Rolling Stone has a long investigative story (non-paywalled version here) about a CIA agent who spent years posing as an Islamic radical. Unrelated, but also in the “real life spies” file: a fake Sudanese diving resort run by Mossad. Powered by WPeMatico
Category: cia
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This is a fascinating story. Last spring, a friend of a friend visited my office and invited me to Langley to speak to Invisible Ink, the CIA’s creative writing group. I asked Vivian (not her real name) what she wanted me to talk about. She said that the topic of the talk was entirely up … Read More “Speaking to the CIA’s Creative Writing Group” »
Back in 2018, we learned that covert system of websites that the CIA used for communications was compromised by—at least—China and Iran, and that the blunder caused a bunch of arrests, imprisonments, and executions. We’re now learning that the CIA is still “using an irresponsibly secured system for asset communication.” Citizen Lab did the research: … Read More “Security Vulnerabilities in Covert CIA Websites” »
Long article about Joshua Schulte, the accused leaker of the WikiLeaks Vault 7 and Vault 8 CIA data. Well worth reading. Powered by WPeMatico
The Washington Post is reporting on an internal CIA report about its “Vault 7” security breach: The breach — allegedly committed by a CIA employee — was discovered a year after it happened, when the information was published by WikiLeaks, in March 2017. The anti-secrecy group dubbed the release “Vault 7,” and U.S. officials have … Read More “Theft of CIA’s “Vault Seven” Hacking Tools Due to Its Own Lousy Security” »
Joshua Schulte, the CIA employee standing trial for leaking the Wikileaks Vault 7 CIA hacking tools, maintains his innocence. And during the trial, a lot of shoddy security and sysadmin practices are coming out: All this raises a question, though: just how bad is the CIA’s security that it wasn’t able to keep Schulte out, … Read More “CIA Dirty Laundry Aired” »
One follow-on to the story of Crypto AG being owned by the CIA: this interview with a Washington Post reporter. The whole thing is worth reading or listening to, but I was struck by these two quotes at the end: …in South America, for instance, many of the governments that were using Crypto machines were … Read More “More on Crypto AG” »
The Swiss cryptography firm Crypto AG sold equipment to governments and militaries around the world for decades after World War II. They were owned by the CIA: But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These … Read More “Crypto AG Was Owned by the CIA” »
Jim Sanborn, who designed the Kryptos sculpture in a CIA courtyard, has released another clue to the still-unsolved part 4. I think he’s getting tired of waiting. Did we mention Mr. Sanborn is 74? Holding on to one of the world’s most enticing secrets can be stressful. Some would-be codebreakers have appeared at his home. … Read More “A New Clue for the Kryptos Sculpture” »
The former CIA Chief of Disguise has a fascinating video about her work. Powered by WPeMatico