4 ms·

And big surprise, NYTimes makes it seem like the problem is with Assange not being happy how he's portrayed, rather than it being based on discredited sources,

by johnbm 13y ago

And big surprise, NYTimes makes it seem like the problem is with Assange not being happy how he's portrayed, rather than it being based on discredited sources, putting people in key roles that never happened, and ignoring that it was a careless and clueless Guardian journalist (David Leigh) who leaked the key to the unredacted Cablegate files in his book, not Wikileaks. Look around and see if you can find that last little tidbit mentioned any time some journalist writes Wikileaks put people in danger.

knowaveragejoe 13y ago
If that's true, it should be well documented somewhere for reference. Please share a source if you get a chance.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  That is vaguely what I recall from my loose following of things, and wikipedia seems to more or less agree. The relevant citation is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak#cite_note-Greenwald2Sep2011-6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables...
- acqq 13y ago
  http://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-password-leak-faq/ http://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-passwo... A journalist leaked the password given to him by Wikileaks by publishing it in his book. At that moment the encrypted file was already all over the internet.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  http://nigelparry.com/news/guardian-david-leigh-cablegate.shtml http://nigelparry.com/news/guardian-david-leigh-cablegate.sh... This is the full account.
eli 13y ago
I don't think it's reasonable to expect a movie about Wikileaks to be any more accurate than, say, a movie about Facebook. Yeah, they took some liberties and made a nice, tidy narrative. It's a movie. And whose fault is it that the journalist apparently didn't know a password he was given for files for his own use was being reused to secure a public insurance file? It does not speak well to their stewardship of sensitive documents that they were giving out that password to people who are "careless and clueless."
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >I don't think it's reasonable to expect a movie about Wikileaks to be any more accurate than, say, a movie about Facebook. That's why I have a problem with movies like The Social Network and Zero Dark Thirty. It's fine to composite, or eliminate less significant details, or even play some details up for their metaphorical significance. My problem is with movies containing counterfactual plot points that change the entire moral calculus of the events being depicted, often in favor of the status quo. It's as of you made a movie about the Iraq War, and based a key scene around how they find a bunch of WMD in the desert. Or depict Martin Luther King on the phone to his handlers in the USSR, or delivering "I Have a Dream" at a rally against racial quotas in hiring. These movies become history.
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  > the journalist apparently didn't know a password he was given for files for his own use was being reused to secure a public insurance file I think he got the file from bittorrent so he knew it was public. Not making an ecrypted archive just for him with a new password was Assange's mistake, no doubt about it, but publishing that password in a book takes it to a whole new level.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    The fact that Bittorrent is used for distribution doesn't automatically make a file fully public. But as far as I know the file was provided to the journalist in the equivalent of an FTP /pub folder, not via Bittorrent. But Assange never removed the file afterwards and it eventually got backed up and publically-trawled afterwards somehow.
- makomk 13y ago
  Actually, it wasn't being reused to secure the public insurance file - we still don't know know the password for that. The problem was that other people managed to get their hands on the encryped file for the Guardian journalist under dubious circumstances involving a prominent ex-Wikileaks member sabotaging them.
  - 13y ago
tzs 13y ago
Assange is not blameless in the leak of the unredacted cables. The procedure he picked for handing a copy of the data to Leigh was terrible. Proper use of public key cryptography could have made it much safer.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  Given cables were leaked, assuming it was totally Assange's fault, and sources were revealed. Were any revealed sources harmed? If so, would it not have come out at the Manning trial? It's the same Disney who made racist propoganda during WW2, it's surprisingly blatant if it comes out like WikiLeaks reading of the script signals it will.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    (a) The Taliban literally did a press release that the NYT ran saying they were using the documents to find informers. (b) The Taliban are known --- famous for, in fact --- operating death squads; it is almost their whole M.O. Common sense applies here as well. (c) No media service and no police force in the world has meaningful penetration into society in places like Ghazni, Helmand, or Paktika province. So you should be aware that you've set an unrealistic bar here. It's probably not relevant to the case here but I think also worth knowing: Assange told the chief investigative editor at the Guardian, in a room full of named reporters, none of whom appear to have contradicted the Guardian editor's story, that Assange believes murdered informants were collaborators who got what they deserved.
    - EliAndrewC 13y ago
      Strong agree that those documents had the potential to lead to the murder of informants - this alone convinces me that the mass release of those cables without any edits or redactions was irresponsible. However, I've previously assumed that we (incredibly) made it through the aftermath of the leaks without any of those potential murders taking place, for the same reasons listed in the grandparent comment; the media would have reported it, and the government would have surely cited it at Chelsea Manning's trial. So I'm skeptical but intrigued by your assertion that informants may have been murdered, but that there's be no way for us to know whether this had happened. My (uninformed) expectation would be that we WOULD know, since: - we had (previously but not anymore?) informants in those places in the first place - such murders would be (easily?) dicoverable after the fact, especially since the Taliban would have motive to tout them - the government had a strong motive for wanting to portray the leaks in the worst possible light, and therefore would want to discover and verify such murders Your observation that we have very little knowledge of these places does make me more uncertain about whether any murders occurred, but at this point we're far enough out from the leaks that the burden of proof lies with anyone asserting that murders probably DID take place, for the reasons listed above. (As opposed to the question of whether the leaks were irresponsible in the first place, which for me is a resounding yes even if we somehow made it through without any murders.)

by johnbm 13y ago

knowaveragejoe 13y ago

If that's true, it should be well documented somewhere for reference. Please share a source if you get a chance.

dllthomas 13y ago
That is vaguely what I recall from my loose following of things, and wikipedia seems to more or less agree. The relevant citation is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak#cite_note-Greenwald2Sep2011-6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables...
acqq 13y ago
http://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-password-leak-faq/ http://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-passwo... A journalist leaked the password given to him by Wikileaks by publishing it in his book. At that moment the encrypted file was already all over the internet.
pessimizer 13y ago
http://nigelparry.com/news/guardian-david-leigh-cablegate.shtml http://nigelparry.com/news/guardian-david-leigh-cablegate.sh... This is the full account.

eli 13y ago

I don't think it's reasonable to expect a movie about Wikileaks to be any more accurate than, say, a movie about Facebook. Yeah, they took some liberties and made a nice, tidy narrative. It's a movie. And whose fault is it that the journalist apparently didn't know a password he was given for files for his own use was being reused to secure a public insurance file? It does not speak well to their stewardship of sensitive documents that they were giving out that password to people who are "careless and clueless."

pessimizer 13y ago
>I don't think it's reasonable to expect a movie about Wikileaks to be any more accurate than, say, a movie about Facebook. That's why I have a problem with movies like The Social Network and Zero Dark Thirty. It's fine to composite, or eliminate less significant details, or even play some details up for their metaphorical significance. My problem is with movies containing counterfactual plot points that change the entire moral calculus of the events being depicted, often in favor of the status quo. It's as of you made a movie about the Iraq War, and based a key scene around how they find a bunch of WMD in the desert. Or depict Martin Luther King on the phone to his handlers in the USSR, or delivering "I Have a Dream" at a rally against racial quotas in hiring. These movies become history.
stefantalpalaru 13y ago
> the journalist apparently didn't know a password he was given for files for his own use was being reused to secure a public insurance file I think he got the file from bittorrent so he knew it was public. Not making an ecrypted archive just for him with a new password was Assange's mistake, no doubt about it, but publishing that password in a book takes it to a whole new level.
- mpyne 13y ago
  The fact that Bittorrent is used for distribution doesn't automatically make a file fully public. But as far as I know the file was provided to the journalist in the equivalent of an FTP /pub folder, not via Bittorrent. But Assange never removed the file afterwards and it eventually got backed up and publically-trawled afterwards somehow.
makomk 13y ago
Actually, it wasn't being reused to secure the public insurance file - we still don't know know the password for that. The problem was that other people managed to get their hands on the encryped file for the Guardian journalist under dubious circumstances involving a prominent ex-Wikileaks member sabotaging them.
- 13y ago

tzs 13y ago

Assange is not blameless in the leak of the unredacted cables. The procedure he picked for handing a copy of the data to Leigh was terrible. Proper use of public key cryptography could have made it much safer.

eliasmacpherson 13y ago
Given cables were leaked, assuming it was totally Assange's fault, and sources were revealed. Were any revealed sources harmed? If so, would it not have come out at the Manning trial? It's the same Disney who made racist propoganda during WW2, it's surprisingly blatant if it comes out like WikiLeaks reading of the script signals it will.
- tptacek 13y ago
  (a) The Taliban literally did a press release that the NYT ran saying they were using the documents to find informers. (b) The Taliban are known --- famous for, in fact --- operating death squads; it is almost their whole M.O. Common sense applies here as well. (c) No media service and no police force in the world has meaningful penetration into society in places like Ghazni, Helmand, or Paktika province. So you should be aware that you've set an unrealistic bar here. It's probably not relevant to the case here but I think also worth knowing: Assange told the chief investigative editor at the Guardian, in a room full of named reporters, none of whom appear to have contradicted the Guardian editor's story, that Assange believes murdered informants were collaborators who got what they deserved.
  - EliAndrewC 13y ago
    Strong agree that those documents had the potential to lead to the murder of informants - this alone convinces me that the mass release of those cables without any edits or redactions was irresponsible. However, I've previously assumed that we (incredibly) made it through the aftermath of the leaks without any of those potential murders taking place, for the same reasons listed in the grandparent comment; the media would have reported it, and the government would have surely cited it at Chelsea Manning's trial. So I'm skeptical but intrigued by your assertion that informants may have been murdered, but that there's be no way for us to know whether this had happened. My (uninformed) expectation would be that we WOULD know, since: - we had (previously but not anymore?) informants in those places in the first place - such murders would be (easily?) dicoverable after the fact, especially since the Taliban would have motive to tout them - the government had a strong motive for wanting to portray the leaks in the worst possible light, and therefore would want to discover and verify such murders Your observation that we have very little knowledge of these places does make me more uncertain about whether any murders occurred, but at this point we're far enough out from the leaks that the burden of proof lies with anyone asserting that murders probably DID take place, for the reasons listed above. (As opposed to the question of whether the leaks were irresponsible in the first place, which for me is a resounding yes even if we somehow made it through without any murders.)