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Operations Support Branch
The Operations Support Branch (O.S.B.) is a unit of the cyber-intelligence division of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). It is located on the ninth floor of a secret facility in the suburbs of northern Virginia, west of Washington, D.C. Patrick Radden Keefe described the O.S.B. as the CIA's "secret hacker unit, in which a cadre of élite engineers create cyberweapons" in a June 2022 article for ''The New Yorker''. The O.S.B. specialises in physical access operations in 'physical access' is gained to electronic devices owned by high value individual targets such as foreign government officials and terrorists. The O.S.B. is able to quickly develop tools that can be utilised in cyberintelligence missions at short notice. The O.S.B. was filled with workspace pranks, like stealing coworkers things, name calling, shoving matches, rubber band and Nerf gun wars. Asked if she was aware of this, the former head of C.I.A.'s Center for Cyber Intelligence Bonnie Stith said she was not. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of Human intelligence (intelligence gathering), human intelligence (HUMINT) and performing covert actions. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President of the United States, President and Cabinet of the United States. President Harry S. Truman had created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington, D
Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States Washington may also refer to: Places England * Washington, Tyne and Wear, a town in the City of Sunderland metropolitan borough ** Washington Old Hall, ancestral home of the family of George Washington * Washington, West Sussex, a village and civil parish Greenland * Cape Washington, Greenland * Washington Land Philippines * New Washington, Aklan, a municipality *Washington, a barangay in Catarman, Northern Samar *Washington, a barangay in Escalante, Negros Occidental *Washington, a barangay in San Jacinto, Masbate *Washington, a barangay in Surigao City United States * Washington, Wisconsin (other) * Fort Washington (disambigu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Langley, Virginia
Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Langley is often used as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it is home to its headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence. The land which makes up Langley today once belonged to Thomas Lee, former Crown Governor of the Colony of Virginia from 1749 to 1750. Lee's land was named Langley in honor of Langley Hall, which was part of the Lee home estate in Shropshire, England. In 1839, of land was purchased by Benjamin Mackall from the Lee family, while keeping the name. The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School. In addition to being a bedroom community for Washington, D.C. and home to the CIA's headquarters, the area is the site of the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center of the Federal Highway Administration and the Claude Moore Colonial Farm of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia, Richmond; Virginia Beach, Virginia, Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with Native American tribes in Virginia, several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English overseas posse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe (born 1976) is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of five books—''Chatter,'' ''The Snakehead,'' '' Say Nothing,'' '' Empire of Pain,'' and ''Rogues''—and has written extensively for many publications, including ''The New Yorker'', ''Slate'', and ''The New York Times Magazine''. He is a staff writer at ''The New Yorker''. Career Keefe grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, attended Milton Academy, and received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1999. He was a resident of Schapiro Hall. He won a Marshall Scholarship in 1999, through which he received an M.Phil. in international relations from Cambridge University and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics. After his Marshall Scholarship, Keefe returned to the U.S. and earned a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He has since received many fellowships, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''New York Times'' reporter, and debuted on February 21, 1925. Ros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Access
Physical access is a term in computer security that refers to the ability of people to physically gain access to a computer system. According to Gregory White, "Given physical access to an office, the knowledgeable attacker will quickly be able to find the information needed to gain access to the organization's computer systems and network." Attacks and countermeasures Attacks Physical access opens up a variety of avenues for hacking. Michael Meyers notes that "the best network software security measures can be rendered useless if you fail to physically protect your systems," since an intruder could simply walk off with a server and crack the password at his leisure. Physical access also allows hardware keyloggers to be installed. An intruder may be able to boot from a CD or other external media and then read unencrypted data on the hard drive. They may also exploit a lack of access control in the boot loader; for instance, pressing F8 while certain versions of Microsoft Windows ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nerf Blaster
A Nerf Blaster is a toy gun made by Hasbro that fires foam darts, discs, or foam balls. The term "Nerf gun" or the more common term “nerf blaster” are often used to describe the toy. Nerf blasters are manufactured in multiple forms; the first Nerf blasters emerged in the late 1980s with the release of the “Nerf Blast-a-Ball””l and ''Arrowstorm''. Today, Hasbro has produced over twenty unique lines of ''Nerf''-brand blasters, which each line centered around a particular theme or type of ammunition. Moreover, Hasbro has also produced ''Nerf'' blasters based around specific franchises, including Marvel Comics, ''Star Wars'', ''G.I. Joe'', ''Fortnite'', ''Transformers'', ''Overwatch'', ''Halo Infinite'', and ''Roblox''. Nerf blasters are available in several international marketplaces, although some blasters have their names changed or are not sold in certain countries due to laws surrounding toy safety franchises. Most ''Nerf'' brands are packaged with a set of the ammunit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Schulte
Joshua Adam Schulte (born September 25, 1988) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who was convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, the Vault 7 documents, which ''The New York Times'' called "the largest loss of classified documents in the agency's history and a huge embarrassment for C.I.A. officials." After his conviction, the Department of Justice called it "one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history." As of August 2022, Schulte is awaiting trial on charges relating to child pornography and copyright infringement. Early life and education Schulte grew up in Lubbock, Texas, with three younger brothers. His father, Roger, is a financial adviser and his mother, Deanna, is a high-school guidance counselor. He was fascinated by computers as a child, and by the time he was in high school, had begun building them. According to former classmates, Schulte was infamous for drawing swastikas around school and in the yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vault 7
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, detailing the activities and capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dating from 2013 to 2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera), and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. A CIA internal audit identified 91 malware tools out of more than 500 tools in use in 2016 being compromised by the release. The tools were developed by the Operations Support Branch of the C.I.A. The release of Vault 7 led the CIA to redefine WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” In July 2022 former CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyber Warfare
Cyberwarfare is the use of cyber attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation or economic warfare. There is significant debate among experts regarding the definition of cyberwarfare, and even if such a thing exists. One view is that the term is a misnomer, since no cyber attacks to date could be described as war. An alternative view is that it is a suitable label for cyber attacks which cause physical damage to people and objects in the real world. Many countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, and North Korea have active cyber capabilities for offensive and defensive operations. As states explore the use of cyber operations and combine capabilities, the likelihood of physical confrontation and violence playing out as a result of, or part of, a cyber operation is increased. However, mee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voldemort
Lord Voldemort ( , in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of ''Harry Potter'' novels. The character first appeared in ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', which was published in 1997, and returned either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, '' Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'', in which he is only mentioned. Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has "the power to vanquish the Dark Lord". He attempts to murder the boy, but instead kills his parents, Lily and James Potter, and leaves Harry with a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Nearly every witch or wizard dares not utter his name and refers to him instead with such monikers as "You-Know-Who", "He Who Must Not Be Named", or "the Dark Lord". Voldemort's obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the wiza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
