Weeping Angel: The latest surveillance tool, that can turn

your smart TV into a bug TV

mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2017/09/25/weeping-angel-cia-bug-smart-tv/

By timo September 25, 2017

About Nina Welt

Earlier this year, a revelation by Wikileaks called Vault7 refueled

the privacy debate concerning intrusive media (Hacker News; The
Verge, 2017). The series released documents on CIA activity
between 2013 and 2016, showing how the intelligence agency
gained access to encrypted smartphone applications, vehicle
control systems, smart TVs and other devices in a disguised
manner (WikiLeaks, 2017). This could enable the intelligence
agency to listen and to record conversations, to take pictures, to The official logo of
temper with vehicles and to track users’ locations, completely the CIA

unnoticed.

This might appear to be yet another overemphasized privacy threat similar to all the others
before. Like when Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA for example. Everybody
seemed to be speaking about the issue. A movie was made. A man had to flee his country.
And then there was silence. This issue is bigger. While the general public had their eyes on
the debate concerning the worldwide data collection and analyzation by the NSA, the CIA
built their very own technical espionage base, the Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe
(CCIE). The CCIE is basically a hacker base in Frankfurt, Germany, covering operations in
Europe, Africa and the Middle East. CIA agents in collaboration with the British MI5
programmed a streak of invasive implants, that can infiltrate a user’s device, change settings
and turn it into a bug (WikiLeaks, 2017). One of these projects is called Weeping Angel.

From smart TV to bug TV

The Weeping Angel is a CIA project, famously named after an angel statue character from
the TV series Doctor Who that turns into a monster when not looked at. This implant can be
used on Samsung Smart TVs to set them into a Fake-Off mode when turned off by the user,
to make them believe, their TV is off. Fake-Off mode turns the targeted device into a bug,
that uses Samsung’s voice assistant as a covert microphone. The implant allows different
bitrates, to record conversations in a higher or lower quality and wires the recordings through
the WiFi of the TV to a disguised CIA web page, and then directly to CIA servers. While this
can trigger uncanny feelings of paranoia, the implant is not actually that sophisticated yet
(until 2014, when the documentation on Weeping Angel ends). The implant has to be
physically installed by USB and can only infiltrate the F8000 model with specific firmware

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versions. It can be discovered by checking the blue light on the back of the TV, which the
Fake-Off mode does not manage to force off (WikiLeaks; Hacker News; The Verge, 2017) .
However, the Weeping Angel is a blatant example of the hacks that CIA and MI5 agents are
working on to infiltrate media devices. Research shows, that there are many ways to infiltrate
a smart TV, for example simply by the transmission of malware through terrestrial radio
signals, eliminating the need to physically install the bug (Oren & Keromytis, 2014; Ars
Technica,

2017). “The increasing sophistication of surveillance

techniques has drawn comparisons with George
Orwell’s 1984” (WikiLeaks, 2017). The danger with bug-
infested smart TVs lies in the voice assistant. The
recorded conversations from voice assistants can
enable voice profiling and reveal a ton of sensitive data.
The uniqueness of the voice can even serve as an
identifier just like a fingerprint (Piesing, 2013). Even from When you are not looking the
background noises persons could be identified as well Weeping Angel turns into a scary
monster. A nice metaphor on their
as the environment they are currently in. This makes
hack by the CIA.
voice assistants great tools for surveillance.

We might be trading Privacy for Surveillance

The cry for privacy is not always accompanied by a definition of the concept. Indeed it is not
an easy concept to define. If we follow the prominent definition by Westin (1967), privacy is
the need for determining for oneself when, how and to what extent personal information is
communicated to other parties. In Westins opinion, the current state of privacy furthers a
development of a psychological barrier against intrusion, individuals will hold back parts of
themselves and limit communication. But in reality, the opposite can be observed. It seems
that users accept intrusive media more and more in return for access to services. It is a
paradox situation: when asked, users state that they are highly concerned about their
privacy, but their behavior tells a different story, as they are giving away extensive amounts
of personal information (Barnes, 2006). Technology plays an important role in the uncertainty
of privacy, since the home used to be a private sphere but with technology it has largely
become the site of surveillance (Lyon, 1994).
But what makes surveillance so problematic? Some scholars would argue that surveillance is
not necessarily a problem, it can be a tool for maintaining social order and economic
management (Dinev, Hart & Mullen, 2008). “[I]ndividuals may feel that the government needs
to be proactive in gathering and processing information about individuals in order to ensure a
secure environment” (Dinev, Hart & Mullen, 220). This is a view one could only agree with if
surveillance was seen in isolation from risk and future peril, but risk is a critical dimension of

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surveillance (Foucault, 1982). Totalitarian states like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union and,
as Agre (1994) states, to a lesser extent also the United States show a history of secret
police services and networks of informers and recording devices.

So if countries have a history with surveillance practices, they

will certainly have a future with them too. Only back in the day
they had to force their technologies into the target households,
like the Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security) did in the
German Democratic Republic. Their practices are still frowned
upon to this day. Today, the technologies that can serve as
tools for surveillance are installed by ourselves. King (2003)
states, that “[i]n a totalitarian state, the balance will favor
disclosure and surveillance over individual privacy, whereas in
a liberal democratic society the balance will ensure that there
are limits on disclosure and surveillance in order to maintain
individual privacy” (227). So if disclosure and surveillance is
increasing with technologies like the Weeping Angel, does that This image shows the discvery
mean we are moving towards a totalitarian society? Probably of a hidden bug that was used
not if you ask ex-director of the CIA Michael Hayden, who to spy on citizens by recording
scuffs at the question by Stephen Colbert whether or not the conversations in the room.
CIA is spying on citizens (CNBC, 2017). But a bitter taste
remains as we now know that they could if they wanted to.

No need to be wary, but do be aware

Now, considering the role of the CIA in avoiding terrorism abroad and ensuring the security
of the people, one might say that it is good and necessary for the agents to listen to
conversations in the houses of terrorists. But there is no way of knowing for sure how and to
what extent programs, like Weeping Angel, will be used by the CIA. And more importantly,
the very existence of these implants is a danger to privacy, since they could fall into the
hands of people who actually want to use them to harm others. And since there are no
programs yet that cannot eventually be broken into, the danger of these implants being
misused is high. Governmental interventions of this nature are very much symptomatic of the
vacuous media use of society today. Users seem to care less and less about their media
increasingly intruding their personal spaces. This in turn, allows for surveillance to enter
through the backdoor, while privacy slowly disappears. The systems that can be so well
employed for espionage are installed in our houses by ourselves, without questioning the
implications thereof. This is not to say that we have to be conspicuous of governments and
be paranoid in our everyday media use – but it is necessary to be aware of the possibilities,
that these devices are enabling and that they will be employed one way or another.

If you enjoyed this article and you want to find out more about surveillance and personal identifying data,
make sure to head over to this article about the new iPhone X and its Face ID feature: The Future of Mass

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Surveillance Is Here (and We Are Excited About It)

References

Agre, P. E. (1994). Surveillance and capture:

Two models of privacy. The Information
Society, 10(2), 101-127.

Barnes, S. B. (2006). A privacy paradox: Social

networking in the United States. First Monday,
11(9). The statue that gave their name to the CIA
hack Weeping Angel.
Brandom, R. (2017, April 25). Here’s how to
use the CIA’s ‘weeping angel’ smart TV hack. September 22, 2017,
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421326/smart-tv-hacking-cia-samsung-weeping-
angel-vulnerability>.

Dinev, T., Hart, P., & Mullen, M. R. (2008). Internet privacy concerns and beliefs about
government surveillance–An empirical investigation. The Journal of Strategic Information
Systems, 17(3), 214-233.

Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical inquiry, 8(4), 777-795.

Khandelwal, S. (2017, March 07). WikiLeaks Exposed CIA’s Hacking Tools And Capabilities
Details. September 21, 2017, <http://thehackernews.com/2017/03/wikileaks-cia-hacking-
tool.html>.

King, I. (2003) On-line privacy in Europe—new regulation for cookies. Information &
Communications Technology Law, 12(3), 225-236.

Lyon, D. (1994). The electronic eye: The rise of surveillance society. University of Minnesota
Press.

Nguyen, N. (2017, March 09). If you have a smart TV, take a closer look at your privacy
settings. September 21, 2017, <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/if-you-have-a-smart-tv-
take-a-closer-look-at-your-privacy-settings.html>.

Oren, Y., & Keromytis, A. D. (2014). From the Aether to the Ethernet-Attacking the Internet
using Broadcast Digital Television. In USENIX Security Symposium (pp. 353-368).

Piesing, M. (2013, February 13). The race to fingerprint the human voice. September 22,
2017, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-race-to-fingerprint-the-human-voice-
8493867.html>.

Westin, A. F. (1967). Privacy and freedom, atheneum. New York, 7.

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WikiLeaks. (2017, March 07). Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed. September 24, 2017,
<https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/>.

Photos

BStU MfS. Abhöranlage (Wanze) in einer Privatwohnung. Germany: BStU MfS Abteilung 26.
<http://www.demokratie-statt-diktatur.de/DSD/DE/Bilder/privatsphaere_wand_steckdose.jpg
;jsessionid=31BA7210DE246CFBA5F1FD40DF7272E3.1_cid319?__blob=normal>.

Wikimedia. CIA seal. Wikimedia Foundation. United States: Wikimedia. <https://upload.

wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Seal_of_the_U.S._Central_Intelligence_Agency.svg>

Fandom. Weeping Angel. Tardis Wikia. <https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/b/

be/Series5weepingangels.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120204130846>.

IFL Science. The Weeping Angels. <http://cdn.iflscience.com/images/36acc2e0-8d19-5842-

90ef-b99dc18ba71e/extra_large-1464368859-3197-physicists-demonstrate-weeping-angel-
effect.jpg>.

Tags: 1984, big brother, big brother is watching you, CIA, edward snowden, Foucault, gdr,
George Orwell, government, hacker base, hacker news, hacker tools, hacking, NSA, Orwell,
privacy, smart tv, smart tv bug, smart tv hack, snowden, staatssicherheit, stasi, surveillance,
technology, totalitarian, voice assistant, voice fingerprint, voice id, voice profiling, weeping
angel, whistleblower, wikileaks

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