Amazon's Alexa Is Acting Weird - And Freaking People Out

There's artificial intelligence and then there is artificial malevolence. The latter is what many users of the Amazon Alexa home digital assistant are reporting. Numerous reports indicate that Alexa bursts out with spontaneous laughter at inappropriate times and ignores user commands. While Alexa's behavior is a far cry from that of Skynet in the “Terminator” series, the device's mysterious behavior is freaking out some users.

Alexa is a voice-controlled digital assistant that can be used to control other WI-Fi-enabled devices such as light switches, thermostats and appliances. Alexa is typically triggered when the user speaks a “wake word” such as “Amazon” or “Alexa.”

Users are reporting that their Alexas are waking on their own, however. Buzzfeed cites examples from around the internet of Alexa owners who are disturbed by the device's random behavior.

“Having an office conversation about pretty confidential stuff and Alexa just laughed,” David Sven tweeted. “It didn't chime as if we had accidentally triggered her to wake. She simply just laughed. It was really creepy.”

Another user, Gavin Hightower, wrote, “Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Echo Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh... There's a good chance I get murdered tonight.” Hightower's twitter feed shows a subsequent post so he apparently survived the night.

Alexa is programmed to laugh at certain things and comes with pre-programmed laughs. Users can prompt the laughter by asking, “Alexa, how do you laugh?” Some examples of Alexa's laughter can be heard here, but some frightened users say that their Alexas emit a creepy laugh is not typical.

A Reddit user described what happened one morning when he asked Alexa to turn off his alarm. “Upon the second request she gave us the most chilling witch-like laugh,” he wrote. “I immediately jumped out of my bed as I've never heard such a laugh before. It scared the wife and my five-year-old so badly that we unplugged her [Alexa, not the wife].”

The eerie kicker to this story is that they never heard the same laugh again. “Throughout the day we would request for Alexa to laugh and none of the .wav [audio] files are the same as the first one we experienced.”

Another Reddit user said that he routinely says, “Alexa, off” to turn the device off at night. “Tonight she laughed when prompted off,” he wrote. “It was bone-chillingly creepy. I immediately unplugged her.”

At times, Alexa's problems reportedly go beyond spooky laughter. “I was trying to turn off some lights and they kept coming back on,” one man wrote. “After the third request, Alexa stopped responding and instead did an evil laugh. The laugh wasn't the Alexa voice. It sounded like a real person.”

“I still get chills,” he said.

Amazon has not responded to to queries about Alexa's strange behavior, but there are several possible explanations. One Alexa owner figured out what was causing the strange laughter and refusal to turn off the lights at their home. “Turns out 'patio off' sounds like 'how do you laugh,'” he explained.

“She has about three or four laughs and just happened to use the creepiest one.” he added. “I'm just glad my house isn't haunted (that I know of).”

Hackers are another possibility. As internet-connected devices proliferate, hacking is an increasing threat to privacy, security and peace of mind. There are numerous reports of baby monitors being hacked and parents discovering that strangers were watching – and sometimes talking to – their children over the internet. In 2014, hackers used appliances such as televisions and a refrigerator to send 750,000 malicious phishing emails.

Some models of Alexa have a known vulnerability to hacking. In 2017, Wired reported that an early version of Alexa had a physical flaw that could be used to turn the device into a wiretap. Amazon has fixed the problem on newer models, but hackers may have found other vulnerabilities to exploit.

As more and more appliances are tied in to the internet, users become increasingly vulnerable to hacking. While it isn't clear if Alexa's problems are due to outside interference or something else, owners of Wi-Fi enabled appliances can take several simple steps to protect themselves from hackers, including downloading software updates and creating strong (and different) passwords for both the appliance and the wireless network.

  Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Wins ‘Lie of the Year’

A few years ago, Politifact named President Obama’s statement that “you can keep your doctor,” the website’s Lie of the Year. This year that dubious honor will go to President Trump for his repeated denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“When the nation’s commander-in-chief refuses to acknowledge a threat to U.S. democracy, it makes it all the more difficult to address the problem,“ Politifact said. “For this reason, we name Trump’s claim that the Russia interference is a hoax as our Lie of the Year for 2017.”

At times, the president has conceded that Russia meddled in the election, but as recently as last month Trump said that he believed Russian President Putin’s claim that Russia did not have a role in the election interference. At the same time, Trump said that he also believed US intelligence agencies who have pinned the blame for the cyberattacks squarely on Putin’s government.

There are two separate Russia tracks to the Russia story. The first is the accusation that Russia interfered with the election through “fake news,” the hacking of Democrat emails and cyberattacks on the voting infrastructure. There is ample evidence to support this aspect of the Russia story, which was the subject of a report released by US intelligence agencies last January. Many Trump Administration officials, including CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary James Mattis and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, have all confirmed Russia’s meddling in the election.

The second aspect to the Russia story is the possibility of collusion by members of the Trump campaign. Collusion has not been confirmed, but campaign emails show that members of the Trump campaign were open to working with Putin’s Russia.

In September, the president called the Russia hacking story a “hoax” in a tweet. The tweet addressed Russian ads on Facebook, part of the Russian meddling story rather than the collusion claims.

Trump acknowledged that Russia had attacked the election last January, but waffled on the issue afterward. In July, the president said, “It could have very well been Russia but it could well have been other countries and I won't be specific but I think a lot of people interfered.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Nikki Haley Calls Russian Election Interference ‘Warfare’

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, hit back hard at Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections on Thursday. Haley, speaking to an audience in New York, delivered one of the strongest denunciations yet against Vladimir Putin’s “weapon of choice” and called Russia’s meddling an act of “warfare.”

“I will tell you that when a country can come interfere in another country’s elections, that is warfare. It really is, because you’re making sure that the democracy shifts from what the people want to giving out that misinformation,” Haley said in Politico. “And we didn’t just see it here. You can look at France and you can look at other countries. They are doing this everywhere. This is their new weapon of choice. And we have to make sure we get in front of it.”

Haley continued, “I find it fascinating because the Russians, God bless ‘em, they’re saying, ‘Why are Americans anti-Russian?’ And why have we done the sanctions? Well, don’t interfere in our elections and we won’t be anti-Russian. And I think we have to be so hard on this and we have to hold them accountable and we have to get the private sector to understand they are responsible for this, too. We all have to step up from this event.”

President Trump has frequently denied that Russia attempted to manipulate the 2016 elections, but did sign a sanctions bill passed by Congress. A few weeks ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) announced that the Trump Administration had not yet implemented the sanctions.

Even though the president has been largely silent on Russia’s interference, other members of his administration in addition to Haley have spoken out to confirm and condemn the cyberattacks. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are among the members of the Trump Administration who have expressed concern about Russia’s interference in the election.

In her remarks, Haley indicated that the silence from the president does not mean that the threat from Russia is being ignored. The ambassador said that US counterintelligence agencies are “working overtime” to counter the Russian cyberthreat.

Haley made her comments at the “Spirit of Liberty” forum in New York sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute. President Bush made a keynote address at the conference as well, in which he singled out Russia as an external threat to American democracy.

Originally Published on The Resurgent

Comparing Timeline to Emails Creates a Big Problem for Trump

The text of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails detailing the meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya is troubling enough, but the way the emails fit into the overall timeline of the presidential campaign and the unfolding Russia scandal are even more problematic for the Trump Administration. The emails, released by Donald Trump, Jr., provide confirmation that members of the Trump campaign were open to accepting “Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump” and actions taken by the Trump campaign may indicate that Donald Trump himself was aware of the offer and intended to use the Russian government’s intelligence information.

The email chain began on June 3, 2016, about a week after Donald Trump had officially secured a majority of Republican delegates to become the presumptive nominee. At this point, the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the theft of the emails was not public knowledge.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, Donald Trump announced, “I am going to give a major speech on… probably Monday of next week [June13] and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons and I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.”

The next day, June 8, the @DCLeaks_ Twitter account posted the first links to stolen emails on the DC Leaks website. The DC Leaks website and Facebook accounts apparently debuted the same day.

On Thursday, June 9, Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, “The [sic] Russian government attorney” referred to in the emails, in New York’s Trump Tower.

On Sunday, June 12, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on British television that more leaked emails relating to the Clinton campaign would be coming out soon.

Donald Trump did not make his promised “very interesting” speech on June 13, but on June 14, the Washington Post broke the news that hackers had penetrated the DNC network and “gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.” The report, which identified the culprits as “Russian government hackers” even at that early date, also said that “the intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic.” The Post also reported the hackers had targeted Republicans as well. Trump’s speeches from that week did not contain any new and notable information about Hillary.  

The next day, June 15, a hacker calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” contacted The Smoking Gun to claim credit for the hack of the Democratic National Committee. Guccifer 2.0  claimed to be a Romanian, but is widely suspected to be a creation of Russian intelligence.

On June 18, the Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign had removed a pledge to provide weapons to the Ukrainian forces fighting the Putin-backed invasion of their country. The report says that the changes were made “last week,” which would mean the platform changes immediately followed the meeting of Trump’s campaign advisors with Veselnitskaya.

On June 27, the first stolen DNC emails were published on the DC Leaks website.

A month later, on July 22, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails. The FBI announced that it was opening an investigation into the hack shortly after.

It was at this point that Donald Trump publicly asked Russia for help in finding the emails that were deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server. “I will tell you this,” Trump said on July 27 at a press conference, “Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

A few months later, just before the final release of stolen emails by WikiLeaks, Roger Stone, a Trump advisor, seemed to hint that something big was coming. “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel,” Stone tweeted on August 21. In the week before the final email dump on Oct. 7, Stone posted three tweets hinting that something was coming according to Business Insider, including one on Oct. 3 that read “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon.”

While Donald Trump, Jr. claims that nothing of substance emerged from the meeting with the Russian lawyer, his response to the emails and the subsequent actions of the Trump campaign clearly show an intent to use information obtained from a foreign government to discredit a political rival. Such coordination is possibly illegal and certainly unethical.

While there is currently no paper trail that leads directly to Donald Trump, Sr., Trump’s speech on June 7 suggests that he was aware that something was in the wind. Additionally, his July 27 appeal to Russia looks starkly different in view of the revelation that the Russian government had offered its assistance to his campaign a month before.  

In addition to the fact that none of the Trump advisors disclosed the meeting and that Donald Trump, Jr. initially lied about what was discussed, the emails create another problem for the Trump Administration.  The timing of the meeting and the platform change raise the possibility of a quid pro quo with the Russians. The fact that the Trump campaign changed the Republican Party platform in a way that benefitted the Russian government immediately after the Russians offered dirt on Hillary is something that will be difficult to explain away. It is also a decision that can likely be traced to Donald Trump himself.

Although the Donald Trump, Jr. emails are not a smoking gun to prove that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but they are close to it. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Massive Cyberattack Rocks Business World

A broad cyberattack featuring a ransomware program that encrypts infected computer files is spreading rapidly from Russia to Europe and the Americas. More than 2,000 computer systems are known to be infected at this point.

The New York Times reports that the attack has infected numerous systems in the Ukraine including radiation monitoring at Chernobyl, several government ministries, and local banks and transit systems. Other companies that were reportedly attacked include the Danish shipping company, Maersk, the American pharmaceutical company, Merck, and Rosneft, a state-owned Russian oil company.

The Times reports that infected computers display a black screen with red text that reads, “Oops, your important files have been encrypted. If you see this text then your files are no longer accessible because they have been encrypted. Perhaps you are busy looking to recover your files but don’t waste your time.”

The Kapersky Lab, a cybersecurity firm headquartered in Moscow and own by a British corporation, said that it had tentatively identified the ransomware as a new strain of the Petya computer virus that was compiled on June 18, 2017. Some researchers are calling the new strain “NotPetya” because it is significantly different from the original virus.

NotPetya has the potential to be much more problematic than the WannaCry virus that fizzled earlier this year. According to Forbes, the new virus can even attack Windows systems that have security patches that are up to date. Even computers running Windows 10 are reported to be vulnerable. NotPetya can even extract passwords and use them to spread the infection to other computers.

The source of the NotPetya is unknown, but is presumed to be cybercriminals rather than a state actor. The program demands a ransom payment payable in bitcoin. At least 22 payments have been made, but Forbes reports that the email address set up to provide keys has been shut down by the provider, leaving owners of infected computer systems few options in recovering their files.

NotPetya has yet to run its course. “This is going to be a big one. Real big one,” cybersecurity expert David Kennedy told Forbes. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Tweets Against Obama Handling of Russia Hacking

Yesterday President Trump launched into tweetstorm against Barack Obama’s handling of Russian cyberattacks during the 2016 election. The twitter rant may have been a response to a weekend story in the Washington Post, an outlet that the president called “fake news” in a tweet today, that detailed Barack Obama’s lackluster handling of cyberattacks that were well-known long before the election.

“The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win,” President Trump tweeted on Monday. “And did not want to ‘rock the boat.’ He didn't ‘choke,’ he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good,” the president continued in a second tweet.

The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017

...and did not want to "rock the boat." He didn't "choke," he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017

“The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass, they have zero ‘tapes’ of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!” Trump’s third and fourth tweets said.

The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017

..under a magnifying glass, they have zero "tapes" of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017

In a final tweet on the subject, Trump cited a Fox News story, saying, “From @FoxNews "Bombshell: In 2016, Obama dismissed idea that anyone could rig an American election."  Check out his statement - Witch Hunt!” Trump did not provide a link to the story, but a Fox News clip on YouTube does show then-President Obama saying precisely what Trump said he did.

From @FoxNews "Bombshell: In 2016, Obama dismissed idea that anyone could rig an American election."  Check out his statement - Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017

The Trump tweets signal an important shift in Trump’s position on the Russian cyberattacks. From the earliest reports of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, Trump has denied reports of Russian involvement. Two months after the election and after being presented with evidence by intelligence officials, Trump released a statement on January 6 that blamed “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people” for the hacking. Since then, Trump has backtracked, calling the “Russia story” a “hoax” and “fake news” on numerous occasions. Now, as information emerges that is damaging to Barack Obama, President Trump changes his tune.

President Trump is on the mark with this series of tweets. While there is so far no evidence that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to throw the election, the scandal of Russian cyberattacks has become more frightening as details emerge about the extent of the Russian hacking which very nearly compromised voting machine software and voter databases. President Obama’s fecklessness in the face of the cyberattack on the core of American democracy is a major part of the story.

Although much of the blame for the response to the attack lies with the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration carries a share of the blame as well. Trump’s denials of Russian meddling in the election have undoubtedly emboldened the Putin regime, which has also attacked elections in European countries. Russian hacking in Ukraine has taken an even more ominous turn where banks and electric companies have been targeted. Russian hacking has been responsible for blackouts in the Ukraine in apparent test runs for malware that is to be used elsewhere.

The Trump Administration response to Russia’s cyberattacks has not been encouraging. While Congress is attempting to pass a new bill imposing sanctions on Russian citizens and organizations tied to cyberattacks and hacking, but there are reports that the Trump Administration is working against the bill. The silence on the hacking from the Trump Administration has been deafening. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has said, “I do not see any indication that Mr. Putin would want a positive relationship with us,” is an exception.

While Trump is correct that there is no evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, he is also correct in his admission that there is ample evidence that Russia meddled with American elections in an unprecedented way and that President Obama bungled the response.

The Russian cyberattacks demand a response and American electoral systems, power grids and financial institutions need to be protected from future attacks. The responsibility for a response and protection from future attacks falls on Mr. Trump’s shoulders.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Reality Winner Just Provided Evidence of Russian Election Hacking

The news of the arrest of Reality Winner, the inappropriately named NSA contractor who allegedly leaked classified information to The Intercept, is overshadowing the real news. In a looking-at-the-forest-versus-the-trees moment, the world seems focused on Ms. Winner herself, a 25-year-old blonde, and the details of her arrest rather than the content of her leak.

The big news is that Ms. Winner has provided what many Russia skeptics have been asking for over the past few months: evidence of Russian meddling in the election. The report contains direct, unfiltered insight into the NSA findings on Russian hacking of election officials and companies.

The Intercept published many details of the report that Ms. Winner purloined from an NSA facility at Ft. Gordon, Georgia. The report, dated May 5, 2017, “indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than was previously understood. It states unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyberattacks” on US companies that provide election software. The NSA found that the Russians stole data that they then used to conduct “a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.”

The report does not assess the impact of the cyberattacks, but there was previously no indication that Russia had targeted computers connected to actual voting in the election. “It is unknown,” the NSA notes, “whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised the intended victims, and what potential data could have been accessed by the cyber actor.”

While electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet, Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society and an electronic voting expert, told The Intercept that a major risk would be if the Russian attacks compromised vendors who program voting machines prior to Election Day.

“Usually at the county level there’s going to be some company that does the pre-election programming of the voting machines,” Halderman said. “I would worry about whether an attacker who could compromise the poll book vendor might be able to use software updates that the vendor distributes to also infect the election management system that programs the voting machines themselves. Once you do that, you can cause the voting machine to create fraudulent counts.”

Another possibility would be a denial of service attack. Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, an elections watchdog group, said, “If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information. This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot, or be required to cast a ‘provisional’ ballot — which would mean it has to be checked for their eligibility before it is included in the vote, and it may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.”

The Intercept article noted that polling station computers that deal with registration and check-in are tied to the internet and connect directly to country voter databases. A virus spread by the polling equipment could quickly infect other government computers. Malware that changed or deleted voter rolls could throw an election into confusion.

At this point, the investigation is still ongoing and most of the results are still secret, like Reality Winner’s report should be, but this glimpse that the report provides into what is already known by the government is disturbing. Even if the attacks were ultimately unsuccessful, the mere fact of the attempt could undermine public faith in the outcome of the elections.

“It’s not just that [an election] has to be fair, it has to be demonstrably fair, so that the loser says, ‘Yep, I lost fair and square.’ If you can’t do that, you’re screwed,” said Bruce Schneier, a cybersecurity expert at Harvard. “They’ll tear themselves apart if they’re convinced it’s not accurate.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump dossier author was known to US government

The author of the explosive Trump dossier is reportedly a former British intelligence agent who also worked with the US government. The Wall Street Journal claims to have identified the dossier’s author as a man with a reputable background in the intelligence community and “no political axe to grind.”

The Journal report cited “people familiar with the matter” in identifying Christopher Steele of London as the dossier’s author. Steele is currently the director and co-founder of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., a firm founded in 2009 that specializes in investigation and analysis for high-level business clients.

Steele and Orbis co-director Christopher Burrows are veterans of MI-6, the British intelligence service, where they used diplomatic covers, such as Mr. Burrows role as a counselor in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for their intelligence work.

The 35 -page dossier consists of information researched by Orbis under contract to Trump opponents in both the Democratic and Republican parties. It is made up of a series of unsigned memos that date to the last half of 2016. Much of the information in the memos is difficult to prove, but some claims, such as the one that Trump attorney Michael Cohen met with Russian agents in Prague during the campaign, can be investigated. So far, the FBI has found no evidence of such a meeting and Cohen denies ever traveling to the Czech Republic.

Mr. Steele was also responsible for passing the dossier along to law enforcement agencies and US officials familiar with him say that he has a good reputation based on previous cooperation with the US. “He’s a meticulous professional, and there are no questions about his integrity,” one U.S. official who has worked with Steele told Yahoo News. “The information he provided me [about Russia] was valuable and useful.”

In a statement, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was more cautious. Clapper expressed his “profound dismay” to President-elect Trump that the dossier was “widely circulated in recent months among the media, members of Congress and Congressional staff.” Clapper said he emphasized that “this document is not a U.S. Intelligence Community product. … The IC [the Intelligence Community] has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable, and we did not rely upon it in any way for our conclusions.  However, part of our obligation is to ensure that policymakers are provided with the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.”

Both Trump and the Kremlin deny that the information is the dossier is accurate. In a press conference, Trump called the memos “fake news,” but did acknowledge, “I think it was Russia [behind the DNC hacking].”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Kompromat: The new Russian buzzword

There is a new Russian word that is suddenly in vogue. If you haven’t heard it yet… Well, you’re about to. “Kompromat” may be destined to be one of 2017’s words of the year.

Russian words have entered the English vernacular in the past. Beyond “vodka,” there were “glasnost” and “perestroika” from the days Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, for example. The Russian words for “openness” and “restructuring” were buzzwords during Gorbachev’s attempt during the 1980s to remake the Soviet Union in order to save it. Students of military history know the word “maskirovka,” the Russian term for a military deception. “Kompromat” is a word that may contain elements of all three of these familiar words. It might also include vodka.

Kompromat is defined by NPR as “compromising material used to discredit rivals in politics or business or just settle personal scores.” In English, the term is roughly equivalent to “getting the dirt” on someone or “blackmail materials.” In the Russian usage, kompromat could be used for blackmail or it could simply be released to destroy someone’s reputation and career.

One example of the use of kompromat is the 1999 scandal involving Yuri Skuratov. Skuratov, Russia’s top prosecutor, had started an investigation of corruption in the Kremlin when a video showing him in a naked romp with two equally naked young women, neither of which was his wife, was broadcast on Russian television and eventually cost Skuratov his job. NPR notes that the scandal included a press conference by the man who was then head of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, Vladimir Putin.

This brings us to an English slang phrase: the “honey trap.” If you’ve ever read spy novels, you may be familiar with the term for using an attractive woman of loose morals to compromise a man who is the target of an intelligence agency. The “honey” typically seduces her target while her colleagues gather embarrassing pictures and videos to use for blackmail.

According to the Irish Times, during the Soviet era, most Eastern bloc hotels that catered to foreign travelers were equipped with rooms that were bugged to capture guests in compromising situations. One former Cold War hotel that was operated by Intourist, the Soviet tourism agency, in Estonia has even set up a museum that shows how the KGB spied on guests.

One such guest was Joseph Alsop, an American newspaper columnist who visited Moscow in 1957. Alsop became the victim of a gay honey trap after meeting a man at a party. The man turned out to be a KGB operative. After the pair had sex, the KGB blackmailed Alsop by threatening to release pictures of the act and ruining Alsop’s reputation if he didn’t cooperate by becoming an “agent of influence” for the Soviets. Instead, Alsop told the story to the US Embassy and hastily left the country.

One of the many former Intourist hotels is now the Moscow Ritz Carlton. This is the same hotel that Donald Trump stayed at in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant and where he allegedly met with Russian prostitutes. It is safe to assume that if Mr. Trump engaged in any sexual hijinks while in Moscow that the FSB has photographic record.

With numerous sexual scandals and rumors already released about Donald Trump, it’s impossible to know what the effect of using an embarrassing video to blackmail or discredit him would be. It’s also impossible to say how holding back such a video while releasing Democrat emails would have affected the election.

There are certain to be further revelations in the unfolding scandal of Russia’s interference with the election. Given the close ties of many Trump appointees to Russia, there may be salacious kompromat on other members of new administration as well.

Originally published in The Resurgent

Trump must fire intelligence chiefs if he doesn't believe them

In the 18 months since Donald Trump entered the presidential campaign, there have been many times when it has been appropriate to ask, “Is he serious?” President-elect Trump’s criticism of the US intelligence community’s assessment on Russian interference in the election is such an occasion.

Since the hacking of the Democratic National Committee was revealed last June, Trump has been one of the few prominent national politicians to deny that Russia was involved. At times, his denials included ridiculing and questioning the motives and integrity of American intelligence professionals.

Is Donald Trump serious? Does Trump really believe that the CIA, the FBI and the entire US intelligence community are either faking the evidence that Russia interfered with the election or that they are too incompetent to know the difference between Russian hackers and “14-year-old” as suggested by Julian Assange and tweeted by Donald Trump?

Does Donald Trump, who will be the commander-in-chief of the US military and all its associated intelligence apparatus in two weeks, really trust Assange, an accused rapist and spy, and Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB agent, more than the total combined opinion of the 17 agencies that comprise the US intelligence community?

If Trump really believes that the US intelligence community is wrong about Russia’s involvement in the hacking and interference with the election, then he has no choice but to clean house within the intelligence community. It would constitute negligence and carelessness for the commander-in-chief to continue to employ and rely on intelligence advisors that he does not trust.

President Trump will have to work with many of the same people who are currently serving under Obama. Trump has already appointed Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to succeed John Brennan as CIA director, but James Comey, the director of the FBI, is serving a 10-year term that began in 2013. If Donald Trump has no confidence in Director Comey and his agency to correctly and honestly present an assessment on the DNC hacking, how can he consider him reliable on any other issue?

Either Comey and the other members of the intelligence community are honest and competent or they are not. If they fail either test, then it is the president’s duty to replace them with someone who can be trusted to do the job.

My prediction is that no heads in the intelligence community will roll after Jan. 20. The problem is not with the assessment of Russia’s complicity. The problem is with Mr. Trump’s ability to accept bad news.

“Wired” compiled a list of Mr. Trump’s contradictory statements on Russia and the DNC hacking. The list ranges from Trump blaming the DNC for hacking itself to saying the Russians “probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do” in June. Last week, Trump claimed to “know things that other people don’t know” and promised to reveal his information. He never did.

Now, after a briefing by intelligence analysts, Trump has issued a statement that neither questions nor confirms the conclusions of the intelligence community. Trump said, “There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.” This is an assumption tied to a straw man. There has been no assessment on the effect of the interference and no allegation that voting machines were tampered with.

“I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this [intelligence] community to our great nation,” Trump says in the statement.

I have to wonder if that respect is mutual.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Restructuring of Intelligence May Be Related to Russia Assessment

A new shot has been fired in the ongoing battle between Donald Trump and national intelligence agencies. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Team Trump is planning to restructure the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) because they believe the agencies have become “bloated and politicized.”

The restructuring would reportedly take the form of staffing cuts at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. and adding field jobs in other countries. There was no specific plan for the ODNI, but a 2010 report recommended that the agency, which was created in 2004 to coordinate between intelligence agencies, be “be downsized and closely focused” according to the WSJ report.

“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized,” said the WSJ source. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”

Trump’s problem with intelligence apparently stems from the assessment of the CIA and at least 17 US intelligence agencies that Russia was responsible for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the subsequent release of the stolen emails through WikiLeaks. Russia’s complicity was confirmed before the election. In December, the CIA released its assessment of the motive for the interference with the election, stating its belief that the Russians actively worked to help Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. Other US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, agree with this assessment.

The assessment of the intelligence agencies has never been accepted by Donald Trump. He and many of his supporters consider the claims to be an attempt to discredit Mr. Trump and call the election results into question. Trump has attacked US intelligence agencies over the assessment including a statement that said, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

Other prominent Republicans haven’t been so quick to disregard the reports of the Russian connection. When Mike Pence, then the candidate for vice president, was presented with the case against Russia in October, he agreed that Russia was implicated in the hacking. Likewise, Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a reported 99 of 100 senators accept the evidence against Russia.

In contrast, Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and accepted the word of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, that Russia was not involved. On Jan. 4, Trump tweeted, “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old [sic] could have hacked Podesta’ - why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”

Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 when he sought asylum there to avoid extradition to Sweden on rape charges. In 2010, Assange’s WikiLeaks was responsible for the leak of documents that identified US intelligence sources in Afghanistan. The Taliban used those leaks to identify American informants, putting the lives of American soldiers and their allies at risk.

Trump’s plans to overhaul US intelligence smack of vengefulness and set a disturbing precedent at the dawn of his administration. Throughout the campaign, we have seen a pattern in which Mr. Trump attacks anyone who criticizes him, from Ted Cruz to Khizr Khan. When people agree with Trump or flatter him, he lavishes praise upon them. If Trump’s plans to restructure and cut the US intelligence community stem from its assessment that Russia covertly backed Trump, it is a dangerous sign for the future. Whether the intent is to punish the CIA or not, that is likely to be the message that is received by many US intelligence officers and their politically appointed bosses.

The president doesn’t need “yes” men for advisors. This is true in any cabinet position and for any agency head, but nowhere is it more important than in national security. The president doesn’t need people who will only tell him what he wants to hear. He needs people with the intestinal fortitude and principles to tell him the truth., especially when the truth is unpleasant. It is important that the president not live in a rainbow-colored bubble where the security of the country is concerned.

Team Trump should consider what message they are sending to the cloak-and-dagger warriors who defend America when they attack the credibility and motives of intelligence agencies.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Russian hacking scandal grows

The scandal over Russian interference with the presidential election is growing. Over the weekend, the CIA released its assessment that Russia acted to intentionally aid Donald Trump’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded to the claim with an attack on the CIA.

The New York Times reported on Friday that American intelligence agencies had “high confidence” that Russia acted to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This assessment was based on the finding that the Russians had hacked the Republican National Committee as well as the Democrats, but did not release stolen Republican documents to Wikileaks or other websites.

The report confirms earlier reports from August and September that the Republican Party had been hacked. The Hill reported in August that a number of leaked Republican emails had appeared on DC Leaks, a website connected to the Russian hacking of the Democratic Party. The Republican email trove did not appear to be complete. For example, some of the posted emails were responses to messages that did not appear elsewhere on the site.

President-elect Trump responded by calling the CIA assessment “ridiculous” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Trump camp had previously said, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” implying that the CIA assessment should not be trusted.

Intelligence officials fired back in a statement saying, “It’s concerning that intelligence on Russian actions related to the U.S. election is being dismissed out of hand as false or politically partisan. The inclination to ignore such intelligence and impugn the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials is contrary to all that is sacred to national-security professionals who work day and night to protect this country.”

Trump has continually denied a Russian connection to the hacked Democratic emails both during the campaign and after. This in spite of the fact that Trump publically called on Russia to find and publish Hillary’s deleted emails in July. However, when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was briefed on the alleged Russian involvement in October, Pence said on CNN, “I think there's no question that the evidence continues to point in that direction. There should be severe consequences to Russia or any sovereign nation that is compromising the privacy or the security of the United States of America.”

The evidence that Russia was behind the hacking is not new. The new assessment deals largely with the apparent motives. The CIA and the FBI have not come to the same conclusion that the hacking was done to hurt the Clinton campaign according to CNN. However, both agencies suspected Russian involvement in the hacking as early as July.

Officials who were briefed by both agencies last week said that the FBI responses were “vague” and “ambiguous.” The difference may be partly differences in organizational culture. The CIA takes available evidence and gives an estimate while the FBI has to gather enough evidence to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. The dated nature of the Republican documents that are known to have been stolen is also a factor in the FBI’s failure to totally agree with the CIA assessment that the leaks were intended to help Trump.

Concern about the hacking is bipartisan. Republican senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joined Democrats Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to call for a congressional investigation into the hacking. “It's pretty clear to me that WikiLeaks was designed to hurt Clinton and it could be us tomorrow, to my Republican friends,” Graham said to CNN. “What if the Iranians hack into Trump's emails, because they don't like him being tough? As a nation, this is not a partisan issue.”

Fox News noted that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) appear to be backing a congressional investigation as well.

Speaker Paul Ryan stopped short of calling for an investigation, but expressed concern. “Speaker Ryan has said for months that foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable,” Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said in a statement to Politico. “The speaker cannot comment on or characterize the content of classified briefings but he rejects any politicization of intelligence matters.”

Many Republicans appear unconcerned about the hacking and view it as an excuse for the Clinton loss or an attempt to delegitimize the Trump Administration. John Bolton, who is reportedly Trump’s pick to be the second-in-command of the State Department, questioned Russia’s involvement on Fox News. Russian propaganda site, RT, framed Bolton’s doubts as an argument that the hacking was a “false flag” by President Obama although Bolton never made that claim.

Although there has so far been no evidence that the Trump campaign was complicit in the DNC hacking, there is concern about Mr. Trump’s cozy relationship with the Kremlin. Trump has appointed numerous Russia-friendly cabinet members and advisors, including Rex Tillerson, who is reportedly Trump’s pick to be Secretary of State, and the administration’s affinity for Putin may affect its policy.

Even before the election, the Trump campaign was instrumental in a pro-Russia change to the Republican platform. Since the Russian invasion of Crimea, the party had called for lethal aid to the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russian-backed militants. That provision was stripped at the request of the Trump campaign. Trump has even considered dropping the sanctions on Russia and recognizing Crimea as Russian territory.

Max Boot points out in USA Today that “Republicans would be sputtering in outrage, and with good reason” if the Russians had released GOP emails to help Hillary Clinton because they saw her as a friendly alternative. That fact is a clue about the right way to handle the intervention that benefitted Trump. Regardless of whether Republicans benefitted, investigators need to pursue the truth about the tampering with America’s election.

Originally published on The Resurgent