“The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks raised the prospect Wednesday of sharing sensitive details it uncovered about CIA hacking tools with leading technology companies whose flagship products and services were targeted by the U.S. government’s hacker-spies,” Ted Bridis, Raphael Satter and Jack Gillum report for The Associated Press.
“If that sharing should take place, the unusual cooperation would give companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and others an opportunity to identify and repair any flaws in their software and devices that were being exploited by U.S. spy agencies and some foreign allies, as described in nearly 9,000 pages of secret CIA files WikiLeaks published on Tuesday,” Bridis, Satter and Gillum report. “The documents, which the White House declined anew Wednesday to confirm as authentic, describe clandestine methods for bypassing or defeating encryption, antivirus tools and other protective security features for computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs. They include the world’s most popular technology platforms, including Apple’s iPhones and iPads, Google’s Android phones and the Microsoft Windows operating system for desktop computers and laptops.”
“WikiLeaks has not released the actual hacking tools themselves, some of which were developed by government hackers while others were purchased from outsiders,” Bridis, Satter and Gillum report. “The group indicated it was still considering its options but said in a statement Wednesday: ‘Tech companies are saying they need more details of CIA attack techniques to fix them faster. Should WikiLeaks work directly with them?’ It wasn’t clear whether WikiLeaks – a strident critic of Google and Facebook, among others – was serious about such action.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Does WikiLeaks want to wear a white hat or a black hat?
Now, if WikiLeaks did share zero days with tech firms prior to release, what’s to guarantee WikiLeaks’ leaks won’t be leaked pre-leak? If WikiLeaks could simply tell Apple or whomever, “we have become aware of this issue which you should look at prior to such and such date when we will release it publicly,” that would be a much better method than the current data dump which threatens to unleash zero day exploits upon us all.
SEE ALSO:
FBI’s James Comey: ‘There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America’ – March 8, 2017
WikiLeaks reveals CIA’s global covert hacking program targeting Apple iPhone, Google Android, Microsoft Windows and even Samsung TVs – March 7, 2017
Under Pipeline “Big Brother” Timmy’s so-called leadership, Apple’s privacy soapbox is a pretense. It’s as spurious as “great new products in the pipeline.” This is the man who said, only last week, that the government should step-in and decide what is “fake news.”
Wikileaks are nothing but enemies of the State and the people involved should be shunned by anyone who cares about our country. Where are the Wikileaks about Trump, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Syria? They are clearly functionaries of Putin and his oligarchs.
Michael, isn’t looking more/more like the state is the enemy of the people? If yes, if the information brings light to that fact, malevolent or not, isn’t it “good” to know versus being dumb minions ? By the way I don’t advocate any illegal activity, so I’m conflicted by the “gain” wrought by the leaks.
Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!!!!
I think, and hope that Apple is waking up to the fact that all nefarious governments will try to hack into their devices to pillage and rape a person’s privacy. It just so happens that one of the nefarious governments happens to be from their own country. Irony abounds.
My wife asked why I carried a gun around the house. I told her: fear of CIA. She Laughed, I laughed, the Amazon Echo Laughed. I shot the Echo.
It’s easy to conceive that Google already has the info and they’ve aided the govt’s access. Their relationship with the govt has been too cozy for too long (8yrs).
…. but you did not shoot the deputy…LOL 😄