DNI Designee Ratcliffe - Best Qualified

Mueller Questioned by Ratcliffe     [CBSN]

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There is quite a furor over the appointment of Representative John Ratcliffe to become the next DNI [Director of National Intelligence].

Brennan

David Ignatius, a long-time supplicant of the CIA in even its most corrupt form, calls Ratcliffe a "dangerous, demented clown."  Keep in mind that Ignatius thought Brennan, the Muslim buffoon, to be brilliant; so much for the Ignatius credibility quotient.

Clapper

He also referred to James Clapper [the guy we saw smirking at Congressional committee members as he repeatedly perjured himself] "the most successful DNI since the position was created."  So, Ignatius manages to squeeze himself into a corner, worshipping the two most egregious criminals in the Intelligence Community since Jonathan Pollard, Ana Montes, Aldrich Ames, and Kim Philby.

The Washington Post, lacking any real understanding of a professional Intelligence Community, regards  the appointment of Ratcliffe as horrendous, tagging Ratcliffe as an "inexperienced, partisan politician."

We also hear from "former Intelligence officers" who demand that the DNI be selected from the executive levels of the CIA, or, at least from the existing DNI staff, or, By Gawd, from maybe the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [SSCI], managed by Dianne Feinstein who employed a Chinese Spy as her driver for 20 years.

Why, Ratcliffe lacks "any real experience, and worse, he likely has embraces Trump's 'Deep State' conspiracy theories about the CIA and FBI.  Goodness! Even a former "Station Chief" [aka: COS] claimed "this place is under siege."  That, of course, would presume there are any Station Chiefs with any degree of credibility these days.

Pretty much ignored is that the Intelligence Community lost virtually ALL credibility when it conspired in a combined effort to effect a coup against President-elect Trump.  And, let's not forget that Ilhan Omar, a Somali, sits on our House Foreign Affairs Committee - with a Top Secret Clearance.

So, before we comment on Mr Ratcliffe's selection, we refer you to the ABOUT section on our blog site so you can grasp a bit about our background, and why we feel entitled to weigh in on this topic, and to give our full endorsement to Mr Rattcliffe as the new DNI.
----

After the dust of  9-11 had settled, we sat down with President Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, and laid the groundwork for the new position of the DNI.






Until 9-11 [and for a while after] the Intelligence Community was managed by the Director of Central Intelligence [DCI], who also was the Director of the CIA, giving that agency extraordinary power over the entire IC analyses, assessments, and operational activities. The DCI could over-rule any agreements and suppress any reporting; and the CIA could take credit for any assessments or reporting by other agencies. And when its own fumbling created disastrous results, it could, and did blame other agencies for its own errors.

 If there were successes, the CIA would claim the credit, no matter which agency had succeeded; and, if there were a failure, the CIA would run to the SSCI and point a finger [usually at Military Intelligence] claiming the Military was incompetent at Intelligence matters, and CIA should control all those operations [or analyses].

Given that history of abuse, we created the position of DNI to oversee the coordination of all components of the IC, but without the power the DCI had. Initially, the concept worked. But, then, under Obama, an IC which was limited to a few thousand employees of many specialties engorged to a population of nearly a million government and contract employees, creating a bureaucracy incapable of conducting or producing viable Intelligence. Thus, Trump's disdain for his IC support. Once again, having succeeded in neutering other components of the IC [e.g., DIA], the CIA assumed control of the IC once again with the combined power of Brennan and Clapper.

In plain and simple terms, the CIA was a Bully, and a fairly incompetent one at that with a long string of Intelligence failures, fiascos, abuses, and implications of corruption. Needless to say, this bullying annoyed the other members of the IC, and we all lurked in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to drive a wooden stake through  the heart of this almighty vampire.

CIA ignored all the Indicators and Reports

And that day came with the horrors of 9-11, an event the planning/plotting details of which were discovered and provided by FBI agents, foreign intelligence and police services [e.g., the Philippines], and indicators from commercial [Private Sector] resources.

In essence, there was a plethora of Indicators completely and totally ignored by the highly touted and self-proclaimed "Terrorism Expert" John Brennan, who, in spite of missing/ignoring all the indicators, immediately rose to prominence with George W Bush, going on to become, what else, the Director of the CIA!

This came as a stunning surprise to the entire IC, but particularly to the remaining CIA professionals who almost unanimously despised Brennan and regarded him as a complete buffoon [much as they had regarded Bob Gates, a previous Bush designee, who, in spite of a continuous history of failure at the CIA, was promoted to the position of DCI by President GHW Bush.

[We can speak pejoratively here since we were intimately familiar with the IC and had deep friendships and alliances with many CIA, DIA, NSA and FBI professionals, as well as colleagues in the Military Intelligence Services. Why, we even spent time with CIA as an operative, and at the Departments of Defense and State as a senior analyst with highly credible recognition (even from the DCI) - so we can't be accused of blowing smoke out our butt.]  We knew lots of folks (still do) throughout the IC and coordinated operations directly with the Assistant Attorney General, back before the IC became politicized and weaponized by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Mueller.  Given their atrocious behavior, we even wrote a blog on restructuring the IC.]

But, we have again digressed.
[Enough of slamming Brennan and Clapper; we'll spend more time on them in separate blogs.]

We worked with Ed Meese [Reagan's Attorney General] to create the DNI after 9-11 to eliminate the DCI position and to neuter the CIA's dominance of the analytical and operational community. We sought to create a lean and efficient Intelligence Community, unencumbered by bureaucratic bloating; one which could focus on creating viable operations through thorough and cooperative analyses from all elements.

Our proposed process, for example, might follow these components:
1) A CIA station might report rumors, via clandestine operatives, of coup plotting, while the Defense Attache might report comments by one or more of the military plotters.
2) CIA and DIA analysts would examine the profiles of the plotters, and establish key words for NSA to monitor in Communications Intelligence [COMINT].
3) NRO [the satellite imagery guys at the National Reconnaissance Office] could then monitor any and all military movements which might be gauged as supportive of a coup.
4) Since most coups are bloodless, we would also review Private Sector Intelligence showing commercial movements of personal goods and wealth transfers in preparation of the soon-to-be deposed leader.
5) We might even send in covert operatives to help the soon-to-be deposed leader on his way with dark means of transport.
6) And, all elements of the IC would work together on this project via the DNI o!ce where information on analyses and operations could be exchanged.

In fact, the process actually worked like that, briefly.  

We originally envisioned the DNI to occupy a rather small building near the White House which had served as a place for representatives of the IC to meet and coordinate issues and operations around the world.  Gradually, however, it expanded into a bloated empire of hundreds of thousands of bureaucratic entities incapable of coordination, much less creating actionable Intelligence.

Saddam Hussein

The politicization and bloating of the process began under George W Bush, whose primary goal was to create a smokescreen disguising his 9-11 attack as the basis for our new international war adventures throughout the Middle East, disposing of Saddam Hussein, our long-time Middle East ally and stabilizer [albeit brutal].  

[See Rick Francona's book: Ally to Adversary, which examines the bewildering process by which Saddam was transitioned from our Ally to the basis for the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm.]

And then, the IC was directed to create the basis for the endless war in Afghanistan to track down Osama bin Laden and kill him - a simple enough task in the old days with a few teams of lightly armed Special Forces operatives.  

But, the Bush and Obama Administrations expanded both the Military and the IC into massive, expensive, and incoherent bureaucracies, while destroying the competency of both entities. 

[Unfortunately for The Swamp, particularly IC executives, modern technology is now revealing that 9-11 was a Bush ruse which cost the lives of thousands of people for the amusement and profit of a select group of Deep State puppet-masters; they've been identified and will find their way to Gitmo for trial, and likely execution. The professional investigators of 9-11 can no longer be dismissed as "Truthers" or Conspiracy Theorists with Tin Foil caps since forensic science now includes highly technical resources to discount the official versions with detailed revelations of the events and participants.]

But, we've digressed again.

When the Deep State positioned Obama in the Oval Office, it became important to create Intelligence Estimates [NIE] which lent credence to the Global War on Terrorism and justified the bloating of the IC from as few as 10,000 analysts and operatives to nearly a million government employees and private contractors, destroying any hope of processing any level of intelligence through hundreds of layers of indecisive and incompetent, but well-paid bureaucrats.

The Plan was to make the system so convoluted that no one could understand it, or its products.

When Trump took office, he was faced with nonsensical IC smoke and mirrors briefings which  had no bearing on reality. 

Thus, Trump's disdain for, and refusal to accept his IC support. 

He preferred to get his Intelligence assessments from the Private Sector -- which had hired the professionals from the IC and given them the resources and facilities to conduct Intelligence as we had envisioned the DNI to operate.

Clapper and Brennan recognized the Handwriting on the Wall, indicating their power positions and commercial contracts, post retirement, were in jeopardy, at which point they attempted to stage a coup with the amateurish resources they had at hand. 

And, we are now witnessing the unravelling of that process.

So, now, we return to the origin of this tale.

What about Mr Ratcliff's qualifications, or lack thereof, to become the DNI.
[We list his Committee participation below]

Briefly, as we've noted, the DNI position is not one of power over the IC, but is precisely limited in that respect. 

In fact, the DNI, by charter, is limited to only MANAGE the IC and to coordinate the functions of the components of the IC as the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of a large corporation would manage all the components of a large company. Just as the corporate CEO need not be a programmer to manage an Google, or an engineer to manage Bechtel, the DNI needs only management skills, and a legal mind since much of what the IC does require a legal review. 

Judge William Webster
No Intelligence Background
Before Appointment

Keep in mind, the IC currently consists of highly technical resources [NSA, NRO, NGA], along with HUMINT [clandestine, covert, and open source operations]. 

You will never find any executive skilled in all those specialties, but, recall that Jack Welch managed General Electric and increase the company's value by 4,000%.

Ross Perot managed EDS, leading it to become one of the most successful companies in US history.. 

The skills of Welch and Perot consisted of directing capable executives who, in turn, managed highly technical components -- much the same as the DNI would direct the executives in charge of the various Intelligence agencies which comprise the IC.

Perhaps the best and most respected Director was  Judge William Webster who successfully managed not only the FBI, but later became the Director of Central Intelligence -- as a lawyer/jurist - NOT an Intelligence specialist.

Mr Ratcliffe is a manager, so, like Webster, he won't favor one agency over another in his management process.  As an attorney, he can recognize all the elements of a good legal brief

as it would pertain to clandestine or covert operations; and, he would be the most capable executive of listening to the heads of the specialty units of NSA, NRO, NGA, DEA, FBI, DIA, and the Military Services and evaluating their assessments and/or their proposed courses of actions as they would merge into achieving an ultimate goal, or operation.

So, we suspect Mr Ratcliffe can manage the Intelligence Community in an equally common sense manner, even if he is not an Intelligence technician.

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Ed Notes:
Congressman Ratcliffe's assignments on Capitol Hill

House Committee Assignments

• House Intelligence Committee 
  • Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research Subcommittee
  • Intelligence and Modernization Readiness Subcommittee
• House Judiciary Committee
  • Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet
• House Committee on Homeland Security
  • Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation
  • Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security
• House Ethics Committee

China's "Social Credit System" - A Copy of the US?

We're reprinting this article as it captures the essence of China's new mass surveillance system, which couples with a mind and behavior control process of rewards and punishments imposed by the government, based on the citizens' behavior. 

Generally, we'd simply point to this as the extremism inherent in China, but, in reality, we're seeing such a mechanism in the US as our  Social Media has now become a censorship mechanism, not unlike China's Gamification of Trust. If you "violate" the vague, yet comprehensive Terms of Agreement of Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., they will shut you down and ban you for a week, a month, or forever, particularly if you take a dynamic Conservative position.

Unless Congress and the President step in to force these IT giants to honor the First Amendment, the concept of Freedom of Speech will be lost forever, and the core of the United States will be lost forever.

Keep in mind that, under the successive Administrations of Bush-1, Clinton, Bush-2, and Obama, [the foursome comprising the embodiment of the Deep State Puppetry], a series of Executive Orders [EO] were enacted, using 9/11 as the excuse to protect America from terrorists.  These incrementally restricted the rights of American citizens and were capped by the Patriot Act and the NDAA, which stripped the Constitutional Rights of citizens suspected of any linkage to TERRORISM, no matter how spurious or specious the accusations.  The counter-terrorism excuse was used to authorize NSA surveillance on US citizens, as well as introducing Secret Letters, Confiscation of personal property, warrantless searches, and sanctioned torture of prisoners of war.

These EOs and legislation were supplemented and enforced by the expansion and weaponization of our Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities and the creation of new agencies [e.g., Homeland Security] which morphed into massive bureaucracies with no visible purpose other than to harass and control citizens to force them into total compliance.

Ultimately, we have witnessed the systematic deadly assault, physical and ad hominem, against our Legislators, our Cabinet members, our Supreme Court nominees, and our President [notably the attempted assassination of Representative Scalise, the physical assault of Senator Paul, and, last but not least, the derailing of Congressional train in Virginia designed to kill both our legislators and their families and cause the collapse of Congress.]   Our News and Social Media have been purchased and controlled by Left Wing billionaires, and our journalists have been replaced by propagandists.

Although few will recognize the symptoms and indicators, we are in the last stages of a fight for the very existence of our Republic; and we may very well succumb to the Chinese model described below if we lose.
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Drudgenow.com
[www.sciencealert.com]

 China's 'Social Credit System' Has now been switched on, 

and is straight out of Dystopian Sci-Fi

China's "Social Credit System" is a sprawling, complete, technological mass surveillance network. It's already been switched on and is expected to be fully operational by 2020.

It monitors China's nearly 1.4 billion citizens, and it's also designed to control and coerce them in a massive social engineering process some have called the "gamification of trust" in which the system assigns an individual Trust Score to each citizen as well as to businesses.

The Chinese Communist system will, according to the Chinese government
"allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step".

This scheme will harness the immense reach of China's technological infrastructure which includes 200 million CCTV cameras. This 24/7 surveillance will be linked to facial recognition systems, and cross-checked with financial, medical records, and legal records – with the whole apparatus regulated and interpreted by advanced, data-crunching AI [artificial intelligence] networks.

[Ed Note: This ties to the interlocking companies in the US in which Medical, Financial, Legal, Personnel, and Security files are accessible by one major company which owns the subsidiaries operating in a different name.]

The scope of this venture is reminiscent of the TV show Black Mirror [i.e., the eerily prescient episode "Nosedive" which depicts a world where people can rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction they have, and which can impact their socioeconomic status].  China's goal goes even further.

Algorithmic Governance will rule your life

"This is potentially a totally new way for the government to manage the economy and society," according to economist Martin Chorzempa from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 

The goal is algorithmic governance!"
[Think in terms of a computer managing your life, as in HAL, the computer in 2001, Space Oddysey.

For such a complex plan, the crux of social credit is simple.

In localised pilot programs currently operational in Chinese cities, citizens are assigned a numerical score. For positive personal and social acts – such as paying bills on time, engaging in charity, and properly sorting your recycling – citizens get their score bumped up, which gives them access to perks, like better credit facilities, cheaper public transport, and even shorter wait times for hospital services.  [Ed Note: Not unlike the impact of your FICO score.]

But if you break the rules, beware. People with late with payments, caught jaywalking or smoking in non-smoking areas, will be punished.

In what's being described as a "digital dictatorship", their score takes a hit for each infraction, meaning they incur things like financial penalties and even travel restrictions.

That's what happened to investigative journalist Liu Hu, who says the social credit system destroyed his career after he was blacklisted for making accusations of government corruption. Branded "dishonest", he had access to rail travel suspended, and his social media accounts – comprising some 2 million followers – were reportedly shut down, effectively making his job impossible.
[Ed Note: We now note US airline computers will unilaterally cancel your reservations if you are categorized as "non-compliant".]

As Hu told Foreign Correspondent, he doesn't believe most Chinese are aware of how these kinds of punishments could affect them. "You can see from the Chinese people's mental state.  Their eyes are blinded and their ears are blocked. They know little about the world and live in an illusion." 

But the social credit system reaches even further than this.
Individuals aren't the only ones subject to this ramification.

Companies within and outside China are affected, with international airlines already feeling the coercive aspects of the controversial system, which could "interfere directly in the sovereignty of other nations".

Social surveys show the preliminary system is popular with socially advantaged citizens who already enjoy the perks of pilot programs.

"It sounds like it will help improve the quality of citizens in the long run," Shanghai-based saleswoman Joyce Hu told NPR last year.

"As long as it doesn't violate my privacy, I'm okay with it."

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Editor's Note:

We are reminded of China's Cultural Revolution [1966-76] during which the Red Guard brutally controlled/suppressed "free speech" by having children report on their parents, students report on each other and on their teachers, and even on farm workers who reported on each other's work habits.   Penalties for violations included imprisonment, and execution. 

This was the ultimate thought and mind control, much like the insinuation and imposition of Political Correctness and the violent "demonstrations" of the Left on campuses and the destruction of historical monuments in the US.  A side effect consisted of the destruction of much of China's recorded history as books and documents were destroyed, much like the systematic erasure of historical material on Google searches.

We are, naturally appalled at China's intrusion on the privacy of their citizens, yet we tend to forget NSA'S harvesting of thousands of Terabytes [Zettabytes], encompassing virtually every email, text, and phone conversation of every US citizen. 

As we've noted, our DHS and DOJ, under Obama, did not hesitate to use the information gathered against those designated political 'enemies' of the Deep State.  

State surveillance and suppression in the US far outweighed that in China; we just didn't notice it.

USSA - Almost!

The following is an interview by G. Edward Griffin, an ultra-Conservative

 and researcher of issues which have undermined the US.  His credibility 

has been questioned on a number of topics he has covered, and, 

oddly enough, in retrospect over recent decades and revelations 

by a number of very credible sources, Mr Griffin has been 

spot-on in his analyses in virtually every topic he's covered.

In this interview in 1984, he asks Yuri Bezmenov, a former 

KGB propagandist, to explain the Soviet methodology for 

subverting the US population and conversion to Communism.  

At the time of this interview, the Soviet Union was 

still strong and had not shown any indiction that it would 

collapse six years later, following President Reagan's 

encouragement of Soviet Premier Gorbachev to 

shut down the USSR war machine, and 

essentially defect to the West.

Little did he know then that The Establishment

would inflict a series of Presidents from

GHW Bush, to Clinton, to W, to Obama

on the US to complete the transformation

of the US to a Socialist/Communist society.

ED GRIFFIN: 

Well, you spoke before about "ideological subversion" and that's a phrase that I'm afraid some Americans don't understand. 

When the Soviets use the phrase "ideological subversion" what do they mean by it? 

YURI BEZMENOV: 

 Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage.

Yuri Bezmenov - KGB

I know that intelligence gathering looks more romantic.... That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. 

But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such.

The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. 

What it basically means is: 

to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country. 

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. 

The first one being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. 

In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....

The result? 

The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 1960's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. 

They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [e.g., Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.

In other words, for these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

ED: And yet these people who have been programmed and as you say are in place and who are favorable to an opening with the Soviet concept - these are the very people who would be marked for extermination in this country?

YURI: Most of them, yes. Simply because the psychological shock when they will see in the future what the beautiful society of EQUALITY and social justice means in practice, obviously they will revolt. 

They will be very unhappy and frustrated people, and the Marxist-Leninist regime does not tolerate these people. Obviously they will join the ranks of dissenters; dissidents. Unlike the present United States, there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America. 

Now, you can get popular like Daniel Ellsburg and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for being a dissident and for criticizing your Pentagon. In the future these people will simply be squashed like cockroaches for criticizing the government. Nobody is going to pay them nothing for their beautiful and noble ideas of EQUALITY. 

This they don't understand and it will be the greatest shock for them, of course.

The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years. Actually, it's over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. 

Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards. As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. ...he will refuse to believe it.... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.

The next stage is destabilization.... It only takes two to five years to destabilize a nation. 

This time what matters is essentials; economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some... sensitive areas such as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. 

I could never believe it 14 years ago when I landed in this part of the world that the process will go that fast.

Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False!  The United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov of course - it's the system. 

However, ridiculous it may sound, it is the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy. Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot. If you're not scared by now, nothing can scare you.

ED: Okay, so what do we do? What is your recommendation to the American people?

YURI: Well, the immediate thing that comes to mind is, of course, there must be a very strong national effort to educate people in the spirit of REAL patriotism, number one. 

Number two, to explain to them the real danger of a socialist, communist, welfare state, Big Brother government.... The moment at least part of the United States population is convinced that the danger is real, they have to FORCE their government... to stop aiding Communism. 

-----------------------------------------

EDITORIAL NOTE:

We have added links to such terms as KGB and Soviet, Big Brother as well as the names of world leaders such as Reagan, Andropov, and Gorbachev simply because the majority of young people who read this attended our depleted education system and have no recollection or awareness of the historical significance of these key, historical figures.  

This may surprise you, but ask the average 40-something [or younger] Liberal about any of these references, and you'll likely get a blank stare in response.

References to George Orwell and his predictive novel: 1984, will receive the refrain that it is about President Trump -- who has succeeded in derailing the Obama Administration goal of implementing 1984,

CIA Surveillance Exposed by Wikileaks

Note the original publication date of this blogpost

was 2017.

Since Assange is again under major attack, with the objective 

to ensure his incarceration and/or death, I've been asked to republish this blog post which includes significant revelations  which we can assume are included among his more recent drops from, among others, Entheos.

---------------

The original blog post follows:

Normally, we try to refine reports such as this; however, this report in its raw form 

contains so much credible information of immediate import that we will publish 

as is, with exceptional areas highlighted with bolding and color.

Very briefly, this ties in with the "wire-tapping" issue, to which we have alluded 

as a euphemism rather than actual.  Reading this report will give the 

reader a better idea of the vulnerabilities we face in using any type 

of communication; kudos again to Mr Snowden and to Mr Assange for  

introducing us to these issues and displaying both CIA and NSA's methodologies.

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Wikileaks Analysis

Disclosures include: 

1) CIA management by-passed encryption on phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.  

2) CIA hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.

3) CIA can [and did] engage in “false flag” cyber-attacks to portray Russia as the assailant. 

4) The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s [UMBRAGE] group, collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other state,s including the Russian Federation.

CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVs

CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA's DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details).

[ED Note: 

The DDI was originally the analytical division of CIA, and was highly regarded.  That function was replaced by the Digital Innovation Directorate]

EDG MALWARE OPS

The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide.

Your TV is never really off

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 realization.

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.

In October 2014, the CIA was looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks.  

[ED Note: 

Recall here the Cash for Clunkers program, forcing vehicle owners to upgrade to modern vehicles with computers which could be hacked by CIA as an auto control mechanism.

Hacked computer leaves driver with no control

The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations. 
 [There have been a number of single vehicle "accidents" causing the deaths of prominent individuals.]

[This is a personal issue since my SUV's computer stopped functioning at 70 MPH, leaving me without control of steering or brakes; fortunately a State Trooper was on the scene to assist.]

The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones. Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user's geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone's camera and microphone.

MDB Remote Hacking of Your iPhone

Despite iPhone's minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA's Mobile Development Branch produced malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA's arsenal includes numerous local and remote "zero days" developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.

A similar unit targets Google's Android which is used to run the majority of the world's smart phones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC and Sony. 1.15 billion Android powered phones were sold last year. "Year Zero" shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 "weaponized" Android "zero days" which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and cyber arms contractors.

These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of 

WhatsApp, 

Signal, 

Telegram, 

Wiebo, 

Confide  

Cloackman 

by hacking the "smart" phones on which they operate to collect audio and message traffic 

before encryption is applied!

CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routers

The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware hacking tools. This includes multiple local and remote weaponized "zero days", air gap jumping viruses such as 

"Hammer Drill" which infects software distributed 

on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems

 to hide data in images or in covert disk areas 

( "Brutal Kangaroo") and to keep its malware infestations going.

Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by the CIA's Automated Implant Branch (AIB), which has developed several attack systems for automated infestation and control of CIA malware, such as "Assassin" and "Medusa".

Attacks against Internet infrastructure and web-servers are developed by the CIA's Network Devices Branch (NDB).

The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB's "HIVE" and the related "Cutthroat" and "Swindle" tools, which are described in the examples section below.

CIA 'hoarded' vulnerabilities ("Zero Days")

In the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA, the US technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard — serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or "zero days" to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers.

Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers place huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. 

If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others.

The US government's commitment to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process came after significant lobbying by US technology companies which risk losing their share of the global market over real and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. 

The government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing basis.

"Year Zero" documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration's commitments. 

Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA's cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.

As an example, 

specific CIA malware revealed in "Year Zero" is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. 

The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities ("zero days") possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. 

As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable.

The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the US Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone at the expense of leaving everyone hackable.

Cyberwar programs are a serious proliferation risk

Cyber 'weapons' are not possible to keep under effective control.

While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber 'weapons', once developed, are very hard to retain.

Cyber 'weapons' are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost.

Securing such 'weapons' is particularly difficult since the same people who develop and use them have the skills to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces — sometimes by using the very same 'weapons' against the organizations that contain them. 

There are substantial price incentives for government hackers and consultants to obtain copies since there is a global "vulnerability market" that will pay hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars for copies of such 'weapons'. 

Similarly, contractors and companies who obtain such 'weapons' sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining advantage over their competitors in selling 'hacking' services.

Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booze Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers.

A number of Intelligence Community members not yet publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal criminal investigations in separate incidents.

Uploaded 50 TB of NSA data

Most visibly, in 2017, Harold T. Martin III pled guilty to 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 terabytes of information from Harold T. Martin III that he had obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA, including the source code for numerous hacking tools. 

The US government reportedly failed to note or effectively respond to a number of issues with Martin's security practices and behaviors over a period of 10 to 20 years!

Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.

US Consulate in Frankfurt [covert CIA hacker base]

In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the US consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ( "Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe" or CCIE) are given diplomatic ("black") passports and State Department cover. The instructions for incoming CIA hackers make Germany's counter-intelligence efforts appear inconsequential: 

"Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat, and all they did was stamp your passport"

Your Cover Story (for this trip)
Q: Why are you here?
A: Supporting technical consultations at the Consulate.

Two earlier WikiLeaks publications give further detail on CIA approaches to customs and secondary screening procedures.

Once in Frankfurt CIA hackers can travel without further border checks to the 25 European countries that are part of the Shengen open border area — including France, Italy and Switzerland.

A number of the CIA's electronic attack methods are designed for physical proximity. 

These attack methods are able to penetrate high security networks that are disconnected from the internet, such as police record database. In these cases, a CIA officer, agent or allied intelligence officer acting under instructions, physically infiltrates the targeted workplace. The attacker is provided with a USB containing malware developed for the CIA for this purpose, which is inserted into the targeted computer. The attacker then infects and exfiltrates data to removable media. 

[ED Note:  Some of you may recall that this CIA team was arrested and shipped to Gitmo for trial after being monitored manipulating the 2020 election results.  They are currently enjoying the Cuban sunshine from their cells.]

For example, the CIA attack system Fine Dining, provides 24 decoy applications for CIA spies to use. To witnesses, the spy appears to be running a program showing videos (e.g VLC), presenting slides (Prezi), playing a computer game (Breakout2, 2048) or even running a fake virus scanner (Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos). But while the decoy application is on the screen, the underlaying system is automatically infected and ransacked.

CIA increased proliferation risks

In what is surely one of the most astounding intelligence goals in living memory, the CIA structured its classification regime such that for the most market valuable part of "Vault 7" — the CIA's weaponized malware (implants + zero days), Listening Posts (LP), and Command and Control (C2) systems — the agency has little legal recourse.

The CIA made these systems unclassified.

Why the CIA chose to make its cyberarsenal unclassified reveals how concepts developed for military use do not easily crossover to the 'battlefield' of cyber 'war'.

To attack its targets, the CIA usually requires that its implants communicate with their control programs over the internet. If CIA implants, Command & Control and Listening Post software were classified, then CIA officers could be prosecuted or dismissed for violating rules that prohibit placing classified information onto the Internet. 

Consequently the CIA has secretly made most of its cyber spying/war code unclassified. 

The US government is not able to assert copyright either, due to restrictions in the US Constitution. Thus, cyber 'arms' manufactures and computer hackers can freely "pirate" these 'weapons' if they are obtained. The CIA has primarily had to rely on obfuscation to protect its malware secrets.

Conventional weapons such as missiles may be fired at the enemy (i.e., into an unsecured area). Proximity to or impact with the target detonates the ordnance including its classified parts. Hence military personnel do not violate classification rules by firing ordnance with classified parts. Ordnance will likely explode. If it does not, that is not the operator's intent [thus evidence of US involvement is available to investigators.]

Over the last decade US hacking operations have been increasingly dressed up in military jargon to tap into Department of Defense funding streams. For instance, attempted "malware injections" (commercial jargon) or "implant drops" (NSA jargon) are being called "fires" as if a weapon was being fired. However the analogy is questionable.

Unlike bullets, bombs or missiles, most CIA malware is designed to live for days or even years after it has reached its 'target'. CIA malware does not "explode on impact" but rather permanently infests its target. In order to infect target's device, copies of the malware must be placed on the target's devices, giving physical possession of the malware to the target. 

To exfiltrate data back to the CIA or to await further instructions the malware must communicate with CIA Command & Control (C2) systems placed on internet connected servers. But such servers are typically not approved to hold classified information, so CIA command and control systems are also made unclassified.

A successful 'attack' on a target's computer system is more like a series of complex stock maneuvers in a hostile take-over bid or the careful planting of rumors in order to gain control over an organization's leadership rather than the firing of a weapons system. 

If there is a military analogy to be made, the infestation of a target is perhaps akin to the execution of a whole series of military maneuvers against the target's territory including observation, infiltration, occupation and exploitation.

Evading Forensics and Anti-virus

A series of standards lay out CIA malware infestation patterns which are likely to assist forensic crime scene investigators as well as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and anti-virus companies attribute and defend against attacks.

"Tradecraft DO's and DON'Ts" contains CIA rules on how its malware should be written to avoid fingerprints implicating the "CIA, US government, or its witting partner companies" in "forensic review". 

Similar secret standards cover the use of encryption to hide CIA hacker and malware communication (pdf), describing targets & exfiltrated data (pdf) as well as executing payloads and persisting in the target's machines over time.

CIA hackers developed successful attacks against most well known anti-virus programs. These are documented in AV defeats, Personal Security Products, Detecting and Defeating PSPs and PSP/Debugger/RE Avoidance. 

For example, Comodo was defeated by CIA malware placing itself in the Window's "Recycle Bin". While Comodo 6.x has a "Gaping Hole of DOOM".

CIA hackers discussed what the NSA's "Equation Group" hackers did wrong and how the CIA's malware makers could avoid similar exposure.

Examples:

The CIA's Engineering Development Group (EDG) management system contains around 500 different projects (only some of which are documented by "Year Zero"), each with their own sub-projects, malware and hacker tools.

The majority of these projects relate to tools that are used for penetration, infestation ("implanting"), control, and exfiltration.

Another branch of development focuses on the development and operation of Listening Posts (LP) and Command and Control (C2) systems used to communicate with and control CIA implants; special projects are used to target specific hardware from routers to smart TVs.

Some example projects are described below, but see the table of contents for the full list of projects described by WikiLeaks' "Year Zero".

UMBRAGE

The CIA's hand-crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the CIA. 

Each technique it created formed 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 as one murder in the set is solved then the other murders will 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.

Fine Dining

Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e., menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency's OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically "exfiltrating" information from computer systems) for specific operations. The questionnaire allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical support staff.

Among the list of possible targets of the collection are 'Asset', 'Liason Asset', 'System Administrator', 'Foreign Information Operations', 'Foreign Intelligence Agencies' and 'Foreign Government Entities'.      

          Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals. 

[As an aside, CIA can designate you as an Extremist or a Transnational Criminal]

The 'Case Officer' is also asked to specify the environment of the target like the type of computer, operating system used, Internet connectivity and installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents, audio, video, images or custom file types. The 'menu' also asks for information if recurring access to the target is possible and how long unobserved access to the computer can be maintained. This information is used by the CIA's 'JQJIMPROVISE' software (see below) to configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific needs of an operation.

IMPROVISE

'Improvise' is a toolset for configuration, post-processing, payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor). Its configuration utilities like Margarita allows the NOC (Network Operation Center) to customize tools based on requirements from 'Fine Dining' questionairies.

HIVE

Hive solves critical problems for CIA malware operators

HIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its associated control software. The project provides customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to communicate with these implants.

The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS with the web-server of a cover domain; each operation employing these implants has a separate cover domain and the infrastructure can handle any number of cover domains.

Each cover domain resolves to an IP address that is located at a commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server) provider. The public-facing server forwards all incoming traffic via a VPN to a 'Blot' server that handles actual connection requests from clients. It is set up for optional SSL client authentication: if a client sends a valid client certificate (only implants can do that), the connection is forwarded to the 'Honeycomb' tool-server that communicates with the implant; if a valid certificate is missing (which is the case if someone tries to open the cover domain website by accident), the traffic is forwarded to a cover server that delivers an unsuspicious looking website.

The Honeycomb toolserver receives exfiltrated information from the implant; an operator can also task the implant to execute jobs on the target computer, so the toolserver acts as a C2 (command and control) server for the implant.

Similar functionality (though limited to Windows) is provided by the RickBobby project.

See the classified user and developer guides for HIVE.

                      -----

Frequently Asked Questions

Why now?

WikiLeaks published as soon as its verification and analysis were ready.

In February the Trump administration  issued Executive Order 13800 calling for "Strengthening the Cybersecurity of federal networks and critical infrastructure". 

Redactions

Names, email addresses and external IP addresses were redacted in the released pages (there were 70,875 redactions in total).

1. Over-redaction: Some items may have been redacted that are not employees, contractors, targets or otherwise related to the agency, but are, for example, authors of documentation for otherwise public projects that are used by the agency.
2. Identity vs. person: the redacted names are replaced by user IDs (numbers) to allow readers to assign multiple pages to a single author. Given the redaction process used a single person may be represented by more than one assigned identifier but no identifier refers to more than one real person.
3. Archive attachments (zip, tar.gz, ...) are replaced with a PDF listing all the file names in the archive. As the archive content is assessed it may be made available; until then the archive is redacted.
4. Attachments with other binary content are replaced by a hex dump of the content to prevent accidental invocation of binaries that may have been infected with weaponized CIA malware. As the content is assessed it may be made available; until then the content is redacted.
5. The tens of thousands of routable IP addresses references (including more than 22 thousand within the United States) that correspond to possible targets, CIA covert listening post servers, intermediary and test systems, are redacted for further exclusive investigation.
6. Binary files of non-public origin are only available as dumps to prevent accidental invocation of CIA malware infected binaries.

Organizational Chart

The organizational chart corresponds to the material published by WikiLeaks.

Since the organizational structure of the CIA below the level of Directorates is not public, the placement of the EDG and its branches within the org chart of the agency is reconstructed from information contained in the documents released so far. It is intended to be used as a rough outline of the internal organization; the reconstructed organization chart is incomplete and that internal reorganizations occur frequently.

Wiki pages

"Year Zero" contains 78,18 web pages with 943 attachments from the internal development groupware. The software used for this purpose is called Confluence, a proprietary software from Atlassian. Webpages in this system (as in Wikipedia) have a version history that can provide interesting insights on how a document evolved over time; the 7,818 documents included these page histories for 1,136 latest versions.

The order of named pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first). Page content is not present if it was originally dynamically created by the Confluence software (as indicated on the re-constructed page).

What time period is covered?

The years 2013 to 2016. The sort order of the pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first).

WikiLeaks obtained the CIA's creation/last modification date for each page but these don'tt appear for technical reasons. Usually the date can be discerned or approximated from the content and the page order. If it is critical to know the exact time/date contact WikiLeaks.

What is "Vault 7"

"Vault 7" is a substantial collection of material about CIA activities obtained by WikiLeaks.

When was each part of "Vault 7" obtained?

Part one was obtained recently and covers through 2016. Details on the other parts will be available at the time of publication.

Is each part of "Vault 7" from a different source?

Details on parts will be available at the time of publication.

What is the total size of "Vault 7"?

The series is the largest intelligence publication in history.

Isn't WikiLeaks worried that the CIA will act against its staff to stop the series?

No. That would be certainly counter-productive.

Has WikiLeaks already 'mined' all the best stories?

No. WikiLeaks has intentionally not written up hundreds of impactful stories to encourage others to find them and so create expertise in the area for subsequent parts in the series. They exist; search for them.