[baursak]

No, no concrete evidence was ever presented. The entire premise of this huge ongoing media sensation has still not been proven and begs for quality, in-depth investigative journalism, but only fringe ultra-right or ultra-left media outlets seem to take any interest in this. The likes of New Yorker or NYT Magazine seem utterly uninterested in digging, or readily assume this as a proven fact, for no apparent reason. Except maybe "what's wrong with blindly trusting CIA and NSA to be truthful?"

The closest to an in-depth critical look at the evidence presented by the government I've seen so far is probably this: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/did-the-russians-real...

[RandVal30141]

That is not really a critical look. It is "but Russians wouldn't possibly do that this way" rehashed several times over.

Nevermind that the target of the hacks, hacks who share the same infrastructure, all focus on entities of Moscow's interest.

Navalny, MH17, DNC, Syria, Bellingcat. Gee wonder what the common thread here is.

[baursak]

> That is not really a critical look. It is "but Russians wouldn't possibly do that this way" rehashed several times over.

You posted this comment 7 minutes after I posted the link. 6 minutes prior to that, you posted another comment in this thread, so I know you haven't immediately started reading the article. Since the article is quite long, I highly doubt that you've read it.

And no, none of the presented arguments there are "but Russians wouldn't possibly do that this way".

[RandVal30141]

>And no, none of the presented arguments there are "but Russians wouldn't possibly do that this way".

"“If the guys are really good,” says Chris Finan, CEO of Manifold Technology, “they’re not leaving much evidence or they’re leaving evidence to throw you off the scent entirely.” How plausible is it that Russian intelligence services would fail even to attempt such a fundamental step?"

"On the other hand, sloppiness on the part of developers is not entirely unknown. However, one would expect a nation-state to enforce strict software and document handling procedures and implement rigorous review processes."

"The strings in the code quite transparently indicate its intent, with no attempt at obfuscation. It seems an odd oversight for a nation-state operation, in which plausible deniability would be essential, to overlook that glaring point during software development."

Acting befuddled is not a reasonable means of helping to cast suspicions aside.

Nothing can change who these attacks, sharing the same infrastructure, targeted. Opponents of Russia's current ruling order. Very specific frame up jobs against Putin's political opposition and phishing against civilian analysts who just happened to be making news regarding MH17? Come on now.

[dang]

Your account has been using primarily (actually exclusively) for political battle. That's an abuse of this site and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of their politics. Especially when they cross into incivility, which you've done repeatedly.

The purpose of HN is to gratify intellectual curiosity, not smite enemies. The lines aren't sharply drawable, of course, and it's understandable if discussion crosses into political topics sometimes—but that's quite different from using the forum as a political or ideological platform. We use the 'primarily' test: if an account is primarily using HN that way, it's abusing the site and we ban it.

[RandVal30141]

" (actually exclusively) "

I guess you didn't check my submission history then. If you want to discuss incivility, trying to frame someone up to meet the metrics for banning seems awful uncivil.

[dang]

Of course I checked it. But that phrase was in parentheses for a reason: it's parenthetical. The main point holds either way.

[GVIrish]

One of the characteristics of a lot of Russia's attempts at exerting influence is that they don't particularly care if we know they did it. Part of Putin's goal is to bolster Russia's standing as a world power, so if people know he's pulling the strings it actually achieves that goal.

[baursak]

There's a lot of space between "wouldn't possibly do that this way" and "is it plausible that they've done it that way?"