This week, Wikileaks unloaded a massive dump of information on the public. Through anonymous sources Wikileaks obtained 8,761 CIA documents, “the entire hacking capacity of the CIA”. It is the most comprehensive, egregious leak in the agency’s history. The leak is deeply unsettling on multiple levels.
What was revealed by the documents? A lot. Much of which we already knew, some of which was useless, and bits and pieces of it are very interesting. For instance, the CIA can use Samsung TV’s to listen in on and record conversations even if the television is off. We also learned that they can watch through our computer and phone cameras, they can remotely hack cars and commandeer control, and much, much more. Here is a link to the full Wikileak Vault 7 – for anyone who wants to browse thousands of pages of technical computer spy talk…
Naturally, this has given conspiracy theorists unlimited material to draw from, forever. That crazy conspiracy-minded uncle who lives in Alaska and puts tape over every computer/phone camera is going to call and tell you, “Damnit I told you so! Now put on your tin foil hat, and microwave your passport for twenty seconds.”
Okay, so the government is spying on us. That’s not exactly news. But the scope with which they have been spying on us, and their capability to remotely hack everything form our cars to our toasters is disconcerting. And that is putting it very mildly. Because here’s the thing: even if tell ourselves that the NSA/FBI/CIA are the “good guys“, and that they won’t exploit our information for personal or private gain, it only takes one disgruntled employee, one weak firewall or one hole in the security system and all of our information, all of these backdoors and hacking tools are made public or sold for the highest bid. Unlimited spying power and information in the wrong hands…
If that were to happen, there would be blackmail available on every American citizen. Video and sound recordings taken when you thought you were alone in the privacy of your own home, all of the emails and messages you’ve ever sent… Privacy as we know it would fail to exist anymore should that information and the hacking tools of the CIA get into the wrong hands.
That’s the whole thing about too much power – in the right hands its fine, but in the wrong hands everyone gets screwed. And apparently the CIA isn’t as invulnerable as they’d like us to believe.
Which leads into my the last and final point: how did something this massive, something so deeply classified get leaked to the public? There’s no “cheerful” answer to that question. Many believe that it was the Russians, who had reportedly been colluding with Wikileaks throughout the 2016 election, who hacked the CIA and leaked this information. But it could have been someone on the inside – a vigilante whistleblower who’s got high access to CIA secrets. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the American people.
The silver lining to all of this, is that it will undoubtedly lead to tech companies and cyber security firms fixing holes, fortifying vulnerabilities and closing backdoors that the CIA was exploiting. Our security technology will likely get more advanced, and who knows maybe our TV’s will even stop listening to us. But just as in nature, when cyber shields evolve to become stronger, those who seek to penetrate them find new ways of becoming invasive. That’s evolution, baby.
Happy Friday.
– Juan Wilder
Editor in Chief, The Greenville Gazette