Vault 7: Wikileaks Release on CIA Hacking Tools

[Board and Seize]

Admins: please move if you feel this thread should be in a different location

Link to the wikileaks page on Vault 7. This is going to be a multi-part release.

This is going to be devastating - and you can parse the devastation according to your political stance. This is a massive release, and is going to blow the lid off of CIA cyber ops. It is also going to reveal to the public (finally) just how compromised their/our every digital action really is.

Thoughts?

UPDATE MARCH 23:

Wikileaks has released the next installment in the Vault 7 documents: Dark Matter.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Thoughts?

Yep. And I'm happy to put my flame-suit on and prepare to be napalmed by the "privacy-at-any-cost" folks on this board.

In today's world I have accepted that "they" are listening to everything I say into an electronic device and likely everything I type. That Pandora's box has long been opened and will never close.

I believe without question that nothing changed when NSA said that they switched 'off' specific listening that they were doing, and I am okay with that.

Do I have a right to privacy? Yep.

Am I willing to sacrifice some of those rights so that "bad guys" can be easier listened to and tracked? Yep.

I consider Snowden and Manning to be traitors to their nation.
I consider Julian Assange to be an enemy of the state.

There are brilliant men and women who protect this nation via boots-on-the-ground and fingers-on-a-keyboard. I am not the one who will be holding them back because I fear they might hear me discussing something "private" on my cellphone. They don't care, and I don't know them.

Just how I feel.

 

[Board and Seize]

Do I have a right to privacy? Yep.

Am I willing to sacrifice some of those rights so that "bad guys" can be easier listened to and tracked? Yep.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Your position is so common, (and flawed) that places like /r/privacy have standing links to debunk the basic premise:

• I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy (link)
• Lenders are turning to social media to assess borrowers (link)
  
• Why surveillance is not OK (link)

Furthermore, there is the question of proliferation:

'Cyberwar' programs are a serious proliferation risk

Cyber 'weapons' are not possible to keep under effective control.

While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber 'weapons', once developed, are very hard to retain.

Cyber 'weapons' are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost.

Securing such 'weapons' is particularly difficult since the same people who develop and use them have the skills to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces — sometimes by using the very same 'weapons' against the organizations that contain them. There are substantial price incentives for government hackers and consultants to obtain copies since there is a global "vulnerability market" that will pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for copies of such 'weapons'. Similarly, contractors and companies who obtain such 'weapons' sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining advantage over their competitors in selling 'hacking' services.

Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booze Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers.

A number of intelligence community members not yet publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal criminal investigations in separate incidents.

Most visibly, on February 8, 2017 a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Harold T. Martin III with 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 gigabytes of information from Harold T. Martin III that he had obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA, including the source code for numerous hacking tools.

Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Your position is so common, (and flawed) that places like /r/privacy have standing links to debunk the basic premise:

I accept that, and am open to changing my opinion.

It was purposeful that I signed my post with "just how I feel".

Thank you for posting those links, I will read tonight after I get home from work.

 

[Board and Seize]

No worries - hope I didn't come on too strong.

These kinds of ideas are very widely held. They are also very wrong. Following this logical path will lead you to blind acceptance of any gov-sanctioned action.

Not to get all Godwin on you, but this is the sort of worldview/belief-system that allowed Germans (who weren't all 'evil') to participate in one of the most heinous coordinated actions of all history. To be clear, I AM NOT accusing you of anything. I am merely pointing out the dangers of a worldview that grants moral/ethical concessions to the government just because they are the government.

I hope to have some interesting discussion here, perhaps after you've had a chance to read the articles!

 

[Gunz]

"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."

The extent and potential dangers of proliferating cyber ops weapons concerns me...but so does the data exfiltration by people in the CCI.

 

[Board and Seize]

I consider Snowden and Manning to be traitors to their nation.
I consider Julian Assange to be an enemy of the state.

Just to stir the old pot in response to these two statements...

What nation? Do you imagine that there is a single, monolithic 'American' nation? If you look at what a nation actually is, or rather, what nation actually means, I think it is clear that there is no such American nation. And there never has been.

JA may well be an enemy of the state. But what if the state is an enemy of the people? Many, if not most/all states have engaged in what most people would agree are immoral actions. If the state is engaged in immoral action against its people, perhaps the state is the enemy of the people, and not the other way around.

Where do you draw the line?

If we (the US) were to start rounding up (for the sake of argument) Muslims and putting them in detainment camps across America, oh I don't know - maybe like Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps (oh wait, that's not PC - 'detainment' camps), would that be okay? If the government uses this cyber power to quiet dissent, is that okay? If they determine that veterans, especially those who care about the constitution or display the Gadsden flag, are likely home-grown-terrorists-in-the-making, is that okay?

Whatever happened to "People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people"?

 

[Ooh-Rah]

What nation? Do you imagine that there is a single, monolithic 'American' nation? If you look at what a nation actually is, or rather, what nation actually means, I think it is clear that there is no such American nation. And there never has been.

Damn it!

Let me live in my bubble of ignorance where everything is cut and dry, black and white, good and bad, etc...etc.

LOL

I look forward to reading your links later tonight.

 

[The Hate Ape]

Who cares.

Tell me right now how you've been affected by this and I might pay attention.

 

[Board and Seize]

Who cares.

Tell me right now how you've been affected by this and I might pay attention.

You're entirely missing the point. Again, not to go all Godwin, but this exact 'argument' might have been used by those Germans who weren't personally involved in the holocaust. After all, if we were both Germans of acceptable genetic lineage, how would the holocaust have affected us, personally?

At some point, those who ignore threats to liberty must do so willfully. Stick your head in the sand if you wish. Enjoy your in-group status, while it lasts.

The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

This isn't a matter of "I've been personally damaged by this, therefore it must end." It is a matter of principle and systems. This is wrong in principle. And the system exists, and will be used. Regardless of whether you agree with the person in power who gets to use it. And guess what... that person will change over time.

To answer your question directly, here is how I am affected: for all intents and purposes, every electronic communication/interaction that I engage in in surveilled and logged. I know this. This causes me to self-censor. This chills speech, and subverts the very core of our so-called democracy. Go read Mill regarding the open society for more. I know that my communications are logged and stored. What if a political position I hold today is deemed illegal tomorrow? Or worse, not even illegal, but merely undesirable? We are all of us criminals.

Stop. Read that last sentence again.

Believe it. If you don't, consider reading something like Three Felonies A Day and updating your worldview.

It's all well and good to grant power to a Caesar (think Gaius Julius), but then you tend to get Herod's and Caligula's. Once a power exists, it will be used, and eventually abused. Just look at the Interstate Commerce Clause!

 

[The Hate Ape]

It reads to me like the worst thing that is happening from this isn't the surveillance but the what-if types and guys who believe the world is doomed.

You sound like a guerrilla fighter right now.

 

[RackMaster]

The problem is that these leaks keep happening. Sounds like deeper background checks are needed for clearances and all current employees need a fresh poly.

 

[Board and Seize]

You sound like a guerrilla fighter right now.

The worst thing isn't surveillance itself, but what it can be used for. Those of us on the gov 'team' can feel all warm and fuzzy about these tools for the moment. But if we pretend that they pose no risk, and that the 'team' can't change, we are being willfully ignorant.

It's not that the world is doomed. It's that secret powers, used in secret, against secret targets, by secret organizations - avoid oversight. Necessarily, by their very nature.

And unchecked powers, used behind closed doors, to manipulate public opinion on behalf of those wielding the power, is inherently anti-democratic. It is inherently against all of the principles that supposedly make this a great nation.

I may well sound like a guerrilla fighter now. So did the French Resistance in the face of a Vichy government. We all acknowledge the potential for government to go off the rails - why then is it some kind of condemnation to be skeptical of the government? Clearly law != morality. So why should passivity and compliance in the face of governmental overreach = good citizenship?

The problem is that these leaks keep happening.

This IS a problem, but it's a totally different problem. Also, (for the sake of argument) if what the gov is doing is illegal/immoral/whatever then shouldn't we expect these kinds of leaks? Don't we at least pretend to place moral culpability on even the lowliest soldier carrying out orders?

 

[RackMaster]

This IS a problem, but it's a totally different problem. Also, (for the sake of argument) if what the gov is doing is illegal/immoral/whatever then shouldn't we expect these kinds of leaks? Don't we at least pretend to place moral culpability on even the lowliest soldier carrying out orders?

I guess the evil wrongdoing is so wide spread that these whistleblowers can't use internal mechanisms. What makes them the judge and jury to decide what is actually against the law? There's a reason why things are compartmentalized. Who's to say these leaks aren't sold to the enemy first and then published just to "embarrass" the government, increase distrust in the system, etc.. Those behind the leaks are criminals and traitors. They do it in the name of keeping government in check but by doing that; they undermine the authority of all government.

I've worked around all sorts of sensitive data, with access and authority to snoop around. But not once did I feel the need to make copies or break any oath or legal obligation to get my 15 mins of fame. That's all they want, fame and some just want to watch the world burn.

 

[Grunt]

It's sad to me that we even needed a "Whisleblower" law to protect people.

First, it's sad that we have situations that need to be "blown."

Secondly, it's sad that since some of those situations do exist, even with the law in place, you are still done once you tell.

 

[The Hate Ape]

Do we honestly believe here that as societies and governments significantly advance in technology that society will continue to hold the advantage over government?

Spoiler alert - this will absolutely happen and continue to grow as long as we continue to put an ip address on our lives and everything we interact with.

 

[Board and Seize]

Damn it!

Let me live in my bubble of ignorance where everything is cut and dry, black and white, good and bad, etc...etc.

There's some real truth here. We desperately want the world to be black and white. We are literally hard-wired to prefer B&W. I wrote about Categorical Perception in a blog post a while back. It's hard to overcome cognitive dissonance. We don't want to overcome the indoctrination we've been subjected to throughout our entire lives...

What makes them the judge and jury to decide what is actually against the law?

Great question, though I'd slightly alter it: What makes them the judge and jury to decide what is immoral/unethical/inconsistent with the constitution? Well, we do! Just like every promotion, when the US Gov places "special trust and confidence" in us. When we held individuals accountable in the Nuremberg Trials, despite the evidence of Milgram's experiment.

We hold each member accountable for engaging in immoral/unethical action - even when they are lawful! ...Again, members of the German military were under lawful orders. Lawful != (that's "Does Not Equal") Ethical.

That's all they want, fame and some just want to watch the world burn.

That's a pretty sweeping assertion. Do you reject the possibility of loyal dissent? Of patriotic citizens acting in the face of what they see as the destruction of the values that made their nation/country/state 'great' in the first place?

 

[Gunz]

I don't reject the possibility of loyal dissent, but how does one tell the difference between what constitutes loyal dissent and what constitutes breaking one's oath and the law by exfiltrating confidential data to the public? If we can't anticipate with certainty the consequences of either action, then we can't reliably know which action is the more correct.

 

[Grunt]

I don't reject the possibility of loyal dissent, but how does one tell the difference between what constitutes loyal dissent and what constitutes breaking one's oath and the law by exfiltrating confidential data to the public? If we can't anticipate with certainty the consequences of either action, then we can't know which action is the more reliable.

One's own conscience!

 

[Gunz]

One's own conscience!

Rog that, my Brother...but I meant how do we, on the outside looking in, determine what to believe? Is it a leak for the good of mankind or is it fucking treachery? Do we build the guy a monument or give him a blindfold and cigarette and shoot his ass?