Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- March 7, 2017

Amy Davidson. New Yorker: Five Questions About The Latest Wikileaks Release


Tuesday morning, WikiLeaks released eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-one files that it said were “from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence,” in Langley, Virginia. The group called the collection “Year Zero,” the first installment of a larger project, Vault 7, which reveals the “hacking capacity” of the C.I.A.—and which is, in turn, part of a larger archive that, it claimed, had “been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.” In other words, WikiLeaks has the files because the C.I.A. had “lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation.” (WikiLeaks seems to have redacted some of the sensitive code.) The C.I.A. has had no comment, but multiple news organizations have reported that, at first glance, according to their intelligence sources, the material looks as if it did come from the agency. (After the release, Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a cache of documents in 2013, tweeted, “Still working through the publication, but what ‪@Wikileaks has here is genuinely a big deal. Looks authentic.”) The dates on some of the files are as recent as 2016. The size and the currency of the apparent breach raises a number of questions. Here are five to start with.

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- March 7, 2017

Did WikiLeaks just unmask CIA cyberoperations? -- Jack Detsch, CSM

Snowden Calls Trove of Alleged CIA Hacking Tools Published by Wikileaks a 'Big Deal' -- Nika Knight, Common Dreams

WikiLeaks’ Attack on U.S. Intelligence -- Fred Kaplan, Slate

The U.S. and North Korea Are Playing Ballistic Missile Cat and Mouse -- Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics

Why Trump should strike a deal with North Korea -- Leon V. Sigal, CNN

China Rising -- Christopher Bodeen, AP

Why might Chinese security services be in Afghanistan? -- Dirk van der Kley, East Asia Review

How America lost Afghanistan -- Bonnie Kristian, The Week

The Big Reform India Needs Most -- Bloomberg editorial

Famine stalks Somalia again -- Fahmida Miller, Al Jazeera

Political corruption in France is common. Four reasons that could change. -- John Lloyd, Reuters

French Election Beset by Criminal Investigations and Fake News -- Joshua Keating, Slate

Mark Levin: Why Wiretap Trump Aides? Why Were FBI, CIA, NSA, Justice, Treasury Involved? -- Ian Schwartz, RCP

Jake Tapper: Donald Trump's World "Untethered To Facts" -- Ian Schwartz, RCP

Eight years of a fawning press have made the Left reckless. -- Victor Davis Hanson, NRO

The Obama Admin Declared War On Trump. Trump Just Responded With His Own Declaration -- P. H. Guthrie, The Federalist