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Comment by troyvit | Hacker News Reader

https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/the-public-evidence...

There is some evidence, but no definitive evidence.

'"[SecureWorks] researchers assess with moderate confidence that the group is operating from the Russian Federation and is gathering intelligence on behalf of the Russian government," the report from SecureWorks concluded.'

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The "evidence" appears to be simply that one anonymous group about which nothing is known was going after targets that would presumably be of interest to Russia.

But that's simply heresy: such targets might also be of interest to western intelligence, or really anyone who wanted to stir up trouble by framing another country.

All we can say is that the correlation is interesting, but that's about it.

This is why we have intelligence -- the evidence for almost anything of consequence will never be able to meet a judicial, syllogistic standard. The idea that we need mathematically perfect deduction before we can make actionable conclusions is an assumption on your part.

And the people inside the government to whom the intelligence is provided have every right to trust the source. However, to us in the public, we don't know these people, and have zero reason to trust them, absent actual factual evidence. What, you wouldn't put it past them to lie all the sudden?

The logical end of that position is that states aren't allowed to keep secrets, which you are welcome to believe is possible, but it's not the world I believe we live in.

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