January 03, 2025
On October 25 2024 a number of main-stream media outlets were spreading an anti-Chinese propaganda campaign launched by U.S. national security sources.
The immediate occasion was an incident in which some hacker had gained access to a number of call records.
NBCnews headlined:
China targeted phones of Trump, Vance and Harris campaign affiliates, sources say
The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the federal government is investigating.
A broad Chinese hacking campaign against U.S. telecommunication networks targeted the phones of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, two sources familiar with the matter say. Another source told NBC News that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris were also targeted.The staff of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was also targeted, a Democratic source said.
...
In a joint statement, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the federal government “is investigating the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”
...
The U.S. government recently concluded that China has hacked three American telecommunications companies: AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies. Lumen declined to comment. AT&T didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Telecommunication companies keep metadata records of all calls made through their networks. The records include which number called what number at what time and from where. If one gets access to those records one can search for all calls a number associated with a person has made or received. But one (unless one is the NSA) does not get access to the content of those calls.
It is totally conceivable that someone got illegitimate access to call record databases. That person could publish selected real records or fake some to make it look as if some person communicated with some other without that having been the case.
To conclude though that some specific actor, for example China, has done such requires some evidence. None of the October reports contained any. The claims of Chinese involvement were solely based on U.S. government sources.
Media repeated those claims without any qualifications.
They were wrong.
Only ten week later the old reports are falling apart. Now a U.S. soldier is accused of hacking into the call data record databases and of publishing parts of them, presumably on his own behest.
The New York Post provides:
US Army soldier allegedly linked to hacked Trump, Harris phone records charged by feds
A Texas-based US Army soldier has been arrested and charged with selling confidential phone records, including material allegedly stolen from President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.Cameron John Wagenius, 20, was indicted by a Seattle grand jury earlier this month on two felony counts of unlawfully transferring confidential phone records information on an online forum and on an online communications platform.
...
An online handle associated with Wagenius has allegedly been linked to several high-profile cyber crimes, which are not detailed in the indictment.Wagenius reportedly went by the alias “Kiberphant0m” online, which boasted about hacking more than a dozen telecommunications firms and obtaining call records belonging to Harris and Trump.
In November, Kiberphant0m posted unverified AT&T call logs supposedly belonging to the two 2024 presidential candidates and offered to sell the stolen information, according to The Verge.
There is no fact that would associate Wagenius with China or vice versa. The October claims of a Chinese hack just vanished. No one (but this little blog), certainly not NBCnews, will ever point out that the old claims, made by U.S. national security sources, of a Chinese hack were totally bollocks.
Be assured that any other claims made by national security sources of similar hacks by Chinese, Russian or Iranian actors are likely to be of similar quality.
Posted by b on January 3, 2025 at 13:45 UTC | Permalink