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Apple, Samsung, Microsoft: WikiLeaks blows lid on scale of CIA’s hacking arsenal
The major takeaway from the latest WikiLeaks dump centers around the terrifying, ‘all-seeing-eye’ surveillance project codenamed ‘Weeping Angel.’ The CIA appears to have taken espionage to a whole new level if WikiLeaks’ initial analysis is accurate.
Snowden on WikiLeaks Year Zero: Evidence US govt pays to keep 'software unsafe'
Edward Snowden has tweeted his response to WikiLeaks’ massive dump of confidential documents surrounding CIA hacking tools, describing it as “genuinely a big deal.”
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.
I think companies like Apple really want to cut their market share. They are now clearly instruments of the American Empire. If Snowden is right then they accept payment for bad software. I hope it was worth it for them. It goes to show that open source is the only way to go except when the user isn't in control of updates.
When I use my Macintosh, I perfectly-well know that the computer spends a lot of time, e.g. at boot and when I log in, "doing various things about which I have n-o control.
Both my iPhone, and my Mac, "when I go to sleep at night, charging them up before morning," analyze every picture that I have taken, "looking for faces." And then, "transmitting them, somewhere."
Did I, as the supposed owner(!) of this device, have any say in the matter? Hell, no.
Sometime in the future ... (and you read about it here, first, Future Historians™ ...) ... "the definition of 'Terrorism™,' and indeed of [world ...] warfare(!) will be completely redefined. "Incomprehensibly surgical strikes will be conducted – "as though Armies® and Navies® and National Guards® simply didn't exist at all(!)."
By "an utterly un-identifiable and un-locatable military enemy" that ... somehow ... killed your daughter in her bedroom," because ... somehow ... they knew everything(!) about her! (They even knew, within ±7 feet, exactly where in your house, her bedroom was!)
"Knowledge ... I-S ... Power!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream):
"What fools these Mortals Be!"
Ladies and Gentlebeings, the truth is that we have ... "ostensibly 'in the name of National Global Security™'" ... been persuaded to forget a fundamental lesson that was taught, many centuries ago, in The Art of War:
Well there was a comedy skit (can't quite place it) - but it involved answering the phone with the following: "Fsck Hoover, hello?" I guess now all we have to to is give the middle finger each time we either turn our tvs on, or just go right in front of it.
"Rights are not rights if someone can take them away. They are privileges. That is all we have ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government .. does not care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety.. It is interested in its own power. That is the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible."— George Carlin
"Rights are not rights if someone can take them away. They are privileges. That is all we have ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government .. does not care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety.. It is interested in its own power. That is the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible."— George Carlin
Distribution: Currently: OpenMandriva. Previously: openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, among others over the years.
Posts: 3,881
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sundialsvcs
C'mon ... what the heck do you expect?
When I use my Macintosh, I perfectly-well know that the computer spends a lot of time, e.g. at boot and when I log in, "doing various things about which I have n-o control.
Both my iPhone, and my Mac, "when I go to sleep at night, charging them up before morning," analyze every picture that I have taken, "looking for faces." And then, "transmitting them, somewhere."
Did I, as the supposed owner(!) of this device, have any say in the matter? Hell, no.
Sometime in the future ... (and you read about it here, first, Future Historians™ ...) ... "the definition of 'Terrorism™,' and indeed of [world ...] warfare(!) will be completely redefined. "Incomprehensibly surgical strikes will be conducted – [i]"as though Armies® and Navies® and National Guards® simply didn't exist at all(!)."
By "an utterly un-identifiable and un-locatable military enemy" that ... somehow ... killed your daughter in her bedroom," because ... somehow ... they knew everything(!) about her! (They even knew, within ±7 feet, exactly where in your house, her bedroom was!)
"Knowledge ... I-S ... Power!"
Ladies and Gentlebeings, the truth is that we have ... "ostensibly 'in the name of National Global Security™'" ... been persuaded to forget a fundamental lesson that was taught, many centuries ago, in The Art of War:
For once, I agree with with almost (if not) everything you said. Right on the money!
WikiLeaks says just 1% of #Vault7 covert documents released so far
WikiLeaks’ data dump on Tuesday accounted for less than one percent of ‘Vault 7’, a collection of leaked CIA documents which revealed the extent of its hacking capabilities, the whistleblowing organization has claimed on Twitter.
(ZEROHEDGE) WikiLeaks has published what it claims is the largest ever release of confidential documents on the CIA. It includes more than 8,000 documents as part of ‘Vault 7’, a series of leaks on the agency, which have allegedly emerged from the CIA’s Center For Cyber Intelligence in Langley, and which can be seen on the org chart below, which Wikileaks also released:
A total of 8,761 documents have been published as part of ‘Year Zero’, the first in a series of leaks the whistleblower organization has dubbed ‘Vault 7.’ WikiLeaks said that ‘Year Zero’ revealed details of the CIA’s “global covert hacking program,” including “weaponized exploits” used against company products including “Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.”
Personally, I'd be more concerned if security forces couldn't access such things when they need to. As I've said so many times, no-one is monitoring everyone: the manpower required would too large.
What does concern me is the way in which the US services leak like sieves. When was the last time that sort of thing happened in the UK? There's also the problem of who's behind Wikileaks. When The Guardian interviewed Assange, they asked why he didn't publish leaks from Russia and he replied that there was no need, since Russia has an effective press!
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