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WikiLeaks Reveals CIA's Secret Hacking Tools and Spy Operations (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: WikiLeaks has unleashed a treasure trove of data to the internet, exposing information about the CIA's arsenal of hacking tools. Code-named Vault 7, the first data is due to be released in serialized form, starting off with "Year Zero" as part one. A cache of over 8,500 documents and files has been made available via BitTorrent in an encrypted archive. The plan had been to release the password at 9:00am ET today, but when a scheduled online press conference and stream came "under attack" prior to this, the password was released early. Included in the "extraordinary" release are details of the zero day weapons used by the CIA to exploit iPhones, Android phones, Windows, and even Samsung TVs to listen in on people. Routers, Linux, macOS -- nothing is safe. WikiLeaks explains how the "CIA's hacking division" -- or the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI) as it is officially known -- has produced thousands of weaponized pieces of malware, Trojans, viruses and other tools. It's a leak that's essentially Snowden 2.0. In a statement, WikiLeaks said CIA has tools to bypass the encryption mechanisms imposed by popular instant messenger apps Signal, Confide, WhatsApp (used by more than a billion people), and Telegram.
So while the US president is claiming his phones were tapped we get a great release of information about the hacking tools that would be used to do the tapping. No correlation at all. There is not some mysterious power supporting Trump. Nope, Naha. Pure coincidence.
No need for zero-day exploits when Donnie's using a four-year-old Samsung that's probably got more holes than Jeff Sessions' Congress testimony.
How would we know these are the CIA tools and not ones the Russians released to Wikileaks and fooling them into thinking they are the CIA tools? Or that Wikileaks knows they are Russian and is simply lying?
But hardly unexpected it seems to me.
@peetm
The interesting thing would be to see the targets. Given it's the CIA, they are only authorized to surveil targets foreign to the US. The problem with malware and high tech devices is that they cannot always be accurately contained. So how many US citizens and US allies were "inadvertently" tapped? How about political targets?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Your Intel CPU is already backdoored
Forget security, your Intel CPU is already backdoored and it is wide open.
Remember, *3 Billion devices run JAVA*, and your motherboard backdoor is running it.
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
32c3 Intel backdoor live hack demonstration, keystrokes logged and downloaded over wire, wireshark can't detect:
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
Tools to remove Intel backdoor firmware:
https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner.
Neutralize your Intel backdoor:
Neutralize ME firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge platforms
First introduced in Intelâ(TM)s 965 Express Chipset Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip (for Core 2 family CPUs which is separate from the northbridge), or PCH chip replacing ICH(for Core i3/i5/i7 which is integrated with northbridge).
The ME consists of an individual processor core, code and data caches, a timer, and a secure internal bus to which additional devices are connected, including a cryptography engine, internal ROM and RAM, memory controllers, and a direct memory access (DMA) engine to access the host operating systemâ(TM)s memory as well as to reserve a region of protected external memory to supplement the MEâ(TM)s limited internal RAM. The ME also has network access with its own MAC address through the Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller integrated in the southbridge (ICH or PCH).
The Intel Management Engine with its proprietary firmware has complete access to and control over the PC: it can power on or shut down the PC, read all open files, examine all running applications, track all keys pressed and mouse movements, and even capture or display images on the screen. And it has a network interface that is demonstrably insecure, which can allow an attacker on the network to inject rootkits that completely compromise the PC and can report to the attacker all activities performed on the PC. It is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy that canâ(TM)t be ignored.
https://hackaday.com/tag/intel-management-engine/
Five or so years ago, Intel rolled out something horrible. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine (ME) is a completely separate computing environment running on Intel chipsets that has access to everything. The ME has network access, access to the host operating system, memory, and cryptography engine. The ME can be used remotely even if the PC is powered off. If that sounds scary, it gets even worse: no one knows what the ME is doing, and we canâ(TM)t even look at the code. When â" not âifâ(TM) â" the ME is finally cracked open, every computer running on a recent Intel chip will have a huge security and privacy issue. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine is the single most dangerous piece of computer hardware ever created.
Intel Active Management Technology
Almost all AMT features are available even if the PC is in a powered-off state but with its power cord attached, if the operating system has crashed, if the software agent is missing, or if hardware (such as a hard drive or memory) has failed.[1][2] The console-redirection feature (SOL), agent presence checking, and network traffic filters are available after the PC is powered up.[1][2]
The Management Engine (ME) is an isolated and protected coprocessor, embedded as a non-optional[29] part in all current (as of 2015) Intel chipset
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/...
Reading list
A list of websites I like to check out to stay up to date and get new ideas:
General
http://reddit.com/r/netsec along with all the other good subreddits (RE, forensics)
http://thehackernews.com/
http://slashdot.org
Forensics
http://swiftforensics.com/
Ha, ha, hello CIA friends, I hope you've enjoyed all my ENTIRELY SATIRICAL posts over the years that may have appeared to the slow of wit to be critical of the government and the Agency, but were in fact entirely in jest. I'm sure you had a good chuckle all the times I COMPLETELY IRONICALLY referred to you as lying liars who lie about your lies to bring us into war under war false pretenses...over and over again.
Anywho, keep up the good work, friends!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
20 years ago there would have been hearings and elections and all sorts of excitement about this.
Now we just shrug cry and accept.
From the press release:
UMBRAGE
The CIA's hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a "fingerprint" that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity.
This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved then the other murders also find likely attribution.
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.
UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.
Uh oh. So combine with:
Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have 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.
Doesn't that make attributing the source of a hack based on exploit fingerprinting essentially meaningless? If a motivated hacker had access to this trove, and therefore Umbrage, and say they wanted to hack the email server of a US political party, could they not simply leave behind a Russian fingerprint in order to implicate them?
Always seemed strange to me the DNC hackers used a Russian VPN. Isn't the first rule of haxx0ring to be behind 7 proxies? And the last of which sure as shit shouldn't be anywhere near where you really are?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"upstanding journalistic organizations"
Nah, they're Julian Assange, and he'll leak anything that comes his way that looks juicy. In this case it will be the same source as his DNC leaks, i.e. Russian intelligence using him as an outlet.
The timing is telling, Trump just did a "Obama spied on me to interfere with the elections" thing. Who hacked the elections? Well the US spies say it was Russia, but POTUS says it was Obama. That fell flat on it's face. And now from the same source, a lot of CIA zero day exploits, with the release brought forward to today. Tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised if we get Trump tweeting again, trying to leverage this into an attack on the CIA and FBI to back up his spy claims. Another day, another attack from POTUS on America, another defense of Putin.
This is a ping-pong pattern, Trump said Sweden was crime ridden due to immigrants. next day Sweden then had a riot, Radio24syv investigates it, finds Russian TV station NTV paid youths to burn a car. Trump supporters cited the riot as proof Trump was right and Swedish media was wrong.
When you have a foreign countries propaganda unit at your disposal, and Republican putting party before country, you have a takeover. It's the same pattern repeating itself.
The Americans make plenty of people disappear both foreign and domestic. You could've claimed the same during the Cold War, where are the Russian missiles and subs - turns out they never had quite as much as they claimed. North Korea can't even put a rocket together, something American engineers do for fun and games in their back yard.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The NSA records every phone call, every email, every SMS and most web access, especially foreign people. Obama did not have to order a special wire tapp (Trump's spelling), it is done routinely. Trump may have shot himself in the foot by making surveillance an issue. Everybody does not like being under surveillance so I will throw the canned response back at this administration, "If you have nothing to hide, why complain about surveillance?"
I expect privacy and anonymity, but I know I do not have right.
For what it's worth, many of these attack vectors have been known for a while (see https://www.degruyter.com/view...) - it was only a matter of desire for someone to weaponize them.
Er, drone strikes, renditions, black sites, Guantanamo, waterboarding, parallel construction....
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
*3 Billion devices run JAVA* because everyone's motherboard is running it.
32c3 Intel CPU backdoor live hack demonstration, keystrokes logged and sent over wire, wireshark can't detect packet because the Intel backdoor runs above the OS:
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
Tools to remove Intel backdoor firmware (The backdoor firmware sits outside the BIOS, you need to physically clip onto a 8pin chip on motherboards to download/neutralize/flash the rom, nothing else can touch it):
https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner.
Neutralize your Intel backdoor:
Neutralize ME firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge platforms
First introduced in Intelâ(TM)s 965 Express Chipset Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip (for Core 2 family CPUs which is separate from the northbridge), or PCH chip replacing ICH(for Core i3/i5/i7 which is integrated with northbridge).
The ME consists of an individual processor core, code and data caches, a timer, and a secure internal bus to which additional devices are connected, including a cryptography engine, internal ROM and RAM, memory controllers, and a direct memory access (DMA) engine to access the host operating systemâ(TM)s memory as well as to reserve a region of protected external memory to supplement the MEâ(TM)s limited internal RAM. The ME also has network access with its own MAC address through the Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller integrated in the southbridge (ICH or PCH).
The Intel Management Engine with its proprietary firmware has complete access to and control over the PC: it can power on or shut down the PC, read all open files, examine all running applications, track all keys pressed and mouse movements, and even capture or display images on the screen. And it has a network interface that is demonstrably insecure, which can allow an attacker on the network to inject rootkits that completely compromise the PC and can report to the attacker all activities performed on the PC. It is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy that canâ(TM)t be ignored.
https://hackaday.com/tag/intel-management-engine/
Five or so years ago, Intel rolled out something horrible. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine (ME) is a completely separate computing environment running on Intel chipsets that has access to everything. The ME has network access, access to the host operating system, memory, and cryptography engine. The ME can be used remotely even if the PC is powered off. If that sounds scary, it gets even worse: no one knows what the ME is doing, and we canâ(TM)t even look at the code. When â" not âifâ(TM) â" the ME is finally cracked open, every computer running on a recent Intel chip will have a huge security and privacy issue. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine is the single most dangerous piece of computer hardware ever created.
Intel Active Management Technology
Almost all AMT features are available even if the PC is in a powered-off state but with its power cord attached, if the operating system has crashed, if the software agent is missing, or if hardware (such as a hard drive or memory) has failed.[1][2] The console-redirection feature (SOL), agent presence checking, and network traffic filters are available after the PC is powered up.[1][2]
The Management Engine (ME) is an isolated and protected co
The article summary is a bit misleading. There is no indication that the CIA can break Signal's encryption or intercept its communications in-transit.
Wikileaks' press release states that the CIA can root mobile devices, which then allows them to intercept Signal communications *before* encryption is applied.
Can I be the first to say:
In CIA America, TV watches YOU!
I feel like I may already be too late though.
Market forces are exactly what you want in play when you're lying on a gurney in the emergency room; that way people won't be saved for a penny less than they or their families value their lives.
HOW did CIA break these encryptions? Some vulnerabilities, enormous number-crunching farm, a quantum computer, or did they find N=PN solution? Or did they waterboard the makers of the compromised software until they gave them the private keys?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Wikileaks is one of the few remaining upstanding journalistic organizations. .
The fact that you don't like how the US operates does not in and of itself prove that Wikileads is as upstanding as you hope. Take a look at Russia and China. Can you and I at least agree that those countries have their own problems of various kinds? Don't you find it funny that nobody, not one single person, who lives there and has access to their secrets is willing to send them to Wikileaks? Back in the old days of the USSR, the US was able to find Soviet citizens who would risk their lives to pass on information to the US and not for profit. Why is it that today nobody seems willing to leak documentation on Russia and China? It's not difficult to find born and raised in China people who aren't very fond of their government. So I wonder could it possibly be that people actually are submitting leaks from Russia and China and Wikipedia isn't publishing them? I don't know. But I think anybody who blindly supports Wikileaks as the champion of right should wonder why it seems that only leaks from the USA (and apparently Saudi Arabia once) make it there.
Russian intelligence released CIA secret hacking tools and spy operations through it's website, wikileaks.
No, the reason we need no exploits for Drumpf's phone is that he'll just put all those things he shouldn't say directly on twitter.
NSA/CIA/GCHQ Shills kept down voting this from Score 3:
Your Intel CPU is backdoored and it is wide open, right now.
The backdoor is on all modern intel CPU/Chipset and is marketed as vPro/AMT/Small Business Advantage/Anti-Theft Technology.
Remember *3 Billion devices run JAVA* because everyone's motherboard is running it.
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
CCC Intel CPU backdoor live hack demonstration, keystrokes logged and sent over wire, wireshark can't detect packet because the Intel backdoor runs above the OS:
30C3 To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet
Jacob Appelbaum - To Protect and Infect Part 2 - At 30c3 on Mass Surveillance Tools & Software
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
Tools to remove Intel backdoor firmware (You need to physically clip onto a 8pins chip on motherboards to download/neutralize/flash the rom, nothing else can touch it):
https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner.
Neutralize your Intel backdoor:
Neutralize ME firmware on SandyBridge and IvyBridge platforms
First introduced in Intelâ(TM)s 965 Express Chipset Family, the Intel Management Engine (ME) is a separate computing environment physically located in the (G)MCH chip (for Core 2 family CPUs which is separate from the northbridge), or PCH chip replacing ICH(for Core i3/i5/i7 which is integrated with northbridge).
The ME consists of an individual processor core, code and data caches, a timer, and a secure internal bus to which additional devices are connected, including a cryptography engine, internal ROM and RAM, memory controllers, and a direct memory access (DMA) engine to access the host operating systemâ(TM)s memory as well as to reserve a region of protected external memory to supplement the MEâ(TM)s limited internal RAM. The ME also has network access with its own MAC address through the Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller integrated in the southbridge (ICH or PCH).
The Intel Management Engine with its proprietary firmware has complete access to and control over the PC: it can power on or shut down the PC, read all open files, examine all running applications, track all keys pressed and mouse movements, and even capture or display images on the screen. And it has a network interface that is demonstrably insecure, which can allow an attacker on the network to inject rootkits that completely compromise the PC and can report to the attacker all activities performed on the PC. It is a threat to freedom, security, and privacy that canâ(TM)t be ignored.
https://hackaday.com/tag/intel-management-engine/
Five or so years ago, Intel rolled out something horrible. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine (ME) is a completely separate computing environment running on Intel chipsets that has access to everything. The ME has network access, access to the host operating system, memory, and cryptography engine. The ME can be used remotely even if the PC is powered off. If that sounds scary, it gets even worse: no one knows what the ME is doing, and we canâ(TM)t even look at the code. When â" not âifâ(TM) â" the ME is finally cracked open, every computer running on a recent Intel chip will have a huge security and privacy issue. Intelâ(TM)s Management Engine is the single most dangerous piece of computer hardware ever created.
Hell yeah! It is time to start paying the people who save lives serious money. Wait, the doctor's pay isn't going up, is it?
No need for zero-day exploits when Donnie's using a four-year-old Samsung that's probably got more holes than Jeff Sessions' Congress testimony.
Now, now. Jeff was "honest and correct as he understood it at the time."
( I can't wait to use that excuse myself sometime, 'cause, if it was good enough for the Attorney General of the US (under oath) and The Congress doesn't care, I don't see why I should be held to a higher standard. )
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Russia tries to further discredit the US.
Hit the snooze button.
Not exactly. If the CIA (or anyone) hacks the phone, they can install keyloggers, which can grab data before it gets encrypted. They can also install screen readers that can see incoming messages after they've been decrypted.
In other words, if they can look over your shoulder, you're not secure.
Best Slashdot Co
Well. That would be the closest to a realistic explanation I've got as to why mine is so damn slow and buggy!
Your reading comprehension skills are terrible. Very first sentence of the article:
"The NY Times reported that wiretaps of people on the Trump team"
TRUMP TEAM. No where in either article mentioned does it say that Trump himself or Trump Tower was wire tapped. It's like you people don't even read...at all. I mean, it's EVEN IN THE HEADLINE TOO.
Another AC spewing pro-Trump, pro-Putin lies. FSB running in over-drive.
The President doesn't need the spooks' technological spying techniques. That's what he's got Breitbart and Fox for!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Republican propaganda machine
You mean...enacting the agenda on which the President ran, and for which his voters cast their ballots?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"Well they're the CIA, that's their job right?"
What really bugs me about this sort of thing is that they're charged with keeping America safe. THAT'S their job. And I fully understand that to keep us safe, the state has to make certain other people very much unsafe. In the dead sort of way. Sad but true. And towards that end the CIA has developed weapons to help them with that.
But these are weapons that can be used against us. Zero-day exploits. Unknown vulnerabilities in critical systems that US citizens and officials and generals use on a daily basis.
Do they think they're the only ones who found these exploits?
Has the CIA made any effort to fix these exploits? To help the maintainers patch up the holes? I don't know. It's hard to know anything about the CIA. But I doubt it since they had a pile of zero-day exploits. The nature of the weapon is that it goes away if other people know about it.
By not being ethical hackers, and keeping these exploits secret and useable for themselves, they've traded DEFENSE of the USA for their own OFFENSIVE capabilities. Which runs counter to their stated goal.
As joepie91 states on Twitter:
Joepie91
Highly suspect that @wikileaks switched from GPG to 7z for releases, and explicitly says to decrypt using `7z`. Suggests an exploit. #Vault7
If I had a 7z vulnerability and I wanted to target/compromise "techie crowd interested in leaks", this is *precisely* what I'd do. #Vault7
Then wouldn't it be more efficient for healthcare companies to institute a kind of ransom situation ... "We have your daughter. Pay us $500,000 within 48 hours or she will die!"
Then either the family will raise the money, or the body can be harvested for organs.... the market wins either way.
Mod me flamebait if you will, but that's how Trump got to "I was wiretapped!" Via a conspiracy theory from a right wing radio host that Breitbarts picked up and Fox ran with. We have a man at the top of the one of the most powerful espionage machines the world has ever known, and he gets "intel" from right wing commentators. Can't you see this for what it is, a massive vulnerability at the very top of the US Government? A foreign power could game the system by selectively feeding the likes of Levin and Breitbart stories of this kind, and because Trump clearly has no trust of his own departments, and spends far too much time watching television, he would be supremely vulnerable to such manipulation.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
People keep pointing to this piece of an NY Times story and inserting claims that were not made. It's been known for fucking months that US security services were keeping a damned close eye on Russian communications. If the likes of Sessions and Flynn were so fucking stupid and incautious as to be just chatting up the Russian Ambassador on behalf of their boss, well they deserve what they get. The takeaway here is that Trump and his proxies are fucking morons, regardless of whether they were actually doing anything wrong or not. In politics, the perception of scandal can be as bad as an actual scandal.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Do you think Levin has any actual evidence for his claims?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Congrats for parroting the std leftist talking points
Do you have a similar post about the baseband processors in smartphones?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Translation: I'm outraged the team I support got caught in bed with the Kremlin! How dare someone catch them?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your points sound good on a quick read AC. Maybe if you broke up your thoughts into paragraphs and developed them with a little more verbosity you wouldn't get ranked into oblivion. Your prose is more complex than average so to the casual observer it reads like a wall of obtuseness, which it isn't. So +1 "Insightful" from me if I had mod points to give.
Only I can judge you.
For obvious reasons.
BlameBillCosby.com
Don't we already have that in place? Don't families already have to stage car-washes and Fund-me campaigns to help pay for medical care?
Only I can judge you.
No. But isn't that the point. When you have marginally real 'news' organizations like Breitbart, and partially real ones like Fox laundering the fake news rantings of a circus clown like Levin into 'real' news, we have a problem.
In the past, The National Enquirer could blissfully print their space alien abduction stories, and nobody even considered that they were real. Facebook trolling fake news click-bait stories are probably not intended to be believed literally either - though they're harder to detect, and easy to emulate by those who intend to deceive. But Breitbart and Fox demand that we treat them as the real thing - though they uncritically disseminate this kind of crap, and rarely (if ever) retract stuff when proven wrong.
For what it's worth, Facebook could easily put a big crimp on it's fake news by vetting its news sources. Only publish stories from sources that adhere to some set of standards for truth and/or retractions. Why they don't eludes me. Other news aggregators surely do this. FB is making money off of fake news, and they'll keep doing it until their users protest. In fact lets start a "Day without Facebook" protest right now, shall we?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
The scrapings at the bottom of that barrel you keep scratching for must be running thin.
Any other delusional conspiracy theories you'd like to share?
He means Fox news, breitbart, infowars, Right-wing radio, etc.
But nice try, thanks for playing.
What do any of those outlets have to do with "swamping the cycle" by doing the things he said he'd do (ban travel from certain countries, repeal ObamaCare)? He's taking direct action. No propaganda is required.
Also, do you realize "snark" isn't an argument?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"Sneakers" 1992
They were tapping the Russian's. People called the Russians, those people's calls were being tapped because the Russians were being tapped. All perfectly expected, right?
Now, once they had established a link as direct Russian associates, probably it wouldn't be so hard to justify extending the tap to these new players. Degrees beyond that would be a stretch but direct associates were probably seen as fair game. If the calls were made from campaign lines, then the campaign numbers were in play and all calls made from them as well.
Only I can judge you.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
We all know there are ties. To think not is just hiding your head in the sand. The problem is, we just don't know how far the rabbit hole goes with these ties.
As for Flynn,he got caught lying under oath to Congress, about communications with the Russian Ambassador. If you even think we don't bug every foreign official's phone in this country you might need to catch up. We've been recording foreign phone calls for generations now. They are legal as it is in many states as long as one party consents. State rules do not apply federally. Your state may vary. Where did you find your "non-investigated US citizen" thing from? Anyone calling a known suspect is now, automatically, an unknown suspect.
I think the President needs to put up some proof also if he has claims to make.
Thank you for putting in the work. That was very helpful.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Clapper DID NOT unequivocally deny it.
Parse his language carefully. "... I was aware of ... I oversaw ..." and most weaselly "...against Donald Trump ..."
If you wiretap foreigners and foreign agents and then US citizens speak with them, then YES you are wiretapping the US citizens. Your wiretap may not be (technically) "against" (a very strange word to use in what should be an explicit denial) the US citizen but that is a distinction without a difference.
No, WikiLeaks is a bunch (but mostly one guy) of idealistic patsies, not to be confused with real journalists. The way WikiLeaks "works" makes it much more useful for propaganda and disinformation than for the kinds of substantial facts that REAL journalists work hard to collect and then verify. Just send anything to WikiLeaks and you've got a megaphone. Idealists are too easily manipulated by abusing their ideals.
The trick to playing WikiLeaks involves the information glut effect leveraged against their lack of a real economic model. Because WikiLeaks also wants to raise money, they want to leverage their releases of information for maximum impact. The resulting visibility produces donations (including book sales (in case you've forgotten that ad)). That's also why WikiLeaks prioritizes leaking American secrets. Many Americans still care about these issues and can also afford to send money.
Given the situation that exists, I'm unwilling to guess how much of this story is real and how much is pure BS intended to ramp up the paranoia. WikiLeaks makes no pretense of even wanting to know who the sources are, what their motivations were, or how valid the data is. Then again, my own paranoia is so high that I remain confident Michael Hastings was murdered by hacking his car's electronics.
I suppose I could say more, but it doesn't matter much on Slashdot, and if Putin actually cares, then I'm already on one (hopefully more) of his watch lists. (I'm inclined to believe the claims that Putin is the richest man in the world, and if he has #PresidentTweety's pecker in his pocket (as I suspect he does), then he's also the most powerful.) These days Slashdot doesn't have enough journalistic credibility to sneeze at, though what most disheartens me is the lack of significantly funny comments, both in quantity and quality. The jokes associated with this target-rich topic were quite lame. I also looked at all the comments moderated as insightful, and did various keyword searches (all fruitless) for the terms I regarded as most interesting and insightful in relation to the topic.
"So sad," as Herr #PresidentTweety would tweet.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
somewhere out there michael bay felt a tingle in his pants.
You stated: It's been known for fucking months that US security services were keeping a damned close eye on Russian communications. I have a question: Who knew? I know lots of people speculated but this stuff is Top Secret. It is not for public consumption by design. So again, who actually knew anything?
Please understand that I know everyone has an opinion of what happened or who was being investigated for what. But only the FISA courts know who is being surveilled in this manner. This type of thing is exactly why FISA was created in the first place. It's purpose was to give accountability to covert surveillance so it isn't used for political purposes or against US citizens without a damn good reason.
The only way the opposition leader of a party (Donald Trump) gets investigated as a Soviet foreign agent - a real one - is if the President himself (Obama) signs off on it. There is no way in hell that investigation goes on without his express permission because of how it looks and the precariousness the situation during the election.
Either the surveillance was rogue or it went through the FISA court and has documentation (like probable cause, etc). If surveillance was rogue, Obama and his administration have a huge problem. And if it was approved and no evidence was found, then why are we still talking about it?
Charles Stross's excellent novel Halting State has an exciting sequence where an automated cab tries to kill our hero after it is hacked
not that far from possibility if self driving cars are not made secure
-I'm just sayin'
Certainly if they intend to communicate fake news, they have plenty of ways. But it seems like the biggest problem is people spreading stuff via Facebook that they don't know is fake. Or that they click 'Like' on, because they think it's funny - and then all their friends see it and don't get that it's fake.
My point is for those of us who think fake news is a problem - and Facebook's solution isn't good enough - should communicate to Facebook that we think it's a problem, and will consider pulling back our use of their site. For once the "you're the product" dynamic actually gives us some power. So why not use it?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
https://twitter.com/i/moments/... Disclosure, it's my first try at making a Moment.
For what it's worth, Facebook could easily put a big crimp on it's fake news by vetting its news sources. Only publish stories from sources that adhere to some set of standards for truth and/or retractions. Why they don't eludes me.
Because Facebook wants to be able to call individual Facebook user submissions as "news". They also don't want to hire humans to manage the newsbot sifters to make sure nothing that may damage the Facebook News brand (like a shitpost). What I find egregious is that Facebook could easily declare their "news" feed a rumor mill, avoid all this angst, but those greedy f**kers just want to call user innuendo and content "News" for marketing purposes, but not exert an iota of responsibility in validating the content.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
How long before Zeynep comes out and says that the leaks are fake / inaccurate / technically void and urges the public to keep using WhatsApp; Calling those who stop using it idiots, fools, traitors, and scum.
Will she denounce Fox for reporting on it like she denounced The Guardian. You betcha.
A spook in geeks clothing.
[Rent This Space]
Your continued ignorance of how right-wing media and russian propaganda are operating right now is truly astounding.
Trump eats lunch and then takes a shit. Is that right wing Rooskie propaganda?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Kill pesky processes in unit tests that don't want to die normally
I've certainly heard sysadmins talk like this about process on a normal daily basis, and no one bats an eye.
Insurance costs should come way back down.
I'll hold you to that, AC.
Personally my money's on costs continuing to go up, up, and away! but at least conservatives will be happy.
Yeah right. That's the point of the game: the real players moving the pieces don't ever have to be on the hook if it turns into a disaster.
It's all about privatizing profits and socializing costs.
The ME is a signed binary.
The chipset has key material fused in at manufacture time.
The ROM on the chipset won't load a binary into the ME hardware that isn't signed in such a way as to match what is in the secure fuses.
*if* a chipset sku series is compromised then yes, you can sign and run external FW on that series, but if it is unsigned it won't load on the hardware.
The driver interface to the ME is the "HECI" or "Intel Manageability Engine Interface" depending on version.
It uses a defined interface to pass messages to the FW from the host side.
Anyone can write a driver for this... Intel published the spec and linux source. The firmware treats it as a hostile interface.
I get the "he's a shill" BS from the ACs, but seriously, I worked on this for 6 years, and while I would certainly load a min sku on my machine if I was concerned about access by a state actor, I personally have no worries about my data on an ME enabled machine.
I no longer work for Intel, I have less than 100 shares of stock left, no incentive to help or hurt them.
If you're truly paranoid about the data access then just use a PCI/e NIC and don't use the on-board LAN. Problem solved.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Trump clearly has no trust of his own departments, and spends far too much time watching television
Maybe now he'll stop watching that much TV?
3) The CIA could use smart TVs to listen in on conversations that happened around them. One of the most eye-catching programs detailed in the documents is "Weeping Angel." That allows intelligence agencies to install special software that allows TVs to be turned into listening devices -- so that even when they appear to be switched off, they're actually on.
Naaaaah... He'll probably just get a blanket to throw it over the TV or he'll start playing music from his phone to "jam the TV" or something equally retarded and unhinged.
Like he'll start forcing everyone around him into the bathroom where he'll keep flushing the toilet while whispering about spies who are out to get him.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Healthcare costs could be brought down by more than 50% by restoring freedom to the consumer, which means freedom to self diagnose and self treat. Obviously taking that away and granting a license to diagnose and treat will increase costs. It can increase quality too, but the freedom to pay extra for that quality would still exist without it.
I don't have a problem with that freedom, but nobody should be choosing to self diagnose and treat because they can't afford professional care.
I'd lay good odds that has already happened.
Thank you AC, those are good links. Too bad people dislike information. How could this be modded redundant? Are the modders suggesting people to not quote references or link to multiple sources?
Bush was an idiot ignorant country bumpkin hayseed, remember? Never mind that he graduated from Yale University and the Harvard Business School. Now the new narrative is that Trump is an ignorant doofus. Believe this propaganda at your own peril. If you live long enough, you'll start to see this sort of thing, and come to the realization that lots of people tell the same lies over and over, year after year because there is a new crop of young minds waiting to be brainwashed...
A sane person would be concerned about even the slightest whiff of a government using it's power to go after political enemies.
Murphy was an optimist
Conservatives will be happy until they or their kids suffer a chronic condition their insurance company will refuse to cover or they have to go to the hospital. Then they may realise they've screwed themselves and their kids. Or maybe they won't realise anything. We're not talking about thoughtful, insightful people here.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Taxing someone for being a member of a group that costs society money, on the other hand, is perfectly normal. We do it with smokers. We do it with car drivers. Why shouldn't we do it with people who don't have health insurance?
It's not even as if we're forcing everyone who doesn't have it to pay a fixed fee - it's just a slight increase in income tax for those who don't have insurance, to help recover the costs they incur by being vastly more likely to declare bankruptcy, have unrecoverable medical debts, and be more likely to be sick and cause others to be sick. We're also making it easy to avoid the situation of not having insurance, by subsidizing it for those on lower incomes.
In some respects, its fairer than taxing cigarettes. The latter are an addiction, and smoking is hard to quit, whereas the availability of subsidies means getting insurance is an easy thing for most of the population to do right now.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like Obamacare, but you're complaining about the wrong aspects.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
He was a successful businessman too, and all totally on his own merit and nothing to do with his family connections at all, no no no, I must have him confused with someone else.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."