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Why We Shouldn’t Compare Vault 7 to Snowden’s Leaks

For seven years I worked as a government contractor developing software for CIA. Although I was not briefed into as many compartments as a systems administrator like Snowden, I held a TS/SCI clearance and had the same ability to access classified information as any “govie,” just with a different color badge.

Also unlike Snowden, I didn’t knowingly compromise any classified material. That being said, what Snowden did is ultimately good for civil liberties in this country. Moreover, the courage and bravery of his actions make him a true patriot, an American hero and the mother of all whistleblowers.

This is simply not the case for the anonymous leaker(s) behind Vault 7.

The reason for this lies not in the specific methods of cyberwarfare that were leaked today, but rather in who was the target and by whom were they targeted. In other words, CIA using cyber attacks against foreign nations is very different from NSA violating American citizens’ 4th Amendment rights with wholesale data collection from wireless carriers.

Spying on Americans is simply not in CIA’s charter. We have plenty of ways to fuck with Americans: NSA, FBI, DOJ, IRS, state and local police, metermaids and a million other authorities. But unless you’re communicating with ISIS, CIA could care less about what’s happening in your living room.

What CIA does care about is gathering intelligence around the world to keep Americans safe at home and abroad. Of course there are boundaries. Sometimes those boundaries get crossed. Cyber attacks, however, do not violate the Geneva Conventions or any other rules of engagement. It’s 2017, ffs. If our country wasn’t exploiting hostile nations’ computer networks and systems, I would be disappointed in us. If Alan Turing didn’t “hack” the Enigma code during WWII, this post would probably be written in German.

There are two big arguments against this, two reasons why people are saying this release of information is good for America and her freedoms.

The first argument is that CIA did us a disservice by not sharing these exploits with the private sector, thereby leaving the doors open for bad guys.

That is true, but only in part. Hackers would need to independently find these same vulnerabilities and find ways to exploit them. It’s not like they’re gonna call CIA’s helpdesk for virus installation instructions. Furthermore, we in the open source community have a long history of whitehat hacking, the process of finding and reporting vulnerabilities back to vendors to make the digital world more safe and secure.

The second (and related) argument is that viruses and other malware could fall into the wrong hands. This is also true, just like it’s true for assault weapons, hard drugs and prostitution. They’re all illegal af, yet the bad guys still have ways to get them. This doesn’t mean we should stop cyber espionage, any more than it means we should stop making military assault rifles. Like with all our spying activities—and with spying activities in general—we should just do a better job covering them up, in much the same way we protect the real identities of (human) assets in the field.

In sharp contrast with what Snowden did, this release will have a net negative impact on our intelligence-gathering capabilities, weakening our ability to engage with potentially dangerous foreign powers.


Perhaps the worst part of this disclosure is that it further undermines CIA and erodes confidence in the intelligence community, already under fire from the so-called Trump Administration. It also comes, conveniently, just after Trump claimed he was inappropriately wiretapped.

Technically, this leak has no bearing upon wiretapping, but it’s safe to assume that Trump will take this as an opportunity to further belittle CIA and the intelligence claims about Russian interference in the election.

We will probably never know, but I strongly suspect a Russian source provided some if not all of these leaked materials. Let’s not forget: even though Snowden lives in exile in Russia, he’s as American as apple pie.

Software Development

Fedora Core 5 Support for Intel Pro Wireless (Centrino)

I bought a new Gateway MP6954 Laptop yesterday and decided to give Linux another go. This time I told myself: I’m not even going to attempt to run any Windows applications using Crossover Office or anything else. I’m just going to go with what works best: httpd, Tomcat, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Oracle, MySQL, etc.

I installed Fedora Core 5 again (kernel build 2.6.15-1.2054_FC5smp) from the same CDs I used last time and it installed and came up cleanly, but with no wireless support. There is very little documentation about running Linux on my particular laptop model, but the wireless hardware (Intel Centrino/Pro Wireless ipw3945) is fairly commonplace and, according to the many sources I referenced, it’s “well supported” by Linux. Intel even offers a driver for it, but it’s a source-only distribution.

According to the install guide for the driver, I first needed to download and compile the IEEE 80211 subsystem. I later found out that in most cases, doing so is a bad idea. Compiling the subsystem (version 1.1.14) and then the driver (version 1.1.0) led to runtime incompatibilities — “Invalid Module Format” was the exact error. However, against the 80211 module included with the 2.6.15 kernel source, the driver wouldn’t even compile. So I was in a bind.

I needed to find an IEEE 80211 subsystem that was compatible with the 1.1.0 version of the driver. The answer was actually more simple than I thought. All I needed to do was upgrade to the latest FC5 kernel 2.6.17, install the latest kernel sources (yum install kernel-devel) and then build the driver from there. These are the instructions I followed.

And just like that, I had wireless support for my new laptop under FC5. Now only if I could get the sound card working . . . .