Unlimited Wikileaks Shenanigans

[Doktor Howl]

Goddamnit what a fucker.

I wonder though if he's paid or blackmailed. Not that it matters one bit.

Or, as Nigel suggested, he was told his family would have an accident.

More likely, though, he just sold out.

[Cramulus]

If the goal is to discredit leaks altogether, then that works, right?

Can you discredit an entire type of communication? That's a lot harder than discrediting one information source.

It'd be like creating a TV station that was so misleading, nobody trusted any TV anymore.

And even if they did, how would you know which is which? 

We cannot know for sure. That's no different from the present situation though. (The US Embassy cables very well could have been faked or manipulated by Assange)

Or the "real" leaks will concern their political enemies.

As long as the leaks are exposing corruption, that's fine by me.

If, for example, Chase wants to compete with BofA by exposing their shady business practices, that's still a victory for the public.

[Doktor Howl]

If, for example, Chase wants to compete with BofA by exposing their shady business practices, that's still a victory for the public.

Not if the net result is more corruption than you started with.

[Triple Zero]

Goddamnit what a fucker.

I wonder though if he's paid or blackmailed. Not that it matters one bit.

Or, as Nigel suggested, he was told his family would have an accident.

Sorry, that's what I meant to say. Blackmail's the wrong word it seems, would "coercion" be the proper term?

Why do you think it's more likely he sold out, though?

It's just that I find it hard to imagine that you work all these years becoming the second man (?) in Wikileaks, you don't do that without really ideologically believing in what you're doing (even though he disagrees with Assange on the details), and then really sell out in the end?
The "family accident" would seem more likely to me.

But as I said, it doesn't really matter in the end just how they got him to do it.

[Doktor Howl]

Why do you think it's more likely he sold out, though?

Because it's easier to buy a monkey than to extort one.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Why do you think it's more likely he sold out, though?

Because it's easier to buy a monkey than to extort one.

This is generally true.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

Goddamnit what a fucker.

I wonder though if he's paid or blackmailed. Not that it matters one bit.

Or, as Nigel suggested, he was told his family would have an accident.

Sorry, that's what I meant to say. Blackmail's the wrong word it seems, would "coercion" be the proper term?

Why do you think it's more likely he sold out, though?

It's just that I find it hard to imagine that you work all these years becoming the second man (?) in Wikileaks, you don't do that without really ideologically believing in what you're doing (even though he disagrees with Assange on the details), and then really sell out in the end?
The "family accident" would seem more likely to me.

But as I said, it doesn't really matter in the end just how they got him to do it.

Consider how much he disliked Assange. Starting this new Leaks corporation could be his way of one upping him. Maybe its a situation of "Take care of those pesky leaks for us and well give you all the money in the world to start up your own Leak publisher. Then you can show that asshole Julian whats what."

[Triple Zero]

All Wikileaks Cables to be Released unredacted in next 24 hours
http://www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html

Guardian's reaction:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online

[Triple Zero]

waitwaitwait WAIT

W T F

if I read the Guardian's article correctly, they got the whole unredacted thing, encrypted, through a secure connection, and were given a password which they understood was temporary cause they agreed to delete all the data again in a couple of hours, which they did.

so they published the password in their book and thought nothing about it.

then it turns out that ...

... wait for it ...

is this the same password that decrypts a several gigabytes torrent that was published last year??!

sorry but

[Doktor Howl]

How very Transmet.   

[Faust]

So much for protecting their anonymous sources. This is going to be bad

[Doktor Howl]

So much for protecting their anonymous sources. This is going to be bad

Something stinks, here.

[Triple Zero]

Would the extortion/coercion destruction have anything to do with this as well?

Cause apparently this was known already since august (on account of the book being published, I guess), but they couldn't say anything about it for fear of drawing attention to it (someone had to guess it was the same password).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It certainly does.

[Triple Zero]

Discussion on hackernews: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2948578

http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/09/01/3307488.htm says

"According to Der Spiegel: At the end of 2010, Domscheit-Berg [former worker at Wikileaks and founder of rival, OpenLeaks] finally returned to WikiLeaks a collection of various files that he had taken with him, including the encrypted cables. Shortly afterwards, WikiLeaks supporters released a copy of this data collection onto the Internet as a kind of public archive of the documents that WikiLeaks had previously published. The supporters clearly did not realize, however, that the data contained the original cables, as the file was not only encrypted but concealed in a hidden subdirectory."

So The Guardian deliberately leaked the password and Wikileaks accidentally leaked the file. Personally, I think both sound like pretty stupid things to do ...

English article on Spiegel:
Spiegel.de -- Leak at WikiLeaks: A Dispatch Disaster in Six Acts



How exactly do you think something stinks, Dok?