“Guccifer2”'s second release from DNC hack

https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/hillary-clinton/

by chvid • 10 years ago

122 92 10 years ago

guccifer2.wordpress.com

andrewdb• 10 years ago

This should go without saying, but be careful downloading those documents. Guccifer 2.0 could have added a malware payload.

ifoundthetao• 10 years ago

Well, I'm glad you said it (:

kristofferR• 10 years ago

Clean according to VirusTotal at least.

davesque• 10 years ago

He also could have added his own content to craft his own narrative. I doubt any of the documents were digitally signed or could really be verified for their authenticity in any way.

hackuser• 10 years ago

That's just a different kind of malware payload, and probably a more consequential one.

DAllison• 10 years ago

The xlsx files in the first 2.0 leak were definitely not the originals (generated using Russian software).

arca_vorago• 10 years ago

These days I think I would be more concerned about where you downloaded it from. TPTB want the social graph of people who pay attention to this sort of thing, so the metadata of access is the real juice of this and similar (wiki leaks, crypto me, etc)

atonse• 10 years ago

Crazy. How is this going to alter opsec in future campaigns?

Campaigns have members and volunteers with such varied skill sets. Putting security policies in would be a big ask.

tptacek9• 10 years ago

Not at all. All campaigns are owned up all the time.

tptacek9• 10 years ago

The prevailing attitude in the software security community seems to be, Russia or not, this is probably not just some random hacker doing it for the lulz.

The game theory of publicly hacking the DNC before an election makes zero sense (what happens when/if Clinton wins), but that doesn't mean some other organization couldn't be doing it just to mess with them.

alanh• 10 years ago

The game theory of publicly hacking the DNC before an election makes zero sense (what happens when/if Clinton wins)

I’m having a hard time following this. The game theory of… Russians?… hacking the DNC for what purpose? How would a Clinton win affect this?

In an earlier statement, Trump said the hack was a political ploy concocted by the Democrats. (Bloomberg)

Or maybe you’re referring to that?

eli6• 10 years ago

The "Democrats hacked themselves" is not a very good theory. I can't fathom what they would have to gain from it and, regardless, I'm certain the Clinton campaign does not want to remind people how easy it is to hack private servers.

tptacek9• 10 years ago

Sorry, I was typing on my phone earlier.

It is awfully high risk and awfully low reward for Russia to hack the DNC right before the 2016 election. The Democrats are likely to win, and they'll come into office with a fresh memory of Russia having screwed with them.

On the other hand: if they did hack the DNC, but screwed up by getting caught, maybe it makes sense to recast the operation as some sort of Wikileaks-esque information liberation strike?

Or, some faction either inside or outside of Russia is actively trying to mess with some other faction inside of Russia by implicating them in such a cartoonish plot.

The thing I don't see being taken very seriously among security people is the idea that there is a random hacker somewhere in eastern Europe who pulled this off on their own. Not because it would be hard to do, but because the specific traces that apparently got left don't make sense for a freelancer.

chvid2• 10 years ago

Obviously blaming the Russians is a way to spin / do damage control.

On the other hand - there are foreign interest in American politics. Just look at the big donations from Norway and Saudi Arabia. (Top donors though are "Children's Investment Fund Foundation" and other charities "for the children" :-).)

And why is anyone paying nearly 1 mio. USD for a speech? You must be getting more than what you can get by watching TV.

chvid2• 10 years ago

Besides that; I find it odd that the files have very little authorship/revision history. Maybe someone more well-versed in MS Office can explain this?

criley2• 10 years ago

And why is anyone paying nearly 1 mio. USD for a speech? You must be getting more than what you can get by watching TV.

Access is what you buy. Facetime. Your name in their rolodex.

These leaks show Donald Trump paid $115,000 for a Clinton speech, and as he says in his own words, he used that influence to buy the Clinton presence at his wedding.

No one cares about the speech, he paid $115k to get them to show to a wedding

strictnein• 10 years ago

The "Romanian" hacker whose command of the Romanian language is suspect:

https://motherboard.vice.com/read/dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-int...

tanderson9211• 10 years ago

As tptacek indicates, it isn't remarkable that the DNC was hacked or that this hack is legit. What is interesting is the content; Parts 1 & 2 suggest, but do not confirm, that the DNC was operating as an ally of the Clinton campaign.

E.g. lots of HRC defense docs, oppo research on Biden, prominence given to HRC in candidate position tableaus, etc.

chrischen• 10 years ago

This probably isn't surprising, since Bernie was openly considered the outsider, but it definitely doesn't mean it's right. But because it was basically understood this probably won't change anything.

eli6• 10 years ago

Why is it remarkable that the DNC is an ally of one of the most prominent Democrats in the country?

tanderson9211• 10 years ago

It's remarkable that the documents show the DNC positioning themselves as an ally of a prominent Democrat in May of 2015 (and October, re: Biden) who was not the nominee and who hadn't been voted on by any American.

In other words: favoritism in a party primary by the party infrastructure is supposed to be verboten.

mtgx• 10 years ago

Because for better or for worse, the DNC pretends to hold "fair elections" in its primary. Yet at the same time it's been favoring Hillary all along. Because of the elections thing, the DNC is supposed to be fair to all candidates and not try to promote one candidate over another, set-up more people to applause for a particulate candidate in the debates, send more flyers that promote one candidate over another, and so on.

If the DNC would just "appoint" its favorite candidate, that would be fine. It's kind of a normal thing to do in Europe, actually. But then, just like in Europe, the Dem and Rep parties would have to allow other parties in the general election as well, and set up a system that works for third parties, because chances are more often than not people wouldn't be happy with the main parties' "appointed candidates".

Both the DNC and the RNC want to maintain the pretense of "fair elections" within their parties, so that people think their voices are heard, so they don't need to join another party and form a competitive grassroots movement.

duaneb• 10 years ago

they actively deny favoritism, lying to their voters.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

If I were in charge of a large political organization I'd do adversarial research on all my potential candidates.

nix0n• 10 years ago

Clinton and Biden are both Democrats.

tanderson9211• 10 years ago

If this were the case we'd expect similar documents on HRC. So far, all we have are talking points meant to counter various negative stories and narratives about her. There is an asymmetry here in the docs on each candidate and potential candidate.

That isn't exactly a balanced approach to adversarial research (which, I agree, is not a poor idea in and of itself).

cmdrfred• 10 years ago

I thought that was a given. The DNC basically laundered money for Clinton to get around campaign finance laws[0].

[0] http://www.npr.org/2015/12/23/460762853/how-hillary-clinton-...

tptacek9• 10 years ago

Just by framing a comment like this you're taking the person who claims to have broken into the DNC at their word, that they're not releasing selectively to build a narrative.

tanderson9211• 10 years ago

You know, you are right. This is the framing of the narrative I have long suspected (and there is plenty of other evidence not related to this hack supporting the theory). It is possible that the DNC had similar oppo research on HRC that is unreleased. I regret the wording of my post because the reality is simply more complex (though I did mention that it was only suggestive evidence, not conclusive proof by any means).

Of course, my bias in accepting a narrative too easily isn't real evidence that the DNC did not act as allies: there is too much existing (confirmed) evidence corroborating that.

And, as mentioned downthread, the DNC could release documents showing that they did oppo research on HRC as well.

20tibbygt06• 10 years ago

Article talking about the files here. [0]

Also, I find it interesting that the Clinton Foundation has come out saying they have been breached as well. [1]

[0] http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hacker-releases-clinton-fo... [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-21/clinton-fo...

paragraph of interest:

"Clinton Foundation officials said the organization hadn’t been notified of the breach and declined to comment further. The compromise of the foundation’s computers was first identified by government investigators as recently as last week, the people familiar with the matter said. Agents monitor servers used by hackers to communicate with their targets, giving them a back channel view of attacks, often even before the victims detect them."

Overtonwindow• 10 years ago

This is what I like, equal opportunity hacking.

sickbeard• 10 years ago

Except when the FBI hacks an iphone. Then we all get mad

sjwright3• 10 years ago

I don't recall anyone getting mad at the FBI hacking an iPhone.

What I think you're referring to is when "we all" got mad at the FBI for trying to force Apple to hack an iPhone. "We all" objected to the idea of a national government compelling a private company to invent new lock-picking tools.

cromwellian2• 10 years ago

I wish someone would hack major news organizations, especially FoxNews, so that we can see the extent to which the news organizations collaborate and act on behalf of the political parties and donors.

shard9722• 10 years ago

Can't, they have actual firewalls and some basic security competence.

mSparks2• 10 years ago

If you think that just because all their editors are on CIA payroll, I think you have to much faith in CIA security.

PopsiclePete• 10 years ago

Why the hell are these docx and xlsx files? What kind of macro malware b.s. did he put in them? No way am I reading anything that's not plain 7bit ASCII from that website.

chmielewski• 10 years ago

NSI... despicable. Reading this can get you a court date.

“Guccifer2”'s second release from DNC hack

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