The Central Intelligence Agency's dissatisfaction with the well-known website Wikileaks may have reached an all-time high after the publication of yet another batch of super-secret documents. Nine thousand pages contain information about the methods and methods of work of the largest American intelligence service and the technologies it uses for surveillance, eavesdropping and surveillance. The scandal is already called "hacker", but not in the sense that the secrets of the CIA became public as a result of the activities of some "bears". Quite the opposite is true. These are American spies, as it turned out, can "hack" the devices of citizens, moreover, such that no one could even think of.
US Intelligence Price
American intelligence is very expensive. In 2013, a former American intelligence agent named Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia, announced the specific budgets of various US intelligence services. The CIA spent $ 14.7 billion, the maintenance of the NSA cost 10.8 billion, and if we take into account another 14 departments of the same functional orientation, then a total of $ 52.6 billion "came up". The richest country in the world cares about its security and does not spare money for it. The problem is that most of these funds are obviously just being wasted. The efficiency of the CIA's work is extremely low, and if successes do happen, then too many people learn about them to consider them real.
How is the secret revealed?
Professional intelligence officers claim that their most successful colleagues remain unknown forever. For example, until now, no one knows who one of the members of the "Cambridge Five" was, and this outstanding Soviet residency began to work actively back in the 30s of the last century. As for the secrets of the CIA, you can freely read about them on Wikileaks and other sites, and the US secret services can do nothing about it. It is, of course, possible to assume that such arrays of information were stolen by hackers, and this version is considered the most acceptable due to its convenience. Russia is best suited for the role of the villain. You can also suspect China and several other countries pursuing an independent and therefore hostile policy to the United States. However, many experts believe that hackers have nothing to do with it, and the point is in "moles", that is, traitorous insiders,“Leaking” confidential information out of some of their own considerations, material or ideological. Straight from Langley.
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Is it true?
According to the CIA leadership, expressed by the spokesman for the agency Heather Fritz Horniak, the Wikileaks website is conducting hostile, that is, anti-American activities, undermining the ability of the intelligence services and limiting their ability to protect the United States from terrorism and other factors threatening the country's security. She did not give any comments about the veracity of the documents put on public display, but the very nature of the reaction indicates their reliability. Otherwise, the CIA would only have to declare the information a fake, not worthy of attention. The lack of both confirmation and refutation, rather, indicates the impossibility of denying the facts that have become generally known.
The essence of the latest information from Wikileaks
On March 7, a site declared hostile (its founder Julian Assange has been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for five years), documents appeared revealing the nature of the tools used by the CIA to conduct external and internal surveillance of suspected anti-state activities. According to this information, all sorts of "bugs", "beacons" and cleverly hidden miniature television cameras with microtransmitters can already be attributed to the technologies of yesterday. Now you can see and hear "wards" with the help of household appliances and devices, which have already become an integral part of the life of many people in the United States and around the world.
What are these devices?
First of all, a regular computer equipped with a camera and a microphone, as well as a tablet that performs similar functions, is suitable for remote monitoring. A smartphone is almost ideal, since it is always with its owner. The main thing is that the device is connected to the Internet, then it can be penetrated by conducting a hacker attack, and then using the peripherals integrated into it as “eyes and ears”. In principle, this has been known for a long time, and the most cautious citizens have already gotten into the habit of sticking up the lens windows with pieces of plaster or scotch tape (they often made fun of them, and possibly in vain). The news is different: surveillance devices can be devices that were previously considered completely harmless in terms of information security. These are "smart" TVs, remotely controlled "baby monitors", videophones,and even voice controlled refrigerators. Microphones included in their design may well transmit the conversations of their owner "where necessary."
Software and features
It is clear from the published documents that the US Central Intelligence Agency has a whole set of computer viruses that can infiltrate gadgets controlled by software based on the operating systems Linux, OSX, iOS, Android and, of course, Windows. Routers can also be targeted for hacker attacks, and it doesn't matter whether they are Wi-Fi or cable ones - the main thing is that they, again, be connected to the World Wide Web. Due to the global nature of the Internet, the geographic location of the object of observation is not important either.
The danger of CIA methods
Of course, intelligence officers believe that they know best what is useful for the security of the country, since it is they who are on guard. CIA leaders say they would never use the surveillance tools available to them to spy on ordinary law-abiding citizens, and perhaps they can be trusted. After all, it is impossible to keep an eye on everyone in a row, if only because this requires colossal human and material resources, which even the United States does not have. But representatives of human rights organizations have their own opinion on this matter. First, historical experience suggests that there have been such cases, and the absence of legal grounds did not always prevent listening to other people's conversations. And secondly, which is important, the ability to keep secrets, as can be seen even from the last case with Wikileaks,The CIA cannot be proud.
Human rights aspect
Instead of sharing information about vulnerabilities identified in their systems with electronics manufacturers and blocking possible leakage channels, American intelligence officers chose to use them for their own operational purposes. At the same time, the level of protection of CIA secrets is clearly not up to par, and information about methods of unauthorized entry into operating systems of various levels may become known not only to representatives of the body working for the government, but also to less respectable communities, for example, cybercriminals or even terrorists. And they will no longer tell the whole world about the latest achievements of tsereushnoy thought, like Wikileaks, but will apply the knowledge gained in their misanthropic interests. And we cannot exclude the possibility that not only in Langley such smart specialists are sitting,and someone will be able to independently find vulnerabilities in devices that no one has bothered to protect.
Precautions
Experts recommend that owners of smart home elements disconnect their devices from the Internet in order to avoid unauthorized entry into their personal lives. Or even from the mains at all. So far, there are no other measures to completely exclude illegal surveillance. The owners of the good old ordinary refrigerators and TVs do not have to worry.