Thu Dec 02, 2010 1:06 pm
"Disappeared" 07 Article about WikiLeaks Makes DC Connection
In March 2007, Columbia Journalism Review intern Dan Goldberg published an article, "Will WikiLeaks Work?" I stumbled across the article pasted onto a Rigorous Intuition board. But the original article at CJR comes up "404 Not Found". Which is interesting, because CJR has a comprehensive archive of past articles available online. In fact, the article seems to have dropped from more than one original venue. Google yields only 18 search returns, including some multiple blog postings from Poland. Folks, this article has been "disappeared."
So what did Goldberg reveal in his "disappeared" early article about WikiLeaks? I have highlighted the relevant passage.
I also remind readers that John Young, founder of cryptome.org and a co-founder of WikiLeaks, left the group when he became convinced that it was an intelligence operation. http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html
So what did Goldberg reveal in his "disappeared" early article about WikiLeaks? I have highlighted the relevant passage.
Will Wikileaks Work?
Goldberg, Dan
Perhaps it's inevitable that an operation promising the world's whistleblowers an anonymous venue to blow their whistles would be shrouded in mystery. Though it has yet to launch-a firm e.t.a. is hard to come by-Wikileaks (http://www.wikileaks.org) has already generated plenty of buzz, with articles in Time and The Washington Post, among others, but is answering few of even the most basic questions about who is behind it and how it will accomplish what it promises. As advertised, Wikileaks will allow anyone to post documents-the Web site talks of "principled leaking"-that purport to shed light on malfeasance, public or private, and remain safely anonymous. In theory, it's an appealing idea, especially in an era of growing hostility toward leakers and the journalists who would give them a voice. Dig a little deeper, however, and a number of concerns arise.
According to its Web site, Wikileaks was founded by "Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists" from around the world who hope that "greater transparency will lead to better, more responsible government." Attempts to find out who those people are or how they are connected proved difficult.
Conspiracy theorists have filled the void, suggesting, among other things, that Wikileaks is a CIA front. Suelette Dreyfus, a journalist and researcher who says she is on the Wikileaks advisory board, insists the operation is independent, but adds, "Of course, if we were CIA, we couldn't tell you." The contact number on Wikileaks. org-which consistently goes straight to voicemailhas a D.C. area code and is a Verizon cell phone number registered in Adelphi, Maryland. Intellus.com, a Web tracking service, connected the number to a "Va Reston." Twenty miles down the road from Adelphi is Reston, Virginia, home to iDefense labs, whose Web site says it is "a comprehensive provider of security intelligence to governments." It's probably all just a coincidence, but for a site that champions transparency, well, you see the problem.
Wikileaks raises other transparency questions. It will work like Wikipedia, in the sense that it will rely solely on a market-driven, wisdom-of-crowds approach to verifying information. Anyone can add, edit, or comment on the documents that are posted. But unlike Wikipedia, people who post documents on Wikileaks will often be among a relative few who possess the knowledge to comment credibly on those documents. Who, for instance, outside the president's inner circle, will be able to shed much light on the contents of a document purporting to be a leaked presidential memo? Worse yet, those who comment on the authenticity of documents will also be anonymous. For example, Wikileaks posted a sample document to whet appetites-a 2005 memo on civil war policy supposedly issued by the Somali Islamic court. The document comes complete with an analysis assessing its validity, but who knows where that analysis came from?
Perhaps the most important question regards security. Wikileaks has said only that it will use modified cryptographic and rerouting technologies-including FreeNet, PGP, and Tor-to protect the identity of leakers. But as Steve Murdoch, a researcher in the security group at the University of Cambridge, notes, Wikileaks has not said how it plans to modify the technologies, and all the security measures that Wikileaks claims to be using have known weaknesses.
There may be legitimate reasons for all the mystery; maybe the Wikileaks founders believe they need to remain decentralized and in the shadows to protect themselves from retribution, legal or otherwise. If that's the case, then the Wikileaks folks should simply say so, maybe through a principled leak of their own.
I also remind readers that John Young, founder of cryptome.org and a co-founder of WikiLeaks, left the group when he became convinced that it was an intelligence operation. http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20011106-281.html
"The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which there were wild rumours." -Orwell, 1984
