This is a good story, well written. I remember the previous case with the sleeper agents. The one theme I see is waste. Seems like such a wasteful way to do things -- spend decades planning and setting everything up and then they go and just ask companies for random info. Or during the Soviet times I like how they sent this spy to acquire info on the Space Shuttle, so he went to a public library and photo-copied stuff from there. Years of training and all that setup to go and press the "copy" button in a library.
The timing of the story is not a coincidence I am guessing. They mentioned the "election" so I am assuming it is playing along with the Russians have rigged the election and KGB agents are everywhere. And that's why Clinton's campaign resulted in worse Democratic election performance in 28 years. I don't know about anyone else, I but I am getting a little tired of blaming the Russians for everything. Wonder if editors would agree that we should be a lot stricter with our immigration policy and vet people better before letting them come in...
years of training and all they do is press the copy button
:-D that is a funny take at their life. they do have to live in "enemy" territory as a double life, living that itself would account their intensive training!
I'm missing something, but what would be so difficult about living in enemy territory? I don't believe anyone in their daily interaction was hostile to them (apart from exceptions who would be hostile to anyone).
There is a constant fear of being caught. He was an illegal foreign operative in "enemy" territory. they were having his handler under surveillance for many years.
I assume it to be highly stressful, living a double life, the constant fear of being caught and thrown into prison or worse, fear of being killed one day.
Just being a spy does not mean that everyone is hostile to them, the article itself says, counter intelligence != catch then really fast, it means identify them and feed them incorrect intelligence, that way you control what your "enemy" gets from their operative, it is way cheaper that way rather than busting the spy rings. Also, this guy went too far, taking something given by foreigners into their secret office! That is ludicrous even by fictional standards(Jason Bourne novels).
worst scenario - list of some/all spies on given territory leak. even those who blended perfectly would face torture, and either death sentence or be forced to betray the country they spy for. you can never trust anybody, not women, not friends (which you don't actually have). crap life
Blatantly off topic from the article but related to social network spies, and because this community takes privacy concerns seriously — anyone who joins your neighborhood on Nextdoor can immediately see your full address (apartment number included) with the default privacy settings. Also, it's possible to join a neighborhood with no verification if just one bad actor is in it and invites you. I think it's an absolutely absurd setting. I've clicked through many people in my neighborhood and get the feeling most people don't realize the exposure at all.
Anyone else feel that if the Russians really wanted to influence the election, the actual methodologies used and people targeted were not that impressive or well thought through? I mean it was hardly Stuxnet.
If your wanna change an election why not hack a wider range of targets? I know that "Who gains most?" is one of the best ways to attribute blame in the intelligence world but I have not (like the North Korea / Sony hack) seen evidence that even nearly proves it was a hack directed by the Russian Government. Possibly a malicious sympathiser but hardly state level techniques...
Also, how slow and useless are the NSA that they weren't watching to protect senior people in one of the two major parties in the country? If so many intelligence folks are as sure as they claim to be that it's the Russians, where is the counter-response? You mean to tell me that the TAO can't do better then some leaks about Russian businessmen close to Putin - obviously that is one of his weak points but he doesn't care about that right now. I get that they don't want to reveal warfighting capabilities but seriously - if you think it's really the Russians, throw a shoulder...
Blame the Russians is probably too convenient to not be used. It is a useful PR story because it has multiple benefits - it deflects blame "don't read the emails, worry about the Russians hiding in the bushes ready to attack instead", and it takes a jab at Putin. Him and Hillary specifically, are not very good friends. They've battled over on Syria ("I'll set a No Fly zone there!"), but goes back probably as far as Bill Clinton involvement in the Balkan Wars. Of course also by Hillary severely criticizing his own rigging of his election.
During the debates, along all the other entertaining stuff I saw (from both sides), I remember Hillary mentioning how not less than 17 intelligence agencies checked and told her it was the Russians. If you listen to the news, that's how you know something is a lie - they overemphasize stuff. If she is saying Coast Guard Intelligence went out of their way to investigate and tell her the Russians did it, you know it is probably time to stop worrying about Russians and worry about other stuff. (Another example, Cuomo from CNN said "it is illegal to read these documents, you have to come to use for interpretation", I knew, those documents have to be read, probably paying close attention...)
Looking at it from technical aspect, I would imagine any state actor who is not stupid, probably managed to hack into that server. Russians are good but they don't somehow have magic others don't have.
But let's red-team it for a second and think about who you would go after if you were Russian and wanted to hand the election to Trump. There's a lot more people on that list worth going after than the folks that "Guccifer" did manage to get a hold of.
I've been thinking along those lines for over a year and a half since Hillary's email server was leaked by the NYT. Based on the fact that her email was not state.gov, that would have made the server a target. To get her detailed info - along with Bill's - that would have been useful.
In all honesty, can you imagine what's sitting in Bill's email? Or worse, browser history?
Further, why just drop Podesta's email? While he's important in political circles, the average American has no clue who he is.
I think if you really wanted to take down Hillary, you'd release all the nasty, snarky, etc email that you know she sent to people. Not just the nasty things she said about Republicans but other Democrats. Convince her colleagues that she'll insult and sell them out in a heartbeat and enthusiasm dips from both them and their supporters. With enthusiasm goes funding, rally attendance, and turns into a loss.
EXACTLY what I've been thinking...If the Russians really wanted to take her down, they did a pretty crap job about it. Especially if you think about the ways they have taken down their enemies covertly before - in much much smarter ways.
Also, while I get that the Russians have always been way better at HUMINT than the West is at SIGINT (or better at playing dirty?), it doesn't seem quite as successful any more. I accept there is definitely an element of "known unknowns" but the quality of access obtained by the past few Russian spies who have been uncovered has been pretty poor.
Who says they didn't get more and just not release it? Also, the utility of Bill's emails, from an intelligence standpoint, isn't super useful these days as he hasn't been in office for roughly 16 years. Still might be some useful bits, but not a treasure trove
As for showing the world that Bill allegedly gets off to some freaky stuff or that Hillary is mean: Nobody cares. Hell, Supergirl (CW show), with their episode where Cat Grant gets hacked, summed it up pretty well with (paraphrased) "Oh whatever. I've said worse than that to her face"
Posting that would just get downplayed with genuine interviews with the wounded parties where they say "Okay. I am a professional adult. It hurts me that Hillary would accuse me of wetting the bed, but that doesn't really influence anything professionally"
Because once you become a "grown up", you kind of acknowledge that even your friends, let alone just your coworkers, might be jerks at times. It hurts, but you move on. Maybe you stop hanging out after work, but you don't let it impact work.
Whereas, stuff like the Podesta emails and the "anti-Sanders" campaign plays to a large portion of the Dem base as well as independents and lets them confirmation bias their way to the conclusion they made months ago. Sanders didn't lose because his appeal was very limited and even a lot of his supporters felt he was better as a senator than POTUS. He lost because of a conspiracy against him and bullying by people he thought were his friends.
All of which hurts the dems a lot, plays well to the news media, and motivates the trump-base by showing "she stole one election, don't let her steal ours"
A third element in the Soviet (and now Russian) toolkit is
“active measures” — direct intervention by clandestine means in the politics of another country. Active measures may entail the following:
* Influencing the policies of another government;
* Undermining confidence in its leaders and institutions;
* Disrupting its relations with other nations;
* Discrediting and weakening governmental and nongovernmental opponents.
Especially given the pre-election polling predictions, I have to think the risk vs reward would've been very low for Russia. Trump may not want to think of them as the enemy, but even an 'anti-Russian' administration allowed them to march into Crimea and bomb Syria uncontested.
Yeah, plus I think while Trump (can't believe I'm saying anything positive about the guy) might actually be good for resetting relations with Russia, might reduce their paranoia etc - Russians tend to prefer opponents/friends who have predictable stability, and he certainly is not that. I feel a sensible Russian policy would have preferred the devil-we-know of Clinton.
I have nothing but disgust for Putin and his henchmen but at the same time I think there is a lot of value in reading/watching his full speeches directly. There is a lot of poor reporting these days in our Western media and it easier to make better predictions about his frame of mind by seeing exactly what he is saying - then monitor his actions. Many of the direct translations of his speeches about Trump are different from what has been reported. The Russians feel surrounded (by NATO expansion), by NATO intrusions of jets, submarines, Ukraine government change and they also feel humiliated from the 90s, Kosovo, Iraq etc etc. It's important that more people make a real effort to understand and internalise that understanding of Russian fears if we are to avoid a full on renewal of the Cold War...I severely doubt the Trump Administration has people who will be happy to walk back and reset things.
This is important to note regardless of your feelings on the election and of current US and Russian Politics. Despite what was picked up by many US media outlets, publicly, Putin has been much more diplomatic and even-handed in his assessments of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Privately, who knows what his intentions and relationships are. But since the media relies pretty much on only public statements from Putin, it seems only fair that we reserve any further judgement aside from that. Prior to the election, Putin expressed that he was glad to hear that Donald Trump wanted better relations. In the very next breath, he also cautioned that "who knows what will actually happen though if he's elected." In nearly the next sentence, he also expressed worry about Hillary Clinton's aggressive stance, then immediately countered with "but maybe she will change once elected to look for better relations." Of course, the media on all parts of the political spectrum overwhelmingly reported this as "Putin respects Trump", omitting his full, far more diplomatic statements.
I've been living in Russia for almost 2 years, and one thing I have learned on politics is that you really need to separate the Russian people from the Russian Government; your average Russian distrusts all politicians - most grew up during a time with very open corruption and when your political opinion could actively ruin your life if it was found out. They are very distrustful of the government, and in turn, tend to rely only on their family and friends. They believe government will do what it will do, and the Politicians here seem to be fine with that perception. There's far more focus on bring economic power back to Russia than there is on trying to stick it to the US. A few politicians for local elections tried to run on a "blame the US" platform, but they were largely ignored for the idiots they were. If there's some master plan from Russia to disrupt US Democracy, the end-goal isn't really clear from Russia's side.
How do you know that the election wasn't decided by foreign intelligence? A good hack is one that no one notices. Creating a black out on election day wouldn't change the outcome. Leaks and planted stories could.
This fast drifts into conspiracy theories, but it seems that the outcome of the election was at least partly determined by stories floating around on Facebook.
Not saying that any of this was influenced by the Russian government (I don't think so). But there is certainly not enough information to judge what they did or if it was effective.
How do you know it wasn't done by US intelligence? You don't. My guess is the best leaks came from people inside the US govt. who couldn't stomach the Clintons back in power.
I started reading the article, in the middle it said "this is how they linked the DNC hacking to Russians" and I finished the article and there was no revelation at all, did I read it incorrectly? Or is the article misleading?
I'm raising an eyebrow at the existence of the article, to be honest - I'm not proposing that suppression of information would be a good thing, rather that perhaps this is being published with a purpose.
There was a case earlier this year involving a pair of brits caught red handed spying in Russia - it made international news for a day, and that was it. Both were repatriated, and the matter didn't go any further in the public eye.
So - what I'm getting at - Russia declined a deal, and this lengthy exposé going into methods and so-forth is the fallout. In the instance earlier this year, Britain and Russia evidently played ball.
So, while it's perfectly valid journalism, I think there's also a bit of "throw 'em to the lions".
This article smells like DNC propaganda. Firstly, this is an old story. The heart of the news is about 2 years old [2] and it's Graff's first article for bloomberg [3] though he has been writing for Wire and Politico (his former paper)
Secondly, the author is exploring political career of his own in Vermont [4] and it's very possible his Politico article (that changed the blame to lack of technology skills by Hillary) [5] and this article are meant to curry favor for DNC players as he is making his own political bids.
Lastly, the author makes conclusion the hacks were done by Russians, perhaps one of the greatest foreign operations in decades, has undoubtedly been Russia’s successful effort to influence this fall’s presidential election through hacking however as others pointed out there is no clear evidence of this.
Overall, this shows the sophisticated state of political propaganda in US and how it operates to shape the minds of the readers. We're in for a bumpy ride.
My favorite part of this is that rewards for spying seems to be a $3k per month house in the Bronx. Sounds like you're better off working for Facebook.
I don't think most spies are in it for the money. I can pretty much guarantee that FBI/CIA/NSA salaries are all lower than those of the top tech companies.
I would really like to see some hard numbers. I know the salaries are public, but I wonder if there are bonuses that aren't included and benefits such as housing/car/food/etc. I'm sure some are contractors rather than employees. I wonder how much they make.
Red scare material packaged as a human interest story, now with a Democratic slant to adjust to a new Republican who is reportedly chummy with Russians. It's funny how they always say the KGB/SVR is the counterpart to the the CIA but never describe the CIA as the counterpart to the KGB/SVR.
Red scare material packaged as a human interest story, now with a Democratic slant to adjust to a new Republican who is reportedly chummy with Russians.
No, it's just routine (and useful) reporting on the everday business of spycraft.
It's funny how they always say the KGB/SVR is the counterpart to the the CIA but never describe the CIA as the counterpart to the KGB/SVR.
It's called an "analogy", and it's a pretty useful tool of expression. Particularly for describing "Y, the counterpart of X" where X is a large agency in the (very large) country you live in.
So really, I just don't get the "scare" component you're driving at.
"It's funny how they always say the KGB/SVR is the counterpart to the the CIA but never describe the CIA as the counterpart to the KGB/SVR."
Is this a reference to "the SVR, Moscow’s version of the CIA"? Don't you usually use the construction "X is the counterpart to Y" when Y is the more familiar to the intended audience? I don't see anything sinister here, at least in this grammar construction.
It was in reference to that, in the context of the larger body of text that has been written about intelligence services. Even when the CIA is the subject, I don't think I've ever seen them presented as America's version of [other country's intelligence service] (especially not the bad guys). But the other direction has been so common over the years that it's begun to stand out when I see it.
Like I said, to an English-speaking (arguably American, as Bloomberg is based in Manhattan) audience, it makes little sense to phrase it the other way. You compare the unknown with the known, not the other way around.
Compare:
"Pachinko, the Japanese version of a slot machine."
"A slot machine, the American version of pachinko."
Which version is intended for an American audience? Which for an audience familiar with Japan? There's nothing nefarious here.
If that stands out to you, I think you may be looking too hard for bias to the point where you're seeing things that aren't there. Keeping an eye out for bias is a good thing. It can be sometimes difficult to keep it calibrated.
The phrasing is not a sign of bias specifically. It's just a peculiarity that I've seen in this style of journalism going back to the Cold War era when "KGB" was a household word.
Maybe I've binged too much on 1970s and 1980s news with the benefit of hindsight, and it's coloring what I expect my perception of today's fluff pieces to be if I read them again in 30 years.
I think it's just because the SVR is not a household brand in the same way that the CIA is and the KGB was (you never saw the KGB described that way either).
The CIA, KGB and MI5 are Hollywood staples; the SVR isn't, yet.
(In a similar way GCHQ is often described as "the UK's counterpart to the NSA" or words to that effect).
The tl;drs miss the hilarious assertion that Russia is somehow responsible for the outcome of the election. Nevermind Assange's denials.
"The espionage story of the year, and perhaps one of the greatest foreign operations in decades, has undoubtedly been Russia’s successful effort to influence this fall’s presidential election through hacking—penetrating Democratic National Committee servers and the e-mail account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman."
Why? Not unilaterally deciding the US presidential election isn't mutually exclusive with "one of the greatest foreign operations in decades". I might disagree with their assessment, but Russia did influence the election and someone could at least attempt the argument that it was "one of the greatest foreign operations in decades"
I love how a weak assertion made by the DNC to deflect attention away from the actual email content has now been silently elevated into a "fact" mindlessly parroted like here.
I trust in DKIM signatures. Any statement by an intelligence service ever is caked in multiple layers of conflicting motivations from expanding their budget, pleasing their lax overseers, deflecting incompetence to confusing adversaries.
And these are just the generic reasons. In this particular case, the first obvious question is why NSA et al. would ever state their certainty in a Russian attack publicly. There are no good outcomes. Either they are right and the Russians blow up the bridges as they retreat or they are wrong and the Russians know they are incompetent.
How would DKIM signatures show who stole the e-mails?
>
I trust in DKIM signatures. Any statement by an intelligence service ever is caked in multiple layers of conflicting motivations from expanding their budget, pleasing their lax overseers, deflecting incompetence to confusing adversaries.
That is some of the motivations, the negative ones, but you fail to list all the reasons they wouldn't want to lie to make your argument sound stronger.
I understand being skeptical of an intelligence service, but all intelligence services? Well, you'd have to have a pretty strong reason to doubt.
Its a play on the 'The Spy Who ___ Me' title meme. I thought it was very fun and did a good job communicating how mundane the lives of the spies really were, which appeared to be a thesis or at least supporting point of the article.
Tl;dr: Russian spy brought bug into secure facility, revealed other spies. FBI deals with it.
Not sure why LinkedIn is even mentioned... a quick search on the whole page (ignoring the title/post categories) is just this one sentence...
> By day, Buryakov lived the ordinary life of a Wall Street analyst: reading and writing reports; attending meetings, conferences, and parties; building connections on LinkedIn.
But its an interesting read, even with the weird title...
That I was able to work out the intention of a sentence does not mean the sentence should have existed in the first place. It's already used up more of my time than any actual content—why didn't they use a descriptive title?
The timing of the story is not a coincidence I am guessing. They mentioned the "election" so I am assuming it is playing along with the Russians have rigged the election and KGB agents are everywhere. And that's why Clinton's campaign resulted in worse Democratic election performance in 28 years. I don't know about anyone else, I but I am getting a little tired of blaming the Russians for everything. Wonder if editors would agree that we should be a lot stricter with our immigration policy and vet people better before letting them come in...