12 ms·

Wikileaks Says Aaron Swartz Was a Possible Source

85 points by ma2rten 14y ago

mpyne 14y ago
So MIT installed a security camera and pressed charges because they knew that when their unwanted network guest was finally unmasked, that it would be someone who had secretly been in touch with Julian Assange?
danso 14y ago
This is such a bizarre, vague, and non-sensical claim that it's impossible to know what to make of it. 1. Under what circumstances does Wikileaks ever find it necessary to reveal a source? Or in this case, to say "maybe he was a source, maybe he wasn't, we're just putting it out there"? 2. He assisted Wikileaks...how? In a way different than being a source? 3. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret stuff? Complimenting each other? Trading recipes? If this was an attempt to help Aaron's cause, it seems very misguided...Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks, especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic. If this is just a naked cry for attention, well, that's just sad. There are probably other ways of getting attention than to violate one of your most important precepts (the anonymity of your sources) with a vague tease.
- noibl 14y ago
  > especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic. Are you implying some kind of contrast?
  - danso 14y ago
    I think Wikileaks would see its work as altruistic. I would say that they do not see their work as "benign" (nor should they, necessarily). But the problem with anonymity is that you never know what the leakers' motives are...and that is a tradeoff Wikileaks has to make. In Aaron's case, though, I don't think he ever obfuscated his motives (even as he tried to do the downloading in secret) in his actions.
    - noibl 14y ago
      So... you are implying a contrast or not?
      - danso 14y ago
        Huh? Instead of asking me as if my speculation meant anything, why don't you ask the many publicly available confidantes of Aaron about why they haven't yet tied Aaron's JSTOR cause to Wikileaks?
        noibl 14y ago
        Wait a minute. Your claim is this: 'Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks'. In support, you offer only 'especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic'. I'm trying to understand how this supports the claim. It would seem it could only do so if Swartz's actions were somehow in contrast to Wikileaks in the context of those terms. Yet you refuse to say whether you think Wikileaks' work is either benign or altruistic. Your opinion of how Wikileaks would characterise itself is of no benefit in understanding the basis of your claim. And now, instead of answering a straightforward binary question about a claim you did make, you want me to go and ask a whole bunch of other people about claims they didn't make? I understand less and less.
        danso 14y ago
        sigh I'm not clear on what you're not clear on, but I'll be a good sport and take the bait. I assert that the altruism of Aaron Swartz stands in contrast with that of Wikileaks because the latter, being an anonymous organization that filters anonymously-submitted information, cannot be automatically assumed to have an altruistic motive regarding the information that it disseminates. Not because they're evil. But because we just can't know. Contrast this with Aaron and the many public statements he's made about freeing information and how it would help the world and what he gains (or rather, doesn't gain) from it. You don't have to agree that this makes him altruistic, you just have to see that there's a difference between a guy whose altruistic claims we can concretely evaluate and an organization that we just have to trust. Here's a good example: Whatever happened to all that supposed dirt on Bank of America that Wikileaks had? Not only do we not know the source (it could be someone working for Chase Bank who used to be at BoA and has an interest in destroying his former employer), but it suddenly got wiped out by a disgruntled Wikileaks officer?..but that's something we have to take on faith, that it was a careless, irreversible act and not something done out of some other ulterior motive. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-wikileaks-idUSTRE77L55P20110822 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-w... As for being benign...Well, let's tally up the score. Wikileaks' most famous alleged collaborator is in a military prison and likely faces a terrible fate for the information he disseminated. The information that Aaron disseminated, meanwhile, was not as critical...to the point that JSTOR decided not to pursue charges. Aaron's problem was that the prosecutor wouldn't let go of the actual act of hacking, which is the primary cause of outrage. So that's the issue here. Aaron and Wikileaks may have been friends and like-minded. But they had necessarily different paths.
- ratsbane 14y ago
  It could also be an effort to divert attention from some other Wikileaks source.
- analog 14y ago
  Ok, if you believe that Wikileaks are lying then your complaint is valid. If they're telling the truth however then this raises disturbing questions about why he was targeted by the DoJ.
  - danso 14y ago
    I didn't say that Wikileaks is lying. I'm saying I don't know what the hell they're talking about because what they said could literally mean anything. And to provide no elaboration is just as bad as posting the question-headline, "Is the Government covering up Aaron Swartz's UFO abduction?"
    - analog 14y ago
      Their 3 points seem fairly clear to me. I'd assume assistance would be some kind of technical help? Being in communication with Assange is also pretty clear, and the third point is necessarily vague. Did you want to see the commits and email logs? I think the point they're making is that if Wikileaks were aware of these (possible) facts then other actors could be too.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - danso 14y ago
        I can think of at least a one time when the Wikileaks lied to serve its own purpose: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/tech/web/fake-nyt-editorial/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/tech/web/fake-nyt-editorial/in... And before you say, "Well, the New York Times deserved it"...that's not what the argument is about. The argument is: will Wikileaks publish a lie if it believes that the ends justify the means? The answer is "yes". So until they show actual evidence in this case, I don't think they should be given the benefit of the doubt just because they're Wikileaks. I'm curious to what more harm could be done to Aaron besides, well, him already being dead, and also, the innuendo generated by Wikileaks' teaser tweets.
        14y ago
- trevelyan 14y ago
  The implication is that the severity of prosecutorial treatment and/or the other investigative activities to which Aaron was subject, which may have contributed to his depression and of which we may not be aware was related to his association with the journal. Wikileaks' interest is in clearly in ensuring any investigation does not sweep activities it suspects and we may not under the rug.
  - danso 14y ago
    The timeline asserted by the Wikileaks's #2 statement, "Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011," implies that Aaron tried to collaborate with someone who was in massive legal trouble himself at a time when, by all accounts, Aaron was freaked out about the impending charges he faced. That would seem especially reckless of Aaron.
    - analog 14y ago
      A lot of things he did could be seen as reckless, or brave depending on your viewpoint.
- rdtsc 14y ago
  > In a way different than being a source? Yes. Most likely. Remember Aaron was also a developer and doubt he had access clearance to have access to embarrassing classified materials. I don't see why that's not the first guess. > 3. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret stuff? Probably about secret stuff. > Trading recipes? So? Funny enough, I am 100% that is enough to put him on a black list of some sort in the DHS. > Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks Unless of course he was friends with wikileaks supporters and developers and then we got danso here telling who Aaron's friends should and should not have been.
  - danso 14y ago
    Well yes, I guess that in a tragic death that was sparked in part by too many people blindly accepting the vague assertions made by one organization, it's hard not to be cynical of yet another organization making vague assertions related to that tragic death. Call me jaded.
  - neumann_alfred 14y ago
    You can't really answer those questions for Wikileaks, so why even pretend you can.
H_L 14y ago
Is this an attempt to spark some inane conspiracy theory? A suggestion that Aaron's involvement as a 'source' made him a target of the government, so his suicide was not actually a suicide but rather a targeted attack?
- analog 14y ago
  To me the suggestion that his targeting for prosecution was as a result of his alleged involvement with Wikileaks. Mashable may be leaving the 'not suicide' conspiracy theory open but I don't think that is what Wikileaks are suggesting.
  - teeja 14y ago
    That was my first reaction: -if- this were true, it would 'help' the DoJ 'explain' why the prosecution was so vigorous. (Tying Swartz to something they've spent years bad-jacketing.) A similar move is the claim he FOIA'd tapes of Manning in custody. Looks like the Big FUD Machine's running.
    - analog 14y ago
      "the claim he FOIA'd tapes of Manning" Is this true or not? I honestly have no idea. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/brig-records-related-to-bradley-manning-364/#25793-initial-response https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/bri...
imjk 14y ago
I think this is cheap and tacky on the part of Wikileaks. Regardless of whether Aaron was or wasn't a source for them, they're trying to take some of the widespread positive public sentiment towards Aaron for their own cause.
hkmurakami 14y ago
These three facts don't add up to anything concrete. > 1. Aaron Swartz assisted WikiLeaks. Could be a donation, could be a code improvement suggestion, could be anything. > 2. Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011. Who wasn't Aaron Swartz in communication with whom he thought was involved in something interesting/worthwhile? After all, he was a teenager when he cold emailed Lawrence Lessig arguing for Creative Commons to use RDF. > 3. We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that Aaron Swartz was a WikiLeaks source. Empty statement. --- So if this "announcement" by WikiLeaks is basically baseless, what is the true motive?
rdtsc 14y ago
The connection is like this: Aaron Swartz was good friends with Jacob Appelbaum. You'll notice that the picture you'll see of Aaron on Reddit is taken by Appelbaum. http://blog.reddit.com/2013/01/aaronsw-1986-2013.html http://blog.reddit.com/2013/01/aaronsw-1986-2013.html anyway, point being they were good friends and worked together. Now Appelbaum is associated with Wikileaks (former spokesperson etc.) and has been repeatedly harassed and bullied by customs agents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum , Appelbaum mentions how people from his contacts list (his cell phones have been confiscated numerous times) have also been questioned. I bet Aaron was one of them. The assistance Aaron provided is probably in forms of software or development, probably working together with Appelbaum.
- danso 14y ago
  This is entirely plausible and I would like to see it come from Wikileaks itself. It's worth noting that Applebaum is of course not famous just for his association with Wikileaks, but many other projects before 2010. Also, Twitter successfully fought the court order to seal the federal requests for Applebaum's twitter contacts. Was Aaron Swartz's name found among the named associates of Applebaum? http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027893-281.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027893-281.html
- deleted 14y ago
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- deleted 14y ago
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denzil_correa 14y ago
One interpretation as many have pointed out would be The aim of these tweets could be to imply that the US Attorney's Office and Secret Service targeted Swartz in order to get at Wikileaks, and that Swartz died still defending his contacts' anonymity. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-tweets-aaron-swartz-was-ally-and-possibly-source http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-tweets-a...
rurounijones 14y ago
Linkbait title. Or Wikileaks have been lying all the time. Previous wikileaks statements make a big show of saying how sources are anonymous by system design (i.e. "It is impossible to say if Bradley Manning was a source".). Now they are saying that they think Swartz was a source? What is it. Is their system anonymous or not. If it is anonymous then this is non-news. If it is not then Wikileaks is broken To me it just seems like them trying to get some more advertising by tying into this story, which is frankly disgusting.
- Volpe 14y ago
  They said "they believe, but cannot prove". That is inline with their "Can't know" lines in the past. Just because the system doesn't allow them to identify sources , is not the same as saying sources are unidentifiable through any means... else the allegations against Bradley Manning would have never occurred.
  - rurounijones 14y ago
    If they cannot prove it then there is no merit in releasing this "news". Which brings me back to my "Jump on the news bandwagon" last line.
aaron42net 14y ago
I believe that Aaron Swartz might've been the activist mentioned in Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-documents/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-documents...) who bootstrapped WikiLeaks with over a million files intercepted from Tor. One thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that it looks like aaronsw was running tor2web.org, as it has the same IP and is running in the same Linode instance as aaronsw.com and at least two of his other projects, blogspace.com and jottit.com. Tor2web is an interestingly risky service all by itself, being the only public interface into Tor hidden services. And the Wikileaks submission system at least in 2010 was running on a Tor hidden service (http://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.onion/ http://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.onion/ at the time accessible as https://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.tor2web.org/ https://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.tor2web.org/). While the sniffing could've happened on any exit router, tor2web.org would present an interesting extension of that capability.
kragen 14y ago
It seems likely that when sbp releases the contents of Aaron's hard disks on the web, we'll be able to read his correspondence with Julian, and perhaps see what other help he gave WikiLeaks.
dylanhassinger 14y ago
Seems plausible to wonder if he was involved with Wikileaks, or Anonymous too. The whole thing reminds me of the Sacco & Vinzetti case. They got railroaded on a bullshit charge, but they couldn't fight it because they (probably) had other stuff to hide...
jezfromfuture 14y ago
wikileaks getting some free publicity...
fredgrott 14y ago
The problem is of belief, wikileaks accepts data/submissions and takes those submidsions and subtracts out identifying data from the submitter so no-one at wikileaks knows who the submitter is And the head of wikileaks is known to refuse electronic communication from those who identify themselves in chats, etc to assist the ethos of keeping things anonymous.
gcmartinelli 14y ago
could they be trying to relief some of the pressure over Bradley Manning? maybe pinning the cable leaks on Swartz would give Manning freedom... this could even have been suggested by Swartz sometime before (or after... deadman switch) his death...

85 points by ma2rten 14y ago

mpyne 14y ago

So MIT installed a security camera and pressed charges because they knew that when their unwanted network guest was finally unmasked, that it would be someone who had secretly been in touch with Julian Assange?

danso 14y ago

This is such a bizarre, vague, and non-sensical claim that it's impossible to know what to make of it. 1. Under what circumstances does Wikileaks ever find it necessary to reveal a source? Or in this case, to say "maybe he was a source, maybe he wasn't, we're just putting it out there"? 2. He assisted Wikileaks...how? In a way different than being a source? 3. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret stuff? Complimenting each other? Trading recipes? If this was an attempt to help Aaron's cause, it seems very misguided...Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks, especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic. If this is just a naked cry for attention, well, that's just sad. There are probably other ways of getting attention than to violate one of your most important precepts (the anonymity of your sources) with a vague tease.

noibl 14y ago
> especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic. Are you implying some kind of contrast?
- danso 14y ago
  I think Wikileaks would see its work as altruistic. I would say that they do not see their work as "benign" (nor should they, necessarily). But the problem with anonymity is that you never know what the leakers' motives are...and that is a tradeoff Wikileaks has to make. In Aaron's case, though, I don't think he ever obfuscated his motives (even as he tried to do the downloading in secret) in his actions.
  - noibl 14y ago
    So... you are implying a contrast or not?
    - danso 14y ago
      Huh? Instead of asking me as if my speculation meant anything, why don't you ask the many publicly available confidantes of Aaron about why they haven't yet tied Aaron's JSTOR cause to Wikileaks?
      - noibl 14y ago
        Wait a minute. Your claim is this: 'Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks'. In support, you offer only 'especially as his supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic'. I'm trying to understand how this supports the claim. It would seem it could only do so if Swartz's actions were somehow in contrast to Wikileaks in the context of those terms. Yet you refuse to say whether you think Wikileaks' work is either benign or altruistic. Your opinion of how Wikileaks would characterise itself is of no benefit in understanding the basis of your claim. And now, instead of answering a straightforward binary question about a claim you did make, you want me to go and ask a whole bunch of other people about claims they didn't make? I understand less and less.
        danso 14y ago
        sigh I'm not clear on what you're not clear on, but I'll be a good sport and take the bait. I assert that the altruism of Aaron Swartz stands in contrast with that of Wikileaks because the latter, being an anonymous organization that filters anonymously-submitted information, cannot be automatically assumed to have an altruistic motive regarding the information that it disseminates. Not because they're evil. But because we just can't know. Contrast this with Aaron and the many public statements he's made about freeing information and how it would help the world and what he gains (or rather, doesn't gain) from it. You don't have to agree that this makes him altruistic, you just have to see that there's a difference between a guy whose altruistic claims we can concretely evaluate and an organization that we just have to trust. Here's a good example: Whatever happened to all that supposed dirt on Bank of America that Wikileaks had? Not only do we not know the source (it could be someone working for Chase Bank who used to be at BoA and has an interest in destroying his former employer), but it suddenly got wiped out by a disgruntled Wikileaks officer?..but that's something we have to take on faith, that it was a careless, irreversible act and not something done out of some other ulterior motive. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-wikileaks-idUSTRE77L55P20110822 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/us-bankofamerica-w... As for being benign...Well, let's tally up the score. Wikileaks' most famous alleged collaborator is in a military prison and likely faces a terrible fate for the information he disseminated. The information that Aaron disseminated, meanwhile, was not as critical...to the point that JSTOR decided not to pursue charges. Aaron's problem was that the prosecutor wouldn't let go of the actual act of hacking, which is the primary cause of outrage. So that's the issue here. Aaron and Wikileaks may have been friends and like-minded. But they had necessarily different paths.
ratsbane 14y ago
It could also be an effort to divert attention from some other Wikileaks source.
analog 14y ago
Ok, if you believe that Wikileaks are lying then your complaint is valid. If they're telling the truth however then this raises disturbing questions about why he was targeted by the DoJ.
- danso 14y ago
  I didn't say that Wikileaks is lying. I'm saying I don't know what the hell they're talking about because what they said could literally mean anything. And to provide no elaboration is just as bad as posting the question-headline, "Is the Government covering up Aaron Swartz's UFO abduction?"
  - analog 14y ago
    Their 3 points seem fairly clear to me. I'd assume assistance would be some kind of technical help? Being in communication with Assange is also pretty clear, and the third point is necessarily vague. Did you want to see the commits and email logs? I think the point they're making is that if Wikileaks were aware of these (possible) facts then other actors could be too.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - danso 14y ago
      I can think of at least a one time when the Wikileaks lied to serve its own purpose: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/tech/web/fake-nyt-editorial/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/tech/web/fake-nyt-editorial/in... And before you say, "Well, the New York Times deserved it"...that's not what the argument is about. The argument is: will Wikileaks publish a lie if it believes that the ends justify the means? The answer is "yes". So until they show actual evidence in this case, I don't think they should be given the benefit of the doubt just because they're Wikileaks. I'm curious to what more harm could be done to Aaron besides, well, him already being dead, and also, the innuendo generated by Wikileaks' teaser tweets.
      - 14y ago
trevelyan 14y ago
The implication is that the severity of prosecutorial treatment and/or the other investigative activities to which Aaron was subject, which may have contributed to his depression and of which we may not be aware was related to his association with the journal. Wikileaks' interest is in clearly in ensuring any investigation does not sweep activities it suspects and we may not under the rug.
- danso 14y ago
  The timeline asserted by the Wikileaks's #2 statement, "Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011," implies that Aaron tried to collaborate with someone who was in massive legal trouble himself at a time when, by all accounts, Aaron was freaked out about the impending charges he faced. That would seem especially reckless of Aaron.
  - analog 14y ago
    A lot of things he did could be seen as reckless, or brave depending on your viewpoint.
rdtsc 14y ago
> In a way different than being a source? Yes. Most likely. Remember Aaron was also a developer and doubt he had access clearance to have access to embarrassing classified materials. I don't see why that's not the first guess. > 3. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret stuff? Probably about secret stuff. > Trading recipes? So? Funny enough, I am 100% that is enough to put him on a black list of some sort in the DHS. > Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks Unless of course he was friends with wikileaks supporters and developers and then we got danso here telling who Aaron's friends should and should not have been.
- danso 14y ago
  Well yes, I guess that in a tragic death that was sparked in part by too many people blindly accepting the vague assertions made by one organization, it's hard not to be cynical of yet another organization making vague assertions related to that tragic death. Call me jaded.
- neumann_alfred 14y ago
  You can't really answer those questions for Wikileaks, so why even pretend you can.

H_L 14y ago

Is this an attempt to spark some inane conspiracy theory? A suggestion that Aaron's involvement as a 'source' made him a target of the government, so his suicide was not actually a suicide but rather a targeted attack?

analog 14y ago
To me the suggestion that his targeting for prosecution was as a result of his alleged involvement with Wikileaks. Mashable may be leaving the 'not suicide' conspiracy theory open but I don't think that is what Wikileaks are suggesting.
- teeja 14y ago
  That was my first reaction: -if- this were true, it would 'help' the DoJ 'explain' why the prosecution was so vigorous. (Tying Swartz to something they've spent years bad-jacketing.) A similar move is the claim he FOIA'd tapes of Manning in custody. Looks like the Big FUD Machine's running.
  - analog 14y ago
    "the claim he FOIA'd tapes of Manning" Is this true or not? I honestly have no idea. https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/brig-records-related-to-bradley-manning-364/#25793-initial-response https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/bri...

imjk 14y ago

I think this is cheap and tacky on the part of Wikileaks. Regardless of whether Aaron was or wasn't a source for them, they're trying to take some of the widespread positive public sentiment towards Aaron for their own cause.

hkmurakami 14y ago

These three facts don't add up to anything concrete. > 1. Aaron Swartz assisted WikiLeaks. Could be a donation, could be a code improvement suggestion, could be anything. > 2. Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during 2010 and 2011. Who wasn't Aaron Swartz in communication with whom he thought was involved in something interesting/worthwhile? After all, he was a teenager when he cold emailed Lawrence Lessig arguing for Creative Commons to use RDF. > 3. We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that Aaron Swartz was a WikiLeaks source. Empty statement. --- So if this "announcement" by WikiLeaks is basically baseless, what is the true motive?

rdtsc 14y ago

The connection is like this: Aaron Swartz was good friends with Jacob Appelbaum. You'll notice that the picture you'll see of Aaron on Reddit is taken by Appelbaum. http://blog.reddit.com/2013/01/aaronsw-1986-2013.html http://blog.reddit.com/2013/01/aaronsw-1986-2013.html anyway, point being they were good friends and worked together. Now Appelbaum is associated with Wikileaks (former spokesperson etc.) and has been repeatedly harassed and bullied by customs agents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum , Appelbaum mentions how people from his contacts list (his cell phones have been confiscated numerous times) have also been questioned. I bet Aaron was one of them. The assistance Aaron provided is probably in forms of software or development, probably working together with Appelbaum.

danso 14y ago
This is entirely plausible and I would like to see it come from Wikileaks itself. It's worth noting that Applebaum is of course not famous just for his association with Wikileaks, but many other projects before 2010. Also, Twitter successfully fought the court order to seal the federal requests for Applebaum's twitter contacts. Was Aaron Swartz's name found among the named associates of Applebaum? http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027893-281.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027893-281.html
deleted 14y ago
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deleted 14y ago
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denzil_correa 14y ago

One interpretation as many have pointed out would be The aim of these tweets could be to imply that the US Attorney's Office and Secret Service targeted Swartz in order to get at Wikileaks, and that Swartz died still defending his contacts' anonymity. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-tweets-aaron-swartz-was-ally-and-possibly-source http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-tweets-a...

rurounijones 14y ago

Linkbait title. Or Wikileaks have been lying all the time. Previous wikileaks statements make a big show of saying how sources are anonymous by system design (i.e. "It is impossible to say if Bradley Manning was a source".). Now they are saying that they think Swartz was a source? What is it. Is their system anonymous or not. If it is anonymous then this is non-news. If it is not then Wikileaks is broken To me it just seems like them trying to get some more advertising by tying into this story, which is frankly disgusting.

Volpe 14y ago
They said "they believe, but cannot prove". That is inline with their "Can't know" lines in the past. Just because the system doesn't allow them to identify sources , is not the same as saying sources are unidentifiable through any means... else the allegations against Bradley Manning would have never occurred.
- rurounijones 14y ago
  If they cannot prove it then there is no merit in releasing this "news". Which brings me back to my "Jump on the news bandwagon" last line.

aaron42net 14y ago

I believe that Aaron Swartz might've been the activist mentioned in Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-documents/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-documents...) who bootstrapped WikiLeaks with over a million files intercepted from Tor. One thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that it looks like aaronsw was running tor2web.org, as it has the same IP and is running in the same Linode instance as aaronsw.com and at least two of his other projects, blogspace.com and jottit.com. Tor2web is an interestingly risky service all by itself, being the only public interface into Tor hidden services. And the Wikileaks submission system at least in 2010 was running on a Tor hidden service (http://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.onion/ http://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.onion/ at the time accessible as https://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.tor2web.org/ https://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.tor2web.org/). While the sniffing could've happened on any exit router, tor2web.org would present an interesting extension of that capability.

kragen 14y ago

It seems likely that when sbp releases the contents of Aaron's hard disks on the web, we'll be able to read his correspondence with Julian, and perhaps see what other help he gave WikiLeaks.

dylanhassinger 14y ago

Seems plausible to wonder if he was involved with Wikileaks, or Anonymous too. The whole thing reminds me of the Sacco & Vinzetti case. They got railroaded on a bullshit charge, but they couldn't fight it because they (probably) had other stuff to hide...

jezfromfuture 14y ago

wikileaks getting some free publicity...

fredgrott 14y ago

The problem is of belief, wikileaks accepts data/submissions and takes those submidsions and subtracts out identifying data from the submitter so no-one at wikileaks knows who the submitter is And the head of wikileaks is known to refuse electronic communication from those who identify themselves in chats, etc to assist the ethos of keeping things anonymous.

gcmartinelli 14y ago

could they be trying to relief some of the pressure over Bradley Manning? maybe pinning the cable leaks on Swartz would give Manning freedom... this could even have been suggested by Swartz sometime before (or after... deadman switch) his death...