Thread by @normative

This is apparently the “100% evidence” Mike Lindell is relying on to claim Dominion voting systems were “hacked” by foreign adversaries. It’s a screed from a crank site called The American Report, obviously written by tech illiterates, containing no actual evidence.

The article claims unsourced “raw data analytics” obtained by the crank site prove that various “IP addresses” associated with election offices were “hacked” by “IP addresses” in various foreign countries. It is word salad with gibberish croutons.

The article ends with an unsourced list of foreign IP addresses, paired with the domestic IP addresses they supposedly “hacked”. (You don’t “hack” an IP address, but whatever.) There is no reason to think this list represents… well, anything.

None of this is dated. There’s no reason to even believe this list documents pre-election *connections* between those addresses. Charitably and unjustifiably assuming that to be the case, an outside observer would not be able to determine they represent “hacks.”

Even on the very, very, very generous assumption some of these represent foreign probes of county election networks—we know that happens all the time—that has nothing to do with Dominion & would not be evidence of vote tampering.

For the 2016 presidential election, we have not a random list of unsourced IP addresses, but a detailed bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee finding Russia probed and in some cases actually breached state election infrastructure. intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/…

Does that prove Russia “hacked” the 2016 election or changed votes? No, of course not. We’re reasonably confident they didn’t. But it’s about 1000x more serious evidence of actual foreign intrusion than a list of IP addresses on a crank site.

As with Sidney Powell’s “Spyder” affidavit, nobody with any kind of actual infosec background could imagine for an instant this constitutes evidence of anything. Its purpose is to bamboozle tech illiterates like Mr. Pillow with technobabble.

Silver lining for Mr Pillow: Anyone who would publicly share something this embarrassing is *probably* too ignorant to understand why it’s garbage, which may be of some very limited help to his defense against Dominion’s defamation lawsuit.

Though “I made highly damaging claims based on gibberish I didn’t understand from a nutty conspiracy website” probably doesn’t clear the “reckless disregard” bar.

Here’s the “raw data analytics” from the crank site which Mr Pillow tweeted out, claiming it is “one page of hundreds” proving the election was stolen from Trump. As one would hope need not be said, but apparently must be, it is evidence of literally nothing.

Again, I feel stupid saying something this obvious, but: Even if an outside observer had visibility on a connection between 2 IP addresses occurring, there’s no way they could have information about supposed vote changes.

If someone did somehow have it, why would you give exclusively to some obscure crank site? Wouldn’t you provide it to one of the Trump administration’s law enforcement agencies? Wouldn’t some marginally more credible conservative news outlet at least pick it up?

Even assuming complete technological ignorance—which seems a safe assumption here—it still requires a complete and willful suspension of basic common sense at every possible level to take this seriously for even a millisecond.

I do notice PillowGuy hasn’t tweeted since Jan 15. Maybe his panicked lawyers persuaded him to stop giving gifts to the plaintiffs….