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Wikileaks — Anonymous Whistle-Blowing
too_old_to_be_irate writes to tell us about a site that word got out on before they were ready. Wikileaks aims to be an anonymous and uncensorable repository of leaked documents, posted for commentary by interested parties. It's expected to go live in a month or two. From the site: "Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources."
"word got out on before they were ready."
anybody else want to raise the B.S. flag?
"It's expected to go live in a month or two."
and die about a month PRIOR to that.
" We have received over 1.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources."
You mean folks that bitch and UNRELIABLE sources?
"Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact"
Tell me, how is this going to be any different from any other site pushing a political agenda?
"We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people."
How does political impact have anything to do with your interface being like Wiki?
Oh, and BTW doesn't
"leaked documents"
mean leaked documents? Ones that are already 'out of the closet'?
I guess I just don't get how this got our attention.
For some real information, check out the 'Leaked' WikiLeak mailing list via (my favorite) Cryptome:
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak2.htm
Wikileaks aims to be an anonymous and uncensorable repository of leaked documents, posted for commentary by interested parties.
They were going to name it LawyerMagnet.com, but that was already taken by a file-sharing service.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I can't think of a single possible way this could be misused in any manner whatsoever by anyone for any reason in any whatsoever.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This looks like an ideal place to spread FUD and provide a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories.
Can we expect to see the full story of Xenu? :P I mean, Soviet secret police are one thing, but you don't want to mess with Scientologists...
Having a website that is (soon to be) full of leaked information being leaked early to the public.
Wikipedia already has a credibility problem, but this?
Anonymous leaking of materials that may be totally unverified? I can already the giant wooshing sound of lawyers descending on this poor thing for defamation.
Besides, what's the point of such a site if countries like China and Iran can censor it by building a "Great Firewall" around their little corner of the Internet?
Oh, and by the way, thanks for posting all of your plans on the Internet before the site even goes live. Dumb script kiddies everywhere are going to blast your poor site as soon as it shows up.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I wonder...
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
I'm curious how this repository of uncensorable documents intends to keep their credibility when the 9/11 conspiracy, and moon landing was a hoax crowd move in.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I've been noticing all the magazines talking about Wikipedia as the future of intelligence (CIA type). Either these guys read TIME or vice versa. That is the great thing about the internet: decentralized unstoppability. I bet this'll last a long time, and there's nothing Bush can do about it! I bet they'll find many secret documents very, very soon. They're all over the internet, so they can copy them down to preserve the knowledge when Bush attacks.
Is Wikileaks concerned about any legal consequences?
Our roots are in dissident communities and our focus is on non-western authoritarian regimes.
So they must be safe.
(Note that the date is 5 January, not May 1, as may be misread by my fellow Americans.)
I would expect another "news" article soon, dated 11/01/07 (11 Jan): "WikiLeaks flooded: Slashdotted!"
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
On hearing the name of the service, the one thing that came to mind was - "Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..."
Wikileaks.com seems to be unaffiliated. Just a random comment as some other articles were citing that website.
"Due to a single blog posting of just a few words, Wikileaks has been thrust into the spot light far earlier then expected."
With no content either!: "Wikileaks has developed a prototype which has been successful in testing, but there are still many demands required before we have the scale required for a full public deployment." I wonder how they got the 1.1mil leaked documents, if not by traditional means, if the website isn't up yet.
In general, the language and infrastructure barrier really strike me as difficult in this scheme. Eg: "Journalists covering atrocities in darkest Africa and seeking the quotes so prized by editors back home might not have to ask, 'Anyone here been raped and speak English?' " (Economist). This mostly seems like something to incite people in places with easy internet access, not the people under the referred oppressive govts.
According to the FAQ
For the technically minded, Wikileaks integrates technologies including modified versions of FreeNet, Tor, PGP and software of our own design.
If they don't release the source for their custom/modified anonymity network, how do we really know it works?
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I love the irony... the existence of a site about leaks was... yes... leaked. Fantastic.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Neitzsche
I am *SO* going to hoax the hell out of them. :)
Sounds great and all, but I still remember the 8 emails I got from them, all to the same mailing list (which has no business being exposed beyond its members). A company that's willing to spam to promote its cause is not one that I'd be willing to support.
1. they're gonna get their asses sued nonstop because DUH most will be illegaly leaked
2. Anyone can make up anything but unlike wikipedia, you can't just go and check and see if it's true somewhere because it's supposed to be classified and leaked so nobody knows about it. Everyone can deny everything and everyone can say everything is true and nobody really, really knows. I bet politicians will "leak" things about their opponents and opposing parties and all sorts of made up BSing situations like that
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I looked all over the linked site. No wiki to be seen. It says something about using FreeNet, Tor, and PGP. Last time I checked none of these were wiki software packages.
Where is this going to be hosted? I can't see this site lasting long. Sure the US will be happy enough if they are pulling the rug from underneath Iran et al. - but what happens when someone posts leaked CIA documents - the type that the white house gets injunctions out on NYT to stop them publishing them. Either this site will pull these type of documents, in which case they will be just as guilty of censoring as any other organisation, or they will refuse, and find their website blocked in the US on national security grounds (and possibly far worse than blocked if the severity is high enough).
Be sure to stock up on liquid gather supplies like mops and paper towels.
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
In case it wasn't obvious from the write-up, Wikipedia isn't associated with this project in any way. Calling it an "uncensorable version of Wikipedia" is very misleading; it doesn't sound like they'll be mirroring content or anything like that. Moreover, their "content" isn't theirs and certainly couldn't be released under the GFDL. Commentary by users, perhaps, but certainly not the source text.
I predict a legal minefield here, depending on location. Unless they're negotiating with Prince Roy, I doubt they'll last the year.
No statement is true, not even this one.
These people setting this site up are bad people and need to be brought to justice for this. Only the government is to have privacy. The regular people need to be monitored at all times and their lives need to be heavily regulated because it's a socialist country (USA). These people need to be rounded up and murdered by our brave federal police officers! Working class people in the US are typically terrorists who wont pay taxes (which are sickeningly low, they need to be at least 80%), obey gun ban laws (ban them all), be politically correct, be hostile to undocumented workers and the new world order, and wont get building permits, etc if they think they can get away with it. Just be a good socialist, support the state, and do as you are told and you wont have problems!
HONEYPOT
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
This group, whomever they are, is improperly using the trademark "Wikipedia" as a buzz word to try and gin up support for this very dubious sort of project.
Say what you might about Wikipedia, but this does not involve either the Wikimedia Foundation, its employees, or frankly much of anybody even involved with the day to day running of Wikipedia either.
And slashdot is hardly the best place to announce something like this if you wanted to involve the Wikipedia user base. While this is a sort of "geek news" that might get some notice, it is disingenuious to suggest any association with Wikipedia.
Besides, on those Wikimedia projects where I have admin privileges, I would delete most of this content on the spot as unverifiable rumors and gossip, and expect the same on the other Wikimedia projects.
While this might be something rather interesting in terms of a web server to host this material, and invite some anonymous method of gathering these documents, I don't even see that they are going to be using a Wiki to gather this information.
In short, move along.... there is nothing here to see.
Is this another attempt of the Saudi-Bush alliance to keep us under control? But wait, I have here a msn history of GeorgeW with OsamaB. Freshly leaked!
;'#P#? :p :o LOL
GeorgeW: I like what I see, wanna get busy
OsamaB: No thanks, I'm watching a movie...
GeorgeW: Not that boring Fahrenheit again PHULEASE
OsamaB:
GeorgeW: (K)
OsamaB: (L)
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
So it was leaked? Right
Wikileak is sent documents about you!
Maybe one of the first posts will be from the dissident Canadian community who has been bugging Canadian coins! We'll at last know whether American defense contractors prefer Snickers or Twix! :-)
I hope that the posted documents aren't user-editable like on Wikipedia, otherwise they'll quickly be spammed out of credibility.
No, I am aqgainst authority as much as any of you here, but this is, at first sight, complete BS. Leaked documents that are traceable and verifiable will be publicised anyway, that's what a free press means. Especially in the current climate, the fact that they specify documents from regimes that are considered enemies by the current powers that be in the Western world, just makes more alarm bells ring. Our governments already publicise such things as much as they can, in order to justify their own behaviour, and the listing of these countries as 'Rogue States'. This will either be irrelevant, or propaganda designed to make us hate our 'enemies', and justify our ruler's immoral actions. Either way, it would be better off not existing.
Someone with a pirated copy of Photoshop and a few graphics design courses can produce documents that will fool plenty of people. Until the site gets sued to oblivion, we should all enjoy the damaging "documents" that spill onto the Internet.
I look forward to that CIA memo reminding Area 51 employees to keep the cryo freezers nice and cool so Marvin and friends don't decompose. We might also get some behind-the-scenes photos of Soundstange 56 where Stanley Kubrick filmed the moon landings (rumor has it that Neil showed up to the first shooting totally wasted). We might also see a few invoices addressed to the Bahamas for one "Elvis P."
There are many different levels, from "we don't demand you log in", to "we keep zero internal records of the times and history of when people view, let alone submit to our web site, and unless you ask us to immediately post it, we wait 1-20 days to post anything you put up making it more dificult to even guess who might have done what when"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
After reading the documents decrypted on Cryptome to do with wikileak. I've come to the conclusion that this is just a front for CIA to destabilize governments that do not follow the unique US democracy.
... people these days would jump high at anything that smells like web 2.0.
I just see no point in anyone ever having to contribute to this.
The other point is, a wiki (central location) is not a good idea to distribute this type of static data.
Tor or similar type of network with non-destabilizing search front ends would be a better way.
And most of this data would be static, thus why the need for Wiki?
What free press? There's no free press. That's a fucking myth. You can and will be hauled off to gitmo for what you write or publish if the powers-that-be deem that it should be so. Of course, first they'll paint you as some kind of secret terrorist to justify it, and that will be enough for the majority of the population to accept their actions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is every indication that this project will fail. If the wiki is un-censor-able, and it gets really popular, I bet the some non-western covert organization would be the first to pollute it with false information.
Heroes die once, cowards live longer.
This type of anonymous whistle-blower system is mandated by U.S. Sarbanes Oxley Act, but is illegal under European privacy laws. SarBox says thou shalt support anonymous informants as a means of preventing fraud, corruption, etc. The EU says thou shalt NOT permit anonymous tipsters because that's how the Nazi's found so many Jews.
It's a real conundrum for multinational companies.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Drinking the anti-freeze again?
(According to your nick, you're actually drinking the poo, either way it is not surprising)
Here ends Hussain Al-Bakkru's diary. He was not been seen since this last entry, his wereabouts are to this day unknown. Inspector Najeeb of Al-Agshi station had no comments regarding journal enteries about him.
I suppose this is founded on the idea that no corporation or government has any right to keep secrets. So people should engage in (in their words) "principled leaking" to "lead us to a better future". Freakin progressive morons. And since it's supposedly uncensorable, I suppose it won't be any trouble for those so inclined to leak secrets regarding construction of nuclear and biological weapons. I, for one, would be interested in finding Al Gore's home phone number and leaking that.
Perhaps you don't remember this:
Rumsfeld stood up in front of the press in the white house and said that people need to be careful what they say. If you follow the link you can see that this is about allegations of desecration of the Koran by U.S. soldiers. If that wasn't a warning, I don't know WHAT it was. You can find more on that story in the Washington Post. This was a case where abuse of prisoners (if we adopt their methods, we become them - of course, we already Are them, we just have money so we don't have to use humans as munitions delivery systems) had been reported and Newsweek was threatened into dropping the story.
If you truly don't believe that this kind of abuse goes on in the USA, then you are part of the problem. Waking up to reality and the fact that a government that will treat other peoples as subhuman doesn't think too much of you either is the first step towards a solution.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Even assuming this ever gets off the ground, just how do they plan to survive the nearly infinite number of lawsuits and subpoenas that are sure to follow?
I mean, sure, maybe a few governments will ignore or pretend it doesn't exist, but can you really see one of the DOW 30 companies not try and find out who leaked the document? If anything, it will encourage more companies to adopt the trusted documents / readers / DRM fiasco.
You can and will be hauled off to gitmo for what you write or publish if the powers-that-be deem that it should be so.
Care to cite examples? In the last couple of years I only recall a couple of cases where journalists were jailed, and it wasn't for what they wrote but for not revealing their sources.
I love my sig.
This site is totally useless. /. has been leaking anonymously for years.
Posting anonymous for obvious reasons...
Dammit, I just spend my last mod point.
Well, that was interesting. I wouldn't say informative, precisely, because I'm not sure what exactly I just read, but interesting.
Let me just get this straight. So someone decided to do this Wikileaks project. They recruit some other, ideologically-motivated ("solidarity!") folks to help. They claim to have a prototype that works, and distribute a leaked document from Somalia of unknown provenance. They create several mailing lists. Lots of cloak-and-dagger stuff, people playing with PGP, etc., ensues. The guy from Cryptome is asked to be the holder of the wikileaks.org domain.
Eventually they decide to try and raise $5M USD from somewhere. Cryptome guy says they're crazy, that everyone will think it's a scam, or that they're a front for the CIA. Wikileaks guys basically say "noted," and move on. Cryptome guy decides it's definitely a scam, pulls out, and publishes the emails, only redacted to remove emails and other identifying information.
Is that basically it?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
In government and industry, ethics committees and appointed investigators are usually flunkies of whomever is in power - they are a mechanism to catch leakers and conscientous employees who seek an "acceptable" way to report ethical or criminal violations within an organization. Anyone who turns in evidence to these entities usually has his/her identity revealed soon thereafter and is drummed out of the organization.
How can we know that the site isn't a honey-trap to capture unwitting leakers et al before they go to the press? (Ans. We can't.)
Expect this to last about a month, until someone posts some company's trade secret and the site gets sued off the face of the planet.
+++ATH0
In the last couple of years I only recall a couple of cases where journalists were jailed, and it wasn't for what they wrote but for not revealing their sources.
Not revealing their sources is the tool used to jail journalists because of what they wrote. "State secrets" is a very convenient excuse.
What?
to me it sounded like they wanted to extort $5M USD from the CIA and were claiming to have 1tb of secret data stolen from a bunch of various powerful organizations. I can understand why the Cryptome guy thought it was a scam, if it wasn't a scam it was a bunch of dumbshits who think they are 31337.
Of course its a tool used because of what they wrote. You can't jail someone for failing to divulge sources of a classified government program when they didn't write anything about classified government programs :)
Although I understand where you're coming from with this, and I strongly disagree with you being modded flamebait for it, the very fact that we can have this discussion shows that, although it's been curtailed somewhat and our freedoms are being steadily eroded, we do still posess the right to free speech, and those parts of the media that aren't owned by the financiers of our governments are still free, and I regularly read of abuses by the UK and US governments in the UK press.
The fact that most people choose not to listen is irrelevant to this discussion. I don't know what the media is like in the US because I've never seen it first hand, but I know that most of the mainstream media in the UK is owned by the same few people as in the US, and if that is all you see of the news I feel sorry for you, but over here those of us with some free thinking and intelligence can see the truth written clearly, and from some of the most respected voices. They earned that respect by printing unflinchingly all the uncomfortable truths that our governments would rather we didn't know, even when most people don't want to listen, and they earned that respect by checking their facts and going to press only when they had evidence to back up their claims.
I don't see that an uncensorable and untraceable repository of anything anyone wants to post there can ever be anything better than an irrelevance. How can you trust as fact anything you see there? Will they cite references, and link you to the evidence for their claims? If they don't, why should I trust them any more than I trusted my own governments claim that Iraq could bomb us within 45 minutes? Anything we should know about will be buried in so much shit, we wouldn't recognise it if we saw it.
Oh yeah, because it's so hard not to change Mediawiki's default theme...
Whoa i knew slasdot crowd wasn't the most optimistic group around, but i would expect a few to be at least a little be keen to know you might have the opportunity to publicly disclose a companies dirty plan to dump toxic waste in your your server room or require all cable monkeys to actively dress up as monkeys.
;)
Many have said "how can we trust it" well for that we will just have to wait and see but with a wiki based interface allowing comments and discussions on the document we can quickly weed out the planted ones from a real one.
Why not save all the negativity for when the project goes live ? i am sure they will welcome all critics of there security then. Until that point why not take a back up disk of your bosses emails home
viva la revolution !
Don't forget slander. Uncovering real abuse is important, but at what cost? Some of it is laughable, but a lot of it will be taken at face value by people with little net savvy but real power to hire and fire, etc. With "untraceable, uncensorable" content you can never remove the lies no matter how throughly they've been proven to be false and malicious. "Fight bad speech with good speech" is a good argument against prior censorship, but nobody would say it's a good idea once said speech has been found to be legally indefensible in court.
Then there's the whole issue of "not necessarily criminal but really stupid". The address of the local domestic violence 'safe house'. Pictures of every detective on the local police force (keeping them from doing any undercover work, e.g., stringing out somebody looking for a murder-for-hire).
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Don't forget - Even if a document exposes something that wasn't meant for public consumption, those who *want* to sue will have to think this option through very carefully - once a suit is initiated, everything becomes public record.
remember - there are 2 different kinds of truth: everyday truth and absolute truth
everyday truth is local to the facts at hand, and basically means "consistency". With the information that you have now (and believe), each fact is (everyday) true if it is consistent with the other facts you have. Unfortunately, this creates a catch-22, because you are never really sure of the other facts either and they are true. The only remedy for the catch-22 is to avoid isolation.
absolute truth is just that - validity of a fact not dependant on any single subset of other local facts. an absolute truth can be moved and bandied about between contexts and the validity of assertion remains unchanged. If inconsistency occurs, it is typically because the context is skewed, or you are not dealing with an absolute truth.
absolute truths do exist, but for all practical purposes it is far too large and far too complex for any human mind to grasp. If you pray to science, then all absolute truth is (is...) the position and momentum of all particles at each moment. EVERYTHING else is just a _story_, to a greater or lesser degree.
English uses the same word for both of these ideas, but philosophically, they are radically different.
The Buddhists figured this out more than 3000 years ago, and, well, most people lost (it) somewhere in all the killing we do.
wont the US government just use a court order to try and get them to reveal their informants, ..like the try to get website to hand over ip addresses
In Sweden it's illegal for a journalist to reveal his/her sources, unless the source permits it.
c++;
I can't. I'm European!
We're allowed to say these things because we are not influential. No one outside of a handful of geeks cares what any of us say.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
GRATE!!!11!!! finaly a place were i can post alot of things about ppl witout owrryin about wha stupid dumasses think!!!!!!!1 an if sumbody goes n changs my stuf i can just chang it back!!!! YAY1!!!!1
/. not leting me use caps! WHAT I SAY IS IMPORTENT AND YOU SHUD LISTEN TO IT THATS WHY I RIGHT IN CAPS!!!!!!1ONE!
stupid
Show me the money. links.
something that would convince me.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving