Wikileaks is who?

[wintler2]

I'm interested in determining the credibility or otherwise of Wikileaks, given its glorious public ambitions and apparent success to date.

Wikipedia page here, the boss is Julian Assange with a 9 person advisory panel.


Wayne Madsen Report has it in for them:

Wayne Madsen Report: Wikileaks is part of U.S. cyber-warfare operations
http://arthurzbygniew.blogspot.com/2010 ... -oval.html
apparently reposting WMR subscriber content

WMR has learned from Asian intelligence sources that there is a strong belief in some Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand, that the website Wikileaks, which purports to publish classified and sensitive documents while guaranteeing anonymity to the providers, is linked to U.S. cyber-warfare and computer espionage operations, as well as to Mossad's own cyber-warfare activities. ..

Our Asian intelligence sources report the following: "Wikileaks is running a disinformation campaign, crying persecution by U.S. intelligence- when it is U.S. intelligence itself. Its [Wikileaks'] activities in Iceland are totally suspect." Wikileaks claims it is the victim of a new COINTELPRO [Counter Intelligence Program] operation directed by the Pentagon and various U.S. intelligence agencies. WMR's sources believe that it is Wikileaks that is part and parcel of a cyber-COINTELPRO campaign, such as that proposed by President Obama's "information czar," Dr. Cass Sunstein.

In January 2007, John Young, who runs cryptome.org, a site that publishes a wealth of sensitive and classified information, left Wikileaks, claiming the operation was a CIA front. ..

WMR has confirmed Young's contention that Wikileaks is a CIA front operation. Wikileaks is intimately involved in a $20 million CIA operation that U.S.-based Chinese dissidents that hack into computers in China. ..

It is also pointed out that on Wikileaks advisory board is Ben Laurie, a one-time programmer and Internet security expert for Google, which recently signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and has been charged by China with being part of a U.S. cyber-espionage campaign against China. Other Wikileaks advisory members are leading Chinese dissidents, including Wan Dan, who won the 1998 National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Democracy Award; Wang Youcai, founder of the Chinese Democracy Party; Xiao Qiang, the director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley, member of the advisory board of the International Campaign for Tibet, and commentator on the George Soros-affiliated Radio Free Asia; and Tibetan exile and activist Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang. ..
[plenty more claims]

I don't find WMR very credible personally, but cryptome i do. Couldn't find J.Young saying what WMR says he said. 'Freemen of Ireland'have an 8min piece on Wikileaks including an interview with Young that i can't watch from dialup, comments welcome from someone who can.


And scratching around for more anomalous data..

Wikileaks Backs Off US Spying Allegations As Man Date Discoverer Lends A Hand

We also now know what at least one former Times reporter is doing with all her free time and sweet buyout money. We spotted famous trend-spotter Jenny 8. Lee at the press conference, apparently helping out as an informal press liaison: She passed around an iPad on which journalists entered contact information, live-tweeted the event, and later sent out an email to the journalists in attendance with links to further reading. So, she’s traded discovering the man date for international non-profit investigative journalism?

As for future of Wikileak, it’s clear this recent release marks a new stage for the site. Perhaps the most overlooked detail of the helicopter video release is that Wikileaks was not only able to obtain and decrypt video that had eluded Reuters for years, it also sent two Icelandic journalists to Baghdad to research the events in the video and add context which significantly boosted the video’s impact. ..

Wonder where the funds for the investigative journalists came from, because WLs has had funding issues since the get go, i thought.

So yeah, i know nada so far, but hope we might get somewhere.

[tazmic]

The Collateral Murder video made page 26 of the Daily Mail today.

The damage to troop/war support from this will be minimal (and possibly irrelevant), compared to the benefits of pissing off the middle east: If endless war is the MO, I'd find your suggestions, and the release of the video, at least consistent with that.

[82_28]

It could be, could be, the destruction of anything "open source" that is behind it (who are the most moneyed companies in the world?) -- the wikileaks "revelation" of Reuters employees and civilians being gunned down could be a sly DOUBLE BIND. The "free as in beer/free as in speech" thing that started some time ago seems to me to be co-opted. I am afraid we do not have the resources to overcome this.

I have been questioning this collateral murder thing ever since I got my wits about me after viewing it. It was leaked to upset us, but it has upset us in the wrong way. There is a window here now, in which can be inserted an even more egregious act that comes to us "real time" as opposed to shit from 2006. They are controlling time and they know as much. They are controlling the perception of the passage of time, and again, they know this.

Freedom, open source blah blah blah, depends upon EVERYBODY getting on board. It is meant to say, "HEY, you can be free of this! And it is free as in free beer and free as in free speech". But everyone, and I mean everyone needs to buy in. I tried my hardest, in and of this system as it is, but it did not work. We have no power. Personally, for the rest of my days I will still analyze and proffer up my pithy remarks. But as I suspected, it was only a matter of time. They would bring it to us. I knew it. They would flood the experience banks of humans with exactly what they were rebelling against. They only needed patience. Obama is clearly the latest vector. It is all a matter of perception. The people rebel against that which is in the mirror, but mirrored one more time back to make it look real. And mirrored back again to some, who need that added re-enforcement -- the teapartiers. It's a regressive form of intelligence. The more you know how stupid people can be, you merely reflect it another time and people will go after it, stare at it, talk about it in passing. But there is always another mirror to be applied. It's the infinite regress. As above, so below.

[thatsmystory]

Unintended consequences. The vast resources of the war machine enable them to take advantage of incidents that appear to be setbacks. So even if Wikileaks is 100% legit, they might find their best intentions backfire in some instances.

Look at the US government conduct in relation to the torture photos. The failure of the government to release those photos enables the corruption to continue without increased scrutiny. If Wikileaks had somehow leaked them I'm quite sure we would have heard similar comments from people like Wayne Madsen.

I watched the video. John Young supports Wikileaks.

[No_Baseline]

It's a regressive form of intelligence. The more you know how stupid people can be, you merely reflect it another time and people will go after it, stare at it, talk about it in passing. But there is always another mirror to be applied. It's the infinite regress. As above, so below.

And

The vast resources of the war machine enable them to take advantage of incidents that appear to be setbacks.

Yes, and yes. I agree with both posts, yet I am still having a problem figuring out what their ultimate aim is...

Perhaps by focusing on this one incident from a few years ago, we are supposed to be distracted from what is currently taking place...maybe (I think!) what 82_28 is saying is that by bending time, making the past current, we will treat what is going on now as something to be viewed and dissected at some later time ??

[jingofever]

On the front page of Cryptome:

7 April 2010

A writes:

I have been involved in an internet discussion (which may be found at the link below) regarding statements made by Wayne Madsen on the Alex Jones Show on April 5th.

http://www.disclose.tv/forum/alex-jones ... 19579.html

During this interview, Madsen claims that you have told him that you believe that Wikileaks is a CIA front. Would you be willing to please confirm or deny that you have made such a statement; and clarify the context in which you made such a statement, if you did?

Cryptome:

Wayne Madsen is probably referring to my comments made on the pre-rollout Wikileaks email exchanges published here:

http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm

http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak2.htm

As the emails and its later operation indicate, Wikileaks adopted attributes of a spy agency to glamorize itself, to exaggerate threat, to inflate its importance and urgent need for its spy product, to operate in secrecy "to protect its sources and staff," and above all, to maximize rewards by promising public benefits while refusing public accountability in the mold of the ancient secret societies of church, government, commerce and public benefit orgs.

Assange is quoted today in the New York Times affirming the appeal of the spy agency model.

CIA front is misleadingly mild (the CIA likes to see the over-abused smear spread its fearsome Typhoid Mary ubiquity), best to say simply secret spy for spies hate the comic bumbler term, preferring such bombast as manager of information flow, orchestrated leakage a means and method.

A responds:

Since Madsen's interview, this information is spreading through the internet at the speed of juicy rumor. Kindly allow me to restate your point just to make sure that I understand it properly: your statements were in the context of comment upon how Assange was attempting to develop the operation of Wikileaks in the model of the CIA (or like spy agency) for the purposes of sensationalism, and that you did not attempt to infer that Assange was in some way directly or indirectly working with the CIA.

Cryptome responds:

CIA and its ilk enlist witting and unwitting participants as a matter of policy and practice. No allegations of its reach can go too far, and most allegations do not come close to revealing the extent.

Copying the behavior of spy agencies is exactly what they want in order to legitimate their criminal chicanery. Until Wikileaks becomes a fully open and accountable operation it is the same as the spy agencies and indeed helps legitimate their manipulation of public opinion on behalf of their self-promotion "in the public interest."

I prefer that you not shade my view into uncomplicated bias or advocacy. My easy to sell and eat spy product is this:

Everyone run their own spy operation, be paranoid about all the others who will do their damnest to extremely terminate yours in they cannot persuade, bribe, trick or force you to join up. Running your own, making a ruckus, appealing for donations, will advertise your smarts against the bumbling competition.

[Bruce Dazzling]

It's a regressive form of intelligence. The more you know how stupid people can be, you merely reflect it another time and people will go after it, stare at it, talk about it in passing. But there is always another mirror to be applied. It's the infinite regress. As above, so below.

And

The vast resources of the war machine enable them to take advantage of incidents that appear to be setbacks.

Yes, and yes. I agree with both posts, yet I am still having a problem figuring out what their ultimate aim is...

Perhaps by focusing on this one incident from a few years ago, we are supposed to be distracted from what is currently taking place...maybe (I think!) what 82_28 is saying is that by bending time, making the past current, we will treat what is going on now as something to be viewed and dissected at some later time ??

C'mon people, that collateral murder video is soooo 2007. I mean, for gosh sakes, that was in Iraq. It happened under Bush!

That won't happen now, in the good war. Not under the Nobel Laureate.

That is why it was safe for this to be released now.

It will allow the fawning sycophants of the current administration to continue to focus their anger on the evil Republicans.

And it will serve as another reminder that the internet is a dangerous place, full of reckless, out of control commie pinkos who care more about "insurgents" than they do about Lieutenant Applepie, who's simply trying to spread democracy, and protect us all from those nasty Al Kader Moooslims.

But under no circumstances will it unite people in the US against the current campaigns of empire expansion.

It's really a win-win for the power structure in general.

[§ê¢rꆧ]

P2PNews wrote:

Julian Assange: the man behind Wikileaks

p2pnet news P2P | Freedom:- Wikileaks has been referenced 662 times on nytimes.com, 207 times on guardian.co.uk, 86 times on washingtonpost.com and 54 times on speigel.de, says The Age in yet another indication of the rapidity with which Internet communications are not merely catching up with, but fast overtaking, the traditional corporate print and electronic media.

Put another way, online ‘amateur’ news and information gatherers and reporters are now the principal way for millions of people around the world to find out what’s happening locally and internationally, and whistle-blower site Wikileaks is a perfect example of the burgeoning power of the ‘amateur’ online press.

Julius Baer, a Swiss bank deeply worried by allegations of dodgy offshore activities including money laundering and tax evasion, got a court order to shut Wikileaks down.

It failed.

The site ran the full ACTA proposal, the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which shows just how far administrations will go to protect the corporate bottom-line.

The revelations forced the offline media to pay attention.

In August last year, “The Guardian ran a front page report about widespread corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi, including evidence Moi siphoned off billions in government money,” says The Age, noting:

“The report stated it was based on a document obtained from Wikileaks.”

‘Keep the bastards guessing’

Who runs Wikileaks?

An Australian, Julian Assange, who’s, “worked as a security consultant, professional hacker, activist and researcher” and who now, “splits his time between Kenya and Tanzania,” says the story.

“His parents ran a touring theatre company and Assange claims he attended 37 schools and six universities in Australia alone,” it states, continuing he wouldn’t reveal his age, “saying only that he was born in the 1970s because he preferred to ‘keep the bastards guessing’.”

Wikileaks’s nine-member advisory board includes Assange and another Australian, Phillip Adams, who has worked here as a broadcaster, film producer and writer for 2UE, ABC Radio National, The Australian, The Age and The Bulletin, says The Age, pointing out:

“Adams, who has received two Orders of Australia, is also chairman of the Film, Radio and Television Board, a foundation member of the Australia Council and has chaired the Australian Film Institute, the Australian Film Commission, Film Australia and the National Australia Day Council.

“Assange said there were over 100 Australian PhD students, journalists and other volunteers working on Wikileaks.”

Assange says he doesn’t make any money from Wikileaks, which is funded by online donations from “a mixture of private and institutional sources”.

“Imagine a world where companies and government makes plans the public likes, opens up rather than covering up, and treats employees well,” The Age has him saying.

“Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”

It does.

And before the Net came along, there wasn’t even the remotest chance of that happening.

The sort-of odd thing is the above article is rehashing/citing this article in The Age, but the Age never actually mentions anything about this:

“His parents ran a touring theatre company and Assange claims he attended 37 schools and six universities in Australia alone,” it states,[/b] continuing he wouldn’t reveal his age, “saying only that he was born in the 1970s because he preferred to ‘keep the bastards guessing’.”

So it was either redacted/corrected because it was found to be untrue, or for some other reason. I don't think P2Pnews just made it up, although that's possible too. It seems like some unlikely story that a self-professed hacker might boast, but then it also seems like a background consistent with an intelligence asset.

Age article wrote:

Net crusaders shine torch in murky places

Asher Moses
July 9, 2008

Forcing change … the web activist Julian Assange.
Website offers whistleblowers chance to go global
An Australian living in East Africa has brought new meaning to the phrase "keeping the bastards honest".

In the past year-and-a-half, Julian Assange and his band of online dissidents have helped swing the Kenyan presidential election, embarrassed the US Government and sparked international scandal.

His site, Wikileaks, provides a safe haven for whistleblowers to anonymously upload confidential documents and, after 18 months of operation, Assange says no source has ever been exposed and no document - now more than 1.2 million and counting - has ever been censored or removed.

Now the site is expanding its focus on despotic regimes and shady corporate dealings to include religion and even the cult of celebrity.

Recently published documents include an early version of the movie script for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Wesley Snipes's tax bill and documents from the Church of Scientology and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"In every negotiation, in every planning meeting and in every workplace dispute a perception is slowly building that the public interest may have a number of silent advocates in the room," Mr Assange said in an email interview.

Last August The Guardian ran a front-page report about widespread corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi, including evidence Mr Moi siphoned off billions in government money. The report said it was based on a document obtained from Wikileaks.

Mr Assange says the revelation changed the result of the Kenyan presidential election, swinging the vote by 10 per cent towards the opposition, which won the election by 1-3 per cent of the vote.

Other previously confidential documents published by Wikileaks include the US rules of engagement for Iraq and the operations manual for the running of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, which revealed it was US policy to hide some prisoners from the International Red Cross and use dogs to intimidate inmates. The documents were reported on in papers including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Mr Assange, who grew up in Australia but moved to East Africa two years ago and now splits his time between Kenya and Tanzania, has worked as a security consultant, professional hacker, activist and researcher.

As well as Mr Assange, Wikileaks's nine-member "advisory board" includes another Australian, the broadcaster, film producer and writer Phillip Adams.

Mr Assange said more than 100 Australian PhD candidates, journalists and other volunteers worked on Wikileaks. "Australians seem to be unusually drawn to the project, perhaps as a result of an absolutely disgraceful preoccupation with abusing the Federal Police to hunt down journalists' sources - a backwardness that has not stopped with Rudd," he said.

But so far Wikileaks had received few documents exposing Australian governments and companies.

[wintler2]

..I watched the video. John Young supports Wikileaks.

Thanks.

..The sort-of odd thing is the above article is rehashing/citing this article in The Age, but the Age never actually mentions anything about this:

“His parents ran a touring theatre company and Assange claims he attended 37 schools and six universities in Australia alone,” it states,[/b] continuing he wouldn’t reveal his age, “saying only that he was born in the 1970s because he preferred to ‘keep the bastards guessing’.”

It was this colourful detail that first raised my curiosity, it doesn't ring true to me. And while i am far from omnipotent and not very well connected, i was curious that i'd never heard of the guy (pre-Wikileaks) despite the australian online activist scene having about 2 degrees of separation, tops. I really want Wikileaks & JA to be what they says they are, but can't take it on faith, so will keep collecting scraps..

http://www.fastcompany.com/1608468/crib ... -wikileaks
.. Have friends in high places: After the site was shut down by a Swiss bank in February 2008, a coalition of U.S. media that included the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Gannett, Hearst, the L.A. Times and Associated Press clubbed together to file an amicus curiae brief, forcing the original judge who had granted the injunction for the shutdown to vacate it, citing the First Amendment. The Economist and Amnesty International have both seen fit to give WikiLeaks awards.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Great stuff here, thanks for the edutainment.

[Nordic]

I'm glad Cryptome cleared that up. Once again, Wayne Madsen shows that he has absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

Cryptome is just saying that he doesn't approve of Wikileaks' methods, and he tells us why.

Madsen is the worst kind of blowhard conspiracy pornographer, just an attention whore. In fact, if anyone fits this description:

CIA and its ilk enlist witting and unwitting participants as a matter of policy and practice.

.... it would be Madsen.

[MacCruiskeen]

Like gimme a break dude.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Sus out the book J A co - wrote on the hacking scene in melb in the late 80s and early 90s wintler.

That might give you some good leads. I haven't read it, but it might have names and contacts you might know.

I knew some hacker types from melb in the late 80s and some of them were full on and paranoid, and went out of their way to be hard to identify, even to people who had known them for years, since childhood. They used to bust into all sorts of places. (Russel St copshop, every day ffs!!! As a joke.)

wrt the release of the footage of the murder of those journos...

I'll bet the people in Iraq are glad the stuff has been released, and the crime is actually documented. The families of the dead, if it was me I'd rather the murder of my family was public domain, considering the outright lies that were told about the killing's. Considering how sanitised this war has been, at least some of the truth of the thing has come out.

And considering this was sposed to be an actual engagement with Shia militias ... is that what happened at every such engagement, choppers see a bunch of blokes and decide to blow the fuck out of them: "Oh that ones kicking a soccer ball, I mean carrying an AK - waste him!"?

The rest of the world sees this stuff and knows that nothing has changed either under Bush or Obama.

[wintler2]

Cryptomes statement isn't the ringing endorsement one might hope for. If JA operates in a secretive and manipulative way, with power descending in a rigid hierarchy from him (or any individual), then i see that as at least a bad sign.
Yes Madsen's claims are implausible and unsupported, but that doesn't prove that Assenge is a good guy. Where is his track record? I will look for his book Joe, but i'd rather read what his peers think he has done. Maybe its just his haircut or the smirk, i hate smirks.

[Joe Hillshoist]

This is the book i was thinking of:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~suelette/undergro ... ground.pdf

Here's the wikipedia on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undergroun ... us_book%29

Haven't read it but it might have some familiar names, and you might remember some of the trials and stuff.

Apparantly he did the research for it. Thats kind of interesting/weird.