Marshall - TPM - "The Fuse is Burning". very interesting.

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-fuse-is-burning

By JOSH MARSHALL Published MARCH 9, 2017, 2:37 PM EDT

Let's walk through this chain of events today that mixes together Julian Assange, President Trump, Nigel Farage and Sean Spicer.

1. Yesterday, Wikileaks released a trove of documents which purport to document numerous hacking tools used by the CIA. The authenticity of these documents hasn't been formally confirmed. But all signs suggest they are real. Knowledgable observers say it is a huge setback for the CIA.

2. Around noon today, someone tipped off Buzzfeed (tip is my surmise but how else would they know to be there?) that Nigel Farage was meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London where Assange been holed up since 2012 to avoid questioning and possible arrest on a sexual assault accusation in Sweden. Farage is a close ally and advisor to President Trump. He has been regularly visiting Washington and New York since Trump's election and meets with Trump regularly. We don't know what the two men were discussing. But Farage's whole world right now is Trump, Trump and breaking apart the EU.

3. Some time after noon in London, Farage emerged from the Embassy. Buzzfeed photographed him and asked what he was doing there. Farage refused to say. “I never discuss where I go or who I see.”

4. A short time later, a source with the UK Independence Party, the party Farage until recently led, confirmed to The Independent that Farage was meeting with Assange and had met with him for about 40 minutes.

5. This afternoon UK time, Assange holds a press conference discussing his new batch of CIA documents and promising more revelations.

6. During Sean Spicer's daily press briefing, an AP reporter asks Spicer about the Farage/Assange meeting and whether he carrying a message from President Trump. Spicer basically ducked the question. But when asked specifically whether Farage was "delivering a message" from Trump, Spicer replied: "I have no idea."

[frazzled]

1. If it looks like a duck ...

I'm not drawn to conspiracies, but this series of events tests my credibility meter in some big ways.

[Louis1895]

2. Farage as a courier??

Any possibility Trump's people are the actual source of the so-called hacking? That is, Trump becomes President, puts an agent into the CIA that steals the supposedly hacked information, and Farage delivers it to Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy?

Everyone Should Dump Email And Use Couriers Instead: Trump


Key point in this video at about 0:45.

[Warpy]

3. Farage might also be there

trying to pump Assange for information on who supplied the CIA/hacking leaks information to Wikleaks. 45 doesn't much care for the CIA, but I think he'd find some of the tools, especially the Big Brotheresque through the television spy system, useful.

[Jeroen]

4. Trump is not a complete idiot

He would use an anonymous, unknown courier to exchange sensitive information.
Or, perhaps, a private investigator

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. ahh..but he is very bigly on trust and loyalty

which is why an unknown would not make him feel safe.
Whereas Farage is a known, and they have been hanging around together for some time now.

[Amaryllis]

8. Anonymous like in all those photos of him meeting with people he says he never met with and doesn't

know?

[wiggs]

5. one reason they are in a rush to destroy the environment and cripple ACA. Fuse is lit. nt

[NewJeffCT]

7. From what I understand

if you actually go into the documents, the CIA isn't taking over your TV or your phone and everything else. For them to "hack" into your TV, they would physically need to get to your TV and install something - it's not like some dude hits some buttons on his computer in an office at CIA headquarters and then remotely gains access to your big new Samsung curved 4K TV and watches dad humping the babysitter or mom getting frisky with the pool boy... so, the revelation is more that the CIA isn't all that great.

[erronis]

11. There's enough porn on overt channels - why do you think the CIA/NSA wants to watch fleshpots?

I think there's a distinction between "intelligence" and "operations". All this tap-tap-tapping is to gain knowledge about what the citizens (and others) are up to, what they're talking about and to whom, where they're going in their cars or on planes. This is "intelligence". This is what is Hoovered (not the vacuum, the FBI capo) and fed into those gaping databanks. They know more about your eating habits, regularity, unsanitary habits, etc. than your doctor and far more than your spouse (in)significant other. This collection is cheap.

"Operations" is to be able to do something with this intelligence. Guide a laser-focused missile from a drone into your bathroom while you're sitting on your little throne. This used to be done by knives in the dark, poison darts. These methods were dangerous for detection and not universally effective. Drones are nice but still fallible. Exploding T.V.s and cars swerving off the California Coastal Hiway are probably a figment of some wet dreams but desirable. Operations is more expensive. But we're working on it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. I'm far from expert, but hacking is not what you think. Take countermeasures if you wish.

Yes, this actually does sound like hacking phones and TVs: installing something. Software hacking via network-enabled devices or sneaker-net (carried in memory cards / USB sticks) does NOT require a physical presence.

Phones apps and net-connected TVs are constantly being updated from the source. An intell agency (domestic or foreign) can push out an "update" to apps or operating system (OS) that looks like it comes from the source, but is disguised with false certificates. Once it is installed it can subvert the OS, turn on devices without notice, and send data back to a distant location.

It's more like some "dude hits some buttons", causes the malware to be installed, and turns on the microphone and GPS tracking for a phone in a pocket of somebody "of interest". All phone calls would be recorded and uploaded to the agency. Any photos/video snapped with the phone would be uploaded. The cameras can be turned on so that the phone can record video of the user and their surroundings: rooms, locations, associates peering over shoulders, etc.

You can put a bit of black electrical tape over the front and back cameras with a tab folded over to make it easy to move aside when you do want to use them. Power the phone off completely if you are engaged in some highly confidential (for whatever reason) travel or activity. Monitor your data usage and bills.

However, when all is said and done, it is highly probable that NO DU member has or will be hacked in this way.

[Squinch]

9. Kick.

[enid602]

10. langley

Does this have something to do with the gang of 8 meeting with Comey in the Congressional secure room today, and then all of them went to Lagley to view docs too sensitive to be transported?

[rivegauche]

12. Could this administration stink any more?

Could the stench or corruption and treason be any more alarming? WTF are they waiting for to start impeachment proceedings?? I swear, every single day a new outrage (and I am not abusing that word) happens from these incompetent corrupt pigs, and NOTHING happens!