Was the latest WikiLeaks "bombshell" an attempt to discredit

[Mme. Defarge]

the Intelligence Community?

The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache

Zeynep Tufekci
On Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released an enormous cache of documents that it claimed detailed “C.I.A. hacking tools.” Immediately afterward, it posted two startling tweets asserting that “C.I.A. hacker malware” posed a threat to journalists and others who require secure communication by infecting iPhone and Android devices and “bypassing” encrypted message apps such as Signal and WhatsApp.

This appeared to be a bombshell. Signal is considered the gold standard for secure communication. WhatsApp has a billion users. The C.I.A., it seemed, had the capacity to conduct sweeping surveillance on what we had previously assumed were our safest and most private digital conversations.

In their haste to post articles about the release, almost all the leading news organizations took the WikiLeaks tweets at face value. Their initial accounts mentioned Signal, WhatsApp and other encrypted apps by name, and described them as “bypassed” or otherwise compromised by the C.I.A.’s cyberspying tools.

Yet on closer inspection, this turned out to be misleading. Neither Signal nor WhatsApp, for example, appears by name in any of the alleged C.I.A. files in the cache. (Using automated tools to search the whole database, as security researchers subsequently did, turned up no hits.) More important, the hacking methods described in the documents do not, in fact, include the ability to bypass such encrypted apps — at least not in the sense of “bypass” that had seemed so alarming. Indeed, if anything, the C.I.A. documents in the cache confirm the strength of encryption technologies.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/opinion/the-truth-about-the-wikileaks-cia-cache.html

[bettyellen]

1. Yeah it dovetails with this "deep state" and hackers "could be anyone" bullshit.

[dalton99a]

2. It fits Trump's narrative to a T.

[TNLib]

3. Yes

Also it coincides with Trumps wiretap accusations.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Winner winner!!!!

Notice Roger Stone is back in Russia.

[Hortensis]

9. Remember the huge Trump-Russia news domination just before?

Then Trump's off-the-leash Saturday "wiretap" tweetstorm, then Wikileaks' CIA drop. Of course this was deliberate distraction and discrediting, of Obama as well as CIA.

[Mme. Defarge]

5. Assange's comments today

definitely seem to further that narrative.

[MFM008]

6. BINGO

.......

[Skittles]

7. it's all theater for Trump's idiotic supporters

the dittomasters know they will believe ANYTHING

[roscoeroscoe]

8. What a surprise

How can anyone buy into this b.s?