Why the NYT thinks Russia hacked Burisma — and where the evidence is still shaky.

Farzaneh Badii, former executive director of Georgia Tech’s Internet Governance Project, classifies weak attribution as “circumstantial evidence that can be technically questioned.” She sees it as a global problem and has advocated for international attribution groups that could solve the deadlock, so observers wouldn’t have to rely on private companies or government intelligence agencies. Without that, the problem of trust can be difficult to solve.

“States mostly fund cyber attacks through individual contractors and do not carry them out themselves,” Badii says, making state actors and private criminals difficult to distinguish. If you’re worried about governments ginning up a case for war or private companies grasping for headlines, that problem only gets worse. “Attribution companies are not forthcoming and transp

arent about all of their methods for undertaking attribution so it is not easy to assess their attribution mechanism.”

Author: Russel Brandom

The Verge