

Wikileaks Says Aaron Swartz Was a Possible Source - ma2rten
http://mashable.com/2013/01/20/wikileaks-aaron-swartz/

======
rdtsc
The connection is like this:

Aaron Swartz was good friends with Jacob Appelbaum. You'll notice that the
picture you'll see of Aaron on Reddit is taken by Appelbaum.
<http://blog.reddit.com/2013/01/aaronsw-1986-2013.html> anyway, point being
they were good friends and worked together.

Now Appelbaum is associated with Wikileaks (former spokesperson etc.) and has
been repeatedly harassed and bullied by customs agents
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum> , Appelbaum mentions how people
from his contacts list (his cell phones have been confiscated numerous times)
have also been questioned. I bet Aaron was one of them.

The assistance Aaron provided is probably in forms of software or development,
probably working together with Appelbaum.

~~~
danso
This is entirely plausible and I would like to see it come from Wikileaks
itself. It's worth noting that Applebaum is of course not famous just for his
association with Wikileaks, but many other projects before 2010.

Also, Twitter successfully fought the court order to seal the federal requests
for Applebaum's twitter contacts. Was Aaron Swartz's name found among the
named associates of Applebaum?
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20027893-281.html>

------
aaron42net
I believe that Aaron Swartz might've been the activist mentioned in Wired
([http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-
documents...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-documents/))
who bootstrapped WikiLeaks with over a million files intercepted from Tor.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere is that it looks like aaronsw was
running tor2web.org, as it has the same IP and is running in the same Linode
instance as aaronsw.com and at least two of his other projects, blogspace.com
and jottit.com.

Tor2web is an interestingly risky service all by itself, being the only public
interface into Tor hidden services. And the Wikileaks submission system at
least in 2010 was running on a Tor hidden service
(<http://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.onion/> at the time accessible as
<https://suw74isz7wqzpmgu.tor2web.org/>).

While the sniffing could've happened on any exit router, tor2web.org would
present an interesting extension of that capability.

------
imjk
I think this is cheap and tacky on the part of Wikileaks. Regardless of
whether Aaron was or wasn't a source for them, they're trying to take some of
the widespread positive public sentiment towards Aaron for their own cause.

------
hkmurakami
These three facts don't add up to anything concrete.

> 1\. Aaron Swartz assisted WikiLeaks.

Could be a donation, could be a code improvement suggestion, could be
anything.

> 2\. Aaron Swartz was in communication with Julian Assange, including during
> 2010 and 2011.

Who _wasn't_ Aaron Swartz in communication with whom he thought was involved
in something interesting/worthwhile? After all, he was a teenager when he cold
emailed Lawrence Lessig arguing for Creative Commons to use RDF.

> 3\. We have strong reasons to believe, but cannot prove, that Aaron Swartz
> was a WikiLeaks source.

Empty statement.

\---

So if this "announcement" by WikiLeaks is basically baseless, what is the true
motive?

------
denzil_correa
One interpretation as many have pointed out would be

    
    
        The aim of these tweets could be to imply that the US 
        Attorney's Office and Secret Service targeted Swartz in 
        order to get at Wikileaks, and that Swartz died still 
        defending his contacts' anonymity.
    

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-
tweets-a...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/19/3893268/wikileaks-tweets-aaron-
swartz-was-ally-and-possibly-source)

------
H_L
Is this an attempt to spark some inane conspiracy theory?

A suggestion that Aaron's involvement as a 'source' made him a target of the
government, so his suicide was not actually a suicide but rather a targeted
attack?

~~~
analog
To me the suggestion that his targeting for prosecution was as a result of his
alleged involvement with Wikileaks.

Mashable may be leaving the 'not suicide' conspiracy theory open but I don't
think that is what Wikileaks are suggesting.

~~~
teeja
That was my first reaction: -if- this were true, it would 'help' the DoJ
'explain' why the prosecution was so vigorous. (Tying Swartz to something
they've spent years bad-jacketing.) A similar move is the claim he FOIA'd
tapes of Manning in custody. Looks like the Big FUD Machine's running.

~~~
analog
"the claim he FOIA'd tapes of Manning"

Is this true or not? I honestly have no idea.

[https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/bri...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/brig-records-related-to-bradley-manning-364/#25793-initial-
response)

------
rurounijones
Linkbait title.

Or Wikileaks have been lying all the time.

Previous wikileaks statements make a big show of saying how sources are
anonymous by system design (i.e. "It is impossible to say if Bradley Manning
was a source".).

Now they are saying that they think Swartz was a source? What is it. Is their
system anonymous or not. If it is anonymous then this is non-news. If it is
not then Wikileaks is broken

To me it just seems like them trying to get some more advertising by tying
into this story, which is frankly disgusting.

~~~
Volpe
They said "they believe, but cannot prove". That is inline with their "Can't
know" lines in the past.

Just because the system doesn't allow them to identify sources , is not the
same as saying sources are unidentifiable through any means... else the
allegations against Bradley Manning would have never occurred.

~~~
rurounijones
If they cannot prove it then there is no merit in releasing this "news".

Which brings me back to my "Jump on the news bandwagon" last line.

------
danso
This is such a bizarre, vague, and non-sensical claim that it's impossible to
know what to make of it.

1\. Under what circumstances does Wikileaks _ever_ find it necessary to reveal
a source? Or in this case, to say "maybe he was a source, maybe he wasn't,
we're just putting it out there"?

2\. He assisted Wikileaks...how? In a way different than being a source?

3\. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret stuff?
Complimenting each other? Trading recipes?

If this was an attempt to help Aaron's cause, it seems very misguided...Aaron
really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks, especially as his
supporters attempt to portray his work as benign and altruistic. If this is
just a naked cry for attention, well, that's just sad. There are probably
other ways of getting attention than to violate one of your most important
precepts (the anonymity of your sources) with a vague tease.

~~~
rdtsc
> In a way different than being a source?

Yes. Most likely. Remember Aaron was also a developer and doubt he had access
clearance to have access to embarrassing classified materials. I don't see why
that's not the first guess.

> 3\. He communicated with Julian Assange...how? About what? about secret
> stuff?

Probably about secret stuff.

> Trading recipes?

So? Funny enough, I am 100% that is enough to put him on a black list of some
sort in the DHS.

> Aaron really doesn't need the association with Wikileaks

Unless of course he was friends with wikileaks supporters and developers and
then we got danso here telling who Aaron's friends should and should not have
been.

~~~
danso
Well yes, I guess that in a tragic death that was sparked in part by too many
people blindly accepting the vague assertions made by one organization, it's
hard not to be cynical of yet another organization making vague assertions
related to that tragic death. Call me jaded.

------
dylanhassinger
Seems plausible to wonder if he was involved with Wikileaks, or Anonymous too.

The whole thing reminds me of the Sacco & Vinzetti case. They got railroaded
on a bullshit charge, but they couldn't fight it because they (probably) had
other stuff to hide...

------
mpyne
So MIT installed a security camera and pressed charges because they knew that
when their unwanted network guest was finally unmasked, that it would be
someone who had secretly been in touch with Julian Assange?

------
fredgrott
The problem is of belief, wikileaks accepts data/submissions and takes those
submidsions and subtracts out identifying data from the submitter so no-one at
wikileaks knows who the submitter is

And the head of wikileaks is known to refuse electronic communication from
those who identify themselves in chats, etc to assist the ethos of keeping
things anonymous.

------
kragen
It seems likely that when sbp releases the contents of Aaron's hard disks on
the web, we'll be able to read his correspondence with Julian, and perhaps see
what other help he gave WikiLeaks.

------
gcmartinelli
could they be trying to relief some of the pressure over Bradley Manning?
maybe pinning the cable leaks on Swartz would give Manning freedom... this
could even have been suggested by Swartz sometime before (or after... deadman
switch) his death...

------
jezfromfuture
wikileaks getting some free publicity...

