There were many significant and inter-related events both before the leak and after the leak. Many false claims have been made about several of these events in what appears to be a propaganda war of distortions, disinformation and outright lies by the main stream media. Numerous articles have been written on both sides of this debate. Yet thus far, there has not been a detailed timeline to review the events as they happened. The purpose of this report is to fill this void. Although a complete timeline of the DNC hack would go all the way back to the 1990s and the beginning of the modern Internet (a subject I have written extensively about in past articles), we will start with the 2007 formation of the NSA Prism Partners Program as the precursor to the 2009 US cyber warfare attack on Iran and carry it to the present day DNC cyber warfare attack. This is therefore an outline of the past 10 years of international cyber warfare – something the American people know next to nothing about.
After the timeline, we will go into detail over who was most likely to have done the hacking and why they hacked the DNC. Our conclusion based on an overwhelming amount of evidence is that the Russian government did not hack the DNC. The only question remaining is who did hack the DNC and why they did it. This is a lengthy report for the simple reason that strong allegations require strong evidence. Just as US Intelligence agencies had a duty to provide irrefutable evidence to the American people to justify launching an attack against Russia, so do we have a duty to provide irrefutable evidence to support the claim that Russia was not responsible for the DNC hack. We believe this report provides that evidence. This report includes numerous well documented facts that have never been released before. Those who spend too much time reading only the main stream media may be shocked by these facts. Others who have spent more time reading independent news sources may not be surprised at all. The truth is a powerful weapon. It is time to shed some light on this darkness. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me:
Why We Can Be Certain the Russian Hacking Stories are False
On December 30, 2016, we posted an article explaining why the Russian Hacking of the DNC story was false – using actual screen shots from the DHS/FBI Grizzly Steppe report. One day later, there was another false story promoted widely by the main stream media claiming that Russia hacked the Vermont Electric grid. This shocking claim was immediately denied by administrators of the Vermont electric grid. Here is the false headline from the Washington Post:
We ended our previous article with quotes from two former NSA Systems Administrators, William Binney and Edward Snowden, in which they both noted that if the Russians really did hack the DNC or the Vermont Power System or anything else, the NSA would certainly have a detailed record of the hack and could provide that evidence to the American people without compromising national security sources or secrets.
Thanks to the Independent Media, our article was picked up by several prominent websites and read by tens of thousands of people. Unfortunately, the feedback we received (doubting that the NSA has this ability) made it clear that many Americans still have no idea about the true power of the NSA – despite the fact that Edward Snowden provided detailed documents from the NSA more than three years ago describing the NSA’s immense power and confirming that the NSA wants to “collect it all.”
It is dangerous that the NSA possesses such horrific hacking powers. But it is even more dangerous that so many Americans, and perhaps even most Americans, still have no idea what the NSA is capable of and the type of hacking and data recording the NSA does every day – including the mass surveillance of 300 million Americans. We will therefore begin this report with a brief primer on the power of the NSA.
What is the NSA?
The NSA is the National Security Agency. It is the cyber warfare wing of the US military. It is by far the largest and most well funded cyber warfare group in the entire world – much larger than all of the other hackers in the world combined. We know this is true not only from the Edward Snowden documents and William Binney disclosures but also from numerous other sources as we will describe below. Before going into the details of the NSA cyber warfare program, let’s begin with a few important facts:
Fact #1: Follow the Money… Compare US to Russian Military Budgets
The US military budget is currently about $600 billion per year. But this is just the “base” budget and does not include the cost of war in Afghanistan or Iraq or the secret cyber warfare budget or Homeland Security or the FBI. When the entire US Police State budget is added up, it comes to more than one trillion dollars per year.
https://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/02/the-trickery-of-the-military-budget/
By comparison, the Russian military budget is about $50 to $60 billion per year. This means that the US military is 10 to 20 times larger than the Russian military. This also means that the US cyber warfare program is 10 to 20 times larger than the Russian cyber warfare program. In short, the US has 10 to 20 times more hackers and produces 10 to 20 times more cyber warfare programs than Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
US Military Spending Skyrockets while Russian Military Spending Plunges
Due to very low oil prices, Russia is having major financial problems. In addition, Russians population is aging and decreasing and now is only 144 million. Military spending in Russia fell about 5% in the past year. They are expected to decline about 30% more in 2017. Moscow-based newspaper Vedomosti has warned the cuts "brings Russia close to third-world countries.”
Here is a recent quote: “As the economy continues to struggle under the weight of low oil prices and sanctions, Russian authorities have decided to cut defense spending by 1,000 billion rubles ($15.89 billion), or by approximately 30 percent. The figures became clear from the draft federal budget that the government submitted to the State Duma at the end of October, business daily Kommersant reports. Overall, spending on national defense in the federal budget for 2017 is envisaged at 2,840 billion rubles ($45.15 billion), or 3.3 percent of GDP.”
http://rbth.com/defence/2016/11/01/russia-slashes-military-spending-as-revenues-shrink_644019
In addition to the US military being 10 to 20 times bigger than Russia, spending on the US Cyberware program had skyrocketed while spending on cyber warfare in Russia hand plummeted – especially when one accounts for currency exchanges and inflation.
As just one example, the GRU is the Russian Military Intelligence Service. They are similar to our NSA. In 2009, the head of the GRU retired or was fired. His replacement was forced to fire 1,000 staff members and cut the number of agencies almost in half (from 8 to 5).
Then in 2011, the replacement retired or was fired and replaced by Igor Sergun – a person many in Russia said lacked the experience to be the head of intelligence. Igor lasted 5 years but he died of a heart attack in January 2016. There was no one leading the agency for over one month as Putin could not decide on a replacement. Then Putin chose a complete unknown called Igor Korobov who is currently the head of the GRU.
Here is a quote from a Moscow Times article about the gutting of the GRU: :
“A former GRU officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, slammed the reform, saying it had resulted in old professionals stepping down and greenhorns coming in.”
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/gru-spymaster-to-lose-job-report-says-9798
Here are a couple more quotes:
“Another veteran of the GRU, who asked not to be named, said that the situation in the GRU is now close to critical. There is a collapse of the military intelligence, which has long been the eyes and ears of the military command. Special Forces Brigade cut, the new technology does not arrive, experienced professionals retire, there is only the young people who really can not do anything.“
http://izvestia.ru/news/501899
Eighty of its (GRU top one) hundred general-rank officers had been sacked, retired, or transferred.
www.foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/07/putins-secret-weapon/
So we are expected to believe that a Russian spy group that has seen 80% of its top leaders fired, and has had several new leaders in the past several years and is facing a 30% budget cut for 2017 is somehow a threat to the NSA which is already about 10 to 20 times bigger and without a doubt has the most powerful cyber weapons in the world?
In fact, at a televized press conference in the Spring of 2016, Edward Snowden asked the Russian leader Putin if Russia does mass hacking of its citizens the way the NSA does in the US. Putin replied that it would be illegal. Putin later added that he admires the NSA but Russia simply could not afford something like the NSA.
Have we heard anything about this dramatic decline in Russian military spending in the US main stream media? Not one word. Instead, all we hear from the US press is that Russians are attacking the Vermont Power Grid and before we know it, everyone in America will have their heat shut down and their lights turned off. But what is keeping the American people in the dark is not Russian hackers. It is the main stream media that refuses to tell the American people the truth. The insanity of this situation boggles the mind.
Fact #2: Understand the Scale of the NSA Hacking Program
Second, as confirmed in documents provided by Edward Snowden, the NSA has tens of thousands of sub-contractors at hundreds of cyber warfare bases using thousands of servers all over the world.
The NSA also has the largest data center in the world. The full scale of the NSA cyber warfare program is almost beyond comprehension. The NSA uses this horrific power to hack and infect millions and even billions of computers around the world. The NSA motto is “Collect Everything.” In reality, this means to “hack everything.” The term “everything” does not mean hacking just the systems of criminals – it means hacking the systems of everyone – including you whenever you go on line, or send an email or use a smart phone. “Everything” also includes all information from all networks – whether it is a corporate network or the networks of social groups or political parties. Those of us who have been studying the NSA for years understand that the term “everything” actually means everything. The NSA likes to boast, “We Collect It All.” All means all data regardless of the location of the data… “all” means “everything.” I hope this is becoming clearer. Everything would include real evidence in real time if the Russians actually hacked the DNC. There are only two options. Either the NSA has the evidence and is not releasing it. Or the NSA does not have the evidence because it did not happen.
https://theintercept.com/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-millions-computers-malware/
Fact #3: Understand the True Power of the Dark Side
Not only does the scale of the NSA hacking program reach nearly every computer in every corner of the globe, but the scope or power of what the NSA is capable of doing to each of those computers is truly frightening. Jacob Applebaum is a security expert and developer of the TOR router. Jacob was originally from the University of Washington in Seattle. But he was forced to move to Germany in order to escape NSA persecution. Sadly, Jacob is still being harassed by government agents even in Germany. Jacob is one of only a few people in the world who was given access to the Snowden documents.
After spending months reviewing these documents, Jacob stated that the power of the NSA is “worse than your worst nightmare.” I want to encourage anyone who doubts the NSA capabilities to watch this 60 minute talk by Jacob Applebaum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA
The above video may be one of the most important videos every posted on Youtube as Jacob goes into great detail about several NSA hacking programs and includes images from NSA training manuals to confirm that what he is saying is true. Please watch this video before proceeding with this article. It will help you better understand what we are going to cover and reduce the number of folks emailing us and telling us that what we are saying is not possible. What we are about to say is not only possible – but thanks to Edward Snowden, it is well documented. As just one example, the NSA can and does deploy malware by sending out spam emails that trick targets into clicking a malicious link. Once activated, a “back-door implant” infects their computers within eight seconds.
https://theintercept.com/document/2014/03/12/nsa-phishing-tactics-man-middle-attacks/
According to one NSA presentation “If we can get the target to visit us in some sort of web browser, we can probably own them.” Here is a slide from a top secret NSA program called the FOXACID Quantum exploit which according to the NSA has a success rate 80 times greater than a normal email spamming technique. The presentation goes on to say that folks who use either a Windows or Apple computer have a “100% chance” of the hack being successful. The only protection from NSA hacks is to use Linux servers and computers – a topic we will come back to later.
Wikileaks has said that it did not get its information from Russia, Craig Murray, a former Ambassador, said he met with the leaker and it was not a Russian. On the other hand, the NSA has almost unlimited power to hack any group. The purpose of this report is to provide evidence clarifying this point. The NSA has the ability to automatically record the exact time and action of every computer in order to create a complete record of all attacks. So if the Russians did in fact hack the DNC, the NSA would have evidence of the hack. The NSA could release this evidence to the public without compromising a single source or a single secret.
Former NSA lead administrator William Binney concurs. He stated that if the Russians really did hack the Democratic Party server, the NSA would certainly have real evidence. Here is his quote from a December 29 2016 article by Glenn Greenwald:
“The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network.”
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/top-secret-snowden-document-reveals-what-the-nsa-knew-about-previous-russian-hacking/
Edward Snowden not only confirmed that the NSA has this ability to unravel proxy servers – but that he himself used an NSA program called XKEYSCORE to get access.
https://theintercept.com/2016/07/26/russian-intelligence-hack-dnc-nsa-know-snowden-says/
Pay close attention to what William Binney said about “routing to sort intermediate clients.” What he is talking about is IP or Internet Protocol Addresses. Some who read our previous article claimed that IP addresses do not mean much because they can by bounced through proxies or intermediate IP addresses. These proxies may stop you and I from finding out who is really doing the hacking. But they do not stop the NSA. Both Snowden and Binney have confirmed that the NSA has a way to get past these proxies. This is easy for me to accept because I have spent several years studying the NSA. But the general public seems to have no idea what kind of power the NSA really has. Once you truly understand what the NSA is capable of, then you also understand that the fact that the NSA has not released this evidence is a strong indication that this evidence of Russian hacking simply does not exist.
Fact #4: Our Government is not always honest with us
This brings us to the next claim that our government agencies cannot possibly be lying to us. If our government says there is evidence of Russian hacking, we ought to believe our government even though they have failed to provide any evidence to back up this claim. Such a misplaced faith in government overlooks three important facts.
First, these same government agencies lied to us about the Weapons of Mass Deception that caused us to go to war in Iraq in 2003.
Second, these same government agents also lied to Congress when Congress asked them about their programs of mass surveillance in March 2013. In June 2013, after Snowden provided evidence of mass surveillance, Clapper was forced to admit that he had lied to Congress even though he was under oath to tell them the truth.
Third, these same government agents repeatedly promised us they would provide us with real evidence of Russian hacking by the end of 2016. They did give us the DHS/FBI “Grizzly Steppe” report. But there was no real evidence of Russian hacking anywhere in the report.
This makes these government agents three time losers. The government now claims that they will release yet another report in January 2017 with evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC. But given all the times we have been lied to in the past, how many times does our government have to lie to the American people before the American people will learn not to trust their government?
Fact #5: The Main Stream Media is not always honest with us.
We will provide two recent examples. First, the current “Sound Bite” that the “Russians Hacked the Election” is Deeply Deceptive. The main stream media has repeated thousands of times that the “Russians hacked the election.” Here is a recent deceptive headline from NPR:
Hopefully, you are smart enough to know that there has never been a finding that Russia hacked the election. It is not even being alleged that Russia hacked the election. The real allegation is that the Russians hacked the DNC servers and then handed the emails to Wikileaks who published them. Because of their embarrassing content, some voters decided to vote for Trump which cost Clinton the election. However, this is not what many Americans think when they are told over and over again that the Russians hacked the election. What many Americans think is that Russia hacked the American voting machines. In fact, in a December 2016 poll, half of all Democrats believe that Russians tampered with the voting machines – even though President Obama has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence that Russia hacked any voting machines. Here is the breakdown including Independent voters.
The same poll found that over half of all Americans still think that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even though none were ever found.
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/
The second example was the reporting right up until the day of the election was that Clinton was going to win in a landslide. Here are just some of the headlines from Election Day, Tuesday November 8, 2016:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/24/donald-trumps-chances-of-winning-are-approaching-zero/?utm_term=.28ad854b10cc
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html
The lesson here is to stop believing everything we are told by the main stream media.
The Real Issue is not the Russians, It is a lack of Honesty
Information released by Wikileaks may have cast Clinton in a negative light. But that was because the majority of independent swing voters already did not trust her as was shown in polls going all the way back to 2015. There were two sets of leaks. One in July 2016 and the other in October 2016.
The July emails confirmed that the former chair of the Democratic Party did in fact collude against Bernie Sanders to prevent a fair primary. When the Chair of the DNC resigned, she was immediately hired by Clinton showing a complete lack of understanding for the perception that the election was “rigged.” This led to the walk out of Sanders supporters at the Democratic Party election. Was this the fault of Wikileaks for revealing the collusion or the fault of Clinton for putting this dishonest person on her campaign team?
The October releases included a Clinton speech to Goldman Sachs explaining why she had a public position opposing cutting Social Security but a private position supporting cutting Social Security.. reassuring them that she had both a public and private position:
Many independent swing voters already did not trust Hillary. This single release may have cost her the election. But should Wikileaks be blamed for revealing the truth or the Democrats be blamed for nominating such a two faced candidate?
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927
Then there was what Clinton told a Brazilian bank group in 2013, “We have to resist, protectionism, other kinds of barriers to market access.” The fact that this statement became known after she had publicly opposed the TPP Trade agreement but then had chosen a Vice Presidential Candidate strongly in favor of the TPP Trade agreement likely cost Clinton a lot of swing votes in the Rust Belt states that determined the election. But it was not Wikileaks that chose a Pro TPP VP, it was Clinton.
Clinton also said in a June 2013 speech, she believed the United States should intervene in Syria but as "covertly as is possible." She also advocated for enforcing a Syrian No Fly Zone that Generals had said would lead to direct conflict with Russia. There was also Bill Clinton getting a million dollar check from an oil baron, while Hillary told bankers that banks got too much blame for their role in the financial crisis. Clinton also said the Dodd-Frank Act had to be passed "for political reasons” and that she thought bankers were best suited to regulate themselves, since "the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry."
Trying to change the focus from what happened in the election by using even more lies to shift the blame to the Russians may be politically easy in the short run. But it will severely harm the American political process in the long run. Nevertheless, it is clear that the main stream media has launched a campaign designed to whip up fear and hysteria in the American people and is trying to turn Russia into some kind of bogey man who is out to get us. The truth is just the opposite. The scary monster is right here in the US and it is called the NSA. Next is our timeline of events leading up to the DNC hack.