Deutsche Bank has Trump’s taxes — and loan applications cosigned by Russian oligarchs: report

[Elixir]

This is real evidence of ties to Uncle Vlad.

Right now, it is an accusation, not evidence. If those documents do exist, then that would definitely be very distressing news.

Not to me. It would actually be a relief, as it would no only explain a lot, it would also indicate that there is a possible limit to Trump's indebtedness to Putin.
Hopefully it WOULD mean political death to Trump and his sycophants in the Senate...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This is not a good look. O'Donnell aimed squarely at his own foot and hit a lot of other targets (MSNBC, liberals in general, etc.) and risks winding up in the sort of obscurity that has been visited on his predecessor Olbermann.

He shot MSNBC in the foot. MSNBC is desperate to try and knock down Trump and they are cutting too many corners at this point.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Here was yours truly in the RussiaGate thread:

According to a single source with insider knowledge of Deutsche Bank, Hair Furor had Russian oligarchs co-sign on various loans.

To be honest, I am skeptical. It's a single source and frankly crazy people may say anything. AND/OR it could be a false flag by Reich wing noise machine to make news look like fake news. Diabolical. IF it's true, I hope Congress will find out through hearings they are doing.

Emphasis added.

I am leaning way more toward false flag now. The damage goes way beyond merely a news media show or channel. It hurts credibility of the House and its efforts to get Trump's tax returns....adds credibility to Trump. This may have been a bait and switch.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It's interesting how, whenever a news show corrects itself (something Fox rarely does in spite of the fact that it has the highest error rates), it's raised high as an example of how ALL of their news is therefore "fake," instead of heralded correctly for being responsible enough to admit error.

 

[barbos]

He should be fired. Unlike the Dan Rather situation, which had a physical document produced and the backing of the secretary that wrote the original, this seems to have included almost nothing but ratings. We have enough propaganda on television, we don't need any more.

In that case I don't see why Rachel Maddow should not be fired as well. For Alfa Bank bullshit she was and still (last time I checked) is pushing.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

He should be fired. Unlike the Dan Rather situation, which had a physical document produced and the backing of the secretary that wrote the original, this seems to have included almost nothing but ratings. We have enough propaganda on television, we don't need any more.

In that case I don't see why Rachel Maddow should not be fired as well.

Regardless of the fact that O'Donnel should not be fired, why in the world should Maddow also be fired?

For Alfa Bank bullshit she was and still (last time I checked) is pushing.

Oh, right, what you think about Alfa Bank. Not what actual, qualified people think about it, just your layman's opinion.

I am, however, curious as to your reaction to what the owners of Alfa Bank attribute the activity:

When I saw Petr Aven at the Four Seasons, he argued that the connections with the Trump Organization had been fabricated in order to frame his company. “This is a conspiracy against us,” he told me. “It is really much bigger than the computers.” Aven did not elaborate, but Jeffrey Birnbaum, a spokesperson for Alfa Bank, supplied more detail. The bank, he said, suspected that “we are victims of classic Russian kompromat—a well-known scam in which Russian competitors pay analysts to write false reports to damage reputations.” Birnbaum described the press inquiries into the matter as an extended affliction. “This has been a terrible ordeal for Alfa Bank, like living through a Kafka novel,” he said. (Max rejected the idea that his group had fabricated data. “If we were going to lie, then we would have made up a much better story than this!” he said.)

So is that at all plausible and if so, why would that be the more plausible explanation? Careful, it's a trick question, because if it were true--that Putin had ordered a frame job of Alfa Bank--it necessarily would also mean he did so to cover up what he was actually doing in a manner we haven't discovered yet, but along similar lines that this frame job was meant to throw us off of.

Iow, if their claim were true, then Alfa is indeed a red herring, but the fact that it's a red herring would in turn prove that Putin had been communicating with the Trump team in another fashion.

 

[barbos]

Regardless of the fact that O'Donnel should not be fired, why in the world should Maddow also be fired?

Because she was/is pushing a story which was thoroughly debunked.

For Alfa Bank bullshit she was and still (last time I checked) is pushing.

Oh, right, what you think about Alfa Bank. Not what actual, qualified people think about it, just your layman's opinion.

I am much more qualified than you think. These people are either idiots or frauds which should be in prison in my humble opinion.
And the fact that this so called "story" went nowhere as far as FBI concerned should give you a hint.
And if I was revolving in Trump circles I would have advised pressing charges and destroying people's reputations over this.

I am, however, curious as to your reaction to what the owners of Alfa Bank attribute the activity:

When I saw Petr Aven at the Four Seasons, he argued that the connections with the Trump Organization had been fabricated in order to frame his company..

That's possible, given the fact how it was "discovered" and pushed into the news.

 

[Deepak]

I am much more qualified than you think. These people are either idiots or frauds which should be in prison in my humble opinion.
And the fact that this so called "story" went nowhere as far as FBI concerned should give you a hint.
And if I was revolving in Trump circles I would have advised pressing charges and destroying people's reputations over this.

One wonders why they would use DNS for secret communications anyway - mail servers from a sender like Listrak would be machines that have a static IP.

Kramer, of Listrak, insisted that his company’s servers were used exclusively for mass marketing. “We only do one thing here,” he told me. But Listrak’s services can be integrated with numerous Cendyn software packages, some of which allow instant messaging. One possibility is Metron, used to manage events at hotels. In fact, the Trump Organization’s October, 2016, statement, blaming the unusual traffic on a “banking customer” of Cendyn, suggested that the communications had gone through Metron, which supports both messaging and e-mail.

Ok, so the Cendyn package contains messaging and email... but the messaging service isn't going to be running on Listrak's mail server

They might have used a method called foldering, in which messages are written but not sent; instead, they are saved in a drafts folder, where an accomplice who also has access to the account can read them.

Wat? Volume mail senders don't have mailboxes set up for MUA access. These systems are designed for high throughput and if they handle inbound mail it's only as a forwarding service to a real mailbox.

Max and his colleagues did not see any D.N.S. evidence that the Trump Organization was attempting to access the server; they speculated that the organization was using a virtual private network, or V.P.N., a common security measure that obscures users’ digital footprints

Well of course - the Trump org wouldn't have attempted to access the server. They couldn't access the server because they don't own it...

Moreover these 'computer scientists' think that the Trump org would be smart enough to cover their tracks with a VPN, but GRU hackers wouldn't know how to implement such wild and wonderful top secret security methods? Fancy Bear was trying to crack the Dutch Safety Board's VPN back in 2015 (https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendla...e/pawn-storm-targets-mh17-investigation-team/). Did they just forget what VPNs are and how they work? They don't have access to Tor?

Paul Vixie, one of the original architects of the D.N.S. network, examined the data and told me, “If this is a forgery, it’s better than any forgery I’ve seen.”

Well this is some selective quoting. I'm sure Vixie said that about the DNS logs, but it's making it look like he agrees with the analysis when really he was only asked about (and talking to) the data in the logs.

Imagine someone walking into a Taco Bell and ordering some food at the counter, and it turns out that the guy working the register robbed a bank later that day. This is the internet equivalent of trying that Taco Bell customer for criminal conspiracy because they had communication with a bank robber prior to the crime. Actually, Cendyn would be the guy at the register, Listrak would be the roommate of the guy at the register, and the actual bank robber was a guy who pays the roommate to walk his dog.

It's meaningless nonsense that's being reported by someone who clearly doesn't understand the topic.

In fact, they sidestepped the question. Mandiant, one of the cybersecurity firms, said that it was unable to inspect the bank’s D.N.S. logs from 2016, because Alfa retained such records for only twenty-four hours. The other firm, Stroz Friedberg, gave the same explanation for why it, too, was “unable to verify” the data.

Clearly, because no one in the history of the internet has kept long-term DNS log data. I doubt la CIA or the Pentagon keep more than a week's worth of DNS logs. Why would anyone think this is sidestepping the question, when no one keeps this data? You might as well ask someone to produce last year's doughnut receipts.

 

[barbos]

One wonders why they would use DNS for secret communications anyway - mail servers from a sender like Listrak would be machines that have a static IP.



Ok, so the Cendyn package contains messaging and email... but the messaging service isn't going to be running on Listrak's mail server

They might have used a method called foldering, in which messages are written but not sent; instead, they are saved in a drafts folder, where an accomplice who also has access to the account can read them.

Wat? Volume mail senders don't have mailboxes set up for MUA access. These systems are designed for high throughput and if they handle inbound mail it's only as a forwarding service to a real mailbox.

Max and his colleagues did not see any D.N.S. evidence that the Trump Organization was attempting to access the server; they speculated that the organization was using a virtual private network, or V.P.N., a common security measure that obscures users’ digital footprints

Well of course - the Trump org wouldn't have attempted to access the server. They couldn't access the server because they don't own it...

Moreover these 'computer scientists' think that the Trump org would be smart enough to cover their tracks with a VPN, but GRU hackers wouldn't know how to implement such wild and wonderful top secret security methods? Fancy Bear was trying to crack the Dutch Safety Board's VPN back in 2015 (https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendla...e/pawn-storm-targets-mh17-investigation-team/). Did they just forget what VPNs are and how they work? They don't have access to Tor?

Paul Vixie, one of the original architects of the D.N.S. network, examined the data and told me, “If this is a forgery, it’s better than any forgery I’ve seen.”

Well this is some selective quoting. I'm sure Vixie said that about the DNS logs, but it's making it look like he agrees with the analysis when really he was only asked about (and talking to) the data in the logs.

Yeah, some appeal to authority for you. And yes, logs don't even need to be forged. Just send some idiot at Alfa Bank email with picture link to http://www.trump-secret-place-for-communication-with-vlad.com/funny-cat.jpg and it's done.

In fact all people reading this message I posted have just accessed trump server (DNS log is a proof of that), Report yourself to the FBI as russian spies!

Imagine someone walking into a Taco Bell and ordering some food at the counter, and it turns out that the guy working the register robbed a bank later that day. This is the internet equivalent of trying that Taco Bell customer for criminal conspiracy because they had communication with a bank robber prior to the crime. Actually, Cendyn would be the guy at the register, Listrak would be the roommate of the guy at the register, and the actual bank robber was a guy who pays the roommate to walk his dog.

It's meaningless nonsense that's being reported by someone who clearly doesn't understand the topic.

In fact, they sidestepped the question. Mandiant, one of the cybersecurity firms, said that it was unable to inspect the bank’s D.N.S. logs from 2016, because Alfa retained such records for only twenty-four hours. The other firm, Stroz Friedberg, gave the same explanation for why it, too, was “unable to verify” the data.

Clearly, because no one in the history of the internet has kept long-term DNS log data. I doubt la CIA or the Pentagon keep more than a week's worth of DNS logs. Why would anyone think this is sidestepping the question, when no one keeps this data? You might as well ask someone to produce last year's doughnut receipts.

I am 99% sure these people are frauds (not idiots that is), they manufactured this garbage and it just persists for some reasons.
I really don't understand why neither Trump nor Alfa Bank are taking these assholes and Rachel Maddow MSNBC to the cleaners. Must be Incompetent idiots too. Where the fuck is RT on this? they should be trolling MSNBC 24/7, where are they? Putin himself should be trolling MSNBC.

 

[ZiprHead]

These people are either idiots or frauds which should be in prison in my humble opinion.

How Russian of you. Would that prison be called a gulag?

 

[Deepak]

These people are either idiots or frauds which should be in prison in my humble opinion.

How Russian of you. Would that prison be called a gulag?

More to the point, they're impugning two American companies in a criminal conspiracy with their non-evidence. The USPS must be in on it too, since they delivered secret communiques to Trump's office

 

[barbos]

These people are either idiots or frauds which should be in prison in my humble opinion.

How Russian of you. Would that prison be called a gulag?

Have you reported yourself to the FBI yet?
Anyway, people go to prison for false reports and tampering with evidence/framing, libel. Here we may have just that.
And yes, a lot of people in Russia went to gulag because of false reports by scam like these people who created that Alfa Bank story.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Because she was/is pushing a story which was thoroughly debunked.

She isn't, nor has it been "thoroughly" debunked, whatever that's supposed to mean, as your own response to my question illustrates:

I am, however, curious as to your reaction to what the owners of Alfa Bank attribute the activity:

When I saw Petr Aven at the Four Seasons, he argued that the connections with the Trump Organization had been fabricated in order to frame his company..

That's possible, given the fact how it was "discovered" and pushed into the news.

Again, if their conspiracy theory is correct, then it proves that Putin was in fact communicating clandestinely--somehow--with the Trump camp and using the Alfa Bank server as a cover for that other activity. Putin could not have framed Alfa Bank in this manner unless there was actual activity elsewhere that he was using Alfa bank to cover.

You can't frame someone else for a crime that hasn't been committed. What possible leverage would exist for Putin to blackmail?

If you do not do as I say--in spite of the fact that you always do whatever I say--I will expose to the world that one of your servers kept pinging one of Trump's servers for a few months!

Ok, go ahead. Who would care? Absent an actual crime, it obviously would not matter what their computers may or may not have been communicating with each other.

Iow, it's only a frame job if Putin has actually committed a crime that he intends to blame on Alfa Bank. So their conspiracy theory (and your support of it) actually evidences that Putin did, in fact, commit such a crime that he's trying to frame Alfa for.

I am much more qualified than you think.

Good, then you know that anything can be used as a clandestine form of communication--without it being direct in any way--so long as both parties understand the decoding part of the code. For all we know at this point, the Alfa "pings" were just the letters "A" and "E" and that Trump's smart toaster received other forms of "pings" that were the letters "R" and "Z" and that, unbeknownst to her, Ivanka's email address would get different kinds of spam that just went directly into her spam folder, but represented the rest of the fucking alphabet in sequential rotations every forth Tuesday.

Point being that there are many many different ways in which the Alfa pings could have communicated messages either back and forth or just in one direction without the actual connections being conduits of information themselves. Just the very fact that a ping hit at a certain time on a certain date can act as a coded form of communication, without any more information being conveyed other than "Pinged at 12:34 AM Friday." One individual ping or many thousands of individual pings in and of themselves may not mean anything at all, but the pattern of when and how and how long, etc., could easily add up/decode to some form of message that we just haven't cracked yet.

Or don't know has already been cracked and that will be revealed at a later time.

Or don't know that the Alfa pings are just one piece of the code and that there are dozens others that no one discovered.

Etc.

And since we know that the activity indicated active human control--iow, it wasn't just one computer blindly pinging anything out there--and since Afla bank owners lied about their connections to the Trump campaign, nothing has been "thoroughly debunked." Strawmen, perhaps, have been knocked over, but then that's their purpose.

And the fact that this so called "story" went nowhere as far as FBI concerned should give you a hint.

Interesting that you should word it that way considering this exchange between a Republican and Mueller in his testimony--which was the only mention of Alfa bank at all from Mueller--and was in regard to a question he was asked about a piece in Slate magazine:

HURD: Got you. On October 31st, 2016, Slate published a report suggesting that a server at Trump tower was secretly communicating with Russia’s alpha bank. And I quote, “akin to what criminal syndicates do.” Do you know if that story is true?

MUELLER: Do not. Do not.

HURD: You do not?

MUELLER: Do not know if it’s true.

HURD: So did you not investigate these allegations that are suggestive of potential Trump/Russia...

MUELLER: Because I don’t believe it not true doesn’t mean it would not investigate it. It may have been investigated, but my belief at this point is not true.

It's unclear from his response--much like most of his testimony--exactly what he means. He is very much a literalist. He is asked a specific question: Do you know if that story--in Slate--is true? His answer is that he does not know if the story in Slate is true. He repeats it and is then asked a different question about whether or not he investigated the allegations of the story in slate and he immediately clarifies that his earlier response is not a confirmation that there was no investigation.

So he's making two separate points; one is that he doesn't know if reporters writing a piece in Slate got their facts right or not and the other is a clarification about Hurd trying to slip by the notion that something was investigated by him.

Is the Slate piece true?
I don't know.
So you did not investigate...
No, I did not say that. I said I don't know if that story is true--accurate, precise, confirmed, etc--which has no bearing on whether or not the idea of Trump tower secretly communicating with Russia's Alfa bank "akin to what criminal syndicates do" has been investigated. It may have been investigated, it may not. But my belief at this point is not true.

Iow, in no way is he affirming or denying whether or not the notion of Putin communicating clandestinely with the Trump camp occurred. Nor, for that matter, is he necessarily confirming (or denying) that the Alfa bank look ups had been investigated or that they did or did not constitute in and of themselves "communication", etc.

He's doing exactly what he did throughout his entire testimony. Being very careful to neither confirm nor deny anything. And the fact that it's not mentioned at all in the report is likewise significant, because as has been abundantly established, the report was a carefully worded study in negative affirmations.

I could not exonerate Trump. If I could have, I would have stated as such. I also could not establish (i.e., prove beyond a reasonable doubt) that such and such happened. It did. We know it did. We found evidence that it did, it's just that (a) we can't indict a sitting President and (b) the evidence we were able to find did not rise to the highest standard we were bound by, which is precisely why I wrote the report in such a way as to feed Congress in their role as the only government body capable of indicting.

Etc. Always affirming in the negative. If I could have exonerated Trump, I would have said so. If Alfa bank was NOT significant, I would have said so. Whatever wasn't explicitly ruled out, is implicitly ruled in. So the fact that he does not explicitly rule out Alfa bank in his report (or in his testimony) is actually a strong indication that it was or may still be significant in some fashion.

 

[Elixir]

it's only a frame job if Putin has actually committed a crime that he intends to blame on Alfa Bank.

I'm sure barbie can come up with an innocent explanation... if you give him long enough to consult with the "think tank".

 

[Deepak]

Again, if their conspiracy theory is correct, then it proves that Putin was in fact communicating clandestinely

A contingency of clandestine communication is that it's secret. The theory also requires an unrelated third party (perhaps two) to be the conduit for this information. If they were running Linux on those machines then maybe Linus Torvalds is involved.

If the mere DNS query was enough to signal to the Trump org then why didn't they just make a call to help-tovarish.somefaketld? Or a domain registered as fruit.banananinjahorse.com? That would be just as effective without expanding the circle of actors in the conspiracy or publicly announcing a connection to the Trump org. Or alternatively, as I suggested earlier - why not just call the static IP of the server?

This is Pizzagate levels of silliness.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Again, if their conspiracy theory is correct, then it proves that Putin was in fact communicating clandestinely

A contingency of clandestine communication is that it's secret.

No, a HOPE of clandestine communication is that it remains secret or is otherwise not discovered.

The theory also requires an unrelated third party (perhaps two) to be the conduit for this information.

It can be two or a billion. The conduit is not important; the code is.

If the mere DNS query was enough to signal to the Trump org then why didn't they just make a call to help-tovarish.somefaketld?

Or whatif? Or whatabout? Or? Or? Or?

It does not matter how many times you offer some OTHER conduit or means to communicate. The only relevant question is was this a means (or a part of a means) or not and that has not been conclusively answered, so the notion of barbos' that something has been "thoroughly debunked" is vapid nonsense.

And considering who posted it, just further evidence that it's not been debunked in the slightest.

This is Pizzagate levels of silliness.

Which is ironic in that the same people who came up with "pizzagate" as a meme to influence voters--and did and the theory is STILL being touted by idiot deplorable believers--are the same ones who may have let one of the many other tendrils of their own actual conspiracy show through.

This is likewise a common fallacious argument against any kind of conspiracy theory; the notion that because it failed or was exposed it somehow axiomatically means it must not have been a conspiracy.

It's right up there with the "they could never keep such a large conspiracy secret, therefore they didn't conspire" fallacy and/or "fear of being caught would have stopped them from acting" or the like.

Fear of getting caught did not stop the Watergate breakin and the 20/20 hindsight fact that it was profoundly stupid for an ex-CIA agent and four Cuban CIA-assets to actually check into the Watergate hotel on the day they were going to break into the DNC offices (and that they were all carrying sequentially marked $100 bills) did not deter them from breaking in. Not being able to keep such a vast cover up conspiracy a secret likewise did not stop Nixon and the many many people involved in the conspiracy to cover up the break in from nevertheless attempting to cover it up.

There have been thousands of conspiracies that were never deterred or prevented or in any way impacted by any such fallacies.

Likewise, the notion that a conspiracy must necessarily be flawless in both execution and design is just simply idiotic. The best laid plans of mice and men are always going to entail risks and fuck ups and "we could have done this instead" after the fact realizations; NONE of which are relevant observations or counter-arguments in regard to whether or not something is in fact part of a conspiracy.

And, again, when you factor in the lies that Alfa bank officials told about their previous relationship with the Trump organization and the fact that part of their own defense--to assert a frame job--only makes sense if there was an actual crime that they were being framed for, then far from being "debunked" it all becomes the more suspicious.

You don't try to defend yourself by claiming you've been framed when there is no crime that you know of that has been committed for which you are being forced to take the fall. So why would it even cross any Alfa bank official's mind that they were being framed by Putin; that he was attempting to blame them for....what, exactly, if in fact there was no crime?

You can't be compromised if there is no actual crime, particularly if Putin is the one who supposedly committed the crime, but is trying to pin on you. That's not how kompromat works. You have to actually be in a compromised position for that to work.

If Putin didn't communicate with the Trump campaign clandestinely, then there is no crime he is covering up by trying to pin such communication on Alfa bank. I can't make that any more clear. So why would the idea that Alfa bank was being framed by Putin even enter into their heads, let alone exit them?

It's the kind of slip up that criminals make all the time. They inadvertently confess or otherwise evidence a crime in their attempt to come up with an excuse to exonerate themselves. Is that what happened here? I don't know, of course, I'm just speculating, but I sure as shit know that nothing has been "thoroughly debunked."

ETA: Here's an interesting and relevant piece from 2010: How Russian spies hid secret codes in online photos. Snippet:

Although the exact details of what the supposed Russian agents embedded in the pictures, and how they did it, remains classified, the basic technique involves changing the numeric code that computers assign to colors, explained Tal Malkin, an assistant professor in Columbia University’s cryptography laboratory.

To generate the picture on a computer screen, the computer assigns every pixel three numeric values that correspond to the amount of red, green or blue in the color the pixel displays. By changing those values ever so slightly, the spies could hide the 1’s and 0’s of computer language in the picture’s pixel numbers, but without altering the picture’s appearance to the human eye, Bellovin said.

In doing so, the alleged spies were practicing a modern form of "steganography," which refers to the science of concealing messages within images. Early examples include Ancient Greek messages tattooed into the shaved scalps of slaves, and then hidden underneath the re-grown head of hair, according to the classical author Herodotus.

"The point of standard encryption is to hide the content of the message," Malkin said. "But even if you are detected sending a message no one can read, you will still be suspected by the authorities for sending a coded message.”

“With stenography, you try to hide the fact that communication is going on at all.”

 

[Deepak]

No, a HOPE of clandestine communication is that it remains secret or is otherwise not discovered.

The theory also requires an unrelated third party (perhaps two) to be the conduit for this information.

It can be two or a billion. The conduit is not important; the code is.

If the mere DNS query was enough to signal to the Trump org then why didn't they just make a call to help-tovarish.somefaketld?

Or whatif? Or whatabout? Or? Or? Or?

It does not matter how many times you offer some OTHER conduit or means to communicate. The only relevant question is was this a means (or a part of a means) or not and that has not been conclusively answered, so the notion of barbos' that something has been "thoroughly debunked" is vapid nonsense.

And considering who posted it, just further evidence that it's not been debunked in the slightest.

This is Pizzagate levels of silliness.

Which is ironic in that the same people who came up with "pizzagate" as a meme to influence voters--and did and the theory is STILL being touted by idiot deplorable believers--are the same ones who may have let one of the many other tendrils of their own actual conspiracy show through.

This is likewise a common fallacious argument against any kind of conspiracy theory; the notion that because it failed or was exposed it somehow axiomatically means it must not have been a conspiracy.

It's right up there with the "they could never keep such a large conspiracy secret, therefore they didn't conspire" fallacy and/or "fear of being caught would have stopped them from acting" or the like.

Fear of getting caught did not stop the Watergate breakin and the 20/20 hindsight fact that it was profoundly stupid for an ex-CIA agent and four Cuban CIA-assets to actually check into the Watergate hotel on the day they were going to break into the DNC offices (and that they were all carrying sequentially marked $100 bills) did not deter them from breaking in. Not being able to keep such a vast cover up conspiracy a secret likewise did not stop Nixon and the many many people involved in the conspiracy to cover up the break in from nevertheless attempting to cover it up.

There have been thousands of conspiracies that were never deterred or prevented or in any way impacted by any such fallacies.

Likewise, the notion that a conspiracy must necessarily be flawless in both execution and design is just simply idiotic. The best laid plans of mice and men are always going to entail risks and fuck ups and "we could have done this instead" after the fact realizations; NONE of which are relevant observations or counter-arguments in regard to whether or not something is in fact part of a conspiracy.

And, again, when you factor in the lies that Alfa bank officials told about their previous relationship with the Trump organization and the fact that part of their own defense--to assert a frame job--only makes sense if there was an actual crime that they were being framed for, then far from being "debunked" it all becomes the more suspicious.

You don't try to defend yourself by claiming you've been framed when there is no crime that you know of that has been committed for which you are being forced to take the fall. So why would it even cross any Alfa bank official's mind that they were being framed by Putin; that he was attempting to blame them for....what, exactly, if in fact there was no crime?

You can't be compromised if there is no actual crime, particularly if Putin is the one who supposedly committed the crime, but is trying to pin on you. That's not how kompromat works. You have to actually be in a compromised position for that to work.

If Putin didn't communicate with the Trump campaign clandestinely, then there is no crime he is covering up by trying to pin such communication on Alfa bank. I can't make that any more clear. So why would the idea that Alfa bank was being framed by Putin even enter into their heads, let alone exit them?

It's the kind of slip up that criminals make all the time. They inadvertently confess or otherwise evidence a crime in their attempt to come up with an excuse to exonerate themselves. Is that what happened here? I don't know, of course, I'm just speculating, but I sure as shit know that nothing has been "thoroughly debunked."

Well let's check out the meaning of clandestine: (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clandestine)

Done or kept in secret, sometimes to conceal an illicit or improper purpose.

DNS queries are literally open and public. This is exactly why DNS over HTTPS was proposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS

Look - breaking into a building is a plausible scenario. Comparing this scenario to Watergate is ridiculous. If they had set up Hollywood lighting trucks, blared sirens, and wore shirts saying 'Nixon Goon Squad Member' and broke into the wrong building we would be getting close.

This isn't in the realm of slip-ups - the theory requires someone who doesn't understand how DNS works at the most basic functional level to propose DNS querying as a signaling mechanism.

And you're so far down the rabbit hole that you're not actually reading clearly:

Aven did not elaborate, but Jeffrey Birnbaum, a spokesperson for Alfa Bank, supplied more detail. The bank, he said, suspected that “we are victims of classic Russian kompromat—a well-known scam in which Russian competitors pay analysts to write false reports to damage reputations.”

That statement doesn't say that Putin is pinning anything on anyone - and indeed these people are in Putin's sphere so why exactly would they throw him under the bus? A death-wish? To further clarify https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kompromat

compromising material, blackmail material, (real or fabricated) evidence that a person does not want revealed, dirt

By your token there really was an Illuminati child-sex-ring in DC because, because if there wasn't then there was no actual crime. Therefore the only reason any of the affected businesses defended themselves against the allegations of the conspiracy theory were because there really was a subterranean Illuminati child-sex-ring.

 

[Deepak]

ETA: Here's an interesting and relevant piece from 2010: How Russian spies hid secret codes in online photos. Snippet:

Although the exact details of what the supposed Russian agents embedded in the pictures, and how they did it, remains classified, the basic technique involves changing the numeric code that computers assign to colors, explained Tal Malkin, an assistant professor in Columbia University’s cryptography laboratory.

To generate the picture on a computer screen, the computer assigns every pixel three numeric values that correspond to the amount of red, green or blue in the color the pixel displays. By changing those values ever so slightly, the spies could hide the 1’s and 0’s of computer language in the picture’s pixel numbers, but without altering the picture’s appearance to the human eye, Bellovin said.

In doing so, the alleged spies were practicing a modern form of "steganography," which refers to the science of concealing messages within images. Early examples include Ancient Greek messages tattooed into the shaved scalps of slaves, and then hidden underneath the re-grown head of hair, according to the classical author Herodotus.

"The point of standard encryption is to hide the content of the message," Malkin said. "But even if you are detected sending a message no one can read, you will still be suspected by the authorities for sending a coded message.”

“With stenography, you try to hide the fact that communication is going on at all.”

That's not relevant at all. I know how steganography works. If the Ruskies were posting photos online that openly communicated their message then maybe this would be interesting and relevant and somehow connected. Here's some links to actually interesting and relevant things:

ELS methods applied to text http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/teaching_aids/books_articles/Maya.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_truly_large_numbers

From Google's blog post in 2012 they served 70 billion with a 'B' requests per day. These jackasses are grepping months, if not years of DNS data looking for a hit.

And pray tell exactly how Listrak is involved in this? How are they any different than Cosmic Ping Pong? Cause it seems like you're aiming tolchocks at them reasonless.

 

[barbos]

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[barbos]

You can't frame someone else for a crime that hasn't been committed. What possible leverage would exist for Putin to blackmail?

First, fuck you for wasting eveybody's time posting this particular retarded nonsense.
Second, I will comment on it anyway.
Putin has nothing to do with alleged (by me) frame-up. it's assholes from your article who came up with this bullshit theory.
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