The Russians Did(n't Do) It

“[The CIA] haven’t come out with the evidence to show the tracing of the data from the DNC server to, for example the Russians, or anybody else, or going from them to WikiLeaks, which is a high priority target for NSA, in terms of network monitoring,” [former National Security Agency technical director and NSA whistleblower William] Binney told RT.

  RT

Here are some excerpts from Binney's posted memorandum at Consortium News:

A New York Times report on Monday alluding to “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump” is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking – by Russians or anyone else.

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Reading our short memo could save the Senate from endemic partisanship, expense and unnecessary delay.

  Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity @ Consortium News

Yes, but then how could they justify their likely conclusions that Russia hacked our election and keep the public's mind full of Russia as evil enemy?

All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it – and know both sender and recipient.

In short, since leaking requires physically removing data – on a thumb drive, for example – the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.

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Thanks largely to the material released by Edward Snowden, we can provide a full picture of NSA’s extensive domestic data-collection network.

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[A]ny data that is passed from the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) – or any other server in the U.S. – is collected by the NSA.

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When email packets leave the U.S., the other “Five Eyes” countries (the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and the seven or eight additional countries participating with the U.S. in bulk-collection of everything on the planet would also have a record of where those email packets went after leaving the U.S.

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The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network.

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The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network.

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The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods.

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Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked.

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Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider – as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

Now that's a different  - and bold - take on the situation.  And it makes perfect sense.

[Binney] citied a previous occasion when the NSA showed the trace route of a hack from China back to a specific building in China.

“If you did it then, why are not going to do it now when this is a very serious allegation?” Binney said.

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“When you send something across the network you are sending it into NSA land, and they own everything,” Binney said. “They have tens of thousands of embedded implants in terms of hardware and software around switches of the world, and they got trace route programs by the hundreds all around the switches, and they are collecting at different points throughout the network in the entire world, redundant collection. So, there is no excuse for them not to have both the content and the trace route, anything going across the network.”

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“[A] new Cold War” [means] trillions of dollars going into the coffers of [people wanting to sustain a large military budget], they would certainly be advocates for this thing. There is a lot of vested interest to keep this kind of thing going,” Binney added.

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“If the CIA is alleging a different story, they need to produce the evidence like they did on the Chinese hack,” Binney said. “There is no reason to withhold this kind of information, especially if they can prove it and so far as I can see they won’t even brief the House Intelligence Committee on the evidence they are using to make this statement. That tells me that what they are saying is a pack of crap.”

  RT

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.