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French Intelligence Agency Forces Removal of Wikipedia Entry
saibot834 writes "The French domestic intelligence agency DCRI has forced a Wikipedia administrator to delete an article about a local military base. The administrator, who is also the president of Wikimédia France, has been threatened by the agency with immediate reprisals after his initial refusal to comply. Following a discussion on the administrator's noticeboard, the article (which is said to violate a law on the secrecy of the national defense) has been reinstated by a foreign user. Prior to pressuring the admin, DCRI contacted the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which refused to remove the article. WMF claimed the article only contained publicly available information, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability policy. While the consequences for Wikimedia's community remain unclear, one thing is certain: The military base article – now available in English – will get more public awareness than ever before."
This is a terrific test case on secrecy laws. No one violated laws, no one is using secret information. All the proper people were notified and there was a clear cut request / order and a clear cut refusal to comply. At the same time this is military information. This is just about the perfect test case.
I wonder what that French agency which likes to create French words instead of using ones derived from other languages will coin to name the Streissand effect.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
That's military intelligence for you. Nice radio station you have there, France.
You can't handle the truth.
You don't need to devour spy novels or watch 007 all night long to understand one simple aspect of the story (as reported in the summary, at least): once news about X leak out, X is to be considered COMPROMISED.
In this case it is blatant. Something that shouldn't have been there is available? assume the bad guys got it, if it is important, STFU if it's not important.
So, this move from the French secret service is muscle flexing, or counterintelligence (making people concentrate on a decoy), or a way to make openness and free exchange of information look contrary to national interests.
It is not a way to increase national security.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
China says thank you, but we already knew about this.
You can certainly understand the collective French nervousness regarding military secrets. Look what happened when that Maginot thing got out.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
No one violated laws, no one is using secret information.
So how is this a "terrific test case on secrecy laws"? If this goes any further than it has, this is a test case for the French military's ability to overstep its authority. Nothing more.
I expect this "case" to go no further.
:)
French Intelligence? Are you mad?
Let me show you something: page view statistics from the last 90 days.
The article had ZERO hits for months ... until yesterday.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
In this case the problem was not that Wikipedia was centralized. The Wikimedia Foundation in the US did not comply with the agency's demands.
The problem was that the administrator's real name was publicly known (he's a public figure and it's his username) so that they were able to find someone under French jurisdiction. Most admins and non-admins use pseudonyms and are thus immune to real-life pressure.
All in all, I'd say the system worked. The admin had to give in to the immense pressure, but he was sensible enough to publicly announce what he did, thus enabling foreign users to reinstate the article. Now, the really threatening cases are those with gag orders, such as given by US intelligence agencies.
Could have been worse like another time in New Zealand - at least they didn't sink Wikipedia's boat and kill their photographer.
> "The French domestic intelligence agency DCRI"
I wonder if there is any publicly-verifiable information about the state of this agency's leader's wife's underpants thru a window.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
ARE BELONG TO US!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
- Jack, "the station is commanded by a major, an OR-9 non-commissioned officer. About twenty personnel are on-site, among which are electricians, mechanics, and cooks..."
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
You misunderstand. Whoever in the French military gave the take-down order pretty much confirmed that the information is genuine, and important. Foreign intelligence agencies don't often get a free kick like that.
Weird thing is, intelligence agency have tried and true methods for casting subtle doubt on compromised information. And not one of those methods involves bursting into a room, pointing at the thing and yelling "Hey! Everyone! I'm from the French military and this thing, this thing right here, which I'm pointing at, this thing is very important to us!" [Except in all-caps. And purple blink font.]
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
That was a British army (70000 men) assisted by six French armies (150000 men) and it was well outside of Paris.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
How can an intelligence agency be so stupid?
The summary has a link to a supposedly restored page. But it appears to be encoded or written in some dead language.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah. Take a lesson from the British on how to handle such matters.
Have gnu, will travel.
And not one of those methods involves bursting into a room, pointing at the thing and yelling "Hey! Everyone! I'm from the French military and this thing, this thing right here, which I'm pointing at, this thing is very important to us!" [Except in all-caps. And purple blink font.]
Maybe that's what they want you to think...
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I believe 0000 is very commonly used
Nope. Its the President's birthday. All you have to do is to get hold of a copy of his birth cert ....... Oh, crap!
Have gnu, will travel.
True. But utterly irrelevant to my point.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs
Translated:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWikip%25C3%25A9dia%3ABulletin_des_administrateurs
Scroll down to
Wikimedia Foundation elaborates on recent demand by French Governmental agency to remove Wikipedia content
Version as of 1 April, still current as of a few minutes ago:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs&oldid=91565146
Translated:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DWikip%25C3%25A9dia%3ABulletin_des_administrateurs%26oldid%3D91565146
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A couple of days ago, Bruce Schneier posted a blog entry that seems relevant. There's something in the military mindset about secrecy that I don't understand, and perhaps none of us do.
How people talked about the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project.
The scientists building *MY* unstoppable superweapon will not be sequestered in the fortress of doom, nestled in the mountains of despair, on the far side of the desert of death. They will be working in an anonymous office park in silicon valley. Their cover story will be that they are working for a bioinformatics startup, and can't talk about what they're doing in there because of both an NDA and HIPAA.
No one will ever notice until it's too late to stop me.
Imagine all the people...
Yep i bet there will be plenty of "Second Attachés" from the Russian and Chinese embassies with suspiciously bulky backpacks taking walking holidays in that region now :-)
The Manhattan Project was successfully kept secret from the Germans, which was the primary goal. The German atomic program never got very far. How well the secret was kept is known, because, after the war, the major German physicists were interned in a big house in England and the house was bugged. The "Farm Hall Transcripts" record what they said. They didn't know how to enrich uranium in quantity. They didn't know how to make a workable bomb. Their calculations on assembly time for a gun bomb were way off; they didn't think a gun bomb would work. They had no clue about implosion.
Here:
<URL:http://binged.it/ZG9LQ0>
Security: If you don't protect the unimportant bits, everyone knows which *are* the important bits.
Government to admin: Delete this article or suffer the consequences, and don't tell anyone why, or suffer additional consequences.
Admin: *delete article*, leaving bogus or meaningless log entry.
Wikipedia editors: *Open deletion review and/or file a formal complaint against administrator*
Fellow administrators: Why did you delete the article?
Administrator: "I can't tell you" or simply silence.
End result: Article restored, administrator possibly loses administrator privileges. Administrator's wiki-reputation unjustly in shambles.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I don't understand why they are so pent up over this military base. The radio station will only tell their troops where to fall back.
That information should not have been on Wikipedia in the first place! How can one accuse of censorship when it comes to data important for France's national defense? The only reason I can think of for wanting to know that the buildings of the military base are made of blast-proof concrete, can withstand chemical, and biological attacks, and that the facility is one of a handful of military information hubs, is to attack it, and endanger France's defense. I'm a huge advocate of the freedom of information, but it seems that making such information available could only cause harm. Am I the only one who is appalled by Wikipedia's refusal to comply?
The French are doing this for the same reason the Americans are persecuting Julian Assange.
Of course the information about this base is out, and of course 500,000 counselor posts were published and can't be retrieved. But, by chasing Assange around the world and into obscure embassies, they make the next person think a little more about what they post on-line. They want the public spectacle of making someone that shares purported 'classified' information eat some dirt or look over their shoulder. Maybe it prevents them from publishing the address of a safe house in Benghazi.
JF
To French intelligence; "Vous et bete! Just who gives a sh*t? If the shist hits the fan, you'll just surrender again, so, who cares?
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
After all, they are French.
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow