CIA Hacking Tools Revealed by Wikileaks - Rivals much NSA can do!

[David Guyatt]

According to Snowden, the Vault 7 leak came from a "cleared insider".

I also don't think responsibility for the DNC hack/leak comes down to personal political bias, but rather historical credibility.

Ray McGovern, William Binney, Craig Murray, Julian Assange, John Kiriakou, Coleen Rowley and several other whistleblowers I trust have all frequently and publicly stated that it wasn't the result of a Russian hack --- and if we trace back the origin of the "Russians did it" story is wholly circumstantial and very significantly first originated from the DNC following the report of the firm they hired, CrowdStrike. Who seriously can doubt this was a politically inspired contrivance?

Also not insignificantly, former UK Ambassador, Craig Murray, went on the record to say that he personally took delivery of the DNC material. Ray McGovern has confirmed this.

All the individual names I have listed above are members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Where the political aspect you speaks of does arise is who does one believe? The choice is the DNC, Podesta, Hilary and their supporters inside the IC and Deep State. Is anyone seriously saying any of these these are credible? Really? Given their respective histories this is a nonsense and should have been a non-starter - and except for the captured mainstream media would've died at birth.

Alternatively there are those who have a long and credible history for having done the right thing and paid the price for their integrity for blowing the whistle on prior illegal excesses of the US intelligence community and security state who state that Hilary's email, the Vault 7 and DNC material derived from leaks gleaned by former members of the US Intelligence Community.

I personally find anyone who believes politicians - the DNC and Hilary clearly had a hat in the ring anyway - to be in serious need of an injection of reality. Who believes politicians anyway? Other than for a handful of ones who are distinguished by honesty and integrity, they're a lying bunch of self serving £%$*@?"& who most of us know serve money and corporate masters, many of whom I am quite sure are also under the control of a faction inside the IC.

Please also let us not forget that there is not a shred of evidence backing up the Democratic Party/Neocon IC faction - it is entirely circumstantial, and following Vault 7 the alleged Guccifer 2 Russian connection to the DNC material is shredded and is now Polly gone... a dead parrot. Moreover, James Clapper and James Comey are now on the record stating that there is no, repeat no, evidence of Russian hacking of the DNC nor influencing the election (HERE, HERE).

For the record VIPS published the below on 12th December 2016. The argument they present is implacable; the DNC was a leak not a hack. If it were a hack (for example the Russians) clear traces would be left and the NSA would know and could prove it without any, repeat, any, degradation or danger of compromising Sources and method - which is the usual IC concern in withholding the provision of evidence. William Binney is the authority on these matters and has spoken eloquently about this on several occasions.

Lastly my guess is that VIPS have a pretty damn good idea of the identity of the leaker/s of the HRC emails, the DNC emails and the Vault 7 leak. But they'll never, ever consent to identify them and nor will Julian Assange or Wikileaks. Quite rightly so too. And it is this admirable level of integrity that allows the gap for the snakes who largely hide in the shadows to work their black magic of doubt. Most of us on this forum are experienced and knowledgeable enough to read between the lines in this regard.

US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims
December 12, 2016

As the hysteria about Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. election grows, a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on "circumstantial evidence" when it has the capability for hard evidence, say U.S. intelligence veterans.




Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity


MEMORANDUM


Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless


A New York Times report on Monday alluding to "overwhelming circumstantial evidence" leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin "deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump" is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking by Russians or anyone else.


Seal of the National Security Agency
Seal of the National Security Agency
Monday's Washington Post reports that Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined other senators in calling for a bipartisan investigation of suspected cyber-intrusion by Russia. Reading our short memo could save the Senate from endemic partisanship, expense and unnecessary delay.


In what follows, we draw on decades of senior-level experience with emphasis on cyber-intelligence and security to cut through uninformed, largely partisan fog. Far from hiding behind anonymity, we are proud to speak out with the hope of gaining an audience appropriate to what we merit given our long labors in government and other areas of technology. And corny though it may sound these days, our ethos as intelligence professionals remains, simply, to tell it like it is without fear or favor.


We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child's play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here's the difference between leaking and hacking:


Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did.


Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or any other cyber-protection system and then extracts data.


All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it and know both sender and recipient.


In short, since leaking requires physically removing data on a thumb drive, for example the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.


Awesome Technical Capabilities


Again, NSA is able to identify both the sender and recipient when hacking is involved. Thanks largely to the material released by Edward Snowden, we can provide a full picture of NSA's extensive domestic data-collection network including Upstream programs like Fairview, Stormbrew and Blarney. These include at least 30 companies in the U.S. operating the fiber networks that carry the Public Switched Telephone Network as well as the World Wide Web. This gives NSA unparalleled access to data flowing within the U.S. and data going out to the rest of the world, as well as data transiting the U.S.


Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. (Photo credit: The Guardian)
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. (Photo credit: The Guardian)
In other words, any data that is passed from the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) or any other server in the U.S. is collected by the NSA. These data transfers carry destination addresses in what are called packets, which enable the transfer to be traced and followed through the network.


Packets: Emails being passed across the World Wide Web are broken down into smaller segments called packets. These packets are passed into the network to be delivered to a recipient. This means the packets need to be reassembled at the receiving end.


To accomplish this, all the packets that form a message are assigned an identifying number that enables the receiving end to collect them for reassembly. Moreover, each packet carries the originator and ultimate receiver Internet protocol number (either IPV4 or IPV6) that enables the network to route data.


When email packets leave the U.S., the other "Five Eyes" countries (the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and the seven or eight additional countries participating with the U.S. in bulk-collection of everything on the planet would also have a record of where those email packets went after leaving the U.S.


These collection resources are extensive [see attached NSA slides 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; they include hundreds of trace route programs that trace the path of packets going across the network and tens of thousands of hardware and software implants in switches and servers that manage the network. Any emails being extracted from one server going to another would be, at least in part, recognizable and traceable by all these resources.


The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any "hacked" emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network.


The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating saying things like "our best guess" or "our opinion" or "our estimate" etc. shows that the emails alleged to have been "hacked" cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA's extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked.


The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods. Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone in a government department or agency with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC.


As for the comments to the media as to what the CIA believes, the reality is that CIA is almost totally dependent on NSA for ground truth in the communications arena. Thus, it remains something of a mystery why the media is being fed strange stories about hacking that have no basis in fact. In sum, given what we know of NSA's existing capabilities, it beggars belief that NSA would be unable to identify anyone Russian or not attempting to interfere in a U.S. election by hacking.


For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)


William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)


Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator


Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official


Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)


Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)


Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)

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