WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: March 7, 2017 at 12:22:56 PM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents
> By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
> Mar 7 2017
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html>
>
> WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks on Tuesday released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools 
> used by the Central Intelligence Agencyto break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.
>
> If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the 
> anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used 
> for espionage.
>
> The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first part of the document collection, included 7,818 web 
> pages with 943 attachments, the group said. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million 
> lines of computer code, it said.
>
> Among other disclosures that, if confirmed, would rock the technology world, the WikiLeaks release said that the 
> C.I.A. and allied intelligence services had managed to bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such 
> as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate Android 
> phones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”
>
> The source of the documents was not named. WikiLeaks said the documents, which it called Vault 7, had 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.”
>
> WikiLeaks said the source, in a statement, set out policy questions that “urgently need to be debated in public, 
> including whether the C.I.A.’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of 
> the agency.” The source, the group said, “wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, 
> proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.”
>
> The documents, from the C.I.A’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, are dated from 2013 to 2016, and WikiLeaks described 
> them as “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.” One former intelligence officer who 
> briefly reviewed the documents on Tuesday morning said some of the code names for C.I.A. programs, an organization 
> chart and the description of a C.I.A. hacking base appeared to be genuine.
>
> A C.I.A. spokesman, Dean Boyd, said, “We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence 
> documents.”
>
> WikiLeaks, which has sometimes been accused of recklessly leaking information that could do harm, said it had 
> redacted names and other identifying information from the collection. It said it was not releasing the computer code 
> for actual, usable cyberweapons “until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the C.I.A.’s 
> program and how such ‘weapons’ should be analyzed, disarmed and published.”
>
> Some of the details of the C.I.A. programs might have come from the plot of a spy novel for the cyberage, revealing 
> numerous highly classified — and in some cases, exotic — hacking programs. One, code-named Weeping Angel, uses 
> Samsung “smart” televisions as covert listening devices. According to the WikiLeaks news release, even when it 
> appears to be turned off, the television “operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them 
> over the internet to a covert C.I.A. server.”
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>



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