Secret Plan To Kill Wikileaks With FUD Leaked

An anonymous reader writes "Three information security consultancies with links to US spy agencies cooked up a dirty tricks campaign late last year to destroy Wikileaks by exploiting its perceived weaknesses, reads a presentation released by the whistleblowers' (pdf) organization that it claimed to be from the conspirators. Consultants at US defense contractors Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary proposed to lawyers for a desperate Bank of America an alliance that would work to discredit the whistleblowers' website using a divide and conquer approach. Since the plan was hatched, disgruntled volunteers mentioned in the PDF broke away from Wikileaks, financial institutions withdrew services, [Jacob ] Appelbaum was harassed by the US government, and Amazon denied service to Wikileaks' website."

Comments

Possibly from the HBGary Federal Hack?

[eldavojohn]

There was a really good article at Ars Technica this morning that covers chronologically the events relative to HBGary Federal's tangle with Anonymous. I know it's against Wikileak policy to release the source of the leak but I'm guessing that the accessing of large amounts of HBGary Federal's servers might be a potential source of this plan.

Of course the motivation for infiltrating Anonymous was profit as Arron Barr said in an e-mail:

Step 1 : Gather all the data

Step 2 : ???

Step 3 : Profit

Sort of an amusing story and very easy to see where Mr. Barr made the error of becoming part of this event (demonstration or debacle depending on your views) and seeking media attention. Pretty clear he was in over his head and doing his own thing thinking he was dealing with three individuals who were two bit morons. It almost deserves the cheesy "hunters have become the hunted" movie tag line. Well, the soft hack of HBGary Federal appears to be providing more than enough material for this to be a focus of media attention, congratulations are in order for Mr. Barr and let's all wish him the best of luck with step three. He's gonna need it!

Re:Possibly from the HBGary Federal Hack?

[GameboyRMH]

I know it's against Wikileak policy to release the source of the leak but I'm guessing that the accessing of large amounts of HBGary Federal's servers might be a potential source of this plan.

That's actually what TFA says:

SC Magazine understood the document came into the hands of Wikileaks sympathisers Anonymous following a successful raid on HBGary, which saw its secrets recently scattered to the Twittersphere.

Re:Possibly from the HBGary Federal Hack?

[netrangerrr]

Enema of the state might be more appropriate here!

Re:Possibly from the HBGary Federal Hack?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I am so glad that this snivelling little fascist, quisling, anti-democratic "security" operator got their nose bloodied, like this.

"Teacher! Johnny was chewing gum in class!"

"Good job, Gary! You have quite a future ahead of you - as we transform our liberal republic into an East-German-style police-state!"

Secret Plan?

[Haedrian]

Oh so this was a secret plan was it?

Was it commissioned by the ministry for the bloody obvious?

Re:Secret Plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Small problem, for anyone but a idiot :
Wikileaks likely has more credibly than any lawmaker , politician or US based news agency or anything the government might say.or write

Re:Secret Plan?

[camperslo]

It's seems that ways of countering access to information are on the minds of many.

We certainly heard a few things about the significance of and attempts to control the flow in Egypt. We don't hear so much about Cuba. It got my attention when someone posted that the events in Egypt weren't getting covered there.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2011/02/07/u-s-attacking-cuba-through-wi-fi-hot-spots.html

(translated text of video)
http://translatingcuba.com/?p=7111#more-7111

(the video, in Spanish)
http://vimeo.com/19402730

Re:Secret Plan?

[Yvanhoe]

It was obvious what to do. It was not that obvious that this was being implemented.
It is nice to sometime have a reminder that there ARE conspiracies happening out there. Not all of them are crackpot theories.

Re:Secret Plan?

[poetmatt]

unlike journalism in the US and well known US propaganda, wikileaks actually validates information before they put it up.

Re:Secret Plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...someone posted that the events in Egypt weren't getting covered [in Cuba]."

O Rly?
Granma seems to be covering Egypt fairly extensively. Mind you, Granma's only the official state newspaper - it's not like it has any official status or anything...

Re:Secret Plan?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Credibility with who? College Sophomore, standing at a lit table in the Student Center? Certainly!

Anybody else? Possibly.

Credibility with major newspapers across the world, who (re)publish content from wikileaks, and their readership.

Re:Secret Plan?

[Nadaka]

wikileaks has been around for years. They were pretty roundly ignored up until they allegedly got the windfall from Manning.

Re:Secret Plan?

[Anrego]

That tends to be my response to most conspiracy theories.

Yes, I think small highly placed groups can run a conspiracy.. but these big "everyones involved" deals can't work. Too many people who have to be kept happy.. too much potential for a leak.

Re:Secret Plan?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Was it commissioned by the ministry for the bloody obvious?

Obvious to some perhaps, but an absurd conspiracy theory to others. However, these documents provide hard evidence of mafia-like activities by corporations.

The documents are the definitive proof that private companies engage in the shadiest and most scurrilous of activities in an effort to further their own goals. It is the definitive proof that even in our age, private interests abuse their privileges and powers. The proof that a corporate underworld exists, that it attacks and abuses citizens, and that the law does not protect us from it.

Our society is based on several things, among them free speech and the rule of law. If private companies actively undermine these principles in the ways that this document proves, then why should we tolerate their continued state of existence?

There are those who say that we should not tolerate communists or islamists because they actively seek to undermine our way of life. I wonder where those people are right now?

Re:Secret Plan?

[Tarsir]

... but only if they're both dead :P

Re:Secret Plan?

[ozbird]

Evil geniuses always reveal their secret plan to the hero before failing to kill them.

Re:Secret Plan?

[TubeSteak]

wikileaks has been around for years. They were pretty roundly ignored up until they allegedly got the windfall from Manning.

They were ignored by the US public.
Wikileaks was releasing information about other countries for years before Manning's datadump.

"I didn't hear about it, so it never happened" is a poor way to make a point.

Gandhi

[QuantumRiff]

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
  Mahatma Gandhi

Looks like were at part 3 now.

Re:Gandhi

[TheGratefulNet]

and they shot gandhi.

just sayin...

Re:Gandhi

[corbettw]

At its root, though, Gandhi's fight was a fight over ideas (Indian sovereignty and all that that encompasses vs. British imperialism). He also was not the only leader of the Indian revolution, there were others and not always with fully-compatible goals in mind (which, in some cases, eventually led to the creations of Burma and Pakistan). So his quote may be more on the mark regarding Anonymous and Wikileaks vs. the established powers than you might be giving credit for.

Re:Gandhi

[mhelander]

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win, then they shoot you.”

Fixed.

Re:Gandhi

[DavidTC]

I've never been a believer in Godwin's Law, so the most obvious example I can point out is Hitler.

You don't believe that every thread on the internet eventually devolves into talking about Hitler, so you'll...talk about Hitler?

Dear Wikileaks,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It would appear that a variety of groups, representing a de-facto merger of state and corporate power, are allied to destroy you.

On a scale from "1" to "highly ironic" how would you describe this confirmation of your assertion that the "representative" goverments actually pend a lot of time doing dirty deeds in the shadows?

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Even the parts that are classified right down to their budgets, and don't even bother filling out their statutorially required reports on what they are doing to congress?

I apologize if this doesn't fit with the Boy Scouts' Patriotic History of America; but the US has been accumulating dubiously-accountable spook shops like its a hobby at least since the cold war, if not earlier.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[JamesP]

I would be worried about the 'state power thing'

as far as "corporate security researchers" go, they are, apparently, using Microsoft Bob to do their "hacking"...

No, really, see the Ars Technica link up there:

"They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases!" he wrote. "As 1337 as these guys are suppsed to be they don't get it. I have pwned them! :)"

And that's the 'security researcher' mixing sys admins with 'hackers'

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[DrgnDancer]

And if Congress passed a law saying "You can't do that" and the President signed it, they would have to stop. The money they use for black ops comes from Congress. They could probably self fund for a little while using dirty tricks, but without Congressional backing they'd be in the same boat as the rest of the government. That won't happen though, becasue Congress, like the majority of people they represent, believe that having our own little secret "dirty tricks" division is a worthwhile risk. There's noting unrepresentative about the CIA. Their mandate and funding came from and continue to come from our representatives. Most of whom are doing exactly what the majority of their constituents would want in continuing that mandate and funding.

The fact that you don't think those types of organizations should exist, or be as secretive as they are, is immaterial to the general question of representative democracy. I often disagree with what the government does. So I try to vote different people into office. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in all cases the guy in Congress represents the majority of people in his district's choice. Everything he does will almost certainly *not* represent the views and priorities of any one particular individual in his district.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[DrgnDancer]

I didn't say I was OK with it, I said it was representative. You're conflating two ideas here. The requirement of a representative government is that it represents the will of the people. The requirement of an open government (and possibly a "free" government) is that we know what's going on. It's pretty clear at this point that super secret agencies with little or no accountability fall within the will the of the people. If we (as a group, not me or you personally) were really outraged about them, they'd be forced to change. If Congressmen were routinely being voted out of office becasue black ops organization exist and are funded, then they wouldn't be. I'm willing to bet that if you conducted a poll and asked something along the lines of: Do you think that black budget organizations should exist, or should there be some level of transparency to at least the highers echelons of the people's representatives? You'd get a range of responses, but the most common, maybe even the majority would be along the lines of: "I don't like them, but I feel they are necessary to defend our country".

Now do I, personally, feel that these organizations should exist and be accountable to essentially no one? No. I completely understand the need for secrecy in operational situations, but I think that at a minimum our elected representatives should have full access to budgets and transparency on requested information. As long as the President and Congress know, or can find out, what going on I'm content that I can't necessarily in certain circumstances. I also agree that things should be opened up when the need for secrecy has passed; though as someone who has dealt with secret information, I think you might be surprised at how long things do need to be kept secret in order to be effective in a lot of cases.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[thehostiles]

I doubt the major issue is that it's different than you were told as a child. It's that a vast majority of the citizens in the country _still_ believe actively that "their party" will represent them because that's what they're consistantly told.

George Carlin put it well enough:

"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. The owners of this country went to the same universities and fraternities, there on the same boards of directors, they belong to the same country clubs, they have like interests, they don't need to call a meeting because they know what is good for them...and they are getting it. There used to be seven oil companies, there are now three...it will soon be two. The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers...but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors because you have the illusion of choice. You don't get the real important choices, you have no freedom of choice."
- George Carlin on Politically Incorrect

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[drinkypoo]

The record of history tells us that mass-market intelligence as a driver of wartime decisions came into vogue in WWII. The lessons of history suggest that it was probably true somewhat earlier.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[baKanale]

It's not ironic. They ARE representative governments.

Yes, they do represent someone. They just don't represent the people.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[Jiro]

Attacking Wikileaks this way is perfectly legitimate. If Assange was lobbing missiles at us from his home country, we would be justified in attacking him or even killing him--even though lobbing missiles at us is perfectly legal where he is standing. It's often legal in country A to fight country B; this does not mean that country B isn't allowed to do anything to the person in country A.

Right now he's in the position of the guy lobbing missiles. Don't think "he's just releasing documents, that's nonviolent, we shouldn't do anything to him because he's nonviolent". Lots of successful spying is nonviolent, but spies can legitimately get shot.

Of course it's "unfair" to Assange, but war is not about playing fair. He gets himself involved in a cyberwar, he should expect to get cyberdestroyed. If he doesn't like it, then he shouldn't fight a war in the first place.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[jbengt]

Using tactics that are most likely illegal in the US is not a legitmate thing to do in the US, regardless of the target. Now if Congress were to issue a declaration of war on Wikileaks, that might make it legitimate, although still not right, since Wikileaks has not really broken any US laws.

Re:Dear Wikileaks,

[moortak]

The problem is that those organizations have been given a long enough leash that passing a law and cutting funding isn't sufficient. Look at the whole mess with the CIA and the Contras. A law was passed saying don't do that and the CIA kept on humming along. When an agency of the government can continue its operations against US law and without traditional funding sources there is no legislative leverage left. Without the ability to control those organizations there is no representative input.

Obvious name

[Zerth]

Palantir Technologies? Really?

Was "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall Inc" already taken?

Re:Obvious name

[KalgarThrax]

Actually this is a real company that has been around for a while. They are into data visualization technology which also sucks. The kind of thing where you can tell 4 Pentagon generals "You can find Osama Bin-Laden from your office by buying our bloat." And they all buy it. All part of the military industrial complex. Good stuff.

Re:Obvious name

[oodaloop]

Their offices are named after Tolkein places too. The office in Tyson's Corner VA is Rivendell. They have lego models of the death star and toy Deloreans out on display, along with beer in the fridge. It's a typical dot-com silicon valley tech company, selling an overpriced and sexy looking but less than useful visualization software. We use it at work here. I'm less than impressed.

For further information

[Isaac Remuant]

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201106/6798/Data-intelligence-firms-proposed-a-systematic-attack-against-WikiLeaks

Can't say I'm surprised but the tactics and manipulation they discuss but I find it outrageous all the same.

However, the fact that they felt the need to present such a teach-yourself-how-to-destroy-wikileaks-in-21-days presentation in such a dumb manner is somewhat encouraging.

Re:For further information

[betterunixthanunix]

They are trying to sell themselves to the people who want to see Wikileaks die. I imagine that companies like Palantir do not really care about Wikileaks, except that Wikileaks is a great marketing point for them. Look at the tone of the second half of the presentation: everything people have tried to do to protect themselves from Wikileaks has not worked, but we are experts with experience in intelligence and counter-intelligence; we can save you (just pay us)!

Didn't take a genius to know

[elrous0]

The sudden appearance of rape charges, schisms and turmoil within the organization, etc. were pretty obviously concerted efforts to discredit the organization and Assange. Didn't take a genius to see it all coming after his big leaks started, or to know who was behind it. I knew a discrediting campaign was coming down back before Assange even met his "rape victims" or faced a schism.

Re:Didn't take a genius to know

[elrous0]

Even today, over at CNN, you won't see a mention of this story. But you will see the story of a defector who has written a book (in just three months, no less) about how evil Assange and Wikileaks are.

Just another move in the discrediting campaign.

Sales Pitch...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy, that PDF is nothing more than a sales pitch written by someone who probably believes the hype of "cyber-warfare" as portrayed in movies, and is trying to excite some clueless bank executives into getting involved in the action as portrayed.

It does sound exciting with talk of "global networks, movement between countries", although in reality such movement would just be scp -r /var/www/wikileaks user@server-in-foreign-country:/var/www/.

Of course, as a sales presentation it's well done, I could imagine the bank executive getting excited that he could initiate a "cyber-hunt" to kill the organization.

Re:Sales Pitch...

[betterunixthanunix]

that PDF is nothing more than a sales pitch written for someone who probably believes the hype of "cyber-warfare" as portrayed in movies

FTFY

Just because disgruntled volunteers broke away...

[voss]

Does not mean they were following some sinister plan.
Julian Assange has already proven he is hard to get along with and has his own agenda which may not prove compatible
with other people who want a wikileaks without Assange's anti-us agenda.

Wrong move?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldnt a better move be to prevent further leaks than to kill the messenger? Offing Wikileaks wont solve the problem at all.

Even better would be going to the source of the problem, America meddling in other states internal affairs through very shoddy practices. Killing politicians, supporting torturing dictators, pressuring, lying, stealing and toppling democratic states are not something a superpower should have to succumb to, thats for banana republics.

Lawsuit anyone?

[aaaaaaargh!]

If this document is genuine, this company "Palantir" has suggested and supports activities that are not only criminal in Europa but also in the US. We're talking about libel and slander, "cyber-terrorist" attacks on foreign it business and infrastructure (servers hosted in Sweden, France), and so on.

I don't know whether the document itself gives enough grounds for a lawsuits, probably not, but if these guys do anything of what they suggest or even aid in it, and it can be traced back to them, I feel a lawsuit coming in 3...2...1...

By the way, how are the investigations of the DoS attacks against Wikileaks server going? Any news on that?

Damn that sucks for those guys

[poity]

Talk about a role-reversal...the discreditors become the discredited. Alas, this is a great blow to the future of the Wikileaks conversation. Now all critics legitimate and otherwise can be lumped together as part of a coordinated effort against Wikileaks. It's now easier than ever to accuse someone who demands more self-scrutiny from WL and its supporters as a "shill" or "operative". And this time we have these 3 companies to blame.

Re:Damn that sucks for those guys

[sgt_doom]

Exactly, which is why it is most suspicious that Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Bildt, was a director at Lundin Petroleum: (Bildt first appointed Justice Minister Beatrice Ask to the cabinet when he was previously prime minster of Sweden, and she was the one who re-opened the Assange case which had been closed due to flimsy and lacking evidence)

http://www.liquida.com/page/7491240/

Carl Bildt was a member of the board of directors of Lundin Oil while a consortium of Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian companies were directly involved in starting and financing a bloody battle for oil resources.

Full report on atrocities and situation in Sudan.

http://www.ecosonline.org/reports/2010/UNPAID_DEBT_fullreportweb.pdf

This is not America

[SmallFurryCreature]

This is not America....
shalalalala

A little piece of you,
the little piece in me,
will die
(this is not a miracle)
For this is not America

Blossom fails to bloom this season,
promise not to stare,
too long
(this is not America)
For this is not the miracle

There was a time,
a storm that blew, so pure
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

For this is not America

shalalalala
shalalalala
shalalalala

This is not America (No)
This is not....
shalalalala

Snowman melting from the inside
Falcon spirals to,
the ground
(this could be the biggest sky)
So bloody red, tomorrow's clouds

A little piece of you,
the little piece in me
will die
(this could be a miracle)
For this is not America

There was a time,
a wind that blew, so young
For this could be the biggest sky
And I could have the faintest idea

For this is not America

shalalalala
shalalalala
shalalalala

This is not America (No)
This is not,
shalalalala
This is not America (No)
This is not,
shalalalala
This is not America (No)
This is not,
shalalalala

From Falcon and the Snowman.

Not really linked perhaps, but what else can you say when movie plots become really but to think of a movie based on reality?

You misunderstood.

[bigtallmofo]

You're right that Aaron Barr was hoping to profit from this, but he didn't write the quote you attributed to him. His coder wrote that, making fun of him because he thought of no way to profit from the dumb information that Aaron was making his coder collect. What is written before the quote you provided is:

His programmer had doubts, saying that the scraping and linking work he was doing was of limited value and had no commercial prospects. As he wrote in an e-mail:

December 3rd?

[kevinNCSU]

The plan was pitched to Bank of America on the 3rd. Amazon and EveryDNS already had withdrawn services so I think it's a stretch to try to insinuate that Paypal doing the same on the 4th is somehow related to a proposal submitted to a separate financial institution on the 3rd. It's also not entirely surprising that people pointed out to be weak links and ready to leave Wikileaks turned out to be weak leaks and decided to leave Wikileaks. This sounds like a case of some defense companies ever looking to scrape up some profits pointing out the blindingly obvious and now when a couple of the obvious things happen on their own people trying to attribute it to a successful implementation of said plot.

Spurious relationship - chronology

[tmk]

Since the plan was hatched, disgruntled volunteers mentioned in the PDF broke away from Wikileaks, financial institutions withdrew services, Apelbaum was harassed by the US Government and Amazon denied service to Wikileaks' website."

It's always nice to have a good conspiracy - but chronology is a bitch. Even before the plan was hatched, Paypal has canceled Wikileaks accounts twice, disgruntled volunteers were gruntling very publicly, Wikileaks had to change providers several times and Julian Assange reported harrassment from every government he had to deal with.

Re:Spurious relationship - chronology

[guruevi]

There is a difference between when a plan is set in motion and when a plan is being made public or shared with others to get them to join the fight on your side. The presentation was most likely made to get others on board but they were already doing it well before (maybe not documented or in documents we'll never get to see).

It was obvious that there was US pressure against PayPal, Amazon and EveryDNS since Wikileaks hadn't broken any laws (and hasn't yet) and only a few days/weeks later Amazon gets a huge US Government contract for their cloud? The only people publicly complaining was Fox News and the Teabaggers.

Attacking Glenn Greenwald

[berbo]

These guys are idiots

what the fuck are they thinking by claiming that Glenn [Greenwald] weighs “professional preservation” against “cause”? Could they be more wrong, painting Glenn as a squeamish careerist whose loud support for WikiLeaks (which dates back far longer than these security firms seem to understand) is secondary to “professional preservation”?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/09/security-firms-pitching-bank-of-america-proposed-targeting-glenn-greenwald/

If you've read anything that blogger Greenwald has written, you'd know how true this.

Re:Attacking Glenn Greenwald

[DavidTC]

Indeed. Greenwald is the guy who, when Obama was elected, immediately started criticizing Obama for continuing all the stuff that he (And Obama) used to criticize Bush for. Unlike 75% of the other people, who figured it was okay if a Democrats was doing it. Which made it clear he actually thinks those thing are wrong, and isn't some sort of partisan looking for some cushy political job.

At this point, he's probably unemployable in any political job or on any news network. He's what happens when you group all the legit criticism of all political figures (Not just one party or another as a news networks do.) up into one giant ball of research, and then keep harping on it, repeatedly. (He's one of the few journalists who remember that we, you know, tortured people.)

I'm sure he's made mistakes, and even said incorrect things, I'm not some sort of 'He can do no wrong' guy, and I personally find some of his writing to be, well, repetitive. Still read him, though, because I know he's not 'forgetting' to mention facts that make 'his side' look bad, like most political blogs.

But the idea he'd 'run' is literally insane. Glenn Greenwald is the sort of guy who'd respond to a gun wielding lunatic who murders someone in front of him and then say 'You didn't see nothing', by pulling out his camera phone and posting a picture on twitter as he got shot in the head.

Pfft.

[ledow]

I'll say it again.

If US intelligence agencies and their actions, security, political connections and control of information are *REALLY* this bad, the US has a much bigger problem than a website.

If this is how a genuine intelligence agency acts and gets caught doing so by the equivalent of a back-bedroom UFO hunter, then the first ever *real* cyberwar will see them wiped off the planet.

The UK, in the middle of a war, infiltrated by spies, managed to capture, analyse, decrypt, monitor and intercept German communications for YEARS, to the extent that they could literally direct the enemy to move their defences to cover false "threats" while watching them do that. And most of exactly what happened took 50+ years to come out and we still don't know *all* of it.

The US, in peacetime (so no major distractions, counter-incentive, etc.), can't stop their own soldiers putting documents into the public domain, with HUGE fanfare, then "rubber-stamp" those documents as official by "hunting down" a civilian not really related to the leak, when the guy handed himself into a police station in an allied country and told the newspapers about it. If the US "anti-cyber-warfare" campaign is anywhere near as ineffective, you better hope nobody tech-savvy *bothers* to go to war with the US.

Re:Pfft.

[will_die]

Summary is just bad. The 3 companies have/had contracts with the Department of Defense but they were tring to get business with the Bank of America.
This was not something done by the DoD or any US intelligence agency.
Frankly it would be hard to find many business that do not do some type of business with the US government, the DoD or some intelligence agency. Looking at just one of the companies it looks like it was setup as a 8(a)(female or minority owned) so can smaller contracts or small portions of larger contracts.

Word salad

[wcrowe]

"Consultants at US defense contractors Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary proposed to lawyers for a desperate Bank of America an alliance that would work to discredit the whistleblowers' website using a divide and conquer approach."

I had to read this sentence several times before it made any sense. The first few times it sounded like the defense contractor consultants asked some lawyers to marry them in order to obtain the Bank of America, who was inexplicably desperate -- all of which would discredit Wikileaks.

I think what was attempting to be conveyed was the following:

"Consultants at US defense contractors Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary proposed an alliance with a desperate Bank of America which would work to discredit the whistleblowers' website using a divide and conquer approach."

Wait a minute

[Dcnjoe60]

Wait a minute. Isn't Wikileaks reporting a leaked report that there was a conspiracy against them a little bit like saying God exists, because the Bible says so?

Re:Wait a minute

[Rand Race]

Not a leaked report per se. This was Anonymous eating the brains of HBGary.

More like saying God exists because Cthulhu hacked Satan's servers and uploaded the Secret Bible to Pirates Bay.

Ah, a fool

[SmallFurryCreature]

Government and the control of society is about more then absolute evidence, it is about state of mind.

There are those in society who wish for private industry to have greater control of society without an elected body having the right to control them. So be it, but do we then just accept this without questioning what kind of mentality these self appointed power brokers posses?

This is not a criminal trial, it is a hiring process and during such a process I want to see from your past and current behavior how you are going to act in the future. So, if people propose banks like Bank of America should have LESS regulation and LESS government oversight shouldn't we first examine whether that is a good idea?

No, them telling us it is a good idea is NOT good enough fool. And THIS leak shows exactly what the mentality of the Bank of America is. No, not because there is proof they did this but because they EVEN considered it.

That requires some advanced thinking but basically goes that for some thought crimes are indeed crimes. Some people/institutions should NOT even be allowed to consider certain things.

The Kenedy assassination is a prime example of this. Was the CIA behind it or not? Doesn't really matter, it has been proven beyond a doubt that senior CIA officials had plans to assassinate the president of their own country. THAT is enough of a crime in itself. If the protector of democracy even dares thinking of killing a democratically elected leader the crime has been done.

The Bank of America by even being involved in this have shown that banks can not be trusted to be open and that private businesses will fall all over themselves to supply services to lie to the people. That means we have once again been shown that banks and private industry need strict government supervision.

That is what this leak shows.

Not some timeline of crime to be fought over in court to sentence some individuals but the whole sale condemnation of private business as being unworthy of trust.

But of course, you are a fool and trust the bank because merely considering lying isn't bad at all... no no, let them work without oversight I am sure that when something really bad happens they will tell us honestly...

Sympathy for the Devil

[Fractal Dice]

It's hardly surprising that there is a market for plans in how to manipulate public perception. There's a whole industry that exists specifically for this. People who find themselves in that industry have to set aside their conscience to do the job and put food on the table. They rationalize it as a game or a competition or just business. Some are probably reading slashdot right now.

It's the sad nature of civilization that we are a huge crowd of people just trying to put one foot in front of the other. It's hard to imagine that our small push forward on the person in front of us is really contributing to the squeeze that is crushing people to death somewhere else in the crowd.

Mind Control?

[LastGunslinger]

Don't forget that they made Julian Assange a pompous douchebag by drugging his food. A side effect, perhaps intended, is the paranoia that makes him think he'll be imprisoned at Guantanamo. They also slipped a defective condom into his wallet so they could trump up rape charges.

"They" Shot Gandhi?

[medv4380]

He won against the British. The guy who shot him was upset about the conflict between India and Pakistan.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win, then someone shots you, then you bless them.

Trusting (Dis?)information about disinformation?

[billstewart]

So these Evil Consultants are running a propaganda campaign about Wikileaks, and Anonymous leaks their "secret plans", including the plan to try to sell a disinformation plan to BofA... But can we trust all the incriminating pages in the leaked secret plans? Could Anonymous have planted a bit of extra content in the leaked material? Could the Evil Consultants themselves planted bogus material in the leak, and leaked it to Anonymous themselves?

Besides all the obvious propaganda campaigns against Wikileaks, and all the real or potentially real problems with it, if I wanted to interfere with them in the future, I'd start trying to leak bogus information, either through them if possible, or through competing BogusLeak services. If real secrets are going to get out, one of the few defenses is to start leaking lots of fake secrets so people don't trust the real ones. Time to start leaking the US Air Force Roswell UFO secrets, time for BofA to start leaking accusations that their mother was a hamster and their father smelt of elderberries.

I still can't forgive him

[ThatsNotPudding]

for killing Alexander Humilton.

Re:Trusting (Dis?)information about disinformation

[GooberToo]

So these Evil Consultants are running a propaganda campaign about Wikileaks, and Anonymous leaks their "secret plans", including the plan to try to sell a disinformation plan to BofA... But can we trust all the incriminating pages in the leaked secret plans? Could Anonymous have planted a bit of extra content in the leaked material? Could the Evil Consultants themselves planted bogus material in the leak, and leaked it to Anonymous themselves?

I would like to subscribe to your news letter, but only if it dramatically goes, "Dunt dunt DUUUUNNNT!", and tells me what happened in previous episodes when I open it.

Re:lol

[dave1791]

>All that'll change here will be some American libertarians who're stupid enough to belief Fox news even
>half the time will now lump Fox news criticism of wikileaks

You realize that Noam Chomsky calls himself a libertarian socialist, right?

You might want to take a look at the Nolan Chart sometime. You might find that the definition of libertarian (as evidenced by the platform of the libertarian party in the US) is a bit different than you (and all of those FOX viewers who currently style themselves as libertarians) think it is.

Re:Just because disgruntled volunteers broke away.

[crhylove]

I don't think his agenda is anti-US. It's just that since ww2 the US has been the bad guy in every major conflict. I doubt he has any racism or some other predisposition against the US.