The mass spying of American people is a fact no one can argue with. There is simply no room left for debate anymore - we all know it's happening. But, we may not know exactly how. All we know is that our liberties are slowly, but surely, being taken away and that corporations like Facebook and Google play significant roles in this game. A forgotten Wikileaks leak might shed some light on the subject.
The CherryBlossom System
So what is the CIA's CherryBlossom system? According to WikiLeaks "CherryBlossom provides a means of monitoring the Internet activity of and performing software exploits on Targets of interest.
In particular, CherryBlossom is focused on compromising wireless networking devices, such as wireless routers and access points (APs), to achieve these goals."
Furthermore, the document goes on to state that Linksys and-and DLink routers are particularly vulnerable and easily hacked. CherryBlossom is, essentially, a firmware that installs itself on the router and makes it send out messages to a CIA-controlled server, called the CherryTree.
What does this mean exactly? This enables the experts at CIA to analyze the web traffic efficiently, using an interface codenamed CherryWeb. They can also target a specific device and gather information including email addresses, usernames, and even device IDs.
In layman's terms: they can access absolutely everything with absolute ease. And that's not even the worst thing about The CherryBlossom System.
This has been going on for 10 years
This has, in fact, been going on for 10 full years. Obviously, without the peoples' consent. And that is the most disturbing fact of them all. According to WikiLeaks, these documents date back all the way to 2007, which means your router could have been hacked countless times, by now.
You may have been actively monitored for a decade.
If you think you have nothing to hide, think again and keep Edward Snowden's words in mind: "Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like arguing that you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
Everything that you've ever searched for, every website that you've ever visited, every conversation you have had could have been recorded and stored somewhere.
And, who knows, it may be used against you at some point. If nothing, all of this information can be used to build a detailed profile of your personality and monitor, even engineer, the way you think.
