WikiLeaks - thousands of journalists reporting news to the world

[scissorhands]

Assange target for feds
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40544697...urity/#slice-2



WikiLeaks: the day cyber warfare broke out - as it happened
The day after Wikileaks' Julian Assange was refused bail the 'hacktivist' group Operation Payback began to flex their muscles, attacking websites including MasterCard and Visa. Our live blog recorded the day's events as they transpired
Read our latest WikiLeaks US embassy cables live blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/...s-live-updates

[Blackshear]

Seems anonymous knows when to step in.

Govt. vs the people.

[Swoop]

"The day cyber warfare broke out"???

There is nothing like an uninformed public...

But, anyway:

6 December, 2010: Wikileaks obtained hundreds of thousands of secret American military and diplomatic documents from a U.S. soldier (PFC Bradley Manning) who worked in intelligence. As such, Manning had a security clearance and access to SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network). This was a private Department of Defense network established in 1991, using Internet technology and able to handle classified (secret) documents. But Manning got access to a computer with a writable CD drive, and was able to copy all those classified documents to a CD (marked as containing Lady Gaga tracks) and walk out of his workplace with it. The big error here was having PCs available with writable media (USB ports, diskettes, printers or writable CD drives). You need some PCs with these devices, but they should be few, and carefully monitored. Normally, you would not need to copy anything off SIPRNet. Most of the time, if you want to share something, it's with someone else on SIPRNet, so you can just email it to them, or tell them what it is so they can call it up themselves. A network like SIPRNet usually (in many corporations, and some government agencies) has software that monitors who accesses, and copies, documents, and reports any action that meets certain standards (of possibly being harmful). SIPRNet did not have these controls in place.
Diplomatic messages, at least some of the lower level classified stuff, was put on SIPRNet by a presidential directive that sought to get other departments sharing relevant data with military intelligence. This was to avoid the kind of bad communications that made possible the September 11, 2001 attacks. Before then, even though some American government agencies had prior information on the attackers, no one made the connection. Unless all this information is collected together to make it obvious what is going on, the attackers will go undetected until it is too late. As a result of the Manning leak, the State Department withdrew access to its material by SIPRNet.

In the last nine years, SIPRNet became extremely active, and what controls there were on the network were strained to the point that you could do just about anything. This sharing of information was very helpful in fighting Islamic terrorists. Yet, with 2.5 million troops and civilians having access to SIPRNet, there were very few leaks. All it takes is one person, though. For three years, Manning was a one man SIPRNet crime wave. He is now in jail, facing life in prison.

The leaked documents were meant (according to the Wikileaks leader) to embarrass the United States and expose American hypocrisy and underhanded operations, but the result was quite the opposite. The U.S. was shown trying to do what it said, publically, that it was trying to do. But many other nations were shown to be quite different in their private conversations, than in their public ones. Some of these leaders now claim that they were misquoted, or that Wikileaks documents were a fabrication. It was initially believed that the released documents would make foreign officials more reluctant about speaking frankly with American officials. Didn't happen. Those conversations take place mainly because everyone wants something from the United States, and unless you establish a relationship with American diplomats or officials, nothing will happen. Moreover, many foreign officials found the revelations useful, as the leaks got out into the open things (like Arab relationships with Iran and Israel) that could not be discussed openly at home. For the most part, Wikileaks confirmed what was already known, something the Wikileaks crew assumed could not be true.

[Oakie]

I have no time for Mr Assange. What he has done is the same in my mind as getting hold of people's private diaries and telling the world their contents. Whatever his claimed motives, I think he's just a smart-arse snitch.

[Grasshopperus]

I have no time for Mr Assange. What he has done is the same in my mind as getting hold of people's private diaries and telling the world their contents. Whatever his claimed motives, I think he's just a smart-arse snitch.

Really?

So you don't care about the contents of the leaked data that exposes the lies told by politicians to the public?

Assange's job in Wikileaks is to take the heat that's inevitably being generated by the exposures. He's obviously doing it well.

[Oakie]

Really?

So you don't care about the contents of the leaked data that exposes the lies told by politicians to the public?

Assange's job in Wikileaks is to take the heat that's inevitably being generated by the exposures. He's obviously doing it well.

Frankly, no. I'm a pragmatic person and accept such things have always happened, happen now and will continue to happen. What really annoys me is the disregard for the consequences of releasing the documents. We all keep stuff secret for a reason. So do governments.

[scissorhands]

Frankly, no. I'm a pragmatic person and accept such things have always happened, happen now and will continue to happen. What really annoys me is the disregard for the consequences of releasing the documents. We all keep stuff secret for a reason. So do governments.

Some secrets should remain so, I have recently contemplated the nature of families, groups and countries.

However, when those secrets contain information about theft and murder, the right to privacy is lost.

Wanting to protect 'our' thieves and murderers from public review, just because the 'other side' are thieves and murderers too, becomes too corrupting for my straightforward honest style.

I understand the convoluted logic of the statesmen, even if I disagree.

If the world is to move forward from its current position, becoming bigger than the situation of a Mexican stand-off, and making a step toward a peaceful world, needs to be initiated by the one holding the power, uncle sam

Go the internet! Go the leakers!

[puddytat]

The truth will set you free.