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Wikileaks: Something is up
- andr 17y agoIf they really have something that important, why would they drum up attention and wait like sitting ducks, instead of publishing it ASAP?
- Confusion 17y agoBecause publishing something takes time and computer access, both of which they may not have had.
- SlyShy 17y agoWikileaks publishes memos, reports, that sort of concrete evidence. I don't think they would officially publish their first hand reports without first trying to get some kind of confirmation through a leaked government file on them, for example.
- eob 17y agoTwo reasons: First, the "confession" -- whosever they are trying to elicit -- has more value if given out of paranoia. Think about it this way: you have a brief glimpse into something wrong that happened, but you don't know the full story. Let's say you know 10% of the full story. If you come forward with the evidence, the accused party need only acknowledge or refute the 10% that you've divulged. However if you make them think you know a whole lot more than 10%, you might end up pressuring them to give a confession that will reveal a much larger amount of the wrong deed. Second, pressuring a government to admit wrongdoing is better PR for Wikileaks than disclosing leaked information. Wikileaks is treading on delicate territory already with their mission statement. When classified information becomes whistleblower-deserving information is a debatable topic. Because of this, Wikileaks has to manage their PR very carefully, lest they be viewed as the enemy-to-all, friend-to-none. By pressuring organizations to admit wrongdoing rather than publicly accusing them of it, it's a win-win: the information gets out, and WikiLeaks doesn't have to be in the press again for leaking "stolen" information.
- eob 17y agoStill, I think the idea of a small amateur (as far as spycraft is concerned) organization pressuring the DoD like this is insane. They're risking their own wellbeing.
- rbanffy 17y ago> They're risking their own wellbeing. For a good cause, that is. One that benefits us all.
- runinit 17y agoInformation in the ultimate weapon and the internet is the ideal vector for attack.
- Estragon 17y agoI don't understand why this comment is being voted up. What does it mean, and how does it relate to the comment it's responding to?
- k33n 17y agoIt means that the free and open exchange of information is the public's best weapon against corruption.
- dkimball 17y agoIf that's so, why is Africa still a mess? We have no shortage of knowledge about the scale of corruption south of the Sahara (and north of it); the problem is that those who are prepared to fight in, let's say, Nigeria and those who want to stop corruption in Nigeria are seldom the same people. In the end, weapons are the most important weapons. If a group of people no longer care about anything but their own power, and they're armed, the thing to do is to deprive them of those arms -- not to catalog their abuses and trust in the power of words.
- thaumaturgy 17y agoPossibly to draw more attention and support. They've been having funding issues lately; they might think this is a good way to get out from under that. Of course, it'll backfire if this turns out to be insignificant, a la the recent documents that they claimed were evidence of the U.S. trying to "shut them down".
- barrkel 17y agoI'd feel a lot more inclined to donate if they were clearer about where the money went and why they need so much for what amounts to a moderated and anonymized public file share.
- rms 17y agoIt seems quite likely that they have extraordinary legal costs and that they can't afford to release new info without the safe funds for their their legal defense.
- smackfu 17y agoIIRC, it was basically funding a couple of salaries. Which uses up money a lot faster than hosting costs. Edit: Oops, it's apparently $600k to fully fund with salaries, and $200k to just fund operations. Still seems crazy high.
- biafra 17y agoIt seems high but they are not hosting this information on an easily rented server. First they have to anonymize the data but keep it as authentic as possible. Second (and this is directly from one of the operators of WikiLeaks) they have to host it in a way that it crosses at least 3 jurisdictions from them to you. They were operating this out of their own pockets. Donations were scarce when they just asked (for years for it) but were still online. When they took away the information and asking for donations they went way up. I did not like this to but he explained it, and it made sense to me. The one person I personally know from WikiLeaks has been online 20 minutes ago. So at least he seems to be fine.
- trin_ 17y agoi think they talked about this in the past. they thought it was a problem that almost nobody picked the storys up in depth so they thought about changing the release model. they talked about releasing stuff a few days earlier for the press so that they can have people digging through the (often enormous amounts of) releases to prepare articles.
- dunk010 17y agoYeah, I read that in a wired article. It makes sense, and if one press organisation is going to put the time in to comb over the data then they usually need an incentive, like getting the exclusive.
- barrkel 17y agoWhen you submit something to Wikileaks, you can set an embargo date. But this current stream of tweets is a bit dramatic. If it's just some random infrared kill shot like that old Apache hit ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/audiovideo/apachehit.mpg http://www.globalresearch.ca/audiovideo/apachehit.mpg ), then it'll hurt Wikileaks' credibility to some degree.
- molesy 17y agoAlways love when people show that video without the several minutes of verification, obvious tossing of the RPG, etc.
- ErrantX 17y agoCall me a cynic but this is based on just the Twitter feed. Let's not get too excited till something more concrete appears. (unless of course your suggesting we should believe everything posted on Twitter as gospel without verification.........)
- dsplittgerber 17y agoWhich is essentially their most important form of communication, with the website only being used to host documents these days.
- ErrantX 17y agoIt won't take much to turn this into a headline like "Wikileaks detained by US" (this is the first step...[1]). When all it is so far is unverified postings on the Wikileaks Twitter feed. Is it a publicity stunt? Paranoia? Or the real thing? We dont know yet. My guess is somewhere between the real thing and publicity - but we should avoid jumping on bandwagons. I might be slightly more cynical this week because of their last piece of paranoia the other week ;) 1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1216034 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1216034
- dsplittgerber 17y agoSure, their PR methods are edgy. But what is paranoid about that piece the other week? The US Army describes Wikileaks as a potential danger to their operational and information security, due to moles being potentialy able to securely leak information to them. It then calls for, shall we say, further "awareness" of this potential "danger", and for submitting fabricated information, identification and prosecution of whisteblowers etc. What makes you think Wikileaks is being paranoid instead of realistic?
- ErrantX 17y agoThey said that the US Army had attacked them and were planning to shut them down. Which, if you read the document, was not actually the case.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Indyan 17y agoWikiLeaks getting in trouble is nothing new. The US Army has admitted to planning attacks on WikiLeaks in the past ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/army_wikileaks/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/army_wikileaks/ ), So far they have always managed to survice - even against damning odds. If some major press picks up this news, then it will certainly help WikiLeaks. I pushed it through at http://techie-buzz.com/latest-news/wikileaks-pentagon-murder-cover-up.html http://techie-buzz.com/latest-news/wikileaks-pentagon-murder... I just hope that the information they are sitting on is indeed significant.Though, to be honest it probably is, since WikiLeaks is already popular (too popular for their own good).
- grandalf 17y agoLet's all applaud Google for hosting a WikiLeaks server to accompany it's bold anti-censorship stance!
- GHFigs 17y agoThe US Army has admitted to planning attacks on WikiLeaks in the past Not true. The article you link to only contains quotes from the document Wikileaks published. That is not an admission of anything. Nor does the document actually describe planning attacks on Wikileaks: only Wikileaks' description (and subsequent mis-reporting based on that) characterizes it that way. The actual content of the document does not support that conclusion. I encourage you to read it for yourself.
- grandalf 17y agoThe US practices censorship just like China does. Let's all applaud Google when it agrees to host a WikiLeaks server! Yeah right.
- dsplittgerber 17y ago"Finally cracked the encryption to US military video in which journalists, among others, are shot. Thanks to all who donated $/CPUs." http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/9412020034 http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/9412020034 This may have to do with it.
- waterlesscloud 17y agoI would like to hear more about this encryption cracking, which would seem to be an impressive feat. Anyone have any background?
- there 17y agorelated to this? http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/insurgents-hack-predator-video-feed-26-software http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/insurgents-...
- gwern 17y agoIf it were, why would there be any need for brute-forcing it? Isn't the point of that story the lack of encryption?
- ErrantX 17y agoDepends on the exact encryption but from the sounds of the tweet ("$/CPU") it sounds like it could have been just brute forced.
- eli 17y agoSure, but the obvious question: where did they find a secret military video protected by encryption that is weak enough to be bruteforced?
- danielharan 17y agoWith enough $/CPUs, it's all weak.
- jxcole 17y agoI recall reading a report that was published on wiki-leaks that was by the US government about wiki leaks itself. There were some worrying things in there, the foremost of which was the summary at the top of the document, written not by the US government, but by wikileaks. In the summary they claimed that the US was recommending trying to fire/expose anyone who posted on wiki-leaks. However, all the article really said was "If people are fired or exposed for publishing on wiki leaks, this will probably serve as a deterrant." Two very different things. The summary was full of exaggerated claims like this one that really, in my opinion, made wiki-leaks look stupid. The point is that wikileaks has a really awesome ideal, which is to expose bad things that are secrets. However, I worry that they are trying too hard to make everything into a conspiracy theory. We need to step back and say, "Ok, so in some movies there are conspiracy theories like the ones we're presenting. And those movies are highly entertaining because they are so ridiculous. So, do we believe this because it is true or because we want it to be true?" In the end, I would really like to know if the US government, or any government, is shooting journalists. But only if it really is true. Otherwise we're no better than schizophrenic conspiracy theorists and it really won't make a difference. So to tie it in, is something really up with wiki-leaks? If it is that would be good information. But I would not be surprised to find out tomorrow that these claims were highly exaggerated.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- akikuchi 17y agoNew Update: "To those worrying about us--we're fine, and will issue a suitable riposte shortly." http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/10993931099 http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/10993931099
- djcapelis 17y agoYeah but can we even trust that? I mean probably, but if we're really talking about the wikileaks team being detained for serious business, can we realy trust that no one went and logged onto their twitter account to tell people that these weren't the droids they were looking for? I'm going to assume they're likely fine, but a post on Twitter hardly provides complete assurance of that. Unfortunately I'm not sure there's really a provable way to deal with this problem that wouldn't compromise too much information.
- adrianwaj 17y agoThe Terminator: [to John] What's the dog's name? John Connor: Max. The Terminator: [impersonating John's voice] Hey Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. T-1000 impersonating Janelle: Wolfie's fine, honey, Wolfie's just fine. Where are you? The Terminator: [hangs up the phone] Your foster parents are dead. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes?qt0416763 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes?qt0416763
- imajes 17y agoi have a second source who validates that they're ok, just busy looking for bandwidth in a politically neutral state/jurisdiction. If anyone knows anyone who has that, pls let me know & i'll pass it on....
- dsplittgerber 17y agoWikileaks has gained over 5000 new followers on twitter in the last 24 hours, that's close to +25%. There is an interesting moral question to be argued, whether it would be morally right to withhold information in order to gain funding and/or publicity and/or exposure to more followers, if they were creating drama deliberately (which there is not any indication of, I think, but theoretically possible).
- pinstriped_dude 17y agoWikiLeaks update: "We are fine" - http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/10993931099 http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/10993931099