Wikileaks Vault 7 Release: Dark Matter

WIKILEAKS Claims CIA Bugs 'Factory Fresh' iPhones!

I laugh at all these pop culture code names. Like guys... Don't do that... You look like you are desperate to stay in touch.

>> Also included in this release is the manual for the CIA's "NightSkies 1.2" a "beacon/loader/implant tool" for the Apple iPhone. Noteworthy is that NightSkies had reached 1.2 by 2008, and is expressly designed to be physically installed onto factory fresh iPhones. i.e the CIA has been infecting the iPhone supply chain of its targets since at least 2008.

> Apple portrayed itself as a guardian angel for keeping the FBI of our devices for the past two years, while conveniently forgetting to mention that it has been installing iPhone backdoors for the CIA since 2008 [emphasis mine].

I think that's a misreading. The article only mentions "factory fresh" iPhones, which probably means ones that have not yet been unboxed, not necessarily ones still in the factory. IIRC, the NSA was intercepting packages in transit to install implants, and I'd imagine the CIA followed a similar process. So they had the cooperation of the shipping companies (e.g. USPS or UPS), not the manufactures like Apple or Dell.

I mean, it might be possible that manufactures were working with them as well (or perhaps just individual employees), but I haven't seen the evidence. Keeping some distance from the manufacturer would make some sense, if they wanted to keep the vulnerabilities secret.

"barely news...."

"hard to find anyone that actually cares...."

What Wikileaks is changing, and what has had a real effect even here on HN let alone out in the normal world, is that we didn't quite know that the government was doing all these things. We very very very much expected that they were doing these things, but we were never faced with cold hard evidence. And a great deal of the rest of the populace sort of vaguely expected that the government was collecting stuff, but when faced with concrete evidence of this fact, it became real. Even those who strongly suspected only suspected in very vague terms, but now we have details, which is qualitatively different.

If you want people to care, it seems you need this concrete evidence, not just very well-sourced supposition. I say "it seems" because I am not theorizing about this; I am observing the reality on the ground. It doesn't matter how true it may be theoretically that we shouldn't have needed this information, how we should have theoretically had all the info we needed to care, because I observe that we in fact we didn't have enough information to care, because largely, we didn't. If you want to counter that, please provide me with the observations that I'm wrong and people had enough to care, not just theory. (Though that will require you to contradict your own point that people don't care.)

I suggest to you that you meditate on where you got the idea that Wikileaks is a "threat" for releasing this information, which seems like it ought to help you towards your goal of getting people to care about these things, but which somehow you've talked yourself into trying to downplay and ignore. Who's the source of that idea, and who's pushing it? Are you sure you want to absorb the idea from those sources?

You don't have to "like" Wikileaks to use this information, nor do you have to trust their motives beyond ensuring that the provenance of the files are correct. I do suggest keeping in mind that they may still be filtering the flow (they are certainly modulating it, as they themselves say, so this is no accusation or anything), but you can still do correct logic on the information that is provided (assuming it is accurate). You just shouldn't do any logic based on what is missing. (However, I can't say I'm seeing very many people making that mistake.)

They actually serve their purpose pretty well. You won't arouse suspicion or hint at any details of the project if someone overhears you talking about sonic screwdrivers or dark matter. It's not like they intended these projects to be known outside the CIA/IC.