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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...
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'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.
On hearing the name of the service, the one thing that came to mind was - "Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..."
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
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'
HONEYPOT
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
That's the hilarity of it all. John Young (owner of Cryptome) was asked by the people behind Wikileaks to be the owner of the domain (since it would end up being public, and Mr Young is no stranger to Government intimidation). He agreed and participated in the private mailing list, but became disillusioned after it appeared the creators had no actual product and were only interested in funding. He posted all the private and internal conversation his own site.
Read the two links I provided, and you'll get the story.
Short Version: This 'secure and untraceable' Wiki software probably doesn't exist, it's a PR ploy for cash.
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.
The Pirate Bay apperantly is: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3589817/ZyprexaKills.t ar.gz
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.
Wikileak is sent documents about you!
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."
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?
I've read through parts of it briefly (skipping a lot). It's quite entertaining. There was an anonymous mailing list about this project. They've talked John Young into being the frontman for the site (domain name registration, basic contact, etc.). After that there's endless self-congratulating discussion about how cool things are going to be. Since there is no real technical discussion shown it appears that they were not in the process of actually developing anything. Although they claim to have a huge number of leaked documents in store already, no evidence of that was given. Instead, this degenerated into overly ambitious and suspect fundrasing effort. :)
At that point John Young pointed out that instead of trying to raise millions on empty promises, they should do the actual implementation and work hard for a year or two on a shoe-string budget to prove that they are real. As a sarcastic ploy he suggested that if their goal is to fleece CIA (which is most likely to cough up $5M they're trying to raise), than they should ask for more. Astonishingly enough they took the joke seriously, and said they'll try
And John posted their mailing list discussion to the public (without the real names/addresses, which he said will come next), accusing them of simply being a scam to raise money.
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.'"
I had a similar idea myself, but it never became more than an idea. To make this uncensorable, it would have to not be hosted on one centralised server, but rather have the data replicated in a P2P network. This is pretty much the idea in FreeNet. You'd have to download a piece of software to actually access the system. This program would have to talk some special protocol with the other peers. To make it accessible to the average user, it would then provide a webserver, that you could use through a portnumber on localhost. I think FreeNet already has something like that. But rather than transfering html documents over the P2P network, you could use the P2P network to create some kind of database, and simply run wikipedia on top of that.
I say Wikipedia here, because that is what I thought this particular project had in mind. The idea I had in mind would have been using a different layer on top, something similar to worldforum.dk where you can put a small piece of javascript in your bookmarks and using that start a discussion thread about an arbitrary web page. (Worldforum sucks because it never reached a critical mass, and in spite of that performance sucks as well, and these days there are more spam than content, but that's besides the point, all three are issues that might be solvable).
Now to help on credibility of such a system where anybody can post anonymously, it should be possible for you to prove that two messages written by you were in fact written by the same person. Of course that proof also has to be something that you can give anonymously. It should work in such a way, that initially when you write something, you are completely anonymous. But at a later point if you choose to do so, you can prove that two messages have the same author. With clever cryptography it could probably even be done in such a way, that you can either give a proof that anybody can verify, or you can decide to do a proof that only one particular person can verify. (That last part can be done by designing the proof in such a way using that person's private key, it would be possible to forge the proof. Since this person know he generated the private key himself and didn't give it to anybody, he knows that the proof cannot be a forgery.)
That way if somebody doubt your credibility, you can show which information you provided earlier. This needs to encorporate a time stamping mechanism as well. Such that it can be verified that you did in fact provide the information before it became public knowledge. And if somebody copy other peoples information claiming to be the original source, it can be verified who posted the information first.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
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.
My first thought about this was the possibility that the Bush administration, pissed about leaks, may have pressured the intelligence community to do something about it, and such a honeypot setup one of their solutions because it could increase their ability to locate the sources of such leaks. The idea being, that if it becomes well known as a place to host leaks, potential leakers would make sure they get their info in and in the process expose themselves.
...
Then I thought about it a little more-- if that were the case, it would be a BIG mistake. They would end up having to host gobs uninteresting to them and not-illegal but uncomfortable, controversial or litigious information and/or deal with lawsuits galore-- it would end up far more trouble than it's worth in that regard. In any event it is no doubt going to be a lawyer magnet. If the site actually survives, the spooks would do better to just tap their systems and let someone else stick their necks out.
Also, the temptation to post some made up inflammatory crap will be irresistable for many yahoos, and you'll start seeing all manner of liable and paranoid theories appear-- the Protocols of the Elders of
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.'"
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.
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?
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.