1. Who speaks for the "intelligence community?" The ODNI. No one else, that's why it was created. So without the office charged with informing us of consensus on a topic, you cannot plausibly say the IC is in agreement on the topic. Magnetfreezers link indicated ODNI saw evidence of senior Russian involvement in hacking as late as Oct 2016, that's legitimately serious. I didn't see ODNI endorsement in nsplayers link, because it's not an IC report.
2. Starting at page 5, the report is generic advice on preventing future intrusions. Yes I saw the professionalism in the phishing email sent to Podesta; 17D, I certainly appreciate your professional opinion on their tradecraft. My point is that a report on an event which spends most of its pages not talking about the event..... seems like a weak ass report. Jaded, you may disagree with my assessment but considering the stakes involved with publicly confronting Russia I'd prefer my international accusations have more granularity.
3. "Do I have any idea how this stuff works?" As I said, without a parallel classified report containing actual evidence this report alone is unconvincing. Have you read that report with actual evidence? Or are you assuming it exists? Or are you convinced without seeing evidence? Regardless of your answers, this alone is not satisfactory to me.
Gents, the IC Iraqi WMD reporting convinced decision makers on both sides of party lines. It was heavy on "trust us" and weak on why, resulting in a total fiasco for our country. This is what a loss of credibility looks like, and there have been additional major IC failures between 2003 and now. Maybe I should re-frame it: given recent spectacular IC assessment failures, why should I believe this one?
You may disagree and you may even be right, but unless you use an argument other than "it's secret and you'll have to trust me but I'm right" you will remain unconvincing across the spectrum of viewpoints. And in fact, a large number of incoming policy makers seem unconvinced. This is a real problem because potential evidence would be secret because it would expose capabilities. I don't know how to resolve this impasse, but it's a real issue for our nation going forward. Other than "read SIPR" (which wouldn't help on this one, BTW), I'd love to read opinions on this quandary in our republic. How does the country learn to trust institutions that have burned us, while maintaining security required for them to function?
Again, I'm glad that report was posted here and I appreciate the spirited discussions.