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Wikileaks Plans To Make the Web Leakier
itwbennett writes "At the Hack In The Box conference in Kuala Lumpur, Wikileaks.org announced a plan to enable newspapers, human rights organizations, criminal investigators, and others to embed an 'upload a disclosure to me via Wikileaks' form onto their Web sites that would give potential whistleblowers the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organization or journalist they trust over a secure connection. The news or NGO site would then get an embargo period in which to analyze the material and write the story, after which Wikileaks would make the leaked material public. At the same time, the receiver would have greater legal protection, says Julien Assange, an advisory board member at Wikileaks 'We will take the burden of protecting the source and the legal risks associated with publishing the document,' said Assange. 'We want to get as much substantive information as possible into the historical record, keep it accessible, and provide incentives for people to turn it into something that will achieve political reform.'"
Screw my last mod point for the day, this sounds really fucking cool.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
What if the news outlet doesn't do anything with the story for a few weeks though? I think it sounds cool and I doubt that would happen, but still.
The leakiest of organizations in any country is the government. Anything leaked is leaked deliberately with a concrete reasoning behind it. Most of the time it is used to float trial balloons, but sometimes it's used to mislead the public for purposes of control.
The American government is particularly good at this.
Up to this point Wikileaks has been an unbiased (as far as a left-wing org can be) third party. However reporters are typically not so neutral. By giving leakers the ability to target specific reporters simply means that the leaks will lose credibility. We know Olbermann and Matthews love Obama, so anti-neocon leaks are most likely to be reported there. OTOH, Drudge and Hannity will be much more likely to report anti-democrat leaks. Since the same old same old is reported by these guys, the leaks themselves lose a lot of their steam.
I don't think this is a good idea at all.
One of the benefits of the current system is that the journalist verifies the source. Think Deep Throat and Watergate. The journalist then aims to protect their source but the validity of that source is bound up in how much you trust the journalist.
In this new approach the problem is that Wikileaks are unlikely to verify the validity of the source and the journalist will not know who they are. This makes it more open to subversion and political manipulation as the original source now feels protected even if what they are saying is completely and utterly wrong.
This might be a good step but a very important check and balance has just been removed.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Hey, Mickey, he leaks it!
This has caused me to wonder what will happen if Wikileaks itself has a leak of it's own. Would that be a recursive leak? Will they treat it just like any other leak or zero out the bits?
Her lips were softer than a duck's bill, but her quacks
If I were in charge of the Ministry of Truth, I'd give a promotion to the guy who developed a central system for detecting whistleblowers and spreading misinformation. Throw enough plausible information up there to buy the confidence of readers and would-be contributors, then sit back and wait for the benefits to roll in.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
"Anything leaked is leaked deliberately with a concrete reasoning behind it."
sometimes, mistakes just happen. but some people have to see secret plots and cabals around every turn. you sound dangerously close to this unfortunate psychological state. secret plots exist, yes. but they are rare and few between, and they usually get revealed. most leaks are just that: oops, i screwed up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/09/bob-quick-terror-raids-leak
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, we already know the internet is a series of tubes... So now we're going to have leaky tubes? Blah... More dripping information out there.
If too much information drips out, something horrible might happen, like crashing things into the moon, or some president somewhere making 400 illegal copies of a DVD and putting himself at strike two of three before his own law gets him banned from the internet.
*Hides from the leaky nets*
@Whee
And who verifies the verifiers?
On the whole, Wikilieaks is a fine thing. I have in particular the utmost regard for Assange's abilities as an investigator, and consider his ethics beyond reproach. However, consider this statement of his in TFA:
""It's counterintuitive," he said. "You'd think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that's absolutely not true. It's about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero."
This may be merely an unfortunately worded analogy, as it seems to be resigning leaks to some economic or political market rather than merely being a means to objective reporting of the truth. Say it ain't so, Juli[ae]n. I realize Wikileaks wants deperately to be taken seriously by the mainstream, but given what I know of the way established media outlets sit on the truth and hard-sell total bullshit, I wonder if they shouldn't maybe rexamine their priorities here. As far as I'm concerned, they're definitely going down the wrong road giving interested 3rd parties any kind of proprietary interest, however temporary, Looks an awful lot like making a deal with the devil, to me,. On the other hand, the Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Just doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to journalism, is all.
Like it even matters in the grand scheme of things...
The **AA's top technical advisers have informed them that making the web leakier will sink all those pesky pirates.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The worst thing that could happen is that phishers put up their own icon and intercept the content AND identity of the whistle-blower. I could see corporations making mock websites to catch their own leaked materials if this becomes a big thing.
Everything should be published. Obama's travel schedule/routes, secret codes, locations, troop movements, etc. Everything...
This is a straw man fallacy, and completely irrelevant to the discussion, or to the purpose of Wikileaks.
Go to the about wikileaks and have a read. Look at the slashdot article itself. Both use the work 'embargo'. The Advisory Board, and the staff of Wikileaks, are not going to release the information you are suggesting. It's not the purpose to reveal future troop movements, travel plans or secret codes. They reveal what has happened in the past, and how it was ignored, or hushed up, and allowed to continue.
I can think of only one bad thing with this.
I could setup such a website, make it look like an ex-employee of my company that rants about such, and put a totally fake but identical looking 'embedded' section.
If a true whistle blower didn't realize it was a man in the middle type attack, or the end result was submitted to my own server, then I basically have their credentials, and potentially have the methods to find who it really is.
Now, in a corporation situation, that could range from anywhere between 'possibly embarrassing' to 'fired and being taken to court', but other such leaks like regarding government, military, or other possibly 'dangerous' groups, giving them a method to find the persons true identity could result in prison time or even death.
Extreme situations I know, but that is the point of wikileaks after all.
Cock suckers such as yourself should stick to sucking cocks.
This is a cool feature, i'll be waiting to see it come out. I think things like consumer safety issues, un-warranted wiretapping, dirty dealings should all be exposed without mercy. Wikileaks provides that forum. People that do dirty deeds, or put consumers at risk need their reputations destroyed.
I wish they would use discretion however, I remember a leak last year where they leaked the frequencies from an IED jammer. NATO troops from all countries were put in danger because of this...
It also reminds me of the kidnapping Jimmy Whales kept from going public and generating media attention. If it had gone public, the insurgents would have demanded ransom and possibly put the man's life in further danger.