Politico reports Russia probes kick into high gear. CNN says Intensifying Russia probes could pit Hill against Mueller. Esquire says All These Trump Associates Will Testify About Russia This Fall.
There is only one angle in the Russia story worth investigating: Hillary’s role, the CIA’s role, and the FBI’s role in the Russia blame game.
Let’s kick off that discussion with a detailed look at the alleged Russia hack of the DNC servers.
Former NSA experts say it wasn’t a hack at all, but an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system. Timestamp analysis proves that it’s impossible for Russia or anyone else to have externally hacked the DNC computers.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense understood that Russia was not behind the scandal. We now have proof.
The Nation headline story from August 9, New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack does not do justice to the significance and gravity of the real story, but the article presents the case nicely.
It is now a year since the Democratic National Committee’s mail system was compromised—a year since events in the spring and early summer of 2016 were identified as remote hacks and, in short order, attributed to Russians acting in behalf of Donald Trump. A great edifice has been erected during this time. President Trump, members of his family, and numerous people around him stand accused of various corruptions and extensive collusion with Russians. Half a dozen simultaneous investigations proceed into these matters. Last week news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had convened a grand jury, which issued its first subpoenas on August 3. Allegations of treason are common; prominent political figures and many media cultivate a case for impeachment.
All sides agree that relations between the United States and Russia are now as fragile as they were during some of the Cold War’s worst moments. To suggest that military conflict between two nuclear powers inches ever closer can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole.
All this was set in motion when the DNC’s mail server was first violated in the spring of 2016 and by subsequent assertions that Russians were behind that “hack” and another such operation, also described as a Russian hack, on July 5. These are the foundation stones of the edifice just outlined. The evolution of public discourse in the year since is worthy of scholarly study: Possibilities became allegations, and these became probabilities. Then the probabilities turned into certainties, and these evolved into what are now taken to be established truths. By my reckoning, it required a few days to a few weeks to advance from each of these stages to the next. This was accomplished via the indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly in our leading media.
Lost in a year that often appeared to veer into our peculiarly American kind of hysteria is the absence of any credible evidence of what happened last year and who was responsible for it.
We come now to a moment of great gravity. Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year.
Two, houses built on sand and made of cards are bound to collapse, and there can be no surprise that the one resting atop the “hack theory,” as we can call the prevailing wisdom on the DNC events, appears to be in the process of doing so.
Research into the DNC case took a fateful turn in early July, when forensic investigators who had been working independently began to share findings and form loose collaborations wherein each could build on the work of others. In this a small, new website called http://www.disobedientmedia.com proved an important catalyst. Two independent researchers selected it, Snowden-like, as the medium through which to disclose their findings. One of these is known as Forensicator and the other as Adam Carter. On July 9, Adam Carter sent Elizabeth Vos, a co-founder of Disobedient Media, a paper by the Forensicator that split the DNC case open like a coconut.
Forensicator’s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is called the transfer rate—the time a remote hack would require. The metadata established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second.
These statistics are matters of record and essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading data at this speed. Compounding this contradiction, Guccifer claimed to have run his hack from Romania, which, for numerous reasons technically called delivery overheads, would slow down the speed of a hack even further from maximum achievable speeds.
What is the maximum achievable speed? Forensicator recently ran a test download of a comparable data volume (and using a server speed not available in 2016) 40 miles from his computer via a server 20 miles away and came up with a speed of 11.8 megabytes per second—half what the DNC operation would need were it a hack. Other investigators have built on this finding. Folden and Edward Loomis say a survey published August 3, 2016, by http://www.speedtest.net/reports is highly reliable and use it as their thumbnail index. It indicated that the highest average ISP speeds of first-half 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications. These speeds averaged 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively.
“A speed of 22.7 megabytes is simply unobtainable, especially if we are talking about a transoceanic data transfer,” Folden said. “Based on the data we now have, what we’ve been calling a hack is impossible.”
The stamps recording the download indicate that it occurred in the Eastern Daylight Time Zone at approximately 6:45 pm. This confirms that the person entering the DNC system was working somewhere on the East Coast of the United States.
In addition, there is the adulteration of the documents Guccifer 2.0 posted on June 15, when he made his first appearance. This came to light when researchers penetrated what Folden calls Guccifer’s top layer of metadata and analyzed what was in the layers beneath. They found that the first five files Guccifer made public had each been run, via ordinary cut-and-paste, through a single template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints. They were not: The Russian markings were artificially inserted prior to posting. “It’s clear,” another forensics investigator self-identified as HET, wrote in a report on this question, “that metadata was deliberately altered and documents were deliberately pasted into a Russianified [W]ord document with Russian language settings and style headings.”
Timeline
- On June 12 last year, Julian Assange announced that WikiLeaks had and would publish documents pertinent to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
- On June 14, CrowdStrike, a cyber-security firm hired by the DNC, announced, without providing evidence, that it had found malware on DNC servers and had evidence that Russians were responsible for planting it.
- On June 15, Guccifer 2.0 first appeared, took responsibility for the “hack” reported on June 14 and claimed to be a WikiLeaks source. It then posted the adulterated documents just described.
- On July 5, Guccifer again claimed he had remotely hacked DNC servers, and the operation was instantly described as another intrusion attributable to Russia. Virtually no media questioned this account.
The Washington Post, CNN, and nearly every mainstream media outlet published the “Russia did it” story with no proof or even plausibility.
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, admitted in May that “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies posted an Intelligence Community Assessment that they had “high confidence” Russia was behind this.
The Nation notes “The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers—an omission that is beyond preposterous.”
Instead of examining the DNC servers, the FBI relied on the reports produced by Crowdstrike. The co-founder and chief technology officer of Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovitch, is on the record as vigorously anti-Russian. Crowstrike was also under the employment of the DNC.
Investigating the Wrong Target
Trump should not be the one who is under investigation.
I suggest starting with Hillary. Then there are questions about the FBI taking the word of Crowdstrike, a group employed by the DNC with a goal of taking down Trump.
And what’s with this “high confidence” BS from James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence?
There is plenty to investigate here. But instead of investigating the real story, probes are hell bent on proving pig fly.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Ditto! Been thinking this for a long while!
I think Trump is being “trolled” … as a political strategy. And his spouse is wearing high heels to a hurricane!!
Excuse my “HACKING” coughs.
Hmm, Clapper, Clapper, where have I heard that name? Oh yeah, the guy who lied under oath to Congress! That guy.
Yeah. Clapper. Why hasn’t he been found in Contempt of Congress? I don’t think they can put him in jail – but certainly Contempt. That is REALLY bad for him. See how it hurt Eric Holder…..
Mish, your headline for this post says, in part, “It’s a Proven Fact that Russia Did Not Hack DNC Computers.” Kindly tell me how you ‘prove’ something that never happened? If you think that’s a walk in the park, then try this one: ‘prove’ you never murdered anybody.
You can’t, and that’s exactly the point. Your headline needs rewriting.
Mish, your headline for this post says, in part, “It’s a Proven Fact that Russia Did Not Hack DNC Computers.” Kindly tell me how you ‘prove’ something that never happened? If you think that’s a walk in the park, then try this one: ‘prove’ you never murdered anybody.You can’t, and that’s exactly the point. Your headline needs rewriting.
Please think dear Warren.
I believe you need a math lesson.
What is it about mathematically impossible that you fail to understand?
If the servers could not transfer at the specified rates needed for a hack it is IMPOSSIBLE for it to be a hack.
In my book that mathematical reality constitutes proof.
Mish
Hi Mish, thanks for the great post. Food for thought certainly and an interesting angle. It definately puts onus on whoever claims Russia is behind this to counter these arguments.
But in regards to your headline: If this proof holds, then isn’t it only proven that it couldn’t have been a remote action? And that whoever did it internally might have ties to Russia after all? I know, perhaps it’s semantics but thought to point this out anyway.
True, you cannot prove a negative but there is hard evidence, that would hold up in a (non-kangaroo) court as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that another party hacked the DNC.
There is no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC which means there is no evidence that Trump, or anyone in his organization, colluded with Russians to do so.
Also, try not paying your taxes and asking the IRS to prove you didn’t pay.
Your analogy is wrong. Proving you didn’t murder someone encompass proving you didn’t do something over your entire life. With an unlimited number of chances.
What happened at the DNC occurred at a specific point in time at a specific place. A proper analogy would be proving you didn’t kill bob on main street at 9 AM because you were at a work meeting at that time. Something that can easily proven.
In short, democrats are G-ddamn liars. End of story.
Well yes, but just think of the billable hours. Democrats don’t exactly have a packed schedule.
Yes, but I think being sore losers is closer to the truth.
Wow, anonymous idiots named Forensicator and Gucifer 2.0.
Hmm, now why would shamrock call them idiots? Something to do with proving the Great Russian Hack Scam ridiculous and impossible maybe? I think shamrock works for CNN or the Clintons.
“anonymous idiots named Forensicator and Gucifer 2.0”
Ad hominem attacks, the refuge of those who cannot disprove something.
Ok, once again. The basics of the Forensicators analysis is that he “unlocked” the metadata of the Gucifer 2.0 leaked files and determined that they must have been created at 23 Mbytes/second. A very high but not impossible rate for an internet connection, therefore it’s most likely the files were copied from the computers hard drive to a usb drive. The flawed assumption here is that the “computer” was the DNC server. How about the Russians downloaded the files to their own server, and THEN copied them to a USB prior to giving it to Gucifer? Check mate.
This is one plausible analysis.
Even in the best case, there is nothing conclusive to be gained from file metadata. It can all be faked, and the Russians know their nesting dolls as well or better than anyone.
Actually the former was the one who exposed the lie
Gucifer could be a Soros tie
And the former could be a Kremlin tie. Ask yourself, if this is slam dunk proof that it was not a hack but an inside job, why no confirmation from proper authorities? The only answer lies in conspiracy theories. All it takes is for Forensicator to go on Fox and Friends, Trump will tweet it, and it will have to be addressed one way or the other.
“All it takes is for Forensicator to go on Fox and Friends, ”
Forensicator is not going on Fox. He only went on disobedientmedia.com via “Adam Carter” presenting his paper.
Guccifer 2.0 only shows up after Assange makes his announcement. That’s when the DNC knows they’ve got trouble.
The adulterated bullshit from Guccifer is to make CrowdStrike appear competent, when they are actually lying. Cheap Russian template likely furnished by the Russian firm hired by Podesta to troll Trump online.
A really tacky operation all around. My guess is we’ll get back to the version of “Podesta was phished” version of events because Mueller has nothing and they need an escape from this.
Hopefully, even with your public school indoctrination, you can read:
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata-analysis/
When Julian Assange said Russia was not their source of the DNC leaks, I assumed that the mainstream media and those 17 highly confident U.S. intelligence agencies were all lying. Thank you for providing proof.
congratulations, Mish on countering the lies and distortion. The DNC are really covering themselves with merde and the sooner the public see that the better it will be. A few red faces would be nice, and even an apology to Russia would calm the waters.
The ongoing coup attempt is still in progress as the bureaucracy doesn’t want Trump for a boss. The truth won’t matter because the deep state’s mouthpiece, MSM, will ignore it. Few Republicans in Congress will care – they only care as long as Trump keeps up anti-Russian activities like the embassy stuff – some of which is in violation of international law.
If were Putin, I should be getting the nukes ready because, if Trump is ousted due to something Russia or Putin did, it will surely lead to war. Here are the the numbers:
Russia US NATO Aggregate
Population ~145m ~325m ~900m
GDP (US$) ~2 trillion ~16 trillion ~36 trillion
WWII losses ~20m ~400k
Russia is not a threat to US or to Europe. It greatly FEARS war which is why it is prepared for it. The US (government) IS a threat and the American people have had very little skin in the game when it comes to war.
Russia is like 100lb weakling with a pistol (nukes) facing off against a 200lb giant, also with a pistol. Moreover, the 200lb giant has a few 50lb allies like Britain, France and Germany – two of which also have a pistol. What would you do if you were in Russia’s position? Your only chance would be to shoot the 200lb giant before he shoots you. Chances are, his 50lb allies will then scatter.
This could become extremely dangerous.
Maybe this will work better
……………………..Russia……….US…………….NATO Aggregate
Population……..~145m……… ~325m……. .~900m
GDP (US$).. …~2 trillion……. ~16 trillion…~36 trillion
WWII losses… ~20 million…..~400 thousand
The final argument of these morons is; “who do you trust? Our intelligence agencies or Wikileaks?”. Of course I trust Wikileaks. Besides, rarely has the word “intelligence” been so misused.
“who do you trust?”
Wikileaks hasn’t lied to Congress on multiple occasions nor did they claim that WMD in Iraq was “a slam dunk”. They also didn’t send Colin Powell before the world to claim that what the Iraqis said were hydrogen generation vans for artillery balloons which were indeed that when inspected after the invasion were mobile biological weapons labs. That’s just off the top of my head with a few seconds of thought.
James Clapper lied to Congress. Why would anyone give his assertions any credence?
If HRC was unaware of the security breaches on her watch then she was unfit for the post and most certainly unfit to be POTUS.
looks like Obama told the intel agencies to fabricate the story to get hillary clinton off the hook for bleach bitting evidence that she had broken federal laws along with abedin, cheryl mills was given immunity illegally by the FBI and that the FBI, Abedin, Mills, and Obama formed a conspiracy to pervert the cause of justice by destroying evidence required by a senate judiciary committee
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
no doubt all the DNC servers were downloaded periodically over years by the Awan brothers and intel passed to the pakistan government and probably ISIS. perhaps even intel on beghazi security at the embassy.
this is a conspiracy supported by te MSM that is seeking to distract and impair the progress of the trump administration and provide a cover up for DNC, linton and Obama crimes
Whatever result they are looking for, it was foreordained from the time Mueller came on board. Truth is whatever they say it is. It could be a coup. Or it could be to break down whatever little resistance Trump has left in him.
Maybe, maybe not. It may not be hopeless. I’m encouraged by even what we got from The Nation :
The Nation notes “The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers—an omission that is beyond preposterous.”
They knew Manafort would be likely to produce a conviction, the speculation about other claims might cause damage in the election 2018 or 2020. The players are paid by the US government so there’s’ no down side. the Daily Caller:
EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump Aides Think Manafort Will Be Indicted For Financial Crimes
“Former Trump campaign aides are telling The Daily Caller that they increasingly believe former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort will be indicted for crimes such as money laundering or tax evasion.
One of the former campaign advisers has knowledge of the ongoing investigations into Manafort, a longtime Republican operative who joined the Trump campaign last March. Another former aide said that his knowledge of Manafort’s history of working with despots, coupled with news reports about Mueller’s investigation, led him to believe that an indictment of Manafort is becoming more likely”.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/05/exclusive-former-trump-aides-think-manafort-will-be-indicted-for-financial-crimes/
That’s a great report Mish, yet depressing. Like you said a week or so ago our problems are immense, getting worse and Trump will be blamed for everything when things collapse. That may have been before Harvey and now with Irma we are going to have to reassess our foreign policy commitments I would think. Irma could be even worse than Harvey so how is all this going to affect our options with Kim, North and South Korea? I can’t remember a time when things looked quite so bleak. This is the first time in my life where I have lost all respect for the FBI, the CIA the news media as they all seem to want to do whatever it takes to get Trump out office. I have never seen the country so divided and filled with so much hate. IMO all the things that Bill and Hillary Clinton have done and continue to get away with, it looks like the rule of law no longer applies to them. I really do wonder how much longer people like you and a few others will be allowed to bring objective truth to all of us each day- Mish I hope I’m not starting to sound like Alex Jones here. So again thank you Mish for all the great work you do for all of us when there are so few people left to respect!
gee , I can’t believe this is still an issue. The obama admin has left much of it’s influences in the federal departments . Our plethora of well funded “security” and justice structures seem to be acting in a partisan ideological manner . Not good. I would remove much of their budget . What ever happened to “make America great again”. Ain’t gonna happen.
Don’t give Obama too much credit. The deep state runs the country and their known and reliable fronters show up in all positions of power to make sure that does not change.
Unknown unreliables like Trump are harder for them to control but not impossible to steer. It will take a number of unknown unreliables to MAGA.
Not sure that can be done
I often hear this expression “the deep state” . What exactly is its composition ?
The CIA, FBI and NSA.
Pretty simple. It’s well known that the CIA has agents scattered throughout the media, under the guise of feeding false stories and intelligence gathering. No reason why we shouldn’t assume the FBI doesn’t do the same thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Just because they tell us it ended doesn’t mean that it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012
“The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012[35] was introduced by U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry on May 10, 2012 in the House of Representatives.[35] The bill purpose is ‘to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences'”
emphasis on the word “primarily.” If they happen to pick up a few US citizens, what’s the harm, right?
And even though we’ll never know for certain, my guess is that they manage to keep a lot of their funding by knowing all the secrets of the elected and appointed officials. People who traditionally aren’t exactly boy scouts. When you cast a wide net you pick up a lot of fish.
I have my doubts about the Russian hack story, but the problem with The Forensicator is that he is looking at a download on July 5th—the “Russian hack” story (assessed by Crowdstrike) was reported in the Washington Post on June 15th.
Guccifer 2.0 claimed the hack on July 5th.
Why wasn’t CrowdStrike able to thwart a Russian hack? Because it wasn’t a hack, just as Forensicator asserts.
Guccifer may himself be an insider or Soros operative, just as Mish asserts.
So here we sit, with the 2,000lbs elephant (the DNC server) crapping all over the ballroom dance floor as the elegantly attired guests of the ball (FBI and MSM) gracefully dance around it carefully avoiding to step in the shit.
> Crowdstrike, a group employed by the DNC
Moreover, Dmitri Alperovitch once twitted about Hillary’s speach: “Great Intro”:
@DAlperovitch
Hillary Clinton getting an award from Henry Kissinger at #acawards. Great intro
6:23 PM – May 1, 2013
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/329767955690815488
More fake news from the goober right wing and the idiots who brought you Hillary’s degenerative brain disease. You are a bunch of shameless liars just like Trump.
Take a hike, moron. Keep drinking that Soros punch.
Facts!
Who cares about facts?
The Russian hacking narrative is one of the most monumental political frauds in history.
Willam Binney and TIPS proved the data was down loaded to to a drive physically attached to the computer in question. There was no hack.
His name is Seth Rich.
Does anyone know if Seth Rich was familiar with Linux? The method of copy cited in the Forensicator’s paper theorizes the copy was done from a Linux machine via the cp command. Later copies were done on Windows via drag and drop.
Link to Forensicator’s research:
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata-analysis/
O/T Wed.6th. Cataluña is set to vote in a law allowing referendum, and decree the referendum almost simultaneously. This is designed so as to frustrate some legal challenges by Spain. Not much will necessarily happen ( though it might) immediately, but it does sound off an opening of the legal confrontation between Cataluña and Spain:
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/09/05/catalunya/1504614770_098289.html
Good luck to them if that’s what they want.
It is complicated… e.g. who has ultimate authority, the national set (Spain) or the regional set. Opponents argue that the national set is what counts in terms of “what is wanted”… Spain would not vote for Catalan independence if it had a referendum. Not my argument, and each to their view or sentiment . Here is latest:
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/09/06/catalunya/1504679789_490619.html
The Nation has pulled back from their “slam dunk” of local download vs hack. The Nation now acknowledges the data may have been copied to a cloud server or a compromised local workstation at high speed. Later it was copied out over the Internet at a lower speed to Russia or whatever.
Having said that, this whole thing stinks. Why was Hillary allowed to skate after putting top secret data on an unsecured server? Why did the FBI decline to examine the server themselves? Why were numerous Hillary aides given immunity deals for … nothing? Why were numerous devices physically destroyed with FBI permission? Why did FBI Dir Comey draft a letter of exoneration before anyone had been interviewed? Why is Comey highly principled when dealing with and pushing back on Trump but rolls over for Obama, Hillary and DoJ Loretta Lynch?
Even Fox News pulled back on Seth Rich and silenced Hannity on the subject, lest they suffer severe economic consequences. Media Conformity is essential, to create a propaganda chorus that is uniform and lacking dissent. The Nation is a small, financially-fragile publication, and that they even dared breaking from their usual left-wing story line was remarkable and courageous. Pulling back is sound business logic. Two steps forward, one step back in the face of opposition.
What is most revealing in the anti-Russia propaganda hysteria is the absolute and total lack of interest in truth or examination of primary evidence. Comey was by his own testimony to Congress a thieving, corrupt, lying, incompetent FBI director. When the DNC refused to provide primary evidence (hard drives, files, phones that Hillary presumably had not yet destroyed), the FBI should have bowed out. For DoJ to open a $200 million multi-year investigation based on speculations by those with anti-Trump (DNC, McCain) and pro-war with Russia agendas (Schumer, Neo-con DNC) is indicative of a corrupt government. Usually you get evidence of a crime first. In this case, the Stalinist DNC was in control and started with a target (enemies of the state or party). Stalinist Purges 101. Start with Trump associates and keep digging until you find a crime or “disappear” people from public service. You can bankrupt people with legal costs, and thereby deter anyone in the future from daring to do what Trump did in winning the electoral college vote. Corrupt, evil…
A “cloud server” is still internet-connected, not local, so the transfer speeds are not plausible.
^^ This
If it had to exit the perimeter and cross the Internet, then there is no way the data was copied at the specified rate.
The only thing that explains the stated transfer rate is a local copy to removable media – and that means someone *inside* the perimeter.
This Russian thing is distraction, pure and simple.
Question is what are they distracting people from?
Where do they not want attention to be placed?
Wish it was merely a distraction. But Russia is the big show in the main arena, and the logical outcome is nuclear. USA has the larger economy and cities, and more to lose than Russia. USA and European citizens are considered acceptable collateral damage for the Neo-con holy war against Russia (making the world safe for American hegemony). Elites are no doubt positioned with second homes in safe areas, and will make big money in post-war rebuilding contracts, etc. Same deluded thinking and popular support as WWI and Iraq War II: expected to be quick wars and pay for themselves. Russia war scenario would have proceeded naturally and easily under Hillary, and now seems to be on auto-pilot with a life of its own like a runaway train. What happens after USA seizes all Russian diplomatic properties, and diplomatic relations end? Russia will only tolerate so much economic warfare and so many USA missiles, troops and Western sponsored terrorism at its borders. Trump investigation just puts into public mind the logic that Russia is an enemy, prepares public mind for a war whose nuclear outcome a narcotized American public does not comprehend. Close analogy is UK learning to hate Germany as preparation for 20th century wars.
False narrative to undermine Russian economy.
And if the swamp dwellers can take Trump down simultaneously it’s a 2fer.
Grind away all the false narrative and its all about who supplies gas to Europe. The rest is all bullshit
Same GOP/War Party forces opposing Trump in 2016 primaries and same Democrats opposing Trump in general election are now collaborating. USA.gov, taxpayer-funded Russia campaign targeting both Trump and Russia itself is fueled by false data, perjury, crimes (e.g. FBI/Comey), etc. Corrupt DoJ probe should be target of criminal prosecution, not Trump campaign supporters. Talking to Russia has never been a crime. Even Israeli prime minister openly intervening in USA politics and elections was not considered a crime. With no crime, the bare naked truth is that Mueller is just one tool in a Stalinist style political purge akin to the 1950s McCarthy commie scare and the 1990s Clinton penis-gate impeachment probes. Roman style bread and circuses led by mass media for an American public which cannot get its own debt-filled house in order and is narcotized with pain killers.
Mueller is just a DNC/Neo-Con swamp hack in a McCain-Schumer conjugal Russian dossier slander operation that has been injected with political steroids and expanded for 2017. Fact #1: GOP War Party zealot McCain took fake Russian dossier (from Steele/Fusion co.) to FBI, and demanded FBI investigate during campaign 2016. Fact #2: post-election, Schumer led a group of Dem Senators into DoJ and demanded a special prosecutor, with an assist from old crony Comey (who stole and leaked government property, lied to Congress with impunity, etc.). Fact #3: Nobody supporting Trump has demanded DoJ probe McCain-Schumer-Steele (GPS Fusion) skullduggery behind Comey/Mueller, much less Clinton Foundation pay-for-play (probably because they want to do it themselves). Making players associated with 2016 Trump campaign suffer heavy legal expenses sends message that those allied with candidates not sanctioned by DNC, Bush family, Neo-cons, War Party, etc. will be punished.
I took too much time to drill down through the Nation article and rebuttals/discussion. Techie be warned. This stuff is non-techies saying “Enhance, enhance”. (Google for that on YouTube.) So, I also got down to what the article(s) reference:
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata-analysis/
http://g-2.space/
Summary:
Last June, right after WikiLeaks said they’d publish some DNC stuff soon, someone going by the handle, “Guccifer 2.0”, claimed to be Romanian and the source of the forthcoming WikiLeaks dump.
Over the course of time G2 demonstrated his super-hacker cred by releasing some blah-blah things that could have been acquired without “hacking” the DNC system. And G2’s directly released files included a few Word 2003 .RTF files.
Two handles, “Adam Carter” and “Forensicator” looked at G2’s direct, “I’m a super hacker” dump – a 7Zip file containing mostly .rar’s of directories full of the meat. And also they looked at those .RTF files.
AC/Forn were not impressed with the amateur-hour, “I’m really a Russian” RTF data in the Word files. For starters, it looked to be written using Word2003, itself! Really. (Presumably G2 typed really fast while VB source code scrolled on his screen.) And the RTF tracking info included the name of a White House (Biden) worker from some years back. AC/Forn figured that this guy’s name got in the RTF by accident. Like, Mr. Super Hacker didn’t know how Word works. Or was in a real big hurry to show he was a Russian and didn’t have time to think. Or something.
So the RTF info was one thing.
The 7Zip-containing-WinRAR file had time/date stamps on the files, of course. AC/Forn used these timestamps to intuit the likely path of the files. (For example, some of the files looked like they’d been through a FAT file system because of FAT/MSDOS’s 2-second resolution.) The speculations seem reasonable, if fun only to those who loved Sherlock Holmes in their teens.
But, AC/Forn got off track and noted the timestamps would have been different if they were set when the files were downloaded from a DNC server to Romania directly (implied: using user-level tools). Unfortunately, this rather sarcastic, laughing-over-a-beer observation made it to journalists, bless them, and therefore all the way to Mish’s blog.
Anyway, AC/Forn looked at motive and concluded G2 was a DNC fake created for true-believer media people to shout over the WikiLeak dump. And the fake worked.
The best rebuttal I found was that the DNC machine had malware known to be used by Russian state actors, so who cares about this G2 guy.
The counter rebuttal was that the malware was available worldwide. Even in D.C.
G2’s blog at https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/ had its last two entries on Nov 4 and Jan 12. Not much effort to make G2 appear anything other than a forgotten faith-affirmer.
To me, it’s interesting that a couple Democratic party outlets have called foul. That bodes well for the world.
Pay no attention to the content of the message, just focus on how you got it.
And this revelation received how much exposure in MSM? Zip. I believe it was on Drudge for a time, but still didn’t change the MSM narrative of Russian hack. Mish, you nailed it. The wrong people are being investigated. The protection racket surrounding the Clinton’s and DNC is very disturbing.
“The protection racket surrounding the Clinton’s and DNC is very disturbing.”
Let’s hear from the MSM’s Chris Cuomo about the help being provided to the Clinton’s :
https://youtu.be
Why? The Deep State is desperate to find anything even remotely bad to overshadow this in the news. The lapdog press will then give that preferential treatment over this:
House Panel Subpoenas DOJ, FBI For “Trump Dossier” Records
Sep 6, 2017
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-06/house-panel-subpoenas-doj-trump-dossier-records
In the most significant escalation yet in the wrangling between Congress and the FBI over the Trump dossier, the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the bureau and the Justice Department for documents relating to the dossier, the FBI’s relationship with dossier author Christopher Steele, and the bureau’s possible role in supporting what began as an opposition research project against candidate Donald Trump in the final months of last year’s presidential campaign.
In reality, Democrats may be worried that, if the background materials are finally publicized, they could terminally damage the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Here’s more from CNN:
“’We’ve got to run this thing to ground,’ said Republican Rep. Michael Conaway, who is heading the House Russia investigation. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, said the pair of subpoenas were issued over his objections last month and are designed to “undermine” the claims about the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.”
Here’s the relevant exchange between Browder and Senator Lindsey Graham:
Graham: You believe that Fusion GPS should of registered under FARA, because they were acting on the behalf of the Russians?
Browder: That’s correct.
Graham: So, I just want to absorb that for a moment. The group that did the dossier on President Trump hired this British spy, wound up getting it to the FBI. You believe they were working for the Russians?
Browder: And in the Spring and Summer of 2016 they were receiving money indirectly from a senior Russian government official.
Graham: Okay. So, these are the people that were trying to undermine Donald Trump by showing the nefarious ties to Russia. Is that what you’re saying?
Browder: Well, what I’m saying with 100% certainty is that they were working to undermine the Magnitsky act and the timing of that.
Graham: But, the Fusion GPS products apparently as they hired a guy to look into Trump?
Browder: Yes.
Graham: Right.
Browder: Correct.
Support for my theory above:
Manafort Close To Being Indicted For Financial Crimes, Report
5 Sep 2017
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-05/former-trump-insiders-predict-manafort-close-being-indicted-financial-crimes-report
Former Trump campaign aides are telling The Daily Caller that they increasingly believe former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort will be indicted for crimes such as money laundering or tax evasion.
The former Trump advisers told The DC they have no knowledge of any collusion with the Russian government on the presidential campaign. One aide stressed that any financial crimes by Manafort are his own problem and not that of the White House.
“Ill-informed speculation has become the new Washington parlor game. Despite breathless headlines, it is increasingly clear the Russia Collusion story is eroding,” Manafort’s spokesman Jason Maloni told TheDC. Maloni declined to comment when asked specifically about financial crimes.
Common sense and politics have nothing in common.
just love those words “hand-picked” analysts and “high confidence”
but “The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers—an omission that is beyond preposterous.”
Instead of examining the DNC servers, the FBI relied on the reports produced by Crowdstrike. Crowstrike was also under the employment of the DNC.
leave it to the DNC/Crowdstrike/ FBI (or not so FBI)
….after all they are the Government
“The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers—an omission that is beyond preposterous.”
The claim is that they requested to do so multiple times but were refused by the DNC. The big question then becomes why.
Hello Mish,
With all due respect, my understanding was that Muellers mandate is to investigate Russian interfernce in the 2016 election (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3726381/Robert-Mueller-Special-Counsel-Russia.pdf), not specifically the DNC hack. And he has the power prosecute any unrelated crimes he might uncover in the process.
What interference was that?
The interference that took place on Loretta Lynch’s airplane when Bill Clinton climbed aboard it to “talk about the grandkids”?
A former US president ordering a duly sworn Attorney General to shut down the FBI’s active investigation of his wife and call it “an incident” before the press, …and we now need Mueller to beat the bushes with a stick to find something the Russians did.
I have no idea, it isn’t specified in the document.
“What interference was that?”
Hacking and releasing things like DNC and Podesta emails to reveal the corruption evident even within “paper-trail” means of communication which are most likely NOT the mediums used for the MOST corrupt and illegal activities.
So, their “interference”, regardless of whether it was the Russians or not, was to expose the corrupt underbelly of our system, the sort of “interference” that should be coming from our OWN government… if IT weren’t corrupt.
While I think James Clapper is a questionable person and I think the whole Russia thing is absurd, the idea that someone couldnt beat 22MBPS a year ago on the east coast is laughably preposterous. Ever heard of Gigabit Internet? About 10 times as fast as that. it was available last year. Hell out here in the boonies where we just got wideband in 2015 we get 5 times that speed. So 2 Gigs in a minute and a half is not that hard to believe and is very circumstantial, not a smoking gun. All that said, I hope they do find the smoking gun that proves it is all a bunch of nonsense. The kidworking for the DNC who was killed in DC is worth that.
You may be able to get those speeds between your PC and either your provider’s services, or those they peer with directly – meaning those to whom they share dedicated 40 or 100 gig links. However, if you try to connect to another server or PC on a network that isn’t “inside the perimeter” of your provider, then you will not.
Crossing the Internet comes at a cost. Crossing the Internet and traversing a path to the other side of the world costs a lot.
If the claim is that the files in question were copied from a “hacked” DNC server to a server in Europe somewhere, then the chances of exceeding 10 mbps are approaching zero.
In reality, even if the claim is that the files in question were copied from a “hacked” DNC server to a server in the building next door, then the chances of exceeding 10 mbps are approaching zero providing the frames had to exit the perimeter and cross the Internet at all…
@tommyberg The way I read it, the whole deal with how fast the data could have been copied was a joke made by one of the guys who analyzed the timestamps on Guccifer 2’s 7Zip data file.
That said, comments at various sites demonstrate how such a joke can propagate.
For instance, your comment, made without any malice and with an honest attempt to fairly examine the information before you, claimed you have an 880mbs Internet connection.
I know you didn’t mean to claim an 880mbs connection. But you did.
22MBS is 176mbs. To “B” or “b”, that is the question. Customarily “b” means bits per second. And “B” means bytes per second. Unfortunately, in practice, you’ll see them interchanged randomly. But not in this case. There are 8 bits in a byte. So, 22MBS is 176mbs. Five times that: 880.
It gets worse.
File transfer rates will be way, way under the maximum bit rate of the slowest link in a communications chain.
Whether Gigabit Internet was available at the time is irrelevant. The questions would be, what speed was the DNC’s net connection? And the “hacker”, Guccifer 2.0’s? And the throughput of the various links between them?
Which are all irrelevant, given that the files could have been transferred at any time, no matter their timestamps in the final package.
Which are some of the reasons I figure the speed thing was a joke. The guy making the joke knows all of this and a lot more.
OFF SUBJECT: HR3388 just passed the House.
It’s very simple, Mish. Obviously Barack, the commander in chief and chief law enforcement officer under the constitution, ordered Comey and Lynch to cease the criminal investigation of Madam Hillary. Period. He could have pardoned Hillary and her partners in crime at any time, period, before or after any indictments. Ditto for Tricky Dick over the Watergate crimes. Congress, specifically the House, chose to impeach Nixon, the Senate signed off, a political and not a judicial process, and Nixon resigned; but the imperial congress, for eight years under Barack, chose not to impeach Barack or any of his minions for serial crimes committed under the color of federal authority, thus signing off on the Candy Man’s, er. Barack’s dictatorial policies and violations of the so called rule of law. Have a nice a day, Mish, the Empire salutes you. PS: for eight years the imperial congress declined to give amnesty to the so called dreamers, until Barack, the elected serial dictator in chief, dictated amnesty for illegal aliens under the illegal executive Dream Act program. Are you not entertained by the sentimental black mail?
Nobody knows nothing.
Your “bandwidth math” hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis, not a fact – we move gigabytes of info around all the time, and all over the world where I work. Plus there is that little thing called compression that is also helpful.
We’ll know the truth when the Mueller publishes his findings.
Cue Mueller character assassination.
Well, as long as they do that where you work I guess there is no need for the FBI to examine the DNC server. Eight months into this investigation it figures there must’ve been a good reason it has not yet been looked at.
After all, who needs prima facia evidence from the crime scene? Mueller will simply “publish his findings” and then that way we’ll “know the truth”.
sarc / off.
Mish, Trump and cronies are totally mobbed up and have been laundering East Block dirty money for years. Same with Adelson in Macau for the Tong. The hacking stuff is just toe in the door. I kinda feel for Manafort as he’s facing N.Y. corruption charges on one side and a cup of polonium tea if he squeals. Mueller is just climbing the racketeering ladder. Pass the popcorn. It ain’t going away. Couldn’t happen to nicer people.
Mish, I have absolute proof the Russians hacked the servers as well as the elections because it happened to me. I measured and framed in a rough opening for a new window on my remodel addition. When I went to install the new window, the rough opening was exactly one inch too short in length. Proof the Russians hacked my tape measure. What other possible explanation is there?
Mish ”tis true, ”tis true. However Buzz Feed and Wall Street Journal had a link yesterday regarding a leak directly to both services that as of yesterday what’s now in play with Special Counselor Mueller is meeting after election and days before inauguration where government records show trumps son in lawJared, son Jr and general Flynn met with king of Jordon regarding building 40 nuclear plants in Jordon and a like amount in Saudi Arabia in exchange for $200 billion in USA business contracts and a “joint venture partnership with Russia and USA as caretakers for security during and after construction. I tossed it but it is believable or sounds like a trump deal, just saying and I’ll I’ll search again for the story Tim Gaynor
Sent from my iPad
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