Evidence Proving Russian KGB Hacks of Election Emerges Publically

What the folks in the US Intelligence Agencies knew all along about Russia and Trump collusion but never exposed publicly, has been released by the Dutch…Who actually hacked the Russian hackers.

This is just part of the information gathered by US and foreign Intelligence Services on Trump/Putin collusion, and the Russian effort to destabilize the US 2016 election in favor of their boy , the Chumph.

We also know that there are recordings of conversations between Chumph co-conspirators and Russian Intelligence are in the NSA’s hands. While the contents of such recordings are still classified, and as such we don’t know their contents – they are also likely in Mueller’s hands.And thanks to the criminal activity of Nunes, head of the House Investigation Committee in suborning information to protect the Chumph…None of that will be released to Congress.

This revelation comes from a Dutch Newspaper… Here is your “Smoking Gun”

With the release of information by the Dutch, several of the other countries’ Intelligence Services may step forward to release the information they collected.

Dutch agencies provide crucial intel about Russia’s interference in US-elections

Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections. For years, AIVD had access to the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. That’s what de Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur have uncovered in their investigation.

It’s the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow, oblivious to the implications. One year later, from the AIVD headquarters in Zoetermeer, he and his colleagues witness Russian hackers launching an attack on the Democratic Party in the United States. The AIVD hackers had not infiltrated just any building; they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything.

That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.

The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous. It’s also grounds for the FBI to start an investigation into the influence of the Russian interference on the election race between the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Donald Trump.

‘High confidence’

After Trump’s election in May 2017, this investigation was taken over by special prosecutor Robert Mueller. While it also aims to uncover contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, the prime objective is bringing to light the Russian interference with the elections. An attempt to undermine the democratic process, and an act that caused tensions between the two superpowers to rise to new heights, bringing about a string of diplomatic acts of revenge.

Three American intelligence services state with ‘high confidence’ that the Kremlin was behind the attack on the Democratic Party. That certainty, sources say, is derived from the AIVD hackers having had access to the office-like space in the center of Moscow for years. This is so exceptional that the directors of the foremost American intelligence services are all too happy to receive the Dutchmen. They provide technical evidence for the attack on the Democratic Party, and it becomes apparent that they know a lot more.

Cozy Bear

It’s somewhat of a ‘fluke’ that the AIVD hackers were able to acquire such useful information in 2014. The team uses a CNA, which stands for Computer Network Attack. These hackers are permitted to perform offensive operations: to penetrate and attack hostile networks. It’s a relatively small team within a larger digital business unit of about 80-100 people. All cyberoperations converge here. Part of the unit is focused on intercepting or managing sources, while another team is dedicated to Computer Network Defence. In turn, this team is part of the Joint Sigint Cyber Unit, a collaborative unit of the AIVD and the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service MIVD, of about 300 people.

It’s unknown what exact information the hackers acquire about the Russians, but it is clear that it contains a clue as to the whereabouts of one of the most well-known hacker groups in the world: Cozy Bear, also referred to as APT29. Since 2010, this group has attacked governments, energy corporations and telecom companies around the world, including Dutch companies and ministries. Specialists from the best intelligence services, among them the British, the Israelis and the Americans, have been hunting Cozy Bear for years, as have analysts from major cybersecurity companies.

Vital information

The Dutch hacker team spends weeks preparing itself. Then, in the summer of 2014, the attack takes place, most likely before the tragic crash of flight MH17. With some effort and patience, the team manages to penetrate the internal computer network. The AIVD can now trace the Russian hackers’ every step. But that’s not all.

The Cozy Bear hackers are in a space in a university building near the Red Square. The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. The entrance is in a curved hallway. A security camera records who enters and who exits the room. The AIVD hackers manage to gain access to that camera. Not only can the intelligence service now see what the Russians are doing, they can also see who’s doing it. Pictures are taken of every visitor. In Zoetermeer, these pictures are analyzed and compared to known Russian spies. Again, they’ve acquired information that will later prove to be vital.

Rare battle

The Dutch access to the Russian hackers’ network soon pays off. In November, the Russians prepare for an attack on one of their prime targets: the American State Department. By now, they’ve obtained e-mail addresses and the login credentials of several civil servants. They manage to enter the non-classified part of the computer network.

The AIVD and her military counterpart MIVD inform the NSA-liaison at the American embassy in The Hague. He immediately alerts the different American intelligence services.

What follows is a rare battle between the attackers, who are attempting to further infiltrate the State Department, and its defenders, FBI and NSA teams – with clues and intelligence provided by the Dutch. This battle lasts 24 hours, according to American media.

The Russians are extremely aggressive but do not know they’re being spied on. Thanks to the Dutch spies, the NSA and FBI are able to counter the enemy with enormous speed. The Dutch intel is so crucial that the NSA opens a direct line with Zoetermeer, to get the information to the United States as soon as possible.

Back and forth

Using so-called command and control servers, digital command centres, the Russians attempt to establish a connection to the malware in the Department, in order to request and transfer information. The Americans, having been told by the Dutch where the servers are, repeatedly and swiftly cut off access to these servers, followed each time by another attempt by the Russians. It goes back and forth like this for 24 hours. Afterwards, sources tell CNN that this was ‘the worst hack attack ever’ on the American government. The Department has to cut off access to the e-mail system for a whole weekend in order to upgrade the security.

Luckily, the NSA was able to find out the means and tactics of their attackers, deputy director of the NSA Richard Ledgett states at a discussion forum in Aspen in March 2017. ‘So we could see how they were changing their methods. That’s very useful information.’ On the authority of intelligence services, American media write that this was thanks to a ‘western ally’. Eventually, the Americans manage to dispel the Russians from the Department, but not before Russian attackers use their access to send an e-mail to a person in the White House.

Fake e-mail

He thinks he’s received an e-mail from the State Department – the e-mail address is similar – and clicks a link in the message. The link opens a website where the White House employee then enters his login credentials, now obtained by the Russians. And that is how the Russians infiltrate the White House.

They even gain access to the email servers containing the sent and received emails of president Barack Obama, but fail to penetrate the servers that control the message traffic from his personal BlackBerry, which holds state secrets, sources tell The New York Times. They do, however, manage to access e-mail traffic with embassies and diplomats, agendas, notes on policy and legislation. And again, it’s the Dutch intelligence agencies who alert the Americans about this.

Goldmine

Access to Cozy Bear turns out to be a goldmine for the Dutch hackers. For years, it supplies them with valuable intelligence about targets, methods and the interests of the highest ranking officials of the Russian security service. From the pictures taken of visitors, the AIVD deduces that the hacker group is led by Russia’s external intelligence agency SVR.

There’s a reason the AIVD writes in its annual report about 2014 that many Russian government officials, including president Putin, use secret services to obtain information. Recently, the head of the AIVD, Rob Bertholee, said on the Dutch TV program CollegeTour that there is ‘no question’ that the Kremlin is behind the Russian hacking activities.

Unprepared

The Americans were taken completely by surprise by the Russian aggression, says Chris Painter in Washington. For years, Painter was responsible for America’s cyber policy. He resigned last August. ‘We’d never expected that the Russians would do this, attacking our vital infrastructure and undermining our democracy.’

The American intelligence services were unprepared for that, he says. That is one of the reasons the Dutch access is so appreciated. The Americans even sent ‘cake’ and ‘flowers’ to Zoetermeer, sources tell. And not just that. Intelligence is a commodity: it can be traded. In 2016, the heads of the AIVD and MIVD, Rob Bertholee and Pieter Bindt, personally discuss the access to the Russian hacker group with James Clapper, then the highest ranking official of the American intelligence services, and Michael Rogers, head of the NSA.

In return, the Dutch are given knowledge, technology and intelligence. According to one American source, in late 2015, the NSA hackers manage to penetrate the mobile devices of several high ranking Russian intelligence officers. They learn that right before a hacking attack, the Russians search the internet for any news about the oncoming attack. According to the Americans, this indirectly proves that the Russian government is involved in the hacks. Another source says it’s ‘highly likely’ that in return for the intelligence, the Dutch were given access to this specific American information. Whether any intelligence about MH17 was exchanged, is unknown.

 

Fighting ISIS…With Porn

Some Iraqis had a clever idea. Penetrate the ISIS Internet and spread fake news and porn.

They did a far better job at taking down the ISIS recruiting tools that their supposedly better armed, and more Internet savvy American and other anti ISIS allies.

Shows you how “stuck on stupid” our cyber warriors have become.

 

They Planted Porn in ISIS Propaganda, Just for Starters, Then Sowed Chaos and Confusion in the ‘Caliphate’

A small group of Iraqi hackers figured they could do a better job fighting ISIS online than most governments—and they did. And do. With a vengeance.

Six young Iraqis are taking a strategy straight out of the Kremlin’s mischievous playbook, but with no thanks to Moscow. They’re using hacked accounts to attack the so-called Islamic State and fake news to disrupt its “virtual caliphate.”

Given the dangers they face, the six people who make up the little group calling itself, with conscious irony, “Daeshgram”—its name melding the Arabic acronym for ISIS and Instagram—are forced to live something resembling double lives. Four of them work professionally in information technology and cybersecurity, one is an engineer, the other a student—all of them live in Iraq. Their families and friends know nothing of their efforts to push back against ISIS.

If the streets of Mosul were Iraq’s physical frontline against the jihadists, then surely it is the social media channels and encrypted messaging applications that serve as the front line against the cyber caliphate, and these young geeks are deep in the trenches.

Nada and Ahmed are two of those six. For obvious reasons they wanted to use aliases for this story. They formed Daeshgram around a year ago.

“We started thinking about how we could fight them online,” says Nada. “We were always messing around on the internet with each other anyway. ISIS are still a threat to Iraq, to Syria, even the world. So we started looking into exactly what might be effective on social media, and on Telegram. Back then, ISIS could do whatever they wanted on Telegram, we wanted them to know we were going to fight them on there too.”

As Twitter and Facebook began clamping down on extremist material, the encrypted messaging app Telegram became the group’s new hangout and means of distributing propaganda amongst its members across the globe.

It all began with “infiltrating their Telegram channels” says Nada, “we spent months observing, and pretending to be ISIS members. We studied how they behaved, the sort of language they used, and tried to take note of the unwritten rules.”

Even in the apparent safety of their own homes, where they gathered as Daeshgram on the weekends and after work, they would receive death threats “every now and then on Twitter, and Telegram from ISIS,” explains Ahmed. “‘We will find you, we will kill you.’ We just accepted that it is a part of our activities,” he adds. “We are IT experts, we take our cybersecurity extremely seriously.”

But, ISIS wasn’t the only danger—so genuine-looking was much of the media Daeshgram was publishing, and so deeply embedded within the jihadists’ online activities were they, that there were fears the Iraqi government might also be a threat.

Had they been caught, Daeshgram’s activities likely would have been difficult to explain to the Iraqi authorities. Much of their work has a nuance and patience misunderstood even by counterterror experts on ISIS. “I’m not sure they would have understood what we were doing, so we had to be extremely careful with our security,” said Ahmed.

The group was operating in a murky area and without government sanction. People have been jailed for far less when it comes to participating in such groups online. But despite committing hundreds of thousands of men from the Iraqi army, special forces, and various militias to fight ISIS on the ground in Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere, the Iraqi government made no provision for fighting the group online.

Telegram often served as a means of delivery, it allowed for proliferation of the group’s high-quality media output, everything from radio broadcasts and written statements to half-hour cinematic battle videos.

Some of Daeshgram’s early efforts saw them photoshop a pornographic scene into an image announcing the opening of a new media center in Wilyat Al-Khayar, an area that roughly correlates to Deir az-Zour in eastern Syria. The scene is amusing, if a little crass, but it served an important purpose.

“It let Daesh know that we were capable of replicating their media to a very high standard, it was the first seed of doubt,” explains Nada. However, they soon learned that to have the effect they desired “our output had to be subtle, and believable.” Nada adds, “We wanted to create items that ISIS members would not question and would share widely”—believability was key, as with all fake news.

In one effort some months ago, the group released an official-looking video warning that Amaq, ISIS’ official news agency which has become the go-to source for information on the group’s activities, had been hacked. It hadn’t, but so legitimate-looking was the warning that moderators on various Telegram channels began marking Amaq output from the day as fake, and warning members off it.

The confusion was growing.

In another instance, seeing a rumor that ISIS’ radio station Al-Bayan had been destroyed in an airstrike, the group produced a perfectly branded and edited audio statement in the style of Al-Bayan denying it had been taken offline. Their Al-Bayan piece was ambitious, but it appeared to work: It was downloaded without question almost 800 times, and it included information about ISIS losses on the battlefield, and the increasing number of ISIS fighters who were working as informants for Western governments, or outright defecting—topics official ISIS media outlets would never include.

Another effort saw the group create the fake Al-Adnani news channel, which at its peak had some 500 members. Controlling the channel gave the group nearly complete control over exactly what was posted and shared between members.

This tactic of imitation and subtle manipulation became the focus of their efforts; “We took their templates, and we started to manipulate the information on there, it was almost impossible to tell which statements were ISIS and which we had made,” said Nada.

Are they aware of just how controversial the rise of fake news has been, and is it ever an ethical strategy to adopt?

“Naturally we’re aware of the discussions across the globe about fake news and the harmful impact it has had on countries, especially in their elections,” says Nada. “Fake news has been used to destabilize functioning democracies.” But she claims the strategy is justified: “While the tactics we have used are indeed similar, we—in contrast to other actors—openly acknowledge that we are purposefully creating confusion to delegitimize and discredit Daesh propaganda.”

Just this past week, the group pulled off what they described as “a major operation,” the culmination of weeks of preparation with other groups.

Dubbed #ParalyzingAmaq the operation saw the main Amaq website taken down by a hack, and perhaps equally as significant, the website’s Firefox plugin, which automatically redirects followers to the latest incarnation of Amaq, was thwarted.

With the site down, the group began uploading some of the more than 40 duplicate Amaq sites it had created—many of them barely discernible from the original—even to the best-trained eye. These duplicate sites are being bandied about among dozens of Telegram sites as genuine, with ISIS members vouching for their authenticity.

The Telegram phenomenon has given birth to an industry of analysts and experts. Navigating the groups and channels which frequently shut down and respawn is not especially complex, but it is time consuming and requires near constant attention.

Some analysts were quick to criticise last week’s efforts to disrupt ISIS’ activities labeling it “a publicity stunt.” Others said it was “just annoying.”

When I put it to Nada and Ahmed that their operation largely flopped, Nada said the purpose of the operation was never merely to take down Telegram accounts, as some appear to have expected. It was “to sow discord and confusion, and to undermine the credibility of Amaq among ISIS supporters, particularly Arabic speakers,” said Nada. “We achieved that goal.”

Indeed a look at some of the popular channels frequented by ISIS suggests they are right: In one chat several ISIS members are seen bickering following Amaq’s hacking. “This channel is not official,” says one. Another replies, “How do you know it’s not official?” A third member interjects, “No, give your evidence.” Only for the first to respond, “You should be careful what you say to me.”

Ahmed points out that ISIS enforces stringent anti-discord rules on Telegram, as it does in the real world. Arguments, and the questioning of authority, will often see members banned.

“That discord, or fitna [the Quranic term used by ISIS] includes doubting any credible news outlet,” says Ahmed. He adds that, following Friday’s operation, “We made them break their own rules, we made them engage in debates regarding what was real, and what wasn’t.”

Nada concludes: “Journalists and analysts are not our target audience. Daesh supporters themselves, especially the Arabic speaking ones, are our target. Our main objective was to create confusion and discord, and we were able to do that. What Western analysts think is not really relevant to our work.

“ISIS supporters don’t know which Amaq sites to trust,” she said, so, “they don’t trust Amaq anymore.”

In the fight against the virtual caliphate, that is no small victory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U43eE7f7YyA

 

How Jared Kushner Committed Perjury and His Newspaper Colluded With Russian Spies

Probably slated for the third round of Mueller indictments (After the Flynn family), Chumph son-in-law Jared Kushner is being investigated for back door deals with Wikileaks and Putin’s KGB.

Kushner perjured himself in testimony before Congress, declaring the he, and non of the Chumph staff ever had contact with Wikileaks or the Russians,

That’s bald faced lie.

How Jared Kushner’s Newspaper Became a Favorite Outlet for WikiLeaks Election Hacks

The New York Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, was a friendly outlet for the 2016 Russian hackers.

In the fall of 2014, Julian Assange, the embattled head of WikiLeaks, was meeting with a steady stream of supportive journalists in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had taken refuge to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Among those seeking an audience with Assange was a freelancer working for the New York Observer, the newspaper owned and published by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and key advisor, Jared Kushner.

Ken Kurson, the newspaper’s editor in chief — along with a freelance writer he’d hired — helped arrange a “no-holds-barred” interview with Assange that October.

“My editor Ken Kurson (kkurson@observer.com) and I are very interested in an interview with Julian Assange. This would be a cover story.… We will be in London the first week of October,” wrote Jacques Hyzagi, a freelance reporter for the Observer, to a press consultant who arranged interviews for WikiLeaks.

Kurson, when contacted by Foreign Policy, said he did not attend that meeting and has never communicated with Assange; he insists that the profile was Hyzagi’s idea. “We ran an interview pitched to us by a freelancer,” he wrote in an email.

“I have never communicated in any way with Julian Assange and this sort of fact-free, evidenceless charge is analogous to pizzagate and other totally ludicrous conspiracies,” he added.

Hyzagi did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Yet a series of exchanges between Hyzagi and the WikiLeaks representative indicated that a meeting involving Kurson and Assange was in the works; at one point Leonardo DiCaprio was invited to tag along, according to emails obtained by FP. (DiCaprio did not end up attending.)

After that, the plan was to travel to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor. Snowden’s team declined a request for an interview from Hyzagi, according to Ben Wizner, Snowden’s attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Hyzagi’s meeting with Assange resulted in a friendly feature in the Observer and kicked off a long-running series of laudatory articles about the WikiLeaks founder — many of those stories including exclusive details about the Australian transparency advocate. Later, the Observer also became a favored outlet of Guccifer 2.0, a suspected Russian hacker, who along with WikiLeaks released troves of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). WikiLeaks tweeted some of the Observer’s coverage, including stories expressing doubt that the Russians had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Kushner has long denied any collusion with the Russian government, which is suspected of targeting the 2016 election, but his newspaper proved a favored conduit for hacks, which the U.S. intelligence community says were carried out on Kremlin orders. The Observer was not the only outlet that received exclusive access to Guccifer 2.0 documents — or those from other outlets such as DC Leaks, widely believed to be part of the same campaign — but it was the only one owned by someone who was part of the Trump campaign.

“This would be of significant interest to law enforcement and investigators,” John Sipher, a former CIA officer who worked in Russia, wrote in an email to FP.

 

 

 

In New Cold War – Putin’s Bitch Sells Out America

Evidence that Russian State Hackers interfered in the US Elections of 2016 is irrefutable. The only real question left is whether the collusion between Chumph Campaign leadership and Putin’s FSB/KGB rises to the level of being a crime. At some point, probably later this year, Independent Counsel Robert Meuller will hopefully provide answers to that with detailed evidence on whatever conclusion his office makes as a result of that information. With the evidence that has been made public so far – there is little doubt that conclusion will be Treason, which is why Putin’s Bitch is so actively researching if he can pardon himself and his kids from criminal prosecution and jail.

The US is under constant attack by the Russians, most recently in Vermont where Russian FSB/KGB penetrated the power grid, and two weeks ago while Chumph and Putin palled around affectionately at the G20, Russian hackers went after US Nuclear Plants.

The US Government response to this? Not much, other than to bunker-up against the security flaws identified by the Russian attacks. Patch and defend. Chumph won’t allow any sort of retaliation and or crackdown against his Russian allies. Leaving America vulnerable and at the mercy of Russian spies and agents.

So what is left?

Shutting down Russian Cyber-spy operations by responsible American corporations. And yes, that option is limited by laws which Putin’s FSB/KGB doesn’t have to follow. So it is a bit like a one-armed boxer entering the ring.

Microsoft has taken the lead, and since December has been busily chopping away at the apparatus of one of the most egregious Russian Government spy operations – Fancy Bear.

Here is hoping other companies join the fight, because at this point our National Security infrastructure largely has their hands tied by politics in the New Cold War.

One would hope some patriotic corporation or entity would assist in developing an organization or effort by our non-governmental Black Hats to take these Putin fuckers down.

Putin’s Hackers Now Under Attack—From Microsoft

Microsoft is going after Fancy Bear, the Russian hacking group that targeted the DNC, by wresting control of domain names controlled by the foreign spies.

A new offensive by Microsoft has been making inroads against the Russian government hackers behind last year’s election meddling, identifying over 120 new targets of the Kremlin’s cyber spying, and control-alt-deleting segments of Putin’s hacking apparatus.

How are they doing it? It turns out Microsoft has something even more formidable than Moscow’s malware: Lawyers.

Last year attorneys for the software maker quietly sued the hacker group known as Fancy Bear in a federal court outside Washington DC, accusing it of computer intrusion, cybersquatting, and infringing on Microsoft’s trademarks.  The action, though, is not about dragging the hackers into court. The lawsuit is a tool for Microsoft to target what it calls “the most vulnerable point” in Fancy Bear’s espionage operations: the command-and-control servers the hackers use to covertly direct malware on victim computers.  These servers can be thought of as the spymasters in Russia’s cyber espionage, waiting patiently for contact from their malware agents in the field, then issuing encrypted instructions and accepting stolen documents.

Since August, Microsoft has used the lawsuit to wrest control of 70 different command-and-control points from Fancy Bear. The company’s approach is indirect, but effective. Rather than getting physical custody of the servers, which Fancy Bear rents from data centers around the world, Microsoft has been taking over the Internet domain names that route to them. These are addresses like “livemicrosoft[.]net” or “rsshotmail[.]com” that Fancy Bear registers under aliases for about $10 each.  Once under Microsoft’s control, the domains get redirected from Russia’s servers to the company’s, cutting off the hackers from their victims, and giving Microsoft a omniscient view of that servers’ network of automated spies.

“In other words,” Microsoft outside counsel Sten Jenson explained in a court filing last year,  “any time an infected computer attempts to contact a command-and-control server through one of the domains, it will instead be connected to a Microsoft-controlled, secure server.”

Historically, Fancy Bear has mostly targeted Windows with its malware, and has leaned heavily on Microsoft products when choosing domain names—thus giving Microsoft standing in the lawsuit.  On Friday, after months of litigation and thousands of pages of filings, a judge in Alexandria, Virginia is scheduled to hear Microsoft’s motion for a final default judgment and permanent injunction against Fancy Bear.

Also known as APT28, Sofacy, Pawn Strorm and Strontium—Microsoft’s preferred moniker—Fancy Bear has been conducting cyber espionage since at least 2007, breaching NATO, Obama’s White House, a French television station, the World Anti-Doping Agency and countless NGOs, and militaries and civilian agencies in Europe, Central Asia  and the Caucasus.  Fancy Bear’s most notorious intrusions targeted the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign last year, as part of Moscow’s efforts to help Donald Trump win the White House, according to U.S. intelligence findings.

 

The Chumph is a Soft Touch For Hackers

Oh PLEAZZZE keep using that private phone Mr. Chumph!

Put a target on your back, why don’t you?

Better start listening to your security folks.

 

More British Intelligence Documents Show Payments From Chumph Campaign to Russian Hackers

Need to ask the question…Why is the FBI suppressing this?

I mean, the validity of this is freaking easy to nail down.

UK spy documents: Trump Organization paid Russian hackers who took orders from Putin

Last December, the U.K. government was reportedly given extensive records of Trump campaign officials’ interactions with the Kremlin.

The Guardian reported former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia was first given to the UK intelligence services. These documents reportedly contain records of payments from the Trump campaign to banks of Russian cyber trolls tasked with spreading disinformation ahead of the 2016 election.

Court filings confirmed earlier this month that Steele passed along the information because he felt it was “of considerable importance in relation to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election.”

Steele outlined how four Trump campaign representatives traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic in August or September to have “secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers.” The group discussed how they would pay hackers for breaking into the Democratic Party’s computers and developing a “contingency plans for covering up operations.”

The memo reported that hackers were paid by the Trump Organization, however, the hackers were under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen is said to have attended the meeting in Prague, though he has described the memo as “totally fake, totally inaccurate.” He also claimed he’d never been to Prague.

Steele produced 16 memos using Russian sources to describe the web of collusion between Trump aides and Russian intelligence or other officials. A copy of the memos was given to the news outlet Fusion but instructed them not to disclose the material to anyone without approval. They agreed and Steele agreed to provide a copy to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) after McCain learned the memos existed from the UK ambassador to Moscow.

The Guardian reports that the court documents revealed Steele continued to get “unsolicited intelligence” on the links between Trump and Russia. As a result, Steele drew up another memo from Dec. 13. He turned that memo to a senior British national security official and gave encrypted versions to Fusion to give to McCain.

Court statements argue Steele was under an obligation to give the information to the UK and US “at a high level by persons with responsibility for national security.” However, Steele said he never gave a copy to any news organizations, merely off-the-record briefings about the dossier to some journalists in the fall of 2016. They argue they had no involvement in BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the document.

The dossier wasn’t delivered to former President Barack Obama and then-President-elect Donald Trump until January.

 

Chumph’s Whites Only House…Nowhere to Run! Hackers Publish Phone Numbers

Want to have a polite conversation about how badly the Chumph has fucked up?

Call Here!

Need to set these folks up on an autodialer with a recording!

456 is the White House Exchange. So any 456 exchange goes to the White House.

Dressed for the Circus

Group leaks White House staffers’ direct phone numbers after Trump kills Obama’s feedback line

(p)resident Donald Trump’s White House has made it nearly impossible for his constituents, the people of the United States of America, to offer feedback over his actions.

The White House used to have a public comment line that individuals could call to speak with a staffer about everything former President Barack Obama did in his eight years to cause some outrage. But Trump, not a fan of bad reviews, has taken that down.

An anonymous group of citizens has found a way around Trump’s closed comment line — or rather, they have taken the time to dig up all the direct phone numbers to reach staff at the White House.

The group set up a website called “White House Comment Line” where it has listed all the numbers to reach White House staff, and a guide as to what you should say when you call, who will answer your call, and other questions you might have.

A spokesperson for the group told Gothamist in a statement, “Open communication is the foundation of a good, functioning democracy. But it’s a two-way street.”

“Right now there’s ‘information’ coming out of the White House to the people, but not much the other way around,” the spokesperson said. ” They may have shut down the comment line, but we the people still have comments. In light of that, we wanted to create one way for the people to be heard.”

According to Gothamist, the numbers that have yet to be disconnected are as follows:

+1 (202) 456-1259
+1 (202) 456-1260
+1 (202) 456-3323
+1 (202) 456-3376
+1 (202) 395-1194
+1 (202) 456-1565
+1 (202) 395-1608
+1 (202) 456-2046
+1 (202) 456-2500
+1 (202) 456-4640
+1 (202) 456-3256
+1 (202) 456-3878
+1 (202) 395-1480
+1 (202) 456-3450
+1 (202) 456-4655
+1 (202) 456-4770

“Just like you would call your member of Congress, calmly share your views with the White House. You have the right to be heard,” the spokesperson told Gothamist.

The outlet also noted that one of the numbers will take you to the voicemail of “Conway, Kellyanne.” All the more reason to try them all.

 

Olbermann Makes Case for Trump-Putin

Olbermann gets the very tip of the Rump-Putin iceberg here. There is a lot more, as well as significant financial ties between someone on Trump’s staff and a Russian cut-out organization. The FBI didn’t find that…Outside independent hackers did. With FBI Director Comey’s release of information designed to damage Clinton, it is fairly obvious why the FBI hasn’t found anything to date…They were told not to look. The Intelligence Agencies. who are looking are extremely concerned as has been published in  the news. That suggests there are far deeper ties. Take that in conjunction with the announcement that it is Russian Government Intelligence which is hacking the Democrat email servers, databases, and voter rolls…

And what you have is Treason.

 

Russian Hackers Steal Trump Background Research From DNC

Appears the Russians are getting highly concerned over the possibility of a neo-Nazi madman like Trump becoming President…

Russian Hackers Penetrate Democratic National Committee, Steal Trump Research

Russian hackers have been accessing the Democratic National Committee’s computer network for the past year.

According to the Washington Post, which first broke the story Tuesday, the hackers accessed the DNC’s database of research on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and also read DNC staffers’ emails and chat conversations.

CrowdStrike, the security firm called in by Democrats to deal with the massive data breach, says two different groups of Russian hackers gained access to the DNC’s network. CrowdStrike doesn’t believe the groups — nicknamed COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR — collaborated with each other. “Instead,” company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch wrote in a lengthy blog post, “we observed the two Russian espionage groups compromise the same systems and engage separately in the theft of identical credentials.”

Alperovitch says one group of hackers first accessed the DNC network a year ago. The second group broke in in April.

In a statement, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said, “The security of our system is critical to our operation and to the confidence of the campaigns and state parties we work with. When we discovered the intrusion, we treated this like the serious incident it is and reached out to CrowdStrike immediately. Our team moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

It’s not unusual for hackers to break into presidential candidates’ websites. In fact, it’s happened during the last two presidential campaigns. In the most high-profile incident, hackers shut down Mitt Romney’s campaign site for several hours in 2012.

Last month, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers, “We’ve already had some indications of [political hacking]. And a combination of [the Department of Homeland Security] and FBI are doing what they can to educate both campaigns against a potential cyberthreat.”

This isn’t the DNC’s first high-profile data breach, either. Last December, a breakdown in the server that Democrats use to store information about voters allowed staffers from Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign to briefly access files from the Clinton campaign.

But a campaign-to-campaign data breach is much different from the penetration of a network by foreign hackers. According to CrowdStrike, the two Russian hacking groups have also “previously infiltrated the unclassified networks of the White House,State Department, and US Joint Chiefs of Staff,” as well as private companies in the energy, media and aerospace sectors.

 

Anonymous Declaration of War on Trump

This could get interesting if it is real…  Attacking Trump’s Chicago Hotel though is rather pointless. Would think they would do far better going after making the licensing of the Trump name/brand a negative proposition, going after his state operations and mailing lists, and gathering documentation on his shady, and possibly illegal business dealings.

Anonymous Plans A New War On Donald Trump

Can the hacker group take him down?

Hacker group Anonymous is pledging once again to take on Donald Trump.

“Dear Donald Trump, we have been watching you for a long time, and what we see is deeply disturbing,” an Anonymous representative said in a video posted to YouTube earlier this month.

The statement is followed by a series of well-known clips showing the Republican frontrunner acting like a buffoon: insulting Fox host Megyn Kelly, mocking a reporter with a disability, alluding to how sexy his own daughter is, et cetera.

Anonymous follows that with a “call to arms” inviting anyone with a computer to spread the word and participate in “Operation Trump,” now labeled “#OpTrump.” The video ends with a message inviting “everyone to target” trumpchicago.com, a website for the candidate’s luxury hotel, on April 1.

The video is hosted on a different YouTube channel than some previous releases from Anonymous — so it’s difficult to say how “official” the clip is. That said, a well-known Anonymous account on Twitter — @YourAnonNews — has regularly tweetedanti-Trump messages since the clip was posted.

“Your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States of America — you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideals,” the new video says. “You say what your current audience wants to hear, but in reality you don’t stand for anything except for your personal greed and power. This is a call to arms.”

Anonymous previously declared war on Trump in December. It seems not to have slowed his momentum, but maybe second time’s the charm?

 

Twitter Hacked?

Following Facebook a few weeks ago, Twitter is experiencing both global and “roaming” outages around the world. Could be any one of several problems including bad software updates, bugs introduced by new changes, or …Hackers.

Twitter Experiencing Worldwide Disruptions

Twitter was experiencing global disruptions on Tuesday that prevented many of its 300 million users from staying connected or from logging on to the social network in the first place.

The company said it was not clear what had caused the problems, which began around 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and prevented many users from sharing updates on their smartphones, computers and other mobile devices. As of about 8:30 a.m., the company said the disruptions were still occurring sporadically worldwide.

Twitter declined to specify how many of its users were affected, or what had caused the disruptions — saying only that it was “working towards a resolution.”

Although the disruptions were among the most extensive the company has yet encountered, Twitter is not the only popular social network to have faced technical problems. Facebook, whose users now number more than 1.5 billion worldwide, has also had a spate of shutdowns over the last 18 months, though often the problems have been corrected within hours.

Because Twitter is an important news source, as well as a popular sounding board, the shutdowns were a significant disruption in the global conversation. When other technology and media companies have faced similar problems in the past, people have often turned to Twitter to vent their frustrations — an outlet unavailable this time because the platform itself was the cause of the problem.

“Thanks for noticing,” read a brief note that appeared on users’ Twitter pages when the website had problems loading. “We’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.”

The hashtag #TwitterDown started to trend on the site when it was working, as well as on its rival Facebook, where people playfully mocked Twitter’s disruptions.

“Apt song for the #TwitterDown crises we are facing at the moment,” Paul Lee Lotter, a Facebook user from South Africa, said in a post that included a link to the Led Zeppelin song “Communication Breakdown.”

Twitter has had a string of difficulties recently, with the American company facing growing investor anger since its blockbuster initial public offering in 2013.

The company’s stock, for instance, has lost almost a quarter of its value in the past month, amid criticisms of the way Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder who recently returned to become its chief executive, is running the platform.

That includes experiments to introduce a longer form of tweet, in what would be a move away from the simplistic design that the service was originally founded on. Mr. Dorsey has also tried to broaden Twitter’s appeal, a problem the company has struggled with for years, much to the consternation of its investors.