Roger Stone Asks for Evidence Russians Hacked DNC Server

originally posted by: shooterbrody
a reply to: chr0naut

More statements you are unable to back up.....
So suprised
So all they asked for was the server?

I'm pretty sure that, as a foreign national, the FBI would never have requested that I provide them with a DNC owned server. I don't have it & I don't even know how I'd get it.

I'm actually not sure of exactly what the FBI asked for.

Perhaps they wanted the power plugs, cables and stool samples, too. You never know, they might grab some incriminating evidence?

originally posted by: tanstaafl

originally posted by: chr0naut
What you don't seem to get is that in order to remove the control boards, the drive must be disassembled in a clean environment.

Does anyone know what kind of hard drives were running in said server?

This entire thread is assuming they were old mechanical drives. What if they were SSDs (SATA, M.2, etc), or hybrids?

Ah, a genuine and highly pertinent question.

I have no idea but the type of drive is critical in the forensic procedure used.

Star for that.

a reply to: chr0naut

You can silly dance around it all you like; the servers should have been provided. Not a copy, not the images, just the full set of hardware.
Had they done that, there would be no bs questions.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Perhaps they wanted the power plugs, cables and stool samples, too. You never know, they might grab some incriminating evidence?

I think that might have been the DNC's thought too.

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: xuenchen

Here is a photo of the DNC server in this New York Times article. Seems to be powered on, but it's hard to tell:

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.

Also, the FBI were given images of the drives quite early on, by Crowdstrike, the cyber security company who were doing the audit.

The server itself was not given to the FBI because they would have to turn it off and disconnect it to do so. Interrupting the analysis and security remediation.

Let me tell you a little secret....it was a inside job. The speed of the data transfer was way too fast for a offsite hack.

The files in question were .pst files. It was in the news.

My personal .pst archive file is currently 827,841 kilobytes which in real terms would fully transfer in about 23 seconds over a standard gigabit link and just a little slower (perhaps twice as long at worst) over an average link between Russia and the US.

It could have been an inside job but the Mueller report clearly identifies that it wasn't.

a reply to: chr0naut

Whether the theory is correct or not, your personal filse size is a logical fallacy. It's impossible for these files to be transferred the way you suggest. The speed was over 20 megabytes per second, faster than anyone in the US could have done it without direct access.

a reply to: xuenchen

Didn't the indictment papers say that the GRU groups indeed used spearphishing on the victims? And then installed several tools developed by said groups to probe the servers and then find the said downloaded emails?

Wouldn't the FBI at least have evidence that the 12 GRU members with charges against them infact spearphished people like Podesta, and that they were in possession of passwords for a said amount of time?

I'm not sure if I remember reading anything else about them physically having the emails that were dropped to their leak sites.. But they blame GRU for hosting DCleaks & Guccifer (which is harder to believe, I don't think any one of the accused actually confirmed it was them that made Guccifer)

Am I wrong here? At least they'd have evidence of the spearphishing which makes them prime suspects..

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: chr0naut

Whether the theory is correct or not, your personal filse size is a logical fallacy. It's impossible for these files to be transferred the way you suggest. The speed was over 20 megabytes per second, faster than anyone in the US could have done it without direct access.

Assuming the speed of light in an optical cable is 200,000 km/s, and distance from Moscow to New York of 7,506 km, I figure a peak data transfer of 37.5 MB/s.

Allowing for 1/10th of it to be header/handshake it is still greater than 33 Meg per second.

And the other thing, of course is that you aren't allowing for any proxying within the US which would mean that the data transfer would go as fast as the local connections would allow, to the buffering proxy, and then whatever speed it goes at afterwards is irrelevant.

As the hackers would not have wanted to be attacked back, and would want their tracks covered, they would have used a VPN and probably one with a proxying server somewhere in the US if not in the state itself.

a reply to: Sillyolme

Well the FBI didn't seem to have a problem with it so I guess we shouldn't either.

The same FBI that was involved with the Fast and Furious scandal?

The same FBI that apparently used a fake dossier from Clinton to justify spying on the Trump campaign?

You have to ask that?

In any event no one should be denying that Russia was responsible.
Our people say it and intelligence agencies around the globe say it too.

Is the whole world in this giant cabal?

Russia is a suspect, yes. They did try to interfere with our elections. They do it every two years. We do it to them every election. China does it to us, we do it to China, Russia does it to China, China does it to Russia... why does no one get that? It wasn't a big deal until Trump was elected, but then it became a death knell for the country and democracy? Really?

We're just saying that the evidence for this one crime points elsewhere, not that Russia wasn't trying to skew our elections.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Sillyolme

They were looking for intrusions to e mails. How deep did they really need to go?

Apparently no deeper than I could go right here in my shop.

That doesn't concern you?

TheRedneck

originally posted by: chr0naut

You are also aware that this contradicts the conclusions of the Mueller report?

I'll have to research this and check all the sources. Again, thanks.

About the "Russian hack" Mueller and his pro-Clinton lawyers are basing their claims about Russian hacks from the FBI, and the FBI under Comey/McCabe accepted the claims of Crowdstrike without corroborating these claims.

Not to mention the fact, that the FBI ALSO had a contract with Crowdstrike at the same time that the DNC had a contract with them.

I believe the statements from the former intelligence officers who did their homework, and not what Comey's FBI did believing the claims from Crowdstrike without corroborating those claims.

When a foreign power does hack a government agency, it is the responsibility of the FBI to investigate. Although Comey and McCabe did help the Obama/Clinton administration, and they exonerated Hillary and accused Trump before the FBI interviewed them or their lawyers, these claims about a Russian hack goes to a whole new level. The DNC/Hillary did not want the FBI to investigate because the fewer people that knew the truth, the easier it is to control that information/the hoax.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

That is a man with an opinion. He was not on the investigative team that looked at this.
An educated guess is still just conjecture.
The whole thing is laid out in the Mueller report.

They actually looked at the evidence. BTW, that group is composed of at least 25 former intelligence officials, who actually looked at the information. They did not make a guess... And again William Binney is known as the architect of many spying programs which the NSA still uses today. This man is a legend, within the intelligence community, and he is not making claims and pulling them from a magic hat...

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse

originally posted by: chr0naut
...
Also, the FBI were given images of the drives quite early on, by Crowdstrike, the cyber security company who were doing the audit.

Oh, you mean the same Crowdstrike that made up another FALSE claim that "the same Russians that hacked the DNC hacked Ukraine's artillery units and decimated them?...

...
A cybersecurity firm has uncovered strong proof of the tie between the group that hacked the Democratic National Committee and Russia’s military intelligence arm – the primary agency behind the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 election.

The firm CrowdStrike linked malware used in the DNC intrusion to malware used to hack and track an Android phone app used by the Ukrainian army in its battle against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine from late 2014 through 2016.

While CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate the intrusions and whose findings are described in a new report, had always suspected that one of the two hacker groups that struck the DNC was the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, it had only medium confidence.

Now, said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch, “we have high confidence” it was a unit of the GRU. CrowdStrike had dubbed that unit “Fancy Bear.”
...

The Russians who hacked the DNC found to have also hacked Ukraine’s antiquated howitzers

Except for the FACT that both Ukraine, and the intelligence agency that Crowdstrike used as a source ( IISS) have reiterated that this never happened... Crowdstrike made it all up...

CrowdStrike Revises Russian Hack Into Ukrainian Artillery

...
But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened.
...
“The CrowdStrike report uses our data, but the inferences and analysis drawn from that data belong solely to the report’s authors,” the IISS said. “The inference they make that reductions in Ukrainian D-30 artillery holdings between 2013 and 2016 were primarily the result of combat losses is not a conclusion that we have ever suggested ourselves, nor one we believe to be accurate.”

One of the IISS researchers who produced the data said that while the think tank had dramatically lowered its estimates of Ukrainian artillery assets and howitzers in 2013, it did so as part of a “reassessment” and reallocation of units to airborne forces.

“No, we have never attributed this reduction to combat losses,” the IISS researcher said, explaining that most of the reallocation occurred prior to the two-year period that CrowdStrike cites in its report.

“The vast majority of the reduction actually occurs … before Crimea/Donbass,” he added, referring to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
...

Think Tank: Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data

First, Crowdstrike CLAIMED, without evidence, that the same Russians that hacked the DNC also hacked Ukraine's artillery units and decimated them. When Ukraine officials and IISS responded by claiming that this is a lie Crowdstrike changed their "report" to still claim that some artillery units were lost because of the hack that never really happened... Crowdstrike NEVER even admitted to be lying... Instead they revised their report to claim there were some loses from the fake hack...

originally posted by: chr0naut
The server itself was not given to the FBI because they would have to turn it off and disconnect it to do so. Interrupting the analysis and security remediation.

AAAAAHHH--BU11$#EET-CHUUUUU...

When there is a REAL hack to any government group/agency it is the job of the FBI to investigate it... It isn't the job of the people making the claim to contract a civilian security firm and deny the FBI access to the servers... This denial, which happened several times, is obstruction of justice... But since Comey/McCabe were working with the Obama/Hillary administration to follow their plans, the FBI under Comey/McCabe did not pursue the matter anymore...

Let's reiterate again what the actual truth is about "Crowdstrike's reports..."

...
But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened.
...

Think Tank: Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data

Thanks, I agree that CrowdStrike stuffed up but they republished the same report but with corrected data. The majority of the conclusions of the original document were still applicable (but it doesn't look good that a shop with their reputation should rely on a single unverified international source of intelligence).

Also, the difference between the DNC hack and the alleged Ukrainian hack was that with the DNC, they had access to actual source code and metadata).

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
BTW, let's not forget the following...

By Patrick LawrenceTwitter
August 9, 2017
...
That is why The Nation published Patrick Lawrence’s article “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” The article largely reported on a recently published memo prepared by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which argued, based on their own investigation, that the theft of the DNC e-mails was not a hack, but some kind of inside leak that did not involve Russia.
...

A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack

If you don't know whom VIPS are, here.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a group of former officers of the United States Intelligence Community. It was formed in January 2003 when the group issued a statement accusing the Bush Administration of misrepresenting U.S. national intelligence information in order to push the US and its allies toward that year's US-led invasion of Iraq. The group issued a letter stating that intelligence analysts were not being heeded by policy makers. The group initially numbered 25, mostly retired analysts.
...

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

What's more William Binney, former NSA’s technical leader who designed the programs still being used to this day by the NSA has stated that after he took a look at the evidence, he concluded that the hack was local and was done with a portable thumb drive. The hack did not come from Russia. The hack was a "leak."

People wonder why the DNC denied the FBI access to their servers?... This is why...

William Binney is part of the group VIPS, but we are talking about who is considered the top expert in NSA who designed many of the programs that are still used to this day by the NSA.

CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory — at Trump’s Request
Duncan Campbell, James Risen

November 7 2017, 7:11 a.m.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a former U.S. intelligence official who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack by Russian intelligence.

Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with physical access”1 to the DNC’s computer system.
...

CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory — at Trump’s Request

Anyone remembers a person who had access to the DNC servers and was claimed to have been murdered in a failed robbery?...

While I agree that it was possible that the DNC hack was an inside job, these articles all reference speculations, and have not actually been verified.

Similarly, the articles do not seem to have taken several factors into account and are therefore technically incorrect, being based upon a misunderstanding of several of the technologies of the time.

The number one issue is that they assumed that the DNC had a consumer DSL connection. It is more likely that they had networking compliant with the Trusted Internet Connection (2007) initiative and provided through the NETWORX contractors. The peak data speeds offered for government DSL in 2007/8 were gigabit (functionally equivalent to 125kB/s - more than 6 times the speeds that the article finds unfeasible).

Also, the hackers would have used a VPN to cover their tracks and hide their source. This would mean that data transfers would have been proxied, and therefore buffered, locally.

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: xuenchen

Here is a photo of the DNC server in this New York Times article. Seems to be powered on, but it's hard to tell:

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.

Also, the FBI were given images of the drives quite early on, by Crowdstrike, the cyber security company who were doing the audit.

The server itself was not given to the FBI because they would have to turn it off and disconnect it to do so. Interrupting the analysis and security remediation.

Let me tell you a little secret....it was a inside job. The speed of the data transfer was way too fast for a offsite hack.

The files in question were .pst files. It was in the news.

My personal .pst archive file is currently 827,841 kilobytes which in real terms would fully transfer in about 23 seconds over a standard gigabit link and just a little slower (perhaps twice as long at worst) over an average link between Russia and the US.

It could have been an inside job but the Mueller report clearly identifies that it wasn't.

Mueller lied to protect the FBI in the bolger case to cover 6 agents and kept 4 innocent people in jail. You're a fool to trust his integrity.

a reply to: chr0naut

What you say is meaningless, the experts all agree the speed in question is impossible. The fact you don't understand, well, the facts, is nor surprising. They all agree the speed in question is what would be expected with a local transfer. The actual reason why it's not important is because it's possible the speed was attained by a transfer later on down the road, not the original theft.

One of my favorite parts of this story is how one of the pieces of "evidence" they cited that it was the Russians is that the hacks supposedly took place during business hours in Moscow.

Ya know, because hackers work 9-5.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: chr0naut

What you say is meaningless, the experts all agree the speed in question is impossible. The fact you don't understand, well, the facts, is nor surprising. They all agree the speed in question is what would be expected with a local transfer. The actual reason why it's not important is because it's possible the speed was attained by a transfer later on down the road, not the original theft.

Thanks for the backup on the transfer speed exceeded the max rate online.

a reply to: yuppa

I only partially backed you up. You can't prove that was the speed of the original transfer. So it's an interesting fact, but not conclusive.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: tanstaafl

Why?

They wanted to know who hacked them.

They knew/know who 'hacked' them - it was an inside job, not the Russians.

Why would they mess with the data necessary to learn that?

To hide who really hacked them, so they could blame it on the Russians.

Or are you suggesting they hacked themselves and this is all just another part of the deep state trying to get to trump?

Wow, you are correct - silly, maybe there is hope for you after all.