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US Releases Declassified Report On Russian Hacking, Concludes That Putin 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump (theverge.com) 734

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its unclassified report on Russian hacking operations in the United States. "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election," according to the report. "Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." The report, titled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," details the successful hack of the Democratic National Committee. "The Kremlin's campaign aimed at the U.S. election featured disclosures of data obtained through Russian cyber operations; intrusions into U.S. state and local electoral boards; and overt propaganda," according to the report. The report states that Russian intelligence services made cyber-attacks against "both major U.S. political parties" to influence the 2016 election. The report also publicly names Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks.com, two sources of stolen information released to the public, as Russian operatives working on behalf of the country's military intelligence unit, the GRU. Officials from the organization were recently the target of U.S. sanctions. WikiLeaks is also cited as a recipient of stolen information. The report also notes that the U.S. has determined Russia "accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards," though no vote-tallying processes were tampered with. The FBI and CIA have "high confidence" the election tampering was ordered by Putin to help then-candidate Trump, according to the report. NSA has "moderate confidence" in the assessment. bongey writes: The declassified DNI report offers no direct evidence of Russia hacking DNC or Podesta emails. Exactly half of the report (subtract blank and TOC) 9 of 18 is just devoted to going after RT.com by claiming they have close ties to Russia and therefore a propaganda arm, trying to imply that rt.com is related to the hacking. "Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. Insights into Russian efforts -- including specific cyber operations -- and Russian views of key U.S. players derive from multiple corroborating sources. Some of our judgments about Kremlin preferences and intent are drawn from the behavior of Kremlin loyal political figures, state media, and pro-Kremlin social media actors, all of whom the Kremlin either directly uses to convey messages or who are answerable to the Kremlin." UPDATE 1/6/17: President-elect Donald Trump met with U.S. intelligence officials Friday, calling the meeting "constructive" and offering praise for intel officials. "While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines," Trump said in a statement after the meeting.
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US Releases Declassified Report On Russian Hacking, Concludes That Putin 'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump

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  • by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @05:49PM (#53620235)

    'Developed a Clear Preference' For Trump? Wow, I never thought the US people and Putin could have so much in common.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, the US people preferred Clinton.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:05PM (#53620327)

        If we used the popular vote it would be called "United State" not "United States".

        You agreeed to the rules when you played the game.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by roninmagus ( 721889 )
        You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, California preferred Clinton.

        FTFY. And of course those who want citations: http://www.politico.com/2016-e... [politico.com].

        California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:12PM (#53620397)

          You mean the US electoral college and Putin, because in popular vote terms, California preferred Clinton.

          FTFY. And of course those who want citations: http://www.politico.com/2016-e... [politico.com].

          California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.

          Aaaaaaaand..... your point being that California is not..... a part of America?

        • by hondo77 ( 324058 )
          Last I checked, California was still part of the United States. Unless you can cite something that proves otherwise.
        • by Pulzar ( 81031 )

          California chose Hillary by 3.4 million cotes. Hillary won nationwide popular vote by 2.9 million votes. The entire difference and then some is the state of California.

          I'm not even sure what's that supposed to mean? Remove the biggest state with the most Hillary supporters, and then they are even? TX, OK, AR, and LA have together about the same number of electoral votes, too, so let's remove the 2+ million that Trump won those by, too. We're back to square one.

        • Headline: most populous state in the country has an opinion on who should lead it.

          Clinton also won New York by 1.5 million votes. You could try to make a story of "without New York, Clinton would have only won by 1.4 million votes!", but that would also be dumb and misleading. In fact, if you skip all states where Clinton won, then Trump would have lead by 8.4 million votes! Of course, the opposite would have Clinton winning by 11.2 million, so you might want to keep that inconvenient fact in your pocket.

          America preferred Clinton. "America, except for..." doesn't matter for shit because it wasn't "America, except for..." who votes on these things.

      • by jjo ( 62046 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:11PM (#53620381) Homepage
        Counted one way, the US people favored Trump. Counted another way, the US people favored Clinton. Almost without exception, political observers now profess a clear preference for the vote-counting method that would have worked best for their favored candidate: Clinton supporters have discovered a new passion for using the aggregate popular vote, while Trump supporters see great virtue in the Electoral College. Politics as usual.
      • by DaHat ( 247651 )

        Zoo animals also expressed an overwhelming desire... shame neither are at all relevant: http://www.msn.com/en-us/video... [msn.com]

      • You mean the US electoral college and Putin

        Yes, of course, he meant Electoral College. The US has been electing Presidents via the institutions from the very beginning.

        because in popular vote terms, the US people preferred Clinton.

        How many of them voting illegally?..

      • No, Clinton failed to reach 50% of the popular vote. Stop lying - it's not that hard to find. The US did NOT prefer Clinton, not even by the slimmest of margins. That they didn't prefer Trump either is obvious, and if Clinton and the DNC hadn't pissed off voters, Bernie Sanders would be president-elect. Put the blame squarely where it belongs for the Trump victory - it wasn't Putin, it was Clinton and Co trying to arrange a coronation, and all their useful idiots.
      • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @07:19PM (#53620881)
        The U.S. people didn't prefer Clinton - she only got 48% of the popular vote. A plurality, not a majority. If you break down the popular vote by political spectrum:
        • Liberal canddiates (Clinton, Sanders, Stein, Riva) got 49.24% of the vote.
        • Conservative candidates (Trump, Kasich, Johnson, McMullin, Castle) got 49.91% of the vote.
        • The remaining 0.85% was split among other candidates.

        So a more fair assessment of the popular vote tally would be that the U.S. people preferred a conservative candidate.

    • I'm pretty sure the only clear preference shown in this past election by the US people was for none of the available candidates.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:18PM (#53620441) Journal
      Read the whole document [dni.gov] (I wish that were a requirement before any reporter could write a news story on the topic, but whatever).

      The most entertaining part to me is the part where it says, "it was revenge for the Panama papers." Heh. As if Russia had no other reason to hack US computers.

      Another interesting part is where it mentions Assange's ties to the official Russian news channel (RT). I was unaware that he sometimes appeared on TV there.

      Another interesting part is where it analyzes Russian television support for Trump as a candidate. For example, as soon as he won, they say that the Russian TV stopped criticizing the election process as "unfair." So their analysis that Russia wanted Trump to win seems reasonable.

      Their analysis of the hacking is not good though. They say:
      1) Guccifier 2.0 is the Russian government because: he is probably a Russian speaker, not Romanian speaker. That's it? Very not convincing.
      2) The leaks to Wikileaks were from the Russian government because Assange appears on the Russian news channel (RT). Again, that's it? Not very convincing.
      3) They claim "Russia accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards." Of this, they give no evidence. Absolutely nothing to support this claim. Seriously, tell us which electoral board, or arrest the members of the board, or something.

      Some things we do know: John Podesta had an extremely insecure password, and that's how his email leaked. We know that Assange claims the email came from a disgruntled DNC operative. That is not unreasonable, if I saw what they were doing in the DNC, I would have been upset about it too.

      Enough Americans are good people, that if you have some surveillance program, or are doing things to mess with our free election process, sooner or later someone is going to leak that.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, 2017 @05:51PM (#53620247)

    TL;DR:

    - Russia wanted the candidate who didn't want to start WW3 to win
    - The wikileaks emails were all real
    - Russia didn't hack the election
    - The Russian propaganda network dispensed Russian propaganda

  • Big deal (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I seem to remember the Obama administration had a preference against Brexit and Netin-yahoo...
  • "Russia, if you're listening..."
  • by Idou ( 572394 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:00PM (#53620289) Journal

    . . . there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. . .

    Why bother with the voting machines when you can tamper with the voters?

    • . . . there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines. . .

      Why bother with the voting machines when you can tamper with the voters?

      Because tampering with the voters is what elections are about and nobody has really discovered a fool proof way of doing that yet. Meanwhile, what was released was probably actually real and not some sort of fraud. Even so, if we actually catch the people who did it, they'll get hit with a large stick. What I really worry about is that I doubt if the Republican and Trump servers have significantly higher security, so there is probably some of their info out there too. Could be they are just sitting on it, b

      • by Idou ( 572394 )

        . . . there is the possibility it is being used to tamper with the lawmakers. . .

        Exactly:
        1) Hack BOTH parties A & B during an election
        2) Use hack of party A to help party B win
        3) Use hack of party B to blackmail party B after they come into power
        4) . . .
        5) Pribyl'!

    • I want to point out that although the document [dni.gov] claims that Russia hired internet trolls to spread propaganda, they did not link or show a single instance of the trolling. Come on, just link to one troll somewhere, one comment or one blog.

      Hiring trolls seems like something Russia might do, but to say for sure they did, I want to see the evidence.
  • An Actual Sentence? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by painandgreed ( 692585 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:09PM (#53620363)

    "While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines," Trump said in a statement after the meeting.

    OMG! That seems like an actual, complete sentence with a coherent message from Trump!

    • Probably written by a staffer.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

        Probably written by a staffer.

        I pity the guy who had to chew that sentence into Trumps ears for hours on end until the Orange Menace finally learned it by heart.

    • Which has very little to do with the central allegations. I don't think many people seriously believed voting itself was hacked.

  • No evidence here (Score:2, Insightful)

    by troll -1 ( 956834 )
    Just a reminder that the US government are proven liars. They lied all through the 1950s about the Middle East and Iran, They lied their arses about Vietnam. They lied about not supporting South American dictators. They lied about the Contras. And when came to WMD they even lied to themselves and then fabricated evidence to prove their own BS. Up until 1973, when they were found out, they even paid reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post to print fake news. This is an incredible but true fact. W
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by HornWumpus ( 783565 )

      The Ds were just caught keeping pet reporters on staff at the NYT, CNN etc. Even when caught, the NYTs/CNN didn't fire anybody, hence it still is newspaper/network policy to lie for the democrats.

  • Hypocrisy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Feyshtey ( 1523799 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:25PM (#53620505)
    How does what Russia is accused of differ from the Obama administration influencing the Israeli presidential election by giving over $300k to groups acting against Netanyahu?
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Well, in strict terms, the State Department sent that money to an Israeli group called OneGroup, which ostensibly was given the money to promote the Two-state solution. Now I'll agree it's likely the intent was that OneGroup use the money to attack Netanyahu, though you're not likely to find anyone on either side saying "That's what the plan was", but even that rather mild conspiracy is still out in the open. It's not like it was sent covertly, or that the Administration covertly passed on emails and docume

      • Re:Hypocrisy? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bongey ( 974911 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @07:44PM (#53621033)

        Report does not state they have any evidence that the Russians hacked nor leaked emails to wikileaks, just basically "we think they did this". Read the god dam report, it absolutely provides no evidence or new information.

    • Re:Hypocrisy? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mistlefoot ( 636417 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @07:04PM (#53620787)
      $38,000,000,000 to the Israel government.
                            $300,000 to a group that promotes a two state solution.

      Definitely biased against the Israel government.
  • Comrade Drumpkov (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:51PM (#53620687) Journal

    Like it or not, the perception of the incoming president as Putin's lapdog is going to stick. You cannot wipe off the stink at this point. In the history books, Donald J Trump is going to have an asterisk after his name, and the image of #RussianDon cuddling up to Vladimir Putin is forever.

  • by bongey ( 974911 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:54PM (#53620703)

    The NSA said it has moderate confidence or about 50% that it was the Russians. So for nearly the same probability of flipping a coin, 35 diplomats were kicked out and 2 Russian sites that have been open since the 1970s were closed down.

    The NSA opinion holds vastly more weight related to hacking because the NSA are the hacking experts, the FBI/CIA are doing political guessing.

    The FBI changed there opinion on the CIAs information. Considering the former CIA head came out for Clinton and the current head John Brennan spoke out against Trump. Both the CIA/FBI ended with highly confident, sure not political at all, wink, wink.

    I will trust the NSA over the CIA/FBI.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Medinole ( 765009 )

      Your comment incorrectly portrays the information in the report.

      The CIA, FBI, and NSA all have high confidence that it was the Russians.

      The NSA has moderate confidence the Russians did it to help elect Trump.

      Please see page 7 of the report - https://www.dni.gov/files/docu... [dni.gov]

      "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
      presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
      denigrate Secretary Clinton, and har

  • by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @07:48PM (#53621051)

    So far US government has utterly failed to provide any compelling evidence to support it's assertions. Yet another worthless mostly off-topic 13 page document crying about success of foreign propaganda rather than supporting any of it's positions with evidence.

    Everyone knows what "RT" is. It's no secret to anyone who isn't living under a rock why they exist and what they do any more than it's no secret why VOA/CNN exist.

    All I've seen on CNN the past few weeks is... Wikileaks is an agent of Russia, Wikileaks stole information, Assange is wanted for rape, Assange rapes little girls and persistently pathetic stories of low morale and despair among TLAs because Trump won't listen to them.... WAHHHHHHH.

    Do I trust US intel to provide truthful and accurate "assessments" to the public? After curveball's mobile production facilities, aluminum tubes and Uranium (dramatic pause) from Africa do you really need to ask?

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      If you [WaffleMonster] actually read the released version of the report, then you would have noticed that it repeatedly says that the evidence cannot be released in public. It even explains why.

      Now if the actual conclusions that are reported are different from those in the full version of the report that includes the evidence, then that will be reported by some of the people who are actually going to see the report. We can rely on that because some of those people are politicians who could not possibly keep

  • Where's the Beef? (Score:4, Informative)

    by PortHaven ( 242123 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @08:30PM (#53621287) Homepage

    Where's the Beef? Here is the Declassified version of the U.S. Intelligence Report regarding Russia.

    https://www.dni.gov/files/docu... [dni.gov]

    You know, the one cited for proof of undermining the U.S. election process. Well, I've read it, and I will sum it up with the following:

    TOTAL BUNK...

    Just some highlights...

    "Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order"

    This was funny, so they're only focused on undermining the liberal democratic order, conservatives and libertarians - YOU ARE SAFE!

    "We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him."

    The fact that statement is made, shows that this entire intelligence review is utter BS and mere politics. There is NO reason for Russia to be supporting Trump, and the actions could have just as easily benefited Bernie Sanders. If they were to accuse Russia of a motive, it would be to prevent Hillary being elected. Nothing to do with her competitors.

    "When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election" Really, cause the appearances and statements across U.S. media was that this was an apparent given that Hillary would win and be our next president. This was de facto for a year or more.

    I saw in another article that they had record of Russian officials celebrating upon Trump's win. And clearly this means they were for Trump. Bogus. I didn't want Trump, but I was happy to not have Hillary. And I believe the Russians simply did NOT want Hillary - for good reason.

    "Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences."

    Which has zero affect on U.S. populace. Really, so what...we have tons of evidence that the mainstream media was a propaganda machine for Hillary which went so far as to rigged debates and more.

    "Kremlin’s TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US" Really? How many American's were watching Kremlin TV?

    Basically, this report is Russian media outlets denigrated Hillary, while U.S. media outlets denigrated Bernie and Trump. And it's only okay for foreign media to denigrate Trump, not Hillary.

    "Putin publicly pointed to the Panama Papers disclosure and the Olympic doping scandal as US-directed efforts to defame Russia, suggesting he sought to use disclosures to discredit the image of the United States and cast it as hypocritical."

    HE IS RIGHT, IT WAS!!!

    Do I doubt Russia has hacked U.S. systems. Not one bit. Every government is doing it. Though few at the level the U.S. is. We've conducted more hacking and election affecting than every other country in the world has combined. So threatening military action and retaliation is not only hypocritical, it's ludicrously insane.

    Gee, so per the document Russia has had agents involved in monitoring the election process since the Carter days. Of course they do. So do we. Of course they're going to want to have insight into who will be the head of their largest rival. Duh... nothing to see here, go home.

    "Russia Times aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against "the ruling class" and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations."

    Um, ya...seems like the truth to me.

    So far as I read this, it pretty much appears to be 25 pages going thru decades of Russia and U.S. opposing opinions and expressions. Well duh...we did have a cold war. And even after it's pretty much been lukewarm. So none of this crap is evidence for U.S. claims being made against Russia currently.

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