
WikiLeaks Put Women in Turkey in Danger - leephillips
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html
======
randomname2
Wikileaks statement:

"@Sulliview @TheWorldPost Please issue a correction. The story is a
fabrication. WikiLeaks did not publish the databases concerned"

[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/757940726198042624](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/757940726198042624)

~~~
dublinben
To see the corrections made to the article to reflect this information, see
the following link.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160726000303/https://trln7wscq...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160726000303/https://trln7wscq2jjwlnl.onion.to/)

~~~
divbit
{+This blog has been updated to reflect that WikiLeaks promoted links to the+}
{+databases via its social media accounts but did not host those databases on
its+} {+own site.+}

So they tweeted / or retweeted it essentially?

~~~
korayal
yes, the tweet is still live: (but the linked url is taken down so I don't see
any reason not to share this tweet)

[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756147693802643456](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756147693802643456)

I think the misunderstanding (if there is any) is that they share this link by
calling it 'theirs'. So I suppose that would be the reason the author was
referring to them.

------
joeblow9999
They loved wikileaks until it went after Hilary. Of course.

~~~
leephillips
Who are "they"?

~~~
WalterSear
The editorial staff at the Huffington post.

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moyix
There is a lot of confusion surrounding this, which I can hopefully clarify.
Wikileaks released a dump of email obtained from a hack of the Turkish ruling
party (AKP), which can be found on their main page.

It turned out that the source of these documents was Phineas Fisher
(@GammaGroupPR on twitter), the hacker who previously released documents on
FinFisher, Hacking Team, and a few others. Due to some miscommunication with
WikiLeaks, he was actually still in the AKP network when the WL release
happened:

> I hacked AKP (the ruling party in Turkey) because I support the society
> people

> are trying to build in Rojava and Bakur [1], and they're being attacked by

> Turkey [2][3][4]. I don't see leaking as an end in itself, so I was talking
> with

> people in Rojava and Bakur to see how best to use the access I'd gotten.
> There

> was a miscommunication between some of them and someone gave a copy of the
> first

> file I'd downloaded (which had about half of @akparti.org.tr's email up to
> that

> point) to wikileaks. They quickly corrected the miscommunication and asked

> wikileaks to hold off on publishing it, but wikileaks decided to publish now

> anyway with the international attention from the recent coup attempt. To be
> fair

> to wikileaks, they didn't know I was still in AKP's network downloading
> files at

> the time they announced they were publishing [5], but they did know that the

> source who had given them the file was asking them to wait...

I am not certain whether the voter database Zeynep Tufekci described is
contained in the WikiLeaks dump (e.g. as an attachment). It is definitely
contained in the larger AKP dump released by Phineas Fisher.

Here's a writeup on what is contained in the full AKP dump, which confirms the
claims made by the Huffington Post article. I have done some light checking
against my own copy of the dump and verified that what they say seems to be
correct.

[https://medium.com/@crymora/when-leaking-turns-into-
dumping-...](https://medium.com/@crymora/when-leaking-turns-into-
dumping-61efcd20c96a#.s2lk3we00)

Note: I am deliberately not linking directly to the source documents, because
I agree that their full and unredacted release was dangerous. You can no doubt
find them if you search around, but I'd urge you to think about the possible
repercussions carefully before propagating it.

------
exstudent2
This article doesn't make it clear what was actually leaked. Was it the actual
private info or links to it? Was this info already publicly available?
Honestly this article seems like retaliation for the earlier DNC leak and is
heavy on accusations, light on facts.

~~~
skybrian
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that WikiLeaks has always been
careless about sharing private information that puts ordinary people at risk.
The only time they've been somewhat responsible is when they partnered with
newspapers who know better.

The DNC leak for example includes lots of social security numbers and credit
card numbers. If they cared at all they could have done a search and replace
to get most of them.

~~~
exstudent2
I would rather they didn't manipulate or censor their leaks. I'm sure I'm not
alone in that.

~~~
vkou
Would you mind sharing your SSN, credit card numbers, address, and date of
birth?

We don't yet know if that information will be useful to the world, because we
didn't really look at it, but we'd like to have it out in the public record -
for completion's sake. I'm sure it'll be valuable to someone.

I realize that you may not be involved in any impropriety, but you may have at
one point e-mailed someone who is, or someone who works for someone who is.

No more secrets, right?

~~~
exstudent2
You should blame the people who made the leaks necessary, not the people doing
the leak. Again, manipulating the data in anyway undermines their legitimacy.

~~~
notahacker
I'm not sure it ever was "necessary" for Wikileaks to indiscriminately release
large collections of emails sent to the Turkish government, especially if the
HuffPo report is correct and it pertains largely to ordinary citizens'
messages.

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is even less true of
releasing citizens' sensitive information to the entire world (including
factions in a country where people are being killed over their political
actions) than it is of allowing governments to collect and share it.

Just because some of the things revealed by Wikileaks are very much in the
public interest doesn't make it an entirely benign actor.

~~~
exstudent2
If the data exists it may get leaked. It's up to people to protect themselves
through encryption and not messaging bad actors. If someone makes malicious
actions post-leak then they should be dealt with. Information wants to be
free. There's no fighting it.

How exactly do you plan to police Wikileaks? Twitter shaming? Thankfully
they've proven to be immune to that.

------
moogle19
"WikiLeaks should take down its links to all personal information as soon as
possible." Do they now how the Internet works?

------
yorwba
> a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey.

Now I'm wondering who put this together and why.

~~~
russelluresti
Yeah, this was my first thought. Things that aren't addressed in the article:
why did this database exist and was it even legal for the government to
collect and store this information?

------
adultSwim
Is this what they are referring to?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11420139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11420139)

~~~
leephillips
No

------
alexandercrohde
Sounds like an accidental oversight, but one I'll gladly accept for the
preservation of free-distribution of information; a force that's essential to
democracy.

Much in the same way that a well-meaning country have police officers that
shoot innocent people, or engage in bad wars, but that misstep doesn't
invalidate the whole.

------
jbssm
"Bloody and brutal coup"... oh the hiperbole.

~~~
easuter
The brutality seems to have been mostly by Erdogan supporters; though this is
probably not what the article was trying to convey...

~~~
mladenkovacevic
The casualty numbers are out there.. no need for "seems"

Anti-coup casualties: 161 civilians and police officers

Pro-coup casualties: 104 military

I'm no fan of Erdogan's "reforms" after the coup, but there's no need to alter
the narrative in favour of a preferred agenda.

~~~
EdHominem
"People of Turkey, go be human shields for my illegal reign by standing in
front of the tanks."

Erdogan was willing to let any number of people be killed to prop up his
illegal reign. The soldiers in the coup were humanitarians who were unwilling
to kill indiscriminately.

By the time Erdogan is done purging the country his body count will be three
orders of magnitude higher.

