Julian Assange(Getty)
After releasing a series of very cryptic #Vault7 messages in early February, WikiLeaks has finally released a file that contains the mysterious Vault 7. The file wont be readable until tomorrow, when WikiLeaks releases a passphrase at 9 a.m. Eastern. However, WikiLeaks released a new clue about Vault 7, hidden in its tweet. Heres everything we know about Vault 7 so far, along with theories about what might be waiting for us in the morning.
And by the way, according to a tweet WikiLeaks sent out later, this is thefirstin a series of releases related to Vault 7:
Heres what you need to know about Vault 7.
WikiLeaks Vault 7 tweet contained a hidden message, because the background isnt just a black frame. In fact, its a photo that has been darkened.
Lighten it a little and you see this:
The photo says Prefecture beneath the world Vault. Some think it reads Prefecture 333, but it actually reads Prefecture 353. We found the source of the photo. But first, here are the guesses that were wrong:
Some believe that the photo appears to be of Kryptos, a sculpture outside the CIA headquarters in Langley. The sculpture, by James Sanborn, includes four encrypted messages. Since it was dedicated on November 3, 1990, three out of four of the messages have been solved. Heres a photo of the sculpture below. However, this isnotthe sculpture in WikiLeaks photo.
(Jim Sanborn)
Otherssay the photo is actually thissculpture in the D.C. Convention Center.
We found out what it actually is. The photo isLingua, one of two art pieces at the registration area of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.This is the photo that WikiLeaks used, courtesy of Flickrs open source library:
Vault 7 (Flickr/David) License:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
As you can see, WikiLeaksdid notedit the Prefecture part into the photo. The sculpture alreadyreads Prefecture 353 A.D. So no, unlike what some theories have surmised, this isnotrelated to Chinas 333 prefecture-level cities.
What happened in 353 AD? There was the Battle of Mons Seleucus, where Emperor Constantius II defeated Magnentius, who committed suicide in Gaul to avoid capture. Constantius then reunified the Roman Empire. Constantius II sent his official, Catena, to Britain to kill opponents supporting Magnentius. Martinus committed suicide after failing to kill Catena.
As far as the Year Zero part of the tweet, some surmised that it could mean that the information is sohuge that it could feel like restarting part of history once its released.However, according to a later tweet by WikiLeaks, it actually means that its the first in a series of releases that WikiLeaks plans for Vault 7.
In February, WikiLeaks released six cryptic tweets about Vault 7. The first was this:
The tweet featuresa photo of the Svalbard Seed Vault.The seed vault is on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in a remote Arctic archipelago. The vault was started by Cary Fowler and the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research to preserve plant seeds and make sure there are always spare copies of seeds around the world, in case of a global or regional crisis.What you see above the entrance to the vault, in the photo, is an illuminated public artwork. It was made by Dyveke Sanne and is called Perpetual Repercussion.
The second tweet was this:
It asked Where is #Vault7? Thephoto in the tweet shows Nazi gold stored in Merkers Salt Mine (its referenced in this Wikipedia article.)According to the National Archives, the minecontained gold bullion, gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, French gold francs, American gold pieces, gold and silver coins, additional foreign currency, silver bars, platinum bars, artwork, and more. Nazi gold was allegedly transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during World War II, as part of a strategy involving looting victims assets to fund the war. Authorsand conspiracy theorists have long guessed about what happened to the Nazi gold that disappeared.In fact, a group of Holocaust survivorseven brought a civil suit against the Vatican Bank over it, filed in November 1999. The case was dismissed in 2003, but then reinstated in part in 2005.Various parts of the case were dismissed again in 2007-2009.
The third tweet was this:
(Twitter/WikiLeaks)
It asked When Is #Vault7? The photo in the tweet was from 2010, takenat Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, while running a test on a Pratt and Whitney F119-PW-100 jet engine. The jet inspections look for any objects that could damage blades inside the engines.The article that the picture is from talks about soundproof hush houses that are used for jet engine testing. These are sometimes called vaults. The type of engine fed more theories that Vault 7 was about 9/11, because F119 is 911 backwards.
Heres the fourth tweet:
The photosare part of a series of spy posterscreated by the U.S. government. You can see all of the posters in the series at the Center for Development of Security Excellences website. Beneath Snowdens photo the poster reads: Spilled the Beans and Ran. Beneath Assanges it reads: The Hack Behind WikiLeaks. Beneath Mannings it reads: Leaked the Largest Cache of Classifieds.
Heres the fifth tweet:
In Why is #Vault7?, areverse image search reveals this photo to be from an article posted by Whiteman Air Force Base. The caption of the photo reads: Staff Sgt. Adam Boyd, 509th Civil Engineer Squadron structural supervisor, welds a box blade for a snow plow, Feb. 27. Structures Airmen perform jobs such as this one to save the Air Force from having to possibly spend money on parts made by civilian companies. This photo fed more theories that these tweets are about 9/11.
The sixth tweet read: How did #Vault7 Make Its Way to Wikileaks? Here it is:
This photo can be found in several locations, including Open Society Foundations Images from the Secret Stasi Archives here. The caption reads: Whenmailboxes were beingobserved by Stasi agents,every person posting a letter was photographed. Some films found in theStasiarchives also show persons dressed in civilian clothing emptying the mailbox after the conclusion of the surveillance action. Its part of a series of photos of people at mailboxes. Stasi is The Ministry for State Security, which was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany.) Wikipedia cites several sources as saying Stasi was often referred to as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have existed.
George Soros is the founder and chairman of Open Society Foundations, the source of this photo.
There are so many theories about Vault 7, its hard to keep track. Here are just a few.
One of the top theories was that this was about a seventh vault of FBI emails, since the FBI had released six sets of Clinton emails at the time that the tweets were published. But this seems less likely now, since the FBI just released Part 7 of its Clinton vault here. Others believed that it was related to Clintons missing 33,000 emails. However,the Vault 7 file is just about half a gig in size, so it likely doesnt contain Clintons missing 33,000 emails. (Although, as some have pointed out, it could just be part one of a series of leaks.)
Because of the latest photo, some believe this is about the CIA.
Others theorize this is somehow related to a longstanding conspiracy theory about pizzagate, which involves the idea that high-ranking politicians are involved in a pedophile ring. So far no conclusive evidence has been found to support this theory.
Still others believe its related to September 11, 2001, because several pictures can be interpreted as hinting at that.In the third tweet, the engine was an F119. Theoristsalso reference Building 7, which has been the source of many 9/11 conspiracy theories, including a theorythat there was a vault of gold beneath the building. (This conspiracy theory is oftenincorrectly ascribed to Building 7, but its actually about Building 6.) The fifth tweet features a photo of someone welding, which some believe is a reference to a conspiracy theory about an angled cut on a World Trade Center beam. The box blade hes welding, some say, might also be a reference to box cutters used on 9/11.
Others believe it has something to do with George Soros and the Democrats, since his website was the source for one of the photos.
A new theory, derived from the fifth tweet, is that WikiLeaks is going to release something related to government spending or military projects. The fifth tweet referenced a photo from Whiteman Air Force Base, which talked about government spending. In addition, the host unit for the base is the 509th Bomb Wing, which operates the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber. Whiteman is the only permanent base for the B-2. B-2 bombers were used in October 2001 in Afghanistan.
In several WikiLeaks Reddit discussions, some have said that it might be a reference to the nextmass extinction event following the sixth, whichsome scientists say we are already in the middle of. This theory is connected to the first tweet, which showed the seed vault, and proposes that #Vault7 has something to do with climate change.
CNBCreported in October that a newFBI release featuredclaims of a shadow government composed of high-ranking state officials, whom some referred to as The 7th Floor Group. So some believe that Vault 7 is somehow connected to this.
EmbassyCat, a Twitter account run by Assanges cat, only posted one thing possibly related to Vault 7.
On Twitter, @gal_deplorable provided a translation of the comic:
It talks about how the Papyrus proved that Caesar was lying and all Gaul was not conquered. The whole empire will tremble when the scandal comes out. The year 353 AD was referenced in WikiLeaks tweet about Vault 7s release, which also relates back to Gaul, so there could be a connection there. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Find out what 7z (7-Zip) is and why WikiLeaks referenced it today, including where to find the program.
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What Is WikiLeaks' Vault 7? Photos & Clues - Heavy.com
