Who Hacked the White House?
The Russia-haters are sure they know
By Justin Raimondo
April 28, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Antiwar"
- When the hacking of Sony’s computer system produced a brouhaha of
ridiculous proportions, the government’s pet “experts” were
quick to blame North Korea. The rationale: Since Sony was releasing a pretty
awful anti-North Korean
propaganda film, it was only obvious that King Jong-un was personally
responsible. Besides that, the attack
supposedly originated in a region of cyberspace inhabited by North Korea’s
pathetic Internet superstructure.
There was just one problem with that oh-so-convenient
scenario: it wasn’t based on anything but suppositions. Indeed, several
computer experts – not connected to the government – hotly disputed this
explanation, and instead pointed to the ease with which the hackers penetrated
the system to show that it was most likely an inside job, the work of an
employee with intimate knowledge of the system and a grudge against Sony.
Indeed, such a person was quickly
identified: a former employee who had been fired and had vowed to get even.
Yet Washington, for its own reasons, ignored this rather compelling evidence and
stuck to its story: so did their pet “experts,” who have a vested economic
interest in hyping the alleged “threat” posed by hackers in the service of
foreign enemies – all the better to ensure that plenty of taxpayer
dollars will continue to fill their coffers.
Now we have another hack attack, supposedly coming from the
Russians. The New York Times
reports:
“Some of
President Obama‘s email correspondence was swept up by Russian hackers last
year in a breach of the White House’s unclassified computer system that was far
more intrusive and worrisome than has been publicly acknowledged, according to
senior American officials briefed on the investigation.”
Not a shred of evidence is given as to the identity or
nationality of the hackers except the assertions of anonymous government
officials. We have to wait until the seventh paragraph to read that they “are
presumed to be linked to the Russian government, if not working for it.”
A few paragraphs later, at the very end, we get this:
“‘This has been one of the most
sophisticated actors we’ve seen,’ said one senior American official briefed on
the investigation.
“Others confirmed that the White
House intrusion was viewed as so serious that officials met on a nearly daily
basis for several weeks after it was discovered. ‘It’s the Russian angle to this
that’s particularly worrisome,’ another senior official said.
“While Chinese hacking groups are
known for sweeping up vast amounts of commercial and design information, the
best Russian hackers tend to hide their tracks better and focus on specific,
often political targets. And the hacking happened at a moment of renewed tension
with Russia – over its annexation of Crimea, the presence of its forces in
Ukraine and its renewed military patrols in Europe, reminiscent of the Cold
War.”
Okay, so let’s summarize the evidence we’re given in this
piece pointing to the Russians:
1) The culprits are “sophisticated actors.”
2) It can’t be the Chinese because they only care about money
– so it must be the Russians, because the targets were political. Besides, the
Russians “hide their tracks better.”
3) The timing: “it happened at a moment of renewed tension
with Russia.”
Is it really necessary to debunk this pallid ghost of an
argument? To begin with, there are plenty of “sophisticated actors” in the
hacking world, not all of whom are acting on behalf of a state. Secondly, if the
culprits in this instance hid their tracks well, how is it that we traced them –
and how certain can we be it was the Russians? As for the timing question: we’ve
been having moments of “tension” with a large number of international
adversaries over the past year, any one of which could have been responsible.
Another article over at Motherboard is
even more laughable.
“Security researchers say they have found actual evidence
linking the attack to the Russian government, or at least, Russian hackers.
“The campaign that targeted the White House, nicknamed
CozyDuke, appears to have similar code, infrastructure, and political interests
as past attacks that were linked to Russian hackers who were possibly working
for the government, the researchers say.”
“Past attacks linked to Russian hackers” – with what evidence?
If ever there was an example of confirmation bias, then this is it. “Similar
code” and “infrastructure”? Don’t make me laugh: malware code is free-floating
and
widely available. Anyone could’ve developed the particular phishing
malware used to compromise White House and State Department computer systems. As
for those “political interests,” this is absolute nonsense: is the Kremlin the
only government on earth with a motive for breaking into US government computer
systems? And it gets worse:
“CozyDuke was carried out by the same group behind
sophisticated cyberespionage campaigns known as
MiniDuke and
CosmicDuke, according to
the security firm Kaspersky Lab, which have been linked to the Russian
government in the past.
“MiniDuke and CosmicDuke were launched by ‘a Russian
government agency,’ researchers at F-Secure, another security firm
concluded in January. That conclusion was based largely on the targets of
the operations: Russian drug dealers and governments with interests opposed to
those of Russia.” [Emphasis added]
In other words, it was a totally non-technical analysis,
bereft of any real evidence but for the political assumptions and amateur
“analysis” of computer “experts” eager to tell the US government what it wants
to hear. Here is how those geniuses over at F-Secure came to their brilliant
conclusion:
“Considering the victims of the law enforcement use case
[sic] seem to be from Russia, and none of the high-profile victims are exactly
pro-Russian, we believe that a Russian government agency is behind these
operations.”
In spite of the air of certainty projected at the beginning of
this piece, toward the end Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure’s chief researcher, says it
“could be” Russia. Oh, but maybe not …
Washington isn’t having any of this ambiguity, however.
According to news
accounts, during a speech at Stanford University the other day Defense
Secretary Ashton Carter claimed that “sensors guarding the Pentagon’s
unclassified networks detected the intrusion by Russian hackers, who discovered
an old vulnerability that had not been patched. After learning valuable
information about their tactics,” Carter said, “we analyzed their network
activity, associated it with Russia, and then quickly kicked them off the
network, in a way that minimized their chances of returning.”
Yeah, sure. It’s just a coincidence that the Pentagon issued a
new “cyber-strategy” paper that pinpoints Russia, along with China, as the Big
Culprits To Watch Out For – looming threats to our cyber-infrastructure that
require huge amounts of money and “expertise” to combat.
Another “coincidence”: there are no less than three major
“cybersecurity”
bills in the congressional hopper designed to hand yet more of our private
information over to the waiting arms of the National Security Agency and law
enforcement agencies, all in the name of “protecting” us from Russian-Chinese
bogeymen-hackers. A recent
open letter from more than 65 respected cyber-security professionals and
academics denounces these bills as unnecessary intrusions on privacy as well as
providing a false sense of security – and, they conclude, the bills could also
make us more vulnerable to hacking.
As Trevor Timm
puts it:
“Members of Congress – most of whom can’t secure their own
websites, and some of whom don’t even use email – are
trying to force a dangerous “cybersecurity” bill down the public’s throat.
Everyone’s privacy is in the hands of people who, by all indications, have no
idea what they’re talking about.
The new cold
war with Russia is upon us, and the rule is: when in doubt, blame Putin. Our
technologically ignorant – and government-subservient – media is all too prone
to fall for this nonsense. While I wouldn’t rule out anyone – including some of
our vaunted “allies” – as being responsible, in this case I’d look at the
knee-jerk accusations aimed at the Kremlin with a very jaundiced eye.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and
a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at
The American Conservative, and writes a
monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of
Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement
[Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000],
and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard
[Prometheus Books, 2000].