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CousinIT

(9,245 posts)
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 10:09 PM Nov 2017

The DNCs emails werent only hacked, they were edited: report

Source: Salon

. . .

The first document published by hacker Guccifer 2.0 had been tampered with prior to being published, according to the Associated Press. In addition to not coming from the Democratic National Committee as Guccifer had promised it would be (it instead came from the email inbox of John Podesta, former chairman for the Clinton campaign), the document had the word "CONFIDENTIAL" written on it. Yet a former DNC official has said that the word "confidential" was not on the original document, indicating that Guccifer had airbrushed it in to spice it up for journalists.

If one document from the Clinton emails was altered, it stands to reason that others may have been as well. After all, releasing tainted leaks would hardly be a new practice for Russian hackers.

In 2017 researchers at the Citizen Lab group released a study indicating that Russian hackers have a pattern of tampering with documents leaked by its hackers to serve the purposes of its propaganda.

"This report describes an extensive Russia-linked phishing and disinformation campaign," the authors wrote. "It provides evidence of how documents stolen from a prominent journalist and critic of Russia was tampered with and then 'leaked' to achieve specific propaganda aims. We name this technique 'tainted leaks.'"

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2017/11/03/the-dncs-emails-werent-only-hacked-they-were-edited-report/

32 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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The DNCs emails werent only hacked, they were edited: report (Original Post) CousinIT Nov 2017 OP
Just like the election itself. sandensea Nov 2017 #1
I believe that 100% angstlessk Nov 2017 #3
Strait Out Of A Fox News Playbook.. Grassy Knoll Nov 2017 #2
Of course, I never had evidence of this ... LenaBaby61 Nov 2017 #4
Nothing can be believed anymore. truthisfreedom Nov 2017 #5
Ripping apart a society from the inside BadgerKid Nov 2017 #19
So why go to the trouble of obtaining them in the first place? DoctorPepper Nov 2017 #6
Most of us knew many of the emails were altered a long time ago leftofcool Nov 2017 #7
Sure doesn't. DoctorPepper Nov 2017 #8
whatever floats your boat leftofcool Nov 2017 #11
The FBI wouldn't get involved.... SergeStorms Nov 2017 #13
Well, DoctorPepper, the DU community has been here a long time. "Some of us"--even "a lot of us"... Hekate Nov 2017 #16
I'll say goodbye now in case I don't get a chance later. Hortensis Nov 2017 #22
Red Herring. Russia tampered w emails, article is definitive. Yr bad at deflecting. emulatorloo Nov 2017 #26
It would be impossible ... NanceGreggs Nov 2017 #12
Thanks for clearing that up. Merlot Nov 2017 #25
Yes, exactly. n/t NanceGreggs Nov 2017 #32
The best lies have some truth in them. Demit Nov 2017 #20
Uh, it's a classic disinformation tactic . JHan Nov 2017 #21
Anti-democracy forces at work. L. Coyote Nov 2017 #9
Wow, huge hits mentioning Warren many times over but Hortensis Nov 2017 #23
And then Trump helped Gucifer by making up shit on top of that. SunSeeker Nov 2017 #10
Wikileaks published 3 days before guccifer floppyboo Nov 2017 #14
No yr mixing up Guccifers. Guccifer arrested, Guccifer 2.0 is a "persona" created by Russians emulatorloo Nov 2017 #28
As Rachel M said long ago, "weaponized" Hekate Nov 2017 #15
I sensed that immediately when released... FarPoint Nov 2017 #17
Have any of the DNC staffers or Pdesta ever denied the substance of the leaked emails? markpkessinger Nov 2017 #18
How do you know they didn't produce original copies? leftofcool Nov 2017 #27
I recall someone's summary of a Fox News panel was passed off as a DNC position by assange et al emulatorloo Nov 2017 #29
The Russkies used a propaganda tactic known as "tainted leaks" meow2u3 Nov 2017 #24
The unadulterated emails could be authenticated and released, right? David__77 Nov 2017 #30
The whole thing was a dark flag operation from the very beginning. Nitram Nov 2017 #31
 

DoctorPepper

(35 posts)
6. So why go to the trouble of obtaining them in the first place?
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 10:46 PM
Nov 2017

This doesn't pass any kind of reasonable believability test.

Either they would have been hacked/leaked and released as-is, or the people responsible would have just faked them.

If they were not authentic, why did Debbie Wasserman Schultz lose her position at the DNC just before the convention?

And why just now is it being claimed that they were altered?

People are believing what they want to believe if it fits their worldview. Hey, whatever. I'm not stupid so I recognize this for what it is:

Desperation.

leftofcool

(19,460 posts)
7. Most of us knew many of the emails were altered a long time ago
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 10:50 PM
Nov 2017

Some of us had emails to John Podesta show up at WikiLeaks and some of us knew for certain they had been altered. Hope this helps.

 

DoctorPepper

(35 posts)
8. Sure doesn't.
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 10:55 PM
Nov 2017

I don't know who "some of us" is, but I do know Wasserman-Schultz was not forced to resign over nothing.

SergeStorms

(19,201 posts)
13. The FBI wouldn't get involved....
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 12:26 AM
Nov 2017

with fabricated emails. They'd know very quickly if they were real or not.

Hekate

(90,708 posts)
16. Well, DoctorPepper, the DU community has been here a long time. "Some of us"--even "a lot of us"...
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 01:23 AM
Nov 2017

...have studied the issue of electronic hacking very closely. It's not a new subject, and not repeat, not, a tin foil hat conspiracy theory. When Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a war hero who lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam, lost his Senate re-election bid, the vote totals in a bunch of counties were as follows 18181818. On electronic voting machines.

So in the 2016 election, all the shit that went down and all that is being revealed this week -- let's just say that "most of us" old time DUers are shocked and sickened -- but NOT surprised.

emulatorloo

(44,130 posts)
26. Red Herring. Russia tampered w emails, article is definitive. Yr bad at deflecting.
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 12:11 PM
Nov 2017

your attempt at deflection through red herrings and whataboutism ain't gonna work, sorry

As to "desperation" yr projecting.

NanceGreggs

(27,815 posts)
12. It would be impossible ...
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 11:58 PM
Nov 2017

... to fabricate thousands of emails without being detected immediately.

Do you think I could fabricate even two dozen emails you allegedly sent without being detected immediately? My fake emails wouldn’t match your usual email writing style, the things you would be emailing about at any given time. Now imagine thousands of emails being faked without detection by the alleged sender – followed by proof that they couldn’t have sent a particular message at the time the “fake” was dated and time-stamped.

How do “make up” email chit-chat? “Did you enjoy our lunch yesterday? What do you think about that meeting this morning? Did your sister have her baby yet?”

Had all the emails been faked, they could have been debunked within hours.

Obviously, the more persuasive tack would be to have actual emails and then edit some of them after the fact. We know this was done because when people started poring over the released emails, some of them were found to be duplicates – one as originally sent, and one edited – the originals having been (mistakenly, I’m sure) included in the batch released.

You seem to think this is an “either/or” situation – either the emails were all faked, or they were all legitimate. That is simply not the case.



Merlot

(9,696 posts)
25. Thanks for clearing that up.
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 11:29 AM
Nov 2017

Although most reading the article understood that. Only readers with ...shall we say... a partisan world view would misinterpret the article to such a degree.

 

Demit

(11,238 posts)
20. The best lies have some truth in them.
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 07:02 AM
Nov 2017

That's why the documents weren't 100% faked.

And re: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, ever heard of optics? In addition to many people not liking her anyway, b/c of how bad she was at her job heading the DNC, replacing her was a decisive response, a resolution to the story, bogus as it was.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
23. Wow, huge hits mentioning Warren many times over but
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 10:54 AM
Nov 2017

Brazile, surely part of any honest story, far below at bottom?

I keep forgetting to go over and check that site out. Very worthwhile. It has a similar graphic I saw on Morning Joe the other day. Podesta was the top two projects that day.



Although only major nodes/vectors, whatever they're called, are listed, I suspect all these techniques are used here.

Hello, DUers from troll farms. Drop dead.

SunSeeker

(51,564 posts)
10. And then Trump helped Gucifer by making up shit on top of that.
Fri Nov 3, 2017, 11:49 PM
Nov 2017

They took routine emails and turned them into something they were not. Treasonous collusion.

floppyboo

(2,461 posts)
14. Wikileaks published 3 days before guccifer
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 12:27 AM
Nov 2017

as far as I can tell - July 22 and July 25 respectively.
The DNC were warned in November 2015 that they were targets and had been attacked.
What ever happened to guccifer 2.0? He was locked up and then - poof! No trial? Did I miss something big, or does this whole thing stink.

FarPoint

(12,409 posts)
17. I sensed that immediately when released...
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 01:33 AM
Nov 2017

It was a no brainier for me... WikiLeaks / Russian Trolls...had one mission..to be outrageous and inflammatory to the Presidential Election....

I posted at the time it happened that folks can not ever accept any information obtained illegally..ever....but media reports took them as accurate....

See...I told you so! Not official and scrubbed and run through the propaganda mill.

markpkessinger

(8,401 posts)
18. Have any of the DNC staffers or Pdesta ever denied the substance of the leaked emails?
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 03:40 AM
Nov 2017

I mean, having a "confidential" stamp removed isn't exactly the same as altering the text of the email itself. Unless the folks involved are alleging that the leaked emails were not what they wrote, then this argument is pretty weak sauce. And to my knowledge, at least, none of them have said that. And as NanceGreggs points out above, if indeed the substance of the emails had been faked, any of the staffers involved could have produced theior own copies within hours, which would have proven that the leaked once had been substantively altered. So why do you suppose they haven't done that?

leftofcool

(19,460 posts)
27. How do you know they didn't produce original copies?
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 12:11 PM
Nov 2017

Just because some originals haven't been made public does not mean copies of emails have not been turned over to the FBI which is still investigating the hack and I believe at least 6 people have been charged. Staffers have stated many times that some of the those leaked emails could not be verified.

emulatorloo

(44,130 posts)
29. I recall someone's summary of a Fox News panel was passed off as a DNC position by assange et al
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 12:24 PM
Nov 2017

I don't recall more detail than that.

No Podesta didn't deny his risotto recipe.

Is there a reason why you are so invested in believing this story is a lie? Seems well researched and documented, source is reliable.



meow2u3

(24,764 posts)
24. The Russkies used a propaganda tactic known as "tainted leaks"
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 11:08 AM
Nov 2017

Russian hackers did indeed alter Clintons' emails to incriminate her falsely.

No wonder Clinton didn't get more votes: Rust Belt voters were too naive to see that the Wikileaks dump of her and Podesta's emails were forgeries.

This explains what the russkies did: https://citizenlab.ca/2017/05/tainted-leaks-disinformation-phish/

Key Points

Documents stolen from a prominent journalist and critic of the Russian government were manipulated and then released as a “leak” to discredit domestic and foreign critics of the government. We call this technique “tainted leaks.”

The operation against the journalist led us to the discovery of a larger phishing operation, with over 200 unique targets spanning 39 countries (including members of 28 governments). The list includes a former Russian Prime Minister, members of cabinets from Europe and Eurasia, ambassadors, high ranking military officers, CEOs of energy companies, and members of civil society.

After government targets, the second largest set (21%) are members of civil society including academics, activists, journalists, and representatives of non-governmental organizations.

David__77

(23,418 posts)
30. The unadulterated emails could be authenticated and released, right?
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 01:30 PM
Nov 2017

Wouldn’t that be good information to have in the public domain?

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