5 ms·

Stratfor Is a Joke and So Is Wikileaks for Taking It Seriously

101 points by marcloney 15y ago

m_for_monkey 15y ago
I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled, they have debunked Stratfor, the "money-making scheme". They sell nothing for a fortune, I hope their subscribers will leave them.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  They don't sell nothing, they sell outsourced information gathering. They're pretty much exactly the same as any other outsourced service. You could do it yourself or pay someone else to do it. People have completely valid reasons for paying other people to do things they could do for themselves, in fact pretty much everyone does it all the time. Any reporter who questions the validity of that choice is one who makes me question their own understanding of how the world works.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled I do - Assange branded this leak as far more momentous and STRATFOR as much more insidious than it is. The "secret cash bribes" are his wording, after all. I was a corporate subscriber of STRATFOR's. The Atlantic is a bit harsh here, but it's harsh on STRATFOR promoting its brand as a "shadow CIA". That specific complaint is fair. We never commissioned investigation from them, but I was quite happy with analysis we had them write up for us on how the US was likely to react to various situations. For example, they were the first source to bring it to my attention that for all the wailing about Putin messing with the Russian elections, the "true" winners were the right nationalist parties. CIA intel? No. But potentially worth knowing to judge the region's investment climate stability? Probably. For deep digging I'd go to Kroll, IGI, Dilligence, etc. If Anonymous and pals could get into their servers I'd be legitimately impressed.
AngrySkillzz 15y ago
This article seems a bit heavy on derision and low on content/evidence.
- dmix 15y ago
  The media is about having "angles" these days. Having extreme opinions in order make things interesting. Content is secondary.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
freshhawk 15y ago
I can see why this would seem over-hyped and stupid to someone with experience and contempt for STRATFOR already. And so far I haven't heard anything worth the "BIG NEWS COMING" hype from wikileaks. It's still too dismissive of the benefits of the leak. As some commenters point out: maybe the people with no access to anyone, who are the targets of amateurs like STRATFOR would like to know what's going on. Whatever they are, they are exposed now. Seems irrationally condescending to be so dismissive, it's not in line with the evidence presented. Contempt from a "real reporter" towards Wikileaks? It weakens his argument.
Intermernet 15y ago
Hi Everyone, I'm seeing a lot of talk of Anonymous in relation to this leak but there's no mention of them on http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html at all that I can find. Can someone point me to the info that shows they were involved? I may be suffering from internet blindness :-) EDIT: Never mind, found it :-) must have had a Ctrl-F fail.
steve19 15y ago
What is the difference between Stratfor and the WSJ or Economist? They all are relatively expensive publications that provide information only to subscribers and not the general public. The author seems to be upset that Stratfor was making a lot of money. Startfor is not the only private intelligence group. IHS Inc. [0] owns Jane's Information Group (defense/strategic intelligence) [1] and iSuppli (industrial intelligence). In my opinion Jane's publications and subscriptions are way overpriced. The book Jane's All the World's Aircraft (2012) costs well over $1300 on Amazon [2]. I doubt there is anything in there that you can't find on Wikipedia (or, if not, a quick Google search). That does not stop every mil/intel office worldwide buying a copy of the latest edition each year. Their customers seem to like having all the latest information in a big heavy book. There is no point in hating on Jane's for providing a product that is demanded by the public. So Stratfor does marketing to enhance their image and increase their subscriber base, what businesses don't? I am not interested in subscribing to Stratfor, but I don't hate on them for meeting consumer demand. [0] http://www.ihs.com/ http://www.ihs.com/ [1] http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx [2] http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds-Aircraft-2011-2012/dp/0710629559/ http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds-Aircraft-2011-2012/dp... Edit: Added Links. Clarified thought.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  The difference is what each makes themselves out to be. I have subscriptions to both the WSJ and Economist - neither is particularly expensive. And the WSJ/Economist are precisely what they make themselves out to be - a business newspaper (thought I haven't touched the actual paper in 3+ years), and a weekly magazine on international affairs (ditto with no physical magazine touched in several years). Janes, WSJ, and the Economist all do original sourcing/reporting. Regarding Janes - $1300 for the good research report on Aviation Assets is roundoff error for the people who need it (typically people in the Airline Industry who need market research on airplanes - $1300 is eminently reasonable for a good market research report on a vertical sector) for people who don't "need it" (Almost all of us) We can get it from Wikipedia/Google searches - and much of that data you find will be sourced back to Jane's. Stratfor makes themselves out to be some amazingly elite intelligence reporting organization, when, in fact, they offer little more than what you would get from a simply reading the WSJ/Economist + a bit of googling. This would be fine if they admitted they were an aggregator with a small amount of local reporting - but when you charge $40K for a subscription, you expect to get something somewhat special. That, is why people consider Stratfor to be a joke.
beedogs 15y ago
This is a horribly-written hit piece.
alister 15y ago
The very first leaked Stratfor email I looked at just now (see below) seems to have the same level of detail and passionate debate that we Hackernews types get into when we're discussing crypto policy or the design of network protocols. I've never before read anything from Stratfor, and I was willing to accept the OP's assertion that they slap together public data, but seeing this one email makes me already doubt the OP. Do editors at The Atlantic and The Economist have intricate discussions about Medvedev vs Timoshenko to figure out Putin's actions? From: "Marc Lanthemann" To: "Alpha List" Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:48:33 PM Subject: [alpha] INSIGHT - UKRAINE - Moscow-Kiev Spat - UA111 CODE: UA111 PUBLICATION: yes ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR sources in Kiev SOURCE DESCRIPTION: A senior pro-western diplomat in Kiev SOURCE RELIABILITY: B ITEM CREDIBILITY: B DISTRIBUTION: Alpha HANDLER: Lauren Yes, yes, the spat between Kiev and Moscow has been really fun to watch. But Yanukovich may be overstepping his bounds with the Kremlin if he keeps this up. He has already really ticked off Putina**who didna**t like him to begin with. You already pretty much know this storya**Putin never wanted Yanukovich in power without a counter-balance to keep him in check. Putin knew Yanukovich could win on his own, but wanted a super-majority in order to solidify the Kremlina**s meddling in Kiev. He wanted that to be Timoshenko, not because she is pro-Russian, but that she was the most easily bought out of all the top politicians. Of course, this is what got her in trouble and arrested. But Medvedev has never liked Timoshenko, mainly because she gave him no respect in any meeting and would only deal with Putin personally. Medvedev made the decision that Timoshenko cana**t be put into power, so he made a deal with Putin. Medvedev swore that he would keep Yanukovich in line if Putin dropped his support of Timoshenko. Putin agreed in return for being the one to draw up the list of new Ukrainians going into power in the SBU, military, ministries, etc. Also that Russia would get the base extension it had been pushing for. So when Timoshenko and Yanukovich showed up in Moscow at the end of 2009, the tandem broke the news to Yanukovich privately that they were willing to drop support for Timoshenko if he would agree to Putina**s list of demands. Yanukovich jumped all over it, naturally. Now that Yanukovich is acting out, Putin has snapped the leash on Medvedev to fix this. It is kind of a test for Medvedev. This is why the railing against Ukraine has come from Medvedev, not Putin. Question is which lever will Medvedev pull to get Yanukovich back in line. -- Lauren Goodrich Senior Eurasia Analyst STRATFOR T: 512.744.4311 F: 512.744.4334 lauren.goodrich@stratfor.com www.stratfor.com
revelation 15y ago
Sorry, but Stratfor are routinely much, much better than everything the standard media delivers as "investigative research" these days, of which there isn't much to begin with. I go to newspaper sites when I want to read a rewritten version of some newswire release. Also, people are complaining that Stratfor has a paid network of informants? Every serious newspaper should. Instead they have "anonymous government officials" denouncing people as terrorist per government propaganda. See for example http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4492 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4492
- tptacek 15y ago
  Well, "anonymous government officials" and people like Anthony Shadid and and Marie Colvin. How many Stratfor people died getting the story out of Syria?
tytso 15y ago
Stratfor subscriptions do are _not_ $40k a year. The article was being very misleading on that point, saying that this was what the price was in 2001. Perhaps that was because the subscrition page on Startfor was still down, but when I subscribed, it was something like $200 or so a year --- it was less than the cost of WSJ. What I get out of Stratfor, and why I read it, is not "secret intelligence information", but analysis. It may not be as good as what the CIA has, but that's because it truly doesn't have access to "secret intelligence information". But at least they are trying to make sense of facts! Unlike the New York Times, which acts as a stenographer for the White House (the White House has leaked information from the CIA saying their analysts are sure Iraq had weapons of mass distruction, therefore it must be true) or for politicians (where Arthur Brisbane was caught wondering whether it was OK to label statements form political candidates that were false as not being true in newspaper articles, or whether newspapers should just run the quote), or the Television Evening News, which trot out "retired generals" who are still on the consulting payroll of the Pentagon without disclosing that fact. If I want the party line from the politicos, I know where to get it. Not that I take Stratfor's conclusions as gospel --- I don't take the Times, the Economist, or other sources as gospel either. But hopefully by reading all of that, I can have a more informed view of the world. Other than satisfying my own curiosity, I have the naive and old fashioned view that being well informed is the responsibility of each and every citizen of a democracy --- and that means getting information and analysis from multiple sources, and then coming to my own conclusions.
kungfooguru 15y ago
This guy is just missing the point of the leaks as well. Some of which is revealed in these emails about Wikileaks itself http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releases.html http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releases.html
golden_apples 15y ago
Well, the article plays on the "Coca-Cola spying on PETA" email, which is a little pathetic and hardly a smoking gun showing dirty behind-the-scenes tricks. But thats par for the course when it comes to corporate "intelligence" on subculture-based movements like animal rights. People in those movements know that the enemy is spying on them, but often times it seems like the corporate/military interests don't have a clue about anything going on... until something big like the Brandon Darby entrapment scheme comes up. I would be interested in seeing what information of substance people find in the Stratfor leak, but its not going to be on issues like this.

101 points by marcloney 15y ago

I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled, they have debunked Stratfor, the "money-making scheme". They sell nothing for a fortune, I hope their subscribers will leave them.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
They don't sell nothing, they sell outsourced information gathering. They're pretty much exactly the same as any other outsourced service. You could do it yourself or pay someone else to do it. People have completely valid reasons for paying other people to do things they could do for themselves, in fact pretty much everyone does it all the time. Any reporter who questions the validity of that choice is one who makes me question their own understanding of how the world works.
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled I do - Assange branded this leak as far more momentous and STRATFOR as much more insidious than it is. The "secret cash bribes" are his wording, after all. I was a corporate subscriber of STRATFOR's. The Atlantic is a bit harsh here, but it's harsh on STRATFOR promoting its brand as a "shadow CIA". That specific complaint is fair. We never commissioned investigation from them, but I was quite happy with analysis we had them write up for us on how the US was likely to react to various situations. For example, they were the first source to bring it to my attention that for all the wailing about Putin messing with the Russian elections, the "true" winners were the right nationalist parties. CIA intel? No. But potentially worth knowing to judge the region's investment climate stability? Probably. For deep digging I'd go to Kroll, IGI, Dilligence, etc. If Anonymous and pals could get into their servers I'd be legitimately impressed.

AngrySkillzz 15y ago

This article seems a bit heavy on derision and low on content/evidence.

dmix 15y ago
The media is about having "angles" these days. Having extreme opinions in order make things interesting. Content is secondary.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

freshhawk 15y ago

I can see why this would seem over-hyped and stupid to someone with experience and contempt for STRATFOR already. And so far I haven't heard anything worth the "BIG NEWS COMING" hype from wikileaks. It's still too dismissive of the benefits of the leak. As some commenters point out: maybe the people with no access to anyone, who are the targets of amateurs like STRATFOR would like to know what's going on. Whatever they are, they are exposed now. Seems irrationally condescending to be so dismissive, it's not in line with the evidence presented. Contempt from a "real reporter" towards Wikileaks? It weakens his argument.

Intermernet 15y ago

Hi Everyone, I'm seeing a lot of talk of Anonymous in relation to this leak but there's no mention of them on http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html at all that I can find. Can someone point me to the info that shows they were involved? I may be suffering from internet blindness :-) EDIT: Never mind, found it :-) must have had a Ctrl-F fail.

steve19 15y ago

What is the difference between Stratfor and the WSJ or Economist? They all are relatively expensive publications that provide information only to subscribers and not the general public. The author seems to be upset that Stratfor was making a lot of money. Startfor is not the only private intelligence group. IHS Inc. [0] owns Jane's Information Group (defense/strategic intelligence) [1] and iSuppli (industrial intelligence). In my opinion Jane's publications and subscriptions are way overpriced. The book Jane's All the World's Aircraft (2012) costs well over $1300 on Amazon [2]. I doubt there is anything in there that you can't find on Wikipedia (or, if not, a quick Google search). That does not stop every mil/intel office worldwide buying a copy of the latest edition each year. Their customers seem to like having all the latest information in a big heavy book. There is no point in hating on Jane's for providing a product that is demanded by the public. So Stratfor does marketing to enhance their image and increase their subscriber base, what businesses don't? I am not interested in subscribing to Stratfor, but I don't hate on them for meeting consumer demand. [0] http://www.ihs.com/ http://www.ihs.com/ [1] http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx [2] http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds-Aircraft-2011-2012/dp/0710629559/ http://www.amazon.com/Janes-All-Worlds-Aircraft-2011-2012/dp... Edit: Added Links. Clarified thought.

ghshephard 15y ago
The difference is what each makes themselves out to be. I have subscriptions to both the WSJ and Economist - neither is particularly expensive. And the WSJ/Economist are precisely what they make themselves out to be - a business newspaper (thought I haven't touched the actual paper in 3+ years), and a weekly magazine on international affairs (ditto with no physical magazine touched in several years). Janes, WSJ, and the Economist all do original sourcing/reporting. Regarding Janes - $1300 for the good research report on Aviation Assets is roundoff error for the people who need it (typically people in the Airline Industry who need market research on airplanes - $1300 is eminently reasonable for a good market research report on a vertical sector) for people who don't "need it" (Almost all of us) We can get it from Wikipedia/Google searches - and much of that data you find will be sourced back to Jane's. Stratfor makes themselves out to be some amazingly elite intelligence reporting organization, when, in fact, they offer little more than what you would get from a simply reading the WSJ/Economist + a bit of googling. This would be fine if they admitted they were an aggregator with a small amount of local reporting - but when you charge $40K for a subscription, you expect to get something somewhat special. That, is why people consider Stratfor to be a joke.

beedogs 15y ago

This is a horribly-written hit piece.

alister 15y ago

The very first leaked Stratfor email I looked at just now (see below) seems to have the same level of detail and passionate debate that we Hackernews types get into when we're discussing crypto policy or the design of network protocols. I've never before read anything from Stratfor, and I was willing to accept the OP's assertion that they slap together public data, but seeing this one email makes me already doubt the OP. Do editors at The Atlantic and The Economist have intricate discussions about Medvedev vs Timoshenko to figure out Putin's actions? From: "Marc Lanthemann" To: "Alpha List" Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:48:33 PM Subject: [alpha] INSIGHT - UKRAINE - Moscow-Kiev Spat - UA111 CODE: UA111 PUBLICATION: yes ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR sources in Kiev SOURCE DESCRIPTION: A senior pro-western diplomat in Kiev SOURCE RELIABILITY: B ITEM CREDIBILITY: B DISTRIBUTION: Alpha HANDLER: Lauren Yes, yes, the spat between Kiev and Moscow has been really fun to watch. But Yanukovich may be overstepping his bounds with the Kremlin if he keeps this up. He has already really ticked off Putina**who didna**t like him to begin with. You already pretty much know this storya**Putin never wanted Yanukovich in power without a counter-balance to keep him in check. Putin knew Yanukovich could win on his own, but wanted a super-majority in order to solidify the Kremlina**s meddling in Kiev. He wanted that to be Timoshenko, not because she is pro-Russian, but that she was the most easily bought out of all the top politicians. Of course, this is what got her in trouble and arrested. But Medvedev has never liked Timoshenko, mainly because she gave him no respect in any meeting and would only deal with Putin personally. Medvedev made the decision that Timoshenko cana**t be put into power, so he made a deal with Putin. Medvedev swore that he would keep Yanukovich in line if Putin dropped his support of Timoshenko. Putin agreed in return for being the one to draw up the list of new Ukrainians going into power in the SBU, military, ministries, etc. Also that Russia would get the base extension it had been pushing for. So when Timoshenko and Yanukovich showed up in Moscow at the end of 2009, the tandem broke the news to Yanukovich privately that they were willing to drop support for Timoshenko if he would agree to Putina**s list of demands. Yanukovich jumped all over it, naturally. Now that Yanukovich is acting out, Putin has snapped the leash on Medvedev to fix this. It is kind of a test for Medvedev. This is why the railing against Ukraine has come from Medvedev, not Putin. Question is which lever will Medvedev pull to get Yanukovich back in line. -- Lauren Goodrich Senior Eurasia Analyst STRATFOR T: 512.744.4311 F: 512.744.4334 lauren.goodrich@stratfor.com www.stratfor.com

revelation 15y ago

Sorry, but Stratfor are routinely much, much better than everything the standard media delivers as "investigative research" these days, of which there isn't much to begin with. I go to newspaper sites when I want to read a rewritten version of some newswire release. Also, people are complaining that Stratfor has a paid network of informants? Every serious newspaper should. Instead they have "anonymous government officials" denouncing people as terrorist per government propaganda. See for example http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4492 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4492

tptacek 15y ago
Well, "anonymous government officials" and people like Anthony Shadid and and Marie Colvin. How many Stratfor people died getting the story out of Syria?

tytso 15y ago

Stratfor subscriptions do are _not_ $40k a year. The article was being very misleading on that point, saying that this was what the price was in 2001. Perhaps that was because the subscrition page on Startfor was still down, but when I subscribed, it was something like $200 or so a year --- it was less than the cost of WSJ. What I get out of Stratfor, and why I read it, is not "secret intelligence information", but analysis. It may not be as good as what the CIA has, but that's because it truly doesn't have access to "secret intelligence information". But at least they are trying to make sense of facts! Unlike the New York Times, which acts as a stenographer for the White House (the White House has leaked information from the CIA saying their analysts are sure Iraq had weapons of mass distruction, therefore it must be true) or for politicians (where Arthur Brisbane was caught wondering whether it was OK to label statements form political candidates that were false as not being true in newspaper articles, or whether newspapers should just run the quote), or the Television Evening News, which trot out "retired generals" who are still on the consulting payroll of the Pentagon without disclosing that fact. If I want the party line from the politicos, I know where to get it. Not that I take Stratfor's conclusions as gospel --- I don't take the Times, the Economist, or other sources as gospel either. But hopefully by reading all of that, I can have a more informed view of the world. Other than satisfying my own curiosity, I have the naive and old fashioned view that being well informed is the responsibility of each and every citizen of a democracy --- and that means getting information and analysis from multiple sources, and then coming to my own conclusions.

kungfooguru 15y ago

This guy is just missing the point of the leaks as well. Some of which is revealed in these emails about Wikileaks itself http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releases.html http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releases.html

golden_apples 15y ago

Well, the article plays on the "Coca-Cola spying on PETA" email, which is a little pathetic and hardly a smoking gun showing dirty behind-the-scenes tricks. But thats par for the course when it comes to corporate "intelligence" on subculture-based movements like animal rights. People in those movements know that the enemy is spying on them, but often times it seems like the corporate/military interests don't have a clue about anything going on... until something big like the Brandon Darby entrapment scheme comes up. I would be interested in seeing what information of substance people find in the Stratfor leak, but its not going to be on issues like this.