Vladimir Putin & Donald Trump: Relationship Counselling

There has been a lot of media attention and various statements made concerning the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Doald Trump. Now, two important Reports have been released concerning ing US and Russian connections over the course of the recent Presidential Election. 

Furthermore, the US has named some of the hackers they say were involved in the Election hacking scandal.  Although you probably won't know her name, or what she does for a living, this young woman has unwittingly become the face of the cyber war-of-words between US and Russian intelligence services. Her name is Alisa Shevchenko, she is a hacker, but she claims she has been made a scapegoat in the digital security war between the two super powers.

The White House has recently included her company on a list of sanctions, as President Barack Obama hits back at the alleged interference in the US election by Russia.

1st Report Alleges Trump has Deep Ties to Russia

A dossier, compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official, alleges Russia has compromising information on Trump. 

The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.

A dossier, making explosive, but unverified, allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.

The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reported that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.

Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.

The Trump administration’s transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment. However, the president-elect’s transition team and Kremlin sources say that the allegations were absolutely false.

2nd Report from the US Director of National Intelligence 

Now the office of the US Director of National Intelligence has released a long-awaited unclassified version of its Report for President Obama on what the intelligence agencies said was a multifaceted attempt to influence the 2016 Presidential Election. 

The report included only the agencies’ conclusions, not the actual intelligence or technical information on which they were based.

Hillary Clinton has also accused the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of personally directing a cyberattack against her as revenge for a five-year-old slight.

US intelligence agencies blame Russian hackers for targeting the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta. 

The Report says: Russia’s intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 US presidential election, including targets associated with both major US political parties. 

Russian president Vladimir Putin also interfered in the US presidential election to aid Donald Trump, according to the declassified assessment by the NSA, CIA and FBI.

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. 

We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the agencies found in a long-awaited report that stands to hang over the head of the incoming Trump administration.

The US government should consider a broad range of retaliations against Russia for its attempts to interfere with November's presidential election, the outgoing director of national intelligence recommended.

The default response to cyberattacks shouldn't necessarily be a cyber one, intelligence director James Clapper said recently. 

"We should consider all instruments of national power," he told a Senate committee. "We currently cannot put a lot of stock ... in cyber deterrence. Unlike nuclear weapons, cyber capabilities are difficult to see and evaluate and are ephemeral."

The report, for weeks the subject of leaks that have incensed and vexed Trump, contradicts the contention from his transition team that Russia did not prefer him in the 2016 election, as well as Trump’s insistence that the culprits behind the hacks of Democratic political figures are fundamentally unknowable.

The report keeps classified any crucial technical data demonstrating Russian culpability, which means its release is unlikely to persuade skeptics that the intelligence agencies have definitively proven their case. Nor does the intelligence assessment claim that Russian interference was decisive in the election.

Though the report lacks detail, never before has the US intelligence apparatus publicly assessed a foreign power to have interfered in an election for the benefit of an incoming president.

The three US intelligence agencies assessed with “high confidence” that Russian military intelligence was behind anonymous hacking. 

The intelligence assessment found that a multifaceted Russian influence campaign, going beyond the data breaches at the Democratic National Committee, began as an effort to undermine Clinton’s “expected presidency” and included state-owned media and social media campaigns. It foreshadowed “future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes”.

“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him,” the report said.

While Russian influence campaigns against western powers and Russia’s neighbors have been seen before, and are “designed to be deniable”, the intelligence agencies called the public release of the stolen data “unprecedented”.

Russia also “collected on some Republican-affiliated targets”, the report claims, without elaboration, but “did not conduct a comparable disclosure campaign”.

After meeting with US intelligence officials at Trump Tower, Trump did not endorse the conclusion of Russian interference but said he would task his administration with devising a new plan to “aggressively combat and stop cyber-attacks”.

In a statement following his meeting with intelligence chiefs, Trump discussed digital intrusions in a generic sense, referring to “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people” that engage in digital theft, remaining agnostic on the intelligence agencies’ conclusion of Russian interference.

Trump said it was ultimately irrelevant, describing the data penetration and leak as having “absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election”.

It was the latest turbulence in what is shaping up to be an acrimonious relationship with US intelligence agencies. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Russian hacking assessment, even putting out a dismissive December statement saying its authors were “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”. 

He also cited Julian Assange, a hated figure in US intelligence circles, casting doubt on Russian culpability.

Ein News:      Guardian:        Guardian:      Computerworld:         BuzzFeed:      image: Donkey Hotey 

We Are In A New Era Of Espionage: