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The Guardian and the Wikileaks Encryption Key
rtfa-troll writes "Bruce Schneier has a good article explaining how the Guardian released the encryption key for the WikiLeaks cables and destroyed the main protection against the release of informers' personal information. The comments in Schneier's blog fill in details of how exactly WikiLeaks' secondary file security protections were also bypassed. Now the Guardian has an article that Assange risks arrest by Australia over the latest leaks, which include information about an Australian intelligence officer. They even say, 'We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk,' and go on to state that 'The decision to publish by Julian Assange was his, and his alone,' something which seems clearly debunked in the analysis on Schneier's blog."
They accepted the risks when they engaged in the covert operations to begin with. People who uncover secrets are not responsible for deaths -- killers are.
Among other revealations during this ordeal, one thing stands out - I now know how morally bankrupt main stream media have become, irrespective of how right or wrong assange is.
Guardian won awards for all the work done by wikileaks/manning, and now they just backstabbed them, and still have guts to defend their own actions.
NYT is even worse.
Whisleblowing investigative journalism is dead, sold out to big governments and corporations.
I'm sure you're correct in that most of the damage has already been done. I am, however, reacting to the cavalier attitude with which people seem to be treating this data. People have and will be killed over this information, and more importantly, next time someone is considering leaking something that may benefit the public as a whole, they're going to think twice about doing it. Because of that, this leak is a terrible thing for the world.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Information wants to be free, and I do appreciate your eagerness to propagate this information, but people will die as a result of these leaked cables.
You've said that twice now. How do you know it to be true? These cables weren't internal CIA reports, most of them were not even classified and those few that were had only the lowest level of classification.
Furthermore, the information was "leaked" by the Guardian's careless publication of a password. Wikileaks officially publishing them now in an easily searchable form means anyone at risk has the ability to check for themselves if their names are mentioned - the bad guys have had the cables since at least last week, if not for the last few months following the publication of the password in February.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
They accepted the risks when they engaged in the covert operations to begin with. People who uncover secrets are not responsible for deaths -- killers are.
If your ex will kill you if he/she knows where you live, and I know your ex will do that, and I tell your ex where you live, I am *not* blameless
If the country you're in will kill you if it knows what you do, and I know the country will do that, and I tell them what you do, I am not blameless.
Saying someone accepted the risk of a bad result does not mean that other people who cause that result are inherently blameless. You may accept the risk of an accident when you drive to work in the morning, but if I hit you with my car, it may still be my fault.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Just an aside here, I don't know how relevant it is.
I love how all the small-government types - the ones who think that the notions of commonwealth are somehow equivalent to boogieman socialism - get all righteously pro-State, when it comes to WikiLeaks. It is a curious kind of cognitive dissonance.
I propose that this psychological maladaptation is the expected outcome of an authoritarian personality forming in the context of what is, nominally, a republic.
George Orwell was impossibly subtle and perceptive in his fictional exposition of this as "DoubleThink". He demonstrates it as obvious, oxymoronic contradiction - a caricature of the actual mental state of those who enable and support totalitarian positions.
"Freedom isn't Free" Christ! That's the knee-jerk truism for "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" in one, compact portmanteau!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's been a year, and so far, nobody has died as a result of the leaked cables. Not saying it won't happen, but it hasn't happened so far.
On the other hand, the cables contain information about people who have been murdered. These crimes would not be known, nor their murderers known, were it not for the release of the cables. So you seem to be advocating the cover-up an actual crime to potentially stop a future, theoretical crime. That'd be a great one for an undergraduate philosophy class to work through.
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