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CIA malware and hacking tools

wikileaks.org

781–790 of 1001 posts

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#781
I'll be really honest... I don't think any of the stuff I've seen so far is "news". We already know our smartphones, tvs, and IOTs are very vulnerable to attack. Shouldn't we expect intelligence agencies to take advantage of it?

The only "real" news would be if the Trump administration plans to continue the illegal monitoring of US citizens without warrants from the previous administration.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is clear motive right now for undermining the CIA. And why NOT to undermine the CIA?

Because we don't live in a Disney movie where everyone gets along and lives happily ever after? Do you think if we get rid of CIA the Russians will just disband the FSB? The Chinese will just suddenly become transparent and stop all international espionage? The entire world will suddenly love US and try to suck up to the biggest superpower?

This is obviously a false dichotomy.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#783
post #97
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have secret unit testing tips too! https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11629048.html

And Visual Studio https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11629039.html

In many pages I explored from the leak I keep coming across this *.devlan.net domain. Whois info belongs to a French personality and is suspiciously updated 2 days ago and it has a month for expiration:

    Updated Date: 2017-03-05T16:38:16Z
    Creation Date: 2004-04-19T13:12:21Z

    Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-04-19T04:00:00Z
    Registrant Name: SADIER, NICOLAS
    Registrant Organization:
    Registrant Street: 5 Bis Chemin Des Hautes Terres
    Registrant City: ST HILAIRE
    Registrant State/Province:
    Registrant Postal Code: 91780
    Registrant Country: FR
    Registrant Phone: +33164954698
    Registrant Email: pservor@free.fr

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#784

It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as... Considering the political situation unfolding in the US and who this leak weakens, there is some evidence that wikileaks is not in the hands of a neutral party. There is clear motive right now for undermining the CIA. Th…

> It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago

So... what's the concern of people? The video seems to be clearly him, not under duress, and current. What more could someone want? If he weren't in control of wikileaks surely he would say something.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say hypothetically that the Russian government has a Cyber Defense arm that has nearly the scope and capability as the US (the DNC/Hillary stuff seems to indicate this). Let's say this is true for many world powers (US, UK, China, and Russia for starters). However, it seems like Wikileaks, while claiming to be a neutral source that "just wants to make powerful people accountable", they only seem to be releasing…

Wikileaks published the internal communications of the Erdogan Administration in Turkey, indicating among other things (corruption) the administrations back channel to the Assad Administration in Syria (an enemy of the United States). The fallout of these disclosures potentially contributed to a building coup attempt in Turkey by forces loyal to the US (which the US tacitly supported) that burst just a week after the…

>The fallout of these disclosures potentially contributed to a building coup attempt in Turkey by forces loyal to the US (which the US tacitly supported) that burst just a week after the disclosures.

I thought the conclusion was that that coup attempt was more or less theater by Erdogan. Organized with his approval and prior knowledge, destined to fail, and used to enact martial law.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#786
post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also know that Mr. Assange did lie about something in the past, his repeated claims that John Podesta's gmail password was 'password': http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/jan/06/...

PolitiFact: "completely unbiased" goalpost mover. His password was an iteration of 'password' - e.g. no real difference.

Um, his win8 login password being a variation of password at some point doesn't automatically imply that his gmail password was "password".

I thought it was widely accepted that Podesta was the victim of a spearphishing attack (coupled with bad advice from IT), rather than just "hacked" via password-guessing.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#787

It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as... Considering the political situation unfolding in the US and who this leak weakens, there is some evidence that wikileaks is not in the hands of a neutral party. There is clear motive right now for undermining the CIA. Th…

There are several elements: 1) what the material exposes 2) how it was obtained 3) why it was released We should condemn (2) and (3) even if we condemn (1). That is, a properly functioning society shouldn't need to rely on leaks for corruption and abuse of power to be exposed. At the same time, we should always respond to abuse of power and trust; to do so because we don't want to help "the bad guys" simply creates a…

> That is, a properly functioning society shouldn't need to rely on leaks for corruption and abuse of power to be exposed

How do you figure? Abuse is just use you don't agree with. If everyone in control is perpetrating the abuse, the only way forward is leaking. See: the Snowden leaks.

Those in power have little incentive to restrict it. Leaks are very effective at letting people police their own government.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#788

It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as... Considering the political situation unfolding in the US and who this leak weakens, there is some evidence that wikileaks is not in the hands of a neutral party. There is clear motive right now for undermining the CIA. Th…

> It's interesting to note that Julian Assange didn't demonstrate control of the wikileaks private key during his Reddit AMA 1 month ago So... what's the concern of people? The video seems to be clearly him, not under duress, and current. What more could someone want? If he weren't in control of wikileaks surely he would say something.

>seems to be

>surely he would say something

These aren't exactly reassuring statements, at least not to me.

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've spent anytime on twitter or reddit lately, there's an increasingly large amount of political astroturfing from special interest organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/US-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith-Mundt_Modernization_Act_... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...

Have you noticed this trend on HN? Because I see essentially the same sentiment in this thread. Little if anything is effected purely by overt or tacit collusion.

There's certainly been a handful of very overt political troll commentators with talking point narratives which I've noticed on HN in the last few weeks.

Thankfully HN has a better reputation system in place. News website comments have 0 barrier to entry, and Twitter and Reddit are clearly prone to mass bot'ing. It helps that there's access to an API for transparency on those sites but the persona astroterfing ops are getting more advanced tactics like copying random user comments to build up an appearance nearly indistinguishable from a normal user's history at first glance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

Re: CIA malware and hacking tools

#790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the purpose of devil's advocate in this, I think it's possible to state truths and still be misleading and/or distracting from another narrative. Just because something is true doesn't necessarily explain what the motive is for releasing that information. It's certainly healthy to have at least a shadow of a doubt as to what WikiLeaks's motivations are when it's already shown that it can either restrain itself fr…

Allegedly WL did not release every email they had from the Syria leak. While every email released may be legitimate, the omission of emails pertaining to russia creates a narrative. Wikileaks may be telling the truth but it's far from clear whether they are telling the whole truth. And in between "truth" and "whole truth" there's a lot of room to shape the narrative

If Wikileaks is in any way editorializing the information, that is not specifically related to things like 'redaction of names to not put specific lives at risk' - then it is existentially damaging to their credibility.

It's not just 'shaping narrative' - it's 'creating it'.

I'm not for or against the very nature of Wikileaks - but I'm pointing out that editorialization is quite fundamentally bad - for an organization like them.

The 'best leaks' were the ones in concert with Guardian, NYT and Spiegel - that way they had a lot of transparency, a lot of eyes on it, and some people who could agree to redact specific names without changing the nature of the information.

Cutting out 'Russian related material' is really quite a bad thing.

Further interesting point: the news if fairly minimized at CNN, Fox etc.. No big headlines.

Also is the fact that Assange was trying to 'hand himself over' to authorities during the election. He may have been trying to use this potential leak as leverage. Who knows. It's all so mysterious ...

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