Vault 7, the the CIA’s suite of hacking tools just released by Wikileaks, includes a malware library “stolen” from other states, including Russia, that can be used to misattribute attacks to them:
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.
As if there wasn’t a big enough pall of suspicion over the entire “Russian Hackers” meme already.
The CIA DELIBERATELY MIMICS THE HACKING PROTOCOLS OF RUSSIA TO OBFUSCATE THEIR OWN HACKS.
This entire “Russia hacking” narrative is based on this shit; namely similarities between “Fancy Bear” and the DCLeaks malware, as well as “Russian” metadata found in Guccifer 2.0 files. NONE of this “evidence” can therefore be taken seriously.
The whole “Russian hacking” narrative is blatantly a CIA false flag designed to justify harsher anti-Russian foreign policy and ruin any of Trump’s potential efforts to make friends with Russia.
The entire “Russia hacked the election” narrative can be thrown out because we now know that the CIA DELIBERATELY PRETENDS TO BE RUSSIA BY LEAVING FALSE CLUES, ATTRIBUTION IS IMPOSSIBLE.
good material for a comedy spy movie
which is kinda what we’re in the middle of
Just an example of what, in the computer security field, is called “spoofing”.
Very lame satire from Foreign Policy magazine:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/06/diaries-of-trumps-russian-handler-i/
In case anyone doesn’t know, “the Pumpkin Papers” were a big part of the Chambers-Hiss case.
The US deep state has tried to influence Russian politics and I dare say the Russian deep state tries to influence US politics. Neither actually succeeds, because both US and Russian politic are overwhelminly determined by internal forces.
Perhaps I just lack sufficient technical know-how, but wouldn’t it be impossible for a so-called “smart tv” to spy on it owners, unless a microphone had been installed…presumably for that purpose? I mean, why would a television have the capability to “hear” something, unless it was designed to be utilized for spying in the first place?
A large number of new TVs sold today have a microphone on the remote for voice control.
I assume it involves devices with microphones installed to allow for voice activation and voice command features the consumer knows about.
Many smart devices include microphones for voice commands. People have suspected them of spying on their owners for some time.
https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-record-your-living-room-chatter/
WL makes heavy hints that the CIA’s dear sister agency is not very far away from the process by which its toolbox became common knowledge.
Foreign Policy is a poster child of US “expertise” or, rather, lack thereof in any issue related to the outside world in general, and Russia in particular. Basically “exceptionalist” and neocon rag. At this stage speaking of most US “foreign policy” media as other than lame is a bad taste.
People have suspected them of spying on their owners for some time.
Wow!
The tin foil hatted crowd had it right the whole time.
Who woulda thunk it?