intent."

We know she lied about "it was allowed." She's avoided intent by insisting that "I did it only for convenience, not for privacy reasons."

If you have any doubt about that - if you think a desire to use a separate server was partially for privacy reasons - then she's committed perjury and obstruction of justice there.

It's entirely reasonable to continue to be suspicious about this investigation at this point. I'm not going to argue "it's unreasonable to trust her" but i think there's plenty of reason to believe "she DID use a private server for reasons or privacy, and thus lied to the FBI to avoid criminal charges."

So if I assume she's lying, then she's committed perjury? Is that really your argument? What are your reasons for believing that she used a server for reasons of privacy? Why do you think she would have done that vs. just having conversations on the phone or in person?

> then she's committed perjury?

Not just perjury. It's also destruction of evidence and conspiracy. Using the servers "for privacy" means anything that should be covered by FOIA but isn't available was destroyed intentionally. AFAIK the investigation didn't even touch FOIA liability.

> What are your reasons for believing that she used a server for reasons of privacy?

When they discussed moving her into the state system, she said explicitly that she didn't want the personal emails to become accessible:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/hillary-clinton-person...

So we have her on record saying (at the time) that she didn't want to risk any personal messages becoming exposed. She has every right to her personal privacy, but prioritizing that over "retaining all documents covered under FOIA" is both an abrogation of duty and an affront to transparency.

On top of that, setting up a private email server is a huge amount of work. She could very easily have simply forwarded work messages to her personal account. She didn't do that, and she's well known for having a strong desire for privacy.

I'm not saying "this is a slam dunk case and anyone who disagrees is clearly unreasonable." I'm saying there are perfectly valid reasons for believing that she committed perjury to avoid being charged with destruction of evidence and violating the FOIA.

there are perfectly valid reasons for believing that she committed perjury to avoid being charged with destruction of evidence and violating the FOIA.

Yes! I will not vote for either major party candidate, but I think our nation would be better off with a more thorough finding of guilt or innocence. Perhaps this data dump will provide that.

Right, if she destroyed documents to cover up wrongdoing. But there is no evidence of that. And since we can never have any clear evidence that she didn't commit a crime it currently seems as open and shut as it could possibly be.

> if she destroyed documents to cover up wrongdoing.

If she destroyed any documents covered by the FOIA, period.

Which she did. Saying "i did it for convenience" allows her to say that she didn't intentionally destroy them; she changed her email policies and that happened to have the "undesirable side effect" of destroying documents covered by the FOIA.

She had a duty to preserve all those documents, and she didn't. It doesn't matter whether the documents showed wrongdoing; they were documents used by state officials in their duties.

Probably because she explicitly said she didn't want to use email because she'd been investigated in the past, but didn't really have much choice but to use email in today's world: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-email-2000/st...

> It's entirely reasonable to continue to be suspicious about this investigation at this point. I'm not going to argue "it's unreasonable to trust her" but i think there's plenty of reason to believe "she DID use a private server for reasons or privacy, and thus lied to the FBI to avoid criminal charges."

Right. In my opinion, this is what matters. Since I am not a partisan for or against HRC winning the presidency, I don't care about any impact on that outcome, but I would prefer to know if we're talking about basic cluelessness / IT-incompetence or something far more sinister.

Certainly the FBI has never let a plutocrat off the hook before!

In any case, the FBI said there were classified emails on her server. Classification is not an issue of markings it's an issue of contents. The question then becomes whether the presence of those files was due to negligence. I would contend that it takes obscene levels of negligence to remove classified information from SIPRNet and have it appear on your personal email. It's just not something that happens accidentally. I'd also contend that her use of an unsecured phone against the explicit guidance of the NSA qualifies as gross negligence.

Most importantly, the question of guilt should be ascertained by a court, as it is with us peons. Anyone else would have been charged. Maybe not convicted, sure! A court could totally discover that it was an honest mistake that was easy to make. But many Americans feel that it's the court who decides that, as designated by our Constitution.

> Most importantly, the question of guilt should be ascertained by a court, as it is with us peons.

No, even with "peons", a prosecutor reviews the evidence available and determines if they justify prosecution before a court has a chance to ascertain guilt, and the court never gets the chance if the prosecutor decides that there is nothing worth prosecuting.

> Anyone else would have been charged.

That's not what those making the charging decisions have said, and given the amount of material that has been leaked about the detailed findings, I find it interesting that no one has even attempted to support this kind of claims with any comparisons of actual facts to cases where people have been charged.

Direct from Comey's mouth, he said they actually did break the law. He then continues to say that no reasonable prosecutor would take the case against her – not for lack of evidence, but just because they wouldn't.

"Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities."

...

"From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. "

...

"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level."

...

"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information [no one is saying she's a spy], there is evidence that they were extremely careless [gross negligence] in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."

In fact, the FBI stated the exact opposite: there is evidence of legal violations, but due to "a number of factors," they don't recommend charges:

"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

He goes on to explicitly say that these consequences would be different for other people:

"To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now."

Source: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-b...

> Direct from Comey's mouth, he said they actually did break the law.

No, he didn't.

> He then continues to say that no reasonable prosecutor would take the case against her – not for lack of evidence, but just because they wouldn't.

He doesn't say it is not for lack of sufficient evidence. In fact, he strongly suggests it is exactly for that reason.

> In fact, the FBI stated the exact opposite: there is evidence of legal violations

Actually, it says -- in your own quote -- "potential violations". Which is saying that there is evidence that Clinton and/or subordinates may have broken the law, but falls far short of saying that there is evidence that demands that conclusion.

And it goes on to say that that evidence is not such that a reasonable prosecutor would prosecute based on it.

> He goes on to explicitly say that these consequences would be different for other people

He goes on to explicitly say that consequences other the decisions on criminal prosecution ("security and administrative sanctions" being specifically called out as examples) would potentially be different for other people, but that those consequences which might be different are not the subject that the immediate discussion (focussed on recommendations on criminal prosecution) is about.

Every one of your statements misrepresents the substance of the quote offered to support it.

How is "there is evidence of legal violations" substantively different from "there is evidence that Clinton and/or subordinates may have broken the law?" Now we're back to whether actual guilt is ascertained by a prosecutor or by a court.

Ah, good. So maybe she wouldn't be charged if she were a normal person. She'd just lose her job and her security clearance, which totally doesn't affect her candidacy for POTUS.

Anyways, someone actually was charged and sentenced for equivalent actions:

https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/sacramento/news...

Regarding his plainly stating that they broke the law:

"a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities."

...

"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation"

Pretty direct, no?

> Now we're back to whether actual guilt is ascertained by a prosecutor or by a court.

Actual guilt is ascertained by a court. Whether there is strong enough evidence of guilt for it to be reasonable to expend resources in prosecution is ascertained by a prosecutor. Evidence of potential violations exists all the time without anyone being prosecuted. (Heck, without even meeting the "probable cause" standard -- for which "evidence of likely violations" would be a reasonable approximation -- for a prosecutor to secure an indictment or proceed beyond a preliminary hearing and actually compel a defendant to stand trial.)

> Anyways, someone actually was charged and sentenced for equivalent actions:

I don't think that's equivalent, either in terms of evidence (and thus, whether prosecution was viable) or the alleged offense (where there is no question of the intent to put classified information on an unapproved system.)

Well I'm sure glad the American public can rely on some commentator's opinion on the Internet regarding equivalency. That inspires just as much confidence in my government and likely future president as, say, a court case would have.

I'm sure poor kids get let off the hook all the time because cops consider that "there was evidence that maybe a crime occurred, not necessarily evidence of a crime!"

> remove classified information from SIPRNet or NIPRNet

Small nit- IIRC NIPRnet should not contain classified information. Maybe you were thinking CENTRIXS instead?

edited for clarity

Good catch – edited!

> Certainly the FBI has never let a plutocrat off the hook before!

This is the issue. Once an official takes measures to circumvent accountability and transparency, I think all bets are off. If it turns out that there were emails that got destroyed to cover up wrongdoing, I think it's a pretty big deal.

Just because it's classified now doesn't mean that it was classified at the time it was sent. And in fact it's possible for an email to be retroactively classified after the fact.

A document doesn't even have to contain classified information to be retroactively classified. For example, let's say a merchant who once gave the USG a tip on something sensitive is petitioning the State Department for the release of some of his goods that are being unreasonably tied up in Customs. Someone else does a reply-all "oh yeah that guy has been helpful to us in the past, let's see what we can do for him" - thus revealing past involvement in a classified matter. Boom, that first email is actually now classified - despite the fact that it itself contains no sensitive information - because someone could look at that conversation and discern from the fact that it suddenly became classified that this obviously somehow had to do with a classified matter.

The standards for handling classified materials are extremely strict and there's lots of ways to end up with classified materials in unclassified places that don't rise to the standard of gross negligence. The people involved are public figures whose job title straddles classified and unclassified spheres, they can't be locked inside a SCIF indefinitely, and reasonableness has to be viewed in that light.

"For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails)."

- The FBI, emphasis mine

True, however it seems that all the relevant emails were not necessarily considered by the FBI, so completing the email archive (by adding any missing emails for consideration) would make that conclusion carry a lot more weight in my opinion.

Well, FBI Director Comey basically said she was grossly negligent and that people still in gov/mil service would suffer consequences for doing what she did, but that the FBI was not going to recommend charges because 1) they've only gone after those with clear intent in the past and 2) it would be a difficult case to win.

Reasonable people can read many things into all the data that have been produced as a result, and her culpability is left as an exercise for the humble observer.

> 1) they've only gone after those with clear intent in the past

This guy would disagree: https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/sacramento/news...

But yes I agree with the thrust of your comment. I'm just saying as a hard left dem, it pains me to be put in a position where my only real options are two symbols of how the rich and powerful are beyond reproach in this country.

Perhaps the FBI clearing her is more rooted in her position than her actions. Would suggest watching this for a different point of view:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ptlTScIFIM

The FBI director was quoted as saying "no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case". She clearly broke the law (It is not legal to handle state department business via private channels, end of sentence), just no judge would commit political suicide to bring her to justice.

What are you talking about? The FBI investigation clearly showed there was wrong doing. She was let go saying there was no intent, not because there was nothing wrong.

This dump claims to be from a Clinton Foundation server; it doesn't have anything to do with the email issue. Also,

> While I could never vote for either of major party candidates for a variety of reasons

Then who are you going to vote for? There's only one other candidate that's on the ballot in every state.

Anyone have the full 820MB file want to put it on BitTorrent?

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:npxasqsrhd23n2txatlm46q3jt7zivyv&dn=Guccifer%202.0%20Clinton%20Foundation%20Hack&xl=860107251&fc=2

torcache.net doesn't resolve, site seems down.

EDIT: working now!

can confirm it's working: https://i.imgur.com/J6CBwVy.png

Thanks!

edit: a major question (if this is legit) is why the Clinton Foundation had so many internal DNC (or is it DCCC?) docs on their server ...

edit 2: I think main conclusion is, this is just rehashed DNC docs, not from the Foundation. unless anyone finds a smoking gun

torrent magnet mirror:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:npxasqsrhd23n2txatlm46q3jt7zivyv&dn=Guccifer%202.0%20Clinton%20Foundation%20Hack&xl=860107251&fc=2

e: can confirm it's working: https://i.imgur.com/J6CBwVy.png

+1 works here also

Dunno what's in there or whether it's anything at all.

sha256 hashes:

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  7a46fb8c52d1fb749da7f7939841da375c00ff02655f2f3c610d43ad25ed25d8 7zip archive file thing

and the first 461249036 bytes of the 7zip archive: f8b8d5d9590ad2500292472331985354dbf76d1e684e98e515ddd2f35f7ab446

base64-encoded timestamps (no attestations yet):

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  7zip archive file thing.ots AE9wZW5UaW1lc3RhbXBzAABQcm9vZgC/ieLohOiSlAEIekb7jFLR+3Sdp/eTmEHaN1wA/wJlXy88YQ1DrSXtJdjwEKN6Nyd+xj8sWc25Nt0NUfcI//AQL93M/7A7UD0pU3WoG8n/oAjxBFf0FrfwCNr+imB1DeIQAIPf4w0u+QyOLCtodHRwczovL2JvYi5idGMuY2FsZW5kYXIub3BlbnRpbWVzdGFtcHMub3Jn8BDbdnqJhhOxvFc6qurtv8wWCPEEV/QWtvAIbtLZAw4bKxcAg9/jDS75DI4uLWh0dHBzOi8vYWxpY2UuYnRjLmNhbGVuZGFyLm9wZW50aW1lc3RhbXBzLm9yZw==

above is from http://pastebin.com/JEdqgDNW

(Using https://petertodd.org/2016/opentimestamps-announcement for timestamps here. Note that someone could modify the files, make a new hash and timestamp the hash before the above timestamps get confirmations. Actually there's a long list of other disclaimers that should be inserted here. Learn a hash, and such.)

Looks like a real deal.

https://virustotal.com/en/file/51c1773a5645627ae533cf7538334...

Let's put aside the politics for a moment.

Is it really that easy to compromise a server, or is a high profile high value target really handling security so poorly?

It makes me wonder if one of my machines were actively being attacked if the intruder would be able to break in.

I suspect it's the social aspect that would make a hack like this relatively easy.

It's really easy to get in to a network when there are hundreds or thousands of individuals you can target via phishing, etc.

On the other hand, targeting just _your_ machines could prove more difficult since there's only one of you.

File listing:

tree | xclip -i -sel clip

http://pastebin.com/C34b8V8e

Well, this seems like nonsense.

To clarify: not all of it is. That's the smart part about hacks like this. The screenshots of individual donor lists they've provided look quite plausible. But then, a lot of that information is already publicly available.

But a directory named "Pay to Play"? A spreadsheet that conveniently matches up donor amounts to the amount of TARP funding allocated to that company? Come on. It's absurd.

"Pay to Play" is referring to specific SEC legislation, not the common use of the word.

no comment on the rest of the leaks, just wanted to clarify that

None of this seems very scandalous to me, am I missing something?

You've read all the documents in the 800MB dump already? It's hardly been up for an hour.

An example of what would be scandalous is the table of foundation contributions right beside TARP funds; which would imply that the party receives donations from companies in part because these companies received bailouts from the subprime mortgage SNAFU. From the preview there seems to be a pretty close correlation between the size of each company's TARP receipt, and the size of their donation; but that could just be a matter of the size of the company, who knows.

That said, hard to verify if that spreadsheet was legitimately produced by a Clinton Foundation employee for any official purpose.

Download site is dead, too much traffic, and there is already a violation report against it. That was quick. Anyone got the file to put on Torrent so we can actually download?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12639259

Reply on news.ycombinator.com