The Wikileaks dessemination megathread (Cablegate and beyond)

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Infohawk

Lifer
Jan 12, 2002
17,844
1
0
to their credit they have changed their approach, in response to criticism by organizations like Amnesty International, and are now carefully redacting the names of the vulnerable prior to publishing. this is the case with the current batch of cable releases. they are a young media organization (only about 4 years old) and are I suppose still learning from their mistakes.

That is not a valid excuse when people's lives are at risk. Maybe they could have interned or worked at other institutions before they started this process. Ridiculous. "My doctor ripped out my heart but I guess he's still learning since he's still a resident." This whole affair is showing that traditional media still has an important place.
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
To be fair, everything that I've seen leaked from the "cables" makes the U.S. look awesome and respectable, it even makes China look all right. It makes european countries look like douches, though. :)

Not sure. I think there is confusion over embassy employee's role. For me they are being portrayed as if they are actually spies, which, IMO, should not really be their role...

It also makes EU (and other) countries look emberrassing...nothing new, just bowing down and ducking to the US as they did for the last decades already.

But i dont see they being portrayed as douches, rather i see your politicians (mainly Hillary "let's censor the net" Clinton) like the biggest, double-tongued douche.

Hillary is the one which i remember FROM YEARS AGO when she vehemently promoted a ban of "first person shooters"....ever since then i cant stand that person anymore.

In the cables it is clearly shown that she "orders" non-constitutional actions eg. spying, intelligence gathering....PROOF RIGHT THERE...while in public she is talking about "internet freedom". She is nothing than a lying double-faced person which i personally dont trust one single inch - therefore its likely she will be president one day.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
problem with your analogy is that no one has died from wikileak's leaks. and in many cases, people have benefited.



the guardian has done an amazing job providing context and analysis re: these cable leaks.
but they couldn't do that if wikileaks didn't provide the leaks in the first place.

I thought you read my link
 

Skyclad1uhm1

Lifer
Aug 10, 2001
11,383
87
91
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm

The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 - May 3 in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press.

The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

So... NK hosting it in 2012 and Iran in 2013 I guess?
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
The parallels to Orwell's 1984 are just...incredible...

Rule #1: Say ONE thing - but in reality do the opposite.

You can find that wherever you look. Politicians, respective the whole "political/industrial complex" are masters of it. Ironically, this is not only the case in the US or other western governments, but anywhere.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
The parallels to Orwell's 1984 are just...incredible...

Rule #1: Say ONE thing - but in reality do the opposite.

You can find that wherever you look. Politicians, respective the whole "political/industrial complex" are masters of it. Ironically, this is not only the case in the US or other western governments, but anywhere.

Is this why you moved to Spain or was it those awesome fireworks:)
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
Three big stories so far today. The DynCorp story is, frankly, rather shocking. Ultimately NATO has no control over the morals of Afghanistan, but you don't have to finance the damn things.

Saudi princes throw parties boasting drink, drugs and sex: Royals flout puritanical laws to throw parties for young elite while religious police are forced to turn a blind eye. (Source)

Saudis proposed Arab force to invade Lebanon: Foreign minister wanted US, NATO and UN backing for offensive to end Iranian-backed Hezbollah's siege of government. (Source)

Texas company helped pimp little boys to stoned Afghan cops: An Afghanistan cable (dated June 24, 2009) discusses a meeting between Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and US assistant ambassador Joseph Mussomeli. Prime among Atmar's concerns was a party partially thrown by DynCorp for Afghan police recruits in Kunduz Province. This was a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, much like the ones uncovered earlier this year by Frontline. Bacha boys are eight- to 15-years-old. They put on make-up, tie bells to their feet and slip into scanty women's clothing, and then, to the whine of a harmonium and wailing vocals, they dance seductively to smoky roomfuls of leering older men. (Source)
 

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
Here's a new one. So why would they release this type of information?

"WikiLeaks publishes list of worldwide infrastructure 'critical' to security of U.S"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40526224/ns/us_news-security/


It's not new, has been discussed already :)

As to answer your question:

Reading WL's comment in regards to this particular cable, i read the following: WL released this cable primarily to show that US embassy employees are told to 'spy'...as well as to point out that it is odd that such relatively sensitive information is accessible on SIPRnet to approx 2.5Mil people, including from the private sector. This was the reason given why this cable was released.
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
Here's a new one. So why would they release this type of information?

"WikiLeaks publishes list of worldwide infrastructure 'critical' to security of U.S"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40526224/ns/us_news-security/

I can include this in the list if you'd like. I excluded it because although it's definitely been a news story, it's not exactly new information.

As to the question of why: Either they really do believe that all information should be free, or they're trying to get a message across not to be messed with. Or both. Anyone know if WikiLeaks has commented on "why" themselves?

Edit: Found the actual cable, identifier is 09STATE15113. I can't find much direct comment from WikiLeaks on why they released it.
 
Last edited:

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
I came across this a bit randomly - it explains why the wikileaks.ch domain is practically impervious to being taken down by governments outside of Switzerland.

Wikileaks FAQ: Why did wikileaks.org stop working as a way to find the site?

For a traditional website to work it will want a domain name like website.com, so people can find it. Those domain names can stop working for any number of reasons. One commonly assumed action for Wikileaks is that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers that manages certain top-level protocol and parameter assignments for the Internet, intervened. It did not.

A little technical discussion to explain why: The domain name system (“DNS”) is hierarchical, and its zones are exclusive of one another rather than inherited (save for the lateral mirroring among the twelve root zone servers). The root zone orchestrated by ICANN is a very small file — just a mapping between each top-level domain like .org or .ch (“TLD”) and the IP address(es) of the servers designated to say more about that TLD (one server, not in ICANN’s hands, keeps track of names under .org, one for names under .ch, etc.). You can see a user-friendly version of the file here, with the Swiss name servers described here. The info you see there is what ICANN can directly change — and that only for its own root zone servers (B, L, and sort-of A), hoping to have it mirrored by the others; map below the fold here.

So for those servers, ICANN could all-or-nothing delete .ch, which means for those drawing TLD info from the ICANN roots they’d eventually (depending on caching of previous info) cease finding the nic.ch server(s) in Switzerland through which to resolve any .ch name. But there’s no way to express in the TLD zone something like “go to nic.ch for every domain name under .ch except wikileaks.ch.” And if .ch were ditched, the mirroring root servers would likely balk at mirroring that elision, and ISPs using B, L, and A to resolve TLDs would just turn to other root zone servers — or hard code in the last known IP address for nic.ch as the place to go for .ch names.

I guess a too-crafty-by-half solution would be to mirror everything in the .ch zone to a new .ch server run by ICANN, then delete wikileaks.ch’s info from that server’s files, then redirect the root zone to the new server instead of the old. That would work for about five minutes. After that, increasing chaos as Swiss webmasters made changes to their .ch names in the “official” nic.ch registry only to find them not reflected for those users unlucky enough to be rerouted to ICANN’s snapshot mirror. At which point the mirror roots (and the ISPs) awaken to the deception and take action a la the preceding graf.

Note that wikileaks.org went down not because of anything done to its DNS entry within the list kept by the registry* that minds the list of .org domains. Instead, the name server to which its entry pointed was attacked by unknown parties — DDOS’d — and EveryDNS, the operator of the name server, chose to stop answering queries about wikileaks in the hopes that the DDOS would stop. (Apparently it did.) EveryDNS is not to be confused with EasyDNS, which is a separate company that isn’t involved in the situation!

*I’m on the board of Trustees for the non-profit Internet Society, ISOC, which is the parent to the Public Interest Registry, which keeps track of names in .org.

If a domain name doesn’t work, a website can try to register and maintain another domain name, or it can just use a direct IP address — a number — to be found. A website also needs hosting, and Wikileaks has apparently had to shift its hosting at least once after being dropped by a chosen provider: Amazon’s commodity hosting service shut down the site for terms of service violations after being contacted by U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman.
 

CLite

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2005
1,726
7
76
1) Why are people so fucking obsessed with Texas? All the articles clearly state DynCorps is headquartered in DC. Anyways, DynCorps, regardless of it's location needs to be investigated thoroughly.

Also Afghanistan is an absolute shithole and we are kidding ourselves by thinking we can reform them.

2) Diplomats are spies? My mind is blown! Anyone who thinks this is some shocking revelation, or thinks that creating a list of facilities that are critical to the US counts as spying is just dumb.

3) We have people stating that Mr. Assange is addressing the safety issue by redacting names, then we have people stating that he is doing nothing wrong. This does not compute with him holding these people hostage with an insurance bomb.

If I hold 5 informants that detailed Taliban atrocities at gun point and state that if the US does anything to me I will kill them, this makes me an asshole.

What if some dude stabs him in prison because he doesn't like him? Will his supporters assume that is a USA plot and release information that could kill thousands?

4) As shown with DynCorps and other scandals, Wikileaks could have easily served a just and noble cause in revealing corruption. Instead by mass dissemination of mostly benign documents Wikileaks has messed with the diplomatic process, has potentially endangered thousands of lives, and has invited attention seeking anarchist attacks on countless critical facilities.
 

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,686
126
1) 4) As shown with DynCorps and other scandals, Wikileaks could have easily served a just and noble cause in revealing corruption. Instead by mass dissemination of mostly benign documents Wikileaks has messed with the diplomatic process, has potentially endangered thousands of lives, and has invited attention seeking anarchist attacks on countless critical facilities.

No one has demonstrated this or even attempted a justification that wasn't completely laughable.
 

CLite

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2005
1,726
7
76
No one has demonstrated this or even attempted a justification that wasn't completely laughable.

By all reports he has an unredacted insurance bomb that would reveal many civilian names in Afghanistan.

What is completely laughable about this?
 

HybridSquirrel

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2005
6,161
2
81
America is being a gigantic troll. Declare Assange a terrorist, hold national press freedom day.


Problem, Wikileaks?
 

JSt0rm

Lifer
Sep 5, 2000
27,399
3,947
126
By all reports he has an unredacted insurance bomb that would reveal many civilian names in Afghanistan.

What is completely laughable about this?

Yeah. He did that so he doesn't get killed. What would you do? I know I would stay alive if possible.
 

Blackjack200

Lifer
May 28, 2007
15,995
1,686
126
By all reports he has an unredacted insurance bomb that would reveal many civilian names in Afghanistan.

What is completely laughable about this?

Has he released it? He distributed it to protect himself from harm, which doesn't seem like a crazy idea right now.
 

CLite

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2005
1,726
7
76
Yeah. He did that so he doesn't get killed. What would you do? I know I would stay alive if possible.

So holding people hostage is acceptable now? You guys are straight up pathetic.

As I've already said, Wikileaks could have been a great platform for exposing key scandals. However, the paranoid megalomaniac has been exposed as just being an anarchist.
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,266
126
So you would gamble with other people's lives? To quote YOU, that would make you a POS.

I'm glad you were so vocal against Bush and the Iraq War where he gambled and hundreds of thousands lost their lives. You were just as outraged weren't you?