Slashdot Mirror


Former Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Documents

bs0d3 writes "Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims to have destroyed more than 3,500 unpublished files that had been sent from unknown informants and are now apparently lost irrevocably. Among the files destroyed are the US gov's 'no-fly list' and inside information from 20 right wing organizations. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is now known as one of the founders of openleaks."

24 of 469 comments (clear)

  1. Tragic... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would really like to have seen the No-Fly list. My older brother has been "randomly selected" for several flights in a row and I strongly suspect it is a name association with someone else. But our democratic republic uses "secret lists" now to persecute people. What can you do?

    1. Re:Tragic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      No. You must be wrong. The Democrats stand for truth, justice, the American way, jobs and transparency. What you've described is those low down scum teatard fucking teeeee-bagger bible beating thugs who've ruined the entire nation in less than two years of interaction with the guberment. The Democrats have been fighting those guys and the neo-cons tooth and nail to restore your freedoms and tax the rich. It's just that they can't do it because of the nasty evil right who can wave a wand and stop any legislation even when the Democrats had a majority in the legislature and the whitehouse on their side.

      So don't lie to us. It's not the democrats. It's those republifuckinteabaggers. They're the ones to blame for everything. The new boogeyman to keep your dumb asses in line and voting for the two party scam.

    2. Re:Tragic... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Consider this:

      Before the Republican party allied itself with the bible-thumpers, the Republican party was considered the Liberal side while the Democrats were the conservatives. The democrats didn't change. The Republicans simply swung even further to the extreme than the Democrats... enough to make them look "liberal" by comparison. It wasn't always the way we see it today you know.

    3. Re:Tragic... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes and if you go far enough back liberal means modern-day libertarian. Conservative and liberal are labels that really only make sense in a time and place context. Which is why a little tiny part of me dies whenever people refer to parties with similar names 200 years ago in relation to modern politics.

      --
      93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
    4. Re:Tragic... by moonbender · · Score: 5, Informative

      Is there a reason he destroyed it?

      This is just the latest in an epic series of back-and-forths between DDB/OpenLeaks and Julian Assange/Wikileaks that has been going on for a year or so, particularly in the German scene/press. The first order of business seems to be: Don't believe everything you read, there has been a lot of misinformation spread by both sides, by other people who are involved and, worse yet, speculation by those that are not. Despite the fact that DDB looks like the bad guy, and I'm virtually certain he will be absolutely crucified here on Slashdot, DDB might just be a tragic figure and it's likely that there are no really good guys involved; Wikileaks and OpenLeaks were caught in a crossfire of Egos.

      DDB left/was fired from Wikileaks because he felt the organisation was in some way corrupted/they felt he was a corrupted. Other people left along with him, people that were apparently important to the basic functionality of Wikileaks. DDB subsequently wrote about about Wikileaks and started to talk about an alternative leak sites, OpenLeaks. The book contains fairly serious allegations against Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

      Purportedly, DDB (or possibly: one of the other people leaving WL) took those files because he did not think they were safe at Wikileaks. Note that the files do not contain any information on the identity of the leakers, Wikileaks simply does not store or even collect this information. They wre removed, not copied, and apparently Wikileaks did not have an extra copy (or the extra copies were all taken or destroyed). They were, of course, encrypted and he (or his allies) may or may not have access to some or all of them. Sidenote: At least one of the datasets he may have destroyed now (60k emails of a German neo-nazi party) made their way to the German media in some way, months ago. That may have been a coincidence, however, the newspaper involved is now a "media partner" of OpenLeaks. End of sidenote.
      DDB says he never had any intention of looking at or publishing the stolen data himself, and that he intended to return the files to WL, once WL has shown itself to be trustworthy (whatever that means). He also once intended to hand over the files to a trusted third party, people from Germany's Chaos Computer Club. He never followed through with this promise. He was recently thrown out of the CCC, an extraordinary measure, due to this but mostly other events related to a sorta-kinda security audit of OpenLeaks (this alone would require several paragraphs of explanation).

      Anyway, DDB had this very sensitive data, which he didn't want to give to WL, and pretty much no one else either. He also had the encryption keys. I think initially he talked about just deleting the encryption keys in order to prove that he has no intention of using the leaks himself. But if you don't trust him, why would you believe he deleted his keys? And now he apparently figured the only course of action left was to "simply" delete the files themselves. I don't quite understand that final bit, either.

      I have tried to summarize a very complex situation full of half-truths and unproven allegations to the best of my ability. Note that I have absolutely zero inside information, I know no one involved, this is all public information (though fairly inaccessible to many Slashdot users due to the language barrier).

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    5. Re:Tragic... by guruevi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, they're not using 'secret' lists anymore. They're just going after people because they have been granted the authority to do so. I live about 100 miles from a US border (within the 200 mile from any border that the DHS has been granted full authority) and even though it was promised to only be used for external threats, recently the US Border Patrol in conjunction with local police recently used heat seeking drones to find pot plantations in the area and made arrests.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    6. Re:Tragic... by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 4, Interesting

      as it turns out, if you are a single male flying one way, you pretty much ALWAYS get 'randomly' selected for extra screening. regardless of ethnic origins. whenever I fly on a 1 way ticket, i get 'randomly' selected.

      --
      I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
    7. Re:Tragic... by dummondwhu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Consider this:

      That's completely false.

      Prior to a certain point in history, the word "liberal" was used to describe a platform of liberty. In other words, the exact opposite of today. At some point, the progressives co-opted the term so that they could sound more appealing to people that loved liberty. Much like how many nations that ruled by communist or military dictatorships have had "Democratic" or "Republic" in their names. Also, around the time of the founding of this nation, the word "Democrat" was a slur, used to indicate that a person pandered to the whims of the uninformed, emotional masses. Just putting that out there.

      So, you can see how that worked out because people like you are running around saying how liberal the Republicans used to be. Yes, they were. They loved liberty. Some still do, but unfortunately, many have come along that like use fear of terrorism to increase the power of the federal government and thus reduce liberty. But that's not just a Republican issue, because the Democrats kept it going when they had the chance to change things.

      And while I'm not really a religious person myself, I have to recognize that faith has been an important part of the lives of many, many, many people since the birth of this nation (and obviously long before that). The Republican party did not ally itself with the "bible-thumpers". The Republican party is the most logical place for them. Your words are tinged with disdain, and that's your prerogative, but try and understand history before you come off spouting about the "bible-thumpers" as if religious people have not been around since the beginning, and as if they don't deserve a place in modern society and a say in government.

    8. Re:Tragic... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is "right" and there is "lawful." They are not always the same things.

    9. Re:Tragic... by forty-2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Eyah, been there. 5 weeks of traveling as a single male passenger on one way tickets, booked by a 3rd party.
      I might as well have been wearing a "Death to Infidels" T-shirt.

      --
      never drink kool-aid from a big vat
    10. Re:Tragic... by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Certainly though, if a cop is lawfully arresting you, and has his gun drawn, you shouldn't pull yours out and open fire. That's not self-defense.

      Not necessarily true.

      What if the current law says that you need to be hauled away to a concentration camp and murdered, and the cop is "just doing his job" in arresting you and sticking you on the train bound for the concentration camp?

      In this case, you're entirely justified in shooting the cop, whether he's arresting you, or anyone else. In fact, you're not just justified, but you're doing the right and moral thing by executing him. He deserves to die for upholding such an evil law.

      Personally, I think punishments for police and other government officials should be much, much, much harsher than for regular people. If you can't even trust your own government, then your society is failing, so strong protections should be put into place to protect the people from government abuses.

    11. Re:Tragic... by djlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh sure. The federalists thought it was a slur. But once the unformed masses realized that the federalists were a bunch of elitist prigs, the Democratic Republicans took over.

      And now, both the Democrats *and* the Republicans are "Extreme Federalists", and they are ALL elitist prigs now.

      Regards,

      dj

    12. Re:Tragic... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm wondering if you live up here in Washington State, near me, where DSH is in full force on the Olympic Peninsula - many miles from any boarder crossing - setting up road-blocks where citizen or not, you better show them your "papers" unless you want to be inconvenienced for a few hours... They say they are there to protect us from "terrorists" but in fact they spend most of their time harassing US citizens and rounding up undocumented (illegal) farm workers. It's the roadblocks and the demand to see my papers that tick me off...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    13. Re:Tragic... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Republican party did not ally itself with the "bible-thumpers". The Republican party is the most logical place for them.

      Seems reasonable enough. Who doesn't remember the touching scene in the Gospel of Mises(10:12-26) where Jesus selflessly defends the moneychangers in the temple from excessive capital gains taxes? Or the section shortly thereafter when he resists the blandishments of Judas, the liberal, and upholds intellectual property rights and avoids creating an underclass dependent on handouts by refusing the pirate the loaves and fishes?

      All jest aside, the only way a 'bible-thumper' could endorse contemporary Republican(or, for that matter, contemporary Democratic) policy is by making sure not to read past the old testament, and, even there, some amount of studious ignoring will be required...

    14. Re:Tragic... by Imrik · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A bible-thumper uses the bible as a blunt instrument, there is no requirement that they understand the writings within.

    15. Re:Tragic... by JoeZeppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some idiot talking head on Fox actually called Warren Buffet a socialist. If there was ever a need for the phrase "I don't think that word means what you think it means" that was surely it. The problem is capital gains taxes. The truly rich don't earn paychecks. they take dividends from their investments, or stock options from their boards. Raising income taxes isn't going to hurt them. Thats why Warren Buffet is taxed at a lower rate then his secretary. It's not hyperbole, it's actually true. He is being taxed at 15% on the majority of his income. Any of you all being taxed at 15%? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

  2. /rage by drobety · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If what DDB claims are true, he also destroyed five gigabytes of internal documents from the Bank of America. Seriously, how can anyone trust OpenLeaks when one of his founder completely disregarded the wishes of the whistle-blowers to expose what they perceived as wrong, immoral, and/or of public interest? His excuse that he wanted to "protect the sources" is over-the-top ridiculous given that the track record of Wikileaks is impeccable regarding source protection (alleged cablegate leaker outed himself as per alleged chat transcript.)

    I was really looking forward to have Bank of America being exposed, especially after reading this piece.

    In the end, DDB exposes himself as ultimate retarded prick.

  3. Re:Bullshit Summary, after Bullshit Summary by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Right. Because so much of this would really protect informants. Like the no-fly list? Unless they randomly included a name in the middle that would show that it was a certain person's copy of the no-fly list how would that harm any informant? And if there was a random name surely multiple copies of the list could be found and you can combine the two and leave out whatever names aren't found on both of the copies.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. Domscheit-Berg has just killed OpenLeaks by Crouty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are two things an architect of a whistleblowing platform must never do: revealing the identity of informants and accepting submissions without publishing them. I despise Domscheit-Berg for keeping WikiLeaks from publishing that data. Who knows what risks were taken to get this information on that hard disk.

    --
    On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
  5. this story has another side by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Rather than just raging against DDB, maybe his side of the story should be heard as well.

    It goes somewhat like this:
    Once upon a time, there was a big fallout between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheidt-Berg, and Julian kicked Daniel out.
    Daniel took his personal hardware with him, which happened to contain this hard-drive full of leaked documents.

    A couple of other wikileaks staff sided with Daniel and also left. This included the so called Architect, who took down wikileaks submission-site for the following reasons:
    - he built it
    - he knew it was insecure
    - once he was gone, there was no-one left to fix it

    Given that Julian accused Daniel of stealing these documents in order to use them for his new site OpenLeaks, Daniel didn't wan't to publish them himself.
    There have been attempts to give these data back to wikileaks, but these failed. Daniel insisted that after the loss of much of its technical staff, wikileaks had to prove that is was still able to protect the sources' identities. The CCC tried to mediate the exchange. Whatever happened here was not made public, so one can only guess what kind of mess it was.

  6. "Bible Thumpers' by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Consider this:

    Before the Republican party allied itself with the bible-thumpers...

    The lack of awareness of history in that sentence is stunning.

      The Republicans were "Bible Thumpers" from their very creation. The biggest motivation in their anti-slavery crusades was religious. Until the Democrats starting turning against the churches in the 1960's, every major American political party... Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, Republicans... had a huge, heapin' helping of the Bible in their platforms. Even when parties opposed each other, they often used Biblical citations in their party planks. Both the conservative and progressive movements of the late 19th and early 20th century were largely motivated by religious concerns. The Temperence movement was religiously based. The progressive movement was religiously based.

    "Bible Thumping" in politics is part and parcel of American history. It's been deeply intertwined in American politics since the nation came into being.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  7. Re:What im wondering is by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why this person is still able to freely roam the streets without fear. someone betrays people, like this, and still is able to live a normal life. noone stops them on their way home and holds them accountable.

    There's nothing more pathetic than an Internet bad-ass.

    --
    Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  8. Progressive Party an offshoot or Republican Party by drnb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes and if you go far enough back liberal means modern-day libertarian. Conservative and liberal are labels that really only make sense in a time and place context. Which is why a little tiny part of me dies whenever people refer to parties with similar names 200 years ago in relation to modern politics.

    And the Progressive Party was an offshoot of the Republican Party created by Republican Teddy Roosevelt, an environmentalist and monopoly buster. "Libertarian", "Progressive", "Democrat", "Republican", etc all representing different beliefs depending upon the timeframe you look at.

    Which brings me to the silliness of party loyalty. Even if beliefs aren't shifting in your lifetime party loyalty is counterproductive. If you are a party loyalist then your party can ignore you, they already have your vote. Meanwhile the other party can also ignore you because there is nothing they can do to receive your vote.

    If you want your opinion to count you can not be loyal to a party. You must give every candidate a chance and make them earn your vote through their policy positions.

  9. Re:What im wondering is by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    currently, there are no repercussions for being a public enemy and harming millions.

    To whom are you referring? I consider people who treacherously steal hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, and those who help them do so while also making those documents available to the regimes in Iran and North Korea to be, indeed, public enemies. Certainly that betrays the trust of millions of people, and harms many, both directly and indirectly. Certainly being held in jail while facing trial for doing so counts as repercussion, wouldn't you say?

    Or are you complaining that a person who deletes a bunch of stolen documents is the one who is the public enemy? Or is that person only a public enemy if the deleted documents are unrelated to people with whom you agree on one matter or another?

    There are all sorts of repercussions for not meeting society's expectations. Everything from losing your publicly elected or appointed office to being killed by SEALs in your not-very-secret Pakistani compound or going to jail for running an investment Ponzi scheme.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.