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Tag: Wikileaks

  • Bradley Manning Facebook Page Shows What He Talked About For Nearly 3 Years

    Bradley Manning Facebook Page Shows What He Talked About For Nearly 3 Years

    Frontline on PBS is airing a program tonight called WikiSecrets, which explores the events surrounding the WikiLeaks publishing of over half a million classified documents, in what is commonly known as the largest intelligence breach in U.S. history. Ahead of the program, Frontine has posted an edited, yet substantial version of Bradley Manning’s Facebook Wall. Manning, if of course the Army intelligence analyst who has been charged with leaking the documents.

    The Wall is a pretty interesting read.

    FRONTLINEExclusive: FRONTLINE uncovers video of alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning mingling with hackers around the time of the war logs leak. Watch “WikiSecrets” tomorrow at 9pm ET on @PBS. 20 hours ago · 83 likes · 22 comments

    The postings start on July 22, when he says, “Just created a new facebook.” The early posts are your pretty much your basic, mundane status updates. Things like: “playing EVE online,” “working at Starbucks,” “taking a nap,” “sleeping,” “at home,” “working at Abercrobmie & Fitch,” “ready to scream!,” travelling to Chicago for Lollapalooza,” etc.

    Finally, on November 5, his first mention of the military makes its appearance: “is still in the Army, but suspended with injuries from Basic Training.” Shortly after that, came:

    “Sorry about not being in contact with anyone. Anyway, I got pulled from my Basic Training at Ford Leonard Wood. I’m not sure what my status in the Army is right now, but I’m currently being treated by the hospital’s neurology departmentt for some kind of nerve injury causing my left arm to go weak and almost completely numb.

    Also, i’m suffering from dropfoot, meaning my left foot is numb, and unable to walk correctly without a limp.

    Anyway, I’m hanging in here, and as far as I know I’m not yet going to be discharged from the Army, and may be recycled for training by January!

    Peace out everyone

    On April 4, He posted, “hey, i finally graduated basic training everybuddiez…i’ve now moved on to Fort Huachuca in AZ. Hit me up on thephonezors if you can!”. Frontline says this is when he’s sent to receive intelligence training, which when completed, gave him security clearance that gave him access to top-secret databases. They point to a Wired article, indicating Manning was reprimanded for revealing sensitive info on YouTube while he was at Fort Huachuca.

    On June 28, Manning posted the following Bob Barr presidential campaign video:

    Late in 2008, after completing intelligence training and getting into fights and getting reprimanded again (for throwing chairs and yelling at soldiers), he posted various Prop 8 protest material and continued throughout 2009 to discuss political issues and gay rights fairly frequently.

    On October 23, 2009, he wrote, “is getting a little tired of pinging major ISPs at 750 m/sec. Hopefully Iraq qill have faster Internet.” He had previously posted that he was in Kuwait. On October 29, he arrived In Iraq. On October 31, he wrote, “is in his new room. with his high speed Internet”.

    On November 4: “feels betrayed…again.” On November 24, he posted photos from the “official promotion ceremony from Private First Class to Specialist”. “it’s no biggie,” he commented. “when i get sergeant it will be a much bigger deal.”

    January 13 2010: “feels so alone.”

    On January 21, Manning headed back to the U.S. for a couple weeks, at which time he attened the BUILDS event, where he is believed to have given up the infamous war logs.

    The postings go on up until June 5. Frontline does an excellent job of adding a timeline alongside the postings, highlighting relevant events . The whole wall (though edited) can be viewed here.

    The page will be explored in the film WikiSecrets, airing tonight on PBS.

  • SafeHouse, Wall Street Journal’s WikiLeaks-Style Site, Launches Today

    The Wall Street Journal is getting into the (non-profit) business of secure, anonymous document submission. Today they launched SafeHouse, their version of the electronic drop box, similar to WikiLeaks.

    Few issues have elicited a stronger response – on both sides – than the importance or criminality of WikiLeaks. Proponents say that it provides the people with a right that they are oftentimes denied: transparency. Free information activists say that transparency leads to more scrutiny of government and corporate actions, thus reducing corruption.

    But WikiLeaks has incensed many State departments and corporations. They say that sometimes, documents are classified for a reason. Many opponents say that WikiLeaks threatens national security by releasing documents that contain sensitive information.

    But most journalists fall into the first camp, and it looks like the Wall Street Journal wants to promote the secure exchange of important information for the public consumption.

    Here is what SafeHouse is looking for, according to the site:

    Documents and databases: They’re key to modern journalism. But they’re almost always hidden behind locked doors, especially when they detail wrongdoing such as fraud, abuse, pollution, insider trading, and other harms. That’s why we need your help.

    If you have newsworthy contracts, correspondence, emails, financial records or databases from companies, government agencies or non-profits, you can send them to us using the SafeHouse service.

    All submissions can be anonymous, unless the submitter wants to provide contact information. The WSJ makes it clear that providing contact info will make it much easier for them to do their jobs. But, anonymity is what allows the really juicy stuff the ability to see the light of day, as people are sometimes scared to publicly report wrongdoing at a high level.

    The managing editor of WSJ.com Kevin Delaney spoke to the Atlantic about SafeHouse:

    “It grew out of a conversation that a number of our editors had. Our sources had always given us documents. That could have been a printout in a park or something that they faxed us. Now, clearly there is a digital context for reporting and that means we need a modern infrastructure so that sources can send documents to us.”

    Besides anonymity, security is the other issue people are worried about when it comes to online document drop boxes. Delaney says that although they can’t offer total security (it is on the internet, remember), they can offer beefed up security.

    SafeHouse’s servers are separate from those that run WSJ.com. Document transfer is encrypted, both in regards the the connection and the documents themselves. Only a handful of staffers will be able to solve those encryptions. SafeHouse will also minimize the time documents are housed on computers that are connected to the internet.

    Like any anonymous document submission service, it will be a full time job separating the credible from the non-credible and the pertinent from the rest. And the WSJ is going to see their share of looney along with the good. They ask that users not submit press releases, letters to the editor or feedback about the WSJ.

    Only time will tell whether SafeHouse will truly benefit the journalistic prowess and relevance of The Wall Street Journal.

  • Is OpenLeaks WikiLeaks 2.0?

    Is OpenLeaks WikiLeaks 2.0?

    If you thought the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would bring an end to the “Let’s Leak it to the World” phenomenon, not to mention the subsequent fighting about how we should react to these leaks, think again.

    OpenLeaks, a similar type of service launched by a former management member of WikiLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, is launching, and it promises even better protection for would-be whistleblowers. 

    Before we continue, this article is not to discuss the “right or wrong” implications of these whistleblower sites.  Nothing about the launch of OpenLeaks is going to change the way people feel about these entities, nor should it. 

    This article is merely a conduit explaining the next step in Internet leak life-cycle.

    Granted, those out there who thought it began and ended with Assange will be disappointed or possibly angered by this news, but I digress.  As for OpenLeaks, again, they are firmly in the camp of protecting those who leak information to them, something the mission statement reveals quite well, as does the above video:

    OpenLeaks is a project that aims at making whistleblowing safer and more widespread. This will be done by providing dedicated and generally free services to whistleblowers and organizations interested in transparency. We will also create a Knowledge Base aiming to provide a comprehensive reference to all areas surrounding whistleblowing.

    Just in case you can’t decide where the OpenLeaks founder stands, the following responses to Reuters will eliminate any confusion.  As far as the leaks themselves, Domscheit-Berg wants total transparency and in today’s world of technology and never-ending strife, especially in the Middle East, his position is easier to understand, at least, to this writer.

    "We have to create transparency where it is refused.”  Domscheit-Berg goes on to say, “it is our obligation as a society to give these people [the whistleblowers] whatever protection we can give."

    Currently, OpenLeaks is still collecting funds needed for its operation, and while the site is currently live, there are no leaks contained within.

  • Anonymous Wikileaks Avengers: We Don’t Want Your Credit Card Info or to Prevent You From Shopping

    "Anonymous" is an "Internet gathering" of people that has perpetrated Operation Payback, which took down MasterCard.com, Visa.com and others, because of how they’ve handled their relationships with Wikileaks, has issued a press release in attempt to clarify what it is trying to do. 

    Anonymous paints itself as non-threatening to consumers, and emphasizes that its goal is to spread Wikileaks awareness. "We do not want to steal your personal information or credit card numbers. We also do not seek to attack critical infrastructure of companies such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or Amazon. Our current goal is to raise awareness about WikiLeaks and the underhanded methods employed by the above companies to impair WikiLeaks’ ability to function."

    Anonymous says it did not attempt to bring Amazon down, though the company said in a statement that it successfully blocked numerous attempts (it’s possible that these were unrelated). Anonymous says, "We felt that it would affect people such as consumers in a negative way and make them feel threatened by Anonymous. Simply put, attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste."

    The entire release is below:

    Anonymous issues press releaseWho is Anonymous

    In their most recent public statement, WikiLeaks is the only group of people to identify Anonymous correctly. Anonymous is not a group, but rather an Internet gathering.

    Both Anonymous and the media that is covering it  are aware of the percieved dissent  between individuals  in  the  gathering.  This  does  not,  however,  mean  that  the  command  structure  of Anonymous is failing for a simple reason: Anonymous has a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives.

     We do not believe that a similar movement exists in the world today and as such we have to learn by trial  and error.  We are now in the process of better communicating some core values to the individual atoms that comprise Anonymous – we also want to take this opportunity to communicate a message to the media, so that the average Internet Citizen can get to know who we are and what we represent.

    Anonymous  is  not  a  group  of  hackers.  We  are  average  Interent  Citizens  ourselves  and  our motivation is a collective sense of being fed up with all the minor and major injustices we witness every day.

    We do not want to steal your personal information or credit card numbers. We also do not seek to attack critical infrastructure of companies such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or Amazon. Our current goal is to raise awareness about WikiLeaks and the underhanded methods employed by the above companies to impair WikiLeaks’ ability to function.

    What is Operation: Payback

    As stated above, the point of Operation: Payback was never to target critical infrastructure of any of the companies or  organizations affected.  Rather  than doing that,  we focused on their  corporate websites,  which is  to say,  their  online "public  face".  It  is  a symbolic  action –  as  blogger  and academic Evgeny Morozov put it, a legitimate expression of dissent.

    The background to the attacks on PayPal and the calls to attack Amazon.com Amazon, which was until recently WikiLeaks’ DNS provider, was one of the first companies to drop support for WikiLeaks. On December 9th, BusinessInsider.com reported that Amazon.co.uk were hosting the recently leaked diplomatic cables in e-book form. (Amazon.co.uk has since ceased selling the bundle of the diplomatic cables.)

    After this piece of news circulated, parts of Anonymous on Twitter asked for Amazon.com to betargetted. The attack never occured. While it is indeed possible that Anonymous may not have been able to take Amazon.com down in a DDoS attack, this is not the only reason the attack never occured. After the attack was so advertised in the media,  we felt that it would affect people such as consumers in a negative way and make them feel threatened by Anonymous. Simply put, attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste.

    The continuing attacks on PayPal are already tested and preferable: while not damaging their ability to process payments, they are successful in slowing their network down just enough for people to notice and thus, we achieve our goal of raising awareness.

  • Amazon UK Listing Wikileaks Cables for Sale on Kindle

    Update: See comments section.

    The Next Web discovered that someone is selling the infamous Wikileaks cables at Amazon UK to be read on the Kindle. This is interesting for a variety of reasons. 

    Reason 1 

    Amazon Web Services recently stopped hosting the cables, claiming Wikieaks was violating its terms of service. A statement from the company said:

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents computer infrastructure on a self-service basis. AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.” It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.

    Reason 2

    Amazon is the latest target of Operation Payback, the hacker group that took down MasterCard.com and Visa.com, according to numerous reports. In that same statement, Amazon had already said, "There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against."

    So far, Amazon.com is still up and running. 

    Reason 3

    Both the user who is selling the cables at Amazon UK and Amazon itself would theoretically make money from the sale of what was originally free public data. 

    Wikileaks Cables on Amazon UK

    Reason 4

    Amazon has recently been the subject of another publication controversy involving the sale of a pedophile guidebook. Many are already pointing out that this is the second big blunder from the company involving self-publishing, and some are questioning whether Amazon will have to rethink its strategy in this area.

    Reason 5

    Amazon has yet to terminate the Wikileaks cables listing. it’s currently on sale for £7.37. It will most likely be pulled as the story gains more media coverage, but for now, it’s still up. 

    In the product description on Amazon UK, it says, "The Author will analyze the documents more thoroughly in a subsequent article."

    One reviewer says, "Hm, would Amazon let me buy this using my PayPal account? What about my Visa or Mastercard?"  

  • Twitter Explains How Trending Topics Work

    Twitter has taken the time to explain a bit about how its Trending Topics work, following accusations from the Blogosphere that the company was blocking terms like #wikileaks and #cablegate, which Twitter says it was not and is not. 

    The company did apparently block the account of Operation Payback, however. Operation Payback is the group of hackers that took down sites like MasterCard.com and Visa.com as revenge for puling the plug on Wikileaks payments. MasterCard appears to still be down as of this writing, though Visa appears recovered. Facebook blocked Operation Payback’s account as well. 

    Operation Payback Shut Down on Twitter

    "Twitter Trends are automatically generated by an algorithm that attempts to identify topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously," explains Carolyn Penner with Twitter’s communications team. "The Trends list is designed to help people discover the ‘most breaking’ breaking news from across the world, in real-time. The Trends list captures the hottest emerging topics, not just what’s most popular."

    "Topics break into the Trends list when the volume of Tweets about that topic at a given moment dramatically increases," she says. "Sometimes a topic doesn’t break into the Trends list because its popularity isn’t as widespread as people believe. And, sometimes, popular terms don’t make the Trends list because the velocity of conversation isn’t increasing quickly enough, relative to the baseline level of conversation happening on an average day; this is what happened with #wikileaks this week."

    Users are sending over 95 million tweets a day, according to the company.

  • MasterCard.com (and Visa.com) Taken Down By Wikileaks-Supporting Hackers?

    Update 3. MasterCard is back, and Anonymous (those behind Operation Payback) have issues a press release.

    Update 2: The group (Operation Payback) credited with bringing down both MasterCard.com and Visa.com has had its Facebook Page removed for violating terms of service. It’s Twitter account was also suspended.

    Update: Visa.com is now down as well. MasterCard.com is still down. (As of 4:30pm Eastern)

    Original Article: MasterCard.com is down. It’s reportedly been down for hours now.  It would appear that supporters of Wikileaks (hackers) are taking credit, as MasterCard stopped processing payments for Wikileaks support. 

    Alan Bentley, SVP International of global security firm, Lumension tells WebProNews, "The hacker attack on MasterCard’s website following its move to block payments to WikiLeaks certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone. WikiLeaks has a strong following amongst the hacker community and it was inevitable that there was going to be some form of backlash."

    Of course MasterCard isn’t the only company to refuse service to Wikileaks. "Many disgruntled hacktivists will be seeking revenge on behalf of the whistleblowing website and it is highly likely that this will be the first in a series of attacks on businesses such as Amazon, PayPal, Visa and Swiss Bank, all of which withdrew services to Wikileaks over recent days," says Bentley. "The Wikileaks saga is undoubtedly set to continue for some time and all organisations involved will want to beef up their security efforts in a bid to protect themselves from the wrath of the hactivist community."

    MasterCard Down

    Actually reports indicate that some of these other sites have suffered attacks, though MasterCard seems to be the only one down at the moment. MasterCard just released the following statement:

    MasterCard is experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website – MasterCard.com. We are working to restore normal speed of service.

    There is no impact whatsoever on our cardholders ability to use their cards for secure transactions.

    No mention of any hacking. 

    It’s not just hackers whose mouths were left with a bad taste when these companies refused service to Wikileaks. Industry analyst Jeff Jarvis had some strong words about it. 

    Bentley is probably right in that we probably haven’t seen the last of such attacks. Pissing off hackers is bound to have its consequences.

  • WikiLeaks Afghanistan Documents Show Internet’s True Power in News

    The big news of the moment is that the site WikiLeaks has published over 90,000 secret military documents related to the war in Afghanistan. Posted on Sunday, the documents had previously been shared with three publications (under embargo): The New York Times, The Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel.

    The White House called the posting of such documents "irresponsible", but New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet is quoted as saying, "I think it was clear to them, in our conversations, that we were handling it with care."  The New York Times has expressed that its own staff conducted the research necessary to form its story, as WikiLeaks simply provided the documents.

    The Atlantic has an interesting piece about how "WikiLeaks May Have Just Changed the Media," calling the event "a milestone in the new news ecosystem." Alexis Madrigal, senior editor for TheAtlantic.com writes:

    Traditional media organizations are increasingly reaching out to different kinds of smaller outfits for help compiling data and conducting investigations. NPR is partnering with several journalism startups to deliver their information out to a larger audience. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University broke a large story on renewable energy in association with ABC’s World News Tonight. ProPublica’s 32 full-time investigative reporters offer their stories exclusively to a traditional media player.

    New conduits have opened into the most highly regarded newsrooms in the country; while that’s probably a good thing, it adds a layer of complexity to a story like this. While ProPublica and others are certainly journalism outfits, WikiLeaks is neither here nor there. The video that caused their last news splash — "Collateral Murder" — seemed like an attempt at an editorial. The group was harshly criticized in many quarters.

    A Milestone in Online News "Internet advocates love to say that information likes to be free," wrote Mashable’s Samuel Axon recently when he compiled a list of innovative sites that could reshape the news. "There are few greater examples of this than WikiLeaks, which has played an important role in several political scandals and controversies."

    Wikipedia points to other notable leaks that have been published at WikiLeaks in the past. These include an apparent Somali assassination order, Guantánamo Bay procedures, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account contents, Internet censorship lists, 9/11 pager messages, and other U.S. intelligence reports.

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is quoted as telling the Guardian, "This situation is different in that it’s not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner … but rather that people can give back. So people around the world who are reading this are able to comment on it and put it in context and understand the full situation. That is not something that has previously occurred. And that is something that can only be brought about as a result of the Internet."

    There’s no question that point has been made loud and clear this time.