Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

WikiLeaks Publishes Cable Archive In Full

Posted by Soulskill on from the letting-it-all-hang-out dept.

We recently discussed news that WikiLeaks had complained of a password leak which threatened the encryption of unredacted documents contained in the Cablegate archive. Now, reader solanum writes with this update: "According to the Guardian, 'WikiLeaks has published its full archive of 251,000 secret US diplomatic cables, without redactions, potentially exposing thousands of individuals named in the documents to detention, harm or putting their lives in danger. The move has been strongly condemned by the five previous media partners – the Guardian, New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Le Monde – who have worked with WikiLeaks publishing carefully selected and redacted documents.' In the same article The Guardian gives further explanation of the controversy reported earlier, suggesting that Assange went against standard protocol in providing the master password to the newspaper."

2 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. What are they thinking? by Haedrian · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The guardian password thing was a mistake. A big mistake.

    The solution however is NOT to go all in and betray the trust of the sources. This sort of thing is just what you'd need to kill Wikileaks forever.

    If it was due to a mistake, an accident or hacking, we might move on, but this is big stuff.

  2. Re:There is a deeper meaning here by drolli · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No. It means that hey want to cover up the fuckup which JA and *only* JA is responsible for to the media.

    He gave the password without specific instructions. He put the files somewhere where they don't belong (i think not mixing redacted and unredacted material would be a good principle) and did not inform the administrator that these are there. He lacked responsiveness in communicating with the responsible admistrator. He lacked openness to address the issue and take control of it of give the responsibility in a controlled way to somebody else. He did not delete the documents which he put there. He chose a single, simple password instead of a two-factor authorization. He did not (as would have been appropriate) use a physically safe way of transferring the data to the journalist (1 DVD would have been enough). He did not make sure the journalists computer is safe.