Shockingly Unshocking: More Wikileaks Competitors Pop Up

from the gee,-who-could-have-expected-that... dept

Fri, Nov 5th 2010 3:19pm — Mike Masnick

Just recently, we noted that the attempts by Wikileaks critics to try to "shut down" the site (or physically harm its leaders) were misguided, because it wouldn't take long for other sites to step up and offer the same functionality. In fact, there already are a few similar sites (with a somewhat lower profile). Now comes the news that some of the disgruntled former Wikileaks insiders are planning to create a new Wikileaks-like service. Who knows if this new project will be a success, but it certainly seems to highlight the fact that these kinds of sites are going to exist one way or another, and pretending that they can be stopped is a naive position.

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Filed Under: competition, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

20 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 3:23pm

Compeitors?
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Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 3:34pm

Re:
Oops. Typo. Fixed.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 3:42pm

Re:
A 'Compeitor' was somebody who might, someday, become a real gladiator.

; P
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 3:43pm

quick way to kill sites like this, the gov builds lots of honey pot sites, then starts charging those who would leak information with Treason.

You cant put information on the net with out some kind of fingerprints that the FBI cant follow. I suspect loading files from a spoofed IP address from a public airport on public wifi using an account you have never used on a computer you stole from the guy in the bathroom then swaping tickets with someone on your flight and finally just going home could be enough, but you'll just get caught when they look up the security cams anyway.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 5 Nov 2010 @ 3:49pm

Re: Hard Time! (not xxx)
Wow! You're right. Sure looks like there's an average of 30% chance you will be caught and arrested.

Here's some real numbers:
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_25.html
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 4:28pm

Re:
Spoofed IP, Spoofed MAC address, Stolen computer, Open wifi, never use the same wifi twice, and make sure that the ones you use are either random or planned to look like they center around your work and home (bonus points if the fake work is a government office!)
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Rich Kulawiec, 5 Nov 2010 @ 4:30pm

Re:
There is no doubt that this method would yield some results, but the easily-forseeable outcome of that is that such an approach would simple accelerate the evolutionary process, and that would in turn select for those whose methods and tools made them highly resistant to such tactics.
And contrary to your assertion, it's trivially easy to put information on the net that the FBI can't follow. Keep in mind that there 100-200 million fully-compromised systems on the 'net at the moment, and more every day. It's quite easy to acquire access to those, either by (a) creating them (b) wresting them away from their current owners or (c) renting them from their current owners. (I trust everyone knows that the "owners" are NOT the people whose desks they reside on or whose briefcases they ride around in.) Those aren't the only resources available, of course, but they're essentially inexhaustible at the moment (and for the forseeable future), so in conjunction with a little crypto here and a little port-knocking there and a pinch of spread-spectrum communication, they provide an easy way to make it very very obvious that someone else is responsible.

This isn't say that people won't screw up: they will. Some of them will screw up badly and will get caught. But those who are clueful and diligent won't be.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 4:34pm

The FBI has limited resources, and generally don't go after computer criminals at the moment. That said its not insane to think that just a few high profile leaks would cause them to stoop to stings and honey pots.

They do it for child porn already.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 5:21pm

Hilarity ensues when the knockoffs get gradually shut down one by one over the course of a couple of decades, and half a dozen more pop up for each one that gets shut down.
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out_of_the_blue, 5 Nov 2010 @ 5:53pm

You people are gravely wrong about the political climate.
The gov't has turned against whistle-blowers -- all by intent. Every totalitarian *needs* enemies -- and Osama Bin Dead for some years by all non-gov't reports, so he can't be play the Emmanuel Goldstein role -- but "treasonous spies" everywhere will do even better. It's part of what the 850,000 quasi-gov't spooks in the US do.

The police state is escalating, cheered on by most of the media and the ignorant thugs who actually do the killing in the perpetual war. Glenn Greenwald writes about war-monger Jonah Goldberg, who asks "Why is Assange still alive?"

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/29/goldberg/index.html

The number of people willing to risk their lives for nebulous principles of freedom will continue to decrease.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 7:38pm

cryptome.org. its not like wikileaks was first or anything.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 9:36pm

Re:
TOR
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2010 @ 9:39pm

Re:
"then starts charging those who would leak information with Treason."

We need to start charging the govt with war crimes and start jailing those responsible.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2010 @ 6:30am

Funny how leaking info on the government is met with such blase attitudes anymore. No one cares. If the leak is about the United States government, most of us expect them to be corrupt and to be war mongers. I have lived my entire life in the US under the spectre of one war (police action) or another. We are always fighting someone under the guise of liberty and freedom while at home our freedoms get voted away by the politicians in charge. The government is controlled by those who can afford to have their view paid attention to.
This is interesting. In Oregon where I live there are 3,006,767 people of voting age. But only 1,418,133 voted for Governor. So anyone thinking that this was a victory and you got 50% of the vote. That meant that only 25% of actual voters believe in you. My point is: If you don't vote you get what you deserve.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2010 @ 11:05am

Ideally they should encrypt their most critical data and ensure that those who have access to the keys are trustworthy.

If they want to add some checks and balances, they can encrypt it three times with three different keys and have each key reside with different departments. No one person should ever be able to see all three (or even any two of the three) keys. When it's time to view the data, one person from each department must physically meet at a central location with a USB key that has their key. Each has their own laptop and one has a "designated, trustworthy" laptop that the information gets decrypted onto. Whoever needs to view the information can come with them. To view the information requires booting from a read only boot CD, each person first verifies the contents of the CD (ie: by putting it in their laptop and running a hashsum and file checker to ensure the CD is the correct CD and data hasn't been tampered with) and then the CD gets booted from the designated laptop (checking that the laptop hardware isn't compromised is a whole different issue) and each person verifies that the CD was booted. Each person enters their USB drive with their code and the information gets decrypted, viewed by the interested parties, and then the decrypted version gets deleted. The information should never touch any hard drive unencrypted, it should only be decrypted in ram alone. If it's too much information to be decrypted into ram all at once then portions at a time can be decrypted and loaded into and removed from ram as needed (I believe truecrypt already has such a feature).

Sure, the method is not foolproof (some hardware based spyware could be installed on the designated laptop by one person without anyone else's knowledge, for example. Sure, tamper evident seals can help alleviate this possibility and placing the laptop in a safe and protected place can help, but nothing is foolproof) but it's much better than what we have now.
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Gene Cavanaugh, 6 Nov 2010 @ 4:45pm

Wikileaks and its successors
It makes me proud that there are people who care enough to do such things.
Having, at one time, held essentially every security clearance we offer (at a lower level, anyway) I can tell you with certainty that the purpose of security is to protect the guilty.
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Hephaestus (profile), 8 Nov 2010 @ 4:34am

Re:
LOL you are so silly

boot off an OS off a USB drive.
use a USB wifi.
drive around until you find an open Wifi.
Do what ever online.
Toss both USBs when done.

Simple ...
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Daemon_ZOGG, 8 Nov 2010 @ 7:03am

Re:"We need to start charging the govt with war crimes and start jailing those responsible."
I agree! ;D
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2010 @ 10:04am

Re:
Or ask alqueda how they communicate. Hrmm
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2010 @ 11:43am

Re:
Or ask alqueda how they communicate. Hrmm
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