Search for “Russian hacking” and you’ll see a multitude of talking heads yammering on about the “terrible” Russians. Yet what precisely is the proof? According to this new article in Wired magazine, there’s nothing:

In terms of proving the core claim that Russia hacked American political targets, though, Friday’s report is sure to leave any skeptic not privy to classified briefings briefings unconvinced: It fails to include even the already public evidence visible to the cybersecurity community over the last six months, which drew a thick dotted line from the DNC hack to the Kremlin. A hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0, for instance, in June claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker responsible for the breach. But the stolen DNC files he published on the web–and also said he’d leaked to WikiLeaks–contained telltale Russian-language error messages. A piece of malware known as X-Agent was used in both the DNC hack and previous attacks long believed to be Russian intelligence operations. And an analysis of the URL shortening service used by the hacker who stole the Gmail password of Clinton staffer John Podesta shows that the same account was used to target more than 5,000 other Gmail accounts, including Russia-focused journalists and authors, and the spouses of American military officials.

Related: John Batchelor and Stephen F. Cohen have an ongoing discussion about all things Russian. Here’s a transcript of the latest segment.
Update: Well worth a watch:

h/t Alan