NSA Report

The interesting thing is why is this “recently discovered” shidt we already knew become public.

This is crap that folks like myself have been saying, even without access to any of the secured systems since the election.

The trail of how the machines were hacked, where they were hacked, and to whose benefit they were hacked has been glaringly apparent for some time – even without the benefit of going into the voting system itself.

So why is it, with unfettered access to the logs, data cards, machines, and tabulation systems…Are they just fucking figuring this out?

Somebody suppressed this shidt – and the real question is who and why.

Here is one of the dozen or so known ways to hack the system through the voting machines themselves –

TOP-SECRET NSA REPORT DETAILS RUSSIAN HACKING EFFORT DAYS BEFORE 2016 ELECTION

RUSSIAN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report obtained by The Intercept.

The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the U.S. election and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light.

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the document:

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.

This NSA summary judgment is sharply at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial last week that Russia had interfered in foreign elections: “We never engaged in that on a state level, and have no intention of doing so.” Putin, who had previously issued blanket denials that any such Russian meddling occurred, for the first time floated the possibility that freelance Russian hackers with “patriotic leanings” may have been responsible. The NSA report, on the contrary, displays no doubt that the cyber assault was carried out by the GRU.

The NSA analysis does not draw conclusions about whether the interference had any effect on the election’s outcome and concedes that much remains unknown about the extent of the hackers’ accomplishments. However, the report raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results.

The NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were both contacted for this article. Officials requested that we not publish or report on the top secret document and declined to comment on it. When informed that we intended to go ahead with this story, the NSA requested a number of redactions. The Intercept agreed to some of the redaction requests after determining that the disclosure of that material was not clearly in the public interest.

The report adds significant new detail to the picture that emerged from the unclassified intelligence assessment about Russian election meddling released by the Obama administration in January. The January assessment presented the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions but omitted many specifics, citing concerns about disclosing sensitive sources and methods. The assessment concluded with high confidence that the Kremlin ordered an extensive, multi-pronged propaganda effort “to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

That review did not attempt to assess what effect the Russian efforts had on the election, despite the fact that “Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards.” According to the Department of Homeland Security, the assessment reported reassuringly, “the types of systems we observed Russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote tallying.”

The NSA has now learned, however, that Russian government hackers, part of a team with a “cyber espionage mandate specifically directed at U.S. and foreign elections,” focused on parts of the system directly connected to the voter registration process, including a private sector manufacturer of devices that maintain and verify the voter rolls. Some of the company’s devices are advertised as having wireless internet and Bluetooth connectivity, which could have provided an ideal staging point for further malicious actions.

 

NSA Leaked Document Shows Russians Hacked Election Machines

The interesting part of this is the cover up on the arrest of the NSA Contractor who stole the document and leaked it instead of the content of the document.

The NSA has long denied and shut down any attempt by anyone to investigate if the election machines or databases were hacked by the Russians. Claiming that any such hacking would not have affected the end result, any effort to look at the obvious places which either statistically or algorithmically show the probable result of hacking.

When confronted with evidence that both the results in North Carolina and Florida showed signs of serious tampering – the door was slammed shut to any further analysis and access to the systems was shut down.

Meaning, those who had a good idea of how the system was compromised, and how – were to to sit down and STFU.

The purloined document shows that the NSA knew of an attempt at compromising over 100 local systems by the Russians all along.

So why is this being covered up?

And why did the “Contractor” leave such an obvious, well lit,  trail? The coding of serial numbers on printed documents is extremely well known in the tech industry. As is the collection of “Print Logs”. And anyone with a high enough security clearance to pull this level of secured document down, knows damn well their every keystroke is monitored. Edward Snowden beat the system. There are ways to beat the system, which fall under the category, “If I knew how, I wouldn’t tell you.”.

Something isn’t right here.

 

The easy trail that led the feds to Reality Winner, alleged source of NSA leak

Criminal investigations into national security leaks tend to be long, complicated and delicate affairs. Sources generally cover their tracks, especially in an era when even the most innocuous computer activity leaves an electronic trail. Leaks are common, but prosecutions aren’t.

Edward Snowden took extraordinary precautions when he leaked troves of classified information on surveillance activity by the National Security Agency to journalists and was charged only after he publicly revealed himself to be the source. Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive, wasn’t indicted for several years after he passed on details about fraud and waste at the agency to the Baltimore Sun. Originally accused of felony espionage, Drake pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of exceeding authorized use of a computer.

In the case of Reality Leigh Winner, a government contractor accused of sending a top-secret document to a news outlet, federal authorities brought charges less than a week after being tipped off.

Winner, 25, was charged Monday with gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, as The Washington Post reported. Court documents did not identify the document that was leaked or the news outlet that received it, but the criminal complaint against Winner was unveiled shortly after the national security site the Intercept published a story containing an NSA report on Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

The Post has reported that the charges are related to the ­Intercept’s story, which describes how Russian military intelligence used hacking techniques against a U.S. voting software supplier and more than 100 local election officials in the days before voters went to the polls. The Intercept called the classified document the “most detailed U.S. government account of Russian interference in the election that has yet come to light,” saying it indicated that Russian hacking may have gone deeper than previously known.

A search warrant affidavit filed and accessible to the public in federal court in Georgia reveals how it took just a few days for investigators to single out Winner as the alleged source of the leak.

It started on May 30, when the news outlet showed authorities the printed materials and asked them to comment, according to the affidavit.

“The U.S. Government Agency examined the document shared by the News Outlet and determined the pages of the intelligence reporting appeared to be folded and/or creased,” the affidavit reads, “suggesting they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secured space.”

An internal audit showed that six people had printed out the top-secret materials after they were published at the beginning of the month. One of them was Winner, who worked for Pluribus International at a facility in Georgia, the affidavit says.

 

On Tape – Russians Bragging About Owning Trump Through His Lackeys

You heard it here first –

 

No Longer America’s Guardian – The FBI Sold Out to the Commies

The FBI – whose senior executives sold out to Trump prior to the election, with the release of a fake investigation targeting Hillary Clinton…

Has been compromised, and has sold out.

Almost nothing they have to say about National Security, the election, or  Homeland…can be trusted.

Putin accomplished something generations of other commie leaders couldn’t Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev over 70 years through guns, missile, atomic bombs, proxy war, and a cold war , couldn’t beat America. Along comes Putin, using white American racism as a tool – and a good portion of white America bends over and spreads wide.

We are now a fucking communist bitch satellite state. Bought and paid for by lower class white racism. No wonder they are called “Red” States.

FBI and CIA give differing accounts to lawmakers on Russia’s motives in 2016 hacks

 

In a secure meeting room under the Capitol last week, lawmakers held in their hands a classified letter written by colleagues in the Senate summing up a secret, new CIA assessment of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

Sitting before the House Intelligence Committee was a senior FBI counterintelligence official. The question the Republicans and Democrats in attendance wanted answered was whether the bureau concurred with the conclusions the CIA had just shared with senators that Russia “quite” clearly intended to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton and clinch the White House.

For the Democrats in the room, the FBI’s response was frustrating — even shocking.

During a similar Senate Intelligence Committee briefing held the previous week, the CIA’s statements, as reflected in the letter the lawmakers now held in their hands, were “direct and bald and unqualified” about Russia’s intentions to help Trump, according to one of the officials who attended the House briefing.

The FBI official’s remarks to the lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee were, in comparison, “fuzzy” and “ambiguous,” suggesting to those in the room that the bureau and the agency weren’t on the same page, the official said.

The divergent messages from the CIA and the FBI put a spotlight on the difficulty faced by intelligence and law enforcement officials as they try to draw conclusions about the Kremlin’s motives for hacking Democratic Party emails during the 2016 race. Officials are frequently looking at information that is fragmentary. They also face issues assessing the intentions of a country expert at conducting sophisticated “influence” operations that made it hard — if not impossible — to conclusively detect the Kremlin’s elusive fingerprints.

The competing messages, according to officials in attendance, also reflect cultural differences between the FBI and the CIA. The bureau, true to its law enforcement roots, wants facts and tangible evidence to prove something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences from behavior.

“The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards — can we prove this in court,” one of the officials said. “The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means ‘we’re pretty damn sure.’ It doesn’t mean they can prove it in court.”

The FBI is not sold on the idea that Russia had a particular aim in its meddling. “There’s no question that [the Russians’] efforts went one way, but it’s not clear that they have a specific goal or mix of related goals,” said one U.S. official.

The murky nature of the assessments is maddening many lawmakers who are demanding answers about the Kremlin’s role in the presidential race. The FBI, under Director James B. Comey, is already under fire for dropping a bombshell letter days before the election on the discovery of new emails potentially related to the Clinton private server investigation. The emails proved irrelevant to the case. On Saturday, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) called on Comey to resign, saying the FBI director deliberately kept quiet evidence about Russia’s motives before the election.

With so much of the evidence about Russia’s alleged role in the election shrouded in secrecy because of strict classification rules, Democrats and Republicans in Washington who have access to the underlying intelligence say they have struggled to make their respective cases, leaving an already deeply divided public convinced that both sides are shading their conclusions to help the candidate they backed on Election Day.

The clamor from Democrats and some Republicans for a more fulsome accounting prompted the White House on Friday to announce that President Obama had ordered a full review of Russian cyber actions during the 2016 campaign. The president wants the report to be completed before he leaves office next month. Officials said Obama intends to declassify as much of the report as possible. Lawmakers, in turn, want the review to be accompanied by a joint congressional investigation.