Ask HN: Were the latest Wikileaks releases really new information? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Were the latest Wikileaks releases really new information?

4 pointsmarmot7773 comments

I keep seeing articles claiming that "cyber security" experts are alarmed (implying surprised) by the latest WL release, and articles claiming that the WL release has re-ignited tensions between Washington and Silicon Valley.

I'm not an expert but as someone with a little bit of familiarity with InfoSec, the latest WL release didn't contain anything surprising. What I've seen so far seems to be information that's already known to be true or widely assumed to be true (e.g., the capability to compromise endpoints). My understanding is efen the source code has been out there for a couple of years.

If I'm right then why would this substantially increase tension between Washington and Silicon Valley beyond a couple news cycles?

It is very possible that my knowledge of InfoSec is so weak that I don't even know when to be surprised...

Yeah, it seems many security researchers are not impressed:

Bruce Schneier: "One, there is absolutely nothing illegal in the contents of any of this stuff. It's exactly what you'd expect the CIA to be doing in cyberspace."

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/more_on_the_c...

Robert Graham: "Most of this dump is child's play, simply malware/trojans cobbled together from bits found on the Internet."

http://blog.erratasec.com/2017/03/some-comments-on-wikileaks...

the grugq‏: "The article sadly misses the point about how lame the contents are. The only interesting story is "why" not "what.""

https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/839183932763471872

Nicholas Weaver: "The actual data dumped by Wikileaks isn't really that significant, but some entertainment. That it was dumped at all is Yuge."

https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/839179237433176065

Journalists need to write something and tend to sensationalise everything.

The Intercept has a sane take on the level of "surprisingness": https://theintercept.com/2017/03/07/cia-has-an-impressive-li...

Most of it is just confirmation of things people have known is possible, but never caught in the wild.

Here's the latest from Wikileaks

Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

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