Kommentar: More coverage on SOTT:

• 85% of smartphones in the world can be 'weaponized' by CIA
• Your whole life is hacked: Wikileaks reveal on CIA surveillance shows no area of your life is private anymore
• FBI prepares new hunt for WikiLeaks' source
• Tip of the iceberg: Wikileaks CIA data dump accounts for less than one percent of Vault 7documents received
• Twitter reacts to Vault 7 CIA docs - 'So Russian hackers were CIA all along'
• "Genuinely a big deal": Snowden tweets response to WikiLeaks Year Zero

Some interesting tweets from Snowden and WikiLeaks with more details on what Vault 7 reveals:







The tech industry is responding.

Apple:

"The technology built into today's iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we're constantly working to keep it that way," it said.

"Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80% of users running the latest version of our operating system.

"While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities.

"We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security update."

Samsung:

"Protecting consumers' privacy and the security of our devices is a top priority at Samsung," it said.

"We are aware of the report in question and are urgently looking into the matter."

Microsoft:

"We are aware of the report and are looking into it," a spokesman from Microsoft said.

Google declined to comment.


Peppered throughout the leaks are CIA hackers' disparaging comments about numerous anti-virus products, including Comodo, Kaspersky Lab, Avira, AVG, F-Secure, and Bitdefender - which confirm Snowden's tweet above, that the CIA seems to have identified security flaws and kept them to themselves.

Now tech firms are "scrambling for fixes" in light of the leaks. Router producer Cisco was one of the CIA's primary targets. Fox news seems to be one of the only mainstream news outlets covering the leaks semi-seriously, with Laura Ingraham calling the leaks "really damning if ... true."

After the news that the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt is used as a covert hacking base, Germany's prosecutor now says that if there is enough evidence in Vault 7, an investigation will be launched.

"We will initiate an investigation if we see evidence of concrete criminal acts or specific perpetrators. We're looking at it very carefully," a spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office said, Reuters reported Wednesday.

A German Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters that the authenticity of the documents was still to be verified and that Berlin would be in touch with Washington.

Update: Anonymous "US intelligence and law enforcement officials" have allegedly told Reuters that the CIA was aware of the impending leak since the end of last year, and their investigation is focusing on contractors as the source of the leak:

The unnamed officials also confirmed that an internal investigation by the agency into the source of the leak is focused primarily on contractors, who the agency believe passed the documents to WikiLeaks.

They also stated their belief that the 8,761 documents contained within the current "Year Zero" leak, the first of the "Vault 7" series, appear to be authentic.
...
WikiLeaks says that the classified information contained in the leaked documents was "lost" by the CIA and subsequently "circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner."

One of those individuals is then said to have provided the whistleblowing website with the relevant content.

Update (March 9): More recent coverage:

• CIA sources to Fox News on leaks - "There's heavy s*** coming down"
• Beijing calls on U.S. to stop hacking practices against other countries following Wikileaks Vault 7release
• 'We are looking at George Orwell's 1984' - CIA whistleblowers and former officers on Wikileaksrevelations

Check out this telling quote, reported by Reuters:

U.S. cyber security expert Robert Graham said WikiLeaks provided enough detail to recognize some known vulnerabilities.

"One anti-virus researcher has told me that a virus they once suspected came from the Russians or Chinese can now be attributed to the CIA, as it matches the description perfectly to something in the leak," Graham said in a blog post.

Dennis Kucinich writes for Fox News that Vault 7 is proof that the U.S. is "sliding down the slippery slope toward totalitarianism". (Anti-Trumpers, please note that these leaks cover CIA activity during the Obama administration.)

In his rescheduled press conference, Assange said that WikiLeaks will give tech companies exclusive access to the hacking tools in order to beef up security. Once the fixes are made, WL will publish more details. Assange revealed that the information came from an "isolated computer" that wasn't connected to Langley's network - an "historic act of devastating incompetence."

CNN asked whether it was legal for the CIA to do this, per US law, provided the hacking techniques are used overseas. In response, Assange referenced the CIA's history of "behaving badly" inside the US as well.

"It is an unusual time in the United States to see an intelligence agency so heavily involved in domestic politics," Assange said, when asked if the CIA was experiencing turmoil within its ranks.

When questioned about redactions, Assange said 78,000 pieces of information were withheld, consisting of IP addresses of both target and attack machines. The IPs will be investigated and identified before the redaction is removed.

Assange said further material to be released would be recent but would not identify a time from which it came. He said WikiLeaks have more material on the "throwing off" mechanism used by the hacks to cover their traces. Tuesday's leak revealed details of the CIA's ability to hide its own hacking fingerprint and attribute it to others.
...
Assange said 'Vault 7' contained too much work for WikiLeaks to do on its own. He said the latest leak has a number of exploits of code that it needs to disarm before it can be published, rendering it useless to "cyber mafia." He did not give details on when it would be published.
...
When asked by ABC if he had ever been paid by either the Russian government or RT he answered "No, but quite interesting to see ABC taking that line." Criticising mainstream media, Assange described it as a "pretty sad question" which tried to divert from the publication of the CIA's documents.

Assange also addressed the need for a "Digital Geneva Convention", hinting at WikiLeaks cooperation with the tech community toward that end. Some more highlights:

• 'CIA has a history of attacking, not only overseas targets...but a habit of behaving badly inside the United States.'
• Huge problem: CIA can gain access to journalists computers and smartphones to uncover sources.
• Is the CIA interested in you? The interest for the CIA to attack you may not be that high. You may know someone, who knows someone, who works in the French government.
• There cannot be meaningful oversight over US intelligence agencies.
• CIA hacking is done in secret and cannot be regulated. They are archaic and complex process. CIA cannot even control its cyber weapons arsenal. CIA cannot control how its cyber weapons arsenal is used.
• Can you trust that a Dell, Apple or Microsoft computer exported from US is safe from CIA attacks? Obama broke promises to protect tech industry from vulnerabilities.
• German CIA hacker base used to attack targets throughout Europe, Africa and Middle East. It is a massive complex.
• CIA created a number of viruses. HammerDrill sits on a computer and waits to attack via CD-ROM.
• Invite someone into your company to give presentation, CIA has virus to infect via presentation software.
• CIA has even created virus software which is the virus to infect system.

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and NSA whistleblower William Binney weighed in on Fox:


An excerpt from the interview:

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer: "ATP2829, the so-called Russian tool that we used to hack the DNC. Sean, we did it. Not me, our guys. Former members of NSA, retired intelligence officers use these tools to break in there and get the information out. That's what the Democrats don't want to talk about, because it doesn't fit their narrative."

Sean Hannity: "You know that for a fact. You know the Democrats did it, or that former operatives did it using the malware techniques, they put the Russians' fingerprints and they can appear that the Russians...you're telling me...The whole Russian story that the media has been running with for month and months and months, that it was our people that did it, and they just put the fingerprints of the Russians."

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer: "That's right. I don't have proof, but this is what I have heard."

"The evidence is not that the Russians did it, but that it was a Russian tool."

Kommentar: Se også: Et åbent brev til Europas ledere: Fuck EU var en fornærmelse ikke en ordre!
Se også Le Pen: "Russisk trussel mod Europa" er én stor svindel - virkelige trussler er at presse Rusland i Kinas arme samt globaliseringens brutale ideologi

Kommentar: Yep, it's looking like a run-off between the French establishment's candidate Emmanuel Macron and La Marine.

Here's Le Pen hammering Merkel and Hollande at the European Parliament two years ago, while Euro-liberals howl with derision...

Kommentar: So, despite the incredible amount of control being exerted on us to think in certain ways about certain things, the algorithms being employed have inherent flaws and are based on all kinds of assumptions. Every time we see those assumptions and question them, we are effectively hacking the code of the algorithm and freeing ourselves of what they want us to think.

Kommentar:

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