#166: Hacking the CIA

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this month, Wikileaks published 9,000 pages of hacked CIA files. The haul, dubbed “Vault 7,” catalogues some of the spy agency’s hacking techniques, including exploits of Android and iOS phones, and even Samsung Smart TVs. When the feds discover vulnerabilities in the products we use, should they tell the companies so they can patch things up? Or does the government sometimes need to keep these things secret for national security purposes? What are the trade-offs? Evan is joined by Heather West, Senior Policy Manager for the Americas at Mozilla and Mieke Eoyang, Vice President of the National Security Program at Third Way. They discuss what Vault 7 means for encryption, the Apple v. FBI case, and the government’s “Vulnerabilities Equities Process” (VEP). For more, see Mozilla’s primer on VEP and its statement on Vault 7.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Schwargerber on today's show, breaking news from a few weeks ago.
0:11.3	As is tradition on this podcast, we're getting to things right as they happen a few weeks after.
0:16.1	But WikiLeaks released 9,000 pages of CIA files, calling it Vault 7.
0:21.8	This hack was all over the news.
0:23.3	It catalogs the agency's hacking techniques, including exploits of Android and iOS phones and
0:28.8	Samsung's smart TVs.
0:30.6	Is your TV listening to you?
0:31.9	That's what we're going to talk about today with two of my favorite people in tech policy.
0:35.5	Heather West, senior policy manager for the Americas
0:37.5	at Mozilla.
0:38.5	Heather, thanks for joining.
0:39.5	Of course, thank you.
0:40.2	And friend of the show, Mika Oyang, vice president for the national security program
0:44.5	at Third Way, a centrist think tank here in D.C.
0:47.1	Mika, thanks for joining.
0:48.1	Thanks for having me.
0:49.0	So I'll give you guys a chance to just give me your gut reaction. When this hack happened, were you at all surprised that the CIA had let hacking tools get out into the public?
1:00.7	No, I think Post-Snowden, the idea that there's going to be another major revelation of what the intelligence community is up to, we should just put it on a schedule.
1:07.6	About every six months, I think.
1:10.2	No, but what's interesting is, like, how did it
1:12.3	get to WikiLeaks? I think that it existed, that it got out, unfortunate, but yeah, at this
1:19.6	point, knowing WikiLeaks background, like, how did it get there? Who put it out? Who was
	...

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