
WikiLeaks begins publishing 5 million emails from Stratfor - rdp
http://pastebin.com/D7sR4zhT
======
steve8918
Like other HN members, I'm also a Strafor subscriber and my details and credit
card information were leaked, so I have a vested interest in this issue.

At first I was pretty supportive of Stratfor, and thought that Anonymous
attacking Stratfor was completely stupid.

However, a couple of things from the news release caught my eye. I guess I was
naive, but I believed that Strafor was more like a news agency, and they would
do their best work to uncover information, analyze breaking situations, and
supply information to its members.

However, from reading the news release from Wikileaks, I get the vague sense
that maybe Stratfor was gathering a lot more information than I thought, using
it to their advantage, and then throwing a bone to its subscribers every now
and then, just enough to keep them subscribing and generating income.

It certainly seems like there's a lot more going under the covers than I
anticipated. The comment about "Control means financial, sexual or
psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your
next phase." makes it seem like Friedman is more than willing to make anyone
their pawns, including subscribers.

Also, the idea of their StratCap Fund really kind of makes me question exactly
what they are. I thought their motivations were really about analysis and
information, but I kind of don't believe that now. At first, I didn't think
the emails themselves were important, but now I'm definitely going to be
keeping a close eye on whatever gets turned up from this point on.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
I used to be a corporate subscriber (tens of thousands a month) and personal
subscriber (a hundred or so a year). Some of the intel I commissioned at
corporate worked its way into retail analysis; this was their policy.

STRATFOR is getting heat since they're well known in the public because of
their philosophy that everyone should have access to top-grade intelligence. I
don't understand how attacking the guys who find secret information, analyse
it, and sell it to businesses, governments, _and the public_ promotes an open
society.

Now we have shifted our business to Kroll and Dilligence and similar firms.
They are stoutly anti-public. Not coincidentally their IT security is also
top-notch. What was once public will now be very, very secret (Kroll has a
30-day email full deletion policy).

I worked for an investment bank. Found their idea of a STRATFOR hedge fund
funny, but not evil. Another way to woo colleagues over from the public side
while giving themselves a marketing tool against finance firms by being able
to point to a performance trail. Mis-guided, perhaps, but given that Google
basically runs a prop desk off its cash pile and has no problem with it (many
corporate treasuries operate for profit)suggests it may not be an end-of-the-
world conflict of interest.

Note: I hold no bad blood for Wikileaks; they're informatior brokers. But I do
judge the guys who hacked them. Though I judge STRATFOR as well for being so
cavalier with their security.

~~~
twelvechairs
> I don't understand how attacking the guys who find secret information,
> analyse it, and sell it to businesses, governments, and the public promotes
> an open society.

I believe the issue is more to do with their information gathering practices
(bribery and questionable links to individuals in government agencies are
alleged in the article, amongst others) and the ethics of making money from
that.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Put another way, it's a sustainable Wikileaks (sustainable because it is self-
financing and can attract talent, albeit evidently not IT).

If you read about a _New York Times_ investigative journalist bribing their
way into Libya, clinking drinks with dictators, etc. to get a scoop on what
they're doing, would that be evil? Perhaps to some, but I value the
information. It's a bit sleazy on the field, sure, but given that the
information is known by intelligence agencies the next question is whether it
is known to the public.

~~~
twelvechairs
So the argument that you are making is that because some illegal acts may
ultimately be used in a way that can be seen as positive (the journalist
analogy), you see no problem with a company acting illegally ('sleazy') on a
regular basis?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
'Illegal' is regime specific. It's absurd to argue legality within a context
of hacked emails. If we are being strictly legalistic we should discard this
evidence as being illegally obtained.

So let's change your question to is it okay to gain intelligence by venality?
My answer is it is a continuum. Would I advocate bribing North Korean
officials to gain insight on what they're doing? Yes. For Germany? No.
STRATFOR, through the incentives in our global political regime, snaps into
public opinion modulated by the risk of getting caught (as any agent in a
political society does).

Generalising this de-spirits the debate. The fact is this information is being
collected and will continue to be collected because it has tremendous
intrinsic value. The question is how widely available it will be. I can pay
for it. I just thought people liked having access to it as well. I would
understand, though, if people preferred pretending reality isn't as it is.

~~~
twelvechairs
I agree on the continuum, and that there is no point pretending reality isn't
as it is, but on the other hand is there not a case that actions being taken
by organisations such as these may not actually be in the interests of the
wider public, and thus they should have a degree of public oversight and/or
transparency in their actions?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
If we could multilaterally ban (and enforce a ban) on espionage, thus forcing
diplomacy into the open, would I be opposed? No.

But that's not the world we inhabit. Nation-states are perpetually insecure
about the _intentions_ of others. Hence, espionage will exist with states as
the actors.

So the next level is how widely disseminated should this information be? The
intel Kroll, Dilligence, Nardello, IGI, etc. provide will always be available
in one form or another. And because it's very information dense people like
me, who want to _understand_ above all else, will bid up the value of that
information.

I understand the public being uneasy with all of this. It's akin to pulling
back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. But it is how geopolitics works; we are
shooting the messenger. It's a shame that Anonymous et Pals may have just
severed the single link the majority of people had to this world. I, on the
other hand, will only have to deal with one fewer information brokers.

There was an article on HN a day or two ago on how being pragmatic, even if
it's sour, is better than being solely right. I think this is one of those
cases.

~~~
twelvechairs
> But that's not the world we inhabit. Nation-states are perpetually insecure
> about the intentions of others. Hence, espionage will exist with states as
> the actors.

I can see that it pretty point-of-view, but I don't agree with this. I think
we live in the world that we make, nothing is 'perpetual', and that in Western
countries especially we will gain in the long-run from ensuring our own
ethical standards are high. This, from my point-of-view, is practical.

------
kylemaxwell
I've read STRATFOR's intel summaries / newsletters for a while - and I
generally support Wikileak's and Anonymous's _goals_ , if not always their
specific _tactics_. So this is grabbing my interest, both personally and
professionally. If nothing else, it will be interesting to consider ways to
apply their methodology to the sort of threat intelligence we work with in
network security.

(Side note: it's entirely possible to support Wikileaks and still think
Assange is kind of a jerk.)

~~~
unconed
The thing is, though I'm not saying that's true in your case, that many
people's perceptions of Assange are entirely due to the picture the media has
painted rather than things he has himself said or done.

Check out the disinformation campaign that's been going on in Sweden for
example, propagated by tabloid press in releases oddly synchronous with
statements by the prime minister concerning an upcoming 'smear campaign
against Sweden'.

------
SkyMarshal
An interesting article popped up on G+ the other day, outlining the effects
the Cablegate release has had:

<https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/28-2>

TLDR: US Government got mud on its face, but dictators around the world faired
much worse, and the fallout for them is ongoing.

~~~
redthrowaway
Which really makes you question just why the US is persecuting Wikileaks as
vigorously as it is... until you notice that most of the dictators who have
fallen and countries where rebellions occurred were US allies, or at least had
close ties to the US. Even Gaddafi was cozying up to the west until things got
hairy.

The truly sad thing is, we knew all this. We've known that supporting friendly
but brutal and murderous dictators has been the modus operandi for the US for
years. Despite the leaks and the Arab Spring, this will continue to be the
case so long as it's easier to keep a friendly dictator in power than try and
work with a democratically elected government of a country where the vast
majority of people don't like you.

~~~
fijal
Don't you think it also works the other way around? The majority of people
don't like you because you support a violent dictator that's clearly bad for
them.

~~~
AkThhhpppt
It's a ratchet effect. Population are not particularly interested either way;
government tells US government they're not going to put US interests ahead of
their own people's, gets overthrown and replaced with a brutal dictatorship,
population gets distinctly unfriendly, democratic government replaces dictator
after revolution, opposes US interests as it plays well with population. Hey,
that sounds kind of familiar...
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Pahlavi_dynasty_.281925.E2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#Pahlavi_dynasty_.281925.E2.80.931979.29)

------
shalmanese
Oh, the irony: [http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/866124_random-business-
ide...](http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/866124_random-business-idea-network-
security-.html)

~~~
Maxious
Stratfor CEO George Friedman Resigns Over Latest Breach
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/leaked-email-shows-stratfor-
ce...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/leaked-email-shows-stratfor-ceo-george-
friedman-resigned-two-hours-ago-over-latest-breach)

"But we must acknowledge that this incident would not have been possible if
Stratfor had implemented stronger data protection mechanisms - which will be
the case from now on. Indeed we will immediately move to implement the latest,
and most comprehensive, data security measures."

Seriously? These people were emailing what they considered the most sensitive
information straight out of their organisation, the only "security" being a
caveat in the subject line. I wouldn't trust them with a cookie jar let alone
preventing leaks ;)

~~~
jacquesm
He didn't resign according to:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9107911/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9107911/WikiLeaks-
publishes-security-think-tank-emails.html)

------
joeyh
Buried in the mass of text at <http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html> is this
interesting thing:

"WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted "Facebook for
revolutionaries" (<https://wlfriends.org/>)."

<https://wlfriends.org/about#whatfowlis>

I see no evidence it's truely distributed though.

------
tzs
How is Stratfor fundamentally different from Wikileaks? They both obtain
leaked information, often by methods of questionable legality. Stratfor uses
the information to make reports and newsletters they sells to governments,
businesses, and ordinary curious members of the public, whereas Wikileaks
releases it for free but in ways that seemed designed to promote Assange, but
I wouldn't say these are fundamental differences.

If Wikileaks were truly about bringing secret information to light, wouldn't
they be protecting other leak organizations, rather that exposing their
sources?

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
"How is Stratfor fundamentally different from Wikileaks? They both obtain
leaked information ..."

That's like asking "How are the Crips different from the LAPD? They both drive
around Los Angeles and carry guns ..." In the case of Stratfor and Wikileaks,
one group finds secret information and makes it public, the other group takes
secret information and sells it back to the same secret community from where
the leaks originate.

"I wouldn't say these are fundamental differences."

I certainly would.

~~~
duncan_bayne
> "How are the Crips different from the LAPD? They both drive

> around Los Angeles and carry guns ..."

... and they both enforce laws, and they both initiate the use of force
against peaceful citizens, and they both take funding from unwilling people by
the threat of violence.

I'm not sure you're making the point you intended to make, unless you're an
anarcho-capitalist like me ;-)

~~~
nodata
Do the Crips have a taskforce that investigates corrupt gang members?

~~~
__alexs
Corrupt as in actually police informants? Er, yeah I bet they do actually.

------
r4vik
Anyone got a full dump? I want to run the from/to's through a network analysis
to understand who the 'supernodes' or connectors are at stratfor.

~~~
roel_v
What software do you use for this?

~~~
r4vik
I've been waiting to try out Neo4j and Gephi: <http://gephi.org/tag/neo4j/>

------
rdp
One of the more interesting things to emerge from this is Strafor's failed
attempt to create a hedge fund that would use their intelligence to invest in
government bonds, currency, etc.

~~~
chairface
The only reference I found to their hedge fund said that it hasn't launched
yet, not that it has failed.

~~~
rdp
My interpretation of this document is that the initial attempt at creating the
fund failed and those involved were trying to salvage it.
[http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/400961_fw-failure-of-
strat...](http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/400961_fw-failure-of-stratfor-
stratcap-deal-.html)

~~~
chairface
Thank you for the reference - I agree, that's the most likely interpretation
of the email. I wonder why this wasn't called out more strongly when the hedge
fund was mentioned in the press release.

------
mr_eel
Anyone commenting about the supposed irony of Wikileaks putting an embargo on
releasing this information before an agreed date is being naive.

At one point in time Wikileak's stated mission was just to leak information,
and this was done without — comparatively — much fanfare.

What we see now is a change of tactics. If the ultimate goal is not simply to
leak information, but to effect change, then what is the best way to do this?

A coordinated, simultaneous release has a better chance of being noticed by
more people and thus a greater chance of effecting some meaningful change.

We can disagree on tactics. Assuming you believe their goals are reasonable,
what else could they do? I'm not suggesting there are not other options, but I
rarely read any suggestions of a better way.

~~~
notatoad
i'm not sure you can say that wikileak's goal is to effect change. their goal
is to take information that was private, and make it visible to as many people
as is possible. controlling the release furthers that goal. they don't seem to
care what happens with the information once it is released, just that the
release gathers notice. i don't think their goals have changed over time,
they've just become more aware of the fact that releasing information is no
good if there's no audience for the release.

~~~
mr_eel
Well, effecting change is their stated goal. Assange has spoken at length
about the idea of exposing information in order to break down conspiracies
which an informed public may consider corrupt. I think that Wikileaks is a
long way from being able to do that yet — undermine the corruption/lawlessness
in a govt to an extent where it's weakened — but I'm hopeful.

Their focus is not simply exposing private information. Again, Assange has
repeatedly said that Wikileaks has no interest in violating personal privacy
and has in fact explicitly said that an individual has a right to privacy.

Exposing all private information is a radical position, one for which they
couldn't expect to gain popular support. In other words, that is not their
goal at all. It's reductive to simply say that they want to destroy privacy.

~~~
redthrowaway
>I think that Wikileaks is a long way from being able to do that yet —
undermine the corruption/lawlessness in a govt to an extent where it's
weakened — but I'm hopeful.

They were completely successful in Kenya and had a not-insignificant role in
sparking the Arab Spring. They're not able to bring down powerful corrupt
regimes, but they've certainly proven successful at effecting change in some
of the smaller countries.

------
revelation
Still think this is misguided. STRATFOR isn't the CIA; they like to pretend
for marketing and what not, but they are obviously not the enemy here.

~~~
reitblatt
Anyone bribing governmental officials for personal profit is "the enemy".

Edit: It's in the article. Stratfor gathers information using paid informants,
including government officials. That's bribery.

~~~
webXL
What about those who bribe the electorate for personal profit ? What about
politicians who blackmail each other for personal profit?

Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official and
benefit the public at the same time?

Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post that
someone is "the enemy".

~~~
reitblatt
What in the world are you talking about? Politicians blackmailing each other
for personal gain is unethical. And I'm pretty sure that "the electorate"
doesn't qualify as a "governmental official".

"Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official
and benefit the public at the same time?"

The ethical content of an action is not determined by accidental effects. If I
shoot a gun blindly into a street and accidentally save someone by shooting
their attacker, that doesn't make my actions ethical. Bribing an official for
information that you can then sell to the highest bidder is corruption. The
intent matters.

"Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post
that someone is "the enemy"."

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

~~~
webXL
Did I imply in any way that such political misconduct was ethical? No. Did I
suggest "the electorate" qualified as a "government official"? No.

I was simply impugning an absolute statement that blanketed a great number of
honorable intelligence gathers as "the enemy", and promoted a great number of
sketchy government officials as allies.

Corruption is paying an official to change or ignore a law to benefit you at
the expense of others. Incentivizing an official to leak intelligence (most
likely not constitutionally obtained in the first place) doesn't fit that
definition. If it did, half of the New York Times' Washington bureau would
qualify as "the enemy".

No, "cathartically" means what I think it does. I wouldn't call someone an
enemy and really mean it unless that enemy was deliberately trying to harm me
or my family. Any other use would be an attempt to invoke emotions.

~~~
reitblatt
"I wouldn't call someone an enemy and really mean it unless that enemy was
deliberately trying to harm me or my family."

I didn't literally call them the enemy, I put it in scary quotes as a reply to
the (IMO) naive sentiment of the OP that because they're "not the CIA",
they're not a legitimate target of WikiLeaks.

Please ask for clarification next time before you cathartically lecture
someone based on your own misunderstanding.

~~~
cynoclast
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cathartic>

~~~
reitblatt
<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony>

------
biot
It's not without a sense of irony that WikiLeaks puts an embargo on the press
release and asks that news organizations not leak the story beforehand.

~~~
eli
Actually I think it's intended to be completely unironic

~~~
arctangent
Or maybe even post-ironic:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-irony>

------
wxs
I found this one particularly fun to read:
<http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1239829_fyi-.html> (Sorry, it's a doc).

A glossary of the intelligence jargon that they use, written in an
entertaining style.

~~~
aristus
"Denial Plan: Specific plan for managing security breaches. In some
intelligence organizations, multi-volume regulations. In others, the plan
consists of running around circles, waving your arms and blaming everyone
else. Which one are we?"

------
some1else
Took a peek at a few emails. It looks like some of their 'analysts' are what
people call 'social media experts'.

I was beginning to wonder what kind of job that skill set can land you.

------
Vivtek
Unfortunately, I don't see any timetable for release of the entire corpus; if
they're going to release 167 emails per day, that's going to take 82 years.

------
SonicSoul
hmm.. so no one commented on pastebin being used as a newsletter CMS. i guess
this is common practice? i guess this is in tune with those stories about
using git as publishing platform

------
spitfire
I hope no one is surprised by this. If governments are willing to spend
billions upon billions for intelligence, why wouldn't private corporations.
Hell I've throughout of doing this a few times - then I think about the work
it entails.

I bet there'll bee som interesting, actionable material in there.

------
senthilnayagam
The one issue concerning London Olympics is Dow Chemicals sponsoring it, but
there has been opposition in India and NGO for their role in Bhopal Gas
Tragedy in 1984.

If stratfor was gathering intelligence and buying silence for Dow, then it
would be indictment and self implication

------
kristianp
Where is the data itself? I can't find a link to it, possibly it's not
available yet?

~~~
rdp
The data is here: <http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/>

~~~
olefoo
That's not particularly useful to people who want to rip through the entire
corpus using standard textmining tools; we'd really rather a signed torrent of
a compressed imap archive or something similar. Having all the headers in
formats accessible to scripts to read and tag different emails, etc.

This is sort of like having to do research on an archive that's been
photocopied onto kleenex. But, we'll suck it up, and write a scraper to turn
it into what we need. But it means that some of the interesting stuff is
delayed, because wikileaks is trying to get the most bang for the buck by
dribbling it out.

Just to pick an example of what I mean by interesting; tag all emails that
mention a country or city and see if there are correlations between who sent
and received emails and the countries mentioned, or if informants are
mentioned in connection with more than one country.

------
veb
Well... this is going to be interesting. Forgive my ignorance, but this feels
like its going to hurt a lot of people.

~~~
Joakal
How is it going to hurt a lot of people?

~~~
rdp
I think the impact could be bigger than you suggest. Communications between
Stratfor staff, clients, and sources are buried in this data dump. There is an
entire spreadsheet of non-US media contacts who had agreements of some kind
with Stratfor. There is correspondence between Stratfor executives and their
attorneys that was most certainly subject to attorney/client privilege before
it was posted. This only scratches the surface.

~~~
cynoclast
Attorney/client privilege is meaningless outside a courtroom, legally, and
practically.

------
cenuij
The charge levelled @manning doesn't concern you all?

~~~
jsz0
They don't really concern me. He made the choice to do it. I think he was
probably aware of the risks and decided it was worth the punishment. If not
then he made a huge mistake.

~~~
cenuij
Naevity is prevelant, chase your own story.

------
cenuij
Are you wankers still intent on the prossecustion[spelling] of Manning?

~~~
cenuij
still now?

------
cenuij
manning must die/pay: What kind of backward society would prosecute this?

------
cenuij
Manning perhaps had the guts to remind you all of your constitution. If you
are prepared to ignore your constitution then I will ignore all the things
that make U.S.A. great.

------
cenuij
So which one is it?

* Fuck yeah, america!!!! killing our own troups just because * Fuck yeah, amerida!!?! killing everyone just because.

------
eta_carinae
> The material contains privileged information about the US government's
> attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to
> subvert WikiLeaks.

I'm getting tired of Wikileak's bullshit. Either you have proof about this and
you should just publish it in a pastebin, or you shut up. You don't publish 5
million emails and hint that there is material in there that could take down
governments.

~~~
peteretep
> You don't publish 5 million emails and hint that there is material in there
> that could take down governments.

Unless you want to crowd-source analysis of them. Then you do, it seems.

------
tfh
It will take some time until people will filter interesting stuff out.

