“‘Shadow Brokers’ Leak Raises Alarming Question: Was the N.S.A. Hacked?,” David E. Sanger reporting in the New York Times: “The release on websites this week of what appears to be top-secret computer code that the National Security Agency has used to break into the networks of foreign governments and other espionage targets has caused deep concern inside American intelligence agencies, raising the question of whether America’s own elite operatives have been hacked and their methods revealed.”

— “Most outside experts who examined the posts, by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, said they contained what appeared to be genuine samples of the code - though somewhat outdated - used in the production of the N.S.A.‘s custom-built malware.”

— “This release included two encrypted files, and the password to one was provided as proof while the other remains encrypted. ... the proof itself appears to be very real. The proof file is 134 MB of data compressed, expanding out to a 301 MB archive. This archive appears to contain a large fraction of the NSA’s implant framework for firewalls, including what appears to be several versions of different implants, server side utility scripts, and eight apparent exploits for a variety of targets. ... Because of the sheer volume and quality, it is overwhelmingly likely that this data is authentic.” by Nicholas Weaver, senior staff researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley http://bit.ly/2bj6dBA

– “I agree with him. This just isn’t something that can be faked in this way. ... This is definitely not Snowden stuff. This isn’t the sort of data he took, and the release mechanism is not one that any of the reporters with access to the material would use. This is someone else, probably an outsider…probably a government.” by Bruce Schneier http://bit.ly/2bd9lBX

— “NSA malware staging servers getting hacked by a rival is not new. A rival publicly demonstrating they have done so is. Why did they do it? No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack. Circumstantial evidence and conventional wisdom indicates Russian responsibility.” by Edward Snowden http://bit.ly/2bHMfFK