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WikiLeaks to Release 400,000 Secret Documents as Funding Concerns Loom

35 points by Garbage 16y ago

bcl 16y ago
This serves no useful purpose other than to pump up his ego. As much as some may dislike it there are valid reasons for having secrets and protecting them. WikiLeaks' last document dump endangered lives, what will this one do? I find the involvement of mainstream media like the NYT to be disgusting and bordering on treason. I am not opposed to exposing abuses, but a massive dump like this isn't about exposing any specific issue. I hope it ends up being a flop like their so called 'collateral murder' video ended up being. But given the size of this leak I can't help but think there could very well be real collateral damage from it.
- cromulent 16y ago
  Given that the document release has not taken place, it may be premature to judge it as serving no useful purpose. I agree that there are valid reasons for me having secrets and protecting them.
kmfrk 16y ago
>That’s not all, either; Wikileaks claims that its funding has been blocked because it has been placed on watchlists for both the U.S. and Australian governments. It can no longer accept donations through Moneybookers, the site that collected the organization’s donations. PayPal suspended Wikileaks’ account earlier this year. Maybe WePay can help him out? :)
Daishiman 16y ago
At some point you have to ask, what the hell is the Pentagon doing that their security policies allow this number of documents out?
- hugh3 16y ago
  If I were the Pentagon I'd be hard at work making up fake secret documents and leaking them to wikileaks.
  - smokeyj 16y ago
    Good think history leaves a trail. The last batch of documents were cross verified, I assume they'll do the same for this batch.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      I have no idea how an operation the size of wikileaks can do any kind of verification on four hundred thousand documents.
dctoedt 16y ago
Sometimes public release of secret documents serves a useful purpose. But I'd be more impressed with WikiLeaks if it would also obtain and release secret documents from the Taliban, al Quaeda, etc. Except that would probably result in Julian Assange having his head cut off, wouldn't it -- something he likely won't admit he needn't worry about with the Pentagon.
- Confusion 16y ago
  I don't think the Taliban have any secret documents to be released. Their organisation simply hasn't advanced to that of a bureaucracy yet.
  - dctoedt 16y ago
    > I don't think the Taliban have any secret documents to be released. It was reported a couple of years ago that "Taliban maps, manuals and propaganda have been discovered at training camps in Pakistan showing the sophistication of the insurgent's operations in the country's tribal areas." See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3441968/Taliban-documents-reveal-scale-of-operations-in-Pakistan.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3441....
    - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
      The article does not mention whether those were in paper format or digital. It mentioned student notes so I would think it to be more likely that they were in the former format. As such, except for actually posting the documents, I can not see how they can be leaked. That is very different from the download and send, which protects anonymity much more I would think perhaps, as well as being more convenient. To address the point of the parent, I do not think Wikileaks chooses which documents to leaks. It is more a supply thing rather than someone sitting on a pile of documents sifting through them to see which serves their own political agenda if they were leaked. Though I hardly know anything of wikileaks, the wiki part in the leaks sort of suggests that it is kind of like wikipeia, so that anyone can leak whatever they want straight away I guess without going through some sort of filtering system.
hugh3 16y ago
I'm afraid I've never looked at wikileaks until now, and right now it seems to be down, so I don't know much about it. But can someone explain to me in what sense it's a wiki if they sit on and release documents rather than just letting anyone add anything at any time? Or is the "wiki" part of the name meaningless?
- cromulent 16y ago
  I believe that it is in no sense a public wiki any longer. According to Wikipedia, the original Wikileaks "about" page read: "To the user, Wikileaks will look very much like Wikipedia. Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it." Not for some time, though. Everything is vetted.

35 points by Garbage 16y ago

bcl 16y ago

This serves no useful purpose other than to pump up his ego. As much as some may dislike it there are valid reasons for having secrets and protecting them. WikiLeaks' last document dump endangered lives, what will this one do? I find the involvement of mainstream media like the NYT to be disgusting and bordering on treason. I am not opposed to exposing abuses, but a massive dump like this isn't about exposing any specific issue. I hope it ends up being a flop like their so called 'collateral murder' video ended up being. But given the size of this leak I can't help but think there could very well be real collateral damage from it.

cromulent 16y ago
Given that the document release has not taken place, it may be premature to judge it as serving no useful purpose. I agree that there are valid reasons for me having secrets and protecting them.

kmfrk 16y ago

>That’s not all, either; Wikileaks claims that its funding has been blocked because it has been placed on watchlists for both the U.S. and Australian governments. It can no longer accept donations through Moneybookers, the site that collected the organization’s donations. PayPal suspended Wikileaks’ account earlier this year. Maybe WePay can help him out? :)

Daishiman 16y ago

At some point you have to ask, what the hell is the Pentagon doing that their security policies allow this number of documents out?

hugh3 16y ago
If I were the Pentagon I'd be hard at work making up fake secret documents and leaking them to wikileaks.
- smokeyj 16y ago
  Good think history leaves a trail. The last batch of documents were cross verified, I assume they'll do the same for this batch.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I have no idea how an operation the size of wikileaks can do any kind of verification on four hundred thousand documents.

dctoedt 16y ago

Sometimes public release of secret documents serves a useful purpose. But I'd be more impressed with WikiLeaks if it would also obtain and release secret documents from the Taliban, al Quaeda, etc. Except that would probably result in Julian Assange having his head cut off, wouldn't it -- something he likely won't admit he needn't worry about with the Pentagon.

Confusion 16y ago
I don't think the Taliban have any secret documents to be released. Their organisation simply hasn't advanced to that of a bureaucracy yet.
- dctoedt 16y ago
  > I don't think the Taliban have any secret documents to be released. It was reported a couple of years ago that "Taliban maps, manuals and propaganda have been discovered at training camps in Pakistan showing the sophistication of the insurgent's operations in the country's tribal areas." See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3441968/Taliban-documents-reveal-scale-of-operations-in-Pakistan.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/3441....
  - Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
    The article does not mention whether those were in paper format or digital. It mentioned student notes so I would think it to be more likely that they were in the former format. As such, except for actually posting the documents, I can not see how they can be leaked. That is very different from the download and send, which protects anonymity much more I would think perhaps, as well as being more convenient. To address the point of the parent, I do not think Wikileaks chooses which documents to leaks. It is more a supply thing rather than someone sitting on a pile of documents sifting through them to see which serves their own political agenda if they were leaked. Though I hardly know anything of wikileaks, the wiki part in the leaks sort of suggests that it is kind of like wikipeia, so that anyone can leak whatever they want straight away I guess without going through some sort of filtering system.

hugh3 16y ago

I'm afraid I've never looked at wikileaks until now, and right now it seems to be down, so I don't know much about it. But can someone explain to me in what sense it's a wiki if they sit on and release documents rather than just letting anyone add anything at any time? Or is the "wiki" part of the name meaningless?

cromulent 16y ago
I believe that it is in no sense a public wiki any longer. According to Wikipedia, the original Wikileaks "about" page read: "To the user, Wikileaks will look very much like Wikipedia. Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it." Not for some time, though. Everything is vetted.