Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

Hmmm. Bank Of America documents are still under wraps, something to do with blackmail

Didn't see this til Greenwald linked it: 2006 summary execution of Iraqi civilian family by US forces covered up.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/29/cables-reveal-2006-summary-execution-of-civilian-family-in-iraq/

think progress mentioned it this morning, too.

we actually have an old thread dedicated to it, under a difficult to search title:

Haditha Massacre in Iraq- Video evidence found

So by mistake WikiLeaks have published *all* cables without x-ing out names and phone numbers. PM's numbers, the phone numbers of the Dutch queen etc, it's all out in the open now. Assange is furious at OpenLeaks, but it seems to be his own mistake.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/all-leaked-u-s-cables-were-made-available-online-as-wikileaks-splintered/

Assange's password for the file:

http://content.nos.nl/data/image/xxl/2011/09/01/269054.jpg

Assange blames The Grauniad

“We all believe that information should be free, and the Internet should be free.”

Gawker sez Bye Bye, Julian

gawker otm

you would say that!

i don't disagree with some of that but it's kinda funny how the standard line of criticism has gone from (or vacillates between) "he releases information indiscriminately/thoughtlessly" and "if you think about it ASSANGE HIMSELF is not transparent". there's a bit of truth in each, to be sure

The main point of the torrent file that was bouncing around was that it was the last resort plan for wikileaks, I thought? It made sense, because if anyone tried to forcibly shut down the organization, they could just distribute the password and it'd all be public.

It sounds like the main issues are:
- The copy of the full dump distributed to The Guardian was the same one, and not encrypted with a separate password
- The people at The Guardian were covering wikileaks but somehow failed to notice the news that this existed as a torrent
- Some genius thought printing an actual password in a book, even if it was assumed to be single-use and defunct, was a great idea

I really think The Guardian guy dropped the ball in a major way, but obviously point #1 is an issue.

yeah, i basically have no sympathy at all with assange/wikileaks in this case.

i dont think its that the guardian "failed to notice" -- i think its that they literally were not aware of this torrents existence, possibly because wikileaks itself was unaware--the torrent seems to have been uploaded by a different group (which raises its own set of questions)

and, i dunno, i dont think its the guardians responsibility to not print the password they were told was single-use on the offchance that julian assange is such a colossal dumbass he was using it all the time

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS446US446&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=site%3Awww.guardian.co.uk+wikileaks+insurance+torrent

It looks like they never directly addressed it in an article, but pretty much every guardian story about wikileaks has had comments about the file.

Like, if I remember reading about it multiple times and commenters to the Guardian were repeatedly bringing it up for almost the past year, why were reporters who were spending a lot of time covering the story supposedly unaware it existed?

To clarify, I still think wikileaks/Assange get most of the blame, but the Guardian saying "oh, we didn't know that existed" reads to me as "we haven't actually been paying attention to this thing we have purportedly been covering." Their defense for not knowing is what, that they're shitty journalists?

oh sorry--my understanding is that this torrent is NOT the insurance file

this is one uploaded by a separate group that somehow (again: ???????????????) had access to the database and uploaded the complete unredacted thing sometime last year--possibly without JA's knowledge

okay im a little bit wrong, heres what seems to have happened via der speigel:

In the summer of 2010, Assange stored the password-protected file containing the cables in a concealed location on a WikiLeaks server. He gave the password to an external contact to allow him access to the material contained in the file.

When Domscheit-Berg left the organization in September 2010 together with a German programmer, the two men took the contents of the server with them, including the encrypted file containing the documents. As a result, Assange no longer had access to the file.

At the end of 2010, Domscheit-Berg finally returned to WikiLeaks a collection of various files that he had taken with him, including the encrypted cables. Shortly afterwards, WikiLeaks supporters released a copy of this data collection onto the Internet as a kind of public archive of the documents that WikiLeaks had previously published. The supporters clearly did not realize, however, that the data contained the original cables, as the file was not only encrypted but concealed in a hidden subdirectory.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783084,00.html

so the torrent file called "the compleat wikileaks" isnt the insurance file--its a separate one uploaded by "wikileaks.info" that was intended to spotlight the site's leaks from before it was popular. its just that no one seems to have realized it had the complete unredacted cables on it.

Yeah, appears to be two torrents, you're correct.

I like Assange much more since the Tunisia thing went down -- also, I kinda was amused by his interview w/ Zizek.

much more plausible seeing wikileaks as an invaluable one-off gamechanging intervention -- es.in.ref the arab spring -- than the emergence of a "new kind of politics": the internal shape of the wikileaks krew as a sustainable political org is manifestly same-old-same-old with respect of guru'd-up cults since time immemorial -- hence the speed of its collapse into whiny incompetence

if he dodges jail assange like zizek will no doubt make a diverting pseudo-left celebrity: he's charming and charismatic and utterly self-centred

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/21/julian-assange-autobiography-published-canongate

p weird move

Interesting in a gawking-at-car-wreck way. Pretty sure he's had a scummy personal life.

WikiLeaks suspends publication of secrets to concentrate on solving money woes

great jack shafer piece: http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/01/18/wikileaks-16th-minute/

So no discussion on the Assange TV show?

maybe it's all on the MIA thread?

Haha is it really?

lol no, I was just obliquely referencing that she did the theme song

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/may/30/julian-assange-extradition-verdict-live-coverage

He'll probably be sent to Guantanamo or Australia or some other prison place.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/19/julian-assange-requests-asylum-in-ecuador-foreign-minister-says/?hpt=hp_t1

that is ridiculol

wow he really REALLY doesn't want to go to trial

Go to trial!?!? He hasn't even been charged with anything!

well right, and he doesn't even want to do that

I would trust the Swedish government not to stuff me in a sack and ship me to the US if I was him either.

I... guess. has the US even said they want him?

It would surely be just as easy, if not easier, for the US to extradite him from the UK than from Sweden.

yeah I kinda figured if the US wanted him they would have had him by now.

xp I don't think that's true actually.

Certainly Assange and his lawyers don't believe that to be true anyway.

Really? The UK is notorious for extraditing pretty much anyone the US asks for. UK citizens can be extradited to the US for "crimes" committed in the UK that aren't illegal under British law, which isn't reciprocated, and the burden of proof the US has to display to get access to people in Britain is much lower than it is for Britain to get access to people in the US. I don't know how different Sweden is but it really couldn't be that much easier.

It would be interesting to look into their reasoning.

http://wlcentral.org/node/2663

Well this is what his lawyer is saying.

can't imagine the UK would get shirty about handing Assange over to the cousins, even on the flimsiest of pretexts

Yes, it seems to come down to the idea that he has more "public support" to mobilise in the UK, that the UK courts offer more chances to delay proceedings (citing Gary McKinnon) and he can defend himself better in a language he can understand. I'm not sure that really stands up to scrutiny.

I've not seen much evidence of the public support and the delay in the McKinnon case was caused by the suggestion that he has fairly severe learning or personality difficulties.

Well given what's happening to Manning, I feel like it's not totally insane to be slightly paranoid about the motives of the Swedish and United States governments.