Wikileaks

Apple, Microsoft, and others in the tech industry have responded to Wikileaks' claims of CIA hacking abilities, pushing back on fears of federal agents turning smartphones and TVs into spies. The leak-focussed group, which has prompted controversy in recent months for the role it played in the US presidential election, released a cache of data earlier this week that it claimed proved the US Central Intelligence Agency could routinely eavesdrop through many of the connected devices people have in their homes or pockets. Dubbed "Vault7", the nearly 9,000-strong document drop has prompted chaos among many, uncertain whether their devices are in fact working against them.

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Today Wikileaks released a cache of data codenamed ‘Vault7,’ claiming this is the single largest drop of confidential CIA documents ever. There are a total of 8,761 documents and files within this trove, and they detail a hidden world within the agency, one that operates with a fleet of hackers who work to help turn everyday gadgets like smartphones and smart TVs into covert surveillance devices.

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WikiLeaks, a website that once stood for the disclosure of private and secretive government documents but has since gone a bit crazy, has come up with the bizarre idea of creating an "online database" of verified Twitter users and their financial, occupational, and even personal information. The idea was proposed on Twitter, of course, by the WikiLeaks Task Force, an official account of the organization, and was subsequently met with concern.

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WikiLeaks has released a huge second batch of Sony documents, disclosing 276,394 more files from the beleaguered firm. The cache, added to WikiLeaks' controversial online search facility, cuts a vast swathe across Sony's communications, with everything from travel calendars, through contact detail lists, event planning, and expense reports spanning multiple years and employees.

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Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom speaks up about the 2016 Presidential Elections in the United States, suggesting that Julian Assange will call out Hillary Clinton with some "potential roadblocks." In an interview about a wide range of internet-related topics, Dotcom spoke with Bloomberg's Emily Chang this week on "Studio 1.0." This interview called upon Dotcom's earlier suggestion that he would be "Hillary's worst nightmare in 2016," while Dotcom suggested further that he'd "have to say it's probably more Julian," but that he was "aware of some of the things" that will inhibit Clinton's road to the White House.

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The NSA may be used to lurking in the shadows and quietly reading our emails, but the ACLU and Wikimedia Foundation aren't willing to let them stay that way, filing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the government agency's actions. The suit, filed today in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, takes issue with NSA "upstream" surveillance which, it's argued, needlessly and intrusively gathers huge quantities of text-based messages sent and received by innocent people. That, the ACLU insists, is an infringement of both First and Fourth Amendment rights, among other things.

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Oliver Stone is filming the controversial biopic Snowden, based on the life of Edward Snowden, the American NSA whistleblower. Stone is a great director for two types of films, big-budget blockbusters or Oscar fodder. There is no report on the budget yet, but the Snowden plot will probably be packed with more suspense than action. This put the movie into the latter category. Technologically driven movies are resonating with the audiences of today. David Fincher's The Social Network proved that a technologial biopic could stand on its own during Oscar season.

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WikiLeaks has dropped another bombshell, this time in the form of software, for those already weary of governments all over the world spying on people, whether they be their citizens for not. It is giving out malware developed by German company FinFisher in the hopes that countermeasures can be developed to give its intended targets, journalists, activists, and political dissidents, a fighting chance.

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There was a time when Barak Obama was defending NSA’s spying actions to the extent that he was supporting the team as patriots that were assigned “an extraordinarily difficult job.” In January this year, he shifted his tone to promise reforms that will assure individual privacy and by February, the White House was looking into four possible options for overhauling the NSA's phone-surveillance activities. At the recent SXSW talk by WikiLeaks head Julian Assange, we get to know of a different new theory about Obama’s plans.

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Internet anonymity service Tor is working on a messaging client to offer Skype, Google Hangouts, and other IM users concerned about who might be reading their conversations a little piece of mind. Dubbed the Tor Instant Messaging Bundle, or TIMB, the app is expected to build on top of the existing InstantBird messenger, which will eventually be bundled in locked-down, encrypted form with the general Tor Launcher later this year.

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Edward Snowden has released some documents that were classified that outline the surveillance the US and British governments had in place on the website WikiLeaks. The documents outline the surveillance that the NSA and the British NSA counterpart performed on WikiLeaks and the visitors to the site.

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Just this morning, United States President Barack Obama spoke up at a bit of NSA news, letting it be known what his real NSA reform plan would be. As is often the case, some of the responses to the talk have appeared more telling than the talk itself. We're having a peek at what the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Julian Assange (of WikiLeaks), and the White House have done to follow up this set of announcements.

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