theshadowbrokers asserts that the NSA pays Microsoft to keep vulnerabilities open, to be exploited

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I was referring to the Outlook incident, not Windows. Follow the conversation two more quotes and you will see it mentioned specifically.

How did you know I haven't been reading all of these text walls .  Anyway yea was a little confusing when I saw that, was thinking "What? That's a bad example".

[LAwLz]

Just now, leadeater said:

How did you know I haven't been reading all of these text walls .

Because I expect you to have better things to do... like watching paint dry or literally anything else

 

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Anyway yea was a little confusing when I saw that, was thinking "What? That's a bad example".

I might seem like a Microsoft hater, but I actually try to be fair and reasonable when discussing them. I genuinely want them to improve and they won't do that as long as they got people defending what I think is poor behavior, and I want people to join my side because they think the same way I do, not because I use dirty tricks to fool them into joining my side.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

34 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

-snip-

I am really trying to be nice here, but you have provided absolutely nothing in the way of an actual argument in this thread; all you have done up to now is run around in circles and quote-mine me. I have already explained the matter to you, very clearly and succinctly, three times with evidence to boot; I am not going to repeat myself again in the futile hope of getting something through to you. You have not provided anything on your own, and you dare to interpret the words I said the way you did... no, I am done. Have a nice god damn day!

 

And I thought Jaune Arc was hopelessly dense...

[Delicieuxz]

2 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

1) This is the impression that you gave me and many others with the language of your posts. You heave repeatedly insisted on the possibility of Microsoft playing a role, when there has been nothing good thus far to support such a lofty claim; only conjecture based on 'precedence'

But there is evidence that Microsoft could be playing a role, evidence that has been included in this thread. And unless you are able to present convincing evidence that Microsoft is not playing a role, then it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge the possibility that Microsoft is playing a role. Your push to have it regarded as though Microsoft is not playing a role is bias, and based only in conjecture and assumption. Your attempt to block out consideration of other possibility is pure determined bias, and exactly what you're complaining about, while trying to silence consideration of other possibility through intimidation.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

But there is evidence that Microsoft could be playing a role, evidence that has been included in this thread. And unless you are able to present convincing evidence that Microsoft is not playing a role, then it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge the possibility that Microsoft is playing a role. Your push to have it regarded as though Microsoft is not playing a role is bias, and based only in conjecture and assumption. Your attempt to block out consideration of other possibility is pure determined bias, and exactly what you're complaining about.

That is again conjecture taken out of context, and such evidence has already been provided in Page 3 (and plenty of it). And you of all people come to tell me about determination bias... come on! That does not even pass the smell test.

[Delicieuxz]

3 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is again conjecture taken out of context, and such evidence has already been provided in Page 3 (and plenty of it). And you of all people come to tell me about determination bias... come on! That does not even pass the smell test.

First, I'll just say: I don't know if it was you or somebody else who claimed earlier in this thread that Microsoft is legally obligated to do this, but it isn't done out of a legal obligation, but out of Microsoft's desire to have governments buy Windows licenses for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of PCs. If Microsoft didn't allow other governments to review the Windows code, they wouldn't allow Windows to be used on their government PCs. Russia has already moved to ban the usage of Microsoft software on all its government systems - which is evidence that Russia, who also reviews the Windows source code, doesn't trust that Microsoft is not enabling vulnerability-exploitation for the USA government, and also recognizes the inherent risk in utilizing software that geo-political rivals know the source code for.

 

Now, regarding your claim of evidence: You providing links showing that Microsoft supplies Windows source code to governments is not evidence that Microsoft is not complicit in allowing vulnerabilities in Windows software. Your idea that Microsoft would not show Windows source code if Microsoft were leaving vulnerabilities is personal speculation and conjecture. And that conjecture is not at the level of reputability of people in possession of USA government hacking arsenal, who claim to be former USA government employees, asserting that the NSA pays Microsoft to keep vulnerabilities open unless discovered by the public. That latter information is also not proof of its claim, but it is of much greater merit than your personal conjecture that Microsoft showing its Windows source code to governments suggests Microsoft is not paid to leave vulnerabilities in its software for the exploitation of the USA government.

 

There are vulnerabilities in Windows, regardless of whether Microsoft has been thorough to close them or not. When governments review the Windows code, it is probable that they come across multiple vulnerabilities that they either then ask Microsoft to close, or which they don't mention finding, and plan to use, themselves. Finding vulnerabilities in Microsoft code would not be proof to a reviewer that Microsoft is gaming the software against them, and so, Microsoft would be able to leave vulnerabilities in its code that it shows to government code reviewers, and not be at risk of being outed for deliberate sabotage. If any intentional vulnerabilities are discovered by reviewer, Microsoft will just address them by closing them, as they surely do for many vulnerabilities discovered during code-review processes. An intentional vulnerability likely looks just the same as an unintentional one.

 

Also, the Windows code is so large, the product of so many hundreds of thousands of coders, created over many, many years, that no reviewer is going to be able to be very thorough with all of it. Governments likely look in places they think could be more susceptible to exploitation, and look through random swaths of further code, but their total analysis is likely extremely spotty. The fact that every new month many new vulnerabilities are discovered in Windows, after Microsoft's coding efforts, after review by many government around the world for many years, proves that any review of the code for vulnerabilities is like hoping to catch a few in areas that are most important to governments, while knowing that there are multitudes (unintentional, or otherwise) that will not be discovered in the process.

 

So, Microsoft submitting code for review is not evidence that Microsoft isn't complicit in allowing vulnerabilities to stay open, for exploitation. And thinking it is evidence to that argument is conjecture, and naive, with the argument presenting a logical fallacy.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

@mr moosesnip

 

 I haven't taken a side.  I have already listed what I consider to be possibilities: 

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

1. they write shitty code

2.they write decent code but the NSA have someone on the inside (this is still not MS being paid, this is NSA espionage)

3. MS actually sold the exploits (no evidence yet of this)

4. Someone from MS leaked the exploits in exchange for something like cash/immunity/protection from underworld. (harder to trace as the amounts are significantly smaller than trying to buy a whole company and still isn't the same as MS willingly providing the exploits).

 

If that isn't an objective view given the current information then I don't know what is.

 

Make judgments on the evidence we have, be concerned about the unknown. Don't trust MS until you get more evidence,   these are acceptable opinions. However outright excluding the possibility that MS are just company doing there best in the situation is naive.   I don't think anyone here has actually said MS are innocent because of lack of evidence, we are however saying lack of evidence makes a guilty judgment somewhat naive.   No one can be objective if they are willing to draw conclusions without all the information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Kumaresh said:

Let's try and condense these arguments with what we know so far

1. The shadow brokers "claim" to be former intelligence agents. However, it would be an extreme risk to their lives if they provided personally identifiable information to prove the same. So we can't guarantee (1).
2. They have released exploits which they "claim" have been made by the NSA. These claims appear to be true, so they lead credence to (1), since an outsider would find it nearly impossible to get these tools.
3. They "claim" that the NSA had paid Microsoft in order to obtain these exploits. However, they have not presented any evidence of the same. But, if we take into consideration (1) and (2), they would be in a position to know of the existence of such collusion, so we can't outright dismiss their claims.
4. Many people choose to believe the shadow brokers due to their past experience with the PROVEN unethical behaviours of these US Intel agencies so far. People also hear unsavory things about Microsoft including the amount of tracking and data mining present in Windows 10. 
5. This all boils down to whether people want to trust a bunch of people who are probably former intelligence agents, who have said bad things about two organizations with very bad track records.
6. People don't wholly trust the US intelligence organizations any more, with very good reason. The same goes for many big corporations.

 

 

But none of that sheds any light on the question of MS's willingness to participate.  It doesn't actually boil down to what you want to believe unless you don't care about being objective.

 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Kumaresh said:

The shadow brokers "claim" to be former intelligence agents. However, it would be an extreme risk to their lives if they provided personally identifiable information to prove the same. So we can't guarantee (1).

Surely if they were former intelligence agents they could write coherent press releases, what they released could barely even be considered broken English lol. Even if we go with the angle that they are not native English speakers any wise person would release it in their native language and let other sources translate it.

 

To me they look nothing more than a group of people that wanted to be intelligence agents but failed at the entry criteria. Skills don't get you there, if they even have them. Lets not forget they are only in possession of NSA tools and information so don't give them any more technical credit that they deserve, there is zero evidence they have any more skills than anyone else working in the IT sector. The ability to use created tools and the ability to create them is extremely different.

 

If you want your claims to be believed you have to present yourself as believable, possession of tools alone is frankly too little for me. Non cross referenced documentation is starting to get better but if you can't both verify it's authenticity and it's content then it is worthless until you can do so. I could grab some of the Microsoft contracts and statements of work we have an alter them to show Microsoft owns 5,000 horses around the world and uses them to rig the horse racing and betting industry. It would look legit but still be something I made up, if it wasn't for the fact that it was horses making it unbelievable just on that alone. What if I made something else up more technology related what about then?

 

Objectivity isn't believing a group of people because they are making statements that align with your personal beliefs and are against a company you dislike over that same company. If a similar statement came from the other side and your response to it would be "that is nothing but a wild ass claim" then that should be for both. What if both sides are lying?

 

2 hours ago, Kumaresh said:

They have released exploits which they "claim" have been made by the NSA. These claims appear to be true, so they lead credence to (1), since an outsider would find it nearly impossible to get these tools.

They have possession of NSA tools yes, that is the only claim that we can know as true. We don't know if this group obtained them themselves or from a different 3rd party.

 

2 hours ago, Kumaresh said:

Many people choose to believe the shadow brokers due to their past experience with the PROVEN unethical behaviours of these US Intel agencies so far. People also hear unsavory things about Microsoft including the amount of tracking and data mining present in Windows 10. 

Microsoft may be doing things that a large majority do not like, be in the practice of anti consumer tactics (or not, that is opinion), and data collection they may or may not be entitled to do but colluding with intelligence agencies is an extremely serious claim. Just keep that in mind and what that means for an international company that has customers from allied and non allied nations to the US.

 

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

@leadeater You are missing one point here. The messages are written in a garbled format INTENTIONALLY in order to mask who they are. If they wrote in a coherent and consistent style, Intel agencies could track WHO was writing such things, and that would be very dsngerous for them.

You can still write something coherent and untraceable. Releasing it in your native language would show more, but then is their native language?

[Delicieuxz]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You can still write something coherent and untraceable. Releasing it in your native language would show more, but then is their native language?

They have written in coherent English, and they've changed styles of their writings many times. You can read all their past posts by clicking on their moniker in the OP link.

 

Edit: Actually, maybe they haven't posted in regular English before. I thought I had read something of theirs that was. Their posts' bad English is clearly deliberate in a lot of places, though.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

I'm not entirely sure to what extent the intelligence agencies can trace the author of a text based on patterns, But you could be right.

Well it doesn't have to be perfect or anything, and can still be scrambled but omg that was nearly unintelligible. Doesn't help when your message is lost in translation. 

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Edit: Actually, maybe they haven't posted in regular English before. I thought I had read something of theirs that was. Their posts' bad English is clearly deliberate in a lot of places, though.

They have done a much better job in the past yep, this one was just particularly bad.

 

Edit: Could be reason behind that, or not. No idea.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Kumaresh said:

If we want to be objective, we will most probably never get any concrete evidence of collusion unless the hacker group already has the data or atleast plans to obtain that data, or somebody happens to leak that data. But the NSA is probably too wary to let such data leak at this point, IF such data exists in the first place.

Objectivity is the core principal behind finding the truth.   It really isn't that complicated, We just can't replace evidence with anything we want.  Either we have it or we don't, ergo we know what happened or we don't. Extrapolation does not equal evidence.

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, Nicholatian said:

I'm sure you would, so you can dismiss them all and tell me "that doesn't change anything" and create the same fallacious impossible scenario I talked about above. The world isn't perfect and neither are you. Get real.

What are you even talking about? Are you still going to insist that using linux file servers solves every problem we might have with windows?

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

I am really trying to be nice here, but you have provided absolutely nothing in the way of an actual argument in this thread; all you have done up to now is run around in circles and quote-mine me. I have already explained the matter to you, very clearly and succinctly, three times with evidence to boot; I am not going to repeat myself again in the futile hope of getting something through to you. You have not provided anything on your own, and you dare to interpret the words I said the way you did... no, I am done. Have a nice god damn day!

 

And I thought Jaune Arc was hopelessly dense...

Right back at you. What was that rule you love to quote again? Each person is a direct carbon copy of the type of person he bitterly opposes?

 

 

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

 I haven't taken a side.  I have already listed what I consider to be possibilities: 

But you clearly have.

You have said things such as:

On 2017-05-18 at 11:10 PM, mr moose said:

MS do enough shit to legitimately complain about, you don't need to go digging up conspiracies, unsubstantiated hacker claims and speculative twitter feeds to further a personal ideal. 

On 2017-05-19 at 1:08 AM, mr moose said:

If MS were paid, then there should be significantly more evidence from more sources

Those quotes are not skeptical and neutral. Even if we go back to the original claim that Microsoft are being paid (which is not something I have said I agree with), you just labeled it a conspiracy theory, told people to not look into it and then said that if it was true then there would be more evidence for it.

 

You can claim to not have taken side all you want, but you clearly have on that point. You might not have picked side about Microsoft helping the NSA for non-monetary reasons, but that's a separate claim.

 

 

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

Make judgments on the evidence we have, be concerned about the unknown. Don't trust MS until you get more evidence,   these are acceptable opinions. However outright excluding the possibility that MS are just company doing there best in the situation is naive.   I don't think anyone here has actually said MS are innocent because of lack of evidence, we are however saying lack of evidence makes a guilty judgment somewhat naive.   No one can be objective if they are willing to draw conclusions without all the information.

I agree, but you can't go "that one extreme is wrong, so therefore this other extreme position is correct!".

You should not assume that Microsoft are doing something just because there is some evidence suggesting it, but neither should you assume that they are innocent just because you think the evidence out there is not definitive enough.

Like I said before, your posts such as "if MS was doing this, we would have more evidence" is essentially saying "I believe absence of evidence is evidence of absence", which is just completely illogical way of thinking.

 

 

3 hours ago, Kumaresh said:

If we want to be objective, we will most probably never get any concrete evidence of collusion unless the hacker group already has the data or atleast plans to obtain that data, or somebody happens to leak that data. But the NSA is probably too wary to let such data leak at this point, IF such data exists in the first place.

And even if such evidence was released, people could just claim that the evidence was faked.

You can always come up with excuses for why evidence is not 100% definitive.

[mr moose]

33 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Right back at you. What was that rule you love to quote again? Each person is a direct carbon copy of the type of person he bitterly opposes?

 

 

But you clearly have.

You have said things such as:

 

Those quotes are not skeptical and neutral. Even if we go back to the original claim that Microsoft are being paid (which is not something I have said I agree with), you just labeled it a conspiracy theory, told people to not look into it and then said that if it was true then there would be more evidence for it.

 

You can claim to not have taken side all you want, but you clearly have on that point. You might not have picked side about Microsoft helping the NSA for non-monetary reasons, but that's a separate claim.

 

 

 

I agree, but you can't go "that one extreme is wrong, so therefore this other extreme position is correct!".

You should not assume that Microsoft are doing something just because there is some evidence suggesting it, but neither should you assume that they are innocent just because you think the evidence out there is not definitive enough.

Like I said before, your posts such as "if MS was doing this, we would have more evidence" is essentially saying "I believe absence of evidence is evidence of absence", which is just completely illogical way of thinking.

 

 

 

And even if such evidence was released, people could just claim that the evidence was faked.

You can always come up with excuses for why evidence is not 100% definitive.

 

That is the only thing I have ever been claiming you can't pick a side on. And for a separate claim (that takes pride of place in the title) there are plenty of people who can't move past the lack of evidence or even the fact I won't take sides on that one issue without it. 

 

My posts, verbatim:

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

 

 

Why?  the title asserts they did it for money and it is the only thing they don't have evidence for, I think the whole thread is distracting from the real issue.  Is it not fair and objective that I only  take issue with the one component that lacks hard evidence?

 

What we have here is evidence the NSA has tools to exploit back doors in windows, what we don't have is proof that MS were willing partners in creating them.

 

 

I did not say you should just ignore it all as conspiracy, but rather that any claim made without evidence (in this context and specifically about MS being paid for it) is a conspiracy, and no one should go digging them up solely to prop up an ideal.

 

Not once have I made any claims about any of the other content being wrong. The only thing I have said in this whole thread is that the part about MS being paid, the bit that seems to have gotten a place in the title even though there is much more worrying and evidenced realities in the release, has no conclusive evidence to support it.

 

 

 

EDIT: P.S if evidence was released that showed MS was paid and where willing partners I would accept it, I have said that before.  I'll form  my opinions based on evidence, which may be lacking in the eyes of some, but I would rather do that than form unbending opinions without evidence.

 

 

 

 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Not once have I made any claims about any of the other content being wrong. The only thing I have said in this whole thread is that the part about MS being paid, the bit that seems to have gotten a place in the title even though there is much more worrying and evidenced realities in the release, has no conclusive evidence to support it.

And you also said that if it was true, we would have had more evidence for it, which means you have picked a side and don't believe it is true.

You might not have intended for your posts to be interpreted that way, but when phrase your posts as:

"If X was true then Y would have happened, and Y has not happened" then you are saying that X is false. That is the only logical way of reading such statements.

 

Again, this is what you responded to me with:

On 2017-05-19 at 1:08 AM, mr moose said:

If MS were paid, then there should be significantly more evidence from more sources, Contrary to what you say, the lack of multiple sources is not proof of a conspiracy.

When asked about the classifications used in NSA's internal documents you said they could have been made up.

 

The signals I get from you is that you strongly believe that Microsoft are not being paid, but you think it is up for debate if they are helping agencies for other reasons. I think both claims are possible.

 

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

EDIT: P.S if evidence was released that showed MS was paid and where willing partners I would accept it, I have said that before.  I'll form  my opinions based on evidence, which may be lacking in the eyes of some, but I would rather do that than form unbending opinions without evidence.

But you seem to also be forming your opinion based on the absence of evidence. "If it happened then we would know about it, so therefore it does not happen" is essentially what you have written in this thread. I disagree with that logic completely. Maybe that was not the intention of your posts, but I find it hard to interpret your posts in any other way.

 

 

Anyhow, it's a shitty situation nonetheless, but I don't think Microsoft will do anything about it. Sure they are pushing their "digital Geneva Convention" but I really doubt that will actually be followed. It's not like they follow the laws in their own country, so why follow some protocol which just says "let's all be nice to each other, OK?" from Microsoft?

[mark_cameron]

On 2017-5-18 at 4:41 AM, Delicieuxz said:

theshadowbrokers is a group of hackers who claim to be former USA deep-state employees (such as those who work for the NSA), and is the group that is responsible for leaking the NSA's hacking tools, which were used in the recent ransomware threat that Microsoft eventually released fixes for - despite Microsoft having already known of the vulnerability and made the fix for it a while in advance of its widespread threat.

 

Now, the shadowbrokers have made a new post, in cryptic and messy English (as have been their previous posts, though in changing styles, likely for the purpose of preventing analysis of the author), asserting that the NSA pays Microsoft and other USA technology companies to put vulnerabilities into their software, and to leave them there unless discovered by the public.

 

In their new post, theshadowbrokers' mention "thequationgroup" many times. For those who don't know, Equation Group is the internal name for a USA government hacking group that is known to be responsible for hacks and attacks throughout the world, such as the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in 2009.

 

Here is an Ars Technica article giving some background on Equation Group.

 

Back to the topic at hand, here is an excerpt from theshadowbrokers' new public post, with the core assertions I mentioned highlighted:

 

 

This comes not too long after Edward Snowden claimed evidence that the USA government pays USA technology companies to leave vulnerabilities in their software, so that the NSA can exploit and potentially weaponize them.

 

It is not new news that Microsoft shares Windows owners' data with the government.

 

https://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

http://www.itproportal.com/2014/05/14/microsoft-openly-offered-cloud-data-fbi-and-nsa/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2013/06/20/project-chess-how-u-s-snoops-on-your-skype/#7d360fc6484e

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms

 

Neither is the expectation that they create "backdoors" (in other words, secret vulnerabilities) in their software at the request / payment of police, government, high bidders, etc, something new.

 

So, considering the sketchy history Microsoft has of being cozy and willing partners with the NSA, and also the typically aggressive, greedy, and dishonest behaviour that Microsoft is known for when it comes to pushing Windows updates, forced "upgrades", hiding data-leeching tools in their software, and frustrating any attempts by Windows owners to secure their own personal and private system's data, I think theshadowbrokers' allegations towards Microsoft and the NSA sound entirely believable, and, unfortunately, unsurprisingly so.

 

 

In a similar example of business philosophy treating users as mere fodder, a former Facebook executive, who was tasked with monetizing Facebook user data, recently went public in saying that Facebook is "lying through their teeth" about how they target vulnerable teenagers to sell ad-space. In both the cases of Facebook and Microsoft, what they tell the public and what they actually do are entirely separate things, with what they tell the public being merely the words to make the public feel satisfied, despite those words being extremely detached and often obtuse from the reality of what is happening.

 

 

I think that people need to wake up, and recognize that they've accepted enslavement by corporations, who profit off of people's personal and private data. If I run a business by hooking up a bunch of Bitcoin mining machines to my next-door neighbour's electricity, would that be legal? How about if I handle a lot of people's investments, and I discretely take 0.2% of all my client's investment values for myself, and don't tell any of them that I did so - would that be legal and right? If profits are generated by your property, assets, and actions, and time, do the profits belong to you, or to somebody else? And is somebody else entitled to unilaterally use those things of yours for their own profit?

 

Well, those things are exactly what Microsoft is doing when they add in data-leeching tools to their software, which use your personal hardware, your paid-for electricity, your owned software licenses, your effort and time of using your PC system, to send personal usage data to Microsoft's servers, which Microsoft then sells to anyone with the money to pay for it. What Microsoft (and other companies) are doing is theft, and their millions and billions of dollars in profits from these actions are illegitimate and criminal proceeds.

 

I'm reading that pigeon English and thinking these so called 'deep-state' employees are not actually Americans. Or that they genuinely were NSA employees.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

And you also said that if it was true, we would have had more evidence for it, which means you have picked a side and don't believe it is true.

You might not have intended for your posts to be interpreted that way, but when phrase your posts as:

"If X was true then Y would have happened, and Y has not happened" then you are saying that X is false. That is the only logical way of reading such statements.

 

Again, this is what you responded to me with:

When asked about the classifications used in NSA's internal documents you said they could have been made up.

 

The signals I get from you is that you strongly believe that Microsoft are not being paid, but you think it is up for debate if they are helping agencies for other reasons. I think both claims are possible.

 

But you seem to also be forming your opinion based on the absence of evidence. "If it happened then we would know about it, so therefore it does not happen" is essentially what you have written in this thread. I disagree with that logic completely. Maybe that was not the intention of your posts, but I find it hard to interpret your posts in any other way.

 

 

Anyhow, it's a shitty situation nonetheless, but I don't think Microsoft will do anything about it. Sure they are pushing their "digital Geneva Convention" but I really doubt that will actually be followed. It's not like they follow the laws in their own country, so why follow some protocol which just says "let's all be nice to each other, OK?" from Microsoft?

 

Until evidence is shown that MS where willingly involved I will not accept that as a fact.  I am open to the possibility that they were, but again, I need to see something more than the assertions from the same sources.  I don't know why you keep insisting that I am saying they are emphatically innocent, I have clearly never said that and my posts are there for all to see.  I have only ever said you can't find them guilty without evidence.  The most I have claimed is that there are other legitimate sources for evidence of the claims leveled at them, yet these all seem to be dead ends too.

[LAwLz]

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I don't know why you keep insisting that I am saying they are emphatically innocent, I have clearly never said that and my posts are there for all to see.

Except for all the times you have said that there is no evidence, and if they were guilty then we would have had more evidence for it.

 

If I said "If Trump had cheated during the election we would have evidence for it, but we do not", do you not think that is the same as saying "Trump did not cheat"?

Maybe it was not what you meant but come on... There is no other way of interpreting what you said.

[divito]

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

You can still write something coherent and untraceable. Releasing it in your native language would show more, but then is their native language?

Not really; general patterns in writing are subconscious. While devising "coherent" messages to put into the release, you're bound to fall into certain habits. Software already exists to match writing patterns, nevermind something on the level that the NSA might possess.

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Except for all the times you have said that there is no evidence, and if they were guilty then we would have had more evidence for it.

 

If I said "If Trump had cheated during the election we would have evidence for it, but we do not", do you not think that is the same as saying "Trump did not cheat"?

Maybe it was not what you meant but come on... There is no other way of interpreting what you said.

 

Well, I beg to differ, I have said many times now that to conclude a judgment you need evidence. 

Quote

My opinions have always been there are no absolutes and whilst the information is not supported by any other sources (of which there should be many if people are looking) that drawing absolute conclusions like the OP  is consistent with conspiracy theories.  It is clear we don't have absolutes because even you are using qualifiers like the ones in bold above.

Quote

 

1. Only one source with indisputable evidence is required for me to believe it's true.  I think you misunderstood me though.  I am merely pointing out that there is a myriad of other sources from which evidence could be found to support the claim. The fact that not even one of these sources has been leveraged to provide the evidence speaks against the assertion in the OP.

2. I only judge based on the evidence at hand. I always have and always will.  To many times I here people using retrospective situations to appraise current unfolding events. There are morons doing that right now with GMO food, they are saying exactly the same thing, "we haven't found evidence it's dangerous yet so we better not eat it".  In this case the rhetoric is, we haven't found evidence MS actually willingly made these exploits for money so we had better assume they did just in case.

 

 

This is pretty black and white that I won't draw a conclusion one way or the other without evidence. 

 

And yes, the claims in the OP are assertions, therefore not only I am allowed to question their validity, but I am allowed to use rational like the lack of reasonable external evidence to question the assertion.  In any case I am not claiming they are innocent, just that their is insufficient evidence to claim the assertion is true. And people are allowed to sit on the fence and deny absolute conclusions when insufficient evidence exists to support them. 

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2017 by mr moose
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