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WikiLeaks Publishes Cable Archive In Full
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."
standard protocol to publish a source's password?
...this could be 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.
The release of the whole batch means that any negotiation to avoid the worst criminal penalties for Assange and others has failed. These people know they are going to be seeing little but the cinderblock walls of a detention facility for many years. They're giving up.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The Guardian essentially pretends now that Wikileaks have taken this decision and by doing so have placed a lot of people at risk.
This deceit is evident several places in the article. That is the deceitful picture they are trying to paint.
The truth is that all of the cables were already accessible to anyone who wanted that access worldwide, including intelligence agencies.
You can argue about "blame": was the blame on Assange who apparently reused a password, on the Wikileaks people who spread that file around as a form of "insurance", or on the person from The Guardian who wrote what the password was in his book?
But you can't argue that Wikileaks now has sole responsibility for placing people at risk. That responsibility is down to all the aforementioned participants.
The exact division of blame can be argued about, but a picture that Wikileaks now places someone at risk that wasn't placed at risk earlier through joint efforts is monumentally deceitful.
How fascist of you.
WikiFloods?
According to the article, the full set of cables was released in a encrypted form in December 2010, and The Guardian released the password in a book in February 2011. I guess from that point of view, the cat was already out of the bag.
I guess to anyone who's directly interested in endangering the sources and/or identified parties put two and two together back then, so this may be of little impact from that aspect. Perhaps WikiLeaks was trying to give the impression that they're still in control before everyone else figures out the connection anyway?
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So by your example I shouldn't have protection of anonymity for informing the police of a local drug dealer... even though I'd have reasonable fear of reprisals for doing so....
Huh?
Nah... a few folks will have a good reason to be worried, but otherwise the world at large won't see the effects for a long time, if ever.
Now Wikileaks OTOH, is about to be labeled a terrorist organization and removed from the face of the Earth by any means necessary - legal or not legal. They had a shot at being left to remain in existence when they had some sort of underdog nobility to play on, but now? I suspect someone at the CIA, Interpol, and various other places around the globe are quietly whispering the same thing 'Oh, it's *on* now, bitches...'
(rightly or wrongly, I suspect that's how it's going to be played out).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
That's equivalent to saying "I followed the rules. I robbed the bank without shooting anyone. In fact, I let all the hostages go at the end."
Killing the hostages makes it worse, but in the end, robbing the bank is already not following the rules.
Usually when people go from having controversial views or methods, to having controversial views or methods and don't mind having innocent people die along the way, they go from the label of "activist" to "terrorist".
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
They were thinking ... that The Guardian had already published the password to the "insurance" file in a book so they might as well let everybody have access, not just the bad guys.
No sig today...
They were thinking something along the lines of "the Guardian already gave the bad guys our secrets, so let's make sure the people at risk have a chance to look through the cables, see if they're mentioned, and take appropriate self-defensive measures, since we don't have the resources to approach them all privately."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
... expect to get burned. What will be fascinating to me is to see if the editors who were complicit in working with Assange won't also suffer criminal penalties. Probably they'll get away unscathed, but their efforts were not helpful.
Well, the intelligence world was already trying to spank Wikileaks...effectively without a real quality excuse.
Now they have the excuse, and lives really are on the line. Bye Wikileaks!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
it is also ironic that you people are ok with people like us working in private sector to be responsible for all their choices of their employment, for the better or for the worse, and go talking about the 'free market' and the 'realities of life' when something shitty happens to any particular segment of the workforce, but, SOMEHOW, start to see things in a different way when someone working for a torture organization gets into danger because of who they work for.
Sure they knew the risks, just as a truck driver knows the risks of getting into an accident while working--but that doesn't mean you don't go after the stupid son-of-a-bitch who was drinking and driving when he plowed into the truck driver.
Wikileaks made the encrypted archive available long ago so shouldn't the headline here point out the newer and more interesting bit - that the Guardian released the key after signing an agreement not to?
First the Guardian published the master password for the cables.csv file, which made all those names of informants and what not publicly available. Now that Wikileaks is also making the same information available that the Guardian first made public to everyone, the Guardian is trying to paint this disclosure of information as an irresponsible move by Wikileaks.
The only thing you can blame Wikileaks for, afaik, is to make that same information available via a search interface (besides the fact that they gave the real password to the Guardian). But it's not like people who had really bad intentions for uses of that information couldn't set something like that up themselves (and probably already did), which I assume is what motivated them to do this.
Donate free food here
What are the odds on Assange living long enough to publish documents detailing the plan to take him out?
I am an American, and I'm not going beserk. I would assume that the State Department would be one of the first reading the leaked documents and taking any precautions needed to ensure the safety of their informants. You haven't disputed the question of whether its the State Department who allowed these documents to be leaked in the first place. How big a role did leaked documents play in the Arab Spring?
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
I think you may have missed the point a little.
When they say the cables identify those at risk, the people they're talking about include (possibly peaceful) political activists within repressive regimes who may now be in severe danger. They're also talking about whistleblowers who are also now in danger, and will now be less forthcoming about reporting abuses going on within their perview.
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I think what happened is that the Guardian stabbed them in the back and gave all the governments in the world the excuse they needed to go after Wikileaks.
So now Wikileaks is deciding to go out with a bang before someone slits their throat and denies them even a whimper.
And even the title of the Slashdot post is spinning. Everyone knew Wikileaks published this file, it was insurance if anything should happen to Julian. That Wikileaks re-used a known password for this file is bad security practices [tm], and that Guardian published the password is beyond belief.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
and taking anyone near it down the abyss with it.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If anybody dies now it will be the fault of the US for not moving their informants to a safe place.
Think they'll do it? Or will they prefer to use them as human sacrifices for their witch hunt.
No sig today...
taking any precautions needed to ensure the safety of their informants
Unless they are their own agents or they have information that can harm the US, the State Department has probably established a long time ago the criticality of each informant and the potential exposure to US affairs if that individual is compromised. I'm sure some will be extended protection (those plans are usually determined well in advance), but many many others will simply be abandoned and left to fend for themselves
.
This is not unique to the US. French, British, Russian and Israeli intellegence services operate in the same manner. Informants usually gain something; money, sabotage against a regime they despise, power, food, weapons, or simply asylum.
At this moment US is the nice big target. There's dirty laundry with many other governments.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ultimately the US is looking out for the interests of the US. Countries doing what they think is best for their country, even if it is sneaky, treacherous, or deceitful has been around for a long time. In the end the world is still dog eat dog.
The question people in the US should be asking is if the actions that things like wikileaks exposes is really good for them as citizens of US? If another country gets screwed over a bit (or even a lot) to benefit in the end people living in the US then the citizens shouldn't care. If their results end up hurting people in the US then they should get angry.
Anyway, welcome to the real world, where everything is not touchy-feely happiness, but hard, cold politics and diplomacy, just like it has been for the last 4000 years.
In the article a former WL states that Assange was lazy and just re-used an old password that was the same as the one shared with the Guardian.
If so then two things:
a) Guardian was stupid to publish a password
b) Assange was really careless for re-using a password, considering the spotlight on WL
Anyways, WL had a reasonable set-up with the five media outlets that should have used and that would have provided some sort of support. That's gone now.
Yeah, I do think it's pretty mindless to release all the info raw. Let's hope that there are no victims of circumstance.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Note that the link, is from the Guardian, from the same guy who deliberately published the document in the first place.
Guardian is after wikileaks, bigtime. It's incredibly damning of them.
Whether you're correct or not, you're assuming that activists detailed in the cables are aligned with US interests. I suspect that the US keeps more of an eye on those against it's interests than those with.
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They deserve to be shot.
Wow, brilliant response. Certainly nothing wrong with labeling an organization as "terrorist" just so you can kill them because you don't like their politics. WikiLeaks are not terrorists nor are they under oath to protect anybody's secrets. The people who violated their security clearance and leaked the info initially are who should be punished. If anything, this will make governments less casual about their security clearances, which is a Good Thing(tm).
those who are not aligned with u.s. interests, do not have much to worry about in localities which are not under u.s. control yet. and, their name not being out, does not help them at all against u.s. interests. it is actually better for their name to be out like that to fend off u.s.
Read radical news here
yes. i am complicit in torture because i have to buy stuff that is perpetuated by the interests that perpetuate the torture.
however that does not mean that i should be condoning those who participate in that to a greater extent than i am.
Read radical news here
I totally reject your flippant attitude toward evil doing by the USA, or notion that we should excuse it because that's historically normal. We claim to stand for justice, freedom and human rights, and that is what should guide our actions. If our interests, and we ourselves, get harmed *because* we do evil, then GOOD. we deserve it, and should take that harm which we reap from sowing evil as warning to change our ways to what we know is right.
You have the attitude of every tyrant's lackey and every large corporation which profits on human misery's minion. It is wrong
We don't know when the password and the file were put together by any potential black hats. We know the password was published some time ago, it just became news recently. It isn't like now that the release was official, only at that moment did it fall into the wrong hands.
In any case, this is a tremendous loss. There's no way to guess how many valuable intelligence sources were compromised, and Wikileaks continues to be primarily focused around embarrassing and damaging the Unites States' national security, and not that of other nations or malevolent entities, as their facade is supposed to show.
Good luck with that... we're talking (potentially) thousands of informants globally, many of whom are not in a position (for various but legitimate reasons) to simply pack their families up and go.
If you've ever tried any sort of large logistics operation on short notice, you'd discover pretty quickly just how tough it is to get anything done on a large scale. It would take a month or so at best, and multiple months at worst. Now, try moving a global-wide network of different people, most of whom you may or may not have contact with on a regular (let alone frequent) basis. A huge percentage of these informants have no access to the Internet in order to even check on their own (see also North Korea, Pakistan, etc) Long story short, it would be frickin' impossible on short notice.
Sorry, but the fault lies with the leaker for treason, The Guardian for incompetence, with Wikileaks for being narcissistic idiots and broadcasting the potential hit list in plain daylight, and with all the idealistic useful idiots who, without thinking it through, wholeheartedly and unreservedly supported them.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I'd be interested in knowing how the Guardian even got the password in the first place.
insurance.aes256 IIRC.
And it was supposed to contain at least this information, but possibly more.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Oh? And who should decide what the rules are?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
And you think every other country in the world will play by the same rules? Sorry that is not the case.
That was well covered in the last story. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/09/01/0153200/WikiLeaks-Sues-the-Guardian-Over-Leak
From: http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/09/01/3307488.htm
The Guardian journalist had to set up the PGP encryption system on his laptop at home across the other side of London. Then he could feed in a password. Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"That's the password," he said. "But you have to add one extra word when you type it in. You have to put in the word 'XXXXXXX' before the word 'XXXXXX' [WikiLeaks: so if the paper were seized, the password would not work without Leigh's co-operation] Can you remember that?" "I can remember that." Leigh set off home, and successfully installed the PGP software.
I can see that you clearly hate the US, but that doesn't mean you should pretend that every other regime/government in the world doesn't persecute anyone.
There are a great number of regimes that unjustly persecute people, and I think a little unbiased research would do you good.
I can't tell how serious you're being, and it takes trivial googleing to see you're incorrect, so I'm starting to feel a little like I'm feeding a troll here - hopefully I'm wrong, and we're just miscommunicating.
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What are you doing here on slashdot ?- you actually spelled "losing" correctly..!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Are the people ordering secret infiltrations and propping up dictators. Maybe if the US and their allies had an ounce of moral conscience we'd have a much safer and more pleasant world.
We're going to be hated either way. Our crime is being powerful, the excuse is that we're dicks about it.
"Oh. My. God."
There is no God, and the intent of Manning leaking the cables was their exposure. This was inevitable, so no one should be surprised.
When a secret ceases to be secret it's no longer secret.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In big boy politics NEITHER side cares about a few dead guys. Anyone not getting this needs to grow up.
Jihadists kill their enemies, anti-Jihadists kill their enemies, and anti-anti-Jihadists HELP Jihadists kill anti-Jihadists.
There is no "neutral way to participate".
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
the problem with u.s. is, it is a machine out of control. and it is the machine that is capable of effecting all parts of the globe. this is the problem.
'great number of regimes' that persecute people are present, and an equally great number of regimes that dont do that are also present. especially in europe.
neither of these change the fact that u.s. has become the most detrimental outfit to freedoms of people, including its own. the problem i have with that is, its people defending it, despite they are also among the crowd that gets fucked by it.
now you get the 'you americans' phrase's meaning i guess.
Read radical news here
Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.
There is no news. There is only the truth of the signal. What I see. And, there's the puppet theater the Parliament jesters foist on the somnambulant public.
Anyone who knows shit about dealing with information knows that journalists are extremely tech unsavy and not giving them their own archive and hand holding when it comes to passwords, crypto, etc.
GPG/PGP aren't hard to use. If that was going to stymie a journalist from participating, then good, they weren't smart enough to be in this particular club. After all, if they're that dumb they might just go and publish their own password... oh, wait.
P.S. - 'time limited password' on a static file? Either Assange is an idiot or the journalist is just making stuff up to try to cover his ass. I don't suspect the former.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Treason in the U.S.A. is still legally punished by firing squad if congress deems deserved. This is plenty to get legally shot.
There are no such rules, except possibly for US citizens.
You know, where I come from we grab a beer and a bag of chips and get comfortable. Buckling up isn't comfortable. Looks silly too.
Treason relies on the person having a duty loyal to the USA by being a citizen. Assange is citizen of Australia and cannot thus be charged with treason to the USA.
Or perhaps we should start executing most Americans as traitors to the republic of North Korea and/or Iran and/or China?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
If their results end up hurting people in the US then they should get angry.
"Should"? I think the individual "should" decide that for themselves. I'm not really angry either way.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Any Americans involved, is how i intended that. Otherwise, Espionage works.
As is oft stated here, information wants to be free.
If you are a leaker, you have to assume that ANYTHING you send to someone electronically will be published to the entire population of the planet. That is, after all, why you want to leak something - to make it public.
What this episode has shown is that potential leakers CANNOT trust any organization to do redacting, they must do that before hand if the feel it is needed. It's not like you could trust them anyway, as you never know who really backs any organization you might be sending data to and thus could forward all details to someone, but this just makes it painfully clear.
My position was always that any organization managing leaks must publish everything. Otherwise, they can editorially omit details to say whatever they like.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did anyone seriously think that the complete unredacted cables wouldn't end up getting loose once this dance started way back in November 2010?
(If so, maybe you think all the campaign promises you'll hear in the 2012 election are highly reliable.)
You can blame or hail anyone you like for this. But when something like this gets this much coverage and publicity, it's an excellent bet that full info will be leaked by someone.
They were thinking ... that The Guardian had already published the password to the "insurance" file in a book so they might as well let everybody have access, not just the bad guys.
My understanding is that the Guardian did not publish the password to the insurance file, that it published the password to a temporary file that Assange said would only exist for a few hours. The password was interesting in that it provides some insight into Assange's thinking. Assange giving the password to the Guardian was also insightful, demonstrating great contempt for journalists (can you remember this missing word). What the Guardian did not know, and what Assange is greatly negligent and responsible for is the recycling/reuse of the password for other files and/or the failure to delete the temporary file. This is terribly amateurish handling of extremely critical data.
standard protocol to publish a source's password?
Actually it was kind of interesting. The password itself provides some insight into Assange's thinking and the interaction between the journalist and Assange was insightful in that Assange demonstrates great contempt (can you remember this missing word).
... was the blame on Assange who apparently reused a password ...
Essentially the blame is on Assange. The Guardian had no knowledge that Assange was reusing passwords, they were told by Assange this was a password for a temporary file that will be deleted in a few hours. The Guardian shares blame to the extent that they assumed Assange was competent at data security.
Even the most open society and government needs secrets. No secrets means no back channels and informal communications; lack of those means that violence over disputes will only become MORE likely, not less. You know the saying, "you don't want to see how they make the sausage?" Well, you don't want to see how they keep peace, either: it involves a lot of backchannel communications, informal chats, and politicking. When those means fail, we end up with war. If we remove those means, you've simply made it easier to go from "we disagree at the UN," to "we're dropping bombs over our disagreement."
Your argument is we must steal because other governments steal, we must murder because other govermsent do, we should disregard human rights because other governments do? there is no way we can be prosperous unless we do those things?
Actually the whole archive was already available on piratebay, and we had the discussion about how bad it was to let that happen yesterday. The fact that the documents were available means that anyone who wanted to do anything unpleasant to any of the informants etc. in them was going to already. People who want that kind of information would have been the first to know. The only difference wikileaks is making by releasing it now is that the general public who dont know how to torrent can see them too.
You care about someone hypothetically hating us for doing the right things, but right now we're currently doing evil. that's silly. What is happening is that our wealth is being drained by doing bad things. We support evil regimes and enslavers even if it means destroying entire domestic industries, we loot and war for power and profit, we give massive loans to failing large business models even while the core of our economy is small and medium business who get nothing, etc. etc.
In big boy politics NEITHER side cares about a few dead guys. Anyone not getting this needs to grow up.
Jihadists kill their enemies, anti-Jihadists kill their enemies, and anti-anti-Jihadists HELP Jihadists kill anti-Jihadists.
There is no "neutral way to participate".
Tell my wife I said "Hello.".
You can always trust those already in positions of authority...
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Not everyone in America votes for the exact same candidate. It's just that the majority outnumber the minority.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It looks like the whole wikileaks, and all related like openleaks, issue (to whom ever it is an issue) is solving itself. It is really rather unfortunate to see this play out in such a childish way. The general idea, to provide a save haven for whistleblowers is really something valuable, but it does not look like the current platforms are the hands of capable and responsible people. So something valuable is really getting lost here since any future attempt at a similar institution will have it that much harder to become credible. Lots of ego play at work here, which is very unfortunate. It seems like the greater goal has gotten out of sight.
Actually, IMHO, The US will probably have some of the "exposed/endangered" assassinated so as to make Assange responsible for their deaths! This way they get their extradition, their toy, and their public execution!
What a GREAT way to distract people and make Obama look like a "tough" guy!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
now you get the 'you americans' phrase's meaning i guess.
No, not really, but perhaps I'd get it more if I were American (I'm European for the record).
My mistake was assuming that your original post was about the topic under discussion, rather than just a thinly veiled stab at the US - which is fine. You're perfectly entitled to freedom of speech in that respect, but if you want to get your point across or change people's views, it's better to take a more reasoned approach than just wailing on another country in the guise of taking part in a discussion.
Although I don't share your views in every respect, I applaud your political passion. Best of luck.
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Nobody forces you to get a security clearance and the process of getting one is intense. You don't get one by accident. Believe me, as a former holder of a TS/SCI clearance, the rules and the consequences of breaking them are crystal clear from the get go. BTW, an SCI (aka codeword) clearance gives you access to raw data that could indicate the source of the information. Leaking that is considered particularly heinous within the intelligence community, as it can endanger human and other sources.
So, you chose to jump through all the hoops to get your clearance, you agreed to keep national secrets, then you changed your mind somewhere along the line. Now you are blabbing and deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Life without the possibility of parole sounds good. Say hi to Bubba for me.
If you went in with the intention of spying, I have even less sympathy.
Actually, IMHO, The US will probably have some of the "exposed/endangered" assassinated so as to make Assange responsible for their deaths! This way they get their extradition, their toy, and their public execution!
What a GREAT way to distract people and make Obama look like a "tough" guy!
Wow. I'm glad you aren't actually in charge of anything. Don't pretend for a second that you're not really talking about what you'd do in a position of power.
Excepting in recent years its been changed via active judiciaries, bypassing the amendment process. There's a reason it's HARD to pass an amendment. Meanwhile we've allowed men in black robes to effectively alter our founding documents based on how they feel.
This is the way the system was designed. Those "men in black robes" have the power and the mandate to interpret the law, including the Constitution.
I won't sit here and act like they don't ever screw up. Indeed, a lot of times they do. Sometimes the system needs correction. Plessy v. Ferguson, anyone? But when such is the case, the solution isn't to sit around whining about "active judiciaries," that's just stupid. If judiciaries weren't active, they wouldn't be upholding their Constitutional duty. The solution is to use the checks and balances system to rectify the situation, to put people in office with similar ideals to yours so that you will get judges who are aligned with what you think our society needs. Brown v. Board of Education, anyone?
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see people whining about "activist judges." That's just a cop-out codeword for, "they didn't rule how I wanted them to."
They were thinking something along the lines of "the Guardian already gave the bad guys our secrets, so let's make sure the people at risk have a chance to look through the cables, see if they're mentioned, and take appropriate self-defensive measures, since we don't have the resources to approach them all privately."
I've got a better idea. Wikileaks has always been strongly in favor of the verbatim release of all valid documents submitted to them, with information only ever redacted to protect the submitter of the documents. They got a lot of bad press from innocents' identities being released and this apparently worried them, so they began redacting names of "innocents" from documents prior to release. This was a public relations move on Wikileaks' part, undertaken to prevent their image from being sullied. I think Wikileaks and Julian Assange intended from the very beginning for the diplomatic cables to be released in their entirety, and that they purposefully practiced ridiculously lax password security for their "insurance file". Come on, you're telling me that a serious computer "hacker" like Julian Assange, member of CCC, couldn't prevent the release of the password to their insurance file? Anyone who even knows what GPG/PGP is already understands enough in general to practice simple security procedures.
/.
Next, the Guardian was sued by Wikileaks over what amounted to the release of their insurance file password. Then, in less than a week, Wikileaks releases all the same documents themselves!? You may think "What's the harm if they're already out there released on the internet?" Well, Wikileaks shouldn't be offering these on their website for the same reason the U.S. State Department doesn't declassify and release all the cables that are already leaked to the news: it seriously limits their stance's credibility, especially true for an organization such as Wikileaks which is supposed to conduct themselves by certain lofty principles. Releasing the documents themselves is inconsistent with their supposed desire to protect informants' well-being.
I think Wikileaks and Julian Assange planned this from the very beginning for the cables, in order to remove themselves from blame because "those guys over there are the ones who released the password! They're the real leakers!" With so many people given the password, we can plainly see it was only a matter of time. At least it's not as crazy as some of the other conspiracy theories people tend to put forth here on
01. Assange re-used WikiLeaks's master password.
02. This password was then placed in the Guardian's book on the embassy cables.
03. A WikiLeaks activist put the encrypted files on BitTorrent.
04. A disillusioned WikiLeaks activist told German magazine Freitag about the password.
05. WikiLeaks posted detailed tweets giving clues about where the password could be found.
06. These files were posted on Cryptome.
You're a nut. Why do you keep posting comments asking people why they won't reveal their real name, address, and phone number?
The Guardian, New York Times, El País, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, who worked with WikiLeaks publishing carefully selected and redacted documents in December last year, issued a joint statement condemning the latest release.
"We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk," it said.
"Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. We will continue to defend our previous collaborative publishing endeavour. We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data – indeed, we are united in condemning it.
"The decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone."
And:
The newly published archive contains more than 1,000 cables identifying individual activists; several thousand labelled with a tag used by the US to mark sources it believes could be placed in danger; and more than 150 specifically mentioning whistleblowers.
Why would the U.S. put source-identifying information in a report? Typically, source information is handled with very, very strict controls on an exceptionally maintained need-to-know basis. In these cases, the information reported is of a nature that it could have only come from one or a handful of people in these foreign countries.
Putting a saboteur inside the Guardian in order to get Wikileaks shut down might well be worth it.
There might have been someone somewhere pissed off enough at Wikileaks to be pretty much immune to any compunctions about collateral damage.
Finally, we know who the traitors who sell their country to the US are. Now we can round them up and fire and sue them, or even lower ourselves to the US level and execute them.
for these silly wikileaks people. all their fault that after 10 years there is no specific definition of victory, our main allies are corrupt, election stealing drug lords, and the unfunded pakistani school system allows millions of poverty stricken children to enter more brainwashing madrassas every year.
the rules are not 'clear from the get go'. Thomas Drake was recently prosecuted under the Espionage act for having in his posession a document clearly marked UNCLASSIFIED.
read the case, read the government arguments.
then read about all the high officials and heads of governments who have leaked or mishandled information in the past - including President Reagan's head of DCI Bill Casey who was a scatterbrain and mishandled documents all the time, then there was the leak of the DEA operation in the 80s that lead to the death of Barry Seal, then there was Nixon wanting to leak the Pentagon Papers in order to make Johnson look bad, then the last one is Obama's leaking of information about the assassination of Bin Ladin, then there was Bush's people leaking info about Plame.
leaking is how Congress and the Executive communicate with the media. you shut down leaking, especially in todays overclassification culture, where menus for picnics are marked 'For Official Use Only', and what you are doing is shutting down the flow of information in a democracy, which leads to an ignorant voting public.
Wikileaks is currently "primarily focused" on its continued existence. What with DDB effectively shutting them down, governments all over after them, their financial lifelines cut off and staff harassed. They have barely had time to fart let alone continue their mission. Nevertheless, even with the cablegate archives, its clear that its not all about embarrassing the US if you bother to read some of the cables. A lot of other governments get their share of embarrassment. Just this morning I read of a cable referencing the "embarrassing" case of 180 chinese immigrant children in Sweden who have gone "missing" - probably into the human trafficking industry. Nothing to do with the US see?
But why rely on facts when they just get in the way of a world view that processes everything through a "you're either with us or agin' us" filter.
On the other hand, this full list of cables is invaluable for historians, both US historians and historians of the concerned countries. Knowing how the US government interacted with their governments is very important for the public to know. So this full disclosure is overall a good thing. However, those cables would have been declassified -- redacted -- in relatively short terms (10 years was typical for most of them), and for historians, 10 years isn't all that much to wait. But knowing in near real-time what lead up to the Arab Spring is still quite intriguing.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Ooh! Ooh! Do me next!
Your brain is not a computer.
You forgot to call him a "feeb."
Your brain is not a computer.
so let's make sure the people at risk have a chance to look through the cables, see if they're mentioned, and take appropriate self-defensive measures, since we don't have the resources to approach them all privately."
I would say it's nonsense to suggest Wikileaks did not have sufficient resources to approach the intelligence agencies privately. The governments have plenty of resources to approach those effected privately, and, it's a smarter strategy than simultaneously revealing all the information to both potential good guys and bad guys....
I doubt the world's total of intelligence agencies are necessarily interested in protecting all of the people who might be in danger. Minor resistance leaders not worth the blip they make on the CIA's radar, for example, because the overthrowing of their dictatorship doesn't have any strategic interest for the US. Or those affected by corruption in intelligence agencies who would be direct targets. The world is, alas, more complex than the informants-in-Afghanistan scenario of WikiLeaks's first major hit.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
When I first read this summary I thought that The Guardian had access to all the information, but is trying to blame wikileaks for publishing the information. Good thing some smart people saw through this but the headline will probably get noticed the most that wikileaks published "251,000 secret US diplomatic cables". Sometimes when something doesn't make sense upon parsing, it is a good idea to look beyond the headline to see what is really being said. i.e. "The Dow Jones was up 50 points today" making it seam like the US economy is really recovering when in fact it was down more on previous days. or "The Canadian economy created 100,000 more jobs" when in fact the jobs were in the service sector or part time or even in the State's case when jobs created are not reported with jobs lost. BTW Where in the heck is all the news stories regarding homelessness of families when the insurance companies foreclosed on homes? Oh yeah, that falls in with the coverage of the US politics "Do you like thin or thick crust pizza?"
Society use your Sciences
Taking it to extremes? Ok, fine, lets do that:
Do you think wars would be easy to start when the propaganda and lies used in almost ALL wars would be exposed?
At least then the wars would be more clear, the intentions far better known. Since nearly every war is a lie (or at least made up largely of lies) you'd have a much better situation with no secrets. Would also make corruption more difficult.
The USA could debate wars for Oil openly instead of lies about national security etc.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Actually, this makes sense :
I have said it before : it's better that something is leaked to everyone , than to only a select few people.
So, if the master password is leaked, this is the correct action to take, to prevent that only a select number of people use this to there advantage.
Slipping shoelaces ?
Assange, obviously, because he says so.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Just as you can also trust those who want to replace those in authority like Assange, hmmm? After all all you have to do is claim to be against the established powers to prove to the gullible that you are better than the establishment...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Just as you can also trust those who want to replace those in authority like Assange, hmmm?
Yeah. If I insult the ones who are currently in power, that must mean I support someone else.
Really, though, I just like the idea of Wikileaks. Not sure about Assange, though.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Wikileaks, maybe, Assange definitely not.
The problem with WL is that it is way too easy to pervert by selective publishing by the people in control of it (as Assange has proven) or even by outside entities that use it in a dirty tricks type campaign. In other words, Free Press YES, WL No.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I'm glad you take responsibility for the things your nation is doing. Too many of us are pointing at the other guy. Can we send you and GWB to Iraq as a peace offering? "Sorry, mkay?"
I feel that if we as a nation break a law we claim to hold sacred we should either pay up or get rid of the hypocritical law. If we want to go to war on faked evidence we should start allowing murder defendants back home an automatic self-defense defense if they'll provide a doctored photo of the victim with a weapon.
Because that way we'd have some fucking credibility, and when the next thug stood up we'd have real allies instead of lackeys. This way we're stroking a white cat and clutching our doomsday weapons, watching our fancily uniformed soldiers kicking down doors looking for the hero, and never noticing that the camera isn't giving us the favorable angles anymore.
I'm willing to take the risk of selective publishing. The press seems to easy to silence.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
So instead of fighting to defend a free press we degenerate into mob rule? No thanks, I'm not willing to let anarchy rule
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
So instead of fighting to defend a free press we degenerate into mob rule?
Where did I say anything about mob rule?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Um, a little information for you there, mob rule is not anarchy.. In fact it's very strict
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Excepting of course, Ms Palin, who is performing quite well in her job as a political operative for DPRK, PRC and Iran, and many other governments and people. Truly a citizen of the world!
Deservedly one of the best-known of American politicians outside her own country.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
You neen to think more if you don't realize that WL's model is mob rule. The difference between a group of individuals and a mob is anonymity.
Having all leaks hidden behind WL would be just as bad for society long term as not being able to confront your accuser in court.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Never been caught in a mob have you? There are no rules in a mob.
The difference between a group of individuals & a mob is the anonymity that individuals in a mob enjoy. As hundreds of studies and countless mobs have shown, normal people do things when they think that they are anonymous that they would never do otherwise. Some people dream of tossing molotos into inhabited buildings but they're not ususlly considered normal.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
You neen to think more if you don't realize that WL's model is mob rule. The difference between a group of individuals and a mob is anonymity.
I think anonymity is very important if something like this were to succeed. Otherwise, they would be silenced too easily. With the press, all the government would have to do is convince the people (much easier after something bad happened) that they must be censored. Something like Wikileaks is more difficult to do that to.
Having all leaks hidden behind WL would be just as bad for society long term as not being able to confront your accuser in court.
I find it likely that someone like Wikileaks doesn't care about small people.
And the government and others being able to silence the press in that way is exactly what I was talking about. You may say Wikileaks has some disadvantages, but then again, what doesn't? I'm willing to take that risk. As long as they expose corruption, that is.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
All that has nothing to do with anarchy which apparently you are letting the authoritarians define for you.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I don't have to let anyone else define what anarchy is, unlike you I've seen it first hand. What has become perfectly clear is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Like the deluded few others I have met with similar views you're powerless to affect society in any meaningful way so instead of working within the process to help society as a whole you identify with the idiots who think that anarchy is good. It's too bad you live safe and cozy wherever it is that your parents had the money to bring you up. Had you actually lived through being in actual physical danger in a mob you might actually have a clue.
On the other hand, probably not. Most victims in a mob are not those outside it but the weak within it. You're not intelligent enough to avoid becoming a victim.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Grrr... /.'s new editing system ate my last reply. this will be shorter ...
Why is it that WL hasn't come out with any significant stories on any countries without a free press? is it that a free press is necessary for WL to function? Is it that there are no stories from Russia for example? Is it a lack of courage? Why is this not a problem for you?
If WL is a successful it will be become generalized down to local levels? It has become a truism that in modern society everyone is guilty of something. What exactly will stop the powerful from searching out the information implicating anyone large or small and anonymously sending it to a WL that will publish it?
These are much larger questions that not only are you not answering, you don't appear to even ask yourself the questions. Forgive me but your willingness to take risks without considering the consequences is frightening
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Well, since you have no idea where I live, I'll simply leave you to your assumption that you do, and to all your other preconceptions that make you such a great authority on such things. Feel free to suffocate in your 'process'. Obviously your mind is made up
Peace!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Why is it that WL hasn't come out with any significant stories on any countries without a free press?
What are you talking about? The leaks aren't always leaked directly to the press.
Is it that there are no stories from Russia for example?
It could be that Wikileaks either hasn't gotten anything that it deems noteworthy or that they have some sort of agenda.
What exactly will stop the powerful from searching out the information implicating anyone large or small and anonymously sending it to a WL that will publish it?
Why would they publish it? How would they even get this information? If the "powerful" want to ruin you, I'm quite sure they can do that without Wikileaks.
If WL is a successful it will be become generalized down to local levels?
I don't think so. I don't think that's viable or worthwhile. I'd be more concerned about the government doing something that concentrated.
Do you even support leaking information against the government's wishes as long as it exposes corruption?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Lol, Pot, Kettle... Or more probably it is your preconceptions that limit you and you accuse me of having preconceptions to avoid confronting your own.
The difference between you and I is not a question of any preconceptions, it's that you haven't given thought to the consequences of the positions you hold, while I have. I don't have to know where you live to deduce from your positions & avowed lack of real world experience that you haven't got a clue about the end results of your current positions would be. It has also become clear that instead of looking at using the subjects we have discussed from different angles and reasoning out a coherent position, you consider your positions to be valid -- because they are your current positions. It's depressingly common: From the fundie christians to the radical islamists all the way to the communists with with their dialectic many rely on others to do your thinking for them.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Heh, you talk like a cop... simply appealing to authority. If you were a member of the politburo, you'd be talking them up too.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone