The WikiLeaks founder and once-fugitive Julian Assange lands in Canberra after a plea deal gives him "time-served" on a conspiracy charge for leaking US intelligence 15 years ago.
IIRC a password providing access to some of the full, unredacted documents was leaked, so despite Wikileaks vetting the documents some names did still get out. It was fairly quickly scrubbed and its believed that nobody was harmed in the end, but it got pretty close.
That’s true, but Wikileaks does share at least some of the blame for making the encrypted documents accessible. They’re not immune to leaks themselves and should handle these incredibly sensitive documents accordingly. In this case, they failed to do so and an external party triggered a leak. Wikileaks should probably have deleted the documents alltogether.
I have to correct you there. The full unredacted cables are still online on various sites. Including cryptome. They have been online this entire time. Yes, no-one was harmed, but not because they put the cat back in the bag (you can’t). Once other sites had published it, WikiLeaks republished the full trove as a risk-mitigation measure so that the compromised names could quickly make themselves aware that their name was out there. WL also contacted the State Department to try and warn them of the risk. There is footage of this.
The US spent tons of money trying to find anyone who’d been harmed by Manning’s leaks but found no-one.
WikiLeaks had been drip-feeding big stories based on the cables. The compromise of the encryption key to the full unredacted archive by Luke Harding and David Leigh of the Guardian put a stop to this unfortunately. They stupidly published the encryption key in their book. Once people found the encrypted file online it didn’t take long to put 2 and 2 together.
IIRC a password providing access to some of the full, unredacted documents was leaked, so despite Wikileaks vetting the documents some names did still get out. It was fairly quickly scrubbed and its believed that nobody was harmed in the end, but it got pretty close.
That was an editor at The Guardian, David Leigh.
Can anyone verify if this exchange is factually correct?
You could read David Leigh’s book, in which he published the full decryption key: https://www.amazon.com/WikiLeaks-Inside-Julian-Assanges-Secrecy/dp/161039061X
That’s literally how he leaked it.
The wikipedia article on it has the whole “he said - she said”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks:_Inside_Julian_Assange’s_War_on_Secrecy
Including the lie that is frequently parroted about Assange not caring about people dying.
That’s true, but Wikileaks does share at least some of the blame for making the encrypted documents accessible. They’re not immune to leaks themselves and should handle these incredibly sensitive documents accordingly. In this case, they failed to do so and an external party triggered a leak. Wikileaks should probably have deleted the documents alltogether.
I have to correct you there. The full unredacted cables are still online on various sites. Including cryptome. They have been online this entire time. Yes, no-one was harmed, but not because they put the cat back in the bag (you can’t). Once other sites had published it, WikiLeaks republished the full trove as a risk-mitigation measure so that the compromised names could quickly make themselves aware that their name was out there. WL also contacted the State Department to try and warn them of the risk. There is footage of this.
The US spent tons of money trying to find anyone who’d been harmed by Manning’s leaks but found no-one.
WikiLeaks had been drip-feeding big stories based on the cables. The compromise of the encryption key to the full unredacted archive by Luke Harding and David Leigh of the Guardian put a stop to this unfortunately. They stupidly published the encryption key in their book. Once people found the encrypted file online it didn’t take long to put 2 and 2 together.