It used to be easy to cheer on WikiLeaks. But since 2010, many (myself included) have watched with dismay as WikiLeaks slid from the outletcourageousenough to host Chelsea Mannings data dump to a murky melange of bad-faith propagandizing and newsworthy disclosures. At a time when WikiLeaks and its founder are willing to help pushPizzagate, and unable totweet about sunglasses sans conspiracy-think, its not unfair to view Assange as being motivated as much by hisvarious axes to grind as by azeal for transparency. But even the harshest WikiLeaks critics should resist the Senates attempt to brand the website anon-state hostile intelligence service inthe 2018 intelligence authorization bill.

Ron Wydenisnt a friend of WikiLeaks. In May, the Oregon senatorsoffice tweeted that it was an established fact that Trump actively encouraged Russians & WikiLeaks to attack our democracy, and pointed out, with suspicion, Trumps praise for WikiLeaks during the campaign. Likehis Democratic colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wydenembraced the tough language on Russian meddling that had been folded intothe nations spy budget, but unlike them he voted against the reauthorization billbecause ofthis sentence: It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.

So, whats a non-state hostile intelligence service? Thats a great question, given that an intelligence service is a spy agency, and spy agencies are the tools of governments, and therefore not stateless. Thats exactly why Wyden, despite his opposition toWikiLeaks and determination to investigate Russian electoral interference, came to its defense: Official resolutions are risky when no ones really sure whats being resolved. Perhaps the hostile agency language would be purely symbolic, but if the clause somehow proved to have some teeth, plenty of publishersnot so easily written offas tools of foreign meddling could be at risk.

The Hill reports that Wyden objected to the use of the novel phrase to label WikiLeaks because the ambiguous term may have legal, constitutional, and policy implications, particularly should it be applied to journalists inquiring about secrets, adding that the notion theU.S. government has some unstated course of action against non-state hostile intelligence services is equally troubling. When CIA director Mike Pompeo used the non-state hostile intelligence service phrase to describe WikiLeaks in a think tank address in April, the words were equally unclear, and nothing has changed four months later, except the possibility that the language would be become government policy. Thats significant, and should worry you whether you hate WikiLeaks or not.

Wyden press director Keith Chu added that even though the senator has repeatedly criticized WikiLeaks for the role it played in the last election as a tool of Russia, its easy to imagine how this type of designation could be used against legitimate press outlets, or used to target journalists who may use materials published by WikiLeaks. In short, regardless of any low opinion of Assange or his site, the precedent of creating this new category of enemy to the United States is dangerous.

The U.S. government despises WikiLeaks, and has since at least 2010, when the group released more than half a million documents revealing secrets about decades of U.S. diplomacy and about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This animosity is itselfno secret. The website exists to antagonize and embarrass world governments, butAmerican power has remained the sites largest target and Assangesbte noire.Hatred for Assange and a longing to see him taken down is shared across the U.S.political spectrum by officials elected and unelected and is firmly in the public record; so too is Assanges unbendinghostility toward the U.S. government.

Whats not in the public record is clear evidence ofWikiLeaks status as anon-state hostile intelligence service, whatever that means. The declassified version of the U.S. Intelligence Communitys report on alleged Russian electoral interference states, We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU)obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks. The report notes that Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity, but thats about as far as the collaboration is defined. Its important to distinguish being thoroughly supportive of something and actually being part of it; if there were no difference, Breitbarts offices would be located in a tent on the South Lawn.

It seems entirely plausible that WikiLeaks was in some sense in cahoots with some portion of the Russian government: The invented hacker persona Guccifer 2.0, whichprivate analysts and the U.S. government both allege was a figment of Russian intelligence, was open about its collaboration with WikiLeaks (last summer, Guccifer 2.0 told me theywere preparing to hand DNC materials to WikiLeaks shortly before it happened). The alignment of some professed values and goals between Putin, Assange, and Trump is also undeniable. Its for this reason that the site has picked up so many vocal detractors (and in fairness, supporters) over the past year. But theres nothing about the abovethats inconsistent with the possibility that Assange received materials from Russian hackers and simplywasnt concerned with or bothered by their origin, given that they would embarrass and destabilize his arch nemesis Hillary Clinton. That should openup a public debate over whether Assange is too personally compromised as a publisher, butshould suspicion of a publishers motivesbe enshrined in law? If Assange is a hack with a flagrant agenda and few scruples, then hes got lots of company.

To legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams,who told The Intercept that hesquite critical of WikiLeaks behavior, the factual issue about just what WikiLeaks has done, what contacts it has and has had with adversaries of this country, and the like should be separate from an official government designation:

The broader issue is whether our government should be designating any entity as a non-state hostile intelligence agency. Im not sure of the intended consequences of such a designation but Im pretty sure it could open WikiLeaks to threats and perhaps even violence. It has the sound of some official finding, which it is not, with some legal meaning to it, which it is not. So while I wouldnt object to high ranking intelligence officials harshly criticizing WikiLeaks, Id stay away from faux official designations.

Trevor Timm, Executive Directorof the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told The Intercept that Ron Wyden is right that the WikiLeaks provision is unprecedented, vague, and potentially very dangerous:

Regardless of whether you like or hate WikiLeaks, Congress singling out a publisher of information using a undefined and made up term like non-state hostile intelligence service to potentially stifle First Amendment rights and opening the door to more surveillance of sources should concern all journalists. Its a shame more members of Congress do not see this obvious danger.

(Freedom of the Press Foundation receives funds from The Intercepts parent company.)

In short, even if you think Julian Assange is a sleaze, or a liar, or a Putinist, and even if he were indeed all of those bad things, hes also a publisher of authentic information he wasnt supposed to have. A politically motivated publisher is still a publisher, and to deem one of them an enemy of the state would endanger any outletsworking with or interested in materials and information they arent supposed to havewhich in 2017 is almost all of them. From the Department of Justice to the White House to Congress, the anti-leaker sentiment is feverish, and the openly threatening language used against those who would publish true information unprecedented. WikiLeaks makes a tempting target for defenders of state secrecy because the websites reputation is mostly in the mud once you get outside of Trumplandbut consider the consequences.

Non-state hostile intelligence service has no technical meaningwhat would stop an outlet like the New York Times (or all of its peers and competitors) from being deemed the same based on its reporting of the same hacked emails?

What exactly is the legal status of anon-state hostile intelligence service? Would donating to WikiLeaks be considered providing material aid to an enemy?

What of the many reputable journalists whove workedwith WikiLeaks in the past, from the New York Times to Der Spiegel? Are they now guilty of having collaboratedwith anon-state hostile intelligence service?

Were WikiLeaks to publish another truly groundbreaking and valuable release along the line of Mannings, what then? Would journalists be free to glean stories from this enemy spy agency?

There arent any answers to these questions, making the language all risk with little upshot of reforming or changing Assange or WikiLeaks in any meaningful way. The much more likely outcome would be Assange treating the designation as a vindication, proof that hes a victim of U.S. governmental persecution. It would not, however, do much to persuade him that Le Pen boosterism and bogus spirit cooking conspiracy theories arent in the public interest, but could do much to chill those around the world doing real work. Dont give Assange, or Pompeo, the satisfaction.

Top photo: Julian Assange leaves after speaking to the media from the balcony of the Embassy Of Ecuador in London, England on May 19, 2017.

Here is the original post:
Even WikiLeaks Haters Shouldn't Want it Labeled a Hostile Intelligence Agency - The Intercept

WikiLeaks on Thursday released an apparent CIA tool designed to make sure that the United Statesintelligence partners actually share biometric data they had agreed to share.

"OTS/I2C [Office of Technical Service/Identity Intelligence Center] has an established effort to provide liaison services with a system that collects biometric information. ExpressLane v3.1.1, and supporting tools, was developedto support OTS/I2C in their efforts to verify that this data is also being shared with the Agency," reads the user manual to the tool, titled ExpressLane.

ExpressLane is designed to run on systems provided by the CIA to its partners for the program. It could either be installed in advance or handled via a software update. It is capable of disabling those systems if the partners do not meet the terms of their agreement.

The cache of ExpressLane documents, which the CIA have not authenticated, is dated 2009.

WikiLeaks first began its so-called "Vault 7" series of leaks of CIA hacking tools in March.

ExpressLane marks Vault 7's twentieth installment.

This story was updated at 12:36 p.m.

See more here:
WikiLeaks releases CIA tool to steal info intel allies already supposed to share - The Hill

President Trump seemed to think Wikileaks was a fine establishment while on the campaign trail. As long as Wikileaks kept serving up DNC documents, it could do nothing wrong. Since his election, however, things have changed. The administration is plagued by leaks. Even though Wikileaks hasn't played a part in those leaks, it has continued to dump CIA documents -- something the White House isn't thrilled with.

Back in April, the new DOJ -- under the leadership of 80s throwback AG Sessions -- announced it had prepared charges to arrest Julian Assange. This was something Obama's administration talked about, but never actually got around to doing. Pursuing Assange and Wikileaks for publishing leaked documents would set a dangerous precedent, paving the way for domestic prosecutions of news agencies.

Fortunately, nothing has moved forward on that front yet. But it appears at least a few Senators would like to further distance Wikileaks from any definition of journalism. As Spencer Ackerman reports for The Daily Beast, the Senate Intelligence Community wants to redefine Wikileaks as a hostile entity.

The committee wants Congress to declare WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service, which would open Julian Assange and the pro-transparency organization which most of the U.S. government considers a handmaiden of Russian intelligence to new levels of surveillance.

On Friday, the committee quietly published its annual intelligence authorization, a bill that blesses the next years worth of intelligence operations. The bill passed the committee late last month on a 14-1 vote, with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon as the lone dissenter, owing to what he calls the legal, constitutional and policy implications that the WikiLeaks provision may entail.

The latest intelligence authorization bill runs nearly 60 pages. Perhaps the committee members adding this toxic little pill thought no one would read it all the way to the end. The very last section of the bill (Section 623 to be precise) is titled "Sense of Congress on Wikileaks." It asks for legislators to take an official stance on the group.

It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States.

As Ackerman points out, the language in the bill channels CIA head Mike Pompeo, who is understandably (and continually) incensed by Wikileaks' publication of documents pertaining to CIA surveillance tools. Pompeo himself is a fair-weather friend of transparency, having tweeted his praise for Wikileaks while it was still dumping DNC documents.

This could put Wikileaks under (even more) surveillance and would likely allow site visitors, donors, and correspondents to become surveillance targets themselves.

It would allow the intelligence community to collect against them the same way they collect against al-Qaeda, [former House Intelligence Committee staffer Mieke] Eoyang said. If you think youre helping WikiLeaks to aid a transparency organization, the US government fundamentally disagrees with you and you could find yourself on other end of NSA scrutiny.

As is usually the case when the Senate Intelligence Committee offers up questionable or terrible proposals, Senator Ron Wyden was the sole committee member to vote against the authorization bill.

Go here to read the rest:
Intelligence Committee Pins A 'Surveil Me' Sign On Wikileaks' Back In Latest Authorization Bill - Techdirt

If the Senate intelligence committee gets its way, Americas spy agencies will have to release a flood of information about Russian threats to the U.S.the kind of threats that Donald Trump may not want made public.

The committee also wants Congress to declare WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service, which would open Julian Assange and the pro-transparency organization which most of the U.S. government considers a handmaiden of Russian intelligence to new levels of surveillance.

On Friday, the committee quietly published its annual intelligence authorization, a bill that blesses the next years worth of intelligence operations. The bill passed the committee late last month on a 14-1 vote, with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon as the lone dissenter, owing to what he calls the legal, constitutional and policy implications that the WikiLeaks provision may entail.

Among the bills major provisions are requirements for the intelligence community to release major public reports into Russian threats to U.S. elections, Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, Moscows influence operations, Russian money laundering in the U.S., and more. In short, the Senate committee intends to do a lot more about Russia than investigate its involvement in the 2016 presidential race namely, box the Trump administration into a more assertive response to Russian aggression.

All the proposed Russia-related disclosures show that the committee, on a bipartisan basis, will pry out of the intelligence community any assessment of the Russian threat, said Mieke Eoyang, a former House intelligence committee senior staffer, and will prevent the White House from blocking the intelligence community from telling the committee and the American public what the true Russia threat is.

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, would have to develop and disclose a strategy to prevent Russian cyber threats to United States elections, including federal, state and local election systems, voter registration databases, voting tabulation equipment, and equipment and processes for the secure transmission of election results. Such a strategy, the committee seeks to mandate, should include security measures like auditable paper trails for voting machines, securing wireless and Internet connections, and other technical safeguards.

Other requirements of the bill include a ban on a cybersecurity unit or other cyber agreement that is jointly established or otherwise implemented by the Government of the United States and the Government of Russia unless Coats essentially vouches for it. Trump floated the idea in July after his first meeting with Vladimir Putin and then walked it back when a political backlash ensued. Wyden proposed the measure banning the cyber-collaboration.

Another possible Trump act the bill would complicate is the return of two diplomatic compounds, in New York and Maryland, used by Russian intelligence operatives and seized by the U.S. in the waning days of the Obama administration. Coats would have six months to issue a report on the intelligence risks of returning the covered compounds to Russian control, a step the White House is considering. Relatedly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would have to keep much closer track of Russian diplomatic and consular officials travel within the U.S., telling Coats and new FBI director Christopher Wray within 1 hour what he knows about such travel.

Coats would also have to detail for the House and Senate committees the extent of illicit Russian cash flow, including the entry points of money laundering by Russian and associated entities into the United States and any vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial and legal systems that Russian money laundering has exploited. Unlike the other Russia-centric provisions of the bill, the Senate committee isnt explicitly requiring a public version of the money laundering report.

The House intelligence committees complementary bill would authorize similar but less extensive public reporting on Russian influence campaigns aimed at U.S. and other nations elections. Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, declined comment. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for the office of the director of national intelligence, Timothy Barrett, did not say whether Coats supports or opposes the Senate bill. As with previous intelligence authorization bills, the ODNI will provide Congress with a views letter addressing specific provisions in the legislation, Barrett said. Coats in May told the Senate panel that Russia was likely to be more unpredictable in its approach to the United States.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry about whether it backs the bill.

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The bill also contains a more controversial move.

The bill would establish a sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and its leadership resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States. The language echoes almost exactly CIA director Mike Pompeos scathing April speech calling WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia, a departure from the I love WikiLeaks rhetoric from then-candidate Trump.

The move, Eoyang assessed, would open WikiLeaks up to even more extensive surveillance.

It would allow the intelligence community to collect against them the same way they collect against al-Qaeda, Eoyang said. If you think youre helping WikiLeaks to aid a transparency organization, the US government fundamentally disagrees with you and you could find yourself on other end of NSA scrutiny.

Wyden has criticized WikiLeaks before, including a May statement that Trump actively encouraged Russians and WikiLeaks to attack our democracy. WikiLeaks denies the accusation. But Wyden voted against the bill out of concern for the implications of the WikiLeaks provision.

My concern is that the use of the novel phrase non-state hostile intelligence service may have legal, constitutional, and policy implications, particularly should it be applied to journalists inquiring about secrets, Wyden said in a quote to the Daily Beast he later released in a statement.

The language in the bill suggesting that the U.S. government has some unstated course of action against non-state hostile intelligence services is equally troubling. The damage done by WikiLeaks to the United States is clear. But with any new challenge to our country, Congress ought not react in a manner that could have negative consequences, unforeseen or not, for our constitutional principles. The introduction of vague, undefined new categories of enemies constitutes such an ill-considered reaction.

WikiLeaks did not respond to a request for comment before publication, but hours afterward provided links to its previous defenses against the charge that it is an adjunct of Russian intelligence. (link 1 and link 2).

This story was updated to add links provided by WikiLeaks after publication.

Excerpt from:
Senators Try to Force Trump Admin to Declare WikiLeaks a 'Hostile ... - Daily Beast

Protest ... Senator Ron Wyden

Every year, US Congress must pass a new Intelligence Authorization Act to continue funding Uncle Sam's spies for the next 12 months. This year, the act passed, as expected, the committee stage smoothly with only one minor bump in the road: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Wyden objected to a clause in the bill [PDF] that described WikiLeaks as a "non-state hostile intelligence service," which was inserted after the website pissed off enough people in government. The wording would give the intelligence services more power to investigate the site and its founder Julian "I'm not in a cupboard" Assange.

This isn't to say Wyden is defending Assange: the senator fears journalists will also be labeled hostile intelligence services for embarrassing the administration.

"My concern is that the use of the novel phrase 'non-state hostile intelligence service' may have legal, constitutional, and policy implications, particularly should it be applied to journalists inquiring about secrets," said Senator Wyden.

"The language in the bill suggesting that the US government has some unstated course of action against 'non-state hostile intelligence services' is equally troubling. The damage done by WikiLeaks to the United States is clear. But with any new challenge to our country, Congress ought not react in a manner that could have negative consequences, unforeseen or not, for our constitutional principles."

In the end, the act passed the Senate intelligence committee in a vote of 14-1. You can easily guess which side Wyden took.

The senator did, however, manage to get three amendments into the bill, one of which could stymie President Trump's suggestion that the US and Russia should join forces on a cybercrime unit to investigate hacking. If such a scheme is mooted, Congress will have to be informed as to what intelligence is shared and how. The President backtracked on that idea, for what it's worth.

Wyden's second amendment is about mounting fears over hacking mobile phones via SS7 protocol flaws that can turn any mobe into a spy in your pocket. The amendment requires the intelligence agencies to report any evidence that foreign powers are using the SS7 flaw for surveillance purposes.

Finally, Wyden's third amendment will require US intelligence officials to work with the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence on a report into Russian money laundering in the US. Such data could be very useful in the ongoing probe into possible Putin interference in the last US elections.

The tweaked proposed funding legislation will now be submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate for their approval and modifications. Whether the amendments survive all the way is up to Congress, and whether Trump signs it is up to him.

Sponsored: The Joy and Pain of Buying IT - Have Your Say

Continued here:
WikiLeaks a 'hostile intelligence service', SS7 spying, Russian money laundering all now on US Congress todo list - The Register

California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said he will consult with President Donald Trump about earth-shattering information he got from WikiLeaks about the Democratic National Committee hack before going public.

The Republican representative said he met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and said Assange denied that Russia was involved with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

I will have discussions with President Trump before going public, and that should happen hopefully within two weeks of now, by the end of the month, Rohrabacher told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.

In the interview, he declined to say whether what he was given will proveRussia did not provide emails from the DNC.

On Wednesday he characterized Assanges information as something that would have earth-shattering political impact.

We did not go into detail [about how WikiLeaks acquired Democratic emails], but that will obviously be something that will be provided in greater detail shortly, he told the Examiner. There are some things we just have to go to the president with and see what he says, and then see how we can actually work its way so the American people know the truth.

Rohrabacher has in the past been criticized for his sympathetic views on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin that haveearned him the epithet Putin's favorite Congressman.

The Republican, who is also chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committees subcommittee that handles Europe and Asia, said he believed the release of emails was an inside job.

Ive said this in the past, I certainly dont believe the Russians did this, and I believe someone else did,Rohrabacher said.

Healsosaid that he andAssange discussed WikiLeaks gettinga seat at the daily White House news briefing.

Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.

Read this article:
Rohrabacher to Consult With Trump Before Sharing Wikileaks Info - Roll Call

22 Aug 2017 - 14:14

(File Photo) Julian Assange. Reuters

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has slammed Saudi Arabia's Al-Arabiya network for publishing absurd reports against Qatar.

He quoted an Al Arabiya report attributing to him and said that network is publishing absurd fabrications regarding the ongoing Gulf Crisis.

The Al Arabiya network (HQ in UAE) has been publishing increasingly absurd fabrications as the UAE v Qatar dispute continues. One from today, he tweeted.

Assange pointed to a report by Al Arabia quoting him as saying that he has seven cables about Qatar and only five were published after Qatar negotiated with the websites administration.

He slammed this report as networks fabrication.

After the blockade started on June 5, the media in siege countries has been publishing fake reports and lies to tarnish Qatars image. Many people have called them out and Assanges tweet is the latest such instance.

Earlier Qatar has raised the issue of broadcast of a graphic simulation by Al Arabiya TV in which a fighter jet was shown firing a missile at a Qatar Airways passenger aircraft for violating airspace of blockading countries. They were trying to intimidate people with such reports.

21 Aug 2017 - 1:46

An official source from Qatar Civil Aviation Authority has described as baseless the news circulating in media outlets of the siege countries that allegedly claimed that Qatar refused to allow Saudi Airlines to transport Qatari pilgrims.

More:
Wikileaks founder Assange slams Al Arabiya report against Qatar as 'absurd fabrication' - The Peninsula Qatar

Know This:Inmates in Tennessee were offered shortened sentences in exchange for agreeing to be sterilized, in a practice critics are likening to eugenics. Some are questioning Wikileaks motives for reportedly refusing to publish a cache of documents about the Russian government during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. And studies of mice show memories of fear could potentially be permanently erased from the brain.

Try This:Feeling presidential after a week of briefings?Prove itwith thePDBquiz.

Answer This:Tell us how you really feel. OZYs next TV show,Third Rail With OZY,is launching on PBS this fall! To kick things off, were shelving the PC and whipping up debates. Each Wednesday, well post a provocative question, focusing on topics that might make it onto the show. This week: Should government leaks always be illegal?Why or why not? Go deep. Emailthirdrail@ozy.comwithyourthoughts or a personal story, and we might featureyour answer next week.

Original post:
Sentencing Guidelines, Wikileaks' Biases and the PDB Quiz - OZY

Today, June 15th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the CherryBlossom project of the CIA that was developed and implemented with the help of the US nonprofit Stanford Research Institute (SRI International).

CherryBlossom provides a means of monitoring the Internet activity of and performing software exploits on Targets of interest. In particular, CherryBlossom is focused on compromising wireless networking devices, such as wireless routers and access points (APs), to achieve these goals. Such Wi-Fi devices are commonly used as part of the Internet infrastructure in private homes, public spaces (bars, hotels or airports), small and medium sized companies as well as enterprise offices. Therefore these devices are the ideal spot for "Man-In-The-Middle" attacks, as they can easily monitor, control and manipulate the Internet traffic of connected users. By altering the data stream between the user and Internet services, the infected device can inject malicious content into the stream to exploit vulnerabilities in applications or the operating system on the computer of the targeted user.

The wireless device itself is compromized by implanting a customized CherryBlossom firmware on it; some devices allow upgrading their firmware over a wireless link, so no physical access to the device is necessary for a successful infection. Once the new firmware on the device is flashed, the router or access point will become a so-called FlyTrap. A FlyTrap will beacon over the Internet to a Command & Control server referred to as the CherryTree. The beaconed information contains device status and security information that the CherryTree logs to a database. In response to this information, the CherryTree sends a Mission with operator-defined tasking. An operator can use CherryWeb, a browser-based user interface to view Flytrap status and security info, plan Mission tasking, view Mission-related data, and perform system administration tasks.

Missions may include tasking on Targets to monitor, actions/exploits to perform on a Target, and instructions on when and how to send the next beacon. Tasks for a Flytrap include (among others) the scan for email addresses, chat usernames, MAC addresses and VoIP numbers in passing network traffic to trigger additional actions, the copying of the full network traffic of a Target, the redirection of a Targets browser (e.g., to Windex for browser exploitation) or the proxying of a Targets network connections. FlyTrap can also setup VPN tunnels to a CherryBlossom-owned VPN server to give an operator access to clients on the Flytraps WLAN/LAN for further exploitation. When the Flytrap detects a Target, it will send an Alert to the CherryTree and commence any actions/exploits against the Target. The CherryTree logs Alerts to a database, and, potentially distributes Alert information to interested parties (via Catapult).

The rest is here:
WikiLeaks - Vault 7: Projects

In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government, according to chat messages and a source who provided the records.

WikiLeaks declined to publish a wide-ranging trove of documents at least 68 gigabytes of data that came from inside the Russian Interior Ministry, according to partial chat logs reviewed by Foreign Policy.

The logs, which were provided to FP, only included WikiLeakss side of the conversation.

As far as we recall these are already public, WikiLeaks wrote at the time.

WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin, the organization wrote in a Twitter direct message when contacted by FP about the Russian cache.

(The account is widely believed to be operated solely by Assange, the groups founder, but in a Twitter message to FP, the organization said it is maintained by staff.)

In 2014, the BBC and other news outletsreported on the cache, which revealed details about Russian military and intelligence involvement in Ukraine. However, the information from that hack was less than half the data that later became available in 2016, when Assange turned it down.

We had several leaks sent to Wikileaks, including the Russian hack. It would have exposed Russian activities and shown WikiLeaks was not controlled by Russian security services, the source who provided the messages wrote to FP. Many Wikileaks staff and volunteers or their families suffered at the hands of Russian corruption and cruelty, we were sure Wikileaks would release it. Assange gave excuse after excuse.

The Russian cache was eventually quietly published online elsewhere, to almost no attention or scrutiny.

In the months leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of potentially damaging emails about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign, information the U.S. intelligence community believes was hacked as part of a Kremlin-directed campaign. Assanges role in publishing the leaks sparked allegations that he was advancing a Russian-backed agenda.

Back in 2010, Assange vowed to publish documents on any institution that resisted oversight.

WikiLeaks in its early years published a broad scope of information, including emails belonging to Sarah Palin and Scientologists, phone records of Peruvian politicians, and inside information from surveillance companies. We dont have targets, Assange said at the time.

But by 2016, WikiLeaks had switched course, focusing almost exclusively on Clinton and her campaign.

Approached later that year by the same source about data from an American security company, WikiLeaks again turned down the leak. Is there an election angle? Were not doing anything until after the election unless its [sic] fast or election related, WikiLeaks wrote. We dont have the resources.

Anything not connected to the election would be diversionary, WikiLeaks wrote.

WikiLeaks schedules publications to maximize readership and reader engagement, WikiLeaks wrote in a Twitter message to FP. During distracting media events such as the Olympics or a high profile election, unrelated publications are sometimes delayed until the distraction passes but never are rejected for this reason.

WikiLeakss relationship with Russia started out as adversarial. In October 2010, Assange and WikiLeaks teased a massive dump of documents that would expose wrongdoing in the Kremlin, teaming up with a Russian news site for the rollout. We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen, Assange told a Russian newspaper.

We will publish these materials soon, he promised.

Russians are going to find out a lot of interesting facts about their country, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said at the time.

In November 2010, WikiLeaks began to release documents from its cache provided by Chelsea Manning, which included cables from U.S. diplomats around the world, including Russia.

WikiLeaks partnered with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, but only a handful of stories were published out of almost a quarter of a million files from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Novoya Gazeta paid for exclusive access to the documents, according to John Helmer, a foreign correspondent in Moscow writing for Business Insider.

WikiLeaks says there was no financial aspect to the publishing partnership with Novaya Gazeta, which did not respond to a request for comment. We do not have insight into the publication decisions of [Novaya Gazeta], WikiLeaks told FP.

Meanwhile, Assanges position on Russia was evolving. Assange in 2012 had his own show on the Kremlin-funded news network RT, and that same year, he produced episodes for the network where he interviewed opposition thinkers like Noam Chomsky and so-called cypherpunks.

Questions about Assanges links to Russia were raised last year, when the Daily Dot reported that WikiLeaks failed to publish documents that revealed a 2 billion euro transaction between the Syrian regime and a government-owned Russian bank in 2012. Details about the documents appear in leaked court records obtained by the Daily Dot, which were placed under seal by a Manhattan federal court.

A WikiLeaks spokesperson told the Daily Dotthat no emails were removed from what the organization published. The spokesperson also suggested the Daily Dot was pushing the Hillary Clinton campaigns neo-McCarthyist conspiracy theories about critical media.

Assange believes that U.S. officials hoping to damage his reputation leaked the court records, according to the messages provided to FP.

Theres a passing claim that the 500 pages comes from the US governments investigation into Wikileaks, one message from WikiLeaks reads. If true, the US government appears to be leaking data on the Wikileaks investigation, which fabricated or angled to help HRC. Huge story that everyone missed.

WikiLeaks again told FP that the story is false but did not elaborate.

When Novaya Gazeta reported in April 2016 on the 11.5 million documents known as the Panama Papers, which exposed how powerful figures worldwide hide their money overseas, Assange publicly criticized the work. He suggested that reporters had cherry-picked the documents to publish for optimal Putin bashing, North Korea bashing, sanctions bashing, etc. while giving Western figures a pass.

In fact, news outlets involved in publishing leaks reported on a number of Western figures, including then-British Prime Minister David Cameron.

For me it was a surprise that Mr. Assange was repeating the same excuse that our officials, even back in Soviet days, used to say that its all some conspiracy from abroad, Roman Shleynov, a Russian investigative reporter, said in an interview with the New York Times.

WikiLeaks says Assange didnt specifically challenge Novaya Gazeta or the other news outlets that worked on the Panama Papers, despite Assanges public statements to the contrary.

There should be more leaks from Russia, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former German spokesman for WikiLeaks, said in an interview with France 24 in March. He suggested that since WikiLeakss readers were mostly English-speaking, there wasnt enough demand.

By June 2016, Assange had threatened to dump files on Clinton that would be damaging to her campaign prospects. A month later, on July 22, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails out of the Democratic National Committee preceding the massive dumps in October of emails belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

In late August 2016, when WikiLeakss Clinton disclosures were in full swing, Assange said he had information on Trump but that it wasnt worth publishing. (In a message to FP, WikiLeaks now says the organization received no original documents on the campaign that did not turn out to be already public.)

The problem with the Trump campaign, Assange said at the time, is its actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trumps mouth every second day.

Photo credit: JUSTIN TALLIS/Getty Images

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WikiLeaks Turned Down Leaks on Russian Government During US Presidential Campaign - Foreign Policy