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

[barbos]

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".

[removed]

 

[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".

[consistency]

For what, praytell? For saving a number of their agents from death by exsanguination? Actually, I think they appreciate that.

 

[barbos]

[consistency]

For what, praytell? For saving a number of their agents from death by exsanguination? Actually, I think they appreciate that.

[removed]

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well let's check out the meaning of 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 I posted the example of steganography; i.e., using something that is open and public (photos on the internet) in order to "conceal an illicit or improper purpose." It's generally called "hiding in plain sight."

This isn't in the realm of slip-ups - the theory

What theory, exactly, are you referring to? The question is whether or not the lookups--which evidence human control--could be some form of coded communication. Exactly how that would break down is not clear and to my knowledge no one has yet posited a theory on it. Right now, it's just open questions of what was going on, why was it (apparently) directed by a human and how could it be some form of clandestine communication?

requires someone who doesn't understand how DNS works at the most basic functional level to propose DNS querying as a signaling mechanism.

Again, literally ANYTHING can be a signaling mechanism. The question isn't about the mechanism; it's about the code. If you know what the code is--what the key is--then a fucking traffic light can be a signaling mechanism. Your goddamned dog could be a signaling mechanism. ANYTHING could be a signaling mechanism.

In the case of Alfa bank, everything surrounding its use as a signaling mechanism in some fashion makes it a logical component/choice/possibility. I mean Alfa bank itself, not the technological details, which, once again, can easily be multiple components that we still have no knowledge of. For all we know, the DNS lookups were just one tiny component of a much larger network/code and that's the end of Alfa bank's usefulness or there is more we don't know of.

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

Jtfc. Once again, apply the logic of what they're claiming as a defense. How could a false report about DNS lookups be used in any way to compromise Alfa bank if there were no actual crime involving someone else and DNS lookups? How could it "damage reputations" if there is no actual nefarious act that they are being blamed for?

So, one of Alfa bank's competitors pays an analyst--in this case several American computer specialists--to write a report that states merely that there was a flurry of apparently human-driven activity at key points in the general election between one of Alfa's servers and one of Trump's servers.

It's not false, btw; that's what actually happened. The only component that could be true or false is whether or not the lookups constitute some form of as yet unknown coded communication.

So how does this in any way compromise or damage Alfa bank's reputation in Russia? Not to mention the fact that, this scenario would necessarily mean that Alfa's competitors believe Putin was in fact behind the cyber attack against America--did, in fact, have clandestine channels of communication with Trump's camp--and are using that belief/knowledge to frame Alfa as part of that criminal activity that Putin orchestrated and committed in order to damage Alfa bank's reputation among who exactly? Russians?

They don't have a reputation outside of Russia. Hell, until now, no one in America or the world--that did not have financial business with Russia--knew who the fuck Alfa bank was, so again, how, exactly, would a false report of such nature in any way damage their reputation?

And, more importantly, why would such competitors risk outing Putin in order to have leverage over Alfa bank? Because, again, without Putin having actually committed a crime that is being falsely pinned on Alfa bank, there is no kompromat. So are the competitors trying to damage Alfa bank's "reputation" in America with American billionaires? How?

Hey, everybody in American businesses. Don't do banking with Alfa. One of their servers kept looking up one of Trump's servers for four months during the election!

Yeah. And?

And you're the one throwing around words like "silly" and "ridiculous" instead of providing intelligent counter-arguments.

and indeed these people are in Putin's sphere so why exactly would they throw him under the bus? A death-wish?

Which, somehow, does not apply to Alfa bank's competitors? What makes sense is a criminal conspirator trying to avoid prosecution by coming up with an excuse that puts the blame for their actions on someone else. In so doing, however, they didn't realize they were confirming that a crime had been committed, so they backpedal.

What makes no sense at all is for there to have been no criminal activity that an innocent bank would make up in order to then blame on its competitors for blaming them. We didn't do this thing that didn't happen; our competitors are just trying to ruin our reputation by blaming us for something that never happened.

Unless there actually was something that happened, there is no way to falsely blame someone else for it.

By your token *snip more fallacies*

By MY token, there is an open question as to why Alfa bank lied about its relationships with the Trump campaign; an open question as to why apparently human-generated activity between the servers occurred at all, let alone at key points of the general election; and an open question as to how such pings could be used--either alone or in part--as a means of coded communication.

NONE of those open questions have been "thoroughly debunked" as barbos claimed and certainly nothing that you have presented even begins to rise to the level of relevant counter-argument. Far from it, in fact. It's been nothing but a series of strawmen, arguments from incredulity and pathetic attempts at denigration that have all simply backfired.

For anyone interested, here is the Slate piece Rep. Hurd was referring to.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Two further points relating to what Deepak wrote previously, before this becomes its own thread...

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.

From the Slate article (emphasis mine):

Earlier this month, the group of computer scientists passed the logs to Paul Vixie. In the world of DNS experts, there’s no higher authority. Vixie wrote central strands of the DNS code that makes the internet work. After studying the logs, he concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence. Over the summer, the scientists observed the communications trail from a distance.
...
I put the question of what kind of activity the logs recorded to the University of California’s Nicholas Weaver, another computer scientist not involved in compiling the logs. “I can't attest to the logs themselves,” he told me, “but assuming they are legitimate they do indicate effectively human-level communication.”

Weaver’s statement raises another uncertainty: Are the logs authentic? Computer scientists are careful about vouching for evidence that emerges from unknown sources—especially since the logs were pasted in a text file, where they could conceivably have been edited. I asked nine computer scientists—some who agreed to speak on the record, some who asked for anonymity—if the DNS logs that Tea Leaves and his collaborators discovered could be forged or manipulated. They considered it nearly impossible. It would be easy enough to fake one or maybe even a dozen records of DNS lookups. But in the aggregate, the logs contained thousands of records, with nuances and patterns that not even the most skilled programmers would be able to recreate on this scale. “The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,” Vixie told me. “It’s the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.” I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. “This passes the reasonable person test,” he told me. “No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I’ve come to.” Others were equally emphatic. “It would be really, really hard to fake these,” Davis said. According to Camp, “When the technical community examined the data, the conclusion was pretty obvious.”

So much for the accusation of selectively quoting Vixie, or the notion that Afla bank's competitors created a false report.

And also worth noting is how this all came about in the first place (emphasis mine):

In late spring, this community of malware hunters placed itself in a high state of alarm. Word arrived that Russian hackers had infiltrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee, an attack persuasively detailed by the respected cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The computer scientists posited a logical hypothesis, which they set out to rigorously test: If the Russians were worming their way into the DNC, they might very well be attacking other entities central to the presidential campaign, including Donald Trump’s many servers. “We wanted to help defend both campaigns, because we wanted to preserve the integrity of the election,” says one of the academics, who works at a university that asked him not to speak with reporters because of the sensitive nature of his work.

Hunting for malware requires highly specialized knowledge of the intricacies of the domain name system—the protocol that allows us to type email addresses and website names to initiate communication. DNS enables our words to set in motion a chain of connections between servers, which in turn delivers the results we desire. Before a mail server can deliver a message to another mail server, it has to look up its IP address using the DNS. Computer scientists have built a set of massive DNS databases, which provide fragmentary histories of communications flows, in part to create an archive of malware: a kind of catalog of the tricks bad actors have tried to pull, which often involve masquerading as legitimate actors. These databases can give a useful, though far from comprehensive, snapshot of traffic across the internet. Some of the most trusted DNS specialists—an elite group of malware hunters, who work for private contractors—have access to nearly comprehensive logs of communication between servers. They work in close concert with internet service providers, the networks through which most of us connect to the internet, and the ones that are most vulnerable to massive attacks. To extend the traffic metaphor, these scientists have cameras posted on the internet’s stoplights and overpasses. They are entrusted with something close to a complete record of all the servers of the world connecting with one another.

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

More data was needed, so he began carefully keeping logs of the Trump server’s DNS activity. As he collected the logs, he would circulate them in periodic batches to colleagues in the cybersecurity world. Six of them began scrutinizing them for clues.
...
The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

The researchers had initially stumbled in their diagnosis because of the odd configuration of Trump’s server. “I’ve never seen a server set up like that,” says Christopher Davis, who runs the cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc. and won a FBI Director Award for Excellence for his work tracking down the authors of one of the world’s nastiest botnet attacks. “It looked weird, and it didn’t pass the sniff test.” The server was first registered to Trump’s business in 2009 and was set up to run consumer marketing campaigns. It had a history of sending mass emails on behalf of Trump-branded properties and products. Researchers were ultimately convinced that the server indeed belonged to Trump. (Click here to see the server’s registration record.) But now this capacious server handled a strangely small load of traffic, such a small load that it would be hard for a company to justify the expense and trouble it would take to maintain it. “I get more mail in a day than the server handled,” Davis says.

Iow, it was not "open and public" and indeed was only discovered by "happenstance" as a result of extensive research based on the fact that "word" had got out that Russia had hacked the DNC, so what else might they be up to?

 

[Deepak]

This is exactly why I posted the example of steganography; i.e., using something that is open and public (photos on the internet) in order to "conceal an illicit or improper purpose." It's generally called "hiding in plain sight."

Jtfc. Once again, apply the logic of what they're claiming as a defense. How could a false report about DNS lookups be used in any way to compromise Alfa bank if there were no actual crime involving someone else and DNS lookups? How could it "damage reputations" if there is no actual nefarious act that they are being blamed for?

But it's not hiding in plain sight. It's being visible in plain sight - there's no effort to hide in a DNS query. They're fundamentally different. Your steganography assertion would equally fit in some QAnon diatribe.

The reputational damage claimed is because of the extensive and well documented attempt by Russian state actors to influence the American election and electorate. Again - how could subterranean-pizza-shop-child-sex-rings 'damage reputations' if there weren't subterranean-pizza-shop-child-sex-rings? Merely being linked to Trump is sufficient to cause reputational damage, but especially in regards to election impropriety. Regardless of whether they're truthful, you're purposefully misunderstanding what they're claiming. DNS logs could be evidence that communication was happening, because once the lookup has completed then the two servers can open a communication channel, but then you'll need to explain how the third parties Listrak and Cendyn are involved in the conspiracy and what they stand to gain - which no article you've linked actually explains. And I'd still love to see the context of Vixie's quote because I'm pretty certain that Vixie was talking about the DNS logs being evidence of communication between servers, but not DNS queries as a signaling mechanism.

Another quote from Vixie from an interview with The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/01...necting-russia-to-donald-trumps-email-server/

But even Vixie conceded to The Intercept that Tea Leaves’ evidence was conclusive of nothing: “It’s a perfect he-said, she-said situation. … Mandiant is guessing no. I am guessing yes. Neither of us has direct evidence.”

Which is to say that the DNS queries themselves are not what he's referring to in the Slate article. It stands to reason that if he were told that the server belonged to Trump, then that would affect the inference he draws from the data. All that said, the data was referred to the FBI and they seem to have concluded that there was nothing of value, which I suppose indicates they're also co-conspirators.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

But it's not hiding in plain sight. It's being visible in plain sight

It is? Ok, then what is the code?

there's no effort to hide in a DNS query.

What I am saying/arguing/asserting/speculating (among other things) is that the DNS query IS the code. Or, rather, could be. We don't know if or what the code actually is, of course.

So, for example and as I pointed out previously, initiating a look up at 10:45 AM New York time on a particular day (let's say Friday) represents the letter "G." Initiating a look up at 1:38 PM on the same day represents the letter "O." On the following Saturday, the lookups and their times correspond to the letters T-O-M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N. Or whatever the fuck the message is.

Iow and once again, it may not be anything more than the simple timing of the look ups, not that there was necessarily a dedicated open communications channel created between Afla and Trump, where Putin could sext him and they could play Fireboy and Watergirl together.

The reputational damage claimed is because of the extensive and well documented attempt by Russian state actors to influence the American election and electorate.

Except that, Alfa bank is a RUSSIAN bank, not an American bank. So, aside from the fact that the lookups were not faked--so the entirety of Alfa's excuse is disproved and this entire side point is moot--how does Alfa bank's Russian reputation get damaged by a competitor (meaning another Russian bank) leaking the notion that their servers were pinging one of Trump's servers?

Again - how could subterranean-pizza-shop-child-sex-rings 'damage reputations' if there weren't subterranean-pizza-shop-child-sex-rings?

Speaking of something not being linked! How the fuck does falsely claiming that a bank's server pinged Trump's server equate to spreading a false child sex ring rumor? Your own example puts the notion of your conspiracy theory in stark idiotic relief.

Merely being linked to Trump is sufficient to cause reputational damage

NOT TO A RUSSIAN BANK. Hell, not to an American bank, unfortunately.

Regardless of whether they're truthful, you're purposefully misunderstanding what they're claiming.

No, I very clearly am not, but I smell more straw, so...

DNS logs could be evidence that communication was happening

You're still not getting it. How does morse code work?

And I'd still love to see the context of Vixie's quote, because I'm pretty certain that Vixie was talking about the DNS logs being evidence of communication between servers, but not DNS queries as a signaling mechanism

Nice strawman. I never argued that Vixie said the DNS queries were, in and of themselves, a signaling mechanism. Regardless, here are his words once again:

After studying the logs, [Vixie] concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” ... “The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,” Vixie told me. “It’s the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.” I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. “This passes the reasonable person test,” he told me. “No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I’ve come to.”

He then confirms this opinion in your own quote:

But even Vixie conceded to The Intercept that Tea Leaves’ evidence was conclusive of nothing: “It’s a perfect he-said, she-said situation. … Mandiant is guessing no. I am guessing yes. Neither of us has direct evidence.”

He's guessing "yes."

Which is to say that the DNS queries themselves are not what he's referring to in the Slate article.

Bullshit that is directly contradicted by his own words. You've stuffed a strawman and are now choking on the straw. Stop it.

All that said, the data was referred to the FBI and they seem to have concluded that there was nothing of value

Source for that assertion please, because so far as I can find there has been NO confirmation one way or the other from the FBI regarding what if anything the Alfa lookups represent.

 

[Deepak]

It is? Ok, then what is the code?

What I am saying/arguing/asserting/speculating (among other things) is that the DNS query IS the code. Or, rather, could be. We don't know if or what the code actually is, of course.

So, for example and as I pointed out previously, initiating a look up at 10:45 AM New York time on a particular day (let's say Friday) represents the letter "G." Initiating a look up at 1:38 PM on the same day represents the letter "O." On the following Saturday, the lookups and their times correspond to the letters T-O-M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N. Or whatever the fuck the message is.

Iow and once again, it may not be anything more than the simple timing of the look ups, not that there was necessarily a dedicated open communications channel created between Afla and Trump, where Putin could sext him and they could play Fireboy and Watergirl together.

No, it's pretty clear that you're not the one getting it. And to quote Dawn from En Vogue - you're never gonna get it.

You still have the mistaken assumption that a DNS query goes from the system making the request to the system being looked up.

A short explanation for the folks who aren't committed to motivated thinking: https://dyn.com/blog/dns-why-its-important-how-it-works/

If Vixie had direct evidence then he wouldn't say the complete opposite. He's pretty active on Twitter - feel free to run your nonsensical theory by him. Be sure to post the response.

 

[barbos]

It is? Ok, then what is the code?

What I am saying/arguing/asserting/speculating (among other things) is that the DNS query IS the code. Or, rather, could be. We don't know if or what the code actually is, of course.

So, for example and as I pointed out previously, initiating a look up at 10:45 AM New York time on a particular day (let's say Friday) represents the letter "G." Initiating a look up at 1:38 PM on the same day represents the letter "O." On the following Saturday, the lookups and their times correspond to the letters T-O-M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N. Or whatever the fuck the message is.

Iow and once again, it may not be anything more than the simple timing of the look ups, not that there was necessarily a dedicated open communications channel created between Afla and Trump, where Putin could sext him and they could play Fireboy and Watergirl together.

No, it's pretty clear that you're not the one getting it. And to quote Dawn from En Vogue - you're never gonna get it.

You still have the mistaken assumption that a DNS query goes from the system making the request to the system being looked up.

Yeah, it's what they call in Russia - "clinical case". How these assholes got a hold of DNS logs anyway?
Went to Russia and asked their ISP for logs?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

No, it's pretty clear that you're not the one getting it....You still have the mistaken assumption that a DNS query goes from the system making the request to the system being looked up.

Wrong, yet again. It does not matter how the query "goes"; the only thing that would matter (in my hypothesis) is whether or not the events themselves constitute some form of code. For example, something like morse code, where the code is in the duration and timing of the clicks, not necessarily in the method the clicks are made.

You can "send" morse code by clicking your fucking teeth or blinking your eyes or smashing a thousand rocks against a thousand other rocks.

If Vixie had direct evidence then he wouldn't say the complete opposite.

More straw. No one argued that Vixie had "direct evidence" whatever that's supposed to mean. It's impossible to tell from your source, because of the two--mine and yours--yours provided no context at all. Indeed, the quote your source provided only confirmed Vixie's thoughts on the matter, as it referenced "Mandiant," which was the name of the firm Alfa bank hired that, surprise surprise, vindicated them.

As they publicly stated:

In a statement, FireEye said it had been presented with a log of the communication between the servers over a period of 90 days, listing the separate contacts.

“The information presented is inconclusive and is not evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization,” the statement said. “The list presented does not contain enough information to show that there has been any actual activity opposed to simple DNS lookups, which can come from a variety of sources including anti-spam and other security software.”

The statement continued: “As part of the ongoing investigation, Alfa Bank has opened its IT systems to Mandiant, which has investigated both remotely and on the ground in Moscow. We are continuing our investigation. Nothing we have or have found alters our view as described above that there isn’t evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization.”

Your source's quote from Vixie:

Mandiant is guessing no. I am guessing yes. Neither of us has direct evidence.

I'll go with Vixie.

He's pretty active on Twitter - feel free to run your nonsensical theory by him.

Since my source actually provided context and yours did not, I'll leave it with Vixie's own words once again:

After studying the logs, [Vixie] concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” ... “The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,” Vixie told me. “It’s the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.” I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. “This passes the reasonable person test,” he told me. “No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I’ve come to.”

Which is, once again, that the "parties were communicating in a secretive fashion" and that the traffic appeared to be of human origin, not merely bots or dumb machines pinging each other randomly. Iow, according to Vixie (and others) it appears to have been some form of deliberate intent behind the lookups.

Here, let's use the Guardian piece I quoted above (and is actually on your side; emphasis mine):

Computer scientists quoted in the Slate story said that the Trump server had a capacity for mass email but was only being used for a small amount of traffic, nearly 90% of which was with servers from a single organisation, Alfa Bank.

“The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project,” said Paul Vixie, a software expert and one of the creators of the domain name system (DNS) that guides communication on the internet.

Robert Graham, a cybersecurity expert and head of Errata Security, dismissed the claims as “nonsense”. He said the domain in question, trump-email.com, was actually controlled by Cendyn, a company that handles marketing for hotels, including Trump’s hotels.

Graham also argued that there was no sign of human communication between the servers, which appeared to be looking up each other’s IP (internet protocol) addresses, the first step towards establishing communication. The logs show that two Alfa Bank servers sent a total of more than 2,700 lookup requests to the Trump email server.

“The requests are spread out evenly throughout the day, with no correlation to time zones,” Graham said in an email. “This would indicate automated tools looking up incoming spam addresses, not humans sending email. If it were sign of human activity, we would see spikes around 9am when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch.”

John Bambenek, a consultant with Fidelis Cybersecurity, who has also studied the logs, said there were unanswered questions about their provenance and authenticity.

“The identity of the person bringing the data can be more important than the data,” Bambenek said. “I’m suspicious of the claims that this was gathered legally. They tell an interesting story, but it’s not clear whether there is selection or filter applied … I smell smoke. I just don’t know where the smoke is coming from.’

L Jean Camp, a professor of informatics at Indiana University, said there were still a lot of unanswered questions about the communication between the servers.

“It doesn’t act like a marketing server. Because you wouldn’t use a heavy-duty mailer with over 80% of its communication with just one organisation,” Camp said. “I don’t know of any marketing campaign that would do that.”

Let's look now again at the bolded section:

b]The logs show that two Alfa Bank servers sent a total of more than 2,700 lookup requests to the Trump email server.

“The requests are spread out evenly throughout the day, with no correlation to time zones,” Graham said in an email. “This would indicate automated tools looking up incoming spam addresses, not humans sending email. If it were sign of human activity, we would see spikes around 9am when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch.”

Now remove his speculation about normal human activity (i.e., the idea of spikes at 9am "when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch" as that's not how spies engaged in a cyber war would behave) and instead think in terms of the lookups themselves being the dots and dashes of coded messages. Eliminate too the notion of "email" correspondence or anything being sent over some sort of bridge between the two servers or the like. Iow, stop looking at the trees and look instead at the forest.

2,700 lookup requests sent from two Alfa Bank servers over a five month period that corresponds precisely with the most important parts of the 2016 Election, including huge spikes in the activity toward the very end.

Forget everything else and focus instead on just the fact that there were two Alfa bank servers that sent 2,700 lookup requests at various times and throughout the day. If the lookup request itself constitutes a dot and the time of day a dash (or the like), and/or if it comes from one server as opposed to the other and vice versa, then you've got your secret communication channel, where Putin can instruct whoever is at the Alfa bank servers to send whatever messages he wants.

Because the messages aren't IN the lookups; the messages ARE the lookups. Or parts thereof. For all we know, 50 lookups on Monday the 20th meant, "Assange is releasing emails." 500 lookups over the course of three consecutive days, where 100 comes from Alfa server X and 400 from Alfa server Y means, "Wisconsin on brink, go here and here and here." Etc. Or some other code that isn't readily apparent (as most clandestine, foreign intelligence codes are).

But of course it's not just the strange highly suspect and remarkably coincidental activity of the servers that puts question marks all over this. It's also, as I pointed out, Alfa bank's response (they were being framed) and Aven's testimony to Mueller (next post since it seems this thread is now shifting into this territory, unless mods want to split it out into its own thread).

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

From Page 146 (Volume 1) of the Mueller report:

Aven told the Office that he is one of approximately 50 wealthy Russian businessmen who regularly meet with Putin in the Kremlin; these 50 men are often referred to as "oligarchs.” Aven told the Office that he met on a quarterly basis with Putin, including in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016, shortly after the U.S. presidential election.

Note the he met “on a quarterly basis” with Putin, which meant that he ALSO would have met with Putin in the third quarter of 2016, or July (and, naturally, in the second and first etc). Which is almost exactly when the activity begins and also just after we first learn the DNC had been hacked.

Aven said that he took these meetings seriously and understood that any suggestions or critiques that Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and that there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through.
…
According to Aven, at his Q4 2016 one-on-one meeting with Putin, Putin raised the prospect that the United States would impose additional sanctions on Russian interests, including sanctions against Aven and/or Alfa-Bank.

Why? This meeting was “shortly after” the election. Trump was President Elect. Trump had already publicly informed the world (and thereby Putin) that America should “move on.” Obama was going to (and did) issue sanctions by expelling diplomats and condemning the GRU and all, due to Putin’s interference in the election, but that was a direct “you are the ones that did this, so you are the ones sanctioned” kind of strategy and, regardless, Putin didn't tell Aven to communicate with Obama; he told him to communicate with Trump.

Biden hinted at there being a “covert response” that would be “obvious to Mr. Putin but not to the public,” which may have been interpreted as Putin’s assets being seized, but, of course, that wouldn’t apply to a privately owned bank—Alfa Bank—in Russia. We have no authority or means to force Alfa bank to freeze Putin’s accounts or the like. Yet, according to Aven’s testimony:

Putin suggested that Aven needed to take steps to protect himself and Alfa-Bank.

Ok, but, again, why? And how? Even more curious, however, is what comes just after that part:

Aven also testified that Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with the incoming Trump Administration. According to Aven, Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect

Well, we know that’s bullshit. Not only because of all of the OTHER ties to Putin that had been revealed subsequently, but also because Putin isn’t a fucking moron and could just pick up a paper or ask any of his intelligence operatives or just call Trump directly. He was the President Elect for fuck’s sake.

As was oft-repeated—and used extensively as an excuse by almost everyone that lied about their connections to Russia—there would be nothing untoward in a foreign leader reaching out to a President Elect.

The Mueller report continues:

Aven [REDACTED] told Putin he would take steps to protect himself and the Alfa-Bank shareholders from potential sanctions, and one of those steps would be to try to reach out to the incoming Administration to establish a line of communication.

I’m sorry, what? A “line of communication”? For what purpose? “Hey, please don’t put any sanctions on Alfa bank in spite of the fact that you have no power or authority to put any sanctions on Alfa bank or, for that matter, any REASON to--and in fact have constantly, publicly, denied there even was any Russian interference AT ALL”?

But, more importantly, note how the story changes ever so subtly:

Putin did not expressly direct him to reach out to the Trump Transition Team, Aven understood that Putin expected him to try to respond to the concerns he had raised.

Ok, but the “concerns” he had raised were that Trump might sanction Alfa bank and THAT is why Aven needed to establish “communications” with the Trump transition team.

Aven's efforts are described in Volume I, Section IV.B.5, infra.
…
After the December 2016 all-hands meeting, Aven tried to establish a connection to the Trump team. Aven instructed Richard Burt to make contact with the incoming Trump Administration. Burt was on the board of directors for LetterOne (Ll), another company headed by Aven, and had done work for Alfa-Bank. Burt had previously served as U.S. ambassador to Germany and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, and one of his primary roles with Alfa-Bank and Ll was to facilitate introductions to business contacts in the United States and other Western countries.

While at a LI board meeting held in Luxembourg in late December 2016, Aven pulled Burt aside and told him that he had spoken to someone high in the Russian government who expressed interest in establishing a communications channel between the Kremlin and the Trump Transition Team.

Whoa, now, what was that again? Someone high in the Russian government wanted to establish a communications channel between the Kremlin and the Trump transition team? No. Again, Putin supposedly told Aven that Aven’s bank was going to be sanctioned. The “channel” was supposed to be between Aven and Trump’s transition team, presumably to convince Trump not to sanction Alfa bank, NOT between the Kremlin and Trump.

According to Aven, Putin had also told Aven about Putin’s alleged difficulties in communicating with the Trump transition team, but Putin’s “concerns” and the reason Aven was supposedly acting at all was to establish communications between him and Trump’s team regarding the prevention (somehow) of non-existent sanctions on Aven’s bank.

The Mueller report continues:

Aven asked for Burt's help in contacting members of the Transition Team. Although Burt had been responsible for helping Aven build connections in the past, Burt viewed Aven's request as unusual and outside the normal realm of his dealings with Aven.

I should think so, since it’s ALSO outside the instructions supposedly given to Aven by Putin.

Burt, who is a member of the board of CNI (discussed at Volume I, Section IV.A.4, supra),1174 decided to approach CNI president Dimitri Simes for help facilitating Aven's request, recalling that Simes had some relationship with Kushner.At the time, Simes was lobbying the Trump Transition Team, on Burt' s behalf, to appoint Burt U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Burt contacted Simes by telephone and asked if he could arrange a meeting with Kushner to discuss setting up a high-level communications channel between Putin and the incoming Administration.

WHAT!? So, we’ve now gone from Aven wanting to establish a line of communication with the Trump transition team in order to somehow convince Trump not to sanction Alfa bank (in spite of the fact that there would be no need to do so as Trump not only was not threatening to do so, he, once again, was consistently denying there was any such thing as Russian interference at all) to Aven enlisting Burt to set up a channel between the Kremlin and the transition team (not Alfa bank and the transition team) to Burt enlisting Simes to set up a meeting with Kushner to set up a “high-level communications channel” between Putin and the “incoming Administration” (which of course would only mean Trump himself as Putin wouldn’t be talking to lackies) .

Again, why? The President of the United States already has a “high-level communications channel” directly to the Kremlin. It’s infamously known as the “red phone” ffs. So why would Putin want a secret “high-level communications channel” set up with President Elect Trump? And why would a bank President be the one to facilitate it?

Again, as President Elect, Putin could have simply called Trump at any time and for any reason.

But, again, more importantly, why does Aven’s story change from I need to set up a communications channel with the Trump transition team to somehow stop non-existent sanctions against my bank to I have to set up a secret, high-level communications channel between Trump and Putin?

Aven notes that Putin ALSO mentioned his alleged troubles with communicating with the transition team, so the implication is that Aven just understood that Putin was actually instructing him to set up a secret, high-level communications channel directly between Putin and Trump?

Evidently so. The report continues:

Simes told the Office that he declined and stated to Burt that setting up such a channel was not a good idea in light of the media attention surrounding Russian influence in the U.S. presidential election.According to Simes, he understood that Burt was seeking a secret channel, and Simes did not want CNI to be seen as an intermediary between the Russian government and the incoming Administration.

First mention of a “secret” channel, btw. So now, finally, it gets revealed that it's a "secret" channel between Trump and Putin that is really what Aven is after the whole time.

Based on what Simes had read in the media, he stated that he already had concerns that Trump's business connections could be exploited by Russia, and Simes said that he did not want CNI to have any involvement or apparent involvement in facilitating any connection.

In an email dated December 22, 2016, Burt recounted for Aven his conversation with
Simes:

Through a trusted third party, I have reached out to the very influential person I mentioned in Luxembourg concerning Project A. There is an interest and an understanding for the need to establish such a channel. But the individual emphasized that at this moment, with so much intense interest in the Congress and the media over the question of cyber-hacking (and who ordered what), Project A was too explosive to discus s. The individual agreed to discuss it again after the New Year. I trust the individual' s instincts on this.

If this is unclear or you would like to discuss, don't hesitate to call.​

According to Burt, the "very influential person" referenced in his email was Simes, and the reference to a "trusted third party" was a fabrication, as no such third party existed.

Riiiight. Bizarre to lie about a “trusted third party” that doesn’t exist.

"Project A" was a term that Burt created for Aven's effort to help establish a communications channel between Russia and the Trump team

Again, no, it was supposed to be between Aven and the Trump team in order to stop non-existent sanctions against Alfa bank. Right?

, which he used in light of the sensitivities surrounding what Aven was requesting, especially in light of the recent attention to Russia ' s influence in the U.S. presidential election. According to Burt, his report that there was " interest" in a communications channel reflected Simes's views, not necessarily those of the Transition Team, and in any event , Burt acknowledged that he added some "hype" to that sentence to make it sound like there was more interest from the Transition Team than may have actually existed.

True or not, the more important point is why is Aven lying initially about what Putin instructed him to do, which was, apparently, to try to establish a secret high-level communications channel between Putin and Trump?

The report then notes:

In the first quarter of 2017, Aven met again with Putin and other Russian officials. At that meeting, Putin asked about Aven's attempt to build relations with the Trump Administration and Aven recounted his lack of success. Putin continued to inquire about Aven's efforts to connect to the Trump Administration in several subsequent quarterly meetings.

WHUCK? Why? And “several subsequent quarterly meetings” after the first quarter of 2017 would mean, basically, over the next six to nine months! By that time, Trump had not only spoken to Putin over the phone, but the two had actually
]met in person in July (or the beginning of the third quarter)!

The last entry in Mueller’s report regarding Aven reinforces the change in his story:

Aven also told Putin's chief of staff that he had been subpoenaed by the FBI. As part of that conversation, he repotred that he had been asked by the FBI about whether he had worked to create a back channel between the Russian government and the Trump Administration. According to Aven, the official showed no emotion in response to this report and did not appear to care.

So, let’s recap, compare and contrast what Aven STARTS with and what he ends with:

According to Aven, at his Q4 2016 one-on-one meeting with Putin, Putin raised the prospect that the United States would impose additional sanctions on Russian interests, including sanctions against Aven and/or Alfa-Bank.

Putin suggested that Aven needed to take steps to protect himself and Alfa-Bank.
…
Aven [REDACTED] told Putin he would take steps to protect himself and the Alfa-Bank shareholders from potential sanctions, and one of those steps would be to try to reach out to the incoming Administration to establish a line of communication.

No. This makes absolutely no sense. This is clearly bullshit. Alfa bank would have nothing to fear in regard to any possible US sanctions, let alone anything at all from Trump. It’s only THIS part that ties it all together:

Aven also testified that Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with the incoming Trump Administration. According to Aven, Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect

Iow, the actual mission given to Aven by Putin at one of the “one-on-one” quarterly meetings was for Aven to somehow establish a secret, high-level communications channel directly between Trump and Putin. All of that bullshit about sanctions and Alfa bank is exactly that; bullshit. Aven is very clearly not telling the truth or, at the very least, not revealing the whole truth and using this other story as a cover.

He clearly was instructed by Putin to somehow establish a secret communications channel with Trump and it was more than likely “several quarters” back; iow, long before the election.

 

[Gun Nut]

Wrong, yet again. It does not matter how the query "goes"; the only thing that would matter (in my hypothesis) is whether or not the events themselves constitute some form of code. For example, something like morse code, where the code is in the duration and timing of the clicks, not necessarily in the method the clicks are made.

You can "send" morse code by clicking your fucking teeth or blinking your eyes or smashing a thousand rocks against a thousand other rocks.



More straw. No one argued that Vixie had "direct evidence" whatever that's supposed to mean. It's impossible to tell from your source, because of the two--mine and yours--yours provided no context at all. Indeed, the quote your source provided only confirmed Vixie's thoughts on the matter, as it referenced "Mandiant," which was the name of the firm Alfa bank hired that, surprise surprise, vindicated them.

As they publicly stated:

In a statement, FireEye said it had been presented with a log of the communication between the servers over a period of 90 days, listing the separate contacts.

“The information presented is inconclusive and is not evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization,” the statement said. “The list presented does not contain enough information to show that there has been any actual activity opposed to simple DNS lookups, which can come from a variety of sources including anti-spam and other security software.”

The statement continued: “As part of the ongoing investigation, Alfa Bank has opened its IT systems to Mandiant, which has investigated both remotely and on the ground in Moscow. We are continuing our investigation. Nothing we have or have found alters our view as described above that there isn’t evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization.”

Your source's quote from Vixie:

Mandiant is guessing no. I am guessing yes. Neither of us has direct evidence.

I'll go with Vixie.

He's pretty active on Twitter - feel free to run your nonsensical theory by him.

Since my source actually provided context and yours did not, I'll leave it with Vixie's own words once again:

After studying the logs, [Vixie] concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” ... “The data has got the right kind of fuzz growing on it,” Vixie told me. “It’s the interpacket gap, the spacing between the conversations, the total volume. If you look at those time stamps, they are not simulated. This bears every indication that it was collected from a live link.” I asked him if there was a chance that he was wrong about their authenticity. “This passes the reasonable person test,” he told me. “No reasonable person would come to the conclusion other than the one I’ve come to.”

Which is, once again, that the "parties were communicating in a secretive fashion" and that the traffic appeared to be of human origin, not merely bots or dumb machines pinging each other randomly. Iow, according to Vixie (and others) it appears to have been some form of deliberate intent behind the lookups.

Here, let's use the Guardian piece I quoted above (and is actually on your side; emphasis mine):

Computer scientists quoted in the Slate story said that the Trump server had a capacity for mass email but was only being used for a small amount of traffic, nearly 90% of which was with servers from a single organisation, Alfa Bank.

“The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project,” said Paul Vixie, a software expert and one of the creators of the domain name system (DNS) that guides communication on the internet.

Robert Graham, a cybersecurity expert and head of Errata Security, dismissed the claims as “nonsense”. He said the domain in question, trump-email.com, was actually controlled by Cendyn, a company that handles marketing for hotels, including Trump’s hotels.

Graham also argued that there was no sign of human communication between the servers, which appeared to be looking up each other’s IP (internet protocol) addresses, the first step towards establishing communication. The logs show that two Alfa Bank servers sent a total of more than 2,700 lookup requests to the Trump email server.

“The requests are spread out evenly throughout the day, with no correlation to time zones,” Graham said in an email. “This would indicate automated tools looking up incoming spam addresses, not humans sending email. If it were sign of human activity, we would see spikes around 9am when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch.”

John Bambenek, a consultant with Fidelis Cybersecurity, who has also studied the logs, said there were unanswered questions about their provenance and authenticity.

“The identity of the person bringing the data can be more important than the data,” Bambenek said. “I’m suspicious of the claims that this was gathered legally. They tell an interesting story, but it’s not clear whether there is selection or filter applied … I smell smoke. I just don’t know where the smoke is coming from.’

L Jean Camp, a professor of informatics at Indiana University, said there were still a lot of unanswered questions about the communication between the servers.

“It doesn’t act like a marketing server. Because you wouldn’t use a heavy-duty mailer with over 80% of its communication with just one organisation,” Camp said. “I don’t know of any marketing campaign that would do that.”

Let's look now again at the bolded section:

b]The logs show that two Alfa Bank servers sent a total of more than 2,700 lookup requests to the Trump email server.

“The requests are spread out evenly throughout the day, with no correlation to time zones,” Graham said in an email. “This would indicate automated tools looking up incoming spam addresses, not humans sending email. If it were sign of human activity, we would see spikes around 9am when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch.”

Now remove his speculation about normal human activity (i.e., the idea of spikes at 9am "when people got to work and 1pm when they got back from lunch" as that's not how spies engaged in a cyber war would behave) and instead think in terms of the lookups themselves being the dots and dashes of coded messages. Eliminate too the notion of "email" correspondence or anything being sent over some sort of bridge between the two servers or the like. Iow, stop looking at the trees and look instead at the forest.

2,700 lookup requests sent from two Alfa Bank servers over a five month period that corresponds precisely with the most important parts of the 2016 Election, including huge spikes in the activity toward the very end.

Forget everything else and focus instead on just the fact that there were two Alfa bank servers that sent 2,700 lookup requests at various times and throughout the day. If the lookup request itself constitutes a dot and the time of day a dash (or the like), and/or if it comes from one server as opposed to the other and vice versa, then you've got your secret communication channel, where Putin can instruct whoever is at the Alfa bank servers to send whatever messages he wants.

Because the messages aren't IN the lookups; the messages ARE the lookups. Or parts thereof. For all we know, 50 lookups on Monday the 20th meant, "Assange is releasing emails." 500 lookups over the course of three consecutive days, where 100 comes from Alfa server X and 400 from Alfa server Y means, "Wisconsin on brink, go here and here and here." Etc. Or some other code that isn't readily apparent (as most clandestine, foreign intelligence codes are).

But of course it's not just the strange highly suspect and remarkably coincidental activity of the servers that puts question marks all over this. It's also, as I pointed out, Alfa bank's response (they were being framed) and Aven's testimony to Mueller (next post since it seems this thread is now shifting into this territory, unless mods want to split it out into its own thread).

Here is a real-life example of communications that occur "out of band"... Pilots use radio to communicate with air traffic control. a common practice to acknowledge an instruction given by ATC to a pilot is to "key the mic". That is, rather than press the talk button, state your tail number and repeat the instruction (that possibly does not demand an answer, just an acknowledgement), the pilot instead just clicks the talk button twice. The carrier signal of the radio generates a "click".. and that soft "tap tap" that comes through IS the acknowledgement of the instruction. This is common when cleared to land at short final while you are in close proximity to the ground (relatively) and you do not want to lose your concentration on the centerline... it's like an audible nod while you are focused on more imminent critical operations.
So I recognize the ease of using out of band techniques for communication.
Also, it's ALWAYS 9:00 and 1:00 SOMEWHERE... as if it's a standard 9-5 office worker on the East Coast of the US performing the activities...

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Here is a real-life example of communications that occur "out of band"... Pilots use radio to communicate with air traffic control. a common practice to acknowledge an instruction given by ATC to a pilot is to "key the mic".

Exactly. And to be abundantly clear so that others don't keep stuffing straw, this is MY hypothesis--an incomplete one at best--as to how this activity could be part of a secret communications channel that others have not raised before. The msm conjecture about it (at first) was that it's something more robust; something like an email exchange or two computers having a "conversation," which implies to laymen that it's something more familiar to them, like a messaging board or the like. I don't think--and never did think--that this was the case. It seems much more like morse code.

And what experts like Vixie have confirmed, or at least strongly believe, is that the activity they reviewed appeared to be driven by a human (i.e., not merely automated noise). Iow, there seemed to be intent behind the activity AND that it did not appear to be fake, which contradicts Alfa bank's claim that it's something created by a competitor for purposes of kompromat.

So when you throw in the Aven testimony I provided, we have even more pieces of an otherwise remarkably coincidental puzzle (inside of a tremendously large otherwise coincidental puzzle), which, absolutely, does not rule out coincidence.

But just reset the timeline for a moment based on Aven's testimony and the timing of this apparently human directed activity.

Aven tells us that he is effectively tasked by Putin to create a secret communications channel with Trump. That's me reading between his lines based entirely on the fact that he's clearly packed into his testimony a layer of bullshit intended to obfuscate what he was actually tasked to do (as I previously detailed).

At the very least, it makes no sense whatsoever that the leader of Russia would need or want a banker (and owner of a private bank, no less, not a state-owned one) to figure out for Putin how to contact the President Elect's transition team, much less set up a "secret" communications channel all under the guise (cover story) of Aven wanting to establish "communications" with Trump in order to somehow protect against Trump imposing sanctions on his bank.

That's simply not the way any of that works and Putin, of course, would know this as would Aven as did everyone supposedly involved as was noted in the Mueller report.

We know from Aven's testimony that he meets every quarter with Putin one-on-one (i.e., privately) as well as in a more public meeting with the other billionaire oligarchs who all know full well--as Aven confirmed--that what Putin wants is what they must get for him (or have a damn good reason why they failed).

Putin wants Aven, specifically, a banker, to establish a secret communication channel directly between Putin and Trump. Aven says that was in the 4th quarter just after the election and in regard to the transition team, but he also slips up and mentions that Putin asked him again and again and again--in "several quarterly meetings"--about it, which I believe is Aven unwittingly revealing that he was actually tasked with this mission of creating a secret communications channel between Trump and Putin earlier (perhaps around July or even earlier).

The activity between the two Alfa bank servers and the one Trump server (or Cendyne's server used by Trump, however you want to call it; it's just as easy to use ANY server so long as you have access and someone who knows what to look for) starts--barely, nothing more than a few blips (perhaps a testing phase)--in June, but the real activity doesn't get going until July, which also just happens to coincide with the start of another Quarter.

So it certainly would appear as if Putin had tasked Aven even earlier--and asked him in several subsequent quarterly meetings for the status--and Aven finally delivered in June/July.

Now, was this method enough or the only part of the plan? Were there/are there many other such methods being employed at the same time and the activity here is merely a part of a much larger and more complex coded communications channel? Possibly. Just as it's possible this is all a coincidence.

And just as it's possible that the later part of Aven's testimony regarding an attempt to establish a more direct two-way communication channel with President Elect Trump was also a task that Putin gave him. Or perhaps the DNS look ups keying of the mic didn't work very well or otherwise was only to be used in regard to one aspect of this massively complex attack that we know Putin orchestrated and it became necessary after the election for a new, more direct "channel."

Who would Putin turn to but the one who already set up an initial more indirect channel?

We don't know, of course. What we do know, however, is that Aven lied in his testimony to Mueller. Or, rather, provided a false excuse/false context for his activities. The cover story is that he was warned by Putin that Aven needed to establish "communications" with the Trump transition team due to possible sanctions against Alfa bank. Horseshit. No part of that makes any sense, let alone could it be true.

So why make that up? Because it's the only way he can introduce the idea of "communications" in a benign way, only for it to later be about a very different kind of communications--about a secret communications channel--and not for him and his bank, but for Trump and Putin.

See the steps? They're quite obvious. He goes from Putin telling him to call someone in Trump tower about non-existent sanctions to I understood Putin wanted me to set up a secret communications channel between he and Trump in nearly the same breath.

Still coincidental that at roughly the exact same time that Aven--the owner/president of Alfa bank--is being tasked by Putin to somehow create a secret communications channel between Putin and Trump there just happens to emerge what looks exactly like a secret communications channel (or should I clarify once again for the cheap seats picking up their straw, a clandestine method that would facilitate coded communications to be sent) between Putin and Trump through Alfa bank?

Occam's razor only applies when you factor in ALL of the variables.

ETA: In case no one's seen this, here's the activity map:

 

[barbos]

This pathetic spamming is becoming grotesque.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

This pathetic spamming is becoming grotesque.

Thank you. I needed both the laugh and the ironic affirmation.

But I do agree that perhaps this should all be split out into its own thread. I'll leave that to the mods.

 

[Gun Nut]

This pathetic spamming is becoming grotesque.

I have reached the point where I have observed enough "rubber and glue" from the deplorables to see this reply as a confirmation of their team's wrongdoing.

"you broke the law"
"no YOU broke the law"
"that confirms it".

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It's the sound of a knife hitting bone.

 

[barbos]

This pathetic spamming is becoming grotesque.

I have reached the point where I have observed enough "rubber and glue" from the deplorables to see this reply as a confirmation of their team's wrongdoing.

"you broke the law"
"no YOU broke the law"
"that confirms it".

That's not what happening here. Here we have an obvious attempt of covering up lack of arguments with spamming. He is too defensive for someone who is not guilty.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This pathetic spamming is becoming grotesque.

Thank you. I needed both the laugh and the ironic affirmation.

But I do agree that perhaps this should all be split out into its own thread. I'll leave that to the mods.

Koy, unless there is any further development, the Alfa bank server stuff is a dead end. It certainly looks suspicious, but it isn't exactly an easy way to make with communication. And ultimately, as I said, there is almost nothing known about the connection, other than the oddly suspicious relinking attempt after someone gave them notice of it.

 

[Gun Nut]

He is too defensive for someone who is not guilty.

Like Trump?