George Ellison — Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart--Say Hello to Fancy Bear

In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016, about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this.

The difference between [Co-Founder and CTO of CrowdStrike Inc.] Dmitri Alperovitch's claims, which are reflected in JAR-1620296, and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes.

Later in this article, you'll meet and know a little more about the real "Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear." The bar for identification set by has never been able to get beyond words like probably, may be, could be, or should be in their attribution.

The article is lengthy because the facts need to be in one place. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?

The December 29th JAR adds a flowchart that shows how a basic phishing hack is performed. It doesn't add anything substantial beyond that. Noticeably, they use both their designation APT 28 and APT 29 as well as the CrowdStrike labels of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear separately.

This is important because information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early '90s that every private actor in the information game was radically political....

Reads like a detective story. Longish but gripping. It's an argument that there was likely a criminal conspiracy involved, but not by either the Trump faction or "the Russians."

If you are following this, it is a must-read. Lots of new information and documentation.

OpEdNews
Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart--Say Hello to Fancy Bear
George Ellison
Crossposted at Washington's Blog

George Ellison lives in Ukraine.