
WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances - skue
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/01/06/wikileaks-proposes-tracking-verified-twitter-users-homes-families-and-finances/
======
Sephr
WikiLeaks' online presence was taken over in October, when riseup.net got an
NSL to give access to the email accounts associated with the WL Twitter
accounts and other WL properties. Around that time WL removed some insurance
file torrent links from wikileaks.org, distributed new pre-commitment hashes,
and stopped responding to PGP-encrypted email.

People who work for WikiLeaks are still probably involved, but they are no
longer in control. Ever since late October, their behavior across all of their
Twitter accounts has been markedly different.

~~~
69mlgsniperdad
I was almost certain the things you're suggesting were true, however I also
thought Julian assange was no longer alive, or not free/able to reach out, as
did the people who came up with and spread the theories that something big
went down. However this week Hannity flew to the UK and interviewed Julian
Assange who is alive and well. Don't you think he might have hinted at the
fact that such was the case during the interview or via an alternate channel?
I'm fairly certain that the majority of the people who believed WikiLeaks was
taken over or underwent a change of management/control no longer believe so
since that interview, which was the first proof of life in months, and the
first since the suspicious events occured.

~~~
oheard
See
[https://twitter.com/oheard/status/817486353801900032](https://twitter.com/oheard/status/817486353801900032)

It's entirely plausible that the video interview was not actually Assange.

AFAIK there has been no cryptographic verification, that's the only thing that
could prove all is well.

~~~
notahacker
If there was cryptographic verification, the same people doubting that video
would suspect that his cryptographic keys had been compromised.

(Which, come to think of it, is a _lot_ more likely than actors as disparate
as Sean Hannity, John Pilger, the Swedish prosecutor, the Ecuadorean embassy
and Pamela Anderson all being very happy to pretend to interact with a Fake
Assange who keeps making very similar arguments to the inexplicably-
disappeared Real Assange.)

------
r721
>“We are thinking of making an online database with all 'verified' twitter
accounts & their family/job/financial/housing relationships,” WikiLeaks
tweeted Friday.

Not WikiLeaks, but "WikiLeaks Task Force" (@WLTaskForce). I'm not even sure
it's widely known who exactly is behind that account, though it's
interestingly a verified account itself.

UPD1 After some googling it seems the account is listed as official on
wikileaks.org:

"Follow our official accounts @wikileaks, @wltaskforce, @communitywl and
@wikileaksshop."

[https://wikileaks.org/What-is-Wikileaks.html](https://wikileaks.org/What-is-
Wikileaks.html)

But it was added recently (after 16 Nov 2016):

[https://web.archive.org/web/20161116072950/https://wikileaks...](https://web.archive.org/web/20161116072950/https://wikileaks.org/What-
is-Wikileaks.html)

(via
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WhereIsAssange/comments/5h2qqp/can_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhereIsAssange/comments/5h2qqp/can_we_welcome_wltaskforce_communitywl_to_the_wl/))

UPD2 Article about "Wikileaks Task Force":

[https://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikileaks-is-making-a-
twit...](https://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikileaks-is-making-a-twitter-army-
to-fight-against-misinformation) (4 Oct 2016)

~~~
mcintyre1994
There's a recent @wikileaks tweet saying only they can make official
statements :
[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817538212709203968](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817538212709203968)

The link you posted still mentions the others though.

~~~
r721
Thanks, didn't see this one! Apparently WaPo should update their article then,
though replies to that tweet point out that @WLTaskForce is still mentioned in
@wikileaks's profile. Quite a confusing story.

------
chvid
Ok. I went and read some of the tweets this article is based on.

I think what Wikileaks wants to build is a social graph of influential and
powerful people (big enough names to have a blue check mark) using their
tweets. Then weight and couple that with information on family relations, job,
living place and so on - available from other public sources (i.e. Wikipedia
biographies, LinkedIn or official websites).

Sounds like an interesting idea.

But man; Wikileaks is sure getting a lot of negative press. I guess if you
want to play the game of politics you better start weighting your words like a
politician.

~~~
danso
The @verified badge does not really signify a "big enough" name. Back when it
was a manual process, unless you were a huge celebrity, you got on the list if
you were a member of a media organization and if Twitter happened to contact
your comms/social media person to submit a list of employees and Twitter
names. People with just a hundred or so followers could be verified this way.

Now that you can apply to be verified, just about anyone can get the blue
checkmark. You just have to provide proof of identity and fill out a form. I
didn't get verified through the manual process even though I worked at a
fairly prominent media org. But working in non-media, I got accepted within a
couple days by filling out the form.

Check out @Verified's following-list and you'll see lots of similarly non-
influential people on there:
[https://twitter.com/verified/following](https://twitter.com/verified/following)

~~~
chvid
Yes. It would have to be coupled with information on how rich and powerful
someone is coming from other sources.

~~~
danso
Usually, such a process is done by starting with lists of those who are
actually powerful. These lists are plentiful, especially in democracies.
Starting with the presumption that the world's influencers are all on Twitter
is a strange view of how the world works.

~~~
chvid
You have to work with the data that is available. Lists of most influential or
most powerful people are also based on data available and possibly some
subjective assessment. Some times when I scroll thru them I get the feeling
they are far from the truth. Not that I know exactly what the truth is.

~~~
danso
> _Lists of most influential or most powerful people are also based on data
> available and possibly some subjective assessment_

The measure of "power" and "influence" has always been a subjective
assessment, whether it's PageRank or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

------
mayneack
Hard to believe we've so far from the HBGary/Palantir plot to undermine
Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald to today's Wikileaks.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palanti...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-
apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/#1dcb5f111345)

------
heisenbit
Wikileaks used to be a platform for venting information. Data that was secret
and had power was laid open for consideration by anyone interested.

Now it is a platform for some insiders pushing an agenda. Data is solicited,
filtered and used to push in a direction. Wikileaks has become a player.

------
smsm42
Looks like the tweet WaPo links to was deleted. So probably WLTF realized it's
kinda very bad idea.

I _think_ what they are trying to do is a standard journalistic thing of
building influence network, but they managed to say it in a very creepy way
and of course WaPo grabbed it and run with it.

------
marcoperaza
I don't like it one bit, but they're taking the internet to its logical
conclusion. At least they're only doing it for public figures it seems, for
now. It is probably totally legal too.

This is what radical transparency looks like, by the way. It is consistent
with and logically flows from Assange's long-stated philosophy. Basically,
what the crowd on this website was defending when Wikileaks first came onto
the public scene.

Here's what Twitter has to say about verified accounts:

> _What types of accounts get verified?_

 _An account may be verified if it is DETERMINED TO BE AN ACCOUNT OF PUBLIC
INTEREST. Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music,
acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports,
business, and other key interest areas._

~~~
matt4077
The criteria for "verified" status have changed recently and I'm pretty sure
it now includes a group much larger than the law's definition. There are quite
a few JS developers with the tick mark, for example. And I doubt they'd count
as celebrities.

And even for public figures, there are and/or should be (depending on
jurisdiction) limits. Their family, for example, are people with their own
rights, often don't fit the "public figure" definition, may be minors etc etc.

I also don't remember ever defending radical transparency, and I wouldn't even
characterise Assange's actions as consistent with it. Or could I have an
archive of his emails, please?

------
deutronium
I just found this:

[https://twitter.com/BethElderkin/status/817461392462807040](https://twitter.com/BethElderkin/status/817461392462807040)

"Wiki leaks falsely ID's someone while trying to demonstrate why a mass dox
list isn't a terrible waste of their time."

~~~
danso
That is just sad. It was bad enough last night when they were using buzzwords
like "proximity graph" to make their data mining sound...extra cool, I guess?

------
moomin
So instead of working with Chelsea Manning, they're doxxing Chelsea Manning?

Once upon a time Wikileaks was about holding governments to account.
Apparently that was too hard because privacy violations appear to be the theme
these days.

------
wonko1
Yes... a world in which Sarah Palin is apologizing to Assange isn't one I
understand very well.

How they respond to the Trump administration when it's in power will tell us a
lot about what's happening at wikileaks.

But it seems like the world needs more diversity in Wikileaks-like services. I
feel like they have done important work in the past, and it would be a shame
for that to end.

~~~
rokosbasilisk
its all politics. Democrats hate wikileaks when it hurts them. Republicans
hate wikileaks when it hurts them

------
Cozumel
Yup, not compromised at all. Nothing to see here, carry on!!

~~~
ColanR
Not sure what you're referring too...?

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/5cgwau/has_wiki...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/5cgwau/has_wikileaks_has_been_compromised_megathread/)

~~~
rounce
Had to laugh at the opening paragraph of that thread:

> I think it is high time that we address the elephant in the room. I am not
> saying to stop what we are doing, but we need to band together and get
> wikileaks to prove themselves, or we need to take everything read with a
> grain of salt.

Surely we should be taking _everything_ we read with a grain of salt?

~~~
ColanR
Thanks for the reddit link.

Not sure if that's laughable or not. The fact a PGP sig still hasn't been used
since the date of the alleged "takeover" is a very strong point against
complaisance.

------
azinman2
Well this is horrible. This is good for the world, how?

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Radical transparency of the powerful/influential.

------
chvid
How and why would they do that? The idea does not much sense reading this
article.

~~~
Analemma_
"We have your name and address. Stop talking about the connections between
Wikileaks and Putin." That's why.

~~~
smsm42
If Wikileaks is indeed connected to Putin, and they are intended to prosecute
you for talking about it, don't you think Putin has more resources to find out
where you live than Wikileaks? I mean, of this (hypothetical) tandem, I'd
rather be afraid of the guy with trillions of dollars, nukes and one of the
best intelligence services on the planet than of a guy that has to hide in
Ecuadorian embassy.

~~~
r3bl
Well yeah, but WikiLeaks will publish the data on you, Russian intelligence is
not going to do so (directly).

~~~
smsm42
Why not? Putin has tons of media at his disposal - in fact, all media in
Russia is at his disposal.

------
benevol
Positive interpretation:

The sooner the general public realizes how stupid it is to give these
companies their private information the better. Maybe then the internet can
move past this phase and become more sane.

------
zimbatm
Twitter is a content generation engine with a seed of 140 characters. Then
everyone interprets it in their own way, preferably by being outraged.

Unless something tangible appears all this exercise is a big waste of time.

------
yakubin
This makes me lose any remains of support I've had for WikiLeaks.

------
ifdefdebug
Isn't privacy by obscurity just as broken as security by obscurity is? I mean,
if it is possible to build such a list from publicly available data, the bad
guys already should have one so why not make it public? Or are they planning
on building the list from leaked data? The article doesn't talk about the
origin of the data.

~~~
danso
What does "broken" privacy even mean?

~~~
ZenoArrow
>"What does "broken" privacy even mean?"

"Broken" means "doesn't work". In the context of GP's post, the suggestion is
that attempting privacy through obscurity doesn't work/is ineffective.

~~~
danso
A large part of privacy is fundamentally about obscurity. If you have sex in a
public park and someone tapes it, it can be put up on YouTube. If you have sex
in your fenced backyard pool and someone holds their camera up over your fence
to film it, you have a very good invasion of privacy lawsuit, even though your
privacy had been "broken".

Similarly, the burden of legal proof for libel or defamation are different for
public vs private figures. An obscure YouTube vidmaker has a substantially
different burden of proof than does a popular Youtuber when it comes to
certain scopes of libel/defamation.

Yes, there is a kind of privacy you can expect in your own home. But some
right to privacy is preserved even if you go out the in public

~~~
ZenoArrow
The privacy being discussed in the context of this topic is online privacy.
The point is that attempting to have online privacy through obscurity is
increasingly ineffective. All traffic through the web is monitored, and I'd
even suspect that some common methods of encryption will have been compromised
(and even when they haven't been, some governments have made it clear that
using VPNs and similar privacy protecting measures are close to an admission
of guilt).

~~~
danso
This is a fair argument. Actually, I don't think we're really arguing, in that
I agree with you, particularly on the technical parts. My main complaint was
that privacy is a quasi-legal and technical matter. Whereas security, at least
in the context of the motto, "Security through obscurity is not security", is
a near-binary, either-or claim -- which I agree with.

To elaborate, for many people, the concept of privacy is already compromised
when they discover sites like pipl.com. Pipl.com already has data-mined
information for every American with a SSN. If you have a credit history, like
the kind you provide to a landlord when applying to rent -- Pipl has that too,
that's why it can list where you have lived in the past, and who you lived
with.

But that's a fairly old situation; private investigators have been using
LexisNexis/Accurint to do those searchers for more than a decade. And fancy
things like satellite photos of where you live? Reason Magazine did that back
in 2004:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1870509](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1870509)

(the impressive feat, IMO, was not the photos, but the ability to custom
publish 40,000 print covers, using the technology and infrastructure at that
time)

But does that mean privacy has been compromised? Sure. Or, maybe. The
ambiguity in possible answers is a huge contrast compared to the answers you'd
get if you asked "Is Dual_EC_DRBG secure?".

But if you think that privacy is unambiguously compromised, given what I've
described...here's what I mean. There's a difference between
LexisNexis/Accurint/etc. (never mind ad companies, which is a whole different
thing) having your normal next door neighbor's information. It's another thing
if a highly-followed Twitter account tweets a link to Pastebin with all of
that information.

Perhaps the original commenter didn't mean that, but that's what I think of
when I think of the average person's privacy being compromised.

------
abrax3141
Welcome to the modern world. In the 80s we had AI Winter, now we have AI
Nuclear Warfare (to be followed immediately by AI Nuclear Winter).

------
redthrowaway
Or they're just a front for Russian intelligence, as has been suggested for
years, as evidenced by the fact that Assange says there's no need to report on
Russia because of the "free and open media" they have, as evidenced by his
show on RT, as evidenced by their facilitating Snowden's defection, as
evidenced by...

It seems like there are a few die-hards left who thought Assange and Manning
were the greatest thing ever exposes the big bad USG, and are refusing to
acknowledge the obvious: wikileaks exists so the FSB can run agitprop against
its geopolitical foes.

Edit: I'd just like to point out the fact that all of these downvotes are
flooding in at 3:00 am PST on a Friday night. Can anyone think of a timezone
that might coincide with?

~~~
bberrry
Mind giving the source where Assange said that?

~~~
confounded
See: [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-
of...](https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-
assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/)

------
stefantalpalaru
> To “dox” a person is to release documents related to his or her personal
> life in a way that potentially endangers that person's safety.

No. It means to release publicly available documents (docs -> dox) about the
subject of a journalistic investigation - usually by amateur journalists. When
professional journalists do it, it's just called "journalism".

------
jondubois
I think this is a very good thing.

We need more accountability from public figures. Moral fibre is a rare element
among the top 1%. If they can't regulate themselves, then someone else ought
to do it.

We need an incentive for people to pay their fair share of taxes and to behave
ethically - Protecting your public reputation is a good incentive.

The law is simply useless when it comes to ethical matters - Radical
transparency might be a better solution.

Public figures currently have way too much control over their public image.

~~~
r3bl
Just because someone has that blue checkmark next to their Twitter username
(reminder: Twitter doesn't have public guidelines on who gets it and who
doesn't) doesn't make that person a public figure.

~~~
rokosbasilisk
twitter is by nature public. try gab.ai for more privacy.

------
robert_foss
Queue the hypocrisy from American media. They surely didn't fuzz about the NSA
doing the same thing, but taking in orders of magnitude further.

------
antikaon
I think this is an absolutely hilarious troll and I congratulate Wikileaks on
it.

Why?

This already exists. It's not just for verified Twitter users either. You have
used this "database" yourself. You and your family are already in it.
Wikileaks will use this "database" to raise awareness of just how dangerous it
is. It will rile everyone up and create a groundswell of action to thwart it.
When the outrage reaches it's peak, the name of the "database" will be
revealed:

It's called
Google+Facebook+Twitter+LinkedIn+Reddit+Yahoo+Amazon+Apple+Youtube+Pinterest+Instagram

EDIT: typo

------
ENGNR
Much more silliness to follow until Wikileaks is thoroughly destroyed

[https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/5cgwau/has_wiki...](https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/5cgwau/has_wikileaks_has_been_compromised_megathread/)

------
nabla9
If the verified Twitter user means public figures, this would be OK to certain
extent (leave underage children out). Persons who place themselves in the
public light through politics or voluntarily participate in the public arena
have a diminished privacy rights. Tracking what they do and their connections
is essential part of journalism.

Somehow this comes out as slashing out from WikiLeaks. They seem to be really
out of touch. Maybe because Assange is behind it.

