A Question of Attribution

There was an interesting story by James Bamford that was carried yesterday by Reuters.  In it, he speculated that the Russians might not be behind the data thefts in either the Democratic National Committee or other things they get blamed for.  It is something to think about because attribution is so speculative these days.  If you like Bamford's writing, you can search on it and read it.

Our Intelligence Community has allowed our government to speak about this and those comments say it is the Russians.  I don't like this very much and have said so a number of times.  The Intelligence Community is often not allowed to speak for itself, granting that to Congressmen and Administration officials at various levels.  All those people can say is what they heard in closed-door briefings that are classified.  What makes them classified is what the Director of National Intelligence said in open session about attribution:  to be sure, we want to know where the event really came from, who ordered it, and where they were located when the attack was launched.

For specific events, these are not the kind of things we should be talking about in public since it raises the "How did you know that?" Question and discloses sources and methods that others would love to know.  The people who do the attacks want to know how we know who they are, and would be glad to hear that news.

So, for sure, there is some "trust me" in this but we don't need to find out that there is an informant in the place where this group launched its attack, that they were being monitored by some fancy new black box, or that a satellite picked them up when they came home from the school they were attending.   All we really need to know is the real source, and even that is not very specific to what was being done.  But, usually, if the Intelligence Community of any country says it knows who is responsible, they usually know a lot more than they are saying.  They could be wrong, but the odds are the US is not making the statement to fit any political agenda.  It really was Russia.