Daily Archives: June 18, 2018

Former CIA Engineer Charged with Giving Hacking Tools to WikiLeaks

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Ex-CIA engineer charged with massive leak to WikiLeaks

A former CIA computer engineer has been indicted on charges he masterminded what appears to be the largest leak of classified information in the spy agency’s history.

Joshua Schulte, 29, was charged in a new grand jury indictment with providing WikiLeaks with a massive trove of U.S. government hacking tools that the online publisher posted in March 2017, the Justice Department announced on Monday.

Schulte was previously facing child pornography charges in federal court in New York, but the indictment broadens the case to accuse him of illegally gathering classified information, damaging CIA computers, lying to investigators and numerous other offenses.

In January, attorneys involved in the child porn case revealed in court that Schulte was the target of a major investigation into WikiLeaks’ release of a CIA collection known as “Vault 7.”

The Justice Department’snews release announcing Schulte’s indictment does not mention WikiLeaks by name, signaling that it has not been charged in the case. There was no mention of any other individuals being charged.

Attorneys for Schulte did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The new charges make Schulte the fourth individual to face charges related to classified leaks since President Donald Trump took office and vowed a crackdown on leaks.

Last June, a National Security Agency contractor, Reality Winner, was arrested on charges of leaking to the online publication The Intercept a top secret report on the techniques that Russian government agents allegedly used to target computers of state election officials. She has pleaded not guilty and has been held without bail. Her trial is set for October.

In March, an FBI agent based in Minneapolis, Terry Albury, was charged with a leak to The Intercept of the FBI’s procedures for handling informants. He was also accused of retaining classified information at his home. He pleaded guilty to both charges and is free awaiting sentencing.

Earlier this month, the longtime head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, was indicted on three felony counts of lying during the course of an FBI investigation into unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He was not charged with any leaks, but the indictment contends that he provided confidential committee information to at least one reporter. Wolfe pleaded not guilty to the charges last week. No trial date has been set.

Joshua Schulte named as suspect in 'Vault 7' leak of CIA ... photo

Criminal complaint found here.

*** More background detail:

Joshua Adam Schulte, the former CIA worker suspected of passing the agency’s hacking secrets to WikiLeaks, previously posted the source code for an internal CIA tool to his account on the public code-sharing site GitHub, The Daily Beast has learned.

That potential red flag was apparently missed by the spy agency just months after Edward Snowden walked out of the National Security Agency with a thumb drive of secrets in 2013. A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment.

Schulte, 29, worked at the CIA from 2010 to 2016. He was raided by the FBI on March 23, 2017, roughly two weeks after Julian Assange began releasing 8,000 CIA files under the rubric “Vault 7.” The files had been copied from an internal agency wiki sometime in 2016, and contained documentation and some source code for the hacking tools used by the CIA’s intrusion teams when conducting foreign surveillance.

When FBI agents examined Schulte’s hard drive, they found only a single classified document, but allegedly turned up 10,000 images of child pornography. Today Schulte is being held in a federal holding facility in Manhattan on one count each of possessing, receiving, and transporting child porn. He has not been charged with the Vault 7 leak, but, in January the FBI was still investigating him as the suspect.

Until now it’s been unclear how the FBI became suspicious of Schulte in the first place. In a statement to The Washington Post, which broke the story of the arrest, Schulte said the bureau went after him because he’d reported managerial incompetence to the CIA’s inspector general and then left the agency in 2016. “Due to these unfortunate coincidences, the FBI ultimately made the snap judgment that I was guilty of the leaks and targeted me.”

Prosecutor Matthew Larouch said at a January court appearance that “the government immediately had enough evidence to establish that [Schulte] was a target of that investigation,” but didn’t elaborate on the evidence.

Schulte has hosted 11 of his own coding projects on GitHub over the years. In the fall of 2013, he uploaded a robust software development tool he’d developed called OSB Project Wizard, described this way: “Create all types of projects following OSB build guidelines.” The OSB abbreviation went unexplained.

Here Comes a 6th Branch of the Military, Space Force

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It has been a concept that has been floated for several months. The Pentagon and the Air Force are actually asking for this. The United States is vulnerable in this frontier which is but one reason for Space X. Consider what is in space: navigation, guided missiles, warning systems and satellites for drones, naval ships, communications and more.

Key Speakers At The 32nd Space Symposium | Getty Images

Russia and China are increasing their space operations and General John Hyten of U.S. Strategic Command has warned of the vulnerabilities for quite some time. China and Russia both have laser weapons designed to damage our systems. Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin as well as Raytheon on poised to be recipients of Pentagon dollars and the future programs.

Steve Isakowitz, CEO of The Aerospace Corporation says ‘we are approaching a point where Star Wars is not just a movie.’

Seems, Ronald Reagan had great vision. And in 2001, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also expressed significant concerns on space systems being attacked by an adversarial country. Read more here.

U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command

As part of the National Defense Strategy, the Air Force asked for an 8% increase in space funding. Watch out too, as Boeing and Apple are examining the option of building a parallel internet in space.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is directing the Department of Defense to create a new “space force” to become the sixth branch of the U.S. military.

“My administration is reclaiming America’s heritage as the world’s greatest spacefaring nation,” Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council, with Vice President Mike Pence standing by him. “The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers, but our destiny beyond the Earth is not only a matter of national identity but a matter of national security, so important for our military.”

“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space; we must have American dominance in space, so important,” Trump said. “Very importantly, I am hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the Armed Forces.”

Trump said the Air Force and future Space Force would be “separate, but equal.”

Trump ordered Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to begin implementing the directive.

Trump has previously spoken about creating a space force, but this is the first concrete move, at least publicly, in that direction. The Air Force is currently responsible for space warfare, with the Air Force Space Command in charge of operating and protecting military satellites.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is responsible for the country’s civilian space program. Budget cuts in recent have resulted in fewer Americans going into space, leading some observers to call for the U.S. to explore space in a way not done since before the space shuttle came into existence.

How About the Chinese Interfering with Voting in America?

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The super PAC Women Vote got a $5.4 million contribution in the form of stock in Chinese tech company Baidu. (notice the date too, seems like foreign interference to me)

In 2016, Women Vote raised almost $38 million and spent just over that. In 2018, they are in the $5 million range, so they need some help right? The political action committee, Women Vote was launched by Emily’s List. Ellen Malcolm is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Emily’s List and her operation(s) are comprised of top leaders, entrepreneurs and activists committed to pro-choice democratic women according to the website. Another Board member is Lisa Jackson. You remember her right? She was head of the EPA during the Obama administration that too used an alias and non-government emails to conduct official government business. Another Board member is Laura Ricketts. She is the owner of the Chicago Cubs and is a member of the Democratic National Committee’s Executive Committee and was the co-chair of the DNC Finance Committee’s LGBT Leadership Council. Add in Maria Teresa Kumar. She is the founding President and CEO of VOTO Latino. She also serves on the Board of Planned Parenthood, the Latino Leaders Network.

Heck there are many progressive liberals on the Board of Emily’s List. Travel over to the site and check it out.

If you have had some weird messages as a Skype user from Baidu…here is the deal. It is a Chinese multinational technology company. Baidu is a top developer of Artificial Intelligence and highly aligned with China president Xi Jinping. What is interesting is Baidu is under a holding company based in the Cayman Islands. The company is also traded on NASDAQ.

According to Wikipedia, there is some shady history with Baidu.

Domain name redirection attack

On January 12, 2010, Baidu.com’s DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the Iranian Cyber Army, thought to be behind the attack on Twitter during the 2009 Iranian election protests, making the proper site unusable for four hours.[23] Internet users were met with a page saying “This site has been attacked by Iranian Cyber Army“.[24] Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages.[25] Baidu later launched legal action against Register.com for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com’s technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu’s domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to accomplish the domain hijacking.[26][27]

Baidu workers arrested

On August 6, 2012, the BBC reported that three employees of Baidu were arrested on suspicion that they accepted bribes. The bribes were allegedly paid for deleting posts from the forum service. Four people were fired in connection with these arrests.[28]

91 Wireless acquisition

On July 16, 2013, Baidu announced its intention to purchase 91 Wireless from NetDragon. 91 Wireless is best known for its app store, but it has been reported that the app store faces piracy and other legal issues.[29] On August 14, 2013, Baidu announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Baidu (Hong Kong) Limited has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire 91 Wireless Web-soft Limited from NetDragon Web-soft Inc.[30] for 1.85 billion dollars in what was reported to be the biggest deal ever in China’s IT sector.[31]

There is more like the death of a student from cancer while working at headquarters.

Pretty weird that a Chinese tech company is getting involved with women voting and a political action committee right?