Posted on 03/07/2017 1:24:58 PM PST by drewh
THE CIA developed a system with MI5 to turn Samsung Smart TVs into a bugging system, activated when the owner or user thought they were switched off, the Wikileaks organisation has shockingly claimed.
The sinister plan is just one of an array of surveillance, hacking, and other techniques allegedly deployed by the US Central Intelligence Service (CIA) that are revealed in documents released by the whistle blowing organisation today, it has said.
WikiLeaks today began its new series of leaks on the CIA, code-named "Vault 7", and described as "the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency".
The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina, according to Wikileaks.
But Wikileaks says it has proof of the CIA using consumer technology such as smart phones, PCs, and even TVs to hack into personal accounts or even spy on people
The Wikileaks statement added: "'Year Zero' introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponised exploits against a wide range of US and European company products, including Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
"The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell's 1984, but 'Weeping Angel', developed by the CIA's Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realisation.
"The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom's MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a 'Fake-Off' mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on.
"In 'Fake-Off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the internet to a covert CIA server."
Wikileaks says it has been provided with portions of a CIA archive of its hacking arsenal after it "lost control of most of it".
It includes malware, viruses, trojans, weaponised "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation, it said.
Wikileaks added: "This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA.
"The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive."
Wikileaks said by the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally fell under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponised" malware.
The statement added: "Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilised more code than that used to run Facebook.
"The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified."
WikiLeaks said a statement from its source asked "policy questions that urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency".
WikiLeaks is funded by donations, it received more than $200,000 after the release of the Apache helicopter video
"The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons," it added.
Wikileaks said: "Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike."
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor, said: "There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'.
"Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade.
"But the significance of 'Year Zero' goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace."
The CIA has yet to publicly respond.
A CIA spokeswoman told Express.co.uk: "We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents.”
Yes, we love Big Brother!
The part about the TVs being remotely operable spies is old news but it was Google and Samsung etc that were the immediate scoundrels. The part about the CIA is new information but you know it had to be and I am sure most everyone assumed it. So this is not so much revelation as confirmation.
snowden said much the same thing in that Oliver Stone movie....
My old Toshiba CRT works just fine, and doesn’t spy on me.
Well....now we know why our government shared the (WWW.)world wide web, for all to use. The most ingenious Trojan horse ever constructed.
Look at your cable box sitting over there by your (smart?) TV. It’s staring right back at ya, and, if it’s got fiber optic service into it, its little front panel that is designed to passively “receive” your remote’s key presses could sooo easily also actively “receive” whatever you’re doing and/or saying, could have a little lens and/or microphone embedded in it, and could send all it sees and/or hears out to the good guys. Sleep well, fellow tin-foilers.
Cut cable 5 years ago , bought my own modem and have built from scratch my Pc’s...no cams/microphones here...what I type out is public just like my “faceschmuck page” which i only started to post comments on political articles...D.C. and the agencies realize I look upon them as scumbags and thieves and i remind them of it quite often....I relish the curt language I direct their way and any other rumpswab hack pilfering our treasury...No fear.
There is ANOTHER COUNTRY inside of the USA.
It has it’s own...
laws
norms
people
culture
financing
territory
outlook on the proper role of the USA
I said last night, this would deserve to be called “bombshell”!
This was reported a little more than a year ago, though not as a CIA plot and not as succinct detail. Samsung has a number of models of "smart" TVs going back a few years.
This past weekend, I happened upon a reference here on FR to a woman named Kay Griggs who I had not heard of previously.... totally compelling stuff and after 10 hours of watching the interviews of her on youtube (which are quite believable), it's possible to have a slightly better handle on the depth of Deep State.....
Lol. I’ve hated Samsung products for a while anyway. Been on my own personal boycott of anything Samsung for over a decade. Happened when an old DLp Tv and a multi disc CD player crapped the bed in the same week.
Wondered about a mic., but I guess a speaker can be used in reverse, no?
My samsung fridge controlled my mind Saturday night. Kept me going back for beer after beer when I knew I already had enough.
I’ve always just assumed my smart TV was bugged. Not that that stops me from doing anything different. I figure that I will never be important enough for anyone to care what I do. Although the female watchers probably can’t help but admire my extreme handsomeness.
[[My old Toshiba CRT works just fine, and doesn’t spy on me.]]
Plus you and i can view it at any angle without hte crappy washout that plagues flat screen lcd’s at angles-
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