Don’t Mess With Israel

Israel has not yet taken responsibility for this event, but most sources are suggesting that Israel is behind the event.

On September 17th, The New York Post reported:

Hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists were seriously wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they used to communicate exploded around their belts and pockets – with officials claiming a hacking attack by Israel triggered the blasts.

Hezbollah officials confirmed the wide-range attack on its operatives, including fighters and medics, with one member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, calling it the “biggest security breach” since it began its daily attacks on Israel on Oct. 8.

Videos uploaded to social media show several incidents where seemingly unaware men had devices in their pockets blow up, with the victims crying in pain as bystanders ran away.

…The devices that detonated were all the latest models acquired by Hezbollah in recent months and distributed to its members, with the devices suspected of being tampered with, three security sources told Reuters. 

Through the use of malware, the devices could see their lithium batteries overheat and explode. 

One Hezbollah official told the Wall Street Journal that some members felt their pagers heat up and disposed of them before they detonated.     

The terror groups’ leader, Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned his fighters not to carry cell phones or pagers, telling them they could be used to track their movements or carry out some kind of targeted strike. 

The exact cause of why the pagers exploded have yet to be revealed. 

Reuters journalists witnessed ambulances rushing through Beirut with the wounded terrorists amid widespread panic over the explosions. 

The article concludes:

Although Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said no deaths have been reported as of Tuesday morning, he expects several casualties given the wide range attack.

Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in near daily attacks over the border since the terror group began attacking the Jewish state in solidarity with Hamas.

There are many ways to fight a war.

Who Took The Emails?

On Tuesday The Epoch Times posted an article titled, “900-Page Senate Russia Report Includes No Evidence for How Emails Were Taken From DNC.” The article provides a detailed account of the Senate investigation and what was NOT concluded. Please follow the link to read the entire article–it is very detailed.

The most important point in the article is the conclusion:

While details about what happened with the DNC emails have been scant, details about what didn’t happen have recently emerged. On May 7, the HPSCI released the transcripts of the interviews it conducted as part of the investigation for the Russian active measures report. The transcript of the interview of Shawn Henry showed that CrowdStrike “did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC.”

“We have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated,” Henry told lawmakers on Dec. 5, 2017.

When asked about the date on which the indicators occurred, Henry referred to the separate exfiltration event on April 22, 2016, which occurred a month before the emails were allegedly stolen.

Later in the interview, when asked specifically about the emails, Henry said it was possible for the alleged hackers to view and copy the content of the emails in addition to taking screenshots. The monitoring activity he described is unlikely to have yielded the raw email files published by WikiLeaks and was different from the allegation by the special counsel, who claimed that the emails were taken during a separate breach.

A source with the HPSCI told The Epoch Times that the committee relied on sources other than CrowdStrike to conclude that Russians stole the DNC emails, but couldn’t provide further details because they were classified. The evidence for the theft of the emails was as strong as the evidence of the attribution of the overall hacking campaign to Russia, the source said.

The release of Henry’s transcript prompted CrowdStrike to issue on June 5 the fourth significant update in as many years to its DNC incident response blog post. The update, running at more than 2,400 words, consisted of a Q&A and a timeline of events surrounding CrowdStrike’s remediation work.

The CrowdStrike timeline extensively references the Mueller report, but doesn’t include the crucial May 25 to June 1, 2016, time frame the special counsel provided for the alleged hacking of the DNC mail server.

The Q&A features an apparent misinterpretation of Henry’s testimony, claiming, contrary to what Henry told lawmakers, that CrowdStrike has evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC but omitting Henry’s qualification that the evidence was circumstantial. Regardless, the statement, as expected, included no dates and didn’t use the word “emails.”

I still believe, and will continue to believe unless shown proof that I am wrong, that the hacking of the DNC emails is connected to the death of Seth Rich. I don’t know whether that is being looked into or not, but it should be.