The CIA Once Ran A Star Wars Fan Site As Part Of A Global Intelligence Effort

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The CIA Once Ran A Star Wars Fan Site As Part Of A Global Intelligence Effort

According to a new investigation, a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

included gaming outlets and a Star Wars fan site in order to communicate with potential sources throughout the world. Evidence suggests that this effort was also quite messy and potentially destructive for the agency’s efforts, contributing to several CIA sources being exposed.

A security researcher named Ciro Santilli recently published an extensive report on his work to discover and catalogue this network, providing immense detail into how this operation occurred. In essence, the CIA appears to have operated sites like starwarsweb.net (check out

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

) as shells that hid tools designed to enable covert communication.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Researchers like Santilli have been able to explore and characterize this network of sites due to a series of technical missteps by the CIA. For instance,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, many of the websites had sequential IP addresses, and related sites were easily revealed through basic DNS lookup services. In addition to starwarsweb.net, the CIA also appears to have created multiple gaming-focused websites. Among these are

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(all links to Wayback Machine snapshots).

The CIA’s website network was revealed in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to be at the center of a disastrous intelligence failure that resulted in a number of informants and sources being compromised. The Reuters story focused in particular on how Iran’s regime was able to identify informants by uncovering the CIA’s communications channels hidden in Iranian-focused websites. The information provided in this report–including names and screenshots of wesbites–gave Santilli the traces he needed to dig into the larger network.

The intelligence operation was extensive, targeting many different countries throughout the world, and the processes to research the operation after the fact have been even more complex. If you’re interested in learning more about the investigation, I highly recommend checking out 404’s article, which includes more detail from Santilli himself.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#CIA #Ran #Star #Wars #Fan #Site #Part #Global #Intelligence #Effort

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up