The Angels have your box!
It seems as though the Weeping Angels may have inspired a real-life MI5/CIA hacking tool involving the platonic friend in your living room…no, not Gary from next door (mental note: Gary knows too much), your tellybox.
According to documents leaked via Wikileaks, MI5 helped to build a piece of spyware software for Samsung’s F8000 television sets that was codenamed Weeping Angel, referencing the fan-favourite Doctor Who monster that turns to stone when viewed by other beings but attacks them when they close their eyes, turn their backs on it, or when you, yes, you guessed it, blink.
In a leak containing details of what it claims are wide-ranging cyber-weapons and hacking tools used by the CIA, the purported software makes the TV more dangerous when you’re not watching it, supposedly creating a “fake-off” mode designed to trick users into thinking the set has powered down when in fact it is eavesdropping on its owners, covertly recording their conversations in what sounds like a smashing plot for the Weeping Angels next appearance!
Unsurprisingly, there has been no response from either Samsung, MI5, Gary, or the Weeping Angels but the CIA have stated that they ‘do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents’.