>Thanks, Sorin. Several interesting elements in this citation:
>
>CrowdStrike was soon able to reconstruct the hacks and identify the hackers. One of the groups, known to the firm as Cozy Bear, had been rummaging around the DNC since the previous summer. The other, known as Fancy Bear, had broken in not long before Putin's appearance at the St. Petersburg forum. Surprisingly, given that security researchers had long suspected that both groups were directed by the Russian government, each of the attackers seemed unaware of what the other was doing.
>
>Seems to me that a "suspected" association is elevated to truth contrary to observed behavior. Instead, the inconvenient behavior is labeled "surprising," a potentially random timing coincidence involving Putin is assigned unexplained gravitas... et voila, apparent junk science stands tall and aggrieved.

Sure, I get all that. After all, the narrative must be made interesting and consistent to make it a story. I posted the link just for the unbiased data one could extract from it. The rest is just stuff like what you're quoting above.

>I'm worried. Unless these "intelligence agencies" who have been leaking anonymously to MSM can produce compelling evidence soon, they're undermining public trust in themselves. You cannot fool all the people all the time. The validation doesn't need to be much: as you note, the link from Cozy Bear to Putin is part of the claim and such a link either does or does not exist. Simple as that.

There are at least 2 things that I can articulate right now, that keeps me from leaning one way or another:

1. The "Russian hack" claim was advanced before or during the time of Guccifer 2.0 (sometime maybe around June?), when the DNC realized that their system was compromised. I remember back then listening to talk radio discussions about this very thing; that Guccifer 2.0 (apparently the name of a former Romanian hacker) was just a disguise for Russian agent(s). At the time, the Russian connection was inferred from intelligence reports, not necessarily invoked by the DNC, though it could have been. At that time the Ds and the HRC team were almost certain they were going to win, most polls were in her favor, ... and didn't look like they needed to build the "we lost because of the Russian targeting" narrative. In other words, the "Russian hacking" claim was advanced when the circumstances were (a lot) different than today..

2. The FBI is backing the claim. It is not just the CIA. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences from behavior, whereas the FBI wants facts and tangible evidence to prove something.
Here is another article. It is from July (I'm trying to avoid all stories published after the election for obvious reasons).
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/nsa-dnc-hack-russia-226315
It talks about capabilities of tracing not only the origin of the attack, but also the destination/itinerary of the hacked data. Also there is an embedded link to an interview with Snowden weighing in on the DNC leak.

Other than that, I think I read somewhere that "The primary goal of government is its own credibility". It is sure being challenged right now.
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