But they keep finding witches...

[_subgenius]

Do you find any curiosity that this "evidence" is from private sources that were hired by the DNC and then subsequently the servers were NOT given to the FBI for inspection...that the FBI had to accept evidence on faith?

They were given images and network logs by an independent firm, which is is how that works.

but that is not "how it works" - even Comey testified that it wasn't preferential....do you think every crime scene has to be delivered to the FBI building?
And it wasn't an "independent" firm, it was a private firm working for the DNC not working for the FBI.

Asking for the approximately 160 servers is like demanding google send you their harddrives from their datacenters when you ask for an gmail record for your investigation.

No, it is not "like that"...your juvenile analogy sidesteps the facts. You accuse a foreign government of breaching your servers and then deny the FBI access to those servers and then hire a company to provide the evidence to the FBI.

It makes no sense. This is one of the dumber defenses floating out there in the right-wing-o-sphere. It seems to be aimed at old people who have no clue how technology works.

Are you really this stupid? There is no technological apologetics needed here...the servers were investigated regardless of who investigated them...but the DNC refused access to the FBI and only allowed access by a private company that the DNC "paid" to investigate.
It is a closer analogy to say that I accuse you of breaking into my safe. Then i refuse to let the police see my safe (because it is so heavy)...but I am willing to hire a private investigator who will then gives the police a picture of the safe.

[_EAllusion]

The DNC did not refuse access. They hired a respected security firm, Crowdstrike, that has been used both by the DNC and RNC to gather necessary digital information. The FBI was satisfied with this for its own investigative purposes. This is well reported.

I just realized there’s a huge uptick in this conspiracy theory floating in right wing circles right now. That’s why you are resurrecting it here.

[_Water Dog]

They were given images and network logs by an independent firm, which is is how that works. Asking for the approximately 160 servers is like demanding google send you their harddrives from their datacenters when you ask for an gmail record for your investigation. It makes no sense. This is one of the dumber defenses floating out there in the right-wing-o-sphere. It seems to be aimed at old people who have no clue how technology works.

Where are you getting this figure of 160 physical servers?

I think it's fair to put the full picture in context. I don't care if images of servers were created, that's fine, but clearly that would raise legitimate questions about chain of custody as well. My understanding, which is perhaps wrong, is that the FBI never gained direct access to either the physical server or images of the server(s), but relied entirely on a report generated by a private firm hired by the DNC. There is talk about other firms confirming their conclusions, but that too sounds equally dubious.

I literally just went through a process very similar to this where I was asked to review a report generated by another firm. It was a source code review of a PLC control network for a sensitive/critical infrastructure. It was not a blind review where I was from-scratch generating a new report based on the raw source material, but rather I was being asked to opine on the findings of an existing review and validate their conclusions as being reasonable or not. While I may find their conclusions reasonable, based on the information and accompanying logic I'm presented with, that isn't to say that my from-scratch assessment would lead to the same results. I've been on each side of this process many times.

All that being said, I'm not concerned with logs or images or anything like that. Assuming it hasn't been tampered with, that's fine. The point I'm getting at is that something like IP logs aren't terribly informative. IP addresses can be spoofed for instance. In cases where the VPN was supposedly left off was the user engaged in bi-directional communication or uni-directional? How many router hops? What sub-network? Just because a certain IP address registered on server logs as the source does not mean it was actually the source. IPs spoofed, traffic re-routed if in control of the right routers, and so on. Even if the IP address was 100% legit and was the IP for Putin's personal secretary's computer, who's to say her computer didn't have malware on it that was being used to route traffic requests on behalf of a hacker sitting in Topeka, Kansas?

Who's to say this Guccifer avatar on Twitter is legit? We don't know that the source of the leaks and the personality talking on Twitter were the same. The personality on Twitter shared some material to "prove" their identity. They could have simply had access to documents/emails from the original source. Or, from other sources. Knowing that they had been hacked, and trying to leverage the situation and spin it, it could have even been the DNC themselves. Have all these potential possibilities been credibly ruled out? I do not believe that they have.

But, again, repeating, I'm not saying Russia wasn't in some way involved. Maybe they were. But it appears largely based on conjecture. Even if they were wholly responsible in the most sinister way imaginable, those are accusations which cannot be responsibly made based on such weak evidence. All this is being blown grossly out of proportion with the facts.

[_canpakes]

Lol. Aren’t you the guy who thinks that the FBI is in bed with Hillary? But you want them, rather than another firm, to ‘examine the servers’?

irrelevant to my question and you answering a question with a question is a sophomoric deflection....but i get ya, you really haven't thought about the whole "evidence" thingy.
Them faith-based habits are hard for you to break, eh?
Should I just check the DNC website for your next response?

What you should do is honestly define what you believe the standard of examination is and who you trust to do so, rather than equivocate about agencies that you either trust or claim are in bed with Clinton depending on which corner you’ve painted yourself into at the moment. ; )

[_Water Dog]

Well. They're human. And do you really want a government that can be totally swept way and staffed with partisans every few years? How would you enjoy working directly for some of the most partisan Leftists on this board?

You mean like Peter Strzok? Hehe. Yeah. I think you are minimizing the situation. I believe Obama demonstrated that it's not terribly hard to stack the bureaucracy and plant grenades for political opponents. There have been reports from virtually every federal department about #TheResistance acting in similar fashion. What about Obama weaponizing the IRS against political opponents? The bureaucracy sure didn't stop that. Fast and Furious? Benghazi? Some major “F” ups where people were sacrificed in ways that seem morally reprehensible to me. Bureaucracy didn't prevent it, but caused it. I would say in some cases not only did the federal bureaucracy fail, but so did Congress. Congress put out that hollow letter to Obama for example re Libya in 2011, saying, "hey, uh, you can't start a war without our permission." But then they didn't do crap... and an embassy gets sacked because they put the state department in charge of things it had no business being in charge of.

This is perhaps where we can get into the culture, but I think this is also a situation which generally is going to be biased against Republicans/Libertarians more than Democrats simply by virtue of cultural similarities. As you say, human nature. People generally don't bite the hand that feeds them. Regardless of politics, historically, both parties have acted to enlarge and increase the power of the bureaucracy. Seemingly each President doubles the size of the fed from his predecessor, from Reagan through Obama. Trump shows up and is mostly sticking to his campaign rhetoric and proceeds to fire massive numbers of people and scale the bureaucracy back. I don't think he's at all doing enough of it, nonetheless what he's doing is unprecedented and puts him at odds with the bureaucracy in ways that no other president has experienced. It creates a situation that challenges and tests our constitutional separation of powers.

[_EAllusion]

Where are you getting this figure of 160 physical servers?

I didn't claim physical servers, though it is all physical in some sense, right? That's was my memory from the initial reporting on the matter. Having looked it up, the DNC with private cybersecurity assistance decommissioned 140 servers, most of which were cloud based rather than dedicated, and rebuilt 11 others in an effort to expunge the network. I was off by 9, which isn't bad. 180 computers were also swapped out. Contrary to subs, the FBI was not refused access to this, but rather the DNC rebuffed and offer for assistance with cybersecurity response to Russian intrusion because they were satisfied that it was resolved. The FBI accepted the 3rd party acquired data as sufficient. If the FBI felt it needed more, it could've easily gotten more.

I think it's fair to put the full picture in context. I don't care if images of servers were created, that's fine, but clearly that would raise legitimate questions about chain of custody as well.

In this specific case, what questions would those be? The implication here is that the data could've been tampered with, though that is equally true of, though somewhat more difficult with, physical drives just the same. How plausible is that given the surrounding context? Heck, the FBI could in a conspiracy with crowdstrike to fabricate the data too - anything is possible - but we should be dealing in likelihoods rather than bare possibilities.

[_Water Dog]

What you should do is honestly define what you believe the standard of examination is and who you trust to do so...

I know this comment was to sub but thought I'd respond. In this situation I believe full transparency is warranted. All evidence should be made public for examination and scrutiny. I don't have a problem with investigating any of these things, but time is also of the essence. What's going on right now is people are "running the clock" against Trump and Republicans in general. Politics being what it is, about perception and timing, it serves no useful purpose if an investigation takes years to conclude. And that's for all parties concerned. Say Trump is 100% illegitimate, a Russian spy. But this conclusion isn't reached until 2021. What happens to his Supreme Court picks, all the laws signed, and whatever else? By then it's too late to do anything. Likewise, if this is all made up BS, the opposite is true. You clouded Trump's entire presidential term, preventing him from effectively governing like he would have in the absence of this hysteria, and by extension disenfranchised everybody who voted for him. This investigation is already past a reasonable time limit, and the manner in which it's being conducted is unprofessionally public and shamelessly partisan and political in nature. I mean come on, they drop these absurd indictments days before Trump's meeting with Putin? That is about politics, not justice. Nobody can argue it to be anything else. Even if the Russians are guilty, that's a ridiculous move by Mueller. He's not the damned president, he is not the one voters sent to DC to lead the govt and make such decisions. “F” him. This isn't a Tom Clancy novel and he's not Jack Ryan. Self righteous prick.

[_Water Dog]

I didn't claim physical servers, though it is all physical in some sense, right. That's was my memory from the initial reporting on the matter. Having looked it up, the DNC with private cybersecurity assistance decommissioned 140 servers, most of which were cloud based, and rebuilt 11 others in an effort to expunge the network. I was off by 9, which isn't bad. 180 computers were also swapped out. Contrary to subs, the FBI was not refused access to this, but rather the DNC rebuffed and offer for assistance with cybersecurity response to Russian intrusion because they were satisfied that it was resolved. The FBI accepted the 3rd party acquired data as sufficient. If the FBI felt it needed more, it could've easily gotten more.

Got a source on this?

In this specific case, what questions would those be? The implication here is that the data could've been tampered with, though that is equally true of, though somewhat more difficult with, physical drives just the same. How plausible is that given the surrounding context? Heck, the FBI could in a conspiracy with crowdstrike to fabricate the data too - anything is possible - but we should be dealing in likelihoods rather than bare possibilities.

I think what you're saying here is reasonable, I'm really just wanting to see the evidence for myself. Given the public nature of the conclusions, the evidence should likewise be made public for review. I do not believe there is some conspiracy to doctor physical evidence. I do believe there could easily be a conspiracy to intentionally misinterpret or misstate the weight of whatever evidence that exists, though, in the service of a political narrative. I also believe it's possible that the evidence, if it's weak evidence, could be naturally misinterpreted based on bias. How, for instance, do they jump from an IP address linked to a Twitter avatar all the way to a list of 12 specific persons in Russia? Tons of questions I have, and if I started unraveling it I'd come up with more of course. I simply haven't been presented with anything that would cause me to agree with their narrative. However, I have been presented with many things that cause me to be suspicious of them and their narrative. Like why the hell would you indict 12 people who can't appear and defend themselves? The only conceivable point of this is politics. It's a public record of a one-sided allegation, to affect public opinion, without access to any of the "evidence" the accusation is based on. So stupid.

[_Chap]

You clouded Trump's entire presidential term, preventing him from effectively governing like he would have in the absence of this hysteria, and by extension disenfranchised everybody who voted for him.

Let's think .. what was it that the Republicans did to Obama? They even refused to consider his Supreme Court pick, right?

This investigation is already past a reasonable time limit,

So how do you arrive at your idea of a 'reasonable time limit'? Might that not depend on how complex the case is? And this one is extremely complicated.

I mean come on, they drop these absurd indictments days before Trump's meeting with Putin? ... Even if the Russians are guilty, that's a ridiculous move by Mueller. He's not the ____ president ... self righteous prick

The characterisation of the indictments as 'absurd' is pulled out of your own head. You have shown no reason to think that the indicting grand jury was acting improperly. Maybe you should see the evidence before making up your mind?

Your idea of the duties of a special counsel do not seem to be based on any normal interpretation: evidently they include not doing anything that may be distasteful to the president. Not very constitutional, that ...

Mr Mueller is a decorated marine hero, and a Republican in politics, whose integrity was not to my knowledge questioned before he began to indict Trump's cronies.

On the insult with which you favor Mt Mueller 'self righteous prick': have you considered the possibility that as so often in his life to date, he is simply trying to do his duty in accordance with the law? Or can nobody who inconveniences Trump be thought to be so acting, by definition?

[_Maksutov]

You clouded Trump's entire presidential term, preventing him from effectively governing like he would have in the absence of this hysteria, and by extension disenfranchised everybody who voted for him.

Let's think .. what was it that the Republicans did to Obama? They even refused to consider his Supreme Court pick, right?

This investigation is already past a reasonable time limit,

So how do you arrive at your idea of a 'reasonable time limit'? Might that not depend on how complex the case is? And this one is extremely complicated.

I mean come on, they drop these absurd indictments days before Trump's meeting with Putin? ... Even if the Russians are guilty, that's a ridiculous move by Mueller. He's not the ____ president ... self righteous prick

The characterisation of the indictments as 'absurd' is pulled out of your own head. You have shown no reason to think that the indicting grand jury was acting improperly. Maybe you should see the evidence before making up your mind?

Your idea of the duties of a special counsel do not seem to be based on any normal interpretation: evidently they include not doing anything that may be distasteful to the president. Not very constitutional, that ...

Mr Mueller is a decorated marine hero, and a Republican in politics, whose integrity was not to my knowledge questioned before he began to indict Trump's cronies.

On the insult with which you favor Mt Mueller 'self righteous prick': have you considered the possibility that as so often in his life to date, he is simply trying to do his duty in accordance with the law? Or can nobody who inconveniences Trump be thought to be so acting, by definition?

The dog is trolling. He is not a serious person. If he were, he would be a liar, an oathbreaker and more. He loves to push liberals' buttons more than to communicate anything of value.