Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-hacking-offenses-related-2016-election

by ccnafr • 8 years ago

180 103 8 years ago

justice.gov

silveira• 8 years ago

Full indictment document: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download

toufka2• 8 years ago

So GRU, during Moscow work-hours, searched for terms like: "worldwide known", "think twice about", "some hundred sheets", and "company's competence".

And those terms happen to all show up later that day in this post: https://guccifer2.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/dnc/

We all here talked about that release at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912412

Our top comment suggested, "The media (and CrowdStrike) blame Russians for it [0]. Heh... yet this blog and the hacker himself, says he did it alone. // Yes, APTs definitely do happen but I'd bet they happen a lot less frequently than the media and security companies would want us to believe."

Those same computers controlled the twitter accounts, @dceaks_ (https://twitter.com/dcleaks_?lang=en), @Guccifer_2 (https://twitter.com/Guccifer_2) and the now-suspended, @BaltimoreIsWhr.

Those computers also negotiated bitcoin transactions for VPN services, made numerous encouraging facebook posts, transferred data to WikiLeaks, and registered relevant domain names.

And finally those computers communicated with:

1) a candidate for US Congress,

2) a registered state lobbyist,

3) a reporter,

4) a senior member of the Trump campaign.

Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, that same day, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."

koolba2• 8 years ago

Additionally, on July 27, Trump suggested in his speech, "Russia, if you're listening. I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." And those same computers, "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts... used by Clinton's personal office."

Anyone who has seen the actual video for that blurb that doesn’t take it as a joke should re-evaluate their sense of humor.

bcoates2• 8 years ago

The indictment doesn't assert an APT, just plain-old spearphish, steal password, install backdoor. If this was the GRU they didn't need their top men. 100% consistent with the "it could have been anybody, and probably multiple attackers got in" theory.

Note that the communications with the politicians and reporters are all a month or more after the leaks and their contents were public knowledge.

pdeuchler• 8 years ago

replace "computer" with "IP address" and all the sudden that evidence becomes much less convincing

colinbartlett• 8 years ago

The indictment is a reminder of just how much data can be pieced together about a person's online activity, at least with considerable resources and seemingly proper court authorized warrants. From web searches, to emails, twitter posts, block chain transactions, all of it could be correlated together. The searching for specific phrases that then appeared in a text is particularly damning.

What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed?

civilitty3• 8 years ago

What I could not glean from the indictment is how they could possibly have identified these 12 people individually. The government must have some other sigint or humint for that? Will this ever make it to trial so that evidence can be revealed?

These indictments are the result of a massive counterintelligence operation spanning many agencies from several nations. In this case specifically, the AIVD (Dutch intel) hacked the GRU offices where a large part of the hacking was carried out and managed to exfiltrate significant amounts of evidence including CCTV security footage of GRU officers coming and going [1]. The evidence proving the crimes for the purposes of a conviction will be made public but unless lawyers for the defendants come to challenge the warrants and get them unsealed, the evidence that led to the public stuff will likely stay secret for decades.

[1] https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-...

toufka2• 8 years ago

And given those extreme resources I am curious whether there is more or less detail in regards to the US-persons side of this investigation.

akhilcacharya• 8 years ago

I wonder what the folks that kept claiming an inside job have to say about this?

threeseed• 8 years ago

In particular Assange and Wikileaks.

He publicly supported the claim it was the DNC and every day it looks like Wikileaks was just being used as an information laundering service for the Russians.

robotrout• 8 years ago

I had not been aware the the government had ever obtained access to the DNC server. I assume that will be a key piece of evidence for prosecution and for defense, so they must finally have it. That's good. Would have been better two years ago, but good that they have it now.

bcoates2• 8 years ago

I'm going to guess it's the usual reminder that statements in indictments are a description of the story the prosecutor plans to tell, not what they can actually prove. They are allowed to leave out anything that isn't consistent with their story.

hanshan2• 8 years ago

The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways,”
“Together with our law enforcement partners, the Department of Justice is resolute in its commitment to locate, identify and seek to bring to justice anyone who interferes with American elections.

Sounds like Don Quixote is fighting the internet now. Unless you just shut it down how is it possible to not have world wide "interference" on the world wide web? Perhaps we need to think about how the instantaneous global communications network is obsolescing the concept of the nation state which was formed as a result of the printing press.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy

Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious, and there will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us.

That sounds like a fitting description of mass media/news corporations everywhere.

RIMR• 8 years ago

Wow, when a foreign government tries to influence our elections, you handwave it away, but when American journalists weigh in on politics, suddenly they're being "adversarial".

Think long and hard about what you're saying here. You're dismissing foreign interference, but critisizing domestic political involvement.

The key difference here is that Russia isn't the United States and has no say in our policies, while American journalists are citizens and voters who have a societal duty to participate the democracy. When the former gets involved in an election, we call it "foreign interference", when the latter gets involved we call it "democracy".

So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy?

hanshan2• 8 years ago

So which do you prefer? Foreign manipulation of public will, or democracy?

That's a false dichotomy which implies you missed my point. There is no such thing as sovereign democracy in a globalized world with omnipresence and instantaneous communication.

abowlofpetunias• 8 years ago

Thanks for your genuine opinion, 4-day-old account in a heavily bombarded thread.

pluto9• 8 years ago

From the comment guidelines [1]:

Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.

Also, your own account is all of 40 days old and you have a grand total of 8 comments, so you don't really have a leg to stand on here.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

wyck• 8 years ago

Hopefully Craig Murray is not on suicide watch.

pseingatl• 8 years ago

"Prosecutor in [*] Files Charges against American NSA Officers" Just a question of time, I suppose.

akozak• 8 years ago

There's been a longstanding struggle between the design principles of cryptocurrency - i.e. private payments - and the public policy goals of monitoring our payments infrastructure for criminal activity. What are cryptocurrency advocates saying now about e.g. FinCEN's jurisdiction over exchanges? Is KYC now standard? Do they submit SARs? Do they agree with the principles, or are they opposed to any sort of oversight?

mkempe9• 8 years ago

Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators, for hacking and interference in their own electoral processes.

Reminder: the NSA has been hacking into governments and businesses all over the world.

dragonwriter14• 8 years ago

Expect some countries to start charging US IC operators.

Start?

It's hardly as if US intelligence officers have never previously been charged by foreign governments.

mkempe9• 8 years ago

Yes, for torture [1], assassination [2], rendition [3], and war crimes [4][5]. Never merely for propaganda.

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/14/spain-to-indict-the-bus...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/cia-long-his...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/europe/05italy.html

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/nov/15/us-army-and-cia-...

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/12/0...

neeksHN• 8 years ago

At trial, prosecutors must introduce credible evidence that is sufficient to prove each defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, to the unanimous satisfaction of a jury of twelve citizens.
This case was investigated with the help of the FBI’s cyber teams in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and San Francisco and the National Security Division.

Assuming this never goes to trial, could the DOJ ever be compelled to release the evidence used to attribute the defendants? Or will it remain "pending arraignment" indefinitely?

I'd love to see an in-depth technical analysis of how they were able to substantiate these allegations

dsr_• 8 years ago

If it never goes to trial? The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years.

okmokmz• 8 years ago

The only hope is filing a FOIA request, which will probably be denied for 20-50 years.

Either that, or they'll send you a bunch of documents that look something like this

https://static.businessinsider.com/image/4cc59ba2cadcbbbf5f0...

mkempe9• 8 years ago

Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence used to charge them?

dragonwriter14• 8 years ago

Are the accused allowed to examine the evidence use to charge them?

If they actually are arrested or surrender themselves to face the charges, yes, mostly. That is, they are entitled to not only what the prosecution will use at trial, but to have any exculpatory evidence in the hands of the government proactively turned over, and to have compulsory means of securing any relevant evidence, physical or testimonial, from any person subject to the court.

But that's likely moot in this case; these defendants seem unlikely to be brought before the court, voluntarily or involuntarily.

dragonwriter14• 8 years ago

Assuming this never goes to trial, could the DOJ ever be compelled to release the evidence used to attribute the defendants

If you meant “ever”, then yes, but that would require the indicted individuals actually be arrested and brought before the court, which, while not impossible, is improbable without a change of government in both the US and Russia.

If it didn't go to trial, and it's classified (which it almost certainly is) or otherwise not subject to FOIA (which as sensitive, even if it not classified, information related to an open criminal case, which it will be until the case is resolved, it will continue to be at a minimum, it would seem exempt from) there won't be any likely compulsory process. Maybe Congress could pry it out of DoJ and make it public, by at least the current leadership send willing to stand up to intense pressure including public impeachment threats from the same party in Congress on at least some sensitive investigation information, so it's not clear that would work, either.

bunderbunder• 8 years ago

Even if it goes to trial, the DOJ is likely to be allowed to file that evidence under seal.

onetimemanytime2• 8 years ago

My guess is that Russia will fund one charged guy to hire a a top US lawyer and fight the charges.

A Russian company--allegedly doing Russia's dirty work--hired top US lawyers and they are giving DOJ a heartburn...they must share evidence (can tell how it was obtained) and get ready to go to trial. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/05/09/concord-manag...

crb002• 8 years ago

My thoughts exactly. GRU is going to use discovery to get at how the US spied on GRU.

hollerith• 8 years ago

I think the US intelligence community is competent and influential enough to get the DOJ to drop the charges before Russia gained significant knowledge that way.

arwineap• 8 years ago

You might be interested in some of the FBI's previous work

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/operation-ghost-stories-ins...

pwaai• 8 years ago

What will be America's next move here? They are looking awful weak right now.

dragonwriter14• 8 years ago

Replying to an unfortunately killed comment which raised common, potentially legitimate (given the success of various spin efforts) though naive and poorly informed questions:

Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake?

It's the Russian election meddling scandal, the hacking was just one piece of it, and, yes, much of the information fed to the public in the course of that operation was false.

Some of that has been covered in the special counsel’s previous indictment of Russian organizations and individuals involved in the propaganda end of the operation.

Because if the issue is that "Russia meddled!" by showing true things

It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US (that is itself part of a larger operation being conducted not only the US but the entire Western Alliance), that that influence operation was integral to the success of the Presidential campaign, and that the US President (who is, by virtue of that position, also effective head of a major US political party) may, therefore, effectively be an agent of a hostile foreign power working against the interests of the US and her allies.

mkempe9• 8 years ago

The claim that President Trump is an anti-American, Russian agent is insane.

[added] I will not provide any reply or assistance if you further promote, hypothesize, or engage in crazy conspiracy theories.

myko4• 8 years ago

His policies are fairly anti-western alliance, which has defined America for nearly a century. It's unlikely he's a Russian agent but he certainly seems to be influenced by at least one. His son definitely attempted to work with the Russian government to help get Trump elected, even though he knew they were doing something illegal.

wongarsu2• 8 years ago

Hypothetically, if a Russian agent became President of the USA, what would you expect him to do? Try to withdraw from as many international treaties as possible? Insult foreign heads of state and sabotage America's relationship with their allies? Refuse to enact sanctions against Russia?

I don't think Trump is a Russian agent, but I wouldn't call the idea crazy

jdoliner2• 8 years ago

It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US

That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents and the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe [0]. When you say "active collaboration" what does that actually mean? And could you present some evidence of it?

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-19/rosenstei...

puzzle• 8 years ago

Yes, only Russian agents are indicted this time, but someone who might be Roger Stone makes a brief appearance (#44) in the document, too, probably to be targeted in future legal action.

michaelmrose• 8 years ago

There was a meeting with a foreign ambassador offering to collaborate which was met with enthusiasm by trumps people who we are to believe knew nothing about this even though he was in the same building a few floors above.

He then went on TV and called for the Russians to hack Hillary.

drewrv• 8 years ago

Meetings between high level Trump campaign officials and Russia are public knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_campaign%E2%80%93Russian...

fzeroracer• 8 years ago

You need to realize that just because he isn't a 'target' at this time, it does not mean he cannot become a target in the future. Right now he is considered a subject of the investigation and his behavior/actions are under scrutiny of the Mueller investigation. If Trump is elevated to target of the investigation, then that means the Mueller investigation has significant evidence that a crime was committed.

Considering how many high level people in Trump's close orbit have been indicted or investigated it would be extremely difficult for him to have not known about any of this occurring in his campaign.

dragonwriter14• 8 years ago

That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents

This is not the only indictment by the special counsel office, and the statement of the offense in one of the guilty pleas in a prior indictment is directly about active collusion efforts.

And I'm discussing what is at issue in the scandal, not merely what is covered by indictments that have already been issued.

the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe

People read too much into that, because they tend to think that “target” is a broader term than it is, particularly, that it includes what is actually termed a “subject” rather than a “target”. That's notable because the special counsel has also explicitly said Trump is a subject of the investigation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/trump-t...

cmurf3• 8 years ago

The president is a subject of the probe, which is the ambiguous position of possibly being a witness or eventually becoming a target.

As for active collaboration? The DAG Rod Rosenstein told Trump these indictments were coming and their nature. And today Trump decides not to push back on Putin/Russia for these actions, but he impugned Robert Mueller with "rigged witch hunt" claims. Again. That is giving aid and comfort to Putin/Russia by papering over, giving them cover for, attacks/crimes on the United States, its people, its institutions, and at least two candidates.

He has been doing a variation on this for two years: maybe they did it, maybe they didn't, Putin denies it so we should believe that because Putin is a good guy and we should just get along, and maybe it was China and maybe it was a 400 pound fat man in a bed.

And what he is doing is two fold: Demanding Americans believe Trump over Mueller, which is hilarious, insane, and ridiculous. But that's just what this presidency has mostly given us in spades. And then demanding that American believe Putin over Mueller and U.S. intelligence agencies!

Trump says he will "ask the question" again to Putin. The false premise is that there is even a question but that too is active collaboration with Russia by accepting that Putin has a more reliable answer to give than Trump's own intelligence service, and his own DOJ, and the special counsel.

Active collaboration is happening in broad daylight.

stochastic_monk• 8 years ago

Yes, it was. Guccifer leaked documents which have been demonstrated to have been altered.

mciak• 8 years ago

Two things stand out to me here:

(1) CrowdStrike, for all intents and purposes, failed. Russia had access to dem servers for four months after they were hired

(2) Donors trying to use ActBlue (fairly major way dems raise money) were taken to a spoofed Russian site. Stealing democratic campaign donations feels like a very direct attack on the democratic process

orbitingpluto• 8 years ago

"On the evening of June 15, 2016 between 4:19PM and 4:56PM, defendants used their Moscow-based server to search for a series of English words and phrases that later appeared in Guccifer 2.0’s first blog post..."

That has got to be one of the scarier things I've read in some time as to the depth and breadth of current surveillance.

frankquist• 8 years ago

Depth, certainly. Breadth, not necessarily (though I don't want to have much illusions regarding breadth). It could very well be that this information was gleaned from when the dutch hacked Cozy Bear. If that's the same group. https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-... (link copied from another comment)

cmurf3• 8 years ago

From the indictment with my comments in []

22. On or about July 27 2016 the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a 3rd party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.

[July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if you're listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find Clinton's 'missing' emails.]

34. In or around Sep 2016 the Conspirators successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on 3rd party cloud-computing services. These computers contained test applications related to the DNC's analytics. After conducting reconnaissance, the Conspirators gathered data by creating backups, or snapshots, of the DNC's cloud-based systems using the cloud provider's own technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based accounts they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the DNC.

[Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in the cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic evidence to show how the theft occurred.]

43a. On or about Aug 15 2016, the Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0 recieved a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent.

[Let's pretend this candidate didn't know Guccifer 2.0 was the GRU. He still knew he was asking for and receiving illegally obtained documents.]

72. In or around July 2016, KOVALEV and his co-conspirators hacked the website of a state board of elections (SBOE 1) and stole information related to approximately 500,000 voters including names, addresses, party affiliation, social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver's license numbers.

There are quite a few Americans "involved" either by being affected by ID theft by a crime organization purporting to be a government[1]; an American soliciting a foreign government to commit a crime the proceeds of which would likely benefit his campaign; and at least one American who solicited materials obtained in course of a crime who then received those materials to use against a competing candidate for Congress.

So the idea that American's aren't involved is nonsense. There are no Americans indicted for crimes in this particular filing, however.

[1] This is diplomatic. The less diplomatic version is that this is one nation attacking another, and is an act of war. That's how spy games get characterized when you get caught and revealed to the public.

keketi4• 8 years ago

[July 27 2016 is the date on which Trump said on national TV "Russia if you're listening..." and invited Russia to commit a crime to hack and find Clinton's 'missing' emails.]

Trump's words were "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing"[1]. In my view, interpreting that as a call to commit a crime is a stretch.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-...

[Trump claims the DNC did not turn over the hacked (physical) server to the FBI. And per this indictment it's clear it was a virtual server hosted in the cloud and at least Mueller's team does have quite a bit of forensic evidence to show how the theft occurred.]

Trump's claims are supported by Comey's testimony on March 20, 2017 that the FBI never got any kind of access, physical or virtual, to any DNC machine.

HURD: [...] you have still been -- never been given access to any of the technical or the physical machines that were -- that were hacked by the Russians.
COMEY: That's correct although we got the forensics from the pros that they hired which -- again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this -- my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1703/20/cnr.07.html

creaghpatr2• 8 years ago

The FBI only stated that they believed Crowdstrike but they themselves never obtained or examined the server despite multiple attempts.

onetimemanytime2• 8 years ago

Personally I have no doubt that many US persons (R.S. is probably one of them) sought the aid of Russia to elect Trump. They thought that Hillary was corrupt or whatever and Russia could unmask her. The fact that Russia did it, to them is irrelevant, the "truth" was revealed. I am also certain that the end didn't justify the means in this case, USA is right to through the kitchen sink at the people involved...we have elections every 2-4 years and a message should be sent. (USA did the same is not a moral equivalent to me)

cmurf3• 8 years ago

Rod Rosenstein said he briefed the president that this indictment was coming today. The president chose today to attack, from Buckinghamshire, Mueller and the probe as a rigged witch hunt yet again. The White House statement amounts to "it proves we did nothing, Americans weren't involved" but no statement pushing back on Russia at all. No condemnation at all.

But this is from a president who has said about Putin:

"He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times"

"Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that"

"And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it."

"I think he is very insulted by it."

The timing of this indictment is obvious to probably most people, but in particular to people who have studied or are professionals in international relations - it is to give the president the option to cancel the meeting in Helsinki. To give him the option to recalibrate and criticize Putin.

But instead what we've got so far is more "witch hunt" paranoid conspiratorial nonsense which is identical to the single public contribution of significance Trump produced before becoming president: five years of the racist lie of birtherism, followed by an admission otherwise while simultaneously lying again by blaming Clinton for having started the conspiracy. This is a man who will make up anything, do anything, lie about anything, and blame anyone for all of it without any reluctance whatsoever.

And it will continue that way.

mkempe9• 8 years ago

The storyline behind the charges is self-contradictory -- according to Muller's indictments:

a) Russian intelligence tried to hack Hillary's personal email system for the first time on July 27 2016.

b) Russian cutout Joseph Mifsud told George Papadopoulos on April 26 2016 that Russia already had thousands of her emails.

Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

Related Stories