Fox: WikiLeaks releases huge archive of secret CIA documents and hacking tools

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Those tools were probably used in first place to spy on and "hack elections" in foreign countries. Lead by example?  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#History

Where is the outrage about Obama supporting Netanyahu's opponents.

Was it financial support?

Steered donors to various groups, sent top aides, steered taxpayer money to "nonpartisan" Israeli organizations and groups.

[Meclazine for Israel]

I've noticed that my post from my Samsung Note 3 are, statistically speaking, 30% dumber than my other desktop PC posts on the Atlas forum.

This might explain it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I feel disgusted by who I'm in agreement with but I am compelled to believe this is a good thing and that the intelligence community needs to be actively opposed as far as their mass snooping goes. I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the intel leaks on Russia against Trump - while I like it - may not have consequences down the road, e.g, the intelligence community takes out a President they don't like who may be perfectly fine?

Again, feeling violently ill but the intelligence community is making me question their motives.

EDIT: I know Wikileaks is going for this reaction and hoping to ding the intelligence community as they work on making the case against Trump. So that makes this even worse.

     This is a point that folks like jfern and Averroes have been making; "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very dangerous doctrine and ignoring questionable activities on that basis is very dangerous practice. When it becomes acceptable for the CIA to undermine the sitting President, you open the door for that to happen to a future President that you may approve of.

The enemy of my enemy is my enemies' enemy, no more and no less. But they are my enemies' enemy. I didn't like Obama's or Bush's surveillance one bit. And I'm not going to like them any more if they take down Trump. But that doesn't change that removing Trump will be a net good.

I agree that the precedent is very troubling. But on the other hand, if a President actually is conspiring with a foreign power, who is supposed to stop him? Congress? If Congress refuses to do his job, should Trump be allowed to rampage unchecked for years until it can be replaced? Even if he isn't, the very fact that we're having this discussion is destructive. Any removal of Trump - eventual impeachment, removal from office by the VP and Cabinet, military coup, seccession, or revolution is going to hurt America horribly.

I'm sad and sick, at all of this. And I fear it's only going to get worse and worse until he's gone. Even before he was elected, once the media covered him as anything but the vile fradulent clown he was, he started damaging our nation in so many ways. And he's going to keep doing more until he is gone.
So while the precedent is awful, I think it would do less hurt in the future than leaving Trump alone will.  If we're lucky, he'll pull a Palin or have a stroke and can go down in the history books that way.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I feel disgusted by who I'm in agreement with but I am compelled to believe this is a good thing and that the intelligence community needs to be actively opposed as far as their mass snooping goes. I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the intel leaks on Russia against Trump - while I like it - may not have consequences down the road, e.g, the intelligence community takes out a President they don't like who may be perfectly fine?

Again, feeling violently ill but the intelligence community is making me question their motives.

EDIT: I know Wikileaks is going for this reaction and hoping to ding the intelligence community as they work on making the case against Trump. So that makes this even worse.

     This is a point that folks like jfern and Averroes have been making; "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very dangerous doctrine and ignoring questionable activities on that basis is very dangerous practice. When it becomes acceptable for the CIA to undermine the sitting President, you open the door for that to happen to a future President that you may approve of.

If the future President I approve of is doing things that involve treason or perjury, then I might not approve of that President for very long.

     Supposing, of course, that the CIA would never lie to take someone down.

[Green Line]

These are things the CIA should be doing anyway.  I just hope they do it well. 

[Hindsight was 2020]

I feel disgusted by who I'm in agreement with but I am compelled to believe this is a good thing and that the intelligence community needs to be actively opposed as far as their mass snooping goes. I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the intel leaks on Russia against Trump - while I like it - may not have consequences down the road, e.g, the intelligence community takes out a President they don't like who may be perfectly fine?

Again, feeling violently ill but the intelligence community is making me question their motives.

EDIT: I know Wikileaks is going for this reaction and hoping to ding the intelligence community as they work on making the case against Trump. So that makes this even worse.

     This is a point that folks like jfern and Averroes have been making; "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very dangerous doctrine and ignoring questionable activities on that basis is very dangerous practice. When it becomes acceptable for the CIA to undermine the sitting President, you open the door for that to happen to a future President that you may approve of.

If the future President I approve of is doing things that involve treason or perjury, then I might not approve of that President for very long.

     Supposing, of course, that the CIA would never lie to take someone down.

Right the CIA is making it up about Trump because they are jealous of his big hands

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I feel disgusted by who I'm in agreement with but I am compelled to believe this is a good thing and that the intelligence community needs to be actively opposed as far as their mass snooping goes. I am increasingly beginning to wonder if the intel leaks on Russia against Trump - while I like it - may not have consequences down the road, e.g, the intelligence community takes out a President they don't like who may be perfectly fine?

Again, feeling violently ill but the intelligence community is making me question their motives.

EDIT: I know Wikileaks is going for this reaction and hoping to ding the intelligence community as they work on making the case against Trump. So that makes this even worse.

     This is a point that folks like jfern and Averroes have been making; "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very dangerous doctrine and ignoring questionable activities on that basis is very dangerous practice. When it becomes acceptable for the CIA to undermine the sitting President, you open the door for that to happen to a future President that you may approve of.

If the future President I approve of is doing things that involve treason or perjury, then I might not approve of that President for very long.

     Supposing, of course, that the CIA would never lie to take someone down.

Right the CIA is making it up about Trump because they are jealous of his big hands

Is that all you got? You're a bigger tool than I thought.

[Virginiá]

The problem I see with releasing actual hacking tools and exploits is that at that point, you're just giving your adversaries and criminal organizations access to very sophisticated malware. Granted, from a profiteering perspective, a lot of these tools are not useful but the "tricks" and exploits used in them are. Many zero days - particularly ones sought by intelligence agencies, go for upwards of a hundred thousand dollars or more, and can be extremely effective in spreading malware with little to no user interaction on a webpage.

There is no good reason to release these kinds of tools. I'm sorry. Maybe the exploits, because the companies can immediately patch them, but the other tools? There is nothing to be gained from this. Releasing documents that detail the malware, and maybe releasing some compiled samples is fine and informs the public, but any tools to build copies of the malware or even source code is superfluous in the mission people like Wikileaks claim to have.

As for documents that describe intelligence capabilities that are troublesome from a privacy perspective - that is one thing, but actually giving the tools & capabilities to everyone is a whole different ballgame.

[I Won - Get Over It]

The problem I see with releasing actual hacking tools and exploits is that at that point, you're just giving your adversaries and criminal organizations access to very sophisticated malware. Granted, from a profiteering perspective, a lot of these tools are not useful but the "tricks" and exploits used in them are. Many zero days - particularly ones sought by intelligence agencies, go for upwards of a hundred thousand dollars or more, and can be extremely effective in spreading malware with little to no user interaction on a webpage.

There is no good reason to release these kinds of tools. I'm sorry. Maybe the exploits, because the companies can immediately patch them, but the other tools? There is nothing to be gained from this. Releasing documents that detail the malware, and maybe releasing some compiled samples is fine and informs the public, but any tools to build copies of the malware or even source code is superfluous in the mission people like Wikileaks claim to have.

As for documents that describe intelligence capabilities that are troublesome from a privacy perspective - that is one thing, but actually giving the tools & capabilities to everyone is a whole different ballgame.

They didn't release the actual code, but only binaries as I understand. The binaries could probably be used for reverse engineering; I am not sure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html?ref=politics

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[Blue3]

I have a feeling that someone in WikiLeaks told Trump this was coming... and that Trump suspects it happened to him. Hence, the weekend meltdown.

[Virginiá]

Wow, so they didn't release the code? I'm surprised to be honest. That is totally something I could have seen WL doing. Hopefully they keep it private and don't pass it along to any other actors on the side. After all, in many cases you don't need to release the whole source code to develop protections against the malware.

Anyway, kudos to them.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The CIA certainly is working hard to make us all less safe. Traitors.

JFK said he wanted to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. How come that didn't happen? Oh, right.

[ApatheticAustrian]

btw...strange coincidence the president has gone silent on such a matter of national security...it is not?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

btw...strange coincidence the president has gone silent on such a matter of national security...it is not?

Good point. Where is all the whining and raving about leaks?

Oh, right, leaks are only bad when they make him look bad.

Previous administrations have had this to a degree, but I can't recall any of them, from either party, approving mass dumps of government secrets. Then again, what else should we expect from Benedict Donald.

[ApatheticAustrian]

The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/opinion/the-truth-about-the-wikileaks-cia-cache.html?_r=0&referer=https://t.co/0VzsRf2kRO

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[Virginiá]

This about sums it up imo:

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The CIA didn't break Signal or WhatsApp - they were simply hacking the actual devices their target was using, which would make any program you're using to secure your communications useless. Of course many agents of the technologically inept media and punditariat didn't grasp that at first in their mad dash to get their hot takes out into circulation.

Not that you could expect an outfit like Wikileaks to make that clear. Assange is no dummy. He has an extensive history in IT, and he knows damn well apps like Signal weren't "broken."

[I Won - Get Over It]

The CIA didn't break Signal or WhatsApp - they were simply hacking the actual devices their target was using, which would make any program you're using to secure your communications useless. Of course many agents of the technologically inept media and punditariat didn't grasp that at first in their mad dash to get their hot takes out into circulation.

Not that you could expect an outfit like Wikileaks to make that clear. Assange is no dummy. He has an extensive history in IT, and he knows damn well apps like Signal weren't "broken."

Haters gonna hate

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

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How could anyone possibly misunderstand this? Isn't it clear enough?

Next time read the original source before you criticize it...

[Virginiá]

I'm aware of what they said in this regard. I'm talking about this focus on apps like Signal in these leaks when absolutely nothing new and special about the programs themselves was revealed by the leaks. Hacking the device that runs these kinds of programs has always been known to be a weak point, and suddenly it's a hot topic now? It created a narrative that Signal was weak and possibly no longer secure.

Like I said, Assange is no dummy, and not only does he have extensive knowledge of all of this, but he also knows the media is by and large technologically inept. When you break stories like this, one should take pains to make them aware of these things. Likewise, the media owes it to their viewers/readers to discuss these matters clearly because the general populace often can't see the differences here. Instead, the discussions had all seemed to foster an image that there was some new security weakness. This is particularly annoying to me. I've already to explain to 2 people up North that nothing was broken, and it's still a secure way of communicating.

[I Won - Get Over It]

I'm aware of what they said in this regard. I'm talking about this focus on apps like Signal in these leaks when absolutely nothing new and special about the programs themselves was revealed by the leaks. Hacking the device that runs these kinds of programs has always been known to be a weak point, and suddenly it's a hot topic now? It created a narrative that Signal was weak and possibly no longer secure.

Like I said, Assange is no dummy, and not only does he have extensive knowledge of all of this, but he also knows the media is by and large technologically inept. When you break stories like this, one should take pains to make them aware of these things. Likewise, the media owes it to their viewers/readers to discuss these matters clearly because the general populace often can't see the differences here. Instead, the discussions had all seemed to foster an image that there was some new security weakness. This is particularly annoying to me. I've already to explain to 2 people up North that nothing was broken, and it's still a secure way of communicating.

I don't quite understand your harsh critique towards Assange/WL. The WL-article was pretty clear that CIA can't break the encryption, but only bypassed it by infecting the phone (with malware).

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Can you be more specific? What would like to change in the article? Are there any ambiguities?


And there is new information.
1) CIA could actually hack "any" smartphone (even though it is likely much costly than before Snowden and likely is not "scalable"). Even worse, even Russia/China probably could use similar techniques as well, because CIA din't notify Apple/Google about those bugs...
2) Encryption may give a false sense of security.

[Virginiá]

And there is new information.
1) CIA could actually hack "any" smartphone (even though it is likely much costly than before Snowden and likely is not "scalable"). Even worse, even Russia/China probably could use similar techniques as well, because CIA din't notify Apple/Google about those bugs...

No. Not new. From WL:

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Zero day exploits have been a thing decades. Before Snowden and after Snowden. In fact, it was with Snowden that they got a surge in attention because it became known how they were being used and the government's easy access to them.

Likewise, the fact that the CIA has exploits it can use to break into various mobile phones is not new. With the intensifying focus on cybercrime since 2009, this issue has been covered extensively. The government is well known to develop exploits in house or buy from providers such as VUPEN or even independent researchers.

Really, this is rewrapping an old present and acting like its a shiny new toy.

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Not new by any means.


The CIA leaks themselves are interesting, but between WL's agenda and the media's sheer stupidity in technology-related matters is really frustrating.

For the record, I like the idea of Wikileaks, but the people who run that website right now have a pretty anti-American and blatantly partisan bias that makes them awful to me. Get rid of everyone working at WL, including Assange, and replace them with people who are actually objective and just care about leaks and not solely damaging American interests and I'd have a different opinion of Wikileaks.