WikiLeaks publishes massive collection of CIA hacking documents

Shawn Knight

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WikiLeaks, the world’s premiere purveyor of secret information, is at it again. The organization on Tuesday released a trove of CIA-related documents – 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, to be exact – which it says is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.

WikiLeaks says in a press release that the CIA recently lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, trojans, viruses, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and more. The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors before sources provided portions of it to WikiLeaks, the organization claims.

The collection, ranging from 2013 to 2016, allegedly contains exploits against a wide range of US and European company products including Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android mobile OS and Microsoft’s Windows operating system. And as rumored a couple of years ago, even Samsung TVs have been targeted and turned into covert listening devices.

WikiLeaks says it has carefully reviewed the material and has avoided publishing “armed” cyberweapons “until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should be analyzed, disarmed and published.” WikiLeaks has also redacted and anonymized some identifying information including tens of thousands of targets throughout the US, Latin America and Europe.

A spokesperson for the CIA told The New York Times that they do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents.

Lead photo via Getty Images

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Another pertinent detail is that the dump includes the CIAs acquisition of foreign cyber weapons and subsequent false fingerprinting used to make CIA incursions look like foreign ones.

Detailed reporting here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-07/wikileaks-hold-press-conference-vault-7-release-8am-eastern

Edit: Relevant excerpt:
  • Umbrage: The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation. With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.
 
Also worthy of note is this:

C6VjbUMUYAALPnH.jpg:large

...and you thought the Church of Kek was a 4chan fiction.
 
I have thought all along that Hillary's email problem and the Podesta hack were by our own. Only problem here is the leak or leaks are serving a higher cause (in their mind) that won't be taken into account if caught.

Albeit a lot of the techniques used are known through out IT security circles, but some were unknown or developed in house. Those could pose a significant public threat. Makes you wonder.... Should the CIA be held accountable to stringent rules or be allowed to operate in ways people would not like or consider "dirty"?

I agreed with John Travolta's character Gabriel in Swordfish. " Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb ten. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourists, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that it becomes unthinkable to attack Americans."

And to quote the Human Torch "Flame On!"
 
The first recorded records of phone taps began in 1890 and have continued through present day. Somewhere along the line Ma Bell found a way to turn the phone "on" while it was still in the cradle and amplify the device to the point of hearing sounds throughout the structure. Today, it's simple child's play to break encryption and gather data "at will". The only legitimate defense is the court order, which only prevents gathered recordings and evidence from being used for prosecution, except under the most extreme cases. Due to the technology we will never be able to put an end to it, which is all the more reason for citizens to demand their justice systems to maintain the firm enforcement of the law and prosecution of those that choose to break it, regardless of their intent or reasoning.
 
I have thought all along that Hillary's email problem and the Podesta hack were by our own. Only problem here is the leak or leaks are serving a higher cause (in their mind) that won't be taken into account if caught.
Albeit a lot of the techniques used are known through out IT security circles, but some were unknown or developed in house. Those could pose a significant public threat. Makes you wonder.... Should the CIA be held accountable to stringent rules or be allowed to operate in ways people would not like or consider "dirty"?
I agreed with John Travolta's character Gabriel in Swordfish. " Anyone who impinges on America's freedom. Terrorist states, Stanley. Someone must bring their war to them. They bomb a church, we bomb ten. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourists, we tactically nuke an entire city. Our job is to make terrorism so horrific that it becomes unthinkable to attack Americans."
And to quote the Human Torch "Flame On!"

Unfortunately, reality goes much deeper than the assumptions made on basis of 'information' or rather 'disinformation'. Good example to discredit 'official line' on terrorism is how an 'insurgency' was financed & brought up in Afghanistan in 1970s with the aim (rather hope I'd say) that Soviet's will be drawn into the conflict to support their 'allies' in Kabul, which they foolishly obliged; this then led to next phase, I.e. planning, financial assistance, recruitment, and arming of "Taliban (including Osama Bin Laden)", which were used to against the Russians as a proxy, until they were beaten and retreated. Then they were allowed to freely do whatever they want to, until 9/11 tragedy. Unfortunately, the same is being repeated in Syria, with implicit support to Daesh (especially since GCC countries + many NATO countries giving them arms etc. until it was clear that Syrian Govt with the help of its allies has gained position of stalemate and can’t be defeated out rightly anymore). Considering all this, one can safely assume that ‘deep state’ apparatuses all over the world are the ones who actually ‘mold’ policies in ways they want them to, to obtain the ‘required’ outcome.
 
"Yay they weren't listening to me yell at my Samsung TV up here in Canada!"

Why weren't they? Were they too busy snooping via all the rest of the Samsungs in the rest of the world?

The "agency's" tactics have made millions of enemies of people who used to view the US as a friendly allied nation.
 
I did a search because I wanted to learn more about this, but didn't find anything. What section did you find this?

Pulled it from a feed that was posting leaks when it was still breaking news. Whether it's real or not, I do not know.
 
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