

Confirmed: All Wikileaks Cables to be Released in next 24 hours - derrida
http://www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html

======
roel_v
The real shame is that there are probably people going to be killed because of
the irresponsible ego tripping of a couple of journalists, deluded
'transparency advocates' and other mentally unstable individuals.

Also, what was Assange thinking? 'Oh I'll just give these people the material,
we can trust them?' And the notion that journalists, many of whom are as
technologically illiterate as they come, would store these files on a computer
not connected to any network is so naive it's not even funny anymore.

~~~
gwern
> The real shame is that there are probably people going to be killed because
> of the irresponsible ego tripping of a couple of journalists, deluded
> 'transparency advocates' and other mentally unstable individuals.

That's what people were saying about the Afghanistan and Iraq log leaks.

~~~
omouse
Right but people are still dying in those countries, though not due to
journalists.

------
peteretep
Seems to lay the blame very squarely with The Guardian.

You can read the Guardian's rebuttal here:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-
em...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-
cables-online)

Guardian's quote:

"Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a
password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was
a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.

"It was a meaningless piece of information to anyone except the person(s) who
created the database.

"No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at
WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to
remove the files. That they didn't do so clearly shows the problem was not
caused by the Guardian's book."

~~~
schrototo
> "No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at
> WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months
> to remove the files. That they didn't do so clearly shows the problem was
> not caused by the Guardian's book."

That's a pretty bullshit excuse. Wasn't the insurance file on PirateBay? How
exactly should they have removed that once it was out there?

~~~
peteretep
From what I've read, I've been given the idea that the files transferred to
The Guardian were encrypted for them only - that the password they had worked
against that file alone.

Presumably (hopefully?) the insurance file uses a different password. I was
also under the (perhaps wrong) impression that no-one actually knows what's in
the insurance file.

~~~
schrototo
I can't imagine the insurance file being little more than the full uncensored
cable archive. What else could it be? If Wikileaks had a gigabyte of
compromising information on the US government or some other powerful entity,
surely they would release it? Isn't that their stated mission?

~~~
TheCapn
From what I gather it sounds like they're trying to redact important info from
cables prior to release so they don't get their asses burned any more than
they have. They've got a collection of cables they haven't yet processed and
are now being leaked.

------
ugh
This is ridiculous. I don’t know how any whistleblower could trust Wikileaks
after what has happened during the last few weeks.

There clearly is a need for a competent whistleblower website. Wikileaks has
shown itself to be incapable of filling that role. Egos shouldn’t be more
important than leaks.

~~~
derrida
1) The blame lays squarely with the guardian who think that PGP offers some
sort of 'temporary' changeable password.

2) From the whistle-blowers perspective all documents have been released. Sure
if Wikileaks hung onto them it would have a greater impact.

~~~
tptacek
The Guardian isn't saying PGP passwords are temporary. They're saying they had
assumed the PGP-encrypted file they were provided was single-use, intended
only for them and removed after they copied it.

That's a reasonable assumption. Why wasn't it single-use? Aren't people's
lives presumably at stake here? How many lives do you need to risk before it
becomes worth it to re-encrypt a data set? Why, after disclosing the
encryption key to a journalist, did Assange retain the (now tainted) file?

~~~
jhancock
Even if those at the Guardian believed the password only applied to their
copy, publishing the password amounts to the Guardian making their copy a
target to be copied/stolen. Why should the Guardian think they have better
protection against copying their copy than the U.S. gov did in not allowing
the cables to be copied in the first place?

~~~
tptacek
This is a good reason for not simply giving The Guardian a giant encrypted
dump of all the data. Either way, The Guardian's lack of opsec doesn't set the
bar for Wikileaks.

Wasn't the whole idea behind Wikileaks supposed to be that it was run by
people with the greatest possible opsec/tradecraft crediblity? How does it
make sense for that group to literally delegate all their security to a news
publishing organization?

And having done that, by their own admission, how does pointing the finger at
The Guardian's lack of opsec capability exonerate Wikileaks?

~~~
jhancock
It doesn't exonerate WL. It simply shows the Gaurdian to be foolish and/or
complicit in WL's agenda to distribute the data.

------
joeyh
Cryptome has the password and a link to the leaked file at the top of their
page.

~~~
click170
True, but their link to the file gives a Not Found. I wonder what's going on
there..

~~~
ghuntley
A quick whois _[1]_ against the original link by used by Cryptome suggests
possible origin of leak is Phillip Bailey _[2]_. If /xyz/ existed within the
contingency torrent which was released to the pirate bay (someone else confirm
please :) then that suggests that he was just hosting a HTTP mirror of the
torrent; if it doesn't exist then who knows how deep the rabbit hole goes?

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NFOMuKV...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NFOMuKVYJWwJ:193.198.207.6/wiki/file/xyz/+http://193.198.207.6/wiki/file/xyz/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com)

    
    
       x.gpg	09-Jun-2010 00:32	390M	 
       y-docs.gpg	09-Jun-2010 00:55	8.0M	 
       y.gpg	09-Jun-2010 00:55	 84M	 
       z.gpg	09-Jun-2010 00:56	352M
    

[1] <http://whois.domaintools.com/193.198.207.6>

[2] <http://cryptolife.org/index.php/Main_Page>

~~~
JonnieCache
A number of people have speculated that cables.csv == insurance.aes256 or
whatever its called, due to the similarity in filesizes. Doesn't the insurance
file predate the embassy cables affair though?

------
JonnieCache
Boingboing have a grab of the section of the book where the guardian leaked
the password: [http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/wikileaks-guardian-
journali...](http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/wikileaks-guardian-journalist-
negligently-published-password-to-unredacted-cables.html)

Amusingly it's been available in the google books preview all this time.

------
epenn
Can someone explain why/how the cables allegedly kicked off Arab Spring? I get
how they pertain to Egypt's former information minister specifically, but
wasn't the greater amount of unrest in the region preexisting?

~~~
guelo
The first Arab revolution was in Tunisia. Shortly before that there was a
Wikileaks release about the corruption of the Tunisian dictator and his
family. The success of the Tunisian revolution inspired the other Arab
countries to revolt.

~~~
jgrahamc
I believe this argument to be totally overblown. The release of the cables did
nothing IMHO to inform the Tunisian people about the corruption of the Ben Ali
and his family. I visit Tunisia regularly and have family there. The
corruption was widely known throughout the country and spoken about behind
closed doors. Ben Ali himself was tolerated but his wife and her family were
despised.

~~~
derrida
You are absolutely correct. Wikileaks published a cable that said
(paraphrasing) that the US was unsatisfied with Ben Ali and wouldn't mind if
he went. This only helped the Tunisians understand their own government, and
what was possible politically.

------
jarin
It's unfortunate that they're unredacted, but doesn't it seem like it would be
against Wikileaks' purpose to cherry pick information to release? I mean I
thought they were supposed to be about "information freedom", not pushing
their own agenda.

~~~
RuadhanMc
They have to check the leaks to make sure that they aren't putting any ones
life in danger (when they haven't done this in the past their enemies have
used it against them in the ongoing PR battle). That takes time.

It also means that they do cherry pick because they have to prioritize what
leaks they will check and release first.

They've got 250,000 cables. A small team is going to take a long time to check
250,000 cables.

No doubt they do keyword searches of the cables to find the juicy ones and
release those first, but, what you gonna do... release the boring, mundane
stuff first? No one would pay attention to you.

~~~
jarin
I think the boring, mundane stuff could potentially be the _most_ interesting
stuff. Run statistical analysis for unusual words and phrases and find the
secret diplomatic codes. :)

~~~
RuadhanMc
The boring, mundane stuff should absolutely be released... invaluable stuff
for the historical record.

------
derrida
Wikileaks has put whether it should release the cables to a vote on Twitter.
Currently 'Yes' is out numbering 'No' 100 to 1.

~~~
untog
People really can be naive sometimes. Yes, the content of those cables should
be public knowledge. But the names of informants should not be released- I
dread to think how many people could die as a result of this.

------
rowanseymour
Surely the largest part of the "blame" has to lie with the US authorities for
putting such sensitive cables somewhere where so many people (Bradley Manning
being only one of them) could access them?

~~~
mpyne
That was done in response to the fallout from 9/11, where it was demonstrated
that there was very little inter-agency cooperation, especially in sharing
information about terrorism/terrorists.

It was a calculated decision to greatly increase information sharing between
government agencies (including the military) to allow for better cooperation.

~~~
xtracto
Well... it seems they did not calculate accurately the permission controls to
prevent people like Manning making and distributing a copy of all those files.

------
kahawe
All serious implications aside for a moment, isn't this refreshingly ironic?
Wikileaks having to deal with important information about THEM being leaked
for a change.

~~~
gwern
Refreshing? No, it is the brain-dead cached response, one that has been
invoked countless times for _everything_ to do with Wikileaks internals.

The donation list became public? 'Oh ho ho, how ironic!' One of the supporters
splits and writes a book about it? 'isn't this refreshingly ironic?' The cable
database goes public? 'how very ironic!' And so on.

I'm about as sick of it as I am of articles about a random bit of Wikipedia
vandalism.

~~~
kahawe
Even worse then! Why should an organization trying to leak as much about
anyone they can and matters be above their own standards and mantras? If "True
information does good." well then who knows what this and the other leaks were
good for.

I do not see wikileaks as any more trustworthy or "better" or "more ethical"
than the authorities they are acting against - yes, AGAINST, read Assange's
book, he has an agenda and it might not be as altruistic and do-good as most
people like to believe.

~~~
gnosis
_"I do not see wikileaks as any more trustworthy or "better" or "more ethical"
than the authorities they are acting against"_

Um.. let's see... last I checked, Wikileaks hadn't tortured any prisoners,
invaded any countries, or murdered countless civilians. So, yeah, I'd count
them as just a tad more ethical than the scumbags they're releasing dirt on.

~~~
kahawe
Every country gets the government they deserve (and vote).

But what makes you think Assange and his gang would make better decisions
given they were in the exact same situation? Power corrupts and wikileaks
certainly demonstrated on several occasions just how incredibly powerful they
are or can be.

I am from Europe so this might be a bit different "over there" but what I was
trying to say was: I do not trust WikiLeaks and Assange or question them more
or less than I trust and question my government and I certainly do not see
Assange's understanding of and longing for anarchy (see his book) as an
appropriate replacement of our current governments. Do you?

