Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Pulling from this thread to avoid changing the topic to one current news story over there. First thought: it's a very early, dynamic story, so I'll put the consumer news guide into a followup comment ... in this post, I'll look at the level of evidence in The Blaze article compared to available evidence. In the next, I'll evaluate the level of evidence in the New York Times article.
The New York Times article was fairly specific about the kinds of sources they had and the kinds of evidence they had. The Blaze article doesn't engage the facts presented at all, but depicts a conversation between (1) a television host who was not involved in gathering the evidence, and (2) the head of the Republican National Committee, who directly contradicts facts that are a matter of public record, as you can see if you read the New York Times article.
Mr. McCaul, who was considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of Homeland Security, initially told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “It’s important to note, Wolf, that they have not only hacked into the D.N.C. but also into the R.N.C.” He added that “the Russians have basically hacked into both parties at the national level, and that gives us all concern about what their motivations are.”

Minutes later, the R.N.C. issued a statement denying that it had been hacked. Mr. McCaul subsequently said that he had misspoken, but that it was true that “Republican political operatives” had been the target of Russian hacking. So were establishment Republicans with no ties to the campaign, including former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
The original set of leaked RNC emails was not terribly interesting, but show that the RNC was hacked. They imply that there's more to the story than the released RNC documents show:
But the intelligence agencies’ conclusions that the hacking efforts were successful, which have been presented to President Obama and other senior officials, add a complex wrinkle to the question of what the Kremlin’s evolving objectives were in intervening in the American presidential election.

“We now have high confidence that they hacked the D.N.C. and the R.N.C., and conspicuously released no documents” from the Republican organization, one senior administration official said, referring to the Russians.
The headline of the Blaze article is also interesting - it puts "false" in quotes, as though it might not be false at all.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Breaking News Consumer's Handbook

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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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The "news outlet close to the incident" seems to be the New York Times.

The New York Times article is based on several anonymous sources, which is reason for caution. They are apparently senior officials in the Obama Administration, not identified by name.
American intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump, according to senior administration officials.

They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding — which they say was also reached with high confidence — that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.

In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.
The New York Times has a clear policy on the use of anonymous sources:
Our basic, longstanding criteria remain unchanged: Anonymity should be, as our stylebook entry says, “a last resort, for situations in which The Times could not otherwise publish information it considers newsworthy and reliable.” That standard should be taken seriously and applied rigorously. Material from anonymous sources should be “information,” not just spin or speculation. It should be “newsworthy,” not just color or embellishment. And it should be information we consider “reliable” — ideally because we have additional corroboration, or because we know that the source has first-hand, direct knowledge. Our level of skepticism should be high and our questions pointed. Without a named source, readers may see The Times as vouching for the information unequivocally — or, worse, as carrying water for someone else’s agenda. As far as possible, we should explain the source’s motivation and how he or she knows the information.
Special rules apply when the lead of a story — that is, the primary news element — is based entirely on one or more anonymous sources.

Any such story must be presented in advance by the relevant department head to Dean, Matt or Susan. They should be told explicitly why their approval is being sought — that is, the story’s main news element depends on anonymous sourcing. The department head should be prepared to discuss the details of the sourcing and other reporting, including the identity of the source, if asked.
In the coming month or so, we'll have a chance to see if they actually followed these procedures.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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One other news source that claims to have spoken to these officials is the Washington Post, which talk about a briefing made to senators:
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham apparently found the evidence convincing enough to call for an investigation along with two Democrats:
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., - the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee - joined calls by incoming Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer, N.Y., and Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., for a thorough, bipartisan investigation of Russian influence in the U.S. elections. Their statement came two days after The Washington Post reported the CIA's private conclusion that Russia's activities were intended to tip the scales to help Trump.

"Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American," the four senators said in a statement on Sunday morning. "Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber-attacks."

"This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country. We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security," they added.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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All I know is Prience, or whatever his name is, said the FBI said they were not hacked. Todd would not or did not refute that. So, if the article is claiming they were hacked and the FBI says no, then the article is incorrect.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Robert wrote:All I know is Prience, or whatever his name is, said the FBI said they were not hacked. Todd would not or did not refute that. So, if the article is claiming they were hacked and the FBI says no, then the article is incorrect.
McCain and Graham are 2 of the very least respected by voters in the RNC, so, no creds gained there. it's no longer that easy. waving party flags doesn't get it done now.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/12 ... -election/

Not that I care much about Trump's tweets, but there is more info in this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/po ... .html?_r=0
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Robert wrote:All I know is Prience, or whatever his name is, said the FBI said they were not hacked. Todd would not or did not refute that. So, if the article is claiming they were hacked and the FBI says no, then the article is incorrect.
This is fast breaking news, so let's assume that everyone is getting some of this wrong ...

... but still, are you saying that if Nixon and Haldeman said there was no break in at the Watergate Hotel, that proves that it didn't happen? Rience Preibus is more or less the equivalent of Haldeman. I don't think there's public information that proves anything conclusively, but it sure looks like there's enough to warrant an investigation.

And ... um ... the mainstream media did report on the hacked emails from the Democratic National Convention, I don't see why it is hypocritical for them to report on this. And Trump may not know this, but I suspect you do: hackers do leave fingerprints, and the United States does a lot of cyber security intelligence. Trump's tweets aren't particularly useful information here.

Seriously, you would expect a president to ask for a thorough non-partisan investigation of this kind of thing. You would expect him to want to avoid any lingering suspicion.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Check the date on that article. I assume they may have learned something since then.
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Re: Credible News Sources: The Russian Hacking Story

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Bootstrap wrote:
Check the date on that article. I assume they may have learned something since then.
This is what Prius was talking about when he said the FBI just reaffirmed that the RNC was not hacked a few weeks ago.

So, the RNC was not hacked according to the FBI. Prebo makes that strong and clear. The article says they were. Pronto would know. He just talked with them again a couple weeks back to make sure.

Because of this incorrect statement in the article that only identifies "anonymous" sources, I will not count it as factual until credible sources can validate it.

As Prebus said, he (and I) would not doubt that the RNC would have hacking attempts. The issue with Podester is his password was busted by a phishing scheme. I have not heard how the DNC was cracked.

I would not be surprised if Russia, China, or Moldavia was behind it. They are behind 90% of the bots I block and fight here. I also know that Georgia detected that an IP address from the DHS was trying to hack their systems. THAT is really a bigger issue to me.
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