Thursday, November 2, 2017

U.S. Justice Department To Charge Six Members Of The Russian Government For Hacking The DNC Servers Last Year



Reuters: U.S. authorities identify six Russian officials in DNC hack: WSJ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has gathered enough evidence to charge six members of the Russian government in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the investigation.

Federal agents and prosecutors in Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Francisco have been cooperating on the DNC investigation and prosecutors could bring the case to court next year, it said.

By identifying individual Russian military and intelligence hackers with charges, U.S. authorities could make it difficult for them to travel, but arrests and jailing would be unlikely, according to the Journal report.

The hacking investigation, conducted by cybersecurity experts, predates the appointment in May of federal special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: For  new readers to WNU .... I have been involved in numerous web projects since the 1990s, and I have built a small of group of people who are very knowledgeable about the web. Based on my own personal experience and knowledge .... I have asked "my experts" repeatedly since the DNC hack on how good are U.S. authorities to identify (with a high degree of certainty) those who are responsible for this cyber-attack/hack. The answer .... if the cyber-attackers/hackers are professional .... is no. In the case of the DNC hack .... because the FBI was not permitted to look at the servers (the investigation was done by a private company that the DNC hired) .... I have been told that it makes an investigation even more harder to pursue. So why is the Justice Department so gung-ho to pursue charges? My guess is that some people from Russia are either talking, or the U.S. government has the means to track web traffic that they have not told anyone else. Either way .... as someone who loves tech stuff .... I look forward to the trial when this evidence is presented.

More News On Reports That The U.S. Justice Department Will Charge Six Members Of The Russian Government For Hacking The DNC Servers Last Year

Justice Department considers charging Russians for hacking: report -- USA Today
Prosecutors mull charges in DNC hacking: report -- The Hill
Russian officials could be charged in hacking scandal -- New York Post
US could charge six Russian officials over DNC email hacking -- Engadget
Report: US identified Russian officials behind election hack -- CNET

3 comments:

Bob Huntley said...

Good for them. Another lid off Pandora's box. Next year it will be members of the American government arrested by Russia for doing the same thing.

B.Poster said...

"My guess is that some people from Russia are either talking, or the US government has the means to track web traffic that they have not told anyone else." Very respectfully as to guess # 1. Why would anyone in Russia "talk?" As long as sanctions remain in place, the Magnitsky act is not repealed, and the property stolen from Russian diplomats is not returned or the people it was stolen from are not compensated, there would be no reason for anyone in Russia to "talk." As such and very respectfully, we can likely dismiss this guess.

As for guess number 2, the US government is generally quite incompetent and this whole thing has been a witch hunt from the start. As such, this is unlikely the case. If such an ability was possessed, it seems rather stupid strategically to reveal this in such an insignificant case.

The typical strategy of the US "injustice" system is to run over people who are either low level operatives that no one likes or who lack the means to procure adequate representation. In this case, petty losers on the democrat side wish to justify there existence and in yet another temper tantrum they wish to hurt someone.

When picking on level operatives or those who lack the means of adequate representation, this can work quite well. When picking on Russia for petty politics, this is unlikely to work so well. The worst part about this is team Trump put together a very careful diplomatic process that probably would have yielded positive fruit and may have even allowed us a pathway to end Cold War 2. Unfortunately some petty losers undermined all of this and essentially shot the process to h!ll.

jimbrown said...

I thought there was some technical analysis done that showed it was downloaded to usb drive?