Tuesday, April 4, 2017

What Doesn't Make Sense About the Russian Hack

In January, and before Trump was inaugurated, the CIA, FBI, and the NSA issued a joint report on the Russian hacking of the DNC email server and Podesta emails and came to this conclusion:
“Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
Putting the words "most likely" aside and the fact that those words imply a weak argument, the statement suggests that Putin was angry at Clinton back in 2011.  Yet, supposedly, the Russians didn't start hacking the DNC server until 4 years later in 2015.  This was followed by the release of those emails a year later during the late election cycle.

What doesn't make sense is that, if Putin truly wanted to damage Hillary Clinton, why wait 4 years to do so?  From everything we know about her private server, there was very little security and loads of information damaging to Hillary Clinton.  Also, it was operational since 2008.  An analysis by the Associated Press said the server was open to "low skilled hackers".  For Russia's first class hackers, Hillary's server would have been a cakewalk.  In addition, the exposure of the classified data in those emails and other State Department related emails would have done far more damage to Hillary Clinton, both politically and personally, than the peripheral data on the DNC server. Also, any one receiving an email had to know it wasn't from the State Department's server because her address was stupidly hdr22@clintonemail.com.  A simple domain name search by a trained hacker would have been able to locate that server's IP address and allow it to be hacked.

Personally, I think the CIA, FBI, and NSA's conclusion is flawed and probably political in nature.

References:

U.S. intelligence says Putin wanted to damage Clinton, help Trump: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/6/us-intelligence-says-putin-wanted-damage-clinton/

Revealed: Hillary's private server was open to 'low-skilled-hackers' who could take it over remotely because its 'amateur hour' operators ignored official warnings: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3270758/Hillary-s-private-server-open-low-skilled-hackers-remotely-operators-ignored-official-warnings-vulnerable.html

What does the 22 in Hillary Clinton's private email account hdr22@clintonemail.com mean? https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-22-in-Hillary-Clintons-private-email-account-hdr22-clintonemail-com-mean

Why Clinton’s Private Email Server Was Such a Security Fail: https://www.wired.com/2015/03/clintons-email-server-vulnerable/


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